there. if you want to write to us, mediabuzz@foxnews.com. >> whether political bias has taken over special counsel robert mueller's investigation. >> not looking good. it's quite sad to see that. >> can you say flatly that congress will pass this tax plan this week? >> historic moment, excited to be here. >> you have to go through tunnels, it's pitch black. it's scary, it's a nightmare. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ heather: good morning, you're watching "fox & friends first". it is monday morning. you made it through the weekend. hopefully you had a great one. i'm heather childers. fox news alert for you. we have a lot of news to get to and beginning with the light goes out at the world's busiest airports. massive power outage brought airport in atlanta to complete standstill. more than one thousand flights both in and out grounded. passengers trapped for hours. >> i literally spent a whole seven hours on the plane without food or water and they finally let us off, they finally let us off and i walk into a darkroom where everyone is sleeping on

the floor. heather: can you imagine that? officials blaming a fire that broke out in underground local facility. already more than 300 flights have been canceled today as we begin one to have busiest travel weeks of the year, much more on all of this and live report from the atlanta airport coming up in next half hour. that impacted airports all over the rest. today kicks off a big week on capitol hill, will be grilled about allegations of bias in the fbi and the doj. this is everyone is asking will president trump fire robert mueller. the latest of the investigation that's changing by the day. >> first up, expected to testify in closed-door hearing before intelligence committee. former society deputy general demoted at the justice department in the wake of revelations about undisclosed

meetings that he had with meetings from fusion gps, allegations about then candidate donald trump or his wife worked at fusion gps specifically on trump-related issues. then tomorrow it's deputy fbi director andrew mccabe, he will appear before house intelligence committees where republicans on the panel are likely to grill him about bruce ohr, apparent reference of conversation in in mccabe's office, president trump was asked about rumor ifs he will fire special counsel robert mueller. >> no, i'm not. no. slew of trump transition emails as part of the probe that trump

lawyers said were obtained illegally. >> not looking good. it's quite sad to see that. my people were very upset about it. there's no collusion whatsoever, but a lot of lawyers thought that was pretty sad. >> mueller's team defended possession of the e-mails say they were legally obtained in the course of ongoing criminal investigation, heather. heather: all right, todd, much more to come on this. the white house shooting down those rumors, you heard president trump saying it's not true that they're getting ready to fire special counsel mueller. there needs to be an investigation into bias within mueller's team but explain why firing mueller would be a critical mistake. >> they are stupid and embarrassing, they are not necessarily sinister. we need to hear what he meant by that. i also think there's enough now to be worried about this

investigation. i think bob mueller for his own good should dismiss andrew wiseman, top deputy, antitrump e-mail and jeff sessions should bring in an outside district attorney who has independence to look into the entirety of how doj and the fbi handled 2016 and to get to the bottom of it. but if donald trump takes from all this a permission slip to fire bob mueller it'll be catastrophic mistake and the irony, as far as we know mueller is not turning up evidence of collusion. if trump could sit tight, mueller will vindicate at the end of the day. heather: and former attorney general for the obama administration eric holder called for americans to hold peaceful mass protests if president trump does fire special counsel robert mueller calling it a, quote, salute red line. although the president said is not true, he's not going to do

it. debbie wasserman schultz in the meantime also said to face tough questions on capitol hill today. will be interviewed by the house intelligence committee as part of its probe into russian interference and the 2016 election. debbie wasserman schultz resigned as dnc chair last july aflaced e-mails revealed party officials were favoring hillary clinton. she's also denied knowing about arraignment of dnc to help fund the antitrump dossier. the worldwide effort to nullify president trump's historic jerusalem decision is intensifying today. at united nations security council expect today vet on measure from egypt that would void declaration of ancient city of israel's capital but the united states is expected to veto. if that happens will go to assembly.

