confirmation. that is breaking news. it's for eric fanning. he's the new secretary of army. he is now the first openly gay leader of a u.s. military service branch. john mccain and pat roberts spoke in his -- on his behalf just before he was confirmed. that does it for this hour. we'll be back tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. eastern. keep it right here on msnbc for a full night of primary results and analysis. starts with chris matthews right now. good evening. i'm chris matthews up in new york. welcome to an interesting night of msnbc primary reporting. today voters are casting ballots in kentucky and oregon fp two states with a total of 116 delegates at stake for the democrats. in kentucky the polls have closed in much of the state but the western part of kentucky is

on central time which means we're an hour away from making a call. oregon's primary is vote by mail. we just a handful of states left in this process it's a question of whether hillary clinton will go over the top, but when. she's looking for a win in kentucky to break up bernie s d sanders winning streak. all this chaos erupted over the weekend at the nevada democratic convention fueling fears of what may be coming from sanders supporters this summer in philadelphia. our team of campaign correspondents is with us tonight from across the country. our group of contributors and political analysts is with us to help explain what tonight's results in kentucky and oregon will mean for the presidential race going forward and into fall. steve is at the big board for us to tell us who is winning. we'll get to all them in the minute. let's get the latest from the hill clinton campaign.

nbc kristen welker is outside in brooklyn. >> hillary clinton went out there. risked looking like she really needs it which is really dangerous. tonight is she going to be available tonight? those are the usual questions. how many times do you go out there and do you make yourself available after the numbers come in? >> reporter: we have no indication that we're going to see secretary clinton tonight. in fact, she's been down all day at her home. you're absolutely right. she made an aggressive play for kentucky. added a number of events over the past 48 hours and out spent senator sanders significantly. i spoke with a official who is really down playing expectations in kentucky. they say this will go either way. they are bracing for a loss in oregon. the reason why kentucky is important is because of the reason you pointed out. she's looking to break up the string of wins by senator sanders. not so much for the math.

she's put this race out of reach but for the momentum and so there aren't questions about the strength of the her candidacy. she wants to head into the convention in philadelphia with no doubts she's a strong front-runner and a strong nominee. if she doesn't start to win a few of the states, there's real concerns with the democratic party that she isn't going to look like a strong front-runner and give senator sanders an opening. you talked about the chaos in nevada. they say it's an indication this has been a passionate race on both sides of the isaisle. they are expecting to unify the party. senator sanders will be key to that and so will barack obama when it comes to trying to rally the obama coalition. the young sanders supporters who went for obama back in 2008 are the ones who secretary clinton needs if she wants to win the white house. >> thank you. she joins us tonight from the campus of cal state university.

senator sanders will hold rally later tonight. thank you. what do you think of sanders response to the chaos that went on at the nevada convention over the weekend? >> reporter: he denounced the violence but he was defiant. he put out a statement that reid said was a good conversation and after saying that he does not, in any way, condone the violence, he went after the democratic national committee. he went after what we have been hearing escalate from his campaign which they believe is a pattern of unfairness that really showed itself in nevada where they feel like they were mistreated and he went even further when i talked to jeff weaver who said they want to use this as a pretext to be unfair to us and mistreat us at the democratic national convention. i also had a long conversation with former ohio state senator

nina turner. she was at the convention for eight hours. she categorically denies there was any violence tumped off by vo by the folks from the sanders campaign. she said there were cops there as if to send a message to sanders supporters like we don't trust you. she calls any accusations gross exaggerations. this is the clinton campaign trying to paint them as somebody they're not. when i asked her if it had implications for the democratic national convention in a few months, she said absolutely. what the sanders campaign would look to do is rewrite this text tonight. they'd love to have a couple of wins. there's no doubt the tensions between this campaign, the dnc, the clinton campaign are at a high level. >> well said. thank you.

