your puppy is doing the same for you. >> dana: he is hilarious. thank you for your help this week and wish you a very happy new year. supreme court arguments are happening now about biden's vaccine mandates. harris faulkner will have updates as we go. we'll be back with you next week on monday. here's harris. >> harris: fox news alert. major action at the u.s. supreme court that could have big consequences on how much power president biden should have. the justices right now are hearing emergency oral arguments challenging biden's sweeping covid vaccine mandates and plaintiffs are arguing that states, not washington, should have authority over the mandates and calling the federal crackdown unnecessary and counterproductive. i'm harris faulkner and you are in "the faulkner focus".

two mandates. a vaccine and testing and masking order for businesses of 100 or more employees. the second a measure requiring hospital and healthcare workers to be vaccinated at most facilities. those orders combined affect more than 100 million workers. so that's where we are today. let's flashback to the white house's earlier take on mandates. >> you don't want a mandate and force anyone to take the vaccine. we've never done that. >> president biden: i don't think it should be mandatory. >> no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential. >> trace: tom dupree former assistant attorney general in "focus" this hour. first fox chief legal correspondent shannon bream. a big day, shannon. >> it is a big day and we're in the thick of these arguments right now. it is clear to us they'll go

well beyond the two hours the court has allotted for them and also clear that the left leaning justices, the left wing of the court seems very unpersuadeable when it comes to the first mandate. the workplace mandate with employers for 100 or more employees. here is what kagan said moments ago. >> more and more people are getting sick every day. i'm stating facts. this is the policy that is most geared to stopping all of this. there is nothing else that will perform that function better than incentivizing people strongly to vaccinate themselves. >> she says getting people vaccinated is the best way to stop the spread of the virus. justice breyer seemed incredulous that anybody would come to the court and argue the mandate should be stayed.

sotomayor said it is not a vaccine mandate as all. there is a testing and masking alternative. she calls it a mask mandate. the attorney who argued for the businesses challenging the mandate says there will be a negative impact immediately on the u.s. economy if the regulation goes into effect because it is estimated that 1 to 3% of the workforce would quit. he argues the department of labor is going far beyond the powers congress delegated to it for the specific task of regulating safety in the workplace. by the way, this covid issue hitting home for the court today. one of the attorneys may have just wrapped up in the midst of his argument this morning tested positive and so he is having to make his argument by phone. all of the justices are vaccinated. and all boosted. justice sotomayor elected not to go in the courtroom today and conducting her arg frments her office. she has been wearing her mask throughout. she has an underlying condition. she has been very careful through this whole thing.

the arguments continue. we thought they would wrap around noon. this will probably be closer to 1:00 or 2:00 at this point. we'll keep on it. >> harris: shannon, thank you very much for updating us. tom dupree assistant attorney general are in "focus" now. i'm looking at notes that have to do with really what is at stake. before we start, "wall street journal" op-ed lays it out this way. it is more than just today's decision, tom. it has to do with the power of presidents. i will ask my team to pop that up if they would. there it is. "wall street journal" now. the court's ruling in this case will echo into the future about how far the executive branch can go in rewriting statutes. some justices will be tempted to defer to the executive given the pandemic emergencies but presidents have been eager the find emergencies whenever they're politically convenient.

tom dupree. >> you are absolutely right. this case imply indicates about the nature of federal power. you are right in that presidents over the last few years especially have been adopting an aggressive approach to their power saying i have the authority to do this. and i think that there is a strong view, conservative view that says wait a minute. unless congress has specifically authorized you to do something such as issue a vaccine mandate, you don't have the power to do that. it is one of the central questions the supreme court will be deciding. does president biden have the authority to issue these vaccine mandates without a clear and express statement of authority from congress? >> harris: what's really interesting what you are pointing out with regard to getting congress to go forth with the president is if you were going to do this you want to do it when you have majorities. they are squeaky close in both the house and senate just

imagine six months from now he won't have any support because he won't be able to help those democrats according to the current poll numbers and they will be close to mid-term elections. so what do you make of the fact that the president tried to do this on his own? >> well, i think he realized that given the circumstances he really had no choice if he wanted to issue a nationwide mandate other than to do it in the way he did. >> harris: you think even now congress wouldn't have backed him even though it is majority democrat in both houses? >> well, i don't know if they would have all the democrats speaking wanting to give the federal government this power. i think you might have some democrats who say wait a minute. we're in favor of vaccinations and makes good sense from a health perspective and public safety perspective but we want to give that authority to different entities in the government such as state legislatures to order vaccines

