>> at least a dozen people reportedly killed in what the national weather service calls a once in a generation storm. heavy snow, dangerous winds and life-threatening cold gripping more than 60% of the u.s. population coast to coast in this christmas eve. hello, everyone, i'm rich edson. eric shaun and arthel neville have some time off. welcome to "fox news live." this map shows what the frigid conditions really feel like. the storm making travel a true nightmare before christmas for passengers stuck in packed

airports. more than 2,000 flights canceled and 4,000 delayed already today aa cross the country -- across the country, merely 6,000 canceled yesterday -- nearly 6,000 canceled yesterday. icy and treacherous roads, in ohio at least 3 people were killed in a 46-car pile-up. here's governor mike dewine. >> the roads is are going to be very, very, very dangerous and very, very difficult. the obvious recommendation to everyone is stay home. rich: fox news team coverage, max gourden in western -- max gorden, charles watson on atlanta at the nation's busiest airport, but first alexis mcadams many new york city with the big picture on this deadly, historic storm. alexis. >> reporter: good afternoon, rich. it is a cold day again here in new york city, but across the midwest as you mentioned, that's where it really got slammed. they're deeming -- dealing with

dangerous winds and whiteout conditions. this is some of those areas there in the midwest, just take a look at what they're seeing. video from northern indiana a showing the wind and show whipping by creating low visibility for drivers. on i-75 many michigan they had cars, trucks and even semis that slid right off the icy roads and into a ditch. this comes as millions of americans are dealing with bitterly cold temperatures and blizzard-like conditions. now we go to ohio, that 50-car pile-up you're talking about left at least 3 people dead and several others injured. the crash has left that turnpike closed for hours. right now millions of americans dealing with those bitterly cold temperatures in some of the coldest temperatures we're seeing are out in montana. the national weather service in missoula creating their own snow cloud, throw thing boiling water up into the -17 degree air turning into snowflakes immediately. they had to come up with some of their own fun there.

the big concern, coastal flooding. participants of long island with more than 7 feet of standing water. back out here live in new york city, again in the northeast it's not just the coastal flood being, but also a some parts of the area that are dealing with blackouts and power outages. crews are doing everything they can, but blizzard-like conditions many some spots not making it easy. rich? rush rich alexis mcadams in new york, thank you. meanwhile, tens of thousands without power many buffalo, new york. the blizzard putting the entire city and other parts of western new york under a severe weather warning until christmas morning. wind and snow reducing visibility to near 0 at times. fox weather correspond -- correspondent max gorden just south of buffalo. max. >> reporter: well, conditions here are pretty treacherous. it continues to blow very hard, between 60-65 mile-per-hour gusts, and the snow continues to come down in large spurts as well.

you can -- spurts as well. you can see all these semi trucks parked behind me. there's a travel ban right now on local roadways in buffalo and in several western new york counties. obviously travel conditions right now are extremely treacherous because of this blowing snow and whiteout conditions. now, right now we are at a speedway gas station. the reason that we're here is this is one of the few places that people can actually go and stop and warm up. you see some of the cars here are just stopped, abandoned even because people had to just leave them, go find somewhere warm or even sleep in their cars. unfortunately, our crew was one of those travelers that had to sleep in their cars last night. as we were going from our live shot last evening, well, the blizzard and whiteout conditions were just too much for us, we had to pull off to the side and spend the night the best we could. very, very dangerous conditions here in western new york with

blizzard conditions expected throughout the rest of the day. more than 2 feet is expected to pile up in some places through this evening. back to you. rich: incredible. max gorden in western new york. max, get back inside and you guys stay safe out there. the massive winter storm causing flightmares for passengers spending their christmas eve at the airport. according to flightaware.com, so far today more than 2,000 flights are canceled across the country, more than 5,000 are delayed. charles watson is deliver at america's busiest airport, hartsfield-jackson in atlanta. charles. >> reporter: yeah. hey, good afternoon, rich are. hartfield jackson international airport has been busy all day as it normally is. we've been hanging out by by the check-in counters, and the lines have been long with people trying to make it onto flights to get to where they're going. in their way though is this arctic storm system that has delivered dangerous winds, heavy snow and bone-chilling

