are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrurururururu [♪♪♪] jonathan: this is a fox news alert. i'm jonathan hunt in lviv, ukraine. another day of turmoil and destruction as russian troops take up defensive positions on the outskirts of the capital city of kyiv. damage in the area is widespread. ukrainian soldiers said the russians hit them with air and ground bombardments, but underestimated the strength of the resistance. its main focus of russia is take control of the eastern donbas

area. one top ukrainian official believes moscow may be trying to split the nation in two. volodymyr zelenskyy says his troops need fighter jets and more tanks. but as this war faces its fifth week, the need for humanitarian aid is also a growing concern. >> the last week was to see the level of humanitarian, we hope it will find the surface and because of russia aggression increasing bombing civilians. we need more humanitarian support from our partners. jonathan: the plea for more aid

comes with word of perhaps more peace talks today in turkey. president biden seemed to imply vladimir putin should not be in power. blinken says he was merely saying russia should not have power over its neighbors. jon: i'm jon roberts, president biden blasts president up inin a powerful speech but off the cuff remark that has captured the world's attention. >> for god sake, this man cannot remain in power. the secretary of state saying this is about putin's grip on ukraine, not russia. >> we do not have a strategy of regime change. jon: now the challenges ahead after a pep talk with u.s. troops and show of force with nato. the u.s. announcing new sanctions and help for refugees but ukraine says it needs more

military aid. we will talk to the u.s. ambassador to nato julianne smith about getting leaders on the same page and concerns about russia's long-term goals. plus senate republicans position themselves to win back the majority in november with a focus on well-established battlegrounds. we will discuss with florida senator rick scott who is leading republican efforts to flip the chamber. while liberal democrats in the house press the president to side-step senate standoffs and take executive order on everything from student debt to gas prices. we will ask democratic congress ro khanna about the push from progressives. then -- >> i do. jon: after marathon two days of questioning democrats aim to confirm the president supreme court nominee, we will ask our sunday panel how the

confirmation hearings have become one of washington's partisan. all right now on fox news sunday. ♪ ♪ jon: hello again from fox news in washington, the president is back on u.s. soil this morning after a blistering speech in europe where he slammed russian president vladimir putin and gave a stark warning to stay out of nato territory. the president also appeared to call for putin's removal but the white house walking that back this morning. this comes after days of meetings with nato allies on how to support ukraine as russia continues indiscriminate shelling one month into the invasion. in a moment we will discuss president's speech with julianne smith. we begin with team coverage mike tobin on the ground in lviv. first rich edison in the white house with reaction to biden's

words? rich: but the white house has left clarifying president biden's major pronouncement. >> it's putin, it's vladimir putin who is to blame, period. rich: in a major speech in poland at the doorstep of russian aggression, president biden verbally tore down vladimir putin assailing him for invasion of ukraine and the president encouraged the world's democracies and warned autocrat against moving on premier offensive alliance. >> don't even think about moving on one single inch of nato territory. >> the president's most powerful and lasting declaration in this address that putin cannot remain in power needed a major clarification from an unnamed white house official. quote, the president's point was that putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. he was not discussing putin's power in russia or regime change. that follows confusion over the white house's position on

response to potential chemical weapons used or the purpose of sanctions. the speech ended a busy 3 days in europe during this time the white house announced additional natural gas shipments to europe so ending dependency on russian oil and gas would take years. the ukrainian government is pushing for more energy from around the world and more weapons from nato. >> all offers are on the table, our needs are on the table, we need peace immediately. the answers are up to you. >> ahead of his speech the president met with leaders and reinforced eastern flank and ukrainian refugees and millions dispersed in neighboring countries. the white house announced the u.s. will accept one hundred thousand refugees and pledged humanitarian aid. while meeting with refugees the president turned his attention to vladimir putin calling him a

butcher. >> john. john: rich edison at the white house for us. rich, thank you. let's turn to mike tobin live in lviv, ukraine with the latest on the ground. mike, the city of lviv which had largely been quiet was changed yesterday, what happened? mike: well, about 4:30 p.m. local time the air raid sirens sounded with the wind direction. we didn't hear the air strike downtown. we started learning about the strikes from our smartphones. short after that the fumes. the regional governor said 5 people were injured and the lviv mayor this was russia saying-o to president biden as you know was nearby in poland. john: mike, this all happened right about the same time as russia had said, look, we pretty much achieved the goals that we wanted to achieve in the first

