and sheer ali velshi. >> thank you, andrea, have a good afternoon. >> hello, everyone, velshi and ruhle starting, how the elections could effect who will be in the 2020. julian castro later in the show, and another day of drama in the

impeachment inquiry and another day of no shows on capitol hill. we await the release of more transcripts, and a massacre in mexico that left several americans dead including children. we'll bring you the latest on what is being called an ambush. it is election day and people going to the polls across america. races that could set the tone for next year's national elections, and perhaps more important than ever, the presidential election is the state legislature elections. folks in virginia and mississippi are voting for legislatures in both houses today and new jersey is voting for representatives. and let's go to vaughn hilliard live in louisville, kentucky. good to see you, the kentucky attorney general is challenging the sitting governor matt bevin. tell us how kpcompetitive this race is. >> i think here in connecticut and down in the governor's race in mississippi is the fact that

you have two republicans whose approval ratings are not that high in their home states, and i think the question that we're going to be looking at is to what extent does president trump have an impact on drawing out this elector rate. folk that's were reporters of a matt bevin here, or perhaps they were not interested in coming to the poles. and we're going to look at someone like matt bevin who is not the most popular figure in the state. we were talking with an individual that voted for not only jump, but matt bevin in his first election and he told me over the phone last night that she saw that matt bevin made comments about teachers protesting the pension reform here in the state and he went out of his way to call teachers selfish and ignorant. i want to play you a little bit of the interview from this morning. these two individuals were

really relying on president trump. the president was here in the state here just last night and matt bevin, once the commercials are gone, a lot of talking about trump and not so much the issues locally. this is part of the exchange this morning. >> why nationalize this race so much and talk about president trump so much? >> the in fact you ask why this is being nationalized andy people are talking about president trump indicate to me that you came out from under a rock. >> we're talking about -- >> is this a civics less son on. ask the next 100 people that come in here if they care about this impeachment process and they will tell you tlom a person that they do. they find it to be a sere racha sham. >> so as you just heard him say

right there, it was an acknowledgment, he won by 30 points. they are relying on turning out his base of support. >> matt bevin never short of anything to say, but guys like you have the best response, do you watch the news? no, you're making the news. when would you have time. let's bring chris jansing in about the closely watching legislature race in virginia. >> yeah, the question is who cares, right? never a local race getting this much attention. you want to know how much? youf can often tell my how much money. look at the numbers of what has come in and this is not a congressional race, these are state legislative races and the democrats have almost doubled the amount of money they have brought in, $31.8 million.

$31 million on the part of the republicans, look, these numbers -- that is supposed to be $21 million by republicans, never the less more than $50 million what can we see here? they're looking at messaging, a lot of republicans talking about usually democratic messages, things like keeping pre-existing conditions -- there was a mass shooting in virginia beach that sparked the whole gun date here. who really has what is perceived in this era, bheem are interested in the momentum. the kentucky governor. how they feel about politics. and this is an off, off

election. take a look at this when people were asked how interested and how enthusiastic are you about voting in this election, 62% of democrats say they were enthuse yachtic. 49% of republicans. and this is related to wall to wall tv adds, and hundreds of people coming out on a weekend. tell me about the typical sue bu suburban mod ratt voter. >> yeah, it is, it is for donald trump, it is the place there is sir bu sir burr ban richmond. one of the long time analysts told anyway what is killing republicans is the sue burr ban voter and particularly suburban

women. and just to tell you what is going on with this race, a group i follow closely is swing left. they went into the last election trying to swing the house of representatives left, now they're trying to swing here in virginia, this legislature. they knocked on 70,000 doors this last week. the woman running against the 30 year speaker of the house, she lost 25 pounds knocking on doors, 80,000 calls made, they were 229,000 letter, here is the big question. last time, four years ago, 29% voter turnout, that is it. let's see if they hit 35, 40, and higher. >> okay, watching closely in virginia. thank you. as we have been saying, your vote in state elections might be more important than any other

vote, even for president, to understand why i want to look again at what political gerrymandering is and why if you have an election today your vote really matters. every ten years congressional districts are redrawn to reflect the change in population. now they're redrawn by the party controlling whatever state the districts are in. political or partisan jerry mandmand gerrymandering is drawn to that districts will benefit someone. you can be sure there is no makes, rivers, or boundaries governing that. or the 35th district here, or louisiana's second district. it's the reason some of the districts look to weird because they're drawn without a rhyme or reason. there are two ways to politically gerrymander. one is called cracking.

