Winning the democratic nomination in florida has been a shot of adrenaline for the Democratic Party base coasttocoast today. It absolutely makes that one governors race a big national story. A point of National Focus between now and election day in november. Were going to talk this hour with the dean of Florida Political reporters who is and i say this in a nice way. He is a freaking cynical guy. Definitely ive seen everything you cant surprise me kind of guy. He today told us Andrew Gillum winning that race in florida and what it means for florida and democrats, broadly, is something he has never seen before. And he never says stuff like that. I know this is one candidate, one campaign, one race. But there is something about that surprise result in that one race last night na has grabbed even the most jaded political observers by their lap els and shaken them up. We will be talking about that, some of the reasons behind what happened there coming up. In addition, that Andrew Gillum race last night, heres another weird turn also about electoral politics. One of the border trends that is happening in Democratic Party politics this year for the midterms is that there is a whole bunch of people running on the democratic side for congress, who are people that have National Security background, people whose background is in law enforcement, intelligence, the diplomatic core, other National Security roles, for example, in florida, last night a former u. N. Ambassador, won a congressional primary in the district represented by republican ron desantis. Ron se san tis had to give up his seat in florida to become the republican candidate for governor. We know he will be rung against this guy Andrew Gillum. But in his district in the ron desantis district it will be bill clintons Nancy Soderberg running as a democrat to flip that seat from red to blue. Another national veteran, chris hunter a former doj prosecutor, he won a primary last night in florida as well to try to unseat republican congressman gus billa rackus. Another district where democrats are seen as having a real shot of flipping that seat from red to blue with this candidate chris hunter. Democrats have a whole lot of candidates all across the country, particularly and potentially in flipable districts, where the democratic candidate comes from a National Security background. And thats interesting in terms of strategy and its not a deliberate plan by the Democratic Party, what does that say about National Security . Professionals and their desire to get into electoral politics and trump. You can analyze it from a lot of different angles. But tonight, we have just learned from some interesting reporting from Spencer Ackerman of the daily beast, that the Democratic CongressionalCampaign Committee the committee in the Democratic Party in charge of electing house candidates. They have just warned, given a warning to all of the congressional candidates across the country who have a National Security backgrounds, people who have security clearances or who have had security clearances in the past because of their past work. The Democratic Party has now officially warned all of those candidates that they should be prepared for the Trump Administration to potentially illegally leak their security clearance applications so that those application can be used against them by the Republican Party in the general election. The reason for the warn secretary because it has happened apparently once already to one democratic candidate. The New York Times breaking the news late last night that this candidate, abigail spinberger, a former cia case officer, a democratic candidate in virginia. Hes the democrats to unseat dave bratt in virginia. She apparently had her full unredacted security clearance application, not just released by the Trump Administration without her permission, which is illegal, but the Trump Administration apparently released it to a republicanofopposition research effort, which then did immediately start using it against her in her congressional campaign. Applications for security clearance are incredibly intrusive and personal on purpose. They are designed to ferret out anything that a foreign adversary might try to use to black mail you to get you to hand over classified information that you will now have access to because of your security clearance. So application forms for security clearance are like deep, deep background checks. Theyre specifically looking for anything that anybody might try to use against you. So its, you know, medical information, its relationship information. Its very detailed questions about like you know have you ever smoked pot . Its very detailed information about your family, ability your extended family. Its super super intriefs. The Government Agency responsible for issuing your clearance is obviously supposed to protect that in your security clearance application, right . Not because its intensely private. Its by definition this is intensely private information about people who are obtaining security clearances. So its important to keep it secure. It is information that is of a personal nature, but its also of, its also of a sensitive nature when it comes to National Security. Thats why, for example, all journalists know you cant file a freedom