likely at top of his objectives, rebuilding military. good morning, kelly. kelly: heather, good morning to you as well. embargo on president trump's speech until 5:00 a.m. when he gets involved in national security issue, he's expected to discuss terrorism, economic from china and strengthen u.s. military. president trump gave a preview of what he is likely going to speak about in matters of national security, one major concern he had was he focused on the military, the commander in chief is urging congress to provide funding to bolster readiness. >> now it's critical for congress to pass the clean

government appropriation's bill that fully funds military needs. we must not play politics with our troops. we should pass clean funding bill and leave the politics aside. we must protect our nation. kelly: another concern the president will likely address, chain immigration. the last attempted terror attack that took place in new york was carried out by a man who immigrated here from bangladesh because his family won a visa lottery and the president wants to change that system fast. >> it is time to create a merit-based immigration system that makes sense for a modern economy, selecting new arrivals baited on their ability to support themselves financially and to make positive contributions to u.s. society. kelly: another concern is china. the president and some members of congress believe china is a threat to america ayes economic

competitiveness which ultimately affects national security. >> chinese investments in the u.s. since 2010 have gone from around 4 and a half billion dollars to $46 billion last year and they're targeting our military-security-related technology. kelly: i will have more specifics on the president's speech on national security. heather: we will talk more about that as well coming up in the next segment. thank you. nearly two dozen nfl players protesting during national anthem in week 15 of the nfl, disrespectful demonstrations comes as hill reports that viewership is down 9% across networks and major confusion on the field with pittsburgh steelers, big ben throwing for late-go ahead touchdown and it's ruled incomplete. steelers offense giving another try, patriots winning 27-24. rob o'neil helping rally the

minnesota vikings. the man who killed osama bin laden leading the skull chant before the win over the cincinnati bingals and carolina panthers apparently up for sale. congressman firing back as hollywood liberals spent big bucks to oust the republican representative. >> when they put a hundred thousand dollars to defeat you, i have so little respect after she betrayed the country. >> president trump expected to get tough on china during his big national security speech today. rebecca says that this will be the clearest picture yet of what the president means by america first. she's live up next. >> i want her to know that this is the best christmas present i ever had. heather: and world war ii

veteran brought to tears by kindness of customer at grocery store. ♪ ♪

heather: america first. president trump set to unveil a new national security strategy today, in it, he's expected to take a hard line with china. so is this the right move amid growing tensions with north korea? here now the weigh in is senior fellow with the hudson institute rebecca, rebecca, always great to have you on the show. >> good morning, heather. heather: do you think this is a wise move? >> yeah, it's long overdue. everybody who works in national security arena understands that national security is more than just military, it has to do with economies, has to do with trade deals and united states continues to be outmaneuvered by

china in matter of trade and economics but continue to steal intellectual property which has effect on economies and american jobs and so finally the trump administration is going to hit this head on. one of the things for american leadership that we have been lacking is clearly identifying the threats and national security strategy is going to outline threats accurately. heather: using the word threat, is it wise to define china not just as competitor but also threat, as an aggressor. >> it is wise to name names and to be clear about what the united states sees as short, medium and long-term threats. but you identified, you know, one of the things that's going to be very tricky, dilemma, we do need china's help on pressuring north korea and that is the primary, most immediate

threat that the united states has, but, you know, this has been a long time coming, long overdue. we have to be able to address threats from china. heather: a couple of articles that came out in advance of what is expected in his speech, along with china it talks about russia, russia influence of operations, space. >> that's exactly right. space has become the next domain. the united states is most vulnerable in space, that's where we have the most sensitive national security satellite that the united states depend on and as the united states relies on space more, then you see countries like russia and china looking to exploit those vulnerabilities and target them and that makes the united states really at risk and it's going to address that issue, of course, head on as well which is long overdue. heather: i know that you had mentioned in your note that is the speech will set out to identify america's achievable goals, what would those be? achievable?

