astronaut reunion. >> dana: before we go. he thought you were down at this event, mike, you like to wear a uniform. santa is heading down the slope in maine to support a local nonprofit there. they certainly looked like they had a great time. they had some snow. >> i like skiing. they look like better skiers with me. >> dana: they're good. "the faulkner focus" is up next. here is harris. >> harris: fox news alert. before elon musk bought twitter, it was an unmitigated mess and filled with people apparently willing to target americans for their beliefs. and it went all the way to the top. the latest revelations expose executives having conversations about changing the platform to go after one single person. donald trump. i'm harris faulkner and you are in "the faulkner focus." journalist michael shellenberger

released the latest information coming from the elon musk-driven investigation of former twitter employees discriminating behaviors. via shellenberger we're learning twitter execs worked to restrict speech and lay the foundation permanently to ban president trump. they crafted a system giving users five strikes. trump's account was gone the very next day. the only example of any pushback that we can find or shellenberger has his hands on at the old twitter came on a lower level in-house messaging board. a quote from that board. this might be an unpopular opinion but one off ad hoc decisions like this that don't appear rooted in policy are a slippery slope. this appears to be a fiat but an on-line platform ceo with a

global presence that can gate keep seats for the entire world that seems unsustainable. well, that person was right. really, if anyone is still wondering where twitter falls on the political spectrum, here is a peak into the employee donations. a breakdown, 2018 more than 96% of employees who work for twitter donated to democrats and their causes. 2020, 98%. 2022, 99%. interesting it was going up. to nearly everybody. employees gave a tiny amount to republicans based on those percentages and numbers. or conservative causes. one democratic lawmaker admits twitter's moves were not okay. >> it is wrong to censor newspapers. it is wrong to censor journalists. i'm open to hearings in

congress. two competing values. on the one hand we don't want censorship or have people censored or shadow boxed and removed from twitter because of their viewpoint. on the other hand we do want respect. we don't want accounts filled with anti-semitism or spewing racism or hate on these accounts. >> harris: mike emanuel live in the nation's capital. >> among the revelations that behind of scenes of what led to president trump being banned by twitter. michael shellenberger tweeted around 11:30 a.m. pacific time roth has news he is excited to share. guess what, he writes? jack just approved repeat offender for civic integrity. the new approach creates a system where five violations, strikes, would result in permanent suspension. roth is the head of safety. shellenberger said there was a push inside coming from twitter's progressive staff.

a method for removal came with a new policy. around noon a confused senior executive in advertising sales. jack says we'll permanently suss pent trump if our policies are violated after a 12-hour account lock. what policies is jack talking about? roth, any policy violation. there was also external pressure on twitter from a variety of progressive voices, former first lady michelle obama who quote, now is the time for silicon valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior and go further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms and putting in place policies to prevent their technologies from being used by the nation's leaders to fuel insurrection. a key republican lawmaker calling today for a new congress to do something. >> laws haven't been updated since the nine 0s. they have to be. antitrust is controversial but

you are going to see major action in this next congress. we've got to clean this up. >> elon musk has teased that there is more to come on twitter's handling of covid-19. harris. >> harris: it's no longer a tease now. we expect it. these parts are so intertwined there has to be something more, right? mike emanuel, thank you very much. as mike is talking about, we've already seen the twitter files drop in four different parts so far. the white house repeatedly dodging and even getting angry over questions in the white house press briefings. >> i can't speak to decisions made by the campaign from here. that is not -- it was a political campaign. i'm just not going to comment on the question you're asking me. i've already addressed this multiple times this week. i don't have anything more to add. we were not involved. i can say that. we were not involved. and as i've said several times this week already, we've talked and had this conversation many