temperatures to most of the country, causing major headaches for airlines who have been forced to disrupt tens of thousands of scheduled flights. and the brutal conditions are sending frustrated travelers -- setting them up for another day of cancellations and delays. today alone the storm has forced airlines to delay more than 5,000 flights and cancel more than 2,000. others we spoke to are hoping and praying they're one of the lucky ones. >> i'm getting ready to go to d.c. to visit my family, and i got here a little early but a bit too early, because my flight has been delayed by an hour. hopefully no longer than an hour. >> our flight is canceled for the weather and pretty much they wouldn't give us any hotels. they couldn't book us a flight until monday after christmas but, luckily, we spent the night at the airport and hopped on the 6 a.m. flight by standby. >> reporter: and the brutal and nasty conditions haven't

been any easier on the tens of millions of drivers who are hitting the roads holiday. multiple highways were closed friday and at least 8 people out of more than a dozen were killed in crashes including 4 in this massive 50-car pile-up on the ohio turnpike. michigan also had its fair share of accidents with one involving at least 9 semi trailers. for folks who are lucky enough to make it home for the holidays, rich, they may run into power outages, more than a million people are in the dark. i was one of hem up until 6:00 this morning, so happy holidays for everybody, rich. rich: yeah. santa came early for you, charles. glad you got your power back. charles watson live in atlanta. well, the deep freeze not slowing crime in america this holiday weekend. a shooting at the mall of america in minnesota last night left one person dead. the mall temporarily put on lockdown, only two days before christmas. police are still trying to identify a suspect. alexandria hoff is following this story for us.

>> reporter: hi, rich. yeah, the shooting happened during prime time of last minute holiday shopping just before 8 p.m. last night. according to the bloomington police department, an officer who was already working inside the mall, herald gunshots from within the nordstrom store. that officer rushed to find a 19-year-old man with multiple gunshot wounds. life-saving measures were not successful. investigators say that security video revealed an altercation had broken out between groups of two young men before one individual pulled out a gun and fired shots. what you're seeing is a singer who was among the shoppers inside the mall at the time, he was recording a video, and the sound of gunshots led to that panic. the mall of america was placed under lockdown then evacuated, and bloomington's police chief reflected on the sorrow of a family having to endure christmas mt. wake of such a loss. he spoke with contempt for the shooter. >> we have an incident where if someone decides that they want

to pull out a gun and shoot somebody with a complete lack of disrespect for human life, i still don't know what we can do to stop that. i mean, this is absolutely ridiculous. i mean, i can't even think of another word, this is just flat out stupid. i mean, you're going to go out here and shoot somebody? >> reporter: stupid, that's a pretty good word. no arrests at this time. he promised to lock up the shooter and anyone else who helped those involved evade capture. according to the ap, several players for the new york giants were actually inside the mall at the time of the shooting. another shopper reportedly had their clothing grazed by a bullet, they were also unharmed, and the mall of america reopened earlier today, rich. rich: alex hoff live here in d.c., thank you. on to the southern border where the fate of title 42 is still in limbo. customs and border protection says november sent a new record

for migrant encounters. -- set a new record. christina coleman following that story for us. >> reporter: hi, rich. yeah, that's right, the new numbers shatter another record at the southern border. there were more than 233,700 border encounters last month alone. this is the largest amount of border encounters for a november on record, and compare that to last november. that's a roughly 30% increase. the federal government released the new numbers last night in a data dump as many people were busy gearing up for the christmas weekend. but clearly, the staggering statistics did not go unnoticed. meantime, the drug smuggling at the southern border continues to be an absolute nightmare this holiday season. the cbp important director in no gal rest, arizona -- nogales, arizona, shared a photo. he says on wednesday cbp officers seized more than 230,600 fentanyl pills in the spare tire of a car, and on

