general in history his body and his discovery and stream on max cnn, way to good morning. you relied with the cnn newsroom. i'm jim acosta in washington. we begin with breaking news right now for president donald trump is meeting with congressional republicans up on capitol hill, marking a truly stunning comeback in american politics moments ago, the for president arrived at the capitol hill club in washington, right? bye the capital today, he will be trailed by a mobile billboard from the dnc playing this 11 minute video on loop of the january 6 attack. >> today's visit is apparently the first time trump has stepped foot on the hill since sending a mob of his supporters to fight like hell is he said it on january 6. >> here's how republican lawmakers reacted in the immediate aftermath of that assault on democracy. take a look the president bears responsibility for wednesday's at rioters. he should have nt me o enough is enough how times have changed three years later, the vast majority of republicans have now endorsed this. >> now convicted felon today, there are welcoming back to washington with open arms, despite the fact that he put their lives in jeopardy when he refused to call off the mob as a supporters storm the capitol hunted for lawmakers and erected gallows. if you think that political violence is all in the past record, recall just yesterday as we reported on this program, has campaign called to quote, haul out the good gene in a fundraising emails, cnn's kristen holmes and lauren fox or standby up on capitol hill kristen, tell us more about this meeting. what's going on yeah. >> jim, i didn't it's significant for the number of reasons that you laid out, but i will remind you that despite the fact that these lawmaker said that after january 6, they have long come around to donald trump, or at least most of them, the republican party really rallying around their nominee, decide what happened on january 6. this is significant so again, for a number of reasons because this is really the first time he has met with a group, a big group of lawmakers like this since he became the presumptive nominee, and also since he became a convicted felon, when talking to trump's team, they really want this to be about, quote, unquote unity, getting the party in line behind donald trump and really getting the messaging in sync before what is expected to be several very contentious month ahead of november. now, the way the donald trump's team waited out to us was that he was going to present his plan to beat joe biden in november, as well as talk about a potential 2025 agenda gives lawmakers an idea of how they could help him really lee lay the table ahead of the november election if donald trump is in case to win, but i know lauren, we'll talk about this more instead, at least the first meeting which is just with house republicans, seems to have devolved somewhat into a chaotic pep rally. are hill reporters, it's kind of really giving us a line by line of what's coming out of it. they're not so much agenda, but a lot of back-and-forth from donald trump. >> yeah, we're getting some pretty interesting tidbits. lauren fox, what, what can you tell us about that? anything you can share? >> yeah. i mean, i am standing right outside where donald trump is speaking right now. and as christine laid out when he walked into this meeting with his republican colleagues, are cnn colleagues are getting details about what's happening in the room. they saying happy birthday to the former president, his birthday coming up just right around the corner they also gave him a baseball to celebrate him coming into the room after the congressional baseball game yesterday. it's also clear that donald trump isn't staying on message and many members that i talked to you before this meeting predicted that that would be the case. he's kind of all over the map. he brought up the fact that he really wants to pass a no tax on tips bill. that is something that he's been touting on the campaign trail, something that he brought up inside the room just a few minutes ago. he's also really laying out some of his frustration with his enemies, including the justice department, including republican strategists. he doesn't like that is all part of what going on in this meeting today. so it just gives you a sense of what's happening, jim. yeah. >> lauren, thank you so much. i hate to jump in there. i hate to do that. i want to go to paula reid, who's in the bureau here with apparently we have some breaking news out of the supreme court. let's bring in our chief legal affairs correspondent, paula reid. paula, what can you tell us yeah. >> it looked jim, this is one of the most significant cases that the supreme court was considering this term. it has to do with mifepristone, one of two drugs used in chemical abortion. and here are the supreme court has decided to just toss the case entirely, arguing that the group that brought this case that was challenging broader access to mifepristone. did not have what is called standing, which is it's the right to bring this lawsuit. so this was considered one of the biggest cases that the justices were reviewing this term potentially for the impact that any decision that would have restricted access to this drug could have had, obviously on people cross the country, but also potentially on the election. but here are the justices. they have decided that the group that brought it do not have the right to do so. so they have tossed it entirely the question they were looking at here is whether the fda, fda overstepped its authority and approving a broader access to mifepristone, as i said mifepristone is one of two drugs used in chemical abortion, which is the most widely used form of abortion in the the united states. there are two drugs, mifepristone and the mifepristone that are prescribed often to implement a chemical abortion. so this was obviously a hot-button issue, something that could have enormous consequences. but here, the supreme court has decided to toss the case entirely, saying that the group that brought it just didn't have standing. so we're waiting there are other opinions this morning. we're watching and waiting to see what those are, jim. >> yeah. paula said, let's just let's tell our viewers about this one more time. it sounds as though what you're saying is that women who use mifepristone are or want to have medication. abortion can continue to do that. >> that is essentially what the supreme court has done today. >> that will continue to take place. and this is a defeat to anti-abortion forces who had hoped that perhaps the supreme