in hospitals rather than a broad employer mandate being litigated today. >> harris: talk to me about any kind of a mandate there could be to come up with therapeutics. the mandate would come from the citizens to the white house. i sincerely say this because we're so focused on something that is really 2021, almost 2020, december of 2020 the vaccines came out. november and december. i'm just wondering if you are going to focus this way, is there any room for someone to say yeah we'll mandate one thing that these companies put more therapeutics out there. >> you certainly could envision all sorts of different types of mandates. we're operating against a constantly changing background. new treatments, new therapeutics and new vaccines. one problem with federal regulation it can't keep up to date with the latest technology and developments.

that's one thing that the administrations had to grapple with. you can issue a mandate on day one and maybe day 60 there is a better approach the solving the problem. >> harris: that would age as well. all right, let's move to this. the navy has discharged its first 20 sailors for declining to get the covid vaccine and mandates for the military have led to several lawsuits so far. on monday a federal judge granted a temporary injunction against a federal mandate for navy seals who sud president biden because they were seeking a religious exemption. the navy said it granted more than 300 medical exemptions but no religious exemption despite thousands of requests. you and i have talked about this in the past, tom. this is in a different lane than for citizens who are not serving. why? >> it is. for one thing the federal

government has greater authority when it comes to making these types of mandates for people who are federal employees, soldier, within the military. but that said there has to be an exemption for good faith bona fide religious beliefs. i'm a little surprised we haven't seen the flexibility you might normally see for religious accommodation and they document and show it and can get an exemption on that basis. it is well settled law you have to be very accommodating to religious beliefs even in this context. >> harris: we have been putting sections as they pop. the highlights from the u.s. supreme court. we'll continue to follow and put the hot moments on the screen and tom, we may lean on you again. thank you for being in "focus." shots on shots on shots and maybe one more shot.

what moderna's ceo is saying about boosters. >> this is enough to make your hair hurt and no one knows quite what to do. children seem to be in charge at this point at a critical time in this country's path as far as covid is concerned. >> harris: the cdc is facing criticism again from all sides now as it is refusing -- confusing americans on everything from testing to isolation times to which masks you should wear and which ones don't work. dr. marty makary is one to sort it all out for us. he is in "focus" on this friday.

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a rare solo update. it is by phone. the timing may be critical for her. her agency is facing intense criticism for messy messages. crippling test shortages and changing and confusing guidance. "the new york times" said dr. walensky and her teams making sound decisions but fumbling in communicating them to america. critics say the cdc's recommendations are sometimes so confusing they are more like drafts than proclamations. this is going on. some of president biden's former advisors are suggesting he pivot away from two years of promises like these. >> president biden: i'm going to shut down the virus. i will shut down the virus. i won't shut down the country but i will shut down the virus. i will shut down the virus. i'm going to shut down the

virus. we'll never, ever, ever quit and that's how we'll shut down this virus. >> harris: well, six former members of biden's transition covid advisory team are now suggesting that many say we should have followed all along this advice live with covid. those doctors wrote in the journal of american medical association the goal for the new normal with covid-19 does not include eradication or elimination. it should be recognizing that covid is but one of several circulating respiratory viruses. dr. marty makary, fox news contributor and professor at johns hopkins university school of medicine is in "focus" now. always great to have you on the program. shutting down the virus you told us months ago and maybe years ago you can't do that. you can't do it with anything else but you can work to contain it. >> that's right. it has been very hard to get

through to president biden. you know, he has got medical advisors but they are like minded and quite frankly out of step, i think, with the rest of the medical community. many of us have tried to get all points of view into the white house and here you are seeing a group of democrat political appointees. those who are considered loyal to the democrat medical establishment like dr. emmanuel defect now and go around the guidance, go around the channels through dr. fauci and write in our top medical journals that we need an entirely new approach one based on common sense. >> harris: as you were talking i wrote down the word sink fant. there were politics at play, too. who doesn't want to be in the president's popular circle. they should look at his poll numbers. the awful saga continues in chicago, illinois, dr. makary, classes there have been canceled for a third day as the

teachers union there continues to defy city officials pushing to get children back if school. the mayor wants this now. and that fight is heating up in other school districts leaving more parents in the lurch. in oakland, california a group of teachers reportedly planned a sick-out for today. some telling local affiliates they won't march themselves into a death trap. in san francisco unions in the school district failed to reach an agreement on a testing plan that teachers have been demanding. the president of the united educators of san francisco says they want kids in school but nothing is off the table. take a look. >> this is a school district that has been acting like covid testing and prevention isn't important. if working conditions are not met it's possible people are working in conditions that unsafe and that is not okay. >> harris: dr. makary a death trap in classrooms for children and you say what to that?