>> principled realism is what h.r. mcthat'ser calls it. we are getting out of the business of nation building, meddle in other people's countries where there isn't an interest for americans. it doesn't identify global warming or climate change like it has -- did in the previous administration because all of those efforts came at the expense of american workers with no clear tangible benefits, so it's going to focus on the threat that is we know that are known that really harm the united states and it's going to attack those really head on and try to address them. again, the united states seated american leadership and american advantage in so many areas of the last eight years during the barack obama administration, and so the trump administration is going not going to fix it in one year or two years or even one term but regain america's strategic footing. heather: right, as a result of that people not being used to it, rebecca, thank you so much

for joining us this morning. >> thanks, heather. heather: appreciate it. the time is now 17 minutes after the top of the hour. the second time in a week, president trump and vladimir putin on the phone, the reason, the russian president felt the need to reach out again and just one week until christmas, still need a gift, but do you have a tight budget? the best gifts for under 100 bucks up next. ♪

heather: a historic week starting today on capitol hill as republicans unit behind their tax reform bill to deliver it to the american people hopefully in time for christmas. at least that's what they want. griff jenkins live in washington, d.c. so griff, where does the bill

stand right now? is this possible? >> well, yeah, heather, look, critics said this couldn't be done, not going to happen but the president appears poise to prove them wrong bypassing tax reform and it's just days away. this as republican leaders say they are confident that they have enough news despite the news that senator mccain will miss vote, the president said he spoke with mrs. mccain, if needed, senator mccain would return. >> i did speak to senator mccain, i wished john well, they've headed back but i understand he'll come in we ever needed his vote hopefully we won't. >> meanwhile treasury secretary steve mnuchin took sunday shows this will benefit the middle class. >> you see stock market at record highs, you see 401(k)'s

go up. they will get more money in their pockets, this will be the largest change in fixing a broken tax system that we've ever had. >> heather, they'll have to do it without democrats, none of them on board and many feel like senator sanders that it's just a tax cut for the wealthy. >> at the end the day, you have mr. mnuchin who is worth 300-$400 million and the president of the united states is worth several billion dollars, what we are seeing here is a massive attack on the middle class. >> here is where we are and this is always possible the nation but the senate could vote as early as tomorrow. the house later this week and the goal is to get this on president trump's desk by friday. there were a few concerns, senators like corker and rubio but it appears that is a done deal and we could have this this week. heather: the question is if they don't get it done, do they have to stay until they do?

i have a feeling the answer is no. i don't know. >> we will find out. heather: all right, thank you so much, griff, thanks. speaking of time, just one week until christmas, whether it's your mom, sister, your wife, dad, brother, whoever, we have the best gifts under $100 for the special lady in your life right now. here is the author it have book get it and tv live style correspondent janay. for everyone who has waited till the last minute -- >> don't we all? heather: good deals still to be had? >> absolutely. for the woman who has everything. i live in my leggings. skinny miracle skin wear, they moisturize you. you turn them inside out, you spray them like this and renewed they are 199.99 in cvs.

[laughter] heather: somebody create that, please. >> speaking of socks, who doesn't love socks, you don't have to worry about them fitting. this is a subscription service for socks starting at $11 a month, fun prints, quality sox and this is sock fancy.com. heather: that's a great idea. you get new ones every month? >> assortment of socks that comes in a box like this. heather: who doesn't like mickey mouse? >> i really love keels. 100% goes to feeding america. it'll make more than a million meals which is fabulous. smells great, feels great, under 40%. aroma therapy. defuse oil up to four hours under $20 at wal-mart. heather: very earthy, the ball

there. >> for expecting parent, this is a great gift, genetics are huge right now. the baby glimpse kid. the baby glimpse kid and you spit in the tube there with your partner and send it off and it tells you whether your future child might have blue eyes or your husband's spunky personality. heather: that's interesting. >> really neat, right? also for expecting parent, as you can see assortment of animals, they look like stuffed animals. my baby heart beat bear and they have a 20-second recorder and take it to ultrasound and records baby's heart beat and record it forever. heather: i love that. >> we have the fox here set up. heather: that's wonderful and also for the baby and the baby is born. >> who doesn't love boots?

what's fabulous beside it is great styles for women and kid they are all under 100. heather: that's what makes them different? >> same kind of quality style, made by ugg. everybody lives in these. heather: this ran the gamut. the time is now 30 minutes after the top of the hour and two key players set to testify on capitol hill amid bias claims in mueller probe. some say the scandal could be worse than watergate, what do you think? our political panel to talk about that. liberal california to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour, why

the move would put jobs in jeopardy?

