25% indoor dining. >> bill: can't wait to get out there, right? you had a report, carley had a report over the weekend. >> dana: it's safe. tip the waitresses big time. martha maccallum is in for harris. >> great to see you this morning. republicans and finally some democrats are now calling for action against new york governor andrew cuomo. they want answers on this growing firestorm over the covid-19 nursing home deaths and apparent cover-up of the real data of just how bad those numbers looked. this is "the faulkner focus" i'm martha maccallum in for harris today. we're waiting to hear from the governor himself days after his top aide admitted that his administration withheld data from the feds on just how many people who had been put back into those nursing homes died from covid based on the circumstances and how the

situation was handled. so now you've got a growing number of lawmakers that want to see an investigation. there is new questions also about a potential conflict of interest here. now you have 14 state democrats who have joined a republican-led effort to revoke governor cuomo's emergency powers. watch this. >> it's very clear number one, that the legislature needs to return this week and revoke the governor's emergency executive powers that they granted him last march. we need to rein in this governor and return as a co-equal branch of government. what we've seen here is an administration that secretly behind closed doors admitted that they did, in fact, cover up the true number of deaths. >> stefanik calling for prosecutions in this case.

we go to bryan llenas live with our top story. hi, bryan. >> good morning. that's right. democrats, members of new york governor andrew cuomo's own party are calling for accountability after his aide, top aide told top state democrats last week that the administration withheld critical covid-19 death toll data because they feared politically it would be politically damaging and used as fodder by the trump administration and the department of justice that was at the time investigating the state and the handling of the covid-19 crisis in the state's nursing homes. we just spoke to democratic assemblyman kim in nofrjt he was in the meeting when the admission was made. there is a majority consensus among state democrats to launch an investigation into cuomo and him to be stripped of his pandemic emergency powers.

he believes that withholding this data cost lives because it kept policymakers and the public from knowing the true extent of the nursing home crisis. >> they lied about life and death information. forget politics. forget democrat or republican. who lies about life and death? the entirety of the data was disclosed and we knew the entire truth we would have stipd away his powers and made sure we put safe staffing in nursing homes. >> new york democratic congressman delgato tweeted politics should never come before people's lives. the secretary to the governor's remarks are beyond troubling and warns a full investigation. it took 10 months, a lawsuit, freedom of information request, multiple of them and attorney general investigation here in new york for the cuomo administration to finally reveal the true death toll, 15,000 residents who died of

covid-19 in long-term care facilities in this state. 50% higher than what was being reported. and it also took that amount of time to get the 9,000 number that is the 9,000 covid-19 infected people who were transported from hospitals into nursing homes under the governor cuomo's policy which many victims' families believe caused the virus to spread unnecessarily among the most vulnerable population including assemblyman ron kim said his uncle died in a nursing home in new york and thinks it's in part because of policies like that. >> thank you very much. we'll talk to mr. kim later at 3:00. the white house dodging questions whether president biden has confidence in governor cuomo in recent weeks. does he still feel that way based on these new allegations? governor cuomo joined a group

of governors and mayors at the white house on friday. they were all there to discuss covid relief. >> does the president have confidence in governor cuomo's handling of the pandemic? >> the president hosted governor cuomo and bipartisan governors and mayors to get their perspective from the front lines. not to give anyone a stamp of approval or seek their stamp of approval. he is committed to partnering with governors and mayors. >> some of the president's past comments on the handling of the pandemic. >> president biden: i think he is doing a hell of a job. he has been the lead horse here. i talk to him frequently. he is a friend. i think he is doing an incredible job. his briefings are a lesson in leadership. governor of new york has done one hell of a job. i think he is the gold standard. >> the lead horse, the gold standard in handling of covid.

