>> hopefully they get a day game for you. >> i might buy a jason kelce jersey to make the guy feel better. right? thank you, andy. thank you for joining us. i'm kasie hunt. don't go anywhere. "cnn this morning" starts right now. ♪ good morning, everyone. so glad you are with us. there's a lot of news to get to this morning. let's start with five things to know for this tuesday, september 26th. president biden hits the autoworkers picket line today an historic first for a sitting president. also trump will be there tomorrow as he skips a republican debate to also speak with union autoworkers in the motor city. breaking overnight the debate stage is now set for the second gop primary debate the one trump will not attend. desantis, scott, haley, rama ramaswamy, burgum. former trump white house aide cassidy hutchinson painting a chaotic picture of the last days of the trump presidency. this all in her new book where she says trump told his chief of staff, quote, i don't want people to know we lost. this is embarrassing. and police are looking for this man in connection with the fentanyl day care death. prosecutors say he fled through a back alley carrying two bags. "cnn this morning" now. ♪ so it's interesting. biden is leaving washington today. the house and senate have to figure out how to keep -- >> everything is great. >> but the fact that he's going to michigan to the picket line with autoworkers never happened before. >> there is no historic precedent for this. underscores the importance not just of one labor dispute but the role politically, policy and macro economically that this is all playing out right now as we head towards an election year. >> to be followed by trump. >> yes. >> who by the way said he was going there first. >> he did indeed. >> we'll watch that closely. hours from now president bide listen go to the picket line. he will be with those workers in michigan for their continuing strike against the big three automakers. this is unprecedented for a sitting u.s. president. >> comes just one day as poppy noted before donald trump is planning his own visit to detroit to speak to autoworkers. these dualing visits to a battleground state could be the clearest biden/trump rematch th union's crucial endorsement. notably, the president of the workers union will be joining biden on the picket line, but the union is not involved. >> jeremy diamond live at the white house with a lot more. this is interesting because a week ago the white house was pulling back their advisers on this issue to not go to michigan. now the president is going. what's he going to do and say? >> yeah, no doubt about it. it shows one sign is that there's been progress in these talks. that's perhaps why the president is choosing this moment now to go there. but it also shows this potential contrast with former president trump, who is going to michigan tomorrow to address current and former union members. white house officially denies there is any connection between the president's visit and the former president's plans to deliver speech in detroit tomorrow. but, look at this white house fact sheet the white house released just this morning talking about the fact that former president trump talked a big game but did not deliver in the way that president biden has for union workers. contrasting president biden's economic record, his record on manufacturing and his record specifically with unions with that of the former president. talking, for example, about bringing manufacturing back to the united states, policies that incentivize union work to be done with that manufacturing, comparing that to the trump tax cuts which is biden administration says did not benefit the working class. but this will certainly be one of our first signs of a preview of this potential 2024 matchup as boets of these candidates have repeatedly tried to vie for that working class vote. president biden has called himself the most pro union president. he has racked up a series of union endorsements. the one endorsement he has yet to secure, though, is that of the uaw's. that's part of the visit today to do the work to try to get that endorsement. shawn fain the president of the uaw is expected to be with president biden as the president goes to the picket line in wayne, michigan. we don't know where that will be. an opportunity for president biden to out the his pro union bonn fieds. the president is standing with union workers but would not say whether she endorses positions in these negotiations. >> do they stand behind the specifics or not. jeremy, thanks very much. right down the road on pennsylvania avenue, the house is back in session today with just four days until the government shuts down and pressure is continuing to mount on house speaker kevin mccarthy who must decide between shutting down or working with democrats and risk losing his job. the biden administration is warning of dire consequences if the government cannot fund itself. saying the speaker has to do his job. today lawmakers are scheduled to at least start the procedural route of voting on four spending bills but each one still faces very real uncertainty on the house floor. cnn's lauren fox joins us now. i don't want to focus on the procedural hurdles or