times in this briefing room. just the past couple of days. don't have anything more to share. >> harris: that is as nice as it got. tammy bruce, fox news contributor, host of get tammy bruce on fox nation. not that she has to be nice about it. i would be careful with the words we haven't been involved. she has been there for 20 minutes. >> that certainly casts a broad net when it comes to the government. certain things are done so that people can have possible denyability when they know something is happening perhaps that shouldn't. but my main concern here is that i think it is very important for everyone watching this show and for just everyone in general to not think that this is just some kind of small, unique, weird little thing in social media that means nothing in the larger scheme of things. this is a giant issue. it affects everything. this is just the one we found out about because a private citizen who happens to have the money, who happened to be interested, who happens to care

about free speech, thought it was important. when it comes to free speech in general in the country and around the world, that quote from that worker at that forum that you quoted saying the message board, that this is wrong. this is a bad idea, couldn't have been more right. you don't need to be a conservative to understand that. classical liberals, that's the basis of what classical liberalism was about. so this is a shocking strike at the nature of what is happening. because of the government involvement with this company implementing this. >> harris: a democrat walking out roe khanna saying it is wrong. there must be more people who can see it. why wait all this time for democrats to even peak into this? is it because they can't help themselves? the evidence is all over the place. >> people look at where the tide is turning. people like the strong horse.

people want to be with -- >> harris: where is the tide going? >> this will be up to the american people. thank god for elon musk. without him keep in mind, all of this would still be continuing. where have the republicans been? where has the establishment been saying wait, this is wrong? they all fell into it either through silence or participation. >> harris: i realize he is the richest dude on the planet but do we are need to crowd fund to help him buy other platforms to know what is happening at google and facebook and some of the allegations and evidence found along the way. >> this is what congress should be doing. this is -- some are saying it's criminal. certainly unconstitutional. this is what congress should say. enough is enough. they have to take a stand or it will never end. >> harris: funny you say that. we get a clear warning from the house oversight committee chairman james comer that he is

writing about in an op-ed called get ready for republican oversight. just what you are talking about. on the list of top priorities the border and fentanyl crisis, pandemic relief fraud, afghanistan withdrawal, energy crisis, covid origins, getting to the bottom of the biden family's business schemes ushered in by hunter biden allegedly. >> they knew that laptop was legitimate. they knew it was authentic but yet they worked closely with social media platforms to discredit the story, to make up and say it was russian disinformation. there is a complete lack of confidence in congress with our intelligence community. they make too many mistakes. now we just don't trust them. they will have an opportunity to explain themselves. >> harris: just quickly, this all ties together with what we were talking about with twitter. the hunter biden story was suppressed there, the "new york post" reporting. there are intelligence officers who pushed a russian

disinformation narrative around hunter biden's laptop. that will be front and center in the probe. the "new york post" cover this morning, eyes on the spice. kevin mccarthy promises accountability. >> those 51 intel agents that signed a letter that said the hunter biden information was all wrong, was russia collusion. many of them have a security clearance. why did they sign it? why did they lie to the american public? clapper, brennan, why did you use the reputation america was giving to you but use it for a political purpose and lie to the american public? >> harris: where are all the people on the left who would say this hurts everybody, this is the damage to free speech every where? and by the way, if there is a connection between shady business dealings and the white house through the son of the president, we all should want to know? >> that would be the normal thing that you normally would have heard if it was the 60s or 70s.

everyone coming together yelling for this. but it is dangerous now. if you say wait a minute, right, this is not right, you either would be fired or you are going to be shunned or not going to get the next contract. so i would argue that even though we're not hearing voices, the majority and polls show the majority of people think all of this was wrong and should not have happened. but i would also caution regarding congress. there are so many things there to look at because it's all been a disaster that you can get lost in the weeds. nothing matters if speech is controlled and the government is involved in that control. they have to be able to focus and have things happen. we don't want reality television for the next two years. we want results and action. >> harris: we have had a lot of that. >> yes, we have. >> harris: it is time to get to the nitty-gritty now. the "washington post" reporting on biden family and allies last september strategizing against investigations into the first son. it included research on potential witnesses against