she joins us now from outside. trump tower itself in manhattan. donald trump is home tonight, right? >> reporter: he is at home tonight. right now the campaign is suring up their operations. there's an acknowledgement she will be running a billion declare race against donald trump and they need to sure up their operation to effectively fight her come november. that being said, they have hired a poster that is new for the campaign. donald trump said posters were not his style. he like to be himself, be authentic. say what he believe instead of what a focus group might tell him to believe. he's starting to fund raise with

the rnc about the joint fund raising agreement with the rnc to make sure he has enough cash on hand to cam bat hillary clinton. there's a number of super pacs that say they will be raising money to fight for donald trump. so far the campaign is okay not with giving their blessing. they're continuing to saying they will disavow super pacs. they say they don't necessarily know where to put their money. the campaign is plugging away. they have about a month and a half before the convention. >> when is trump going to use the poster for. should i call senator elizabeth warren pocahantas or not. she he's so flippant. she's so quick. >> i'm not sure what he will be

using a pollster for. whether he's going to use a pollster to find out if his rhetoric plays well or not, that's unclear. is donald trump going to take advice from advisors. it's donald trump feeling out a room and deciding what he thinks plays best. so far what is played best for him is being politically incorrect saying o ining outrag statements. i think it would be quite surprising to see him start changing that up. >> he wouldn't have gotten anywhere. thank you. msnbc tony is at a place in bowling green, kentucky. what kind of a day. are they coming in? >> reporter: it's not crowded. they're not really coming in. no matter who comes out on top in the democratic primary, the party may be the one that suffers. the timing of the kentucky

primary isn't good for party unity. it's coming on the same day as the oregon primary. bernie sanders supporting are hearing it from the secretary state of state. 20% turn out. it's not bad for a southern primary but compared to oregon where you might have three quarters of registered democrats come out, a will the of supporters are saying if there were more states like oregon, more open primaries, perhaps our guy might be out in front. wouldn't be falling behind at this point. that's trouble. i've been talking to bernie supporters all day long and say they're not exactly ready at this point in time to get behind hillary clinton. they're unifying that process has yet to begun. there's a lot of anger about the way this has been carried out. >> we'll be close at the top of the hour. for a preview of what to look for tonight, let's check in with steve at the board. >> let's look at these two

states. we talk about how the math favors hillary clinton. that's putting it mildly to win the nomination. what her campaign doesn't want is to be on the losing streak at the end of the primary season. there's the chance that could happen. there's also a good chance, and the clinton campaign knows this, they could pull off two wins tonight. this is the only poll we have in kentucky. you can see in very small print, this was taken march 1st and 2nd. that was before one major event in this campaign that's very relevant to kentucky. that's the emergence of hillary clinton's line about putting coal miners out of business. here's this state, if coal will be a problem for hillary clinton, look into eastern kentucky. look in this part of the state. president obama very popular here even among democrats. that could be a problem.

the reason it's close and what she's counting on is this is a closed primary state. there's been ten states that have held primaries where only democrats can vote. hillary clinton is ten for ten in those states. you will not have independents coming into those primaries. if there's one upside, it's this. kentucky is a lot like west virginia. what you saw in west virginia-wevirginia last week is a lot of conservative democrats. they vote republican in presidential races. they koum out acame out and had last week. are we going to see that again tonight? that could be sanders secret weapon if he has a chance here. in oregon, look at this, a lot of people were surprised this is the most recent poll out of oregon. clinton a 15-point lead.

people say this state has got to be bernie sanders country. what's the story here? closed primary state. they encourage participation. you have to go out of your way to register as a democrat if you want to participate in this primary. most of the people who are enrolled to vote, by law, they didn't do that. they didn't turn in the cards. you'll have a much smaller universe of voters. they will be older and more favorable. that's why she's got a chance. >> who are the non-democratic voters who vote for bernie? >> it's particular to this region of the country. we got this in west virginia last week. you think of the presidential

election. you think romney carried the state by 23 points. mccain carried it in a landslide. we think of it as a red state. there are more registered democrats. they were born with that identity. a lot of them still hold onto that. they'll tell you i'm a democrat. they still vote in primaries especially at the state and local level. they will continue to vote. there's a u.s. senate primary in kentucky tonight. they think and they act like republicans. you get a lot of donald trump supporters. people who want to vote for trump this fall. trump is widely expected to carry kentucky and west virginia easily. they are voting in the democratic primary. a will the of people say we saw this last week. the overwhelming majority of the trump voters who participated in west virginia voted for bernie sanders. >> thanks.