it takes voters from one party and spreads them out. three districts, two majority republican, one majority democrat, the lines are redrawn to get rid of the democratic district. splitting the voters so the minorities are into republican districts. packing is when a district has far more than 51% of voters belonging to one party so many people are essentially thought to be wasting their votes. imagine two competitive districts and a safely republican district. so now the lines are redrawn and more republican voters from the safely remember district are put into the two swing districts. this district didn't need more republican voters and now the other two end up having more republicans in them. the state legislatures are going to be the ones redrawing these district maps, the votes cast in

state elections will have a controlling hand. most people think that they are the most important, but these consistents of things, which has proven to be political, is done at the state level. >> and talking about who will win the state legislature, the house of delegates and the state senate, there was a big change in the run up to this election with the maps. there was a lawsuit about supposed, alleged jer gerrymandering. they were redrawn within the last year because of the lawsuit, and i think in a way they benefitted the democrats, that is one factor they have

working for them. >> what are you looking for? you're a guy we talk to on election days, on this election and in louisiana, what are you looking at? >> a couple different things, kentucky is interesting to me because that is the test of the pole of trump and the polarization of the trump era. why is that? the republican governor of kentucky is not popular. it is something like 34% right now, one of the least popular in the country. if he is safe and wins reelection, trump has personally gone down there, he says if you like me you'll reelect him. he said don't do this to me. he is making it all about him spp that going to work there? and some will be added tonight, a lot of counties there will tell some stories. so mississippi is fascinating because it is a competitive governor's race. they do something different in mississippi than any other

state. to win the governorship, you have to do two things, one the majority popular vote, a majority of the state legislative districts, there are 122 state legislative districts in mooississippi and you have t win a majority. otherwise it goes to the state legislature and the legislature, this is concerning democrats, they're dploes this race. there is a scenario where the democrat wins by a deliver in the popular vote, but the districts are probably going to favor republicans and the republican legislature will turn around and it will be like a popular vote scenario. there is litigation there. but it is an interesting dynamic that you don't see in any other state and if you're looking at those returns, and you're seeing a close rate in mississippi, and if you're a democrat and the

democrats have a chance, keep in mind. >> one democrat is fighting to stay in the 2020 race, julian castro will join me live, and we're expecting new transcripts from witnesses in the impeachment inquiry right now. you're watching velshi and ruhle live on msnbc. ruhle live on msnbc. it's not just easy. it's having-jerome-bettis- on-your-flag-football-team easy. go get 'em, bus! ohhhh! [laughing] c'mon bus, c'mon! hey, wait, wait, wait! hey man, i got your flag! i got your flag, man! i got your flag! it's geico easy. with licensed agents available 24/7. 49 - nothing! woo! high protein. low sugar. tastes great! high protein. low sugar. so good! high protein.

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>> any second now we're

expecting house committees to release the deposition transcripts of the special envoy to ukraine, kirk volker. moments ago they sent a letter requesting that the acting white house chief of staff, mick mulvaney appear at a deposition on november 8th. this comes as more witnesses failed to thousand up today for depositions. national security council senior director wells griffith, and michael duffy are the latest no shows. five more witnesses are scheduled for this week including rick perry and john bolton. they indicated they will not appear. this comes after a release of depositions who was an ambassador to ukraine. and they provided details about the efforts to oust yovanovitch.

where do we assistant on the transcripts for volker and sondland? >> any minute now. we're told to stand by for them shortly and they should be interesting. two of the most polarizing witnesses thus far -- >> garrett, i want to interrupt you, we just learned that mick mulvaney will comply. nbc learned that mick mulvaney will comply with his invitation or subpoena to receive. >> yeah, i have to tell you that is shocking to me. this was merely an invitation to come testify. not a subpoena for mulvaney to come in a world where the white house has been stonewalling even lower level aids from appearing, to have the chief of staff acting or otherwise to the