hunter biden including his former business partner tony bobulinski and laptop repairman john paul mac isaac. jonathan turley goes after that piece writing what's most interesting about the piece is why the "washington post" was given such access and detailed account. generally political operatives lay out scorched earth campaigns in secret. someone wanted it to be public before the house can call any witnesses. for key witnesses like bobulinski the message is about as subtle as a two by four to the head. >> that's how it works. fascinating. they have had to resort to effectively public threats against people. it is interesting. when did hunter get all these friends? >> harris: maybe his artwork is so good. >> i was doing that artwork at 12 in elementary school. if you do it paint by numbers it

is not art and shouldn't sell for $250,000. this is about joe biden and everyone knows that's the case. they don't want to use his name but they know what's coming up and what's in there and they're desperate to stop it. >> harris: wow, a whole time away with the family trying to figure out more suppression. good to see you, tammy bruce. thank you for getting us started this hour. senator kirsten sinman is not -- sinema. this threat seemed clear to me. biden's border crisis is simply beyond belief. no one -- >> we're seeing 5 million illegal border crossings under joechbltd it is an american catastrophe and something needs to be done. >> harris: the pictures don't lie. catastrophe indeed. fox cameras capturing video of

the largest-ever group to illegally enter the united states and this is texas. numbers as joe biden still refuses to face the crisis firsthand. the president of the united states. restless nights fogging up your day? tonight, try new zzzquil pure zzzs sleep plus next day energy with melatonin to help you fall asleep naturally... plus extended-release b-vitamins. wake up feeling refreshed. pure zzzs. sleep better. wake up your best.

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>> one of the big complaints i hear from conservatives and republicans, democrats don't take border security seriously, they just don't. do you agree with that sentiment sew >> from arizona i can tell you that the federal government has failed its duty in the last 40 years. >> harris: just days after dumping the democratic party senator sinema is calling out democrats over the border crisis

and widened it to 40 years. look at the last two. fox exclusively captured stunning new video last night. yet another caravan. this time some 2,000 illegal immigrants breached our sovereignty in el paso, texas. they are not going to checkpoints that are set up to handle this thing. they make their own. they just come without order knowing that they will never be turned away. it is the largest single mass crossing ever seen at our u.s. border with mexico. agents are outnumbered already. now massive lines outside a facility here set up to try to process all these people at the border. those lines are so long that when it gets a little chilly before dawn, they light fires to stay warm because they aren't going anywhere. they are just waiting. elon musk just this morning replied to fox news video tweeting wow.

chaotic scene the president still refuses to go see firsthand. seeing it as a distance isn't helping him make any decisions to clean this up. he needs to go. he needs to go there. it is set to get even worse, though, in exactly nine days when the trump-era title 42 expires. >> he doesn't have any interest in going to the border. but he has had time to visit delaware 59 times. it has never been worse than it is right now. it is not a crisis anymore, it is a catastrophe. >> harris: david webb, fox news contributor host of the david webb show on sirius xm. and a former democratic party chairman. david, i want to welcome you both. david, i haven't seen you in a bit and it has cooked to a place where we've never seen it like this. >> this is deliberate, harris. let's look at it for what it is. it is creating a problem that

the white house may hope is too big to fix and they are overwhelming the system they have been. to your point of joe biden going to the border, joe biden doesn't need to go to the border in my opinion. the policies that exist, the laws that exist need to be enforced and they are not doing that. kamala harris is the sheriff of the border. the border czar. she glanced at the border once. fact is, this serves the democrats' purpose to overwhelm not just the border but american communities. all of this has a cost. it has education cost, medical cost, resource cost for these communities all around america. and in nine days if this number swells to what is expected, somewhere between 9,014 to 15,000 or up to 18,000 a day, this will be a bigger crisis than the covid pandemic because we cannot afford the cost of their failures. these migrant caravans, these