the messaging bills they're trying to move this week. >> you don't? >> i do. but i'm cognizant fox and i could do this for three hours. tell me the end game here. the senate is starting to move on something. the house is continuing to negotiate, four days left. where do things actually stand? >> yeah, phil. let's start with the senate. that is the piece of legislation that if it can get passed out of that chamber could potentially stave off a shutdown on saturday at midnight. the senate negotiators between minority leader mitch mcconnell's staff and minority chuck schumer's staff they continue to work into the night last night, trying to find a path forward that would fund the government for just a matter of weeks at this point. it would not be a one-year spending bill but just a short-term stopgap to get them over that deadline. the expectation is that bill may not be able to include the full supplemental funding for ukraine aid. that is because you have warnings from conservatives, like senator rand paul who are arguing they will slow down the process to get this bill moving through the senate and given the fact there are time constraints because this deadline is coming saturday night, that is a big consideration here for republicans and democrats. even though there are plenty of members in that chamber who would like to include disaster aid and ukraine funding. so those pieces are still being negotiated and worked out, but given the fact we don't have much time left, phil, you may see a situation where that bill may be unveiled as soon as today. meanwhile, in the house of representatives, there still is not a clear path forward. there is still not consensus among house republicans on what a short-term solution would even look like. that is setting up the scenario if the senate can pass their bill quickly and out of their chamber, they could potentially put mccarthy in a position where he would be jammed, as we say, in congressional speak, by the united states senate. then would have to make that very important and impactful decision, does he put this negotiated piece of legislation on the floor? and would he risk potentially ending his speakership over that? >> the inevitable end game here of if house republicans don't pass anything, they're going to get jammed by the senate. and everyone knows it. and yet here we are. four days, 17 hours, 52 minutes left, i believe, on the clock. lauren, probably won't sleep until we get through all of that. lauren fox, thank you. new overnight, donald trump fighting back against the special counsel's jack smith's request for a gag order in his federal election probe. his lawyers say it would violate his right to free speech. they're accusing prosecutors of trying to silence trump as he is running for president. the special counsel requested a gag order to block trump from threatening or intimidating witnesses on social media and to prevent him from tainting the jury pool. >> trump's legal team is urging the judge to reject that request. in a court filing overnight, they claim it would strip trump, quote, of his first amendment freedoms during the most important months of his campaign against president biden. let's bring in cnn katelyn polantz. what happens next here? >> reporter: well, the judge will have to determine what to do here because this is actually a pretty important debate to be had. it is one that donald trump's team is framing as political censorship. they're saying he shouldn't be restricted. it's not fair. he's running for president. there was an indictment against him that allowed the special counsel to levy the charges. there's joe biden out there also campaigning for president, not the same thing because trump is a criminal defendant here. but that's the plane they want to be talking about this on. where as the justice department, they want to be making sure that the trial that donald trump is going to have in washington, d.c. in federal court scheduled for march is fair so that witnesses aren't chilled in some way and so that jurors come into that courtroom trusting the judge and having an open mind to the witnesses that are testifying. one of the things that trump's team said in this filing overnight the proposed gag order is nothing more than an obvious attempt by the biden administration to unlawfully silence it's most prominent political opponent. now, it isn't as broad as saying donald trump can't speak at all about the case, at least what the justice department is asking for. we don't know what the judge is going to do here, but what the justice department wants, they want some limitations on what donald trump can say about the specific people in the case, witnesses, judge, the prosecutors, things he could say that could damage their credibility or possibly be inflammatory or harassment toward them. that's the restriction they want. but it will be in the judge's court. and when ever this judge, tanya chutkan, does to respond to the jus it department's ask, there will be a question of what the consequence could be for donald trump. his lawyers say in the filing let's be clear, the prosecution hopes to create a contempt trap for president trump and his attorneys so at the end of the day, there's going to be a question that