part and now securing the eastern part, the donbas region. it was a little interesting to see them fire off missiles at the same time they said that. mike: it is interesting. you heard russians that the focus will go east and yet the air strikes came to the east. listen to sergey. >> makes it possible to focus on the main efforts to achieve the main goal. liberation of donbas. mike: now that donbas said that he's talking about the region just north and east of mariupol and that is the region where russian-backed militias have been fighting the ukrainian since 2014 and also the region that vladimir putin he wanted to liberate from the nazis. john. john: mike, is there much change where the ground war has been concentrated? mike: well, the siege of mariupol continues and it

continues at a real savage page. the people of mariupol of all the things they have to worry about, they have to worry about starvation because it's been going on for that long. the town, ukrainians say they have reclaimed that town and that's going to give them access to key highways and supply as it relates to kyiv the battle lines haven't really moved that much. we don't see the russians retreating, rather we see the russians digging in to defensive positions, john. john: mike tobin reporting live from live live. mike, thank you. joining us now from brussels is the u.s. ambassador to nato julianne smith. ambassador, welcome to fox news sunday, thank you for taking the time today. >> thank you. john: the president in warsaw gave by what all accounts was a tough speech but words at the end of the speech that he appeared to ad libbed and had been getting worldwide attention. let me play those for you and get your reaction on the other

side. >> for god's sake, this man cannot remain in power. john: so he appeared to in that ad lib there off the cuff remarks articulate regime change toward russia, not only did he say it but in poland, in your estimation, is that helpful to the cause? >> well, let me be clear and just state right off the bat that the u.s. does not have a policy of regime change towards russia but i think what we all agree on is that president putin cannot be in power to wage far. he has attacked ukraine in a premeditated unprovoked conflict and is pursuing this relentless and brutal war in ukraine which we all want to see come to an end. john genuine that has been the stated policy, that we are not looking for a regime change in russia but the gaffe was significant enough that later on in the day in a news conference in jerusalem the secretary of

state fell it necessary to clarify the remarks. listen here. >> president putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against ukraine or anyone else. as you know, and as you heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in russia. john: we don't have a strategy of regime change in russia. but this would seem to play right into putin's hands. he can go to his cronies and go to his oligarchs and he can go to his defense minister, see, i told you, they are out to get us here in the same way that the president seemingly gave vladimir putin a green light to go in and have a small incursion into the eastern part of ukraine. putin will take a look at this and say they are out to get me. >> well, look, the president had spent the day standing, talking to ukrainian refugees. he went to the national stadium in warsaw and literally met with hundreds of ukrainian refugees.

he listened to their heroic stories about fleeing ukraine in the wake of russia's brutal aggression there and it was very moving day. we don't want to see putin continuing this war full stop in ukraine and that's why he came to europe. he stopped in brussels and then went onto poland to work closely with our allies on unprecedented steps to apply pressure on russia and assist ukraine in this moment. john: in a surprise address over the weekend, zelenskyy called on nato to provide him with the weapons that he believes he needs to win the war including tanks and again he made an appeal for those migs but the united states is refusing to give him the migs. there's a whole lot more that nato can do to help ukraine win this conflict, not just hold the line against russia but the president appears to be timid about triggering vladimir putin in into an escalation.