buses being escorted through mexico, who is paying for them? who is organizing them? ngos are being funded in part by us. there are groups out of chicago, when they come to this country catholic charities, other organization, they received $89 million for hotels. it is a deliberate policy. >> harris: you have so many details on that. i want to go to scott for his reaction. >> it is a humanitarian crisis, not a political crisis. this isn't a republican or democratic issue. >> harris: can i step in for a second. >> they came under trump under all republicans. >> harris: not like this. they've been coming for 40 years. and longer than that. that's not the point. the point is how many -- how many and why now? the policies have had a flipping of the switch. title 42 is keeping people -- we

had a surge according to the u.s. government and cdc of covid-19 right now. there is no way. i have been there recently, scott. there is no way you could possibly vet or test all those people let alone treat all those people if they have covid. go ahead. i'm curious to know how do you think you fix it? >> i understand your passion. the reality is title 42 was implemented by the trump administration and they still came. here is an idea. why don't we invest in those south and central american cities where these migrants are fleeing gang violence, economic violence. >> harris: you don't think we're investing in the triangle down there? that's why camp went. >> we need to do more to stem that tide. we need to invest more in immigration judges and immigration officers and a process, humanitarian process that will allow them from being

overwhelmed. >> harris: scott, passion and focus are exactly what we have on this issue because it is not even happening when you change the network. when you go to a different channel. it is happening to the city and counties along the border, too. i didn't hear any money from them. the white house wants to spend as of today billions more dollars, billions of additional dollars at the situation on the border. this is what our money is getting us right now. i don't know if we should hand for money until somebody goes down and figures out what the uptick in border agent suicides recently. it is a catastrophe and heartbreaking. at the same time the answers out there are like two ships passing in the night with the administration. let's go back to david >> i will say this. i have met with more central and south american leaders than this administration. in the past few months i have been 4 or 5 different presidents

and former presidents, vice president. i was just at a conference a week and a half ago with 11 representatives from those nations, all 11 nations, you hear commoninalities. there is problem and there are problems in those countries and america is absent. i don't know where he gets the idea we're down there. those leaders have told me they don't hear from the biden administration. fact is, this is what's happening. it is deliberate policy and it is not about title 42. that's a stopgap. this is about border enforcement and u.s. code immigration law. border agents doing their job. they are not being allowed to do their job. they are babysitters picking up diapers and supplies when they should be enforcing border security. >> harris: they are saving lives and pulling children out of the river. it is more than cleaning up. that's a heartbreaking part as well. title 42, if it gets worse than what it is from what we saw this morning, scott, your last quick

word. i can't imagine. >> give me the top reason why the democrats as a

lab leak. we have now republicans in control to find out what happened, to test fauci's prior statements to see if we did fund gain-of-function res research. >> harris: what are the repercussions, accountability. this would mean that people died. so what is the payback for that? he says he is not going away. he will continue on his here i am best of fauci tour. >> i don't see him getting prosecuted but i do see understanding what happened some people getting fired because they missed the obvious.

this twitter stuff and google. it's as big a story at what covid started. what they did is suppress the other side of the story. every time a scientist would come forward to suggest maybe it came out of a labor that we're not following the science, that we're overdoing it, that we're going too far, they were shut down. so the real story for me is that the social media companies that exist today, google, twitter, unregulated and you can't sue them. they are the largest companies in the history of the world and a consumer has no recourse. we need to fix that. >> harris: is that in part because of section 230? >> yes. >> harris: it has been talked about. will republicans do something with it and do you think you can get it through in the senate? >> suing twitter. if something says something bad about me i can sue twitter if

it's a lie. suppressing my ads in the dumpster i can bring lawsuits. the more important thing to me is the regulatory commission. you have to have a license to sell real estate and open up a tv station, to run a radio station. these companies should have a license that can be taken away. >> harris: that's interesting hearing that from a republican. usually you want less government but you say in this instance what's the exception? >> here is the deal. to get a license you have to have privacy protection. a license requirement would be if you take my content down i can appeal your decision to somebody outside the company. because i'm a consumer. young girls are being driven to websites just to make money. there is a mental health abuse here by these algorithms. the social media companies are doing a lot of damage to young teenage girls. we need a licensing requirement

to prevent that and empower parents. >> harris: you are passionate about this. >> it's the biggest issue facing america. >> harris: somebody who is in the media and with children i watch it every day. i appreciate that you're looking at it from not just the perspective of the consenting adults but kids are drawn to it. it is all we talk about it. is fashions driven by it. parenting can only go so far. you are not the only voice they hear. >> eyeballs equals money. the more eyeballs, the more money. it needs to be regulated. >> harris: democrats held onto the narrow senate majority but not sunshine and roses at this point. bernie sanders let it rip over kyrsten sinema's defection from the democratic party. his choice words for her and her 2024 re-election bid.