if there is something like this put over donald trump, a limited gag order, is that legal first of all? and second of all, is it something that could chill his rights and could be something that could cause him or the judge to want to put him in jail or restrict him even further if he doesn't follow it. >> yeah. huge questions. no precedent. uncharted territory for sure. katelyn polantz, keep us posted, thank you. so the city of el paso is now grappling with about 2,000 migrant encounters at the border a day. officials warning this influx is not stopping any time soon. shelter capacity now running out in that city. for the first time since the deadly wild fires ravaged hawaii, lahaina residents are returning to the burn zone to see the damage for themselves. >> it's hard to process. it's weird. it looks like out of a horror movie. ♪ ♪ welcome back. well, this morning, the migrant crisis is escalating. there's a new report that says the u.s. immigration courts have a backlog of 2.6 million cases. thousands more migrants arriving at the border each day. hundreds of them already sleeping on the streets in el paso, texas. the mayor says his city is just tapped out. meantime, in eagle pass, texas, the mayor there is pleading for help as he plans to extend the city's emergency disaster declaration today. we need bigger, better action from our federal government and the mexican government as well. it's impacting our safety. it's impacting our economy. it's just a mess. >> rosa flores following all of this. she joins us live from houston. you're on the ground. you're seeing this. and for people who want to put context to that number, almost 3 million cases waiting to go through the imgrmigration cases. those are asylum cases. when those get backed up, everything else gets backed up. >> reporter: when they were arriving at the u.s. southern border, they probably don't know, their entering this backlog system. as you mentioned, there are about 2.6 million deportation cases that are on the docket right now. this is according to a syracuse university group that analyzes federal data. they found that from october of last year to august of this year, 1.2 million new cases. now, what this means, poppy, this is important, when migrants cross the border illegally, what happens is law enforcement process them. they have to determine at that point if these individuals have a legal basis to stay in the united states. if not, they are deported. if they're able to stay, they get something called an nta, a notice to appear. that's a notice to appear in immigration court. these individuals have to go through immigration proceedings and in essence, they have to defend themselves. tell the court that they have a right to stay here. a lot of them in many cases do seek asylum. now, where are these individuals going? according to this analysis, they're going to all 50 states and the district of columbia. some of the states that are at the top of the list are california, florida, new york and texas. now, i could talk about this all day, poppy, but i want to leave you with this. this group usually estimates the number -- the amount of waiting time for these cases. and now they're not even estimating this waiting time because they say that a lot of these cases don't have hearing dates. what i can tell you from talking to a federal law enforcement source in the rio grande valley of south texas is this individual has witnessed migrants getting some of these ntas right now. and this individual says that some migrants are getting some dates as early as november and as late as 2028. >> 2028? >> reporter: 2028. >> wow. before you go, we talked yesterday about this new agreement the u.s. and mexico have where mexico is agreeing to deport people who come right up to the border in mexico to their home cities. has there been reaction to that on the ground? >> reporter: immigration advocacy organizations and human rights groups have condemned this move. what they're calling it is -- they say that this is mexico doing america's dirty work south of the border. here is what one organization said. quote, for years the united states' government spent billions of dollars forcing mexico to do its dirty work preventing asylum seekers fleeing for their lives from ever stepping on u.s. soil. u.s. law allows migrants to go to a port of entry and seek asylum. right now that's not happening. that's one of the issues that they have. now, poppy, what we're also learning is what the u.s. is doing as part of this agreement. i know you and i talked about this yesterday. we knew a lot about what mexico is doing. what is the u.s. doing? >> right. >> from talking to a senior official, this individual says that one of the things they're doing is mirror patrol. what this means is that mexican law enforcement and u.s. law enforcement are going to have -- are patrolling the border at the same time. so when ever an individual is apprehended, if they're apprehended by u.s. immigration authorities, u.s. law applies obviously. but if they're apprehended by mexico, as we talked about yesterday, mexico has pledged that they're going to return these individuals to their home countries. >> helpful additional information, rosa. thank you for reporting for