♪ rick: it's the most wonderful time of the year. lights and trees and i don't know the words. but i know beiber. this christmas gets better and better. we've got live reindeer. that's a reindeer. a real one. >> it's a real reindeer. >> and a real beiber.

>> i want to set the stage here, you have two girls at some point they were teenagers when both taylor swift our 6:00 a.m. intro muse and i can beiber, our 7:00 a.m. intro music will play. is this what i have to look forward to having two daughters of my own. beis, swift, selena gomez? >> i feel like the priorities are off here. we showed live reindeer on fox square in new york city, santa's reindeer in training. that takes precedent over the music. >> this guy is scaring me. going to taylor swift and beiber concerts. >> debbier trumps reindeer. >> did the reindeer sing a christmas song or top the charts? >> in my brain, when i was walking into work this morning because as with the rest of the country, now it's freezing, i was like, man, those reindeer have been outside all night and hope they're not cold. oh, right, they're reindeer. >> they're only in training and don't mean to shoot down the

segment we're about to have but wants to talk about the reindeer, don't fall far it. caley: last hour we checked in and they're tra tracking norad d we talked to jack and he said -- >> tony. griff: he's over the south pacific right now and tony told me the time on target for the u.s. is between 9:00 p.m. and midnight, but kids have to be in bed by 9:00 p.m. or else it's going to screw up the whole schedule. carly: very important news

breaking detail. gibbs when you call in you'll get tony or someone else. to the best of my recollection. contribution 46 car pileup in ohio and three dead in that crash as the storm claims at least 12 lives across the nation. bringing frigid temperatures and hurricane-force winds. todd: snowpocolypse putting 1 million customers without power and parts of the midwest recording temperatures even

colder than mars and arctic sea smoke from lake michigan pushing into chicago as air temperature hovers around zero. griff: and the travel chaos continues with 7,000 flights delayed today 3,000 canceled and cold air expected to last into next week. fox weather correspondent robert rayon the ground in georgia where the temperature is a frigid seven degrees, robert. seven? reporter: seven, guys. merry christmas from alfaretta, georgia, here in the metropolitan area. i can't believe i'm wearing a hot like this down south in the state of georgia this morning on christmas eve. just a remarkable situation. i just came from chicago last night and i can tell you the airports are a mess right now so you got to pack your patience. as a matter of fact let's listen to what one traveler's struggles were trying to get from la

guardia in the big city down to here in atlanta. >> i went to the gate and they didn't notify me through my app and i was doing my app and flight got canceled and sat in here an extra hour and security told me it got canceled and i came here and my other flight for frontier got canceled and came here because it's the only flight to get booked. reporter: those displaced in these cities that are dealing with this arctic plunge are going through a lot. look at this quote from someone in chicago, an official saying we're at capacity as far as cots are concerned. however, we will never turn away and we'll continue to build capacity to ensure our residents experiencing homelessness have a safe and warm place to stay during this extremely cold weather. guys, back here in the state of georgia, in metro atlanta, people dealing with their own issues, heavy winds that came in over the past day or so in this

arctic plunge downing trees onto homes and creating power outages in areas and this is not something that we're used to down here. as a matter of fact atlanta may break a record for a high today, a low high rather and the last time we saw temps even remotely close to this, almost ten years ago, the record low back in the early 80s at three degrees, we're not going to go that low befeels like thefect temporal integration -- but feels like the negative temps with winds at 15 miles per hour. you mentioned the arctic sea smoke at the top of the show up in chi town where i was reporting for the past few days and i shot that video yesterday, amazing as you look at beautiful skyline of chicago and you realize that the temperature of lake michigan sitting at 40 degrees and yet the air temperature in the windy city well below zero causing that sort of hot tub effect in chicago. not only in the lake but the