of information request to get somebodys security clearance application. I mean, you can try, but if you get anything back from the agency you are footing, whatever you get back will be redacted to within an inch of its life to protect the Sensitive Information in that document and rightly so. At least thats the way its supposed to work. But for some reason, the Trump Administration responded to a request by this Republican Group looking for information from this excia officer Abigail Spanberger and what the Trump Administration sent a republican route was spanbergers complete totally unredacted security clearance, including her full security number. Her entire medical history. Right . Everything. The reason Abigail Spanberger found out this had happened is thereafter the Republican Party and a pac run by House Speaker paul ryan happily started shopping this document to reporters and started using it in political attacks against her in her congressional campaign. I mean, that is a legitimately new thing in politics. Were all supposed to be jaded observers in politics, there is nothing new under the sun. This is new. This is new. I mean, maybe we should have expected it anyway, it was all new when republican decided to yank security clearances from john brennan because of his role in the russia investigation and the president doesnt like the investigation. Apparently this is next. Once you break that seem. Now Republican Party is using the stuff if campaigns. We will have more including the strange nonresponse thus far from the agency apparently responsible from releasing this do you mean. If this document was released, if this wasnt an accident by some rocky employee, who will now be punished and prosecuted for having done this, of course, we should expect this will become a huge new legal fight with the Trump Administration, if theyre misusing National Security sensitive material like this in order to dock their Democratic Political opponents, you would expect that to become a gigantic new legal fight with this administration. Naturally, therefore, i comes at the same we learn the white House Counsel is leading the white house. News today about don mcgahn comes a week and a half, 11 days after the New York Times first reported don mcgahn had sat for more than 30 hours of interviews with special counsel mueller and they are reporting he fully cooperated. The white house has tried to play that off like, oh, yeah, no big deal. We totally knew mcgahn was doing that. Were fine. Nothing to worry about. Were so squeaky clean, what could we possibly have to worry about . But the times own reporting from its initial scoop and subsequent reporting all seems to indicate that actually the president and other Top White House officials really have no idea that don mcdawn was cooperating with mueller to that extent and they definitely have no idea what he might have told them. And if don mcgahn has been fully cooperating with the special counsels office and told them everything he knows and has seen that they might be interested in, hes potentially a sort of super witness for them. Hes been there, hes been right there in the room for all the highlights, for the firing of james comey. The fbi director, which is now reportedly a subject of an investigation by the special counsel, whether that was an effort by the president to obstruct justice him when National Security adviser Michael Flynn was having secret conversations and lying about those conversations. The person warned by sally yates of the Justice Department about flynns behavior. The person that got the warning, uhoh, big problem the serving National Security adviser seems to be compromised by a foreign government. The person that got that warning was don mcgahn. He was there for the subsequent 18 days in which the white house did nothing with that information despite that unprecedented and dire warning. When attorney general Jeff Sessions turned out to not have told the truth about his secret contacts, mcgahn was assigned to prevent Jeff Sessions from recusing himself in the russia investigation as a result of those revelations. That effort to stop sessions recusal did not succeed. Sessions recuse. We got attorney general Rod Rosenstein led by robert mueller. The times reported President Trump told don mcgahn to go fire robert mueller. Mcgahn threatened to resign and he would fought do it. So hes had this central role in all of those marquee events, remain under strut u scrutiny in their ongoing rechlgs on top of all that, dont forget don mcdawn was the top lawyer for the trump company. So to the extent the special counsel is looking for the intervention to help trump and the crucial question of whether or not the Trump Campaign was aware of that and whether they may have participated or cooperated in any of those efforts . Cgahn, was there, too, in a key role on the campaign for monthles. Even as recent as this week, don mcgahn has another role and key controversy involving the president in this ongoing scandal, all encompassing scandal that surrounds him and frankly his campaign. Vanity fair reporting this week it has been don mcdawn who has been insisting to the president that, no, he cant pardon his Campaign Chairman palm manafort ahead of manaforts second felony trial, which