joining me now congresswoman stefanik. what's your reaction? does the white house need to be more circumspect about the approval and applause for governor cuomo now. >> he is the worst governor in america how he handled the covid crisis and last week was an absolute bombshell. you have both democrats and republicans calling for an independent investigation. i want to see subpoenas both at the state level, the state senate and state assembly should issue subpoenas immediately and i want the department of justice to launch an independent investigation. the partial transcript released by the secretary to the governor there was obstruction of justice. this is not about politics but people's lives. what was so shameful about the transcript that was released the secretary to the governor didn't apologize for the number of deaths or didn't apologize

for the policy but apologized for the political fallout. it's a disgrace. president biden needs to keep to his promise the department of justice will be independent from political pressure from governor cuomo who is a democrat but the department of justice and law enforcement this prosecution needs to go forward immediately. >> the facts are what they are. just to go back on this a little bit, what basically happened was that they were worried about having enough space in the hospitals in new york. so they started shuttling out these elderly people who had had covid or were on the tail end of it and moving them back into these nursing homes. congresswoman, they did this when they had these ships t mercy, the comfort, right off the coast of manhattan and they had cleared and set up the entire javits center at a great expense, great idea. beds that went unused and he

has never answered that question, why didn't he use those places that were sitting there instead of infecting these people back in the nursing homes? >> he hasn't answered those questions, martha. those are the questions that new yorkers have been asking for months almost going on a year at this point. you are right the javits center and u.s. navy comfort ship were left empty. covid patients were sent back to nursing homes. i have talked to constituents in my district. healthy seniors recovering and sent to nursing homes for rehabilitation and they ultimately died because they caught covid in the nursing home. the other thing key they did not follow cms guidance. it was very clear from the trump administration and cms that the cms recommendation and requirement is that nursing homes should only accept positive covid patients if they have adequate ppe and if they were able to isolate those individuals. new york state ignored that and this is why we need an investigation because those

questions need to be answered. these tens of thousands of families deserve transparency and accountability and frankly at this point with an obstruction of justice that needs to be prosecuted at the federal level. i also think there are serious pay to play issues going on here as well because of some of the immunity shields that were forced into the legislation by the governor's team. >> great point. what about the fact that you have democrats who are now calling for more of an investigation for him to lose his emergency powers? the "wall street journal" said the questions are whether democrats in albany will have what it takes to do their job and hold hearings on the cover-up. whether state or federal prosecutors with prosecute if called for and if the media that cheered mr. cuomo through his press conferences will hold him to the same standard they held mr. trump. that's the kind of questions people across the country are looking for. will both sides call out this behavior and investigate?

>> less than a month ago state senators blocked subpoenas and blocked state senate republicans who wanted to rein in those emergency powers. now the dam is breaking. you see overwhelming bipartisan outcry. a little bit about the politics in new york state. everyone knows governor cuomo is a bully. they bully people within their own party. this is more important. we are talking about lives that were lost here so these democratic state senators and the democratic congressional delegation needs to grow a spine and grow some political courage and stand up for what's right, the people of this state who deserve justice. so we will see, those subpoenas and that investigation should be launched immediately. no excuse after last week's bombshell. >> media has a responsibility to cover the story, do the investigation and find out what happened and let people make up

their own minds. thanks. the showdown over reopening our schools continues to heat up across the country. parents and back to school advocates are calling new cdc guidelines frustrating and possibly political. is the biden team letting down students across america right now? plus this. >> we know that gavin newsom is desperate now. his political future is blowing up before him. >> the campaign to recall governor gavin newsom rising star in the democrat party for a long time now has enough signatures to potentially trigger a special election. but some are warning that democrats could try to derail that effort in california. randy economy the senior advisor for the recall gavin campaign. we'll talk to him next. get to tell everybody how liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? i mean it... uh-oh, sorry...

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now. >> martha: republicans and activists working to recall the governor of california newsom have a petition reached more than the number of signatures needed to trigger a special election. 1.5 million. they know 25% of the signatures that were collected last time were disqualified. they're gathering more so they have a safe cushion for that. rick grenell has been mentioned as one of the candidates who could run against the governor. he wouldn't comment but said this. >> the state of california is controlled by a whole bunch of democrats. one-party rule. they will go through every single signature we have and throw out ones. the verification process will be unlike anything we've ever seen. we still have a long way to go

to gather signatures to put this on the ballot. they are going to play games. they already are. so i would just say we have to keep focused on getting rid of gavin newsom. >> martha: joining me now the senior advisor and spokesperson for the recall of gavin newsom campaign. thank you for being here today. so how confident are you in just the numbers in terms of being able to get to that level and to make sure that the verification process is not going to be a problem for you as you can tell there is a lot of pushback. >> there is a lot of pushback. i agree with ambassador grenell. i think we're not stopping at the 1.5 million signatures,. we want to get 1.8 to 2 million. we don't want any doubt in anybody's mind with the validity and accuracy of what we're doing here at our