thursday they found approximately 832,000 pills hidden throughout a vehicle. to put that many perspective, that's more than 1 million fentanyl pills seized within a 24-hour time span at a port of entry this week alone. meantime, it's the unclear what's going to happen with title 42, the trump pandemic-era policy that allowed federal officials to quickly expel migrants. it was set to lapse week, but after ongoing legal battles over it, the supreme court is weighing whether to keep this policy in place. >> if title 42 gets lifted, that means more aliens which means more agents get pulled off patrol which means, what? more fentanyl across the borders, it means more suspected terrorists can cross the border because the border's wide open and vulnerable. it means higher sex trafficking of women and children. >> reporter: scary sufficient. the drug smuggling, the human smuggling, all terrible aspects of this ongoing humanitarian

crisis. rich? rich: christina coleman, thank you. the ninth installment of the twitter files just dropped revealing more coordination between twitter and the government. it's not just the fbi. this latest document dump shows the social media platform also worked with the pentagon, the state department, the cia to monitor and censor content9. journalist matt taibbi, who posted the files, said the fbi acted as a, quote, doorman for so much government coordination. twitter execs had a tough time keeping track of it. coming up, much more on the border and the record amounts of fentanyl pouring into the country. arizona congresswoman debbie lesko joins me live, and how republicans say the massive spending bill the house and senate just passed does not do enough to crease it. to address it. ♪ ♪

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republicans opposed the omnibus, but the omnibus gave house minority leader kevin mccarthy an opportunity to boost his chances for speaker. mccarthy converted the omnibus into an emblem of what he said were democratic power abuses since one party controls the house, the senate and the white house. >> this is a monstrosity that is one of the most shameful acts i've ever seen in this body. the appropriations process has failed the american public, and there's no greater example of the nail in the coffin of the greatest failure of a one-party rule of the house, the senate and the presidency of this bill here. you controlled it all! >> reporter: all attention on capitol hill now turns to mccarthy's efforts to secure the votes to become speaker when the new congress convenes january 3rd. so far mccarthy is short thanks in part to a coalition of just 5 gop members who vow to

oppose mccarthy. gop montana representative matt rosendale says mccarthy's efforts for conservatives came too late. >> we hear that he has gone over to the senate and have been boisterous and strong about this 4,000 plus page omnibus bill that's going to be $2 trillion worth of spending, but yet in the last several month, again, we didn't hear anything from kevin about pushing back against that. >> reporter: mccarthy must secure a majority of all house members voting by name, so the magic number is a mystery until the vote. thanks to the omnibus, mccarthy the or any other potential speaker won't need to worry about funding the government until next pall. rich? -- next fall. rich: chad pergram live in d.c., thank you. many republicans are slamming the spending bill for focusing more on borders like ukraine's other than the united states'.

let's bring in arizona republican congresswoman debbie lesko, a member of the border security caucus. congresswoman, thanks for joining us this afternoon. you know, if we went through the whole $1.7 trillion bill, we'd be here for quite some time, so let's focus on particularly the border aspects. what does this bill do for the border, what doesn't it do? >> well, it gives more funding to the border but only for processing more illegal immigrants. it specifically says in it that it's prohibited to fund more border technology for security of the border and only for processing more illegal immigrants. so just like all of the other priorities the democrats and president biden have, it only incentivizes more illegal immigrants to come here. and the cartels are the ones that are making all the money off of this. they're making money off of people hard being trafficked -- that are being trafficked from

all over the world, and they're making money off of drugs. i mean, as was said many a previous -- in a previous article that you had, there was over 1 million fentanyl pills discovered in 24 hours in nogales, arizona, port of entry. and this happens, like, all the time. and that's just what's discovered. this is a national security crisis, it's a humanitarian crisis, and the biden administration doesn't care. hay want open borders. they keep prioritizing illegal immigrants over u.s. citizens. rich: do you think, congresswoman, with a republican house upcoming in just really a week and some change now that there's a legislative compromise available? you've got senators on the senate side who were working on a bill, a little bit of the compromise there, senators sinema and tillis working on something that would change asylum laws where you'd have to claim asylum at a port of entry,

and in exchange you would get 2 million dreamers in the country a path to citizenship. is that the type of framework or something based close to it that republicans in the house could get onboard with, or do you see us legislatively in two years where we are right now? >> we've been trying to do, solve the border security crisis for many years, and it's just gotten worse especially under the biden administration. when i first came to congress, there was an attempt by republicans to help solve the problem. it combined border security along with giving legal status to daca recipients. i was in support of that legislation. unfortunately, not one single democrat voted for it, and so now hay come back and say we want to give legal status or citizenship to daca recipients, but yet hay don't want to secure the border -- they don't want to secure the border as can be seen from this $1.7 trillion omnibus

