joining me now is jeffrey toobin, legal expert and staff writer for the new yorker and author of a newth, the obama white house and the supreme court. jeffrey, thank you very much for being here tonight. >> good to be with you, rev. >> wednesday i know because i'm going to be down there and there's a lot of action that this court is going to hear and decide that could up in voting rights and same-sex marriage. >> and you can see george w. bush's impact on those issues. in 2003, justice o'connor browr, diversity is a legitimate goal and the case you're going to hear, the fisher case out of the university of texas, is a direct challenge to that and a threat to affirmative action in public universities but it could lead essentially to the death of affirmative action and and you covered in this book, and i'm reading it, very good book, that a lot of the behind the scenes back and forth around the affordable health care act when it went before the court and people were stunned, i among them, when john roberts voted and you write in the book and i want to read, this is out of the book, quote

. >> joining me now is jeffrey toobin.the united states senator is the number one reason to vote for them since they confirm these nominations. i just want to show you a moment that just occurred in the massachusetts senate debate tonight between scott brown and elizabeth warren. let's listen to that. >> who's your model supreme court justice? >> let me see here. that's a great question. i think justice scalia is a very good judge. justice kennedy. the i think they're very qualified people there. >> >> miss warren who would be your model supreme court justice. >> i think it would probably be elena kagan. >> jeff toobin, it seemed elizabeth warren got that right the first time. we saw scott brown move from left to right. >> it looked like he was sort of randomly picking names out of the sky. the justices who had absolutely nothing to do with each other elizabeth warren, her boss on the harvard law faculty was dean elena kagan have a long history together. >> and it seemed like scott brown wasn't ready for that answer. he wa

. >> jeffrey toobin, the book is "the oath "and we've just discussed once again the most important reason to vote for president. thanks for joining me tonight. >> sure. >> "the ed show" is up next. >>> good evening, americans, and welcome to "the ed show." two days until the first presidential debate and 36 days until the election. this was the scene at the senate debate in massachusetts minutes ago. >> you're going to comment on my record, i would have you refer to -- excuse me. excuse me. i'm not a student in your classroom. please let me respond. okay? thank you. >> we're going live to boston for full analysis. there's a lot to get to tonight. this is "the ed show." let's get to work. >> up haven't given me the math. >> well, it would take me too long to go through all of the math. >> the republican ticket can't get fox news on board with their vision for america. >> i didn't want to get into all the math of this and everybody would start changing the channel. >> howard fineman from the latest calamity. >>> the romney camp says they plan to win the debate with zingers. >> i would be te

>> jeffrey toobin, the book is "the oh "and we've just discussed once again the most important reason to vote for president. thanks for joining me tonight. >> up next, "hardball" with chris matthews. >>> hide and seek. let's play "hardball." ♪ >>> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start with the many secrets of mitt romney. he wants to be president, he'll tell us that, but why? besides the office that is, besides the honor his father missed, besides the notion of being america's top winner that is. why does he want to be president? to go to war with iran? waging a new war in the middle east while escalating two others? to do it without telling us when or how he's going to end it or, for that matter, those two. to finance a big across the board tax cut but not tell us how. not what big across the board deductions he'll deny people in order to pay for it or even what taxes he's been paying himself over the years. or how he'll finance all those popular things in the president's health care plan once he kills the plan itself. lots of secrets. secrets because he himsel

. >> please join me in thanking jeffrey toobin.[applause] >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> you've been watching booktv, 48 hours of the programming beginning saturday morning at 8 a.m. eastern through monday morning at 8 a.m. eastern. nonfic