is he right to think that or is there more latitude here to push putin a little harder by maybe just giving those migs to ukraine? >> well, first of all, let me say that the nato alliance in the united states bilaterally is in constant contact with president zelenskyy you and members of his cabinet. we are constantly in conversation with the ukrainians assessing what their defense needs are. since joe biden, president biden came into office in january of last year the united states has provided $2 billion of lethal assistance to ukraine. now, on your question about the migs, we have urged every ally in the alliance to come forward and share their ideas on what more we can do to support ukraine through antiair and antiarmorred weapons and other ideas. poland came forward with the idea of offering the soviet-era jets. we looked at that. we had questions about it and at the end of the day the united

states believed that in this case the delivery of those jets was unattainable, we had a number of questions about the logistics of delivering those jets from poland to ukraine, we also had questions about the ukrainian pilots that could potentially be flying those jets. but this is an evolving set of circumstances. we are continually coming together with our allies and looking at what more we can do to get lethal assistance in the hands of the ukrainian military. john: you say that the issue with the migs is mostly logistical but here in the united states the administration has said, no, it's a question of escalation. and if i'm not mistaken, the original idea of poland giving the migs to ukraine was an american idea. it was only when the pols said we give to you and you give them to ukraine that it became a problem. >> well, my understanding is that the ukrainians asked poland, in fact, i believe that the ukrainians are in regular

contact as they are with the united states with individual nato allies. they've spoken with most of the allies on nato's eastern flank and even some that are not on nato's eastern flank over towards the west. each ally is doing what it's -- what it conditions to provide assistance in this moment and we will continue to work withle lies on determining what's best and how we can assist them with, again, their air defense needs. john: there was a debate, madame ambassador in the administration as to what sanctions were designed to do. we were told in the run-up to this invasion that sanctions were meant to deter putin from ever going to ukraine but in the weekend the president said that, no, sanctions were never meant to deter. let's listen to what the president said and listen to what his lieutenant said in the run-up to the invasion. >> let's get something straight, you remember if you covered me from the very beginning, i did not say that, in fact, the sanctions would deter him. sanctions never deter.

>> the president believes that sanctions are intended to deter. >> the purpose of the sanctions has always been and continues to be deterrence. >> the purpose of the sanctions in the first instance is to try to deter russia from going to war. >> sanctions are not an end to themselves, they serve a higher purpose. that purpose is to deter and prevent. >> we do see them as having a deterrent impact. john: madame, ambassador, can you hear this up for us, were they meant to deter or were they not meant to deter? >> look, before russia went to ukraine we took a number of steps to outline the consequence that is russia would be facing if they'd opted for a war inside ukraine. we laid out a sanction's package, we made it clear that we were in daily contact with our european allies and put together a package. now that russia has gone into ukraine, we've moved forward with those costs. they've been unprecedented and if you look at any indicator for the russian economy whether you're looking at the value of

the ruble or you're looking at their credit rating or you're looking at interest rates, those sanctions are having an impact right now on the russian economy. john: but again, were they meant to deter or not? >> well, look, before the war obviously we were laying out the consequences in pretty explicit detail with the hope that president putin would take an alternative course. we were trying in that moment to sharpen his choice. we were also at that moment moving u.s. force posture into eastern europe also to help sharpen his choice. unfortunately he opted for war and now he's feeling the consequences. john: one last quick question in the remaining time that we have left. russia seems to be recalibrating saying it's going to be focusing consolidating of luhansk and in the donbas region. is there an opportunity to try to save ukraine? >> well, let's be clear, this

war is not going as planned. the information we had indicated that the russians wanted to go in and take kyiv in just a few days. it's a month now into this war, they're in a defensive crouch outside of kyiv, they have announced that they are changing their tactics. we will have to monitor the situation on the ground and see if that's actually the case but i think they are on their back foot here and we've been so impressed with the fighting capability and spirit of the ukrainian forces and we have confidence that they are going to prevail. john: the ukrainian forces are the one remarkable thing about all of this. julianne smith, ambassador to nato for the united states. thank you so much for your time today, appreciate it. >> thank you. john: up next senator rick scott on the president's speech and the challenges ahe in ukraine. ♪ ♪

john: as the president's poll numbers sag in key races republicans eye a pathway to flip the house and regain control of the senate. joining us now from florida the chair of the national republican senatorial committee, senator rick scott, senator, welcome back to fox news sunday, good to see you. senator: great seeing, john, we have great primaries and i think bernie sanders type candidates will come out and unpopular and as long as we raise the money, as long as we focus on big-bold

ideas, i think we are going to have a great november. john: you do have issues which i will get to in a second. first i want to pivot back to ukraine when he add-libbed this, listen here. >> for god sake, this man cannot remain in power. john: that seemed to be a dramatic departure from american policy where he appeared to be calling for regime change in russia. take out vladimir putin. his secretary of state antony blinken had to promptly walk it back, nope, regime change is not something that we are looking for and did he play right in putin's hands who is trying to make this something between russia and the united states, not just europe. senator: absolutely. what biden needs to stop doing and start acting.