>> look, that rhetoric is very damaging because what it does it looks only at viral replication and it does not consider mental health. people are dying from mental health problems and that's something that if you want to construct an argument the environment is on safe you can do it looking at only one system. if you look at the total of harm it is there developmental, suicide, mental health worsen among 31 percent of kids. you can always construct a medical argument around the eternal excuse of an environment being unsafe. if that's the case kids should not be in automobiles that account for more deaths than covid-19 over the last two years. >> harris: the teachers unions say they are looking at the science. if you could communicate directly to them what would you tell them about that? >> look, we are imposing harsh

policies on a defenseless population. ask them, ask the children, ask them what their risk tolerance is. there has never been a documented case of a healthy child in the united states dying of covid. for kids with a comorbidity their risk is equal to flu and they can get vaccinated or take other precautions. if we are going to do this now we'll have to do it forever. flu is not going away and 10 to 25% of kids will develop a rest pri tear infection every year with similar outcomes. >> harris: just a year ago when we started to open up and people getting on planes and tell grandparents rsv is real. we were taking off masks in the warmer months and little ones can get that deadly respiratory disease. just your quick thought on that. >> what we're seeing with covid is such a stigmatized virus at

the exclusion of all other respiratory pathogens. remember when parents said i won't let my kid go to school with a child with h.i.v. even though science didn't support human-to-human in the classroom. we're seeing that politization right now with covid. >> harris: moderna's ceo says people may need another booster. four shots total by this fall and maybe beyond. he says waiting for the data in the coming weeks on how long boosters last is what we should do and says he does not expect the news to be great. dr. makary, you are firing back at the fda for posting a video that argues even people who have vaccinated and got covid still should get the boosters. you suggested that is misinformation. here is what you tweeted. this is so disappointing to see. it is extremely misleading. many government doctors have

lost their scientific objectivity and sadly ignore the overwhelming data of natural immunity. dr. makary your argument. >> look, natural immunity has been studied in over 100 studies and all the more research in the world is not going to convince public health officials politically appointed and loyal scientists who have lost their objectivity look at how the fda by passed their expert panel to get boosters approved for young people. this is no longer a scientific authority organization. natural immunity is real and when we talk about mandates that the court is considering they don't do mandates very well. they ignore natural immunity. dosing between intervals was not optimal and not supported with data. >> harris: if you have had covid and been vaccinated can you get a booster in a high-risk category or do you have to wait? >> there is no need for a

booster. natural immunity is the best immunity you can get. many people around the world need to get vaccinated. those doses should be going to them. >> harris: dr. makary let's do breaking news now. keeping an eye on the dr. walensky solo rare for her, she is usually in a task force group talk today and update by phone. a lot of questions about the revised cdc guidelines telling people who test positive for covid to isolate for five days now instead of the previous 10. so she is getting hit with this. just now dr. walensky said this. >> if on day five you don't have symptoms anymore we can talk about coming out of isolation with a mask on strictly masking for those remaining five days. >> harris: first of all your initial reaction. >> i think the bigger problem is not what the cdc is saying. the fact that we have this

intense dependency on the cdc to adjudicate on every aspect of american life. they also say people should not eat meat medium rare and said that for a long time. we have to get away from this intense dependency and recognize they aren't going to land the plane with a soft landing. they can take off and put a lot of restrictions in place but they don't have good off ramp criteria. we have to turn to common sense. >> harris: quickly when she says well, we'll talk about it. who does she envision we're talking to when we reach that five-day point we have to figure out if it's time to test, go back to work or school? who does she think we're talking to? >> the pollsters. they are talking to pollsters trying to sense public sentiment and leak recommendations to the media before they announce them. >> harris: dr. makary in "focus" today. thank you for your time and expertise. two dozen house democrats