we're getting our first returns from kentucky now. we'll see the numbers at the bottom of the screen now. our first characterization comings at the top of this hour. it's 7:00 p.m. eastern. more now on the chaotic scene in nevada's democratic convention this weekend. let's watch. he said we believe that the tactics and and behavior and display are harbingers of things to come. with me here in new york is my colleague andrea mitchell.

i'm getting reports of the the sanders people that are really calling up the restaurant. >> the pushback and i talked to her earlier. they feel they were treated really roughly and unfairly. >> they say nobody can prove who it was that maeld the cade the threats. the bottom line is the raw anger in the sanders camp against what they see as being railroaded. >> what's the objective evidence on that front?

>> there's no objective evidence. he's very reliable nevada reporter. he said this is like a convention. it's unlike any convention any of us have covered when you have the votes and the split was 20 delegates for clinton and 15 for sanders. it was contactually what we're told on february 20th after the caucus was held. it ratifies the results of the voters. what the sanders campaign is frustrated by, they thought they would go to the county conventions and then win more delegates at the state convention. the bottom line, according to other people have spoken to is that the sanders delegates did not turn up in force. they were outnumbered. >> joy, i'll tell you what the tactics are. calling up for place of employment. the party chair has a job. calling up harassing the people there and telling them to quit their jobs. putting out an announcement that the restaurant is closed. >> not only that but leaving harassing voice messages on her phone.

>> talking about the state party. >> to the state party chairman. there were threats saying that they know where her granddaughter goes to school. she got incredibly horrifying text messages and messages. just the behavior of it. the thing is this is not the first time we have heard this kind of a story. i spoke with super delegates on the spread sheet. it wasn't the sanders campaign but they sent out a spread sheet as well as social media contacts telling people to voluntarily call them up and say they need be for sanders. they didn't understand the procedure. they didn't show up in the correct numbers. there were a lot of missing slots that they were supposed to fill in and because they were outnumbered physically, and because they were out voted through the parliamentary procedure, you just had this eruption. >> i trust harry reid to no politics and he went after sanders.

>> then it went on in a very combative way. the sanders people want to win the primary process. they're not winning it. that's just the fact. there comes a point in every primary battle where, guess, what you do get railroaded because you don't have more delegates than the other person and you lose and there are hard feelings and this and that. this is not an abnormal process. the reaction to it has been abnormal. >> the video wasn't too good there. it was ahead of people above their heads. >> this was violent. the thing that frustrates when you talk to rank and file democrats, these are people who are new to the process and taking the process to be unfair because they don't understand it. in the case of parliamentary procedure, some of them weren't

registered democrats. you can't win. >> neither is bernie. >> well. obviously, he wants to be remembered as the 45th president. that's not likely. >> he's angry too. we're going to find out more. this story is a slow burner only now developing an understanding of the story a bit now. here it is tuesday and it happened on saturday. andrea, thanks so much. so much of this fight from the sanders supporters, we'll be covering all tonight. we'll get the anger factor throughout the evening. when we come back, we'll hear from a potential running mate for clinton. msnbc live coverage of the kentucky and oregon primary continues after this.

billions are spent to confuse and, dare i say it, flummox the american public. "save 16% on car insurance." "switch now..." well at compare.com, we say enough's enough. so we constantly scrutinize millions of rates... answering the question once and for all, who has the lowest. just go to compare.com and get up to 50 free quotes. choose the lowest, and hit purchase. so you can get back to whatever it is you civilians do when you're not thinking about car insurance. compare.com welcome back to msnbc special coverage.