organization. we have until march 17th. we have -- we want to celebrate our milestone collecting the minimum threshold and thank the tens of thousands of volunteers dedicating so much of their lives during the past several months to make sure it's happening. this is the greatest volunteer initiative in american history and i couldn't be more proud of everybody out there working so tirelessly. >> martha: great for your cause. the rubber has to beat to road. do you think you'll get to the point where there is a recall election? a lot of people what happened with gray davis. the recall happened and governor arnold schwarzenegger took over. do you see that whole scenario playing out here? >> we're 100% sure we will get to that point because our -- there are too many people and too many active volunteers that are just killing themselves every day, every weekend

collecting these signatures. there is no question on our end if we go ahead and make the threshold. what we'll do is need to make sure that the new california secretary of state shirley webber is held accountable and making sure she does her job properly and to make sure we put the pressure on all of the county clerks throughout california to make sure they are doing their job as well. it just doesn't take one person to verify, it takes 58 different counties to be involved in the process. >> martha: you need to keep a close eye on that process. it will be a passionate process to verify all those signatures, no doubt. what sort of tipped the balance in terms of getting people on both sides of the aisle. everybody remembers the french laundry night. the governor told everyone else they couldn't do that. what really tipped the scale here in california? >> it's not one thing. it is a combination of everything. the french laundry debacle was

his achilles heel. the dumbest thing any politician has done in california or american history because it was -- he threw it in the face of every good californian that he said listen, i'll put you all under house arrest but i'll dine at the most expensive and elegant restaurant in america and bring 22 lobbyists with me and talk about how we will proceed in the future. >> martha: as i said, you know, there are a lot of places across the country where people can go out for dinner and nobody would have held it against him. he was not arguing that and he was putting those strict regulations in place for other people. it can't be what's okay for me is not okay for you. that never sits well with people. >> it's the hype -- hypocrisy

of power. >> martha: the lincoln project, the men who ran the lincoln project throughout the trump presidency, how they spent millions of dollars in donations during alleged serial sexual misconduct by one of their co-founders and parents pushing back against the new cdc guidelines for students to go back to school. six feet apart instead of three feet apart? ventilation systems under scrutiny. the critics claim the agency is not giving enough data for those decisions. dr. marty makary steps in on that. >> we're not looking at risk versus benefit. a lot of kids are suffering. a generation will suffer greatly and the country will suffer from that as well.

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>> florida schools have been open the whole school year. every parent in florida has the right to send their child to in-person instruction. every worker has a right to work and earn a living and put food on the table and every business has a right to operate and consequently our state is doing very well compared to these other states in terms of education and economy. >> martha: florida governor ron desantis defending his decision to keep the schools open in his state despite the pandemic. parents across the country are just increasingly frustrated with what is going on here with our schools. they were supposed to be back in september. we're now in february. now you have the cdc guidelines that goes through how students can return to on site classroom learnings. critics say the recommendations that came out late friday will keep children home most likely unnecessarily. director rochelle walensky says we still have work to do. watch. >> even in the areas of the

highest community spread we're advocating with the strict mitigation measures you described including universal and mandatory masking and six foot of distancing that k-5 children should be able to get back to school in a hybrid mode. we know it's possible to reopen schools safely without all of the teachers being vaccinated. >> martha: dr. marty makary is a physician and professor at johns hopkins university. good to see you. when you go through the cdc guidance there is a lot of gaps that these teachers unions can exploit in here to say we're not going back until we have six feet, not going back until the ventilation. what is your take on these new guidelines? >> 90% of schools cannot meet the criteria that have been established right now today. and we have guidelines from the cdc back in september. this is almost really another