president of the united states behind closed door first a deposition in an impeachment inquiry, that is extraordinary. it completely shots me, they have prevented low level nsc staffers from coming, sent notices urging people not to appear. for him to show tup is either an extrot fair break from the president or an extraordinary change in strategy. >> we had bad information. we have not got word that mick mulvaney is going to comply, so your instinct -- when i told you the case. >> you're taking years of of my life here on tv today. >> i imagine, you're good, i think this is just a moment to say show our viewers how good you are. i said something completely unlikely, it didn't make sense to you. there are people who work with mick mulvaney, junior to him,

that have not complied. >> that is right. it was surprising for them to even invite him. i took that as congressional democrats trying to create a paper trail that they have attempted to get all of these witness depositions, they that i have attempted to get everyone they think is close to the decision making process on ukraine knowing full well that mulvaney was unlikely to appear while he still has that job. >> let's talk about what we learned from the testimony of marie yovanovitch and michael mckinley. it seems everyone may have different opinions about what the president was up to but they have continued to cooperate on what he did. >> yeah, they are secondary

figures. it introduces us to the things they were doing behind the in ukraine. te was before we became aware of the phone call, we saw rudy and the other associates handy work here. they were back channelling to try to push her out and so far. republicans have been dismissing that says she is an obama holdover. >> i apologize, but you proved how valuable you are as a report enand er and journalist that keeps everything straight. as we await stratranscripts, hes

what we learned up until now. the bth's lawyer and other diplomats and an aide to the president. giuliani demanded that ukraine commit to investigate interference 2340916 election and investigate the natural gas firm. volcker claims that trump was being fed incorrect information. meanwhile, gordon sondland said he was disappointed that u.s. foreign policy was delegated that way. and they were directed to talk with giuliani about ukraine. he also said that giuliani drew

a link between a white house president and ukraine investigating anticorruption issues and he mentioned buresma and the dnc server. ambassador bill taylor said i think it is crazy to withhold secure assistance for the ukraine. and sondland responded "the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any ki kind. i suggest we stop back and forth by text. joining me now, the msnbc analyst mimiroka. we're waiting for transcripts, and i don't know what it will do to thicken out what we know, but both volker and sondland have confirmed the basic under lying matter that there was

discussions about one thing in exchange for another. >> that's right, and i think sheer two of the most important things about both volker and sondland. they are as trump friendly of a witness as we have had yet. volker and sondland are -- they're still trying to, at times, defend the president. they were looking out for him. they were part of carrying out this back door shadow testimony. and yet, and yet, they corroborate the testimony of people like bill taylor who are saying whoo, there was a quid pro quo and i was not happy with it. that is very powerful, right? you're not netly going to get a sondland to say the words kwid

p kwid p quid pro quo. and this whole scheme. and the second thing i want to say they think is important these dtext messages that volke turned over. they existed at the time this was all happening and to the time it shows you this is not a made up conspiracy as trump and supporters want to paint it. how did they make those dex mte messages exist, right? the deep state would have to go back to the time of the text messages when they were created.

that makes no tense what makes sense is that the dtext message were showing us in realtime what was happening and the witnesses are telling us now what happening then. >> this is a weird space that an impeachment inquiry lives in. it is not a legal proceeding, but it is political, and the evidence all shows one thing. we can have ten more people testify or no more people testify, the underlying facts seem to have been established and it is not moving some people, particularly republicans in congress and it may not be moving some of the american public. even if the impeachment goes through, if it is not moving republicans on capitol hill, it woend from the intention they want it had to have. nobody has contradicted the basic story yet. >> that's right, but i think that the point that you started

with is a huge point that all of the evidence that we have had to far shows that it is an ongoing scheme. a scheme of pressure on ukraine to do certain things to benefit trump personally and his campaign. we dent know this two months ago, or a month ago, so while it seems like this is set, we know this, we're not moving, i think that the democrat vs. done a really good job already and we have not even gotten to the public testimony yet of laying out that case. and i think as that gets more and more in the republican defenses keep falling down one by one, and they're left with saying we need to hear from the whistle-blower, let's hear from him or her, i think it shows how

much things have moves and they will continue to move. >> entirely relevant given what they said bearing out with other people's testimonies. thank you so much. good to see you as always. today is election day across the country. how could today's vote affect the 2020 election, but first a deadly ambush in mexico. we'll tell you what we know about the attack. you're watching live on msnbc. m. they're america's biopharmaceutical researchers. pursuing life-changing cures in a country that fosters innovation here, they find breakthroughs... like a way to fight cancer by arming a patient's own t-cells... because it's not just about the next breakthrough... it's all the ones after that.