>> not looking good. not looking good. it's quite sad to see that, my people were upset about it. i can't imagine that there's on it frankly because as we said there's no collusion, there's no collusion whatsoever. heather: president trump slamming the mueller probe as top officials head to capitol hill to be grilled by lawmakers on potential bias within the probe. many now saying that this could be, quote, worst than watergate. so the investigation slanted against trump, president trump, i should say. thank you both for joining us this morning. so joe, i will start with you, what's your take on this? >> the testimony and allegations really play in the heart of

whether this whole investigation is legitimate or not. if we just take peter's words, his own words and own text messages it was seen that there were people involved with hillary clinton and donald trump investigations who were hoping to shape the outcome of the presidential election. some people want to compare to watergate, this sounds like more novel, people at the highest levels at the fbi trying to influence domestic policies and elections. heather: kathy, you disagree, agent struck and page was to cover affair that they were having? >> right, seems quite possible. with mueller in charge i fully trust the investigation. i interviewed him when i was with the washington post, this guy is from what i can tell you unbias and by the book and let the people go. if anything he saw that there was a problem and fixed it just like that.

heather: what about all of the people that he has brought on board with him and the majority, if not every single one of them have been democratic donors, why do that? >> mueller is not democrat, he worked for president bush. heather: the people that he's brought in. >> he shows you how quickly he takes care of the situation. he took care of that. heather: in terms of people that he brought people to help? >> this is an all-star team that don't like donald trump and really like hillary clinton. if we look back, the fbi and doj are telling us that they followed protocols gathering transition emails, all the people have to do is turn on news and see classified information, the stuff that they're not supposed to be talking about every day on the pages of new york times, washington post, cnn. if we can't take their words of protocols of releing information, how can we take their word that they are getting

information accurately. heather: bruce ohr will be speaking and andrew mccabe that will be speaking the next day and we know that he was part of this text message that happened that references an insurance policy if president trump is and in fact, elected. >> that's the ugliest text we have seen so far. heather: there's pretty ugly ones. >> we are not quite sure. yes, there needs to be some kind of explanation but we will hear from but i don't think we should take away the integrity of the investigation against trump, a lot of people think it's smoke and take away from what's going on and what's going on is investigation against trump with the collusion with russia.

heather: we know for a fact the number of donation that is were made to democratic parties from the people who have been named by -- to participate in this investigation by mueller and we also have the text messages. >> from the beginning everyone was afraid and we can't question mueller, we can't question integrity. >> if you were picking a people of try the case you wouldn't pick peter because of what he said. the real interesting thing is how media has covered this. for a year, every time there's been a fact leaked out, the media promised that indictment was around the corner and now that we see the actual investigators being under the microscope, we hear nothing from the other networks, nothing out of the washington post and new york times. heather: president trump come out yesterday said that's not true. >> it would be a bad move. heather: thank you both for

joining us. i appreciate your incite. >> thank you. heather: two terrorist suicide bombers storm a packed christian church in pakistan. take a look at this. two men climbing the gate armed with rifles and wearing explosive vests, nine people were killed. more than 50 hurt when one detonated inside. a quick-thinking security guard shotgunmen outside where people were attending prechristmas service. isis has claimed responsibility. vladimir putin praising president trump with providing intel that prevented terror attacks, the russian president calling commander in chief after the cia tipped russian officials about a series of planned attacks there leading to multiple arrests. the white house saying that president trump appreciated the calls and was pleased to help, adding, quote leaders agree that this serves as an example of the positive things that can occur when our countries work together. second time the leaders have spoken by phone since thursday.

fox news alert, chaos in atlanta, the lights finally back on after blackout crippled the world's busiest airports, we are there live as air traffic controllers try to get back in running. our next guest says that daca program is open invitation to massive fraud..

