a debate coming up. john: begin with the supreme court hearing arguments today on what could be one of the most consequential rulings for higher education in decades. hello, john roberts in washington and hello to you this afternoon. gillian: good to be with you, john, on this spooky halloween. john: good to be with you as well. gillian: i m gillian turner. whether to end affirmative action policies in a pair of cases. john: opponents argue the criteria has harmed millions of students, particularly asian-americans. david spunt starts us off live outside the supreme court. did justice brown jackson recuse herself. that s right, because of her position on the harvard board of overseers, and her connections to harvard university. she thought it was best she sits out. there are two separate cases, overall affirmative action affects millions of students across the country and the justices began hearing two arguments three hours ago. started with the case out of the uni
diplomacy. prices at the pump are going down as president biden heads off for a consequent middle east trip. his itinerary includes saudi arabia and the crown prince he vowed to make a pariah. now, biden biden says his goal is to reorient, not, quote, rupture the saudi arabia relationship. legal filings in the steve bannon case with important invocations for the justice department and a january 6th committee. lawyers a signaling a dramatic 11th hour change to legal strategy. there client says he now wants to cooperate. federal prosecutors call the change of heart irrelevant, but is there word, for his trial to contempt of congress. bannon is big about-face creates a problem for the select committee. the committee is set to resume public hearings tomorrow. the major focus will be to draw the line between the far right group that tried to storm the capital, and donald trump and his inner circle. bannon, with his knowledge could play tour guide to the constellation of extremis
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
quote, narrowly tailored to serve the government s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation. media outlets, including nbc news, asked the judge to make it public. trump and his allies have also repeatedly called for it to be unsealed, although they ve made no formal motion to do so. so the question we ll be waiting to find out, what is it going to reveal about the doj s case against the former president. at least, why they had that search warrant. we ve got a team of experts standing by to answer that question and to help us dissect it once we have it. meanwhile, this morning, president biden is on the offense, turning up the heat on what he s call maga republicans. a big change in tone from president biden, slamming their philosophy during a fund-raiser in d.c., saying it s like semi-fascism. then he took that energy on the road last night to a campaign rally, it seemed, in maryland. they re a threat to our very democracy. they refuse to accept the
the country. yes, the majority vote democrat. but in 2020, there was an enormous shift to the republican party. the future of our democracy in the ballots, i wanted to find out what s fueling that rightward shift in latino communities across the. country so we ll have a conversation about all these things straight ahead. but first, this field report from florida. thank you. as you can imagine, politics is a total blood sport. the reason i m a republican is those are my values. i think that s resonating with others experiences as well. how many of you voted for trump in 2020? i m scared to say that i voted for trump. but i also voted for obama. the biggest misconception is that latinos are supposed to be democrats. we just won the capital. my first language is spanish. i m definitely not a white supremacist. i had a right to be there and protest. [speaking spanish] he s the best damn president in u.s. history. to believe that the 20 traction election w