are people around him who are cognizant of the fact that this all gets pulled in to the importance of virginia and virginia for 2020, the obligation that democratic party has to african-americans who upon whom they are dependent on to win elections it s a lot. give me your thoughts. the irony they would be elevating in his lieutenant governor an african-american the lone statewide official who is black, justin fairfax, as lieutenant governor, to the office if northam resigns. by pushing him out, sensibly over not really his racist photo, this isn t really about that, it s about the earlier couldn ters ha couldn t controversy house bill which is a roll back of abortion restrictions in the state they had been targeting northam about this week and, you know, not just the bill itself but also his comments about it. this is a long this is an old tactic in the anti-abortion
that s not him, not his yearbook, his nickname wasn t the challenge is that the way that yearbook is set up it s in quarters and each person s page is half the page. if you look at it, there s a person who s above him who appears to be asian american and then on that page there are only the two of them. it would be difficult the picture appears under the name ralph northam, which is his name, it s going to be difficult. i don t know, as if you were i mean let me just get your thoughts. i don t have a question. it s hard to explain, joy. it is incredibly hard to explain. it doesn t make sense and it s bizarre of where ralph northam is if the reporting is all true about him calling around the commonwealth trying to tell democrats it s not him or not even doing that, but calling his medical friends, student former medical student friends asking if it s him.
adviser at moveon.org, jonathan capehart and by phone laura, a virginia politics reporter for the washington post. laura, i will start with you. give us the latest. there had been talk of potentially northam having a press conference this morning. there is tons of pressure mounting on him really from all over the country both democrats and republicans, how how long do you expect him to hang on? well, i think even his closest allies here think it s only a matter of time, but there really has still not been any official word of a press conference. we keep hearing 9:00, 10:00, but so far, nothing official scheduled. it does seem that his allies think it s just a matter of time. there have been a couple of shoes that have not yet dropped. i mean, lots of people nationally, reverend jesse jackson has a statement this
and pre-candidates and thought to be candidates who have made statements on this, not everyone has. i wonder if this winds up becoming a litmus test for people who want to be the democratic primary nominee if they weigh in strongly on something like this or on this specifically. indeed. i think that the one question i would have asked mr. castro is that should racism become a firing offense in politics? that s something the 2020 election should be a referendum on. let me ask you that question as an analyst of the political world should it be? yes. unquestionably. i think we talk about steve king, you talk about donald trump, when you talk about anyone, who engages in either racist acts that are against unquestionable as this or even systemically racist acts such as calling, you know, fair access to the ballot a power grab on the senate floor or deeming fair housing, you know, people want
for the presidential election and challenging trump and somebody who would reflect our valleys is larry hogan. he has no chance. that would be in the primaries. no chance. we know an independent candidate like howard schultz would hand re-election to donald trump. steve schmidt has caught green-itis, looking at dollar signs not the well being of the country. before we and, you know, i don t purport to snow steve well, just as a colleague here, but steve schmidt genuinely loathes in my estimation donald trump, and i get the sense when i talk to him and other never trump republicans that i know, that they would love to see their party reborn as a new party. the easiest vehicle to do that would be to have a third party, sort of turn their old party into the wigs and there are two ways that could happen, the democrats become more of a republican party that they like and feel comfortable in it or another party they can go to. this feels more like that. of course they re all goin