>> she has along with senator manchin sabotaged important legislation. i support progressive candidates all over the country. people with the guts to take on powerful special interests. i don't know what will happen in arizona. we'll see who they nominate. it is something i'll take a hard look at. >> harris: your response and i'll move to this. >> the left declared war on sinema and come up with a new model. the reason she is running as an independent is because people like bernie sanders are trying to drive her out of the party for being a moderate person. there is less space for moderation in the democratic party than any time since i've been in politics. >> harris: is it genuine, do you think, to assume that any of these independents would vote with republicans? with sinema in 2015 she was voting in line with what would be trump policies 50 to 60% of the time. what about manchin? these are people you know. >> joe manchin has been a

democrat all his life. he saved the senate by not joining to abolish the filibuster but joe has voted for every spending bill they had. sinema has been good on protecting the senate as an institution but votes with democrats most of the time on their priorities. we have a shot in arizona we did not have before. a three-way contest. i don't know who it benefits. i like sinema. the reason she is doing this, the bernie sanders and aoc's are driving people into the ground who don't follow their policies. if we do it as republicans. a wake-up call, don't follow bernie's lead. >> harris: next time democrats will have 23 seats to defend. >> i think we'll win ohio, it's a red state now, west virginia. just about anybody can win as a republican. montana that the republican nominee will win by 15 or 20 points. arizona is in play. republican majority in 2024 is there for the taking.

>> harris: senator, great to talk with you today. we hit a lot of topics and good to pick your brain on what you think is possible with the social media companies. merry christmas. a judge says a former virginia tech soccer player can sue her former coach. she claims he bencheder over political views. remember we had a conservative faith group on before. look what is happening now. >> we're at the point we're so divided on things like faith and our views on issues that we get to the point where we're eating in different restaurants. that's not american. >> harris: that's what she laid out on the focus. members are getting death threats after a restaurant/bar metzger in virginia refused to allow them into a restaurant. how did we get to this place in america? clay travis is in "focus" next. ,

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>> harris: it feels like a lifetime ago and breaking news on a terror suspect finally facing charges in the pan am flight 103 bombing from 34 years ago. a libyan man accused of building a bomb will appear in federal court in washington, d.c. this

afternoon. 270 people were killed when the plane blew up over lockerbie, scotland in 1988. 190 of them were americans. among them 35 syracuse university students were coming home for the holidays after a semester studying abroad. david spunt live at the u.s. district court in d.c. big news on this, david. >> he will appear before a judge this afternoon. the third person charged with the bombing. his case is symbolic. he is the first person to face the charge on american soil here in the united states. he will appear before a federal judge behind me at 1:00 this afternoon. now he was extradited from libya to the united states over the weekend. we have a new mug shot of him taken yesterday from a virginia jail. he is accused of making the bomb that killed the 270 people, 259

on board and 11 on the ground in scotland all gone in seconds. you mentioned the 35 syracuse university students heading home for the holidays to see family in 1988. it left london on the way to new york city before exploding. tom ammerman was 36 years old when he died on flight 106 coming home from a business trip and survived by his wife, carolyn, two daughters, casey and jill, his brother told fox news yesterday and today he is grateful for the extradition but believes there is more to the story. listen. >> this was an attack on the united states. i said that to bush 41 on april 3, 1989, when i met with him for 90 minutes in the oval office. he said to me if this is state-sponsored terrorism, we'll retaliate militarily. >> this man is facing life the prison and appear before a federal judge on american soil