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welcome back to velshi and rule. adults and at least six children were killed on the southern border. two of them were only eight months old. it was a highway ambush. the 8 survivors were all children. some had serious injuries. the group was traveling in a motorcade when three of the families were attacked. >> i'm just trying to be strong and handle everything into this point, but my family is here now

and so i think this might be the breaking point. >> joining me now is sam brock. what was going on here? what happened? >> right after that interview, that snippet you just played a second ago, that woman is now going to the crime scene. to to see how her family is holding up and what transpired this morning. the state department right now being very delicate in terms of the kinds of investigation they're willing to disclose. mexican authorities are reporting nine deaths, six children as you see there. they are saying this could have been a turf war with rival drug cartels and the family was confused and ultimately killed. that doesn't line up with a couple of the details we're getting from the family member that's there were children running from cars that were gunned down in this.

children pinned in burning cars and left to die there. some of the most vile images you can imagine. we know there was 14 children total in three cars, and the irony is that family member said they were traveling that way because they thought it would be safe tore travel in that mot motorcade and they were confused for a drug cartel. so much pain that you cannot imagine knowing the suffering that took place as both the united states now, but the mexican government trying to figure out what transpired. >> let's talk about the president having tweeted this morning a wonderful family and friends caught between two

cartels. if mexico needs help clearing out these monsters, we will step in and handle this quickly. >> there was a immediate response from the president of mexico saying no no, we tried that before and multiple prior administrations took that tact and it didn't work. i'm going to continue with what i want to do which is address poverty and inequality in mexico and not take it straight to the cartels and see if that works. but the president very animated in what he thinks should be done. >> coming up next, we're one year out from the 2020 election and candidates are struggling to stay in what has been a very crowded race. plus an isis leader bringing the terror group a new leader. what they know and where they're regrouping. ow and wrehe they're regrouping because getting older... should mean being healthy enough to act young. because farmers should be able to use less water

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all right, we have breaking news, house investigators have released the transcripts of the former special envoy to ukraine kirk volker and gordon sondland. i want to read you and excerpt

from sondland's. you crane desperately wants and you want today make map that that meeting could not happen and isn't that a fair use of the expression. g gordon sondland says the term same up and i never heard the expression play ball. >> a and the questioner says and you know what it means, right? and he says if you mean that the conditions would have to be met to get a meeting, yes. so she acknowledk he is admittid pro quo, that if they wanted immedia metings they needed to conduct

the things they were asked for. every piece of system that comes up seems to confirm there was quid pro quo. as the information coming out, joining me now julian castro. he is a 2020 democratic presidential candidate, thank you for being with us. >> great to be with you, ali. >> i want to talk about the campaign, but i want to get your response to it as a candidate that wants to be president of the united states, as we have been discussing, the testimony seems to confirm the basic information that we had in the beginning that the president seemed to be offering meetings or things that the ukrainians wanted and holding off on aide to the ukrainians because he wanted them to do favors for him? >> yeah, i mean he was trying to get get the leadership to do his

dirty work. everything that the whistle-blower alleged, the transcripts are coming out. the president has violated his oath of office, he abused his power, and i'm glad the house is moving forward with an impeachment inquiry, and that the american people, more and more, as they tine into this they're getting it. in the last month we have seen support for impeachment and removal of this president to grow and i think it will become clearer and clearer that he needs to be removed from office. >> when we last talked you needed to raise a certain amount of money by the end of october,

and you did, and you met the goals to qualify you for the next debate, do you think you'll get there and what is your strategy if you don't? >> we have a week left, we put out an ad in iowa today that is running trying to get that polling that we need to get into the november debate. so we made an announcement about the deployment of resources we're making based on the fact that we were able to raise what we needed. we're going to focus a lot of iowa and nevada. and so our support in texas is strong. as you know, ali, texas can play a major role in terms of who gets the nomination, it comes relatively early on super tuesday. i also think i can do well in