stall tactic. now they say it was to review the latest literature. broad consensus that schools can be open safely. private schools have done that and states like florida has done that. these guidelines means there would be no travel in the airlines today. adults can pack into planes safely with masks but kids have to suffer. kids are 10 times more likely to die of suicide than coronavirus and other health consequences that i think were left out of this report. >> martha: it can't be said enough. the other medical dangers that are inflicting our children are so dramatic and so serious and the learning loss is devastating when you balance it against those risks. one of the things that we keep hearing a lot about is the ventilation system. i keep going back to they were supposed to work on this last summer in order to get back in september. how serious of an issue is the

ventilation in some of these older schools, doctor? >> well depends on the school system. we know that 60 billion dollar was appropriated for ventilation systems to improve and other changes in schools. we have only seen about 4 to 8 billion spent. we can't change ventilation systems in the next couple months. come april we may not have much of a pandemic risk given the currant rate of decline. will we allow kids to go to school the masks safely, the precedent that has been established ideally with three feet of social distancing rather than six. that's the expert consensus number many agree upon. the double number of kids in school. or will we let kids continue to be voiceless? they have health consequences, too. why do adults get their ways and kids are last in the reopening plan? >> martha: great question. steve scalise said we need a children's union to defend them

and to represent them in all of these questions. before i let you go just touched on something significant. cases are down 70% since the peak in january. where is this thing going, a, and b, there is this troublesome variant which seems to be resistance to the vaccine in some cases? your thoughts? >> the big story that's not getting really any coverage and medical experts are dismissive of it. a 70% decline in cases daily cases over the last five weeks f. there was a pill that reduced cases that much it would be called a miracle pill. there is a lot more natural immunity in the community from prior infections and more vaccinated immunity. by april i think we'll see very low levels of background infection in the united states. >> martha: on the variant, are you concerned? >> i think the variant is part of what we attack with our

current strategy. tools are the same. we're not seeing a surge from the variant. i don't think we'll see a surge from the variant this spring. it is a concern for the fall. vaccine adjustments should and will address it. right now the variant is treated the same way we treat the regular coronavirus. >> martha: let's hope they tweak the vaccine to cover that as well. thank you. many thanks. the dramatic downfall of the lincoln project. what a story this is. the leaders of the anti-trump conservative group are responding to a pair of massive scandals that have fallen on them. >> they were a front group for establishment money to attack the president and the people who supported the president and that energy and that motivation will continue. >> martha: reminder, new year, new lineup on fox business. former economic advisor larry

kudlow premiers tomorrow at 4:00 eastern. good to have larry back on tv.

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>> martha: the lincoln project no longer anticipating donations. there are a string of controversies. sexual allegations by young men coming against john weaver. that has been out there for years. the organization funneled millions of dollars to firms controlled by their leadership, former trump am cain advisor jason miller saying it was always about the money. watch this. >> what we've seen from the lincoln project over all this time, this is all about them making money. this has never been about some ideological pursuit or some real deep seated hatred against president trump.

low life drifters trying to self-enrich themselves. >> martha: gillian turner on this. >> the anti-trump super pac stopped taking donations online yesterday. it is struggling to fend off crisis after crisis over the last week. the latest tweet from the group. normally prolific on social media, came out february 11th. they've stayed silent on the acquittal of former president trump. fox news is learning out of almost 90 million dollars that the group raised so far nearly $25 million went to summit strategic communications a firm owned by a co-founder listed as a treasurer in sec documents. another $20 million went to tusk digital owned by another member. steve schmidt resigned on friday night and said this over the weekend. listen. >> out of $87 million that was

raised by the lincoln project, about $63 to 66 million of that money went to voter contact. >> where did the other money go? >> the law requires that you make disclosures but you don't have to disclose subcontractor payments. >> his resignation came in relation to weaver facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment. 21 young men have made accusations against weaver to the "new york times." 10 people have described allegations of sexual assault made to the lincoln project and associated press and "new york magazine" is reporting that at least three people accusing weaver of sexual harassment were interns with the lincoln project presumably quite young. the f.b.i. is now interviewing people about weaver. he himself may i emphasize may

be under a criminal investigation. the group says it will release anyone now from a non-disclosure agreement related to the weaver story. we don't know what they plan to do about ndas for the rest of their employees. >> martha: questions about what took so long here. joe concha with this. the media did 17 interviews with three of the co-founders after the sex scandal news broke. not one question on it by the interviewers. joined now by our power panel matt gorman, former rcc communication director and a professor from the university of maryland. jason, start with you. what are your thoughts on this? it's a mess. there is a lot to be investigated here. and no questions from the media in 17 interviews after these sex scandal allegations surfaced? how could that be? >> well, first of all i just want to say that what john