stop telling biden what he will do, start giving resource to the ukrainian people, rally nato and do the same thing. i don't get why migs aren't there. we need more antiaircraft, antiship, antitank equipment there. zelenskyy is telling us what he needs, thank god zelenskyy and the people are willing to defend freedom because if they don't where is putin going to stop? biden -- he has to start acting and getting things done and start misspeaking. stop misspeaking. john: we have an incline of an idea when articulating. we will concentrate on consolidating defense of donetsk and luhansk, the donbas region, that seems to be an indication that maybe they are giving up on the idea of trying to take over all ukraine. is this time to give ukraines the weapons it needs to win

because we never heard the president say we are going to help ukraine win. senator: i know, it's hard to believe. absolutely. i mean, we have got to help ukraine win. we've got to push putin back into russia and then let the will of the russian people decide what happens to putin. he ought to go to prison for war crimes but we have got to do everything don't play to tie, you play to win. you give them every resource you can and you do it every second. you are thinking every second, what else can we do to put putin back on his heels and have him take his troops back into russia. that's what we should be doing every second. we have got to win this. john: you and i have talked about this before on our program america reports and that is that the white house maybe never thought that we were going to be in this position that, 3, 4 days maybe a week putin would have taken over ukraine and installed the puppet government there and we would be dealing with that.

i don't think anybody thought that the ukrainians were going to fight back with the heroic courage that they have. you have been trying to do what you can to try to bring russia to its knees. you have the stop putin act, it would put congress and not the president in charge of whether the united states does business with russian oil companies. do you not trust the president to do it? senator: well, he's been pretty weak. i mean, this should have never have happened. if biden would have done everything early. if he would had sent all the resources, made sure that zelenskyy had everything he nede needed, antitank, antiaircraft, putin wouldn't have invaded. you look at the pictures of the children dying just because putin is such a thug, a

murderist thug. john: let's switch to politics because there's a lot to look forward between now and november the eighth, you recently put an 8-point plan to rescue america two of the big points, quote, all americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, currently half of americans pay no income tax. it also says all federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. if a law is worth keeping, congress can pass it again. so that would raise taxes on half of americans and potentially sunset programs like medicare, medicaid and social security. why would you propose something like that in an election year? senator: sure, john, that's the democrat talking points. john: no. it's in the plan. it's in the plan. senator: here is the thing about reality for a second. john: but, senator, hang on. it's not a democratic talking point. it's in the plan. senator: also in the plan it says that we ought to every year

talk about exactly how we are going to fix medicare and social security. here is what is happening. no one that i know of wants to sunset medicare and social security but what we are doing is we don't even talk about it. medicare goes bankrupt in 4 years, social security goes bankrupt in 12 years. i think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs. every program that we care about we ought to stop and take the time to preserve those programs. i -- i just fought the postal bill because it put more responsibility on medicare and took it off the postal service and put medicare in a worst position. now, let's go -- let's talk about taxes for a second. i will put my record up against anybody on tax cuts. i cut taxes a hundred times as governor. here is what is unfair, we have people -- that could go to work and have figured out how to have government pay their way. that's not right. they ought to have some skin in the game. i don't think if it's a dollar.