headed for the door and the president's polling is headed for the floor. but the white house still says it's all good when it comes to the mid-terms. is it really, though? and this. >> certain dates echo throughout history, december 7th, 1941, september 11th, 2001, and january 6th, 2021. >> harris: fire raining down on that comparison. the white house says it's cool with it. and the media, they picked it up like a $100 bill off the sidewalk. tammy bruce is in "focus" next. >> vo: my car is my after-work decompression zone. ♪ music ♪ >> vo: so when my windshield broke... i found the experts at safelite autoglass. they have exclusive technology and service i can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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>> vice president harris in her remarks today compared january 6 to pearl harbor and 9/11. can you elaborate what the

thinking was behind that comparison? >> for those being critics of the vice president's remarks i think instead of focusing on or analyzing comparisons of moments in history i would suggest they be a part of solving the threat to democracy that occurs today. >> harris: the white house is defending the vice president kamala harris. what did she do? well, the v.p. yesterday during her january 6th speech compared the riot to the 9/11 attacks and bombing of pearl harbor. media members latched on and took it even further. >> we have film footage what happened january 6th and proof dwight eisenhower made sure all the holocaust camps were filmed. >> harris: critics pointing out 2400 people died an perfectly harbor and 3,000 died in 9/11.

millions killed in the holocaust. five people died following the capitol hill riot, one on that day, a woman, and two people later committed suicide. greg gutfeld and jesse watters tore into the v.p. on "the five". >> that was amateur hour with kamala. >> they're trying to turn it into pearl harbor and 9/11 to place a target on the backs of their political enemies as a coordinated efforts and want this thing to be permanent. >> harris: tammy bruce fox nation member. your top line thoughts on this. >> even one of the individuals that they indicated was a victim on january 6th died in april, months later, after having been hit by a car deliberately by a black nationalist. someone who was a follower of farrakhan. different dynamic. what it soes me and what is

unfortunate. two fronts. one is this is about really wanting to be equated with genuine victims. in order to think that they matter or that experience matters it has to be similar to these other kinds of events, which is not true. january 6th can matter for a variety of reasons. you don't need to have it be like the holocaust and yet that's where it shows that their own weakness in their sense of what happened to them. we value -- the left does this idea of misery and genuine victimhood. on the other hand it really does come to wanting to equate americans at a protest that got out of hand, which is what most polls show people saw it being as being like al qaeda or nazis or the worst of the worst when it comes to mass murder. americans don't like this. it is obviously on its face absurd but also insulting and

it is injurious to the real experience of people in this country. >> harris: part of what i would say and you and i have talked about this before is people have a template for what that looks like because we went through so much violence in the streets of america in the summer of 2020 following the death of george floyd. and that the peaceful protestors had insurgents among them that tore apart some of our most beautiful cities and people were very harmed in there. that was a police officer and his wife killed trying to protect somebody's small business. all of this. that doesn't get equated to anything. there were a lot of victims in that. >> that's another dynamic that americans remember quite well because it happened in a lot of our cities. that we aren't waiting for them to tell us how it is we're supposed to view these things and we know when they are trying to gas light us and make it seem as though we can't trust our own memories or our own understanding of things.

>> harris: or the narrative they want us to have around it. quickly we've been given a two-minute warning the president will talk about the woeful job numbers and perhaps other things, too. the vice president has tapped long time democratic aide jamal simmons to serve as her new communications member. seven staffers, seven, have left kamala harris's office in recent months amid reports that she is a soul-destroy boss. harris seemed to blow off a question about it yesterday. >> one of the things i've learned is to get out of d.c. i think it's important to definitely be out and be -- you know, i can't tell you when i've been able to get out of d.c. and be with the folks who are actually informing our policies and will be impacted by our policies. >> harris: the giggle. the president of the united states is live now. let's watch.

>> president biden: firestorm that rolled through and i'm heading off to do harry reid's funeral. so i want to talk about -- i think it's an historic day for our economic recovery. today's national unemployment rate fell below 4%, to 3.9%. the sharpest one-year drop in unemployment in the united states history. the first time the unemployment rate has been under 4% in the first year of a presidential term in 50 years. 3.9% unemployment rate. we have added 6.4 million new jobs since january of last year, one year. that's one of the most -- the most jobs in any calendar year by any president in history.