court would knock out mifepristone two well, do i want to clarify the supreme court has not really ruled one way or another on mifepristone, but on this particular child they have said that they're just tossing the case. they are not going to rule one way or another on the fda's authority generally, or on this drug, or they're saying, look, the group that brought this case and they don't have standing, so they are tossing this case are guilty sidestepping the issue for now, but i would fully expect that a similar challenge could come back to the court in a different form, potentially with someone who does have standing and then they may or may not opt to weigh in on the bigger question of broader, more easy access to mifepristone all right. >> probably, yes. thank you for that. and i wanna go to meg tirrell. she's also with me now. meg put this in perspective for us. this is an important ruling that we're getting from the supreme court today. hey, this rejection of this challenge, this is an incredibly important ruling because medication abortion is the most common way that people in the united states access abortion now at accounted for 63% of abortions in the most recent years worth of data from the guttmacher institute, there were more than 1 million abortions in 2023. so that's more than 600,000 people who access abortion and using these medications as paula said, though, yeah, we've heard from a lot of folks in this space who are watching this case very closely that it's not the end of this question we are expecting potentially to see these questions come back. the fact that this is tossed out on standing this is not going to be the end of the road for the questions around access to mifepristone but certainly there were concerns that a ruling against the fda in this case would rollback access to mifepristone to make it more difficult to get, especially through telemedicine, which has become an increasingly common way that people access medication abortion in the united states is more and more restrictions are put into place in different states. there were also threats to the pharmaceutical industry into the fda's purview. those aren't necessarily going away if this case does come back and then his her differently on the merits. but there were major concerns that overturning and fda judgment through the courts would threaten the way fda regulates medicines with threaten the pharmaceutical industries bloody to depend on the fda as the key regulator of medicines, gym all right, make sure we're all very significant development coming out of the supreme court. >> i want to bring in gloria borger, who's with me here in the studio. glory. i mean, this, this is a major development. i mean, obviously if the supreme court had had done something to take away access to mifepristone. this would have just sent shock waves right around the country no more than half of the women terminating pregnancies in this country right now, use this pill yeah. and so that would have had a huge effect. also, the people who petitioned the court wanted a prescription for this drug to have to be done in person as mega was saying person to dr. rather than get just getting it at your pharmacy, are doing it virtually. and that would be the case. and so, you know, as paula was saying, they didn't decide the case, they decided that people who brought the case didn't have standing butt to bring the case, but it has the same impact, which is that the mifepristone can still be used in the way that it's been used for decades, and it has been deemed to be perfectly safe. and will continue to be used by more than half the women in this country who are seeking a way to have an abortion fascinating and we have other folks who are standing by to weigh in on this. >> i want to go to doctor reiner you're with us as well. dr. reiner, you're your reaction all this well i think obviously the supreme court made made made the right decision these they're really two drugs that are used in combination for a medical abortion. mrf, pristine, and misoprostol when when used together a very effective and very safe for the termination of a pregnancy and the fda has approved the use of this combination of drugs for patients with people with a pregnancies less than less than ten weeks of gestation as meg has said, it's really become the predominant means of terminating a pregnancy in the united states. and what the supreme court action today, we'll help women all over the country, including in states that have severely limited abortion, to get this kind of health care yeah. le elie honig is with us as well. elie this would have just been a huge decision if mifepristone were somehow just taken off the market here as a result of a supreme court decision that is not happening. it's going to remain on the market now correct. >> gem. so the bottom-line practical takeaway is access to mifepristone remains unchanged. the status quo remains in place. what the plaintiffs were trying to do here was rollback a series of expansions and access to mifepristone that were passed in 2016, and then 2021 and the supreme court has left the status quo placed the basis for that ruling. and i should note, jim, this is actually a unanimous ruling. it was written by justice kavanaugh. there's one concurring opinion, but all nine justices agreed that the plaintiffs, that people who were suing here to try to roll back access to mifepristone, did not have what we call standing and the basic way to explain standing is do you have a dog in this fight? what's it to you? the plane? do you have some actual injury the group that brought this lawsuit was a group of doctors, medical practitioners, who objected to mifepristone. however, they have the right under law, various law who declined to prescribe mifepristone. so they tried to argue well, but we might have to treat women who use mifepristone and then have secondary complications. and the spring of course, that's not enough. that's not a direct enough injury. therefore, you don't have standing, therefore, you lose 90. >> yeah. i mean, i'll just read from what justice kavanaugh wrote as you said, a unanimous opinion. we recognize that many citizens, including the plaintiff, doctors here have sincere concerns about an objections to others using mifepristone in obtaining abortions. but citizens and doctors do not have standing to sue simply because others are allowed to engage in certain activities. i mean, i think elie that's what your point wasn't dr. part. now, you're with us as well you're reaction to the practical impact of all this? >> means that reproductive justice has