river as well just dynamic scenes of cold up there as christmas eve and the light will come up here in the south and the state of georgia here this morning, and i have to say southerners are in for it for this shock of the system. you know what's so crazy, nex weekend, new year's weekend, almost 70 degrees. i mean, wow. unbelievable, mother nature. griff: unbelievable, robert ray. one of the viewers said merry christmas from pine mountain, georgia. it's ten degrees. i don't know where that is in relation to where you are but merry christmas. carley: robert, you're trending in the right direction and you were in chicago all week so at least you're not in the negatives. congratulations there. reporter: thankfully. thankthankfully. i will say i'm looking forward to walk around in the downtown shopping district of alpharetta

and watching them freeze. no one is used to to it down here. unbelievable. todd: bring in staff sergeant medal of honor re-syenite. great -- recipient. great to have you and we want to get into it with you with president biden signing the defense bill repealing the military vaccine mandate and doesn't re-instate service members discharged for refusing to get vaccinated and that impacted some seven or 8,000 service members. good morning. >> good morning, merry christmas to y'all. y'all. todd: what's your reaction to the president signing the nda? >> look, when anything happens with the military, we tend to look at military side of leadership and if you look at the approval ratings, the military has pretty iowa hawkeyes approval ratings and our civilian leadership of the pentagon is what is failing us

currently and congress' job is oversight and they need to get involved and do their job, especially when it comes to, look, i mean, there's no curiosity about how we left afghanistan. don't hear it anywhere. it's forgot and in the past. we have a military recruiting crisis going on right now that has cataclysmic effects to the future of sustaining our strength but as you mentioned with the vaccines, look, god bless the rail workers and the starbucks unions. we need our workers and we need to support this economy. but the men and women who are willing to bleed and die for our country are worthy of respect, and it's about time that congress did their job re-instate these men and women, give them back pay, and keep them at the tim of the spear of our democracy. carley: this news about what was in the ndaa and the fact that this vaccine mandate is no longer going to be mandated, it really is sort of bittersweet and at least service members won't be forced to take something else if they feel for

religious reasons they don't have to, but then all these service members that lost their job because of it and they don't get their jobs back. how does that make sense and do you forsee that changing, maybe getting -- foresee that changing and maybe getting service members fired to get back into the line of duty? >> all the pentagon needed was civilian leadership all throughout. i mean, if congress was absent at the wheel when these mandates went in, there was -- it was very schizophrenic by the way because you were telling the dod here's your deadline, we're going to change the deadline, we're fighting this in the courts on one side of the federal government, but the pentagon is different. we treated this like previous vaccinations, but we weren't with a delaware kinetic -- kinetic deployment order like in the previous war on terror but we just need answers and explain you knead made a mistake. people mad -- made a mistake and

people make mistakes and correct the mistake. there's no union in our pentagon today. our men and women in service don't have representatives standing up saying, hey, look at my constituent of workers. that's what congress' job is supposed to be, and we've really screwed over a lot of people and these families are affected, they need -- all they want to do is serve their country at a time of war. can you imagine that? maybe we should show them a little bit of respect. todd: my concern is this bill does not bar the pentagon from issuing a new vaccine requirement into the future. what's really to stop our pentagon, our government from instituting a more strict vaccine requirement in 2023 and 2024 and it is frightening and sad and let's end on a positive. what's your message to service members that have to work this holiday season, specifically tomorrow on christmas? >> god bless you, god bless what you represent and what you stand for. a lot of times veterans coming

home from combat in service, this is a tough time of year for a lot of people that served our country in a time of war. we want to remind them that they're important. that their validation when they wear their uniform, they have a purpose in our world. you're loved, you're appreciated, and you don't serve a political party or president. you serve all of this country and our great constitution. merry christmas to you, be safe, and welcome home. carley: that's a great message. they are the most important among us, both veterans and active duty alike. staff sergeant david bellavia, thank you for joining us this morning and merry christmas. >> merry christmas to you. carley: headlines to get to, the taxi driver that dropped off university of idaho roommates rs kayley and madison breaking silence. the driver telling the daily mail it's not lost on me that my job was to get the girls home