we ought all be in this together. ly continue to focus on reducing taxes. that's what i've done my whole life. there's an 11-step plan. let's be bold, go to rescueamerica.com and give ideas and text 2204. give me your ideas. i want to change the country. the woke left controls everything. we have to win. we have to change the country. john: as you said no everyone agrees with it and one of the people that doesn't agree with it is mitch mcconnell. here is what he said. >> let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda, we will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half of the american people and sunsets social security and medicare within 5 years. that will not be part of a republican senate majority agenda. john: a few days after he said that you pinned wall street

journal op-ed why i'm defying beltway cowardess, are you calling mitch mcconnell a coward. senator: i went to dc to change the country. look at where we are now. the woke left controls the executive branch, they control academia, they control hollywood. we -- look, we have an open border. we decided that we are not going to be energy independent. we have to change this. you don't change it without having a plan. i'm a business guy. when i was in business i wrote a plan, i surrounded myself with people, we implemented the plan. when i ran for governor we had a plan. we have to have a plan for what we are going to do when we win. we are going to win. we have great people but let's have a plan. that's why i said go to rescueamerica give me ideas. let's come occupy with the best ideas out there. john: the majority of your colleagues want to focus on joe

biden as opposed to coming up with a plan that they think that they can sell to the american people about what the republicans would do. but anyways, i want to move onto something else and that's jenny thomas, the wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas, she sent texts and emails mark meadows. she's a conservative activist and entitled to her own opinion but she's the wife of a supreme court justice. there are calls for clarence thomas to recuse himself from any future cases involving january the sixth. what do you say? senator: well, first off, i admire and respect clarence thomas. i think he's been a great supreme court justice and clarence thomas in my opinion will always do the right thing. so i -- i've not seen in my -- i've watched clarence thomas in for years and i have always seen him do the right thing.

john: what's interesting is that the supreme court justices are not bound by the same code of ethics that other federal judges are. chris murphy, your fellow senator, introduced legislation to change that last summer. would >> i haven't seen the legislation, but, you know, i tell you what, my experience with the supreme court is they're trying their best to interpret the laws and do the best they can. i don't agree with everything they do, none of us would, but i think they're trying to do the best they can. john: senator rick scott of the great state of florida, always a pleasure. thank you for having us. >> bye-bye. have a good day. john: coming up next, congressman ro khanna on the midterm warnings from progressives to the white house. ♪

♪ john: progressive democrats are warning the white house that the party will see pain at the polls if they don't deliver on key

policies and are encouraging the president to make a run around the senate. joining us now is democratic congressman ro khanna, author of the new book, "dignity in the digital age." congressman, welcome back to fox news. >> thank you for having me. john: good to have you here. i don't need to play the sound bite again, but let me get you to weigh in on what the said, ad libbed, at the end of that speech yesterday because a lot of people did a double take. and it's headlines everywhere where around the world right now that the president just called for reregime change in russia. >> john, let me be very clear, the united states policy is not regime change, it's a negotiated end to this war. now, look, when putin in mariupol is bombing theaters with 300 kids there, where there's a sign saying children, and he's bombing that, any human being would express frustration, and the president was speaking from his heart, but it's not the u.s. policy to seek regime change. john: he has a habit or

propensity to sometimes say the quiet part out loud. like when he said, well, if it's a minor incursion, it's one thing. i'm sure that was a conversation that occurred in the situation room that he just blurted out loud. and there are a lot of people in this world who would like to see putin go. but when you're the president of the united states, you can't just say stuff like that. >> the prime minister, i think, is a straight -- president, i think, is a straight shooter. i'm sure he's so frustrated with these scenes -- john: he is. >> but i think the white house has been disciplined, and they said we need a negotiated end to this war, that has to be with putin as a settlement. there's no support in the democratic congress for regime change. we've been the party against regime change for the past 20 years. john: but do you think putin's going to take and try to use it to his advantage? >> well, he takes anything and tries to use it to his advantage. we need to make it as difficult -- look at what this president has done because i

heard senator scott earlier with. we've provided the anti-tanks, the anti-aircrafts, over $2 billion of assistance, we have the most punishing sanctions. this president has rallied nato. it's easy to monday morning quarterback and say, oh, you could have done one more thing. but this prime minister, by and large, has been tough -- president, by and large, has been tough. it means u.s. service members are going to go up into the skies and be shot at by mugs planes. i know it's easy to come on fox news or cnn and talk tough, but i don't want to put american service members at risk. if poland wants to supply those planes, fine. i want them to get to zelenskyy but not at the cost of american lives. john: let me ask you about the iran nuclear deal because we've been hearing it's close, but one of the potential provisions