cnn's senior legal analyst and an expert on the supreme court, jeffrey toobin, joins me this hour live from san francisco. and jeff, before i tap into your extraordinary wealth of expertise on the supreme court and get your insight, i want to lay some groundwork and let our colleague, joe johns, come in first and tell everyone just more about how this case came to be. >> reporter: abigail fisher dream of going to the university of texas at austin for most of her life. after applying, she didn't get in. attending louisiana state university instead. but the rejection from ut led fisher to file a lawsuit against the school claiming she was squeezed out, unfairly denied admission because of her race. she's white. she said in a statement, "there were people in my class with lower grades who weren't in all the activities i was in who were being accepted into ut, and the only other difference between us was the color of our skin." she declined an interview with cnn. edward blum recruited abigail fisher to file the lawsuit. >> the most important question is should a university judge a student

our senior legal analyst, jeffrey toobin, is joining us. his new book "the oath" is a "new york times" best-seller. would a new supreme court, if romney had an opportunity to nominate one, maybe two justices, would it be a much more conservative one than the current makeup? >> well, it all depends on which justice would leave. the court is very evenly divided now. five republicans, four democrats. but anthony kennedy, one of the five republicans, is on record repeatedly as saying he believes roe versus wade should not be overturned. so if kennedy left, ginsburg, brier, sotomayor or kager, there could be a big change on roe v wade. if a conservative justices is replaced by president romney, there wouldn't be much change in the balance of power. >> assume one of the liberal justices were to retire or leave and a new conservative justice were nominated and confirmed by the united states senate. how would that go about. how do you overturn roe versus wade which 30 years ago gave women the right to have an abortion in the united states? >> well,

>>> we're talking to fran townsend, cnn legal analyst jeffrey toobin, jen psaki, and comedians joe derosakelly, "a man's guide to infidelity: cheat." wonderful. "starting point" begins right n now. roland martin is the host of washington watch with roland martin on tv one. kelly ann conway is with us. and john berman, as always, is with us. the state department giving a detailed account of last month's attack on the u.s. consulate there. the house, the u.s. mission there. the house oversight committee will weigh in on security failings, saying it was not a spontaneous offshoot of protests, saying security personnel in benghazi were out manned and even a reasonable security presence would not have fended off the assault. that's their position. u.s. ambassador chris stevens and three other americans were killed. anwar damon has more for us. >> reporter: all that remained in the u.s. compound in benghazi when cnn arrived on the scene three days after the september 11th attack. eyewitnesses told us it was a complex assault, the compound's first line of defense easily breached. according to on

. >> jeffrey toobin reports on the relationship between the obama administration and the u.s. supreme court. the author examines the recent addition of four justices in the past fife years -- five years and how it has affected the court's decisions on numerous cases including its recent ruling on health care. it's about an hour. [applause] >> thank you, mark. hello, everybody. so excited to be here in philadelphia. you know, i know that's just the usual pandering that goes on by speakers, but in my case it happens to be true. i am not myself from philadelphia, but my dad, jerry toobin, was overbrook high school -- [applause] oh, yeah. the panlderring has just begun, don't worry. [laughter] curtis institute, i don't know if we have any violinists here. and he went to temple as well. [applause] so, you know, and e taught me that -- he taught me that the streets were paved with tasty cake here, and i have enjoyed my visits ever since. [laughter] i would, um, i'm really happy to be talking about the oath today, it only came out two days ago. so far so good. [laughter] and, um, it'

. >> jeffrey toobin reports on the relationship between the obama administration and the u.s. supreme court. the author examines the recent addition of four justices in the past fife years -- five years and how it has affected the court's decisions on numerous cases including its recent ruling on health care. it's about an hour. [applause] >> thank you, mark. hello, everybody. so excited to be here in philadelphia. you know, i know that's just the usual pandering that goes on by speakers, but in my case it happens to be true. i am not myself from philadelphia, but my dad, jerry toobin, was overbrook high school -- [applause] oh, yeah. the panlderring has just begun, don't worry. [laughter] curtis institute, i don't know if we have any violinists here. and he went to temple as well. [applause] so, you know, and e taught me that -- he taught me that the streets were paved with tasty cake here, and i have enjoyed my visits ever since. [laughter] i would, um, i'm really happy to be talking about the oath today, it only came out two days ago. so far so good. [laughter] and, um, it'