safe but that didn't really help this time. he adds he has replayed that night a million times over trying to find a sign that something was wrong, but he says he has found "nothing". a walgreens store in new york city is locking up its ice cream to try and stop shoplifters. a clerk at the store confirming to fox news digital that "it has to do with all the shoplifting". new york police disclosing that petty larceny up more than 33% in the city and nearly doubled in the neighborhood where that wall greens is located. ice cream, hot commodity, who knew. guess what, it's time for the fox digital whiz quiz christmas edition. starting with this, what is the best selling christmas song in the u.s. of all time? is it jingle bells, what christmas means to me, santa claus is coming to town or white christmas? best selling? griff: it's a trick quiz because

the answer is mistletoe by justin beiber. todd: i'm going to go with white christmas. carley: i'm going with white christmas as well. todd: we can have the same answer. carley: it is white christmas. next question, which country is tinsel thought to have originated from. i'm going germany. the other are italy, norway and sweden. todd: i'm going with norway. griff: finding tinsel distracting on christmas, i'm not answering. carley: it is germany. which state is the first in the u.s. to declare christmas a legal holiday? massachusetts, florida, alabama, or pennsylvania? todd: mississippi. griff: pennsylvania. carley: i'm going with massachusetts. alabama! very festive state. last question, what is the dutch meaning behind the reindeer named donner and blitzen?

rain and shine? good and bad? happy and sad? or hundred dollarrer and light thing? carley: hundred dollarrer and -d lightning. todd: i'm going with thunder and lightning too. carley: yeah, we're right. coming up, we'll check in on our reindeer on fox square and candid headgear. we have a reindeer toss game. who's tossing? griff: i'm going to toss, watch. hold on, watch this. hold still. hold still. hold on. yes, look at that. look at that. todd: just keep going and we'll mess up one of our hair. griff: hold on, one more. carley: this sin credible. incredible. griff: i've gotten one. todd: griff, have you considered brings these to the border? griff: no, that's not going to go well. carley: i want to go long. griff: let me mount my antlers. todd: you weren't even close.

carley: i have to take some off mine. todd: can we have music for this. this is odd without music. thank you. carley: one for you, todd. todd: aiming for me right in the face. todd: stay there. still ahead as congress passes a massive $1.7 trillion senate bill, senator rand paul highlighting the wasteful spending they've done this year including 3 million for watching hamsters fight and $118,000 for citing the fictional character with treasury secretary. monica crowley reacts to the list we just can't make up next. griff: first, another surprise for the 12 days of carley. the moms of "fox & friends" came together to share their best advice just for you, carley.

take a look. >> hello, carley. you've gotten a lot of advice from me already being a new mom, and i'm always a phone call away here for you. you know what, you're going to be the greatest mom ever so don't worry about it. having said that, make sure you ask for help when you need it because that's something i didn't do enough of. take some time for yourself as well. i'm always here for you and i love you and i can't wait to meet him. >> hey, carley. you are the most beautiful pregnant mama i've ever seen and i'm so happy for you. my advice for you is to enjoy the time you have off. really just take care of yourself, love on your baby, and remember your job as a mom isn't to get your kid to harvard, it's to get your kid to heaven. that simplifies everything and that should be easy for someone as kind and sweet as you are. >> i'm so happy for you and proud of you and my best advice is be who you are and you're so

radiant and wonderedful and a great christian woman, and you want this baby so badly. we've all been praying for him and we're excited for you, and there's a good scripture that comes to mind when it comes to parenting advice. that is the greatest of these is love' ♪ hi, i'm sally and i lost 52 pounds with golo s,