bill. i hay want just -- they want more money for processing illegal immigrants. they want more illegal immigrants to come into our country. for what reason, i can only guess, but that's their priority. so if we're going to do this and republicans tried to do it in 2018, democrats have to support it too. i'm willing to work on it, but i don't know, that's a very difficult hill to climb. rich: you'd also mentioned that massive amount of fentanyl that was captured in a 24-hour period. this was 1 million fentanyl pills in nogales at the port of entry in the last couple of days. so within just a couple of days, you had a million fentanyl pills seized there. how much of the problem do you think is at ports of entry? dea has been saying for years that the bulk of the drugs coming into the country through the southern border, they're hidden on tractor-trailers. has that changed now with so

many more migrants coming over within in between the ports of entry, or do we need to as a country still beef up the surveillance that we've got going on at legal ports of entry, those legal border crossings? >> i think we need to do both. we need to better secure the ports of entry. i mean, i've been down to the border numerous times, and they really do a good job of standing all of the vehicles and the car. some of those fentanyl pills that they caught just the other day were on a train that goes from mexico to, into arizona. and so they do a good job, but, of course, we don't know what we're missing, right? so we're capturing all of these millions of fentanyl pills, but we don't know what we're missing. it's obviously very easy to bring across the border fentanyl if you're crossing the border, and millions of people are crossing the border all of the time. and so they could very easily be

carrying fentanyl on the people, on the illegal immigrants themselves. so we just don't know. i mean, this is unsustainable. in yuma, arizona, there are just thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the border each and every day, and the yuma regional hospital now has a bill just in a month's time of $20 million just to treat illegal immigrants, and they're not getting reimbursed. they're not getting reimbursed by the federal government, they're not getting reimbursed by the state government. i mean, this is unsustainable. it's also bad for the illegal immigrants that are coming from all over the world. they're being trafficked by cartels. women, young women, young teenage girls are being sold into sex trade. i was on the border security caucus. we talked to the inspector general -- yes, the inspector

general for dhs, and he said that we don't even know where these people are going. they're not going to families. this is a disaster. rich: yeah. and you know, congresswoman, you talk about the border states like arizona, new york city is now asking for even more funding to help deal with all of this. thanks very much for joining us, congresswoman debbie lesko this afternoon, very much appreciated. >> thank you. rich: an american paramedic spending her holidays on the front lines in ukraine. a live report on her heroic story. that straight ahead.

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rich: back to our top story, at least 16 people now are reportedly killed in what forecasters are calling a once in a generation winter storm. heavy snow,, high winds, life-threatening cold all making travel by air and ground danger dangerous if not impossible across much of the country. excuse me. meteorologist adam klotz is tracking the storm's path. adam. adam: ad ray, rich. this storm still bringing really cold air, everything in blue means you are at freezing or below. 32 degrees or below, absolutely most of the country. you see a lot of spots down into single digits, spots in the teens, and then you add in the wind, and you start to talk about what it feels like outside, and those numbers get even lore. just yesterday we saw spots -30 or 40, so it's improved a

little, but not a lot, has it? still down deep across the south down to around 10 degrees, 11 degrees, lots of spots really cold out there there as we speak. and we've got hard freeze, frost warnings stretching from the mexican border, getting down to the rio grande valley, all the way into the gulf of mexico, running into central florida. this is a deep, deep freeze that's pushing way farther south. some of the current temperatures on the florida panhandle, right above freezing. as far down south as miami, only 53 degrees. way below what hay see this time of year. that cold weather is going to stick around for at least a couple of days, because i'm showing you all the way to tuesday, and that's when things warm up a bit. this is still below average. temperatures on tuesday, these are highs climbing up only into the 40s before eventually wednesday and thursday. so you get closer to the new year, you get closer back to average but, boy, this is a deep, cold freeze, and it is the sticking around for a little