how? how do d that happen? the american rescue plan got the economy off its back and moving again. back on its feet. getting over 200 million americans fully vaccinated. got people out of their homes and back to work even in the face of wave after wave of covid. we got schools open. we got booster shots. we brought down the poverty rate and went from 20 million people on unemployment rolls a year ago to under 2 million people on unemployment rolls today. america is back to work. more historical accomplishments. the increase in america's joining in the labor force was the fastest this year than any year since 1996. among prime age workers ages 25 to 54, the increase in the labor force participation was the biggest in 43 years.

record job creation, record unemployment declines, record increases in people in the labor force. i would argue the biden economic plan is working. it's getting america back to work, back on its feet. but the record doesn't stop there. today's report also tells us that record wage gains especially for workers in some of america's toughest jobs, women and men who work on the front line jobs in restaurants, hotels, travel, tourism, desk clerks, line cooks, wait staff, bellmen, they all saw their wages at historic high, the highest in history. their pay went up almost 16% this year, far ahead of inflation, which is still a concern. overall, wage gains for all workers who were not supervisors went up more in 2021 than any year in four

decades. there has been a lot of press coverage about people quitting their jobs. well today's report tells you why. americans are moving up to better jobs with better pay, with better benefits. that's why they are quitting their jobs. this isn't about workers walking away and refusing to work. it is about workers able to take a step up to provide for themselves and their families. this is the kind of recovery i promised and hoped for for the american people where the biggest benefits go to the people who work the hardest and are more often left behind. the people who have been ignored before. the people who just want a decent chance to build a decent life for their families, give it a clear shotment for them wages are up. job opportunities are up. layoffs are down to the lowest levels in decades and there are more chances than ever to get

ahead. no wonder one lady in economic -- analyst described what we've accomplished in 2021 as the strongest first year economic track record of any president in the last 50 years. today america is the only leading economy in the world where the economy as a whole is stronger than before the pandemic. now i hear republicans say today that my talking about this strong record shows that i don't understand, i don't understand. a lot of people are still suffering, they say. they are. or i'm not focused on inflation, malarkey. they want to talk down the recovery because they voted against the legislation that made it happen. they voted against the tax cuts for middle class families. they voted against the funds we needed to reopen our schools. to keep police officers and firefighters on the job. to lower our healthcare

premiums. they voted against the funds we're now using to buy covid booster shots and more antiviral pills. i refuse to let them stand in the way of this recovery and my focus is on keeping this recovery strong and durable notwithstanding republican obstructionism. i know that even as jobs and family's incomes have recovered families are still feeling the pinch of prices and costs. so we're taking that on as well. that's -- the way to do that is not to step back from the economic progress we've made but to build on it. i've laid out a three-part plan to address costs families are facing. one, first part of that plan fixing the supply chain. two, protecting consumers and promoting competition. three, lowering kitchen table costs including with my build

back better act. first the supply chain. a couple of months ago we heard a lot of dire warnings about supply chain problems leading to a crisis around the holidays. thanksgiving and christmas. we acted. we brought together business and labor to solve the problems. the much-predicted crisis didn't occur. the grinch did not steal christmas, nor any votes. look, the number of containers sitting on docks for more than eight days is now down by nearly 40%. the number of packages delivered on time was nearly 99%. workers stayed on the job and did the job to bring goods to consumers. we're continuing to work to speed up every step of this process. the ports, trains, trucking.

my bipartisan infrastructure plan included significant investments in each of these areas. i want to thank the 19 republicans in the senate and the 13 in the house who stepped in to help pass it so we didn't have to face another filibuster and lose a very badly-needed plan. the second area protecting american consumers. in the last few decades in too many indust a handful of giant companies dominate the market. meat processing, shipping. too often they use their power to squeeze out smaller competitors and raise the prices, reducing options for consumers and exploiting workers to keep wages unfairly low. you see that in your own life. just look at your grocery bill and the cost of meat. it is not because the cattle farmer is getting rich. matter of fact the exact

opposite. fewer processors can charge grocery stores much more money for their ground beef, for example. i said it before, capitalism without competition isn't capitalism. it is exploitation. i'm determined to end the exploitation. later this month i'll meet with my competition council which includes key economic leaders from across my administration to keep pushing for more broad action to increase competition across our economy. healthy competition produces lower prices, higher wages and more dynamic and innovative economies. it makes everybody better off. third, i'm working to reduce costs that don't need to be such a burden. the biggest weapon is the build back better act which will reduce what families have to pay for basic necessities to live a life, raise a family,