us live from houston this morning. the mayor of el paso, oscar lesser, will be with us in just under two hours time in the 8:00 a.m. eastern time. we'll talk about all of that ahead. phil? this morning, residents of lahaina, hawaii, are returning to the burn zone for the first time since the catastrophic august wild fires that devastated parts of the island of maui. after more than six weeks of waiting, families are being allowed back in. they're having to wear head to toe protective gear to see the ashy remnants of their homes and lives for the first time. it's a difficult and, of course, emotional process for many. >> we had a home with a yard and a neighborhood. and it's not possible. >> you know, it's going to break our family apart. >> i just can't believe it's gone. it's heart breaking, you know. all our memories were here. >> county officials say that gear is to help protect people from the toxic dust and soot. poppy? new developments following that fentanyl death of a 1-year-old at a bronx day care. prosecutors released these images of a suspect who left the building before emergency responders even arrived. we have the latest on that investigation ahead. and senator bob menendez defiant after being indicted on federal bribery charges. we're going to speak to a former new jersey democratic congressman who is calling for his resignation. stay with us. ♪ you're probably not easily persuaded to switch mobile providers for your business. but what if we told you it's possible that comcast business mobile can save you up to 75% a year on your wireless bill versus the big three carriers? 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>> we're pretty united in new jersey in calling on the senator to resign regretfully, obviously. this is a very sad story. and the reason is i just don't think we can be hypocrites. we can't ask the american people to be troubled by donald trump's indictments and then turn around and ask them to not be troubled by these very serious allegations against senator menendez. look, i think some people have in the last few days have said this publicly. i imagine that there are others who may be having conversations with senator menendez privately. the goal i think is the same. we need to put this behind us and move forward. >> "the new york times" editorial board disagrees with you. and points out that the senator is innocent until proven guilty and questions why democrats are, quote, so willing to run him out of office before the trial. they also write, he, being menendez, slont to resign to make life easier for democrats. he deserves to be a judged by a jury or the voters. what do you say to that? >> well, he will have his day in court. he is absolutely entitled to the presumption of innocence as a criminal, as a legal matter in court. but for goodness sakes, we have higher standards for public officials. and i think the problem for senator menendez is that the allegations, the very well documented allegations in this indictment, they're not only rep henceable, they're comprehensible. most voters are going to understand that having gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash in your house, that the text messages with egyptian intelligence, the turning over of information about our foreign service employees, egyptian nationals in egypt to the egyptian intelligence agency when we know that information is going to be used to pressure those people, to threaten those people, it's just not something that any of us in new jersey feel is acceptable for an elected official representing us. >> do you think politically if menendez stays in the race, runs for re-election, he endangers the democratic hold on that seat in a blue state? >> i don't think he can win the nomination. i don't think he can win the democratic nomination. and look, this is a human drama. i think he's in shock right now. he may also feel that he needs to stay in the seat a bit longer to raise money for his legal defense fund. but i think -- i don't think he will be our senator come 2025. and so the question is how we get there. and it's important that democrats be united about this. >> are you going to get in the race? >> i haven't made any decisions yet. we have a strong candidate already announced in the race, congressman andy kim. i think our focus right now is calling senator menendez to do the right thing and then finding a way to unify our party around an alternative. >> your tweet was notable, not directly about menendez but about something you tried to do, congressman. that is to put provisions that took on egypt in several house pass defense bills to be stripped. you don't know who or why. the idea that the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee may then have been in a corrupt relationship with egypt is horrifying. we reached out yesterday to menendez's office for any response to that. they didn't get back to us. do you believe that is a matter congress should investigate further? >> i think we need to -- i think congress needs to look at how egypt -- how this brutal, corrupt dictatorship operates in the united states. how it's trying to corrupt our political system. and i've urged my former colleagues in the house and senate for the moment to freeze