>> dana: one hour from now the man accused of the brutal massacre of four university of idaho students will face a judge in a status hearing. he is being held without bail in a moscow, idaho jail now. with bryan kohberger be granted bail in today's hearing and will we find out more details about the night he allegedly broke into the home and slaughtered four students while they slept? we'll bring you his court appearance when it happens and have a live report in moments. any moment president biden will deliver remarks on the economy as inflation shows new signs of starting to slow down a bit. meanwhile the president faces new questions about his handling of classified information after his lawyers reportedly discovered a second batch of secret documents. welcome to a new hour of "america's newsroom." i'm dana perino. >> bill: i'm bill hemmer. i expect a lot of reporters to shout a lot of questions. >> dana: interesting they decide to do this inside like this.

a little bit more accessible than when you are talking outside of the blades of helicopter of marine one. >> bill: president is likely to face pointed questions about those files when and where they were found as well as numerous questions about the first set of secret documents found in the closet of an office he used after his time as vice president. karl rove last hour said biden needs the to clear up this mess as quickly as possible. >> why won't the president look at the documents? he is the ultimate guy in charge of classification and yet he says my lawyers tell me don't look at the documents. maybe you ought to look at the documents so you can help understand what it's all about. >> dana: david spunt live at the justice department. hi, david. >> hi. those same attorneys are still looking for more documents at multiple different sites to make sure they have all of them. after we reported yesterday that they did find a second site of

documents, classified documents. we've pressed multiple times. unfortunately it is still not known how many, where or when those documents were found but hopefully we find out that information just as soon as possible to pass it along. this comes after news broke about the reported 10 classified documents at the penn biden center in washington. the center officially opened in 2018 and while it operates on its own in many ways, the funding source is no surprise, the university of pennsylvania based in philadelphia. when news broke that classified documents were found at the d.c. location, questions arose about china's influence on the university as a whole and the center itself. i reached out to upenn and received this statement on the record from steven mccarthy the vp for communications saying the penn biden center has never soils ited or received any gifts from chinese or any foreign entity or any gifts for the center. since its inception in 2017

there have been three unsolicited gifts from two donors which total $1,100. both are americans. the penn center may not receive a cent directly from the chinese the university receives millions. public records on the department of education website found for one example, u penn received $14 1/2 million from china in may of 2018. paul moore under secretary betsy devase led the investigation that uncovered tens of millions in foreign gifts to multiple universities. listen. >> it's not illegal for universities to take this money. they can take money from foreign sources but they have to report it. >> harvard, the university of southern california also on that list and paul tells us, we checked, this information is all readily available on the

department of education's website. public and private universities, any schools that receive federal funding have to report where money is coming from overseas. back to you. >> dana: thank you so much. for more let's bring in john ratcliffe former director of national intelligence and sat on the house judiciary and you understand documents and classification and where things should be and where they should not be. now we have a second box of documents. there might be more, we don't know. we'll see where the investigation goes, if anywhere. your reaction to what has happened in the last 48 hours. >> dana, i think this is why democrats with the first batch of documents started out by saying we can't compare this between trump and biden. it is comparing apples to oranges. to republicans saying you are right. we can't compare it. what joe biden did was much worse. i have think there is a basis for that in the fact when president trump took documents it was reported the day that he

left by a former obama official that those documents were taken. everyone was aware the documents were at mar-a-lago under the purview of the secret service and that those records were taken under the presidential records act. he had a basis for removing documents from the white house. none of that applies to vice president biden and what we are finding out is that documents that he didn't have authority to take that were classified and that he says he has no knowledge about are being found in multiple locations now. and so no one can attest to the security of top secret documents, sensitive compartmented information for a period of years. the problem the biden administration and department of justice has now is how are they going to plausibly bring a prosecution against former president trump for the offenses that joe biden himself has very clearly engaged in as well?

so i think my initial reaction to what is happening to this issue. >> bill: it's obvious there are a lot of questions. i don't know if you go to special counsel or the president clears it up or if there are more documents discovered in other places and we'll have to wait on that. >> bill, to that point i think the issue about a special counsel has gone from one where it is debatable to one where it becomes mandatory. so with regard to the penn biden center, what we find out from documents is that deal to pay joe biden $8 hundred thousand was negotiated at least in part by hunter biden and was contemplated to include an office involving hunter biden. beyond that, the discussion by joe biden himself was that the staff that he was bringing into that deal included current secretary antony blinken and

current white house counselor. this is an actual conflict of interest involving the entire biden white house at this point in time. it is beyond debate whether or not a special counsel is necessary to look into this. it is absolutely required under the law at this point. >> bill: it is obvious from that answer we're at the beginning stages of this story. you would agree with that? there are a lot of layers to this and it goes right to the west wing. >> absolutely. very clearly. again, i think this is a problem that in the case of president trump, there are very few unanswered questions. with regard to president biden, all of the questions are unanswered at this point. we don't know whether or not there are 4 or 5 locations, or ten documents or 100,000 documents. in the case of vice president biden at the time, there was never any authority to take any classified documents away, which was not the case for president trump who also had declassification authority.