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what's for dinner? meat loaf. campho-phenique on, cold sore pain gone. heather: power back on at the world's busiest airport right now after massive outage. look at the lines there. brought flights to a standstill stranding thousands of passengers, mark from fox affiliate in atlanta live in

international airport with the latest. mark, i would imagine it'll take a while to get things back to normal. >> that's right, heather, they are saying that they hope to have things back to normal by the afternoon. what you can see these are all people who are wait to go get rebooked, now, this is just one five or six lines that all like this and the line doesn't look necessarily all that long but moving at a snail's pace because of the power outage when a fire broke out, power out for 10-11 hours. caused hundreds of flights to be canceled. delta 900, 300 more today. people are trying to stay as positive as they can. as you can imagine, it's been pretty difficult for some. that's the latest from

hartsfield jackson international airport. heather: of course, impacted all over the country. thank you. the numbers are staggering, speaking of staggering, according to the cbo legalizing 2 million illegal immigrant dreamers will cost the government $26 billion over the next decade, michael cutler is a retired senior special agent with the immigration and naturalization service, he joins us now to break it all down for us. that's a big number when you're talking about 26 billion over the next decade. >> it's a huge price and we are talking about chain migration, we are talking about people who came into the country illegally and they say they came as kids, we don't know that. the anal cut ah was 31 back in 2012 and now the folks can be in mid 30's, no interviews, no field investigations, how do you verify where they are and we have seen members of ms13 among

them and if they get citizenship, they could bring in all of the brothers and sisters and their extended families. i have seen one person bring in 30 or 40 immigrants. why would you do this? heather: we have seen the problems that that's created not just economically and we take a look at the numbers just to bring them up for people, $26 billion, that's how much they'll cost over the next decade, 11 and 12 million estimated illegal immigrants and 2.5 estimated that qualify for the dream act. how do you get this under control? >> well, you get it under control by not allowing. if you dare use the word alien you're accused of all sorts of things when the the term alien is part of dream act. the problem is the word provides clarity to the debate. that's something that the open borders anarchists are trying to

avoid and really having discussion of impact of immigration, legal and illegal. look at the terrorist attacks, if you look at 9/11, i provided testimony to the 9/11 commission, first and foremost, multiple failures of the immigration system. immigration fraud, huge problem. a population of millions of people who entered, they didn't entered undocumented. how do you know who they are and when they got here? leat health we don't know who they are and how they got here, the problem extended years and years, how do you correct it quickly? >> deterrence by enforcement and being attacked by both parties. this is a right-wrong issues. global agenda, this is the first president who is a populist

that's compared, we finally have a president and attorney general who understand that america's first and last line of defense are borders and it's not just the mexican border, we have admitted terrorists through international airports, 95,000-miles of coastline but the bottom line is once you get past the border one way or the other up until now, there have been no consequences. this president seems to want to change the dynamic. heather: it's important what you mentioned there in passing both sides of the i'll have benefited. >> absolute my -- absolutely. i certainly agree with you there. heather: thanks so much. time now is about 15 minutes until the top of the hour, tsa stepping up security after tempted attack in port security, spot bombers that could be in

subway stations all across the country. thriple threat, young, smart, beautiful, first lady melania trump's popularity soaring. we are asking the first lady's man why? s i have to ship out. shipstation streamlined that wh the order data, the weights of , everything is seamlessly put into shipstation, so when we print the shipping ll everything's pretty much done. it's so much easier so now, we're ready, bring on t. shipstation. the number one ch of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/tv and get two months free.

heather: welcome back. "fox & friends first", tsa testing a new device that could scan and detect suicide vests being worn in big crowds. tracee carrasco from sister network fox business here with what we need to know. good morning, tracee, this sounds like a good idea. tracee: yes, heather it is, right now in los angeles, washington, d.c., even in transit station in new jersey and as you've said, this does have the ability to detect sent

out by people and if they maybe blocked by any sort of explosive vests or anything that could be covering those emissions. so it can test large crowds and people can -- those people that may have something dangerous on them, they will be pulled out and scriened separately. one interesting note here, it isn't being tested out in new york city. senator chuck schumer is calling on tsa to implement this type of testing in new york city specially after what we saw with the attempted port authority bombing. heather: anything that we can do to people safer. star wars, on a different note, they opened this weekend, how did it go? >> out of this galaxy as we expected. $220 million, $450 million globally. now this was the second biggest opening weekend, just about ever right behind number one star