aid to egypt until we figure out exactly what was going on here. i don't think we get much from our relationship with this dictatorship. i think it diminishes the united states to say that we need brutal dictators like the leader of egypt. and i hope this is an opportunity to step back and look at that relationship. >> former state department official, former congressman, tom malinowski, thank you for your time, sir. >> thank you. new overnight, the lineup for the second republican presidential debate has been announced. we'll tell you who qualified and who didn't this time around. plus, new allegations that former trump chief of staff mark meadows burned documents in the white house. so much so that his wife complained about the dry cleaning bill. those details ahead. stay with us. ♪ new overnight, the republican national committee announcing the lineup for the debate tomorrow night in california. seven candidates qualified. one fewer than last time. on the stage you will see chris christie, mike pence, nikki haley, governor ron desantis, vivek ramaswamy, senator tim scott and governor doug burgum. asa hutchinson did not meet the criteria this time. former president trump won't be there. he will instead travel to detroit to deliver a smepeech a talk to union workers. eva mckend following all of it. he will be all across the country except on the debate stage in california. >> reporter: yeah, good morning to you, poppy and phil. it's because he's already positioning himself as a general election candidate by skipping california, going to detroit, he's essentially telling voters his only focus is president biden. but there's still a recognition he has to compete in the early states. he's far out ahead in every poll, but his margin not as wide in state level polls. the electorates are small in these states, like new hampshire and iowa. we know that those voters appreciate an aggressive ground game. and hearing from these candidates over and over again that they really want the job. so after that detroit speech wednesday, he'll be in iowa over the weekend and he made a stop in south carolina just yesterday. >> eva, i do have a question. the former president was in south carolina. he made a stop at a gun store yesterday. his spokesman tweeted out he purchased a gun, which would be problematic given he's been indicted. what actually happened here? >> reporter: yeah. so this was a bit of a mess, phil. got a lot of attention as many suspect it would. the spokesperson tweeted out this video showing trump at a gun shop. i think we can see the video here in south carolina, declaring he bought a glock pistol. it turns out he actually did not. he, as you mentioned, under indictment facing criminal charges. the spokesperson deleted that post, clarified he did not purchase or take possession of the firearm. he only indicated he wanted one. federal law, of course, prohibits the sale of guns to people under felony indictments. so, trump did not walk away from the gun store with a gun after all, phil. >> thank you for clearing that up. got a lot of attention for sure yesterday, eva. thanks. now it's worth noting trump while preparing for his remarks tomorrow in michigan also squeezed in plenty of time this week to lash out against democrats, the media and some of his own political appointees. in a series of posts, these are only some of them, i want to make that very clear, trump called treason, called for a government shutdown and suggested his former joint chiefs of staff chair should be executed. his attack on mark milley comes days after a new report of his distrust of trump's leadership. his dealing with china at the end of trump's presidency should be punishable by death and also suggested nbc's parent company comcast should be investigated for treason for their political coverage and called on republicans to push back against josh shapiro's voter policy. and nikki haley as bird brain. >> he called on republicans to shut down the government if they don't get everything they want in these negotiations. and he went after president biden ahead of his trip to michigan accusing him of killing the uaw and calling on the union to endorse him. so, he did a lot. with us to discuss, jessica washington, senior reporter at the root, michelle price, associated press national political reporter, john avlon, cnn political analyst and anchor. good morning, everyone. >> good morning. >> john. >> i'm delighted you just did that run-through of donald trump because there's a tendency right now to ignore to the extent of normalizing his most outrageous claims. particularly calling for the execution of his former joint chiefs of staff general mark milley. that's something that is so across anything resembling a moral line in politics. and the fact that it was initially greeted with silence indicates the degree to which we're getting numb to his grievances. whether anyone has stones to call that out in particular. >> other than chris christie. >> other than chris christie who absolutely will. if that's not unacceptable, what is? if you're a republican and stand for strong national security and law & order, calling for the execution of a former general? can't call that out? you're not qualified to be president. >> by