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griff: welcome back and merry christmas. senator rand paul highlighted the most wasteful spending of the past year and see it here including $3 million on watching hamsters fight on steroids and more than $31 million in covid relief funds on luxury cars. how much money will be wasted in this new bill? nobody better to ask than monica crowley, former assistant treasury secretary and host of the monica crowley podcast. monica, merry christmas. >> merry christmas, griff. griff: what's in this 1,455 pages of work? >> this bill is a complete abomination and highlighted some of the more wasteful things included in the bill, but we don't know everything that's in here and most of the members of

congress that voted on this don't know everything that's in here because they simply didn't have time to read the entire bill, 4,000 plus pages. this is what the swamp does. they do this every single time they push it and wait until the very last minute, and then with their hair on fire, they pass something like this that is going to cost the american taxpayer trillions of dollars. this isn't just about this bill, this is about our children and grandchildren going to have to carry this freight going forward. you know, i blame republicans more than democrats. democrats will tell you exactly who they are, what they believe and what they're doing and intend to do. republicans for the most part talk a good game about limited government, fiscal responsibility, and then we've had 18 senate republicans in particular and a handful in the house that voted for this monstrosity. griff: i think we can show you the nine, nine republicans including liz cheney, adam

kinsinger and brian fitzpatrick and what is the motivation for these nine republicans who are heading into the majority in just a matter of days? >> most of this crew did not get reelected or leaving congress and this makes it more unconsciousable and they're heading out the door and they're sticking us with the nearly $2 million bill with these and this is a particularly disgusting move on their part. this is a hit and run operation by them but again, i blame republicans who voted for this and 18 senate republicans as well more than democrats. because they lied to our faces about fiscal responsibility and government and vote for something like this. this. griff: see what happens in january when they take over the house. changing gear a bit, sbf, sam bankman-fried ex-caroline ellison faced 100 years in jail before pleaing and admitting that she and sbf conspired to

deceive customers and investors. he by the way flew in comfort on american airlines flight back to california to enjoy his christmas. what do you make of all this? >> love bites; right? love bites. they apparently had a relationship and engaged in alleged criminal activity to an exorbitant degree and there she is right there. she was facing 110 years if she didn't sing and she decided to sing against sbf and a variety of other colleagues in this scam as well to try and get herself a better deal, which she got for herself and she was acting in a rational manner. she threw him under the bus. my feeling on this is i'm not entirely convinced that we're going to see the full extent of these crimes because, remember, they started this fund in 2019. sbf was the no. 2 donor to democrats going into 2020 only

behind george soros and there was a lot of political motivation in addition to, you know, making this kind of money and this kind of greed et cetera which he couched in effective altruism and this woke nonsense and there's stuff i'm not entirely convinced we'll get to the bottom of because of the left and democrats deeply involved in this. griff: we shall see and some democrats are turning on him after taking his money. more on that in the new year. have a great merry christmas. great to see you. >> you too, merry christmas. griff: still ahead and 12 days of giving continues with operation new uniform and helping civilians move. the all new christmas concert series you don't want to miss it. we're getting in the spirit. ♪ of a suffering child right n

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back with a fox weather alert. a once in a generation winter storm walloping much of the country and causing peril on the roads including this 46-car pileup taking place in ohio. at least three people are dead in that crash. at least 12 dead from the storm's impact across the nation. parts of the country seeing record-breaking cold and hurricane-force winds on top of that as the snowpocolypse continues furry into the holiday weekend and travelers left stranded with more than 7,000 flights delayed and 3400 cancellations already. turn now to meteorologist, chief meteorologist rick reichmuth with the fox weather forecast. rick, it is not easing up. >> not yet, it's going to but kind of a short-lived cold snap and really significant cold snap

and we've got temps into the 20s down across the rio grand river valley across parts of the deep south and northern part of florida temps into the 20s and windchills feeling colder than that and these are actual wind temperatures and blue or pink or purple is below freezing and almost the entire country except for the far west coast and maybe parts of southern arizona and southern florida. aside from that, temperatures are in the minus teens up across parts of the far northern plains and factor in the winds it's colder than that. we have a big improvement by wednesday but throughout this weekend, stay inside if you can. stay off of oturu roads and things will be -- of the roads and things welcome icy and will take us time to get out of the cold. where we going here? todd: i'll take it. thank you very much. tough time out there with the weather, but this should warm everybody's heart. 12 days of giving continueses this morning with operation -- continues with operation new uniform. this ensures all veterans have a successful transition to