would be to allow russia to buy excess enriched uranium from iran, and i'm wondering what sense does it make to allow a country that at every turn is threatening to use nuclear weapons for the first time since the second world war that gives them excess enriched uranium? >> that should not be part of the deal. the deal hasn't been finalized. i would not support having a russian exception given what's going on right now to allow them to get iranian oil. i think we we ought to have the world boycotting russian oil. i've been clear, actually, on india that i think india ought not to be getting oil from russia or china. we ought to rally the world to isolate putin. john: india's also getting weapons from russia which is why modi seems to be trying to maintain close ties with putin. should the say, look, break your ties with russia, we'll give it to you, or is that going to create a big rift with pakistan? >> i've been vice chair of the

u.s.-india caucus, and first india should condemn in the u.n. putin for the blatant human rights violations. the united states was with them when china invaded india. putin wasn't there, and it's time for them to buy more weapons from the united states, not russia. we have to look at how we can facilitate that and make that easier. we need the indian allies to contain china. john: let me swing to politics because the fed is raising interest rates, in california the average price of gasoline is $6 a gallon, yet the president keeps talking about we've got to move toward the green agenda. a green agenda is fine if you do it over the courses of decades. even if you gave everybody in the country an electric vehicle for free and you converted every home to electric heat, the grid wouldn't stand it. is it a time to put a pause on the push toward the green agenda and say, look, for the meantime, we've got to pump more oil, we've got to help other european allies, we've got to get prices down. >> we can do both.

short term, increase production. here's one way to do it. the federal government can buy back what a we're using in the strategic petroleum reserve, that's a bipartisan proposal. long term, let's have a moonshot on or alternative technology. you want to defeat the petrol states of iran, venezuela, saudi arabia, let's have a moonshot on renewable energy, the short-term increase of production, long-term moonshot on alternative energy. john: alexandria ocasio-cortez said that she thinks the democratic party is in trouble because of the president. listen to what she said. >> this is really about the collapse in support among young people, among the democratic base feeling like they are not -- they've worked overtime to get this president elected, and they aren't necessarily being seen. john: is she right? >> the president's done an extraordinary job. we passed the american rescue plan and friday infrastructure. here's the biggest thing, $20

billion, intel is investing in ohio. you talk about the revitalization of the midwest, we're delivering. let's get it to the president, there are other things that we ought to do, but this president has met the note very difficult circumstances. john: americans might disagree with you. his approval rating's only 40% in the latest reuters/ipsos poll. i want to ask you a question about your book because the political discourse in this country has sunk to new lows, and much of the reason why everybody's yelling at each other is because of social media. is social media ruining this country? >> no, but social media needs to do better. several things they need to do better. they ought not to have incitement of violence, they ought not to discriminate against viewpoints, and they ought to make sure that teenagers aren't getting manipulated many ways that are causing depression and suicide. absolutely, there need to be more smarter regulations on social media. john: congressman, thanks so much for making time today. >> thank you for giving me the chance. john: hope to see you again on

our program, "america reports." >> i'd love to. john: coming up next, judge ketanji brown jackson is one step closer to becoming the first black woman on the supreme court. we'll bring in our sunday panel to discuss her nomination and the i don't want sized role that the current president -- outsized role the current president has played in the process over the last four decades. >> the confirmation has been infected by the general meanness and nastiness that presaid --s our process today.

♪ john: long before he was president, joe biden spent 17 years as chair of the senate judiciary committee. that experience came full circle this week as his nominee to

replace justice steven breyer, whose confirmation hear aing he led back in 1994, faced her own. congressional correspondent chad pergram reports. >> good morning, judge jackson. >> good morning. >> reporter: senators asked about gender. >> can you provide a definition for the word woman? >> i can't. >> you can't? >> i'm not a biologist -- >> reporter: they asked about abortion. >> can an unborn child feel pain at 20 weeks? >> senator, john. >> you can bank as long -- bang as loud as you want. >> there's no point in responding, he's going to interrupt you. >> reporter: judiciary committee chairman dick durbin is responsible for piloting jackson's nomination through the senate, but i the man who picked jackson enjoys an unprecedented vantage point about the course his nominee faces. >> the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> i do, mr. chairman. >> president biden presided over hearings for six supreme court