is due to start next month in washington, d. C. Vanity fair reports the president is so set on partdonig him, he has been considering bringing in a different lawyer to draft the pardon since don mcgahn wont do it. Now don mcgahn is leaving. It appears that a follow up report in the New York Times is don mcgahn is being fired as opposed to hmm leaving on his own. Axios report this morning said he was looking to leave sometime this fall, wanted to get through with the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. The times pounced on that story to basically fire don mcgahn of 26th, naturally, much to don mcgahns surprise. The president s tweet was precipitated by a report on the axios website that mcgahn planned to leave after the confirmation of the process. Mr. Trump grew tired of seeing reports that he might leave, according to people with his thinking, he decided to take away any wiggle room, he might have. As the Washington Post puts it tonight, quote, trumps announcement of mcgahns department cure came as a surprise, comma, including to mcgahn, he was not aware that trump planned to send the tweet. Apparently, that is how the white House Counsel got fired today. 11 days after we learned of the extent of his cooperation with the special counsel. In case are you wondering. No, this is not normal no. Other white House Counsel has been fired quite in this way. Its interesting that the white house and the president have tried to spin this today as something that it clearly is not. Right. They clearly tried to create a public impression this was the orderly long planned rollout of don mcgahns voluntary department cure. If it was a surprise to him what he saw on 26th that he was leaving, the public we dont know why theyve tried to concoct a false story line about it. We may find out in the future. You never know, sources of don mcdawn do have ways of getting their perspective on things into the newspapers, weve noticed. Well have nor on that story ahead with the report worry covered this closely. To the extent the current white House Counsel don mcgahn prevented the president from acting on his most destructive impulse, particularly with the russia investigation, don mcgahn leaving sort of creates a new xfactor, a new unknown in terms of us as americans trying to anticipate, trying to prepare for the ways this president might hands him or try to manage some of the increasingly intense legal stuff that is swirling around the president and the white house within it comes to the ongoing scandal. At the end of next week, for example, we are expecting another sentence. Prosecutors are asking for a custodial sentence for Campaign Adviser george pop tpapadopoulo. His wife said despite her earlier intimations he would fight the charges for lying to the fbi, she now said he will not fight. He will not withdraw his guilty plea she does expect him to be sentenced next week. She hopes it isnt to prison. If he gets sentenced to preseis that will be the second person to be sent behind bars, we dont know how the president will react to that. Ten days after mr. Papadopoulos is due to be sentenced next week, jury selection is due to start in that second felony trial of the Campaign ChairPaul Manafort. Today manaforts defense team asked the judge to move the trial out of washington, d. C. To more conservative roanoke virginia, instead. The judge should rule on that moke in the next week or. So discussions in open court about that issue yesterday suggested that the judge might not be inclined to move the case. We will not know until we see her ruling. Today was the deadline by which the special Prosecutors Office had to tell the judge, sorry, had to tell the judge for manaforts first case whether they wanted to retry Paul Manafort on the ten felony charges for which the jury in his first case was unable to reach a verdict. Prosecutors from the special counsels office today filed this brief with that judge, asking for more time to make that decision. Now, if the judge grants that extension, we think that means well go maybe another 30 days or so before we know if the president s Campaign Chairman isnt just going to start a second federal trial next month, but hes actually then going to go back on trial again for some of the charges he faced already last time in virginia. So, i mean, imagine Paul Manaforts legal fees at this point, right . And theres this lack of resolution around the manafort case in terms of his ultimate fate and how long hes going to keep twisting in this particular wind and paying his legal team and all the rest of it. There is also an interesting and hard to follow lack of resolution around the michael conpart of this case. I mean, part of it is so, the day manafort was first convicted, michael conpled guilty in a different federal court to eight federal charges. That wasnt the ends, though, now it seems like other shoes may drochl some of it may be federal. Some may not the new York State Attorney general has asked for a state criminal referral of Michael Conon state tax charges in addition to the federal tax charges hes already pled guilty to. We learned at the same time that we learned at the same time of that revelation from the new York State Attorney general that cohen also has already been suspended by new york stat