prevailed. health equity has propelled access to care has prevailed, and what do i mean by that? what we know is that the majority of patients who need abortion care are receiving care via this prescription pill. but what's more important? saying that you don't need to be in-person. you can get this prescription via telehealth or telemedicine. nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and even midwives can prescribe the position to those who are in need of the care. and that's fundamentally important because we know and believe that health and health care is a human and civil rights shut the supreme court has ruled that a fda ruling backed by science wasn't legitimate could have been catastrophic a maxwell let me go back to you because i mean, one of the questions that i have, all of this is obviously there are lots of states now where you can't obtain an abortion legally that that procedure at a clinic can you receive this pill and the male can you have it mailed to you? >> what's the how does it? how does it work when it comes to that well, you can, but it's not legal in those states. >> abortion restrictions in those states applied to any method of accessing abortion that doesn't mean that it's impossible. there are services that will send pills through the mail. services based outside of the united states, over time, there have been challenges to those services they do exist but this sort of effected abortion across the united states. abortion access through access through telemedicine. and as we've heard, that has become an increasingly important way people access abortion regardless of where you live. so it was not legal. it is currently not legal in states where there are abortion bans to access medication through the mail. there has been a lot of discussion of an act called comstock, which is a very old law, but prohibits the shipment of things used for abortion through the mail. and i think there were a lot of questions about whether that would come up here because there are questions about whether that could be used at some point in the future to restrict access to abortion in particularly abortion through telemedicine, through using medication, abortion. so we'll have to see, does that sort of come back into the conversation and where does that go? going forward, but no, this was not currently legal in states with abortion bans yeah, mega is such important context. thank you so much for the glory. i didn't want to go back to you on political dimension and all of this. can you imagine what the political impact would have been in the heat of those presidential campaign, had the supreme court tossed mifepristone overboard well, it would have been cataclysmic. i mean, the democrats obviously the issue there, campaigning the most on is the dobbs decision. and the throwing out of the right to abortion this which is used as we were talking about by more than half the women who want to terminate pregnancies in this country. if this were thrown out the democrats would obviously use it. but what would women across the country do? would they be forced to flee the country? what would, what would the ramifications of this phi, i think that's something that supreme court was obviously considering, but but it seems to me that this may not be the end of it because the court it according to what you just got here from cabinet, right. the court said it is not clear that no one else what have the standing to challenge the fda's relaxed regulation of mifepristone. what they are, what they're saying is okay, you folks didn't have the standing because you can't prove that you personally were damaged by the use of mifepristone. but in the future yeah, i think the door the door was left open a little bit now, i'm not i'm not a legal expert here, so you've got to ask her legal experts. yeah. but that didn't seem slam shut to me. yeah. le let me go back to you on this. does this is justice kavanaugh sending some instructions to future plaintiffs here, to some extent well, glory is exactly right. this does not mean that the legal dispute over mifepristone is over. it means it's failed for now because this particular group of plaintiffs did not have legal standing. however, as gloria correctly notes, and it's in the opinion, if there is somebody who can establish standing and justice cabinet, actually it does not say who that might be. >> but if there's somebody who does have proper legal standing, they can try to revive this challenge. now, that would take a long time, probably years to work its way through the federal courts back up to the supreme court. but yeah, it's very important aspect of this opinion. the supreme court does not actually reach or address the underlying question, which is did the fda properly approved? and then explain? expand access to mifepristone. they don't even get there. they just say the people who brought this to the wrong people to bring this, you're the wrong plaintiff's case dismissed 90, so it could come back, but that will take a long time and we don't know how the supreme court would rule in that instance. >> and dr. pinel, doctor reiner, let me ask you about this because i mean, obviously with the way things stand with abortion in this country right now, meg tirrell was talking about this a few moments ago. it is very difficult for women and a whole states to obtain this procedure. now, i was looking at there's a new york times the animation this morning showing how and much more women are traveling out of their states to other states in order to have this procedure performed. and so obviously, this is going to a provider tremendous sigh of relief to a lot of women across this country that they can at least still rely on mifepristone on abortion medication. doctor pronoun what do you think? >> and rightly, so we have recent data that over 56% of black women in the united states live in a state where there is a total or near-total ban on abortion care. so this type of ruling could disproportionately impact the african american and black community. >> we he know that within that 56%, 33 states are where most of the black women live. florida, georgia, in texas. so any opportunity to continue to assert reproductive freedom reproductive justice is not only in the best interests of black and african american women, but in the best interests of all of those identity fine, as women and birthing people. this should remain a medical decision between a patient and their doctor doctor, i wanna get your take on those two, but i'm told that i need to go back to paul or rabia as paula apparently has some new information ab