nominees in the '80s and '90s when he served in the senate. two of those are legendary. the president tangled with robert bork in 1987. >> well, the fact is what was prosecuted -- >> well, let me -- i have more to say about that, whether it was a crime torrent. >> bork later became only one of 11 supreme court nominees desweeted on -- defeated on the senate floor. >> you know and i know what we're talking about. >> in 1991 president biden presided over what many regard as the most noxious supreme court hearing in history. >> this is a circus. it's a national disgrace. >> reporter: law professor anita hill charged that justice clarence thomas sexually a harassed her. the hearings devolved into a vulgar spectacle. >> what was the most embarrassing of all the incidences that you have alleged. >> the discussion of pornography involving women with large

breasts. >> reporter: today democrats criticize gop senators who may want to run for president for their aggressive tactics with jackson. but it was the notoriety of supreme court confirmation hearings which propelled a senator from delaware into the american political mainstream. john: chad joins us now as part of our sunday group alongside karl rove, marie harf and fox news correspondent gillian turner. welcome, all. karl, let me start with you because you saw through a couple of these with justice roberts and justice alito. mitt romney has said he believes some of the attacks against ketanji brown jackson were, quote, off course. what do you say? some. >> i think that's probably right. i'm with andrew mccarthy in these decisions involving child pornography, but this is a mild hearing. she's going to be confirmed. i thought one of the interesting things was at the beginning of this process she said, quote, i do not have a judicial philosophy, and obviously

someone in this process said you better have a better answer that that. she was, she could have taken care of a lot of this if she had better answers to some of the simple questions. what is a woman? a woman is somebody with two x chromosomes, and that would have ended the discussion. and instead we had a little bit of a back and forth on it. but she's going to be confirmedded, reliably liberal, and the question is, is she going to be to occasional person like breyer was who breaks from liberal orthodoxy. john: marie and i had that conversation in the makeup room earlier. >> who is a woman? thankfully, karl told us about that. john: aren't there legitimate concerns about some of her positions on sentencing, her connections to advocacy groups on the left? >> first, we should note that she is the most popular supreme court nominee since john roberts in 2005. the american people, especially

women of color but sort of across the board, know this is a pretty historic pick. i think she answered those questions many of which, john, were really designed to be played in gop political ads in the midterms and in the next presidential cycle. they weren't really, i think, designed to get real information from her about her judicial philosophy. no one thinks judge jackson defends child pornographers, for example. so i think we heard a lot of information from her about a her rulings in past cases, how she approaches her judicial processes, as karl mentioned, and philosophy, and she will be confirmed which will be a historic feat for the supreme court. john: we asked voters for their feelings about it, and here's some interesting findings. when asked if they would vote to confirm ketanji brown jackson, 56% of people said they would, 50% said they would confirm justice amy coney barrett. justice kavanaugh, 40%. judge gorsuch, 45%.

so, gillian, she's got a higher rating than any of the previous three judges. >> yeah, and i think with good reason. she performed very well. i think, to be fair to the other side here, a lot of gop senators got a lot of flak for focusing on gender, that question about what is a woman, race, can babies be racist. but these are core issues animating their voters. these are issues that are very important in poll after poll to the people that these senators are elected to represent. so i think some of the criticism from the left that simply shutting -- shoving these issues inside a box, trying to twine them as a throw cultural issue, are way off base. and i'm surprised to see, actually, the degree to which, you know, cruz, rubio are being criticized for going down those paths. of course they were. that's why she was well prepare frommed to answer those questions. -- prepared to answer those questions. john: when she was appointed to the d.c. circuit, she got three republican votes, graham, her

kousky and collins. -- more cow key and collins. i don't think going to get graham this time around. >> no, it's probably going to be close to 50 to-50. and, again, it's about the math. john thune, the republican whip, said there's probably no more than three republican senators who would vote for her, but again, you need to have all 50 democratic senators there, and we're living in the time of covid. they're trying to do this confirmation by about the 7th, 8th or 9th of april, and if you have senators who are out on the democratic side, bob casey tested positive last week, ben ray lujan who was out for six weeks after suffering a stroke, that could delay this. it will be about the math. john: sticking with with the supreme court, this is the wife of justice clarence thomas sending texts and e-mails to mark meadows, members of congress in the wake of the 20 election urging them to do whatever they could to try to maintain president trump as president. she wrote in one of them, and i