this is really becoming a problem for the biden white house and one that alameda is starting to pay attention to and can't ignore. >> dana: they are. that's the case. thank you, john ratcliffe. appreciate vowing -- having you on the view. this story is not done. >> bill: they will yell and ask questions and a lot of times he hasn't answered the questions. stand by for that and we'll see the president in a moment from the white house. meanwhile. >> why didn't president biden want to see what's really going on at the border? >> he did see exactly what is going on at the border. >> he didn't talk to migrants or go -- >> there were no migrants at the facility that he visited. >> bill: they asked questions about the visit to el paso. large groups of migrants still pouring across the border showing no let-up in the crisis. griff jenkins back at the border

in eagle pass, texas, griff, good morning. >> good morning, bill. that video you were just showing of that group with 67 migrants from central america, ecuador and cuba happened a few hours ago. since i've been standing here in this spot at least 20 migrants have walked up in the last 30 minutes being processed behind the shipping container behind me. now in the distance, the dangers to these migrants is highlighted here in eagle pass. you can see the train on the tracks far away. there was yesterday here in the afternoon nine migrants found locked in a rail car packed with cases of corona beer. one had to be airlifted to san antonio for medical treatment. it is a snapshot of the dangers these migrants make in making this journey to the u.s. meanwhile we are also learning that more dangerous migrants are on their way across our border,

the border patrol releasing a two-day report saying in the last just two days, 48 hours, you have had individuals that were convicted in the u.s. of sexual assault of a child, sex offenders, two gang members and two firearms seized. the firearms are troubling local leaders on the ground up in kinney county 50 miles north of us. the sheriff says it is becoming far too often and way too common to find firearms on smugglers. listen. >> every stop we make seems like it has a firearm. mandated they wear their vest at all times in case. we've seized ak-47s, a couple of shotguns, platforms. the weapons are out there. fortunately they haven't been used against us yet but it is just a matter of time. >> and just to drive the point home a little bit with the group we're showing here, bill, it's

really hard to believe as an observation that the president could travel to one of the ground 0 spots in el paso or here in the del rio sector and not encounter a migrant. it is difficult to not run into them. it happens every hour, sometimes multiple times an hour. it is like clockwork. the cartel moving migrants across this river and this border like amazon packages. send it back to you. >> bill: griff jenkins back on the border today. >> dana: want your mind blown? you cannot believe this. bloomberg quoted this, the headline. migration gets short shrift at biden summit after border visit. u.s. and mexican cabinet officials ran out of time before discussing migration in a meeting on monday. leaving that issue unaddressed. how do you address any other issue without addressing that one first?

unbelievable. >> it wasn't a priority. the mexican president is thanking him for not extending any more barriers on the wall while being president for the past two years. it's right there. >> dana: check that out. idaho murder suspect bryan kohberger is due in court within the hour. >> bill: new clues in the case of ana walshe, a mother of three in massachusetts disappeared on new year's day as we learn more about her husband's criminal history. does that have anything to do with the matter at hand today? we'll talk to our legal panel on that coming up. >> our international community is very sad and everybody is reaching out to say how can we help the boys? right now the main focus is on the boys.

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>> bill: 18 past. we expect to see the president in a moment here inside the room. running a little late here, he said. talk about the inflation report that shows a slowing and white house got something to talk about on that. see what the fed does next but also questions about documents and see whether or not we can push that story forward if and when he chooses to answer questions about the last reporting from this past week. stay tuned and we'll bring it to you in moments from d.c. dana. >> dana: over 100 people are reported missing from a town in mexico where the son of the not notorious drug lord was captured. it left ten soldiers dead and 19 members of the sinaloa cartel. no civilians were killed but locals claim 140 people have disappeared. mostly young men and women between 12 and 35 years old.

as we just told you before the break, the cabinet officials from mexico and the united states apparently ran out of time to talk about the migrant crisis in america at their meeting. >> bill: how many guests have told the cartels run that country? they made a crackdown, right, arrested this guy three years ago and then let him loose. now back in custody. >> dana: rearrested the week before biden went there. >> bill: a live look at the courthouse. the video we received over the weekend from idaho of mattresses removed from inside the home. dan springer and what we can expect when kohberger is before the camera yet again. dan, hello. >> good morning. because of a gag order imposed