iowa and beat and in nevada. the more i get out there the more folks see that we need a nominee that has a track record of getting things done, can turn good ideas into good reforms, and is about making sure that everybody counts in this country and i have been speaking out for the most vulnerable americans for the middle class and the pour poor in a way that no others have been doing. >> so you're pulling sop of your staffing from new hampshire and south carolina. you're putting more attention on iowa. we'll have to have a conversation to see if that was a breakthrough for you there, but stekz a ltexas is a lot lat. are you worried about not ha

pulling back on your new hampshire and south carolina, will you worry about pulling back for iowa? texas is a long way away. >> i think we need to do first things first which is to do well to beat expectations in iowa, and i'm confidence that t that o that. we continue to organize in iowa, and i think if we can accomplish that we'll have momentum going into new hampshire. remember it is more organizing needing. so i'm confident that we can use that momentum from the caucus to do well in new hampshire in a primary and then go into the nevada caucus which we're also investing time and energy that state and do well in evidence and go into the south carolina

primary. after south carolina you're into texas and south carolina and i'm convinced i could do well. >> let's talk about the democratic party and their various appeals to groups. there is a lot of excitement, but the candidates of color have not done as well. what does that say to you? >> i think you have very talented people in this race, i guess we're down to 16 folks. at one time we had 25. there seems to be anxiety out there about only a certain profile of candidate can beat trump, but i have been saying what barack obama said in 2007 and 2008, sometimes the safe choice is not the safe choice. if we want to beat trump we have to go back to michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania and

get people off of the sidelines and into the voting booth that didn't vote last time. trump won in part in 2016 because african-american turnout had federalallen. latino turnout fell from just over 48% to about 47%, you're going to have to go to milwaukee, detroit, philadelphia, and to those suburbs and energize that base and get them out to say nothing of places like florida and new opportunities like georgia, arizona, and texas, i can go get back those 80,000 votes in because i have a good track record. and a lot of candidates can't say that. >> good to see you as always.

>> julian castro, former mayor of san antonio. on wednesday november 20th, msnbc and the washington post will have a debate here flooif atlanta. house investigators have released the transcripts of the former special envoy to ukraine, kirk volker. garrett haake has forgiven me and is here to give us some analysis of this. i have had a brief chance to look through these things and there is a little more meat on the bones that we didn't know about. >> yeah, that's right, i just had a chance to go through some of the summaries myself here and i will tell you some of the things that jump out to me, first that rudy giuliani was

everywhere and everybody teamed to know it. they described multiple conversations, that everything had to go through rudy. on the question of the text messages that received so much attention that remember this was another ambassador that texted gordon sondland, there was a long break before he responded in between we knew that he had spoken to the president of the united states. he describes some of that conversation here siing i want no quid pro quo. i want him to do the right thing and then hung up on him as if he didn't want to get into any further instructions on that and when i look at kurt volker's testimony, first they warned giuliani early on about who was corrupt and who was not. that volker tried to get ahead

of the bad information that giuliani was sending back to trump. and then there was an interesting take away. so much of the trump defense is predicated on fact that maybe joe biden did something wrong. that he was trying to cover up his son or protect his son by going after this policy. here in the testimony of a witness who many republicans have described as extremely credible, you have volker saying biden moving to get rid of this prosecutor was exactly the policy not only of the united states but of the international community at the time. ali, there's going to be a lot more to dig into in these two transcripts. sondland's memory gets very bad the closer we get to present day about various meetings, phone calls, other things that he was

involved in over time. that could potentially spell trouble for him. he doesn't remember telling marie yovanovitch she should tweet about the president. doesn't remember his conversations about ukraine policy. there's a lot gordon sondland seems to not recall at convenient times in this deposition. >> mimi, let's put this into stark relief. there are legal issues with what we have been describing as quid pro quo or doing something for some benefit, but that's, again, as you and i discussed earlier it's not necessarily where the impeachment goes. however, the constitution does talk about things that aren't supposed to happen with a president, and the concept, gordon sondland confirms what we knew that kurt volker had said, there was some impression -- in fact gordon sondland said it more clearly than impression. that the ukrainians needed something america had and donald trump didn't want to give that something over, including these meetings that the ukrainians

