general of louisiana and missouri allege the white house worked with social media companies to suppress freedom of speech. how damaging could this be for the white house? constitutional law expert jonathan turley here to weigh in just ahead. sandra: begin america reports on this monday afternoon with a major wake-up call from our nation s report card. the fed revealing decline in children s test scores in the country, biggest drop we have seen in decades. it follows the devastating closures due to covid that kept millions of children out of the classrooms. hello and welcome, everyone. sandra smith in new york. great to start the week with you, john. john: good to start with you too. 15 days to the midterms, on average, fourth grader math dropped five, eighth graders plunged eight. sandra: reading scores dropped three points since the pandemic started, the decision to close schools and along with parents rights have made education a key issue in the midterm elections.
top of the hour here in the cnn newsroom, i m erica hill. good to have you with us on this very busy wednesday morning. countdown is on at this point, six days left now until the midterm elections. this morning a new cnn poll shows republican voters are more enthusiastic than democrats heading into election day. the economy remains a top concern as people cast their votes. cnn is on the trail around the country. also watching today the federal reserve set to hike interest rates again, that is sparking major concerns that the fed s attempts to cool inflation could send the economy into a recession. plus new details about the attack on paul pelosi, today the family is expected to see body camera footage of that violent attack, hear the 911 call made by speaker pelosi s husband. this just one day after the suspect pleaded not guilty to multiple state charges. cnn s veronica miracle is live in san francisco. she begins things for us this morning. veronica, in terms of that 911
everybody. i m lindsey riser in for katy tur in new york city. the big news today, the potentially historic battle surrounding house republican leadership and the growing resistance to kevin mccarthy, as he scrambles to find and secure the 218 votes he needs to become the next speaker. despite that, we learned over the weekend that mccarthy has already moved into the speaker suite in the capitol, if he secures the votes, no problem, but if he doesn t, he ll have to move out and that is seeming like more of a possibility by the day. before sunday, the number of republicans openly opposing kevin mccarthy was five but that number has appeared to grow after nine more republicans released a letter saying that mccarthy s concessions up to this point have not been enough to win them over. one of the original five, congressman bob good says the plan is to deny kevin mccarthy the votes he needs and see what happens. what we ll do is we ll block kevin. i suspect there will be 10 or 1
jamie raskin: umm, you know tommy left us a note, and the note said, please forgive me. my illness won today. look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me, all my love, tommy. umm, so, he didn t have anything in there about take some time off. (laughs) and, uh. crowd: usa! usa! usa! usa! jamie raskin: why is america such an extraordinary country? we are not unified by virtue of being one ethnicity, or one ideology, or one religion. we re unified by one constitution and one rule of law, and then the values under our constitution. it is an aspiration. it s a challenge to us. the constitution shouldn t be some kind of fetish document. it should be the living commitment that we all have to make democracy work in service of the common good. that is the constitution that comes out of the civil war and reconstruction. that is the constitution that we ve been fighting for since then. and we ve got to keep fighting for it. crowd: trump! trump! trump! trump! trum
president himself played a critical role in getting the deal across the finish line. his message, emphasize the harm that families, businesses and communities would feel if a shutdown went ahead. the final hurdle to come, and that is a full union vote. also this, an immigration battle escalating near the vice president s doorstep. buses of migrants sent from texas dropped off just feet from her residence in washington overnight. this happening a day after officials on martha s vineyard were sent scrambling after dozens of migrants unexpectedly arrived there. the office of florida governor ron desantis says it was he who sent two planes to the massachusetts island with more than 50 migrants on board. you see a picture there. cnn s steve contorno live in washington. i saw a group of migrants dropped off in front of the vice president s residence in d.c. this morning as well. what s happening? reporter: the governor of florida has been promising for months really that he i