from prescription drugs to healthcare to childcare and more help so families can cover the cost of raising their children and caring for their loved ones, their older loved ones. as we've seen over and over again throughout this pandemic, people can't find affordable childcare, they can't work. right now there are two million extremely qualified women who have not been able to return to work because they can't find or can't afford childcare. on healthcare, we've made quality coverage through the aca more affordable than ever before with families saving an average of $2,400 on their annual premiums and 4 out of 5 consumers finding quality coverage for under $10 a month. and the result when you reduce the cost of healthcare, more people can afford to get it. over 4 million people have

gained coverage since i became president. you've heard me say it a million times, it's always about peace of mind. for example, we are going to make it so nobody will pay more than $35 a month for insulin. imagine you are a parent and one of the 200,000 children in this country with type i diabetes. it can cost as much as $1,000 a month for insulin even though a vile of that insulin costs $10 to manufacture. we can did all this. we do it without increasing inflation or the deficit. nobody making more than 400,000 -- less than $400,000 a year will pay a penny more in federal taxes. we'll keep working on these fronts. some of the components that are

immediate. unsticking the supply chain. over time investments in infrastructure but all will help america's families. it is urgent we get moving on all of it without delay because at this moment as a country, we face an important choice. do we take the steps to create an economy with strong, sustainable growth, higher wages and more opportunity for all americans, or do we settle for an economy that wasn't working for our middle class even before the pandemic began? an economy that delivered sluggish growth, stagnant wages, limited opportunities. i'm not an economist. i've been doing it a long time. car prices are too high right now, two solutions, increase the supply of cars by making more of them or we reduce demand for cars by making

americans poorer. that's the choice. believe it or not there are a lot of people in the second camp. you've heard them complain that wages are rising too fast among the very middle class an working class people who have endured decades of a stalled income. their view of the economy says the only solution to our current future challenges is to make the working families that are the backbone of our country poorer or keep them in the state they're in. it is a pessimistic vision and i reject it. i reject the idea we should somehow punish people because they finally have a little more breathing room. america doesn't need to settle for less. we need an economy that has the capacity to generate more growth, more jobs, and more opportunity for all americans. that's why we'll keep doing everything we can to one, unstick the bottlenecks keeping goods from getting to

consumers, two, build better infrastructure so we can get parts and goods to factory floors quicker and cheaper. three, bring more of that production back here to the united states. to make our supply chain more secure. let's make america, let's make what we sell in america made in america so we aren't at risk of foreign supply chains and shipping delays. and in doing so, get more americans working in jobs with rising wages. i want to be clear, i'm confident the federal reserve will act to achieve their dual goals of full employment and stable prices and make sure the price increases do not become entrenched over the long term with the independence that they need. but the best way that i as president and the congress as a legislature can tackle high prices is by building a more

productive economy with greater capacity to deliver for the american people. a growing economy where people have more opportunities, more small businesses opening, and i might add pair en thetically 30% increase in the application for new small businesses and goods get to market faster. economy where we don't just grow the economic pride to make sure people who bake the pie get a fair slice of it as well. for too long they've been thrown around terms, to have an economic agenda that supplied more wealth who were already very well off. from day one my economic agenda has been different. it has been about taking a fundamentally new approach to our economy. one that sees the prosperity of

working families as the solution, not the problem. there has never been a time i can think of when the middle class and working class have done wealth that the wealthy haven't done very well. working families need to get a fighting chance and by the way, the stock market, the last guy's measure of everything, is about 20% higher than it was when my predecessor was there. it has hit record after record after record on my watch. while making things more equitable for working class people. at the same time we've created jobs, reduced unemployment, raised wages. i've always said when working people do well everybody benefits. i'm determined to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out. because when we do we get more growth, higher wages, more jobs, over time lower prices. don't take my word for it.

just look at the results. historical results. results for working americans. economists call this increased the productive capacity of our economy. i call it building back better. that's what we are going to keep doing and keep building. thank you all very much and i will get a chance to talk to all of you on tuesday when i am down in georgia talking about voting rights. thank you. [reporters asking questions] >> mr. president. are we prepared to live with covid forever? mr. president. are americans prepared to -- >> president biden: i don't think covid is here to stay. having covid in the environment here and in the world is probably going to stay. covid as we're dealing with it now is not here to stay.

