he says are threatening the very foundations of our republic. plus, trump s lawyers and the justice department face off in federal court. we ll explain the big developments to come out of the special master hearing. and, a hot holiday weekend arrives with little to no running water for nearly 200,000 people in mississippi. the state has troops on the ground to help in the water crisis. good morning. and welcome to way too early. i m jonathan lemire. on this friday, september 2nd. thank you for starting your day with us. we ll begin in philadelphia, where president joe biden issued a dire warning about threats to american democracy last night, in a rare prime time address. standing outside historic independence hall, where the united states constitution was written and signed, the president spoke directly about the dangers posed by the trump-backed wing of the republican party. here s some of what he had to say. quality and democracy are under assault. we do ourselves
start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us on set in washington, axios national political reporter jonathan swan, national political reporter for the washington post, robert acosta is here, editor and chief of the bulwark, charlie sykes. we re also joined by former u.s. attorney joyce vance and the new york times white house correspondent annie karni. joyce vance, take me through what i understood alex acosta to be trying to say, which is the media didn t report this accurately, that somehow 2008 was an era these crimes were not, i don t know, prosecuted as forcefully as they are now? is that what he was trying to say and is that remotely true? chuck rosenberg, friend of this show and all of ours says not so. i agree with chuck pretty firmly. federal prosecutors obligation to protect child victims wasn t any different in 2007 and 2008 than it is today. i m sorry if acosta felt like the case would have been difficult to prosecute. i know his office. it s
domestic violation and he didn t want to answer. no answers. in the first clip that we showed, he praised porter about 10, 11 times in 30 seconds. but nothing on domestic violation. easy, easy question. it s wednesday, february 14th. it s valentine s day. would you like me to kiss you? oh my god. no. with us we have columnist editor post david ignatius. you can t do that. national political reporter for nbc news carol lee and new york times washington bureau chief making everyone uncomfortable. should i be uncomfortable. i m not getting involved in this. i m not going there. but i think you re moving away. if we had bill o reilly s what did he call that body language expert, the fact that you re going like this, you ve answered my question. i think we can go straight to
lawful and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone. david ignatius, i think the only thing we wish to take away from this is that that story, the president of the united states potentially paying off a porn star for an affair was a one-day story. and this porter affair has been a seven day story. welcome to donald trump s washington. that first story would have brought any other president down. yeah. i think we haven t heard the last of donald trump and stormy daniels. whether it s a nine-day story i don t know. but now to have cohen personally state that he paid this money that was reported, he claims he wasn t reimbursed. i love debating the fine point of whether it was a campaign contribution in kind. we now have confirmation that
will reduce nondefense discretionary spending. it defined the republican party for a generation. you have the entire republican party embracing a budget that will leave us with $1 trillion deficits for as long as the eye can see that has huge implications on the economy and costs we have to put in to paying down that debt and the interest on that debt over time. no, he wouldn t. but if he were in congress, he would be in the minority now. how colossly bad you and i came to washington at the same time and have been through budget fights. right. this under any administration would be scorned by sort of my wing of the party. right. it busts the budget caps, it doesn t save social security or medicare, it allows the debt to explode. right. the debt jumps up to 27, $28 trillion. all at a time when more and more baby boomers are moving towards retirement. defense spending explodes. you have 1.5 to 2 trillion