polls in kentucky will be closed in just under 40 minutes. she will need to bring the most die hard bernie sanders supporters. as usa today reported hillary clinton is considering a running mate for supporters of bernie sanders. senator, i've been pushing you for months. i began to think how could they give up a senate seat in ohio when fighting for the majority role in the senate. are you really on the list, as you understand it? >> tim cane and i were talking together today.

my interest all along has been stay many the senate and fight for it. john kasich could nominate and i would appoint my successor. i have no idea what she will do. it's to fight for hillary clinton to be the next president. >> you know the reasons why you would be a great running mate. you're from state the republicans have to win. you have a rougher manner than the more precious ivy league

background. why wouldn't she pick you except you lose a seat in the senate? >> i don't know. i don't know what she thinks. this is a decision of one person. i really don't dwell on it. my wife is a journalist as your wife is. i expect, because she says you do your job, you nied to ask this question. i'm fine with that. there's no reason to dwell on it. >> let's talk about the ticket. how do you break that assault by tru trump. >> i wear a suit made by union workers. with all his talk about trade policy, out source his ties and many of his other clothing,

whatever his line is to china. he's got a reputation of doing that this his business life. when workers in ohio, union and non-union will see he says the right thing about trade but he's against the minimum wage that goes right at the heart against labor and electricians and their wages. he's for right to work that will understood cut wages in our whole state and i trust hillary on trade. i trust her in manufacturing policy. i talked about stronger enforcement in steel. i know hillary clinton will be there in that. that's why i'm endorsing her. donald trump doesn't understand any of those issues except to scream about china whom he does business with. once voters as it moves on and

bernie is out of race and bernie is supporting hillary and he will, strongly, we will see that contrast and it will be clearer to more and more workers in my state. >> two short question, have you been vetted by the clinton campaign for vp? >> not that i know of. can you sing the look for the union label song? >> singing is probably not my strength and it will not help hillary's campaign. i'll demure on that. >> much more to come as we await our first results of the night including more on that fight by bernie sanders supporters out in vegas. this is interesting about hillary clinton. you're watching msnbc live coverage of the kentucky and oregon primary tonight.

polls across the state of kentucky, in about 20 minutes we'll have our first characterization of the race between hillary clinton and bernie sanders. joy reid and eugene robinson is here. ben, are you dying right now? i was thinking you were going to

be the grand marshal on the republican convention. >> i'm getting deja vu. >> as andrea mitchell reported senator sanders put out a statement this afternoon. he said our campaign believes in non-violent change. it goes without i condemn any forms of violence including the personal harassment of individuals. it's imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect they have earned. that was not the case at the nevada convention. i don't know. we're talking tactics here. the tactics got pretty close to rough. >> it was outrageous. i had seen some videos on it

because i got in a twitter war with some of the more zealous bernie sanders supporters. i was not prepared for the rachel maddow show last night. when you use the c word, you don't belong in any convention. i don't care what goes on in that convention. it was a disgrace. i'm madder now than before. now i've gotten a good view. it was outrageous. >> dnc chair, debby wasserman schulz released a statement about violence at the state convention and threats against a state chair. here is part of the statement. there's is no excuse for what is happened in nevada and it's incumbent upon all of us in positions of leadership to speak out. this is unusual. this isn't south korea.

we have seen a timultous convention. it's not really the case now. >> accused about lying about the process and not getting staff and supporters under control. you have the nevada democratic party saying the rules were well known. when there was a voice vote there they thought they should be able to win even though they had fewer human beingings in the room. they still wanted more delegates. they don't take the time to understand the process. they are accusing the nevada process of rigging a process in which hillary clinton had more

delegates. >> the vast majority of sanders supporters are not anything like this. this is the kind of thing that we do not want to see in any political situation. these people behave more like trump people than sanders people. >> that's a good shot. i've been reading stories about how the chair of the party is a real working person. she works at the restaurant in las vegas. they were giving calls to her starting at 3:00 in the morning. then they started putting out the word the restaurant is closed. then they said it only deserves one star. all these weird wide ranging attacks just because she works somewhere. >> it makes no sense. it's not helpful to bernie sanders.