the way, in the same week that milley ends 40-plus years of service to this country, you know. >> correct. >> michelle, i think the question i have -- one, maybe your excuse is you're not on truth social. not a lot of people are. maybe you missed all of them. that would be fair. i don't have an account yet. john helps me out on that. but i think to john's point, it's calibration in terms of response. the front-runner in the republican party literally tried to overturn the election in 2020, and people seem to be able to brush by that and most republican primary candidates and challengers are not challenging him on that, and you run through that list of things that are just positively ly bs and everybody wonders by. >> that's been the question since donald trump came down the escalator. he claimed he could design a better fighter jet for the military. that list ranged from violent to just bizarre. but you know, you're right. we're not seeing anybody in that field, besides chris christie, challenge him on these things. and that seems to be the question, they're all trying to posit themselves as a viable alternative, are they actually running against him or running in the background? >> tomorrow -- go ahead. >> i was going to say i do think -- they don't want to alienate this base. they're terrified of that. we in the media also have a complicated push and full. there was a lot of fear we gave trump too much air time, we spent too much time talking about him. so i think there's also that fear in the media and then also the candidates might have some of those same concerns. and so now we're saying, okay, we have to address these awful, terrible things he said but also how do we not then just constantly get his message in front of people who maybe aren't on truth social. that could feel complicated even though i think we have to be calling these things out directly. >> cassidy hutchinson, who was such a key witness, star witness, in the january 6th hearings, has this new book out. jake tapper talked to her. we'll see that later in the program. but one thing we've learned from her book is that she reports that president trump told his then chief of staff, mark meadows, quote, i don't want people to know we lost, mark. this is embarrassing, figure it out. the meadows' camp is pushing back hard on just the whole book, but that is significant, john. to what end? >> it's usually significants because it indicates in realtime donald trump knew he lost and was perpetrating a lie on the american people and his supporters that led on the a attack on our capitol. it goes to state of mind. that testimony is incredibly significant. >> do you think, though -- again, we talk about the truths tweets, whatever we call them. this is another example. the timeline that cassidy hutchinson laid out in her testimony to the january 6th committee and this book here, can't wait to see jake's interview with her later today on this. it underscores the dynamic of what this administration actually was at the end. and i just -- does it puncture any of the kind of narrative or breakthrough where trump stands? >> yeah. i think if true is damning because his whole point, his whole legal argument is i believed that i won the election and so i was speaking out. i was saying the truth, as i understand it. around so then to have someone say, okay, actually he knew that he had lost this election and he continued to perpetuate a lie, that makes this whole legal argument fall apart and this whole idea that there was this plan and he was getting advice from his counsel. that all falls apart if this is true. >> tomorrow night, what -- chris christie has seen some improoucht in polling. there's sort of four-way tie under trump in the state of new hampshire. talk to us about what tomorrow night needs to look like for an actual breakout for one of these folks. nikki haley got the big bounce after the last one. what about tomorrow? >> she'll be looking to recreate that tomorrow night. >> sure. >> tim scott, the pressure is on. a lot of people thought in the first debate it would be a tim scott moment and he was so quiet. >> yeah. >> that i can't remember a tim scott line from the first debate. doug burgum will be there. i don't know that we're expecting doug burgum breakout. vivek ramaswamy is visible in the first debate and is expected to be just as dominant. but ron desantis, the pressure is really on him. he did fine in the first debate but he was kind of on stage, didn't have any big breakout moment. his campaign said that that was kind of what they needed him to hold his ground. but, he -- he needs to have a splash. >> but he didn't hold ground in key states when you look at the polling given how far he's fallen. >> to a shocking extent. desantis is deflating, you see his numbers among moderates are being cut by three quarters. that's not sustainable. so he has to have a breakout debate. i think haley's opportunity to solidify her status as the most electable alternative to donald trump. she is the only one in the pack who decisively beats joe biden. that's what donors are looking for. can she make her case that she's the alternative. >> the pitch i heard donors making -- campaigns making to donors the last couple weeks, don't