wanted, without an announcement of an investigation into burisma and the bidens. how do you look at that from the perspective of an impeachment rather than as a prosecutor? >> well, i look at it as it's completely impeachable conduct. in part because, look, it's not the end of the story, but that to me is clear criminal conduct. i understand the president cannot be prosecuted but that's not irrelevant to an impeachment, it doesn't have to be criminal. boy, if i were a prosecutor who could charge the president, that would be a pretty easy case to make, i have to say. and remember, again, we now have this admission about a clear, clear quid pro quo. he used the word -- sondland used the word demand, it was a demand on ukraine. that could be extortion as well. that is from a witness that is friendly to president trump. this is someone who was essentially a political

appointee. he's someone who wants to protect the president. and even he is saying that. i think that's important to make that point. but this is a clear, clear abuse of the president's power. he is using the tools of american diplomacy, american congressionally approved military aid, the power of a meeting in the oval office to pressure a foreign country to get involved in his campaign. that is as clear as it's ever going to get, i think, in terms -- hopefully we won't have anything worse than that. it is crystal clear that that should be an impeachable offense. >> so the president, when he first -- when this first happened, he had a couple of excuses for it. he first said that it was about getting the other european countries to support ukraine more than they had, which turned out to be a fabrication because they do already. but the other thing was this

aen anti-corruption thing. sondland said i presumed that the aid suspension, the $391 million, had become linked to the proposed anti-corruption statement. so the president has tried to portray the ukrainians investigating hunter biden and burisma as an anti-corruption effort and that the president was all about fighting corruption, which of course there had been no demonstration of anywhere else in the trump administration. at some point does it matter when gordon sondland said it was tied to something else and he calls it anti-corruption, does it matter? because in the end it was about donald trump benefitting. >> well, i mean it goes to intent and motive, i guess. but here's -- it's so obviously false for a bunch of reasons, one of which is you have -- you have witnesses saying we told rudy giuliani that these were debunked theories. so you're pursuing corruption

based on information that you know is false? also if they were real corruption investigations, why wouldn't they go through the normal channels of the state department and the department of justice, which investigates and works on corruption investigations all the time. the department of justice has distanced itself from what giuliani was doing. it's gone to great pains to do that, because it wasn't really a corruption investigation. and i think that's where yovanovitch's testimony is quite important because she talks about you can put whatever label you want on it, call it corruption, but what giuliani was doing was actually trying to get rid of the people fighting corruption. and the fact that it ultimately benefited -- was to the benefit of trump and his political aims and goes back to the days of his 2016 campaign and theories they were exploring, you know, i think shows that as well as the testimony we're hearing now. >> i just want to read you some new reporting that we've got. a person with knowledge of the u.s. ambassador to the eu,

gordon sondland's testimony to congress confirms to nbc news that he provided additional testimony to congress this week, updating his previous testimony. the key new information he added this week, he now remembers telling a top zelensky aide, zelensky is the president of ukraine, he remembers telling a top zelensky aide that ukraine wouldn't get its military an sich -- assistance unless it committed to the investigations. this comes in a four-page declaration to the committees. sondland says he remembers a september 1st, 2019, conversation with the zelensky aide in warsaw. he remembers telling him that, quote, the resumption of u.s. aid would likely not occur until ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks, end quote. so gordon sondland and kurt volker adding more clarity to this situation.

garrett haake continues to go through the documents for us. mimi rocah, thank you. we'll continue digging through the transcripts and bring you more as we get it. we'll be right back. d bring you more as we get it. we'll be right back.

thanks for watching "velshi & ruhle." i'm going to hand it over to chris jansing. the light just gets brighter with each piece of testimony. >> it does indeed. we're getting to see the role rudy giuliani played, how

everybody watched him for signals that they thought were coming from the president. ali, we'll see you back here in an hour. good afternoon, i am chris jansing in for katy tur. we're expecting new transcripts any moment now from the two key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry as democrats put more of their investigation out into the open. this is day 43 of the impeachment inquiry, and here's what's happening. democrats have just released excerpts from the transcripts of their closed door depositions with gordon sondland and former special envoy to ukraine, kurt volker. in the transcript we learned that ambassador sondland said that it was his understanding that a meeting between presidents trump and zelensky was conditioned on ukraine investigating 2016 meddling and the bidens. in short, he testified there was a quid pro quo. volker testified it was rudy giuliani, the president's personal attorney, who led a shadow foreign policy c