weaver did was despicable and i hope he begs forgiveness from his victims and the higher power he believes in. there is a path forward for the lincoln project. it will come from diverse filing their leadership to include more women and being more financially transparent. the dark money thing in politics i just don't think it's a good idea for anyone. as far -- i know at least some members -- at least one member of the lincoln project. she is an incredible person. i think that she is a good person. but there is a lot of scandals that they need to fix. there is a whole lot of things that need to change. a whole lot of leadership that needs to change within the organization before they start really moving forward. it looks like they are taking a pause, taking a breather to fix those things. >> martha: i'm not sure what their m.o. is since they were founded to basically go after president trump day after day after day. they have the right to do that. i also want to point out john weaver has been accused but

that process is yet to play out. we'll continue to call these alleged situations, accusations until that. matt, you know, weigh in on this. what happens to this group and what do you think about the lack of media coverage by the places that had these individuals on all the time on their air? >> you are absolutely right. they love to play to the fact that they were republicans, criticizing president trump. but let's be honest here. they had nothing to do with president trump losing, nothing. their down ballot targets like susan collins and thom tillis won big. so not only were they was a scandal but they were ineffective. for folks who followed these folks for a long time these aren't surprising allegations, these are has beens, never weres and reminds me at the end of a heist movie where the bank robbers turn and fight with each other. not a surprise to anyone.

>> martha: we'll take a quick thought and be back with more. it appears that minneapolis's plan to defund the police ended up with a situation where they had a large jump in homicides. sad, not surprising. the city is now spending millions to try to get new officers back on the streets. a live report on that coming up next. plus this. >> you don't have to come with this don't come. >> most of the state colder than it has been since 1989. >> martha: texas being slammed by a brutal winter storm. millions without power, dangerously low temperatures. impossible travel conditions. we'll bring you the latest when we come back on "the faulkner focus".

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>> martha: we could have seen this coming. minneapolis is now backtracking. it turns out that defunding the police did not make their city streets safer. now they'll spend $6 million more dollars to hire dozens of police officers. they have many that retired in that environment. didn't want to be part of it. so this comes after a lot of people were left, you know, wondering how they would keep the city safe. all of it stemmed from the

killing of george employed which pushed the defund police movements in a lot of areas. garrett tenney live for us on this today. >> over the last year the push by activists to dismantle the city police department has gotten a lot of attention. as we've been reporting minneapolis is facing a wave of violent crime. folks who live there say 911 calls are going unanswered or taking too long to get a response. for months many have been pleading with city leaders to hire more officers to help the already depleted police force. that help is now on the way. on friday the city council approved 6.4 million to recruit and hire several dozen additional new officers. the minneapolis police department says it currently has roughly 200 fewer officers available to work compared to the start of last year after a wave of officers either retired or resigned after the riots following the death of george floyd. more than 150 officers remain on some form of extended leave.

many with claims of ptsd. the mayor has repeatedly asked the city council for help and made his case ahead of this vote. >> our chief and our police officers have been doing absolutely everything they can under very difficult circumstances. especially with the attrition that has been widely reported. we are going to need additional assistance. >> even as the council approved the latest measure to bolster the police force several council members are pushing to replace the police with a safety department. this past weekend a coalition of groups tried to put a similar proposal on the ballot for voters this fall. it comes a few weeks ahead of the trial of former officer in the death of george floyd. >> martha: that trial will get a lot of attention across the

country. garrett tenney. >> every part of the state of texas will face freezing conditions. the severity of the cold weather that is about to be experienced in the coming days is unprecedented in texas history. >> martha: that's saying a lot. that's the governor of texas greg abbott. his state and many parts of the country are in the grip of a brutal cold front. temperatures plummeting to lows not seen in decades. very dangerous mix of snow and ice and sleet that could just go across that section of the country for days. now you have high demand for electricity of course causing widespread power outages. casey stiegel is live on the streets of dallas today. casey, how is it looking there and how is everybody handling this situation? >> i have one word for you, brrrr. it is absolutely frigid.