worry about the first debate. this is the debate that's in the inflection point, comes in the wake of softness of trump in iowa. abortion policy as well. to continue our 700-part debate between you and me on whether or not this primary is already over, what has to happen to make -- to continue to -- for you to perpetuate this idea? >> my criteria for the people start voting. and obviously i think -- >> that means this will be a long fight, guys. >> look -- >> aren't you excited? >> people vote in iowa -- >> weeks. wrestling in the morning over this stuff. you know, iowa, new hampshire, south carolina. these are not states that always are typical in their outcomes. and chris christie is betting it all on new hampshire. iowa is -- it's own peculiar and wonderful snapshot of the american people. but there's a real move on the grass stops in iowa to look for an alternative to donald trump. the question is who folks coalesce around as the alternative. whoever is seen as the most electable alternative could really reshape the race. if trump loses ground in some of the first couple primaries, things could fall apart quickly. the problem is people have been cowed into a sense of inevitability out of fear of the base that's causing people to stay on the sidelines. that's why i think i disagree with you, treating this as inevitable perpetuates that cycle and psychology. >> you haven't told us what the bet is over. who gets what. that's for the next one. thank you very much. the supreme court is back on the bench today for the start of a new term. the justices face historically low approval ratings over a flurry of ethics issues. we're going to dig in coming up next. so today the supreme court returns for its first private meeting of the justices for the new term. it comes after multiple controversies and huge ethics questions. most notably the reflations about justice clarence thomas accepting and failing to disclose lavish gifts and vacations from a wealthy republican donor. approval ratings for the court have reached record lows. a recent gallup poll shows, look at that, 40% of the americans approve of job being done by the highest court in the land. with us now, supreme court reporter ariane de vogue. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> some want more ethics constraints, more rules, more transparency. is that going to happen this term? >> reporter: well, it's interesting. as you said, this is the first time they're meeting behind closed doors since this summer recess. and there have just been this array of stories over the past month really drawing attention to the fact that there is no code of conduct, no ethics rules that apply directly to the justices themselves. nothing that's binding. and the court over the summer in various appearances in the spring and summer, they have talked about it a little bit. we heard chief justice john roberts last spring. he wanted to assure the public that they're taking this seriously. we heard from justice brett kavanaugh over the summer who said he hoped the court would take concrete measures, whatever that is. but justice kagan, the liberal, poppy on the court, she went further than anybody else last week. and she said, look, maybe we can adapt the code of conduct that is in effect for lower court justices for the supreme court. take a listen to what she had to say. >> i think it would be a good thing for the court to do that. there are complicated issues here. there are totally good faith disagreements or concerns, if you will. there are some things to be worked out. i hope we can get them worked out. >> reporter: and of course she is saying all of this as the new term officially begins next week. >> there is a really important case that's going to be heard this term. it's about something called chevron deference, which i will not bore the american people with. but it's incredibly significant in terms of the agency of federal agencies, for example. there is an -- a question now because of this pro publy ka reporting that justice thomas attended a coke network donor event and the cokes are part of sort of the legal backing of this case. is that going to complicate things? >> well, right. this is one of the biggest cases of the term. there has been this long, conservative movement or effort to scale back on the power of federal agencies. that would affect small businesses, climate, public, health and now finally they have this big case, as you said, before the court asking the justices once again to scale back on precedent, overturn precedent. and now because of that news reporting with the coke network, democrats are saying to thomas, look, you need to recuse from this case. so once again, these ethics controversies are really overshadowing the work of the court, poppy. >> yeah. obviously critical vote on that case. thank you very much. we'll see you soon. >> thank you. president biden is heading to michigan today as the auto strike enters day 12. cnn is live at the picket lines. also, ukraine claiming it killed the commander of russia's black sea fleet. if true, it would be a big blow to the russian navy. more on that ahead. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? 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