while. temperatures ultimately, though, by the time you get into next week getting back closer to normal. your christmas forecast, that means tomorrow, yes, things still abnormally cold across much of the country. another little round of snow across the midwest, this is not a really big storm, and we are going to see more snow running up into interior new england. otherwise though your temperatures, 30s, 40s, 50s. it's still cold out there, and it will be for the rest of the weekend. rich: i'll take 30s right now -- adam: i know, right? rich rich it's not nice. adam a klotz, thank you. taiwan is scrambling fighter jets and missile defense systems after its defense minister says several chinese military ships and aircraft a were spotted near the island wednesday, thursday and today. beijing has long considered the self-governing island part of its territory and has been sending navy vessels and war planes into taiwan's maritime air and space now for years. to the war in ukraine which vladimir putin thursday called a

war and not a special military operation. that's for the first time. today russia intensified attacks on the southern port of kherson. at least 10 people killed in bombings, dozens more wounded. the brutal onslaught comes as ukrainians are getting ready for christmas celebrations. exactly 10 months after the start of the russian invasion. nate foy is live in kyiv with more. nate. >> reporter: hey, rich. yeah, just brutal images coming out of kherson. you mentioned 10 people killed according to ukrainian authorities, they also say 55 poem are hurt and 18 of those people are in grave condition. take a look at these images. president zelenskyy posted them on his instagram account, it should be blurred out in this video that you see here. he's again calling russia, quote, a terrorist country. zelenskyy also says this strike was in the central part of kherson, not near a military facility, zelenskyy says putin is, quote, killing for the sake of swim intimidation and

pleasure. a better story here, take a look, an american nurse has been saving the lives of ukrainian soldiers since may. her name is jennifer mooley. she's been deployed twice to afghanistan previously to serve as a nurse and a doctor there. she has two daughters back home, she says she misses them very much but felt she needed to go to ukraine when she saw what was happening here, and she has this message for president putin this christmas. >> every day -- see horrible destruction and death and injuries that putin is causing. but i am confident that if he does not find justice in this life, he will be held accountable in his afterlife, because jesus is s -- pissed off at him, and he's coming. >> reporter: take a look at this, christmas celebrations are happening underground in kharkiv. this subway station that has been used as a bomb shelter throughout the war is now a winter wonderland with a 50-foot

christmas tree. they have theatrical performances and games for kids to enjoy and get in a festive holiday spirit. back out here live, power is improving here in kyiv. there were three districts that were operating entirely without electricity after a drone strike on monday. utility crews have made it so that those three districts are now also operating at a 50% deficiency which is on par with the rest of the kyiv region. we'll send it back to you. rich: nate, it's great to see in kharkiv they can actually celebrate something given the year they've had there. what are the holidays like in kyiv? >> reporter: well, kyiv is actually experiencing the biggest issues with power across the entire country. we've had lee strikes here in the -- three strikes here in the past ten days, but we were down at sophia square filming a story, some local business owners donated a christmas tree there that runs on generator power, and it's the only illuminated for 4 hours every

night, but people go, they gather. they're doing as best as they can, rich. obviously, it's a really difficult situation, but the strength of the ukrainian people is really inspiring to see. rich: absolutely. nate foy, thanks very much, live in kyiv. well, americans are feeling the pain in hair pockets this holiday season, and they're telling president biden what they want for christmas. >> lower inflation. >> cut inflation and bring the price, gas prices down. >> get the market going, get the economy going. rich: will we finally start to see some relief in the new year? small business expert gene marx joins me on that next. ♪ i'll have a blue christmas without you ♪ if

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rich: a year of economic hardship is coming to a close, and according to fox news polling, both democratic and

republican voters agree the economy is far and away the most important issue facing the country. no surprise, 8 is % -- 81% say the current economy's in bad shape, nearly three-quarters say it's causing them financial hardship, up 7 points from in this time a year ago. americans are talking about their biggest concerns. >> stop messing with the economy. >> lower inflation, that'd be mice. >> better gas prices, definitely. >> cut inflation and bring the gas prices down. >> listen, give me my 401(k) back. get the market going, get the economy going. must have of the, you know, we pay top dollar for everything, and it's just getting ridiculous. it's hard to live. rich: let's bring in gene marx, a certified public accountant, expert on small business and president of the marx group. gene, thanks for joining us this afternoon. just what's your sense as we head into next year? if those folks going to be happier a year from now, or what's ahead for us here in the u.s.? >> yeah, sure, rich. it's going to be a tough 2023