in two hours. a little bit over an hour at this point. >> dana: fox news will cover it all. david spunt, thank you very much. a judge has ruled that a former virginia tech women's soccer player may proceed with a lawsuit against her former coach. she says she was benched and pressured to leave the team for refusing to kneel during a social justice demonstration before a game. it happened at the height of the black lives matter movement in 2020. she claims the coach verbally attacked her at halftime after the incident and jabbed a finger in her face. she eventually quit the team. clay travis outkick founder is here. it takes some time for these things to work their way through legally. this has been torment for a couple of years waiting to see how this would turn out for this young woman. >> no doubt, harris. i think what it speaks to is how quickly things pivoted from taking a knee is the outspoken

and brave thing to do for purposes of the media, to if you don't take the knee, you are an awful human being and you should be reviled for it. and obviously i think some of the temperature has been brought down over the past several years associated with controversies during the national anthem. but at the height of 2020 during the blm protests as many of our cities were burning across this country, there was a lot of pressure on a variety of different athletes to either kneel or have to deal with consequences from their schools, from their coaches, and this young woman appears to have been brave enough to say she was not going to kneel and then dealt with many consequences from that. we're just now, harris, starting to get a resolution to a two-year-old process. good for her for standing up and being brave enough to make -- have the courage of her convictions when she was being pressured by her coach to do

something she didn't agree with. >> harris: i want to get to the virginia group that's under threat right now. but is there any connection or do you see probability of a problem during the pandemic, shouldn't we have been worried about or college students and their health rather than squashing freedom of religion or free speech? what were we trying to protect our kids from then? >> that's a great point. i fought as hard as i could for all these sporting events to be played. for everyone out there who remembers, the big ten and pac-12 had said it wasn't safe enough to even play during a covid fall of 2020. and women's soccer is one of these sports. give credit to the acc for even allowing sports to be played and sticking with the sec and big 12. remember, of course, eventually the big ten and pac-12 said

wait, we got it all wrong and harris, this is a big point that no one will discuss now. everybody ended up completely fine, right? everybody who played sports in the fall of 2020 was virtually 0 connection between ill health and covid anywhere in the country not only for college and the pros but also for the high school kids able to play. >> harris: amen to that. free speech still getting kicked as she was either forced to kneel or you can quit. she left the team. now we know how things are turning out. a conservative religious group says its members are getting death threats. they were denied service at a virginia restaurant bar over their views on abortion and traditional marriage on their website. the group's president joined "focus" last week. >> well, certainly the owner made the phone call. they put out an official statement. the bottom line the buck stops with the owner of the restaurants. restaurants are not per misted to discriminate even if their

employees are discrime that towers. it is not the right of a restaurant to say hey, we're not going to let you eat here. >> harris: well, they have been getting threats and this is just a touch of that. so forgive me, i will read what it says. f you, f your religion. we have checked in and given all their complaints to the police now. they feel the police and law enforcement are taking the necessary steps to further the safety of their staff. we thank the good lord for that. the threats keep coming. >> look, this is virginia -- remember, harris, i believe it was lexington, virginia where sarah huckabee sanders and her family were refused service because they were working for the trump administration at the time. most people roundly condemned that. the same thing is going on here. look, there should not be any denial of service regardless of

what your politics are. you should be able to go into a restaurant and sit down and have a meal anywhere in the country. i feel like in many ways we're regressing when we have situations such as these occurring. >> harris: that's an interesting and appropriate word, regressing. so we can't pray over our food? i will be. clay travis, thank you, good to have you in "focus." "outnumbered" after the break. for appraisal or termite inspections. no upfront costs at all to get the cash you need. veterans get more at newday. it only takes a second for an everyday item to become dangerous.

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>> hello, everyone. this is "outnumbered." joining us today kennedy morgan ortega and rod smith. the mainstream media's reaction to the twitter files is stunning yet not surprising. elon musk has released chilling information about the niner workings of th