my guess is that it's going to happen with the democrats because of this incident. >> if the top of the ticket, if bernie sanders is willing to walk back from what seemed to be encouraging insinuations among some of his supporters that this is rigged. at some point bernie sanders has got to say we lost this. we lost it fair and square. he encourages it. >> we have a person very much involved. you call harassing, threats to

some of the chefs there or the chef and he's a bernie guy. this is rough stuff. >> right. the calls right after the convention ended, the calls started all night long. they finally had to you think plug the phone because they were getting so many phones. people that are trying to pay off their student loans. this affected the lives of many people that really need this income from working at that restaurant. >> what do you make of the anger? you must have seen it with -- were there chairs thrown? were some people engaged in that rough house? >> there was chairs thrown. there were people calling for my death out in the crowd. there were scuffles. there were people that were going against the decorum rules set out. it was pretty ugly.

she was trying to give a speech about unity. people were standing in front of her so you couldn't see her on the screens in the convention hall. i give her a lot of credit for continuing to speak and get her message out. it was ugly. it was disrespectful and should never have happened. two days before the convention a high level standeanders campaig person talked about taking down the convention and the state party, getting their message out there. ginning up the revolution. they came to that convention. they were already on the road to work on that. when the rules came up, they had every opportunity to speak for or against the rules and in fact, i had three people speak

for and three people against. one of the people who was kind of the ring leaders of all this spoke in the second slot against instead of and introducing their motions and petitions they had. she spoke against at the end of that time. three four and three against. we called the questions and the rules passed. at that time there were 300 more clinton people in the room than sanders people. i think they came in not wanting it to be a smooth and easy convention where everybody could feel like they could participate. they came in there trying to cause a rucus. >> there's a lot of contention that you went into the convention rigging it in favor

of hillary clinton. not allowing bernie sanders delegates to be seated and not allowing them the opportunity to be registered and causing them to have fewer people there. how do you respond to that charge? >> that's an easy one for me because it's all about the math. at the state convention, it was just the reverse. she brought out 98% of her delegates to the state convention. he brought out 77%. he could have had at the convention and would have won the state convention if he turned out those people.

there's a number of people we were unable to vet. the campaign helped us solve some of those issues. there was a list of people that we couldn't vet. we gave every opportunity for those people who be a part of convention. few of them under five or seven came. the rest we were unable to vet. they didn't show up to the convention. this notion that would have made a difference in the convention, it did not. the fact of the matter is they didn't turn out upwards of 500 people they had delegates on that day. those people had nothing to do with it. >> when you say you weren't able to vet them, were the people in that 64 that weren't able to participate, were they registered democrats? >> they were not as of may 1st.

i recognize the great things he's done as being a senator. about our convention, you know the fact of the matter is his campaign staff aided and abetted in making all of this rucus that happened. they have taken no responsibility. they accused the state party of a rigged convention. >> thank you so much. great to have you on. >> thank you. >> state chair of the democratic party. polls in kentucky will be closed at the top of this hour. we'll check back in at the big board. plus, chuck todd will join us as our live coverage continues after this.

we're back with our live

coverage. as we get closer to the top of the hour when polls will be closed. we'll have a characterization of what happened there. chuck todd is political analyst for nbc news. what do you make of the fact that the chair of the democratic party of nevada told us live she's not satisfied with the way senator sanders has handled this mess. >> i'm surprised at the way the sanders campaign has reacted to this. it's like he doesn't want this to end. maybe that fires up his supporters. i guess i look at the bigger picture. i don't think either campaign is figuring out way to land their planes.

i think the clinton campaign probably needs to be overly magnanimous to the sanders supporters. give them everything they want at the convention other than the nomination. she has no reason not to. just, if he wants extra seats, give them the extra seats. it's not as if the process ended up different than going in. i think the sanders campaign needs an idea of what is their goal. the clinton campaign should give them whatever they ask for and then one extra thing. what skin off their back is it.