both for us as individuals and for many businesses of all sizes. you know, inflation right now is still between 7-8%, and that's the consumer price index, rich. what we advise our clients and what i'm advising you and all of your viewers, you really want to pay attention to the producer price index because that's, like, the leading indicator of where prices are, you know, how prices are going to rise in the future. that's the cost of people, manufacturers making stuff right now. prices are still 7-8% ahead of where they were a year ago even from the producer level, and a lot of the core materials that go into the products we buy, roofing product, building materials, industrial chemicals, steel piping, those are actually still at double-digit levels from where they were a year ago. and what that means is as that filters into the economy over the next 3, 4, 5 months, we're still going to be seeing inflation at the levels we're seeing right now until, hopefully, things start receding a little bit more. rich: remember, we're talking

about a year ago a, do you see the numbers at all midway through next year coming down at all, or are we now at a new level and it just kind of runs along at that level moving forward? >> yeah. i'm actually optimistic that as you start heading into later of 2023 we will see those numbers come down. i don't think we're going to be back to that 2% level that we have seen over the past decade, but a lot of the supply chain issues -- remember a year ago there were all the big backlogs at the ports and, you know, people running around trying to get inventory? a lot of those have been resolved. the federal reserve has taken some pretty aggressive steps by raising interest rates which could be recessionary, but at the same time those are the steps that are needed to rein in all of that government spending that happened. i think that's good news in the end, and and i think we will start seeing a decrease in inflation as we head further into 2023, but we still have to be prepared to deal with higher prices for most of next year. rich: the fed was trying to do

what they call a soft landing, try to slow the economy enough to have not a very deep recession, but to slow increasing prices down. do you think that the pace and size of interest rates increases have been appropriate, and do you think the fed can eventually start to pull back after next year? >> yeah. first of all, i've got to tell you, i think interest rates is going to be the big story of 2023 not just for consumers with credit card department and getting mortgages, but for my clients. many of them are small businesses. right now they are seeing double-digit rates for commercial loans, working capital lines of credit. that is really going to start taking an effect. it not only impacts businesses buying and growing, but it has a huge impact on getting funding for start-ups and new businesses because banks start to contract. we're going to continue to see those high higher level of interest rates throughout most of 2023 for two reasons. you know, again, fed chairman powell is pretty much determined to use interest rates to bring down inflation, and he knows

he's risking a recession, but that's something i think he's willinged to do. and number two is that it's going to take a while once you get interest rates up to the level to tailor them back again. so again in 2023 we're going to be looking at higher prices and high rates of interest, and that is going to be a big challenge for all of us. rich: you know, if you look at where interest rates were before the financial crisis when people were paying 6% for a mortgage, we're approaching that. is that the normal that we're reverting to, or do you think at some point people will be able to get mortgages that are back to what we've been used to over the past couple years? >> yeah. i mean, mortgage rates were so extraordinarily low over the past decade for many reasons. the 4-6% range is the range you really want to be targeting for mortgage rates right now. they've actually come down, they were playing around with 7% levels just a few weeks ago. but again, the fed is not done with their interest rate

increases. the increase to the federal funds rate which means that banks are likely to charge more for mortgages in the months to come. but bear in mind, i mean, i don't want to be all the bearer of bad news. when we're at a 6, 7, 8 rate of interest for a mortgage, it's not catastrophic. i'm old enough to remember the late '70s and early '80s when it was a lot higher than that. i hi this is something that, you know, businesses and the economy will do it, i think we as individuals will navigate around these challenges, but they will be challenges over the next 6-9 months. rich: luckily no 18% interest rates on mortgages these days. gene marks, thanks very much for joining us this afternoon. very much appreciated. >> thanks, rich, have a great christmas. rich: a marine corps combat veteran is on a new mission, how he is helping those who fought for our freedom and urging congress to do more. that's coming next. through the colonial penn program.