civilian life after serving our great nation. this program helped more than 15,000 veterans across the country and joining us this morning, operation new uniform cofounder and chief executive officer michelle mcminamin. why is this so important for our veterans? >> good morning and merry christmas. thank you for having us on. this program is essential for our veterans because coming out of the military, that transition can be to difficult and frustrating so they really need that extra hand to be able to help them go through that smoothly to get into the business community or quite frankly they can open their own business, whatever it is that they desire when they leave the military, we want to help them get there. for them or their spouses. todd: pinata shell, what are -- michelle, what are some of the services you provide? >> we have a wrap around service, referral, mentoring, coaching, training, but our core program is the sandler training and we use that to focus on helping them sell themselves,

not a product or service, but help them sell themselves into what their next step is. todd: isn't at the end of your day your core mission about giving these veterans confidence to tackle their next mission, which is in the civilian ward? >> absolutely. i can't stress enough what the confidence does when you come through our program and know you have another network that you're not alone going through this journey can be so difficult. we're here with them the whole way, and we don't leave them after their graduate the program, which is so unique and different from what anybody else is doing. they become part of our family, and we stay with them through sometimes what could be, you know, multiple transitions, multiple careers. it's really important that they have that. todd: 100% important. many of us assume this kind of transitional train asking provided by our -- training is provided by the federal government when these vets enter civilian life, but that's not the case, is it? >> unfortunately not. i think our government can only do so much and they help them

and understand what their benefits are when they leave and something like this is so unique and not something that i think the government can do. we have to make sure there are organizations like us that can do this and provide these services because it's not out there. todd: for the people watching, if you want to apply for the program to start 2023 on the right foot or you want to donate to help those who have given so much to our great country, the website is onuvets.org and that's where you can find michele's amazing organization and thank you for doing what you're doing on behalf of a very, very grateful nation and some amazing service members who have given so much to our great land. michele, merry christmas. >> thank you, merry christmas. todd: is tiktok a ticking time bomb and e-mails revealing the china-base #-d company accessed americans private data as the executives spent months claiming that would never happen. gordon chang said it's time for a full ban, he's networks.

but first -- he's next but first. cue up the graphic. it's the greatest ever created in the history of fox news. another gift for the o 12 days f carley. griff, what do we have? griff: here, you open it. carley: i didn't know this was happening again. i need to start getting used to the fact i'm going to be getting -- oh, this is great. griff: look at that. griff: future wolverine. this baby will be a michigan fan. oh, pete, i hope you're awake because this is your dream come true. pete's my husband by the way. todd: we'll be right back.

carley: it would appear concerns about tiktok were right and employees at the china-based company obtained access to american's private data and even use it had to track journal iranianss. but congress just pass add new spending bill -- passed a new spending bill that will ban the app on government devices so could this lead to a nation-wide ban? here to react is senior fellow at gatestone institute and the great china tech war, gordon chang. gordon, good morning to you and merry christmas. i want to get your reaction to this report that tiktok was tracking journalists, essentially they were concerned

about journalists talking to people within tiktok and using their ip addresses to figure out who was talking to who. does that surprise you and how concerned should we be about this? >> well, merry christmas, carley. no, it done a lot surprise me because tiktok over the course of about two or three years have been giving assurance after assurance to the united states about data security and they violated all of those assurances and remember, they were tracking the journalists because they were trying to figure out who leaked a buzz feed and buzz feeds reporting just showed dramatic transfer of data. basically beijing had access to everything and people in the u.s. and tiktok didn't have access today tafanely in the u.s.. to data in the tiktok is mining data for beijing and we shouldn't be surprised. carley: tiktok was saying this is was an egregious misuse of

authority and there's individuals not employed by them anymore and it was egregious way to obtain data and take it seriously and we'll continue to enhance our access protocols. do you believe that? >> no, i don't. tiktok is owned by byte dance and every chinese company is under compulsion to spy because of the communist party top down system and because of article seven and 14 of china's national intelligence law of 2017. clearly no matter what protections we try to build in, bytedance is under that compulsion to commit espionage. carley: employees in the company were tracking journalingists and why were they doing that? trying to be honest or ulterior motive there? >> they probably knew that the