>> suppose you want health care as a right in the platform. suppose he wants free public higher education in public universities in the platform. suppose he wants bigger health social security benefits even beyond the money coming in. why can't hillary, how is it that the clinton campaign to accommodate him saying a goal of getting four year college for everybody. a goal of this. this is what -- this isn't hard to do if you want to do it. i do think right now, to be honest, you have right now you still have a mentality of probably in both campaigns, probably less so with the clinton campaign but in is sanders campaign, they don't want to give in yet. they want to still fight a bit.

>> i think you're right. thank you, chuck todd. you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the kentucky and the oregon primaries.

billions are spent to confuse and, dare i say it, flummox the american public. "save 16% on car insurance." "switch now..." well at compare.com, we say enough's enough. so we constantly scrutinize millions of rates... answering the question once and for all, who has the lowest. just go to compare.com

and get up to 50 free quotes. choose the lowest, and hit purchase. so you can get back to whatever it is you civilians do when you're not thinking about car insurance. compare.com we're just a few minutes away now from the top of the hour when polls will be closed across the state of kentucky. first results of the night coming up. nbc live coverage of the

kentucky and oregon primaries continue after this.

welcome back to msnbc's special primary night coverage. hillary clinton's challenge as she pivots or hopes to will unite the party. that means she'll need to bring the most die hard people with her. let me go to john out in vegas. i was abruptly led to you. put it in perspective. it looked rough. you heard from roberta lange that chairs were thrown, terrible language was used against barbara boxer.

>> many eyewitnesss who saw that, i was there for the barbara boxer incident. it was something to watch. they were creaming at us. they blocked her from being on the big screen with a big bernie sign. she tried to joust with them. you've been to dozens of these. i've been to way too many. there's always passions. there's arguments over rules. people and allegations that the chair is biassed. the bottom line is that they got out organized. the sanders folks got out organized by the clinton folks. they left almost 500 delegate slots unfilled. they lost. they were determined to make an issue of that. really, it's the issue you were bas talking about earlier of what happened to this. is this a harbinger of what happens. toward november it's not going to be any unified democratic party. >> what do you make of the role

played by the bernie sanders official leaders. there were national campaign operatives. she was up on stage. they also had a lawyer there but chris, bernie sanders had chance to tamp this down today. they are defacing the state quarter headquarters. they're putting out all kind of conspiracy theories. bernie sanders stuck a thumb in harry reid's eye. he said i'm backing them up and put out all the same nonsense. he now has the own this, bernie sanders does. >> amazing drama. thank you so much. joy reid, eugene robinson is back now. joy, what's at stake here? >> decorum in philadelphia.

>> kentucky. >> we're moving on. kentucky is the kind of state he should win. she wouldn't mind notching a win of these two. >> hasn't had a good night politically in a while. >> hillary clinton wants a win. just the optics of losing this string of little primaries in a r row. >> if we see her tonight, that means she won. >> she raises the stakes by spending all that time campaigning there.

it's over. it's not even close. >> i think you're right. barack obama got 38% there. it looks like we're killing time. >> it's going to make -- >> here it is. it's now 7:00 in the east. polls are closed across the commonwealth of kentucky. the race between hillary clinton and bernie sanders is, too early to call. we don't have enough information to make call just yet. joy, i think that tells us that you don't know if it's close or not but it's early. >> it's certainly early. i was going to give you a little, tell you something i don't know. you might know this already. the interesting thing about kentucky, the governor now, his pollster now working for trump. kentucky is an interesting state. it has very high levels of poverty. that and west virginia are the poorest states. high levels of unemployment and despair. it's thein