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♪ rich: in the spirit of christmas giving, we cannot forget those who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms. and one organization is working to provide our veterans with resources to help them navigate civilian challenges from health care and benefits to suicide prevention hotlines. cole lyle is the the executive

director of mission roll call, also a marine corps combat veteran. cole, thanks very much. i want to start out by saying what does your organization do and what does it need? >> well, mission roll call is a national advocacy organization that really empowers veterans across the country to have a direct voice in policy under consideration by congress, the v.a., the white house. and we do this by polling them, text and e-mail polls, and we feed that the information direct to the policymakers. so it's an instantaneous kind of feedback loop. our number one priority is suicide prevention because the people we talk to in the veteran community, that is routinely their number one priority. access to care is also something that we're heavily involved in, making sure that whether or not it's at a v.a. facility or at a community health care provider, the veteran is getting taken care of in a timely manner with the best care possible. rich: you know, you look at this time of year and the $1.7 trillion bill that just passed

congress to fund the government, you've got every advocacy inside the beltway and out who are pushing for something of theirs to be put into this, their voice to be heard -- >> sure. rich: do you feel like policymakers at this time of year were listening to you? >> yeah. well, you know, in the last 20 the years the v.a.'s budget has increased from, i think, $45 billion in 2001 to about $338 billion in the most recent appropriations bill, so congress, you know, is generally very supportive of veterans and veteran policy issues. you know, my contention though is that suicide prevention needs to be the looked at in a different way than we currently do at the v.a. it's primarily viewed as a mental health issue when really it's more holistic than that that. so some of the things going into next congress that we're talking with policymakers about is increasing the amount of funding to suicide prevention, the suicide prevention program

directly at v.a. and then making it their number one overall priority, not just their clinical priority. so that's what we're talking about with members of congress, with staff at the v.a. going into the 118th. rich: changing culture is probably more difficult than actually getting funding in the federal government. >> absolutely. rich: how does that culture, mine, you talked about a more holistic approach, but what else would you like to see the v.a. do, and do you think you can move bureaucracy which is one of the most difficult things to do in this city? >> yeah, it's certainly not an easy task, but i'm optimistic just because i think the american people and a lot of members of congress once you put the solution in front of their face, it kind of forces the issue, it forces the bureaucracy to change slowly but surely. so, you know, the v.a.'s budget for suicide prevention, their office of suicide prevention is only about one-tenth of 1% of that entire massive budget that i just talked about, and it largely is because it's housed inside the mental health office

at the veterans health administration. so first things first, to try to change the narrative of how we talk about this, i think that the suicide prevention office should be a direct report to the secretary as opposed to answering to the vha undersecretary. i think that's an important first step in changing the way people think about this, and that's yet another thing that we're going to be talking to the committees of jurisdiction and leadership of both houses of congress. you know, members of congress love to say that veteran policy is the most bipartisan or one of the most bipartisan issues on capitol hill. and in a divided congress like this, they really have an opportunity to prove it by moving forward with some of these aggressive reforms. rich: tell us more about what you hear from our fellow veterans -- your fellow veterans about how the government can help hem. >> well, i think first thing that i would say with suicide prevention being our number one priority is that if you are a

veteran in crisis, call 988, the suicide prevention hotline. press 1 if you're a veteran, and they'll get you connected to somebody who's trained to help you through that cry -- crisis but then refer you to local and national roughers -- resources which other -- with other issues. suicide is a complicated problem. there's no one thing we can point to and say this is why veterans are taking their own lives. so that's number one. number two, if you are a family member or a friend of a veteran holiday season and into next year, you know their baseline of behavior. lean into that relationship, and if you see any change, just help them -- rich: yeah. incredibly important. cole lyle, a marine corps combat veteran and executive director of mission roll call, thank you very much for joining us. we'll be right back. >> thank you, rich. merry christmas. abetes? discover the power of 3 in the ozempic® tri-zone.

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editorial board report is coming up next. ♪ welcome to the special edition of "the journal editorial report" as a look back at the highest and most of 2022. and we began with us economy and the earth inflation. consumer prices continue to climb in 2022 as americans pay more for everything from gasoline to groceries hitting a high of nine.1 percent before moderating somewhat