fbi or the cia or something knew but the point is these revelations have become sis stressingly -- dis-stressingly regular and the only way to solve is ban tiktok or force sale to american company, probably oracle and most important is who controls the algorithm. the sale of tiktok in the last months of the trump administration would have gone through except china insisted on controlling that algorithm, that it uses to spread disinformation and chinese propaganda in the u.s.. this is a critical national security threat. there are two of them: data security and disinformation. carley: yeah, you know, gordon, there's a holt of lawmakers worried about tiktok and the national security implications there, but tiktok users in the u.s. don't seem to be and i think it's because people are so used to social media companies tracking our key strokes already and a lot of people say, i'm just looking at funny videos, i have nothing to hide. what would you say to those

people? >> beijing wants your data because they want to find out about you, and they want to use that to either intimidate you or blackmail you. beijing is not beyond that. it's the reason we've had all these big data thefts. for instance at the office of public -- personnel management in the federal government or all the big insurance companies like anthem. china needs your data and they're not taking it because they want it. this is something that americans have got to understand that china is an enemy and it'll use whatever means if possible to take down the government and that means taking down people. carley: tiktok no longer allowed on government devices so that's a good start there. gordon, thank you for joining us and merry christmas. >> thank you, carley. carley: a few headlines and a group looking to call out wokism in corporate america reveals 2022 list of ten biggest

offenders. fox news digital exclusive obtaining the new tolerance campaign's annual list including twitter, nba, disney, block rochester, and -- blackrock and american's civil liberty union and they started the list last year to call out virtual simulating. amazing christmas surprise when a dad comes home early to surprise his daughter from deployment. watch this. >> daddy! carley: had doesn't get any better than that. their family gets to celebrate more than just the holidays. they are expecting their second child in the next few days. congratulations to that beautiful family there. guys, over to you. todd: carly, thank you. santa has a busy night ahead of him delivering presents all over the world. he needs milk and cookies to fuel that journey.

griff: we have executive pastry chef for chip city cookies here. andrea, thank you it's been unbelievably difficult for todd not to eat that cookie. >> carley, wrap it up. we have to get on. griff: cast the story behind chip city? it started in new york and queen city and one location five years ago and 14 throughout the city and we ship nationwide. we're known for huge cookies and each are 6-ounces roughly. and we have 40 different unique flavors and a couple of them sitting right here. griff: we'll make one here. todd: i'm going to make -- i want to use this. what is this? >> this is a marshmallow flush glaze. it's amazing and smooth and we're going to top our cookie withs this and a little bit of coconut. let's do it. griff: does santa like coconut

because not everybody does. >> it's a divisive flavor so we don't know. carley: ask norad to get him on the horn. >> we'll take our cookies and this is really easy, can't mess it up. i promise. we'll take a little bit in the middle here and then spread it out. right. just like that. little swirl. griff: you've done that before and you went in a little circle. >> there's a technique. you got this. griff: what else am i doing? i can multitask. >> we'll take this beautiful coconut flakes ---todd: that's beautiful, griff. g i'm expecting a blowout of that bag at any moment. >> not yet. hey. look at this. carley: rick, you try. rick: give us tips on how to make this perfect for santa.

>> cookies are complicated but the secret to a good cookie is make sure when you're creaming it letting that flute get fluffy and airy. airy. griff: the thing i saw is butter is the most important thing. thank you, chip city. don't go anywhere, we're tracking santa claus on "fox & friends" and this phone call lets you know when he's closer to your house. house. carley: the performance with the all american christmas series, that's next. i got distracted by the giant cookie in my hand. ♪

♪ todd: that is gramny award winning -- grammy award winning tasha cobbs. griff: here now to perform the first no, oel is -- noel is tasha cobbs.

♪ [ the first noel ].

♪

♪

griff: not once did brett muskberger say you're looking live at reindeer in training. that's what you're looking at right now. you're looking at sia looking at reindeer in training. we're going to talk to the reindeer