temperatures and windchills below zero in dallas. as you said unprecedented. texans are not capable of handling weather like this. we don't see it very often. virtually everything, i have to say, is shut down. a lot of folks are being advised to stay home. more importantly, stay off the roadways. you have to remember crews here don't have as many snowplows or pieces of special removal equipment like other parts of the country since we rarely get this. there is only so much they can do. as you heard the governor every county in texas impacted with snow and ice stretching hundreds of miles down through austin as far south as houston and san antonio. a federal disaster has been declared which helps open community warming centers. and the pandemic, of course, makes that a challenge. >> there will be covid protocols in place. we have screening at the entrances. we'll be monitoring for temperatures periodically. so there will be screening in place. there will be security in place.

>> north of us up in oklahoma look at this. winter weather leading to some major accidents. yesterday multiple semi trucks caught fire near oklahoma city after crashing. the system is a monster stretching from the pacific northwest through the plains. now headed for the tennessee and ohio valleys before moving into the northeast. check out these pictures from branson, missouri. folks there dealing with the wintery mess, too. more than 100,000 people are without power in virginia right now. the bulk of the power outages here in texas, more than 2.7 million customers as of right now. the bulk of those scheduled rolling black-outs because the electric grid here is just so stressed. >> martha: thank you very much, casey stiegel in dallas for us. we'll keep an eye on that storm system as it moves across the country. then there is this. top communications aide for the biden white house resigned

after he made threats to a reporter as critics say the administration isn't living up to what they have said the standard of conduct would be for misbehavior. "outnumbered" is coming up next. you don't want to miss it. great lineup. we'll be right back. free access to every platform. yeah, that too. i want to know what i'm paying upfront. yes, absolutely. now offering zero commissions on online trades.

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♪ ♪ >> deputy white house secretary resigned on saturday after reportedly threatening political reporter, she had reached about relationships with the axios reporter alexi mccammon. vanity fair reporting they told them "i will destroy you." they accuse them of being jealous that an unidentified man had wanted to have sex with them but not with her, you get the drift, bad high school drama. the white house suspended him,

that was their decision, despite what the president promised last month. >> i'm not joking when i say this, if you're working with me and i hear you treat another colleague with disrespect or talk down to someone, i will fire you on the spot. on the spot. everyone will be have dignity. >> are power panel is back, you want to take a crack at this first? >> sure, we talked about this before, the threat is arrogance, i'm happy to see that if you treat people badly you will get called out and now all the project people, they're all new line with the reputation. >> jason? >> i think it's really funny

after four years of donald trump that all the sudden we are talking about treating people badly and policing people, but i will say, i'm glad that tj ducks taking responsibility, but i will say in terms of the fire ring, you look at what he said, he said if i ever hear you disrespect someone or talk down to someone, you know. i'm in the room. >> no. that's not the standard. you have to be kidding me. you are saying only if he happens to be in the room and hear it physically? because if he becomes aware of it. that's ridiculous. that's a ridiculous standard. the reason that we are talking about it, they made it clear they want to have a very different standard. they don't like what they saw the last administration so now they're saying, this is a different tone, everyone has to

be very respectful. he resigns, probably given a knowledge with the president had set on that. >> they knew about it earlier and did nothing about it until it became public. that's another thing, and they weren't mad initially at what he said. they were mad for talking about the call in the first place. just totally misplaced priorities on the white house. >> i agree with you, he needed to take responsibility, when they knew about it, you all know that. i think he heard somebody do something wrong, he's going to take action. in this case, like the republicans have been arguing for, you need due process so now he's no longer with the

white house. >> thank you gentlemen. great to have you. thank you for watching. outnumbered starts right now. i will see you at 3:00 p.m. for "the story." take it away. >> fox news alert, growing bipartisan starts for an investigation and claims that andrew cuomo's administration covered up data on the extent of covid nursing home deaths. even 14 state democrats are joining republicans, pushing to strip him of his powers. this after i top aide admitted to holding aid. over concerned the justice department might use the intro against them. as critics slammed him, saying and sending nursing covid patience back. they said the team is handling may be critical. >> the admission includes the intent of wanting to block