the new normal doesn't have to be -- we have so many more tools we're developing and continue to develop that can contain covid and other strains of covid. i don't believe this is -- if you take a look we're very different today than we were a year ago even though we still have problems. 90% of the schools are open now because we spent the time and the money in the recovery act to provide for the ability of schools to remain open. and what we're doing now is we talked about, you know, how we're dealing with testing. you know, we have been doing now we have had 300 million tests per month so far and that's 11 million tests a day. in addition to that we're in the process of ordering 500,000 new tests and so we'll be able to control this. the new normal is not going to be what it is now. it will be better.

thank you. [reporters shouting questions] >> harris: the end of that was not helpful. covid is t here to stay but it may be here to stay around the world but it is not here to stay the way it is now. i don't know that he helped any messaging there. let's get into the money, american's money. you heard the president talking about the economic recover redespite 199,000 jobs added in december. far fewer by half of what economists were projecting. it marks the second straight month where job growth has fallen below expectations because so many have quit the workforce. we have a lot of openings. 3.6 million. will those workers come back? steve forbes chairman of forbes media with his initial reactions to the president. >> well, it really is -- a lot of it is a fairytale. before the covid crisis hit american unemployment was lower. lower income, people's wages

were rising at a faster pace than the rest of the workforce and things were going in the right direction. he has hobbled recovery from covid as lockdowns ended. lockdowns on oil and gas is raising energy costs, the build back better which is the biden big bill massive tax increases would hurt job creation and the growth of the economy. massive spending he wants and wants more of will mean more money printing which will mean more inflation down the road as the federal reserve has to finance the deficits. you put it all together he has taken something where if he had done nothing he would look like a hero today. they are standing in the way of recovery rather than enhancing it. they throw roadblocks to it. the vaccine mandate the way it was done. a country like spain did persuasion to have people get vaccines. here public shaming. people leaving the workforce because of those vax requirements. you have confusion.

they didn't do the testing production right even though they knew weeks ago there would be a seasonal upsurge in covid. so he is turning a bad situation the best way he can give him credit they're trying to put the lipstick on the pig but unfortunately the american people know when they get to the marketplace what they see in terms of prices. >> harris: from your expertise we are learning as well and other analysts we're talking to. the president is entitled to his own take on things but not entitled to his own facts. that's the challenge here, right? we know in october 4.1, in december 4.5 people quit jobs. some of those places have gone out of business. so the openings may not always match how many people are leaving the workforce is what i'm reading. i do want to get to this because i saw almost like a one-on-one match with some polling. you saw the president try to explain the cost of meat. from his own admission a family

member, some distant family member on his wife's said had to explain to him the cost of meat. no idea how high everything is. >> that's the bubble they're in. a couple of months ago one of the officials said rising prices show people are earning and spending more and why prices are going up. ignoring the fact the increase is prices is exceeding people's wages. meat prices, they'll be blaming -- in roman times they blamed christians and medieval times witches. now they blame meat producers and gas producers and the finger points at them but they'll try to scapegoat to avoid game. >> harris: i don't know if you sent a fruit basket with mirrors in it so they could see themselves. >> this is a conversation about

our workforce and the imbalanced nature of it and the way that's going to impact every single american who shares my addiction to smooth roads, indoor plumbing, affordable electricity and so forth. >> harris: steve. >> the president talks about his great spending bills on infrastructure. that so-called infrastructure bill only about 8% went for real things like highways and bridges. the rest were all other things that had nothing to do with real infrastructure. if they want to focus on real things have a real infrastructure bill. remove the obstacles to building roads and bridges which they don't sufficiently address. >> harris: we're up against the top of the hour here. the president just said back and forth oh, covid is not here, oh covid is here around the world but not like this. it seems to have an impact on the market. why? >> well, because if you don't realize what the reality is, guess what? the markets don't like uncertainty and can lead to bad policies that you've seen with

this administration already. they've botched vaccines and testings and the whole mask policy. talked about we open schools. they caved to the unions. the schools should have been open a year ago but they caved to the unions. >> harris: steve forbes, thank you very much for handling the breaking news with me hot and fast. appreciate it. thank you. "outnumbered" starts right >> right now the supreme court is hearing emergency oral arguments on challenges to president biden's sweeping covid vaccine mandate. while the mandates are the heart of the cases, the core issue here, is the federal government's power, to create policy. i am emily compagno, and this is outnumbered. i'm joined by my cohost, harris faulkner, and kayleigh mcenany. as well as kennedy house of kennedy and fox and friends and, lawrence jones. the high court is he anum