think this was to mark meadows, help this great president stand firm, mark. you are the leader with him who is standing for america's constitutional governor -- governance. biden is attempting the greatest heist of our history. she's a conservative activist, she can say all these things, but she's also the wife of a supreme court justice, and what are the implications of that? >> i'm not a lawyer, but it does strike me that this creates problems for justice thomas in cases involving january 6th and the cases of the 2020 election. and he's going to have to face some serious questions with about whether or not he recuses. full disclosure, i was reminded of this by a friend when this bubbled up last week with. about a dozen years ago, ginny thomas had a meeting of her secret group and announced they were going to have a crusade to erase me from politics. i don't know how that's going -- [laughter] john: although, we can only see you from waist up. [laughter] >> exactly. but these were e-mails, and her

going to create a problem if these kind of cases come before the court. john: does he need to recuse himself from january 6th cases? >> absolutely. we're not responsible for the actions of our spouses, they can have beens -- opinions, but many conservative legal advocates and lawyers -- karl and i are not attorneys, but this has crossed the line, and he should recuse himself. i don't think he will but he should. john: as we pointed out earlier in the program, supreme court justices are not bound by the same code of ethics that other justices are. there's a move afoot, senator chris murphy's introduced legislation to change that. does that need to change? >> i think here there's two issues, and we've got to keep them separate. there's ginny if thomas and then there is her husband. and he will recuse or not recuse based on the legal counsel he gets. when it comes to her, you might disagree with it, you might think it was appropriate or inappropriate, but it bears mentioning that she is a private citizen in all of this.

i also, john, a lot of people are going to get a mad at me, but there is an element of sexism 'em bedded in this criticism. imagine if the gender roles were reverse here. would we be blaming a husband for sort of master minding his wife here? john: if it was amy coney barrett, they just might. >> well -- >> for example, i can think of examples of that too. >> there's no intimation that, you know, these were directed from clarence thomas. john: no. >> she came up with these independently and sent them to -- so she's responsible for the content. the question is, is how does this bear on the public perception of the court if a case comes forward in which -- john: is this legislation going to go anywhere? it's been languishing for nine months. >> so far, this might give it kind of the spur that it needs. nancy pelosi has talked about saying maybe we need something universal for all the courts. but the thing to watch in the next couple of days, tomorrow night the 1/6 committee meets. it's going to refer to the department of justice criminal

contempt referrals dealing with dan and a vino and also peter navarro. i have seen the agenda for tomorrow night's meeting. this was friday. this was not on the agenda. now, whether or not this comes up, and there's going to be a lot of pressure on members of that committee to go after clarence thomas. and how they handle this. in fact, there was one message if i was shown the other day that said they were going to try to handle this with kid gloves. we'll see if that sticks. john: we'll see. one question i want to ask marie before we go, if you were at the state department and the president ad libbed we're going to have regime change in russia, what would you have done? >> he didn't say exactly that. he told the truth, right? putin is a butcher, and he doesn't get to be leader of russia, i have a feeling there are probably some people that are a little nervous about it this morning. but i would rather have a president who calls out putin, who takes him on, who is very aggressive and not someone who kowtows to him and does the opposite. so, look, you know, you heard --

you had ambassador smith on this morning answering for it. i'm actually glad he called out putin. >> the white house had to take it back, it makes the president look like he's out of touch and and not under control, and that's bad. john: former national security council employee? >> he also told american troops the day before that they were going to be sent to ukraine and a few hours later told president duda that the u.s. would accept an additional 100,000 ukrainian refugees, to me, those were bigger problems. john: also said he would respond to a chemical weapons attack in kind. no. thank you, panel. [laughter] we will see you again next sunday. up next, a final word on the week ahead and how you can help the people of ukraine. ♪ ♪ [winter wind noises] you wanna go out, walter? let's go. yeah! mush, walter! pace yourself. ♪♪

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