wars force awakens that came out in 2014. you can see avengers movies, age of ul tron. a lot of money. heather: thank you so much. have a great day. tracee: you too. heather: let's talk more about celebrities. despite negative press and celebrities taking aim at first lady. her favorability rate climbing by double digits reaching 54% since january. so why is she so popular? author of unusual for their time on the road with america's first ladies volume one and two and he joins me now to talk a little bit more about it. thank you so much for joining us, appreciate it. >> good to be here with you. heather: so america and the world seems to have fallen in love with the first lady melania trump. what do you attribute that to? >> well, i think the simple explanation is the more we see of her, the more we like her.

keep in mind, she's kind of a late bloomer as first ladies go in that she did not move to dc immediately and was going to wait till barron finished school. she came to dc and got very involved in her husband's administration and the more we see her the more we like her. heather: from the very beginning when she decided to stay behind and let barron finish school that people thought, hey, she's being a mom first, that's a great idea but immediately the critics of why she wasn't moving, the theories on why she wasn't moving and all of that began and it really hasn't stopped in terms of the mainstream media? >> well, you know, absolutely. i think the first people that stepped up and heard detractors that she was lying, that she wasn't going to move to dc, they didn't give her credit when she followed through and said what she was going to do and historically we can look back at the kennedys, the garfields, the

roosevelts, the first lady that is were mothers first and protected their families, in modern times the clintons, the bushes, the carters, it's a difficult thing to do. you to respect melania for putting motherhood first. heather: some of the latest controversy was how she decorated the white house for christmas and we can take a look at some of those headlines as you talk about it, for a lot of people this was the last straw. >> i think it was, you know, i saw a definite turning point. people on both sides of the aisle, why don't we leave christmas out of this. no senator what the politics are, we don't have to destroy the first lady for her decorations which were in my opinion just as beautiful as predecessor, the vogue magazine article was disturbing in that you look back at michelle obama's last decorations where they celebrated for pages and pages and what they did for

melania two pages of just horrible memes and stuff. people are just tired of the bad element. heather: a lot of media showing their bias very clearly speaking of bias since we are talking about that word lately, speaks five languages, the second foreign-born first lady that we've had. she has a lot accomplished. thank you so much, andy, we appreciate it r. >> thanks very if me. heather: world war ii veteran nearly brought to tears by the kindness of a stranger at a grocery store. >> i wanted to know that this is the best christmas present i ever had. heather: his mission to pay it forward? ♪ ♪

heather: welcome back, republican congressman darrell iza is firing back at jane fonda after she donated $100,000 to unseat him. >> i have so little respect for her after she betrayed our country all those years ago and literally caused prisoners of war to be further punished. if that's the best way they can do to come up with somebody to be jailed instead of celebrities

well, california may want to think twice before letting its minimum wage reach $15. new study show it is move will likely result in the loss of about 400,000 private sector jobs. those include housing, food service and retail. jerry brown signing the bill last year which would bring minimum wages up to $15 by 2022. and finally a world war ii veteran is searching for a woman that she says gave her the best christmas ever. he was waiting in line at a florida grocery store when a woman approached him thanking him for his service. well, she then slipped $50 into his hands wishing him a merry christmas. >> lady, you made a mistake, that's too much money. i want her to know that this is the best christmas i ever had.

heather: 93-year-old and his family are looking for the woman to thank her. the veteran donated the cash, that's the reason for the season, right? "fox & friends first" continues right now. ly see you back here tomorrow. have a great day, bye. >> you're expect to go check into a flight and you find out that it's canceled, a lot of plans that are ruined. rob: monday december 18th, fox news alert. chaos in atlanta, georgia, crippling blackout at the world's busiest airport causing a holiday travel nightmare, thousands of people stranded for 11 hours in the dark. the scramble this morning to get things back on track. >> no i'm not, no. >> president trump setting the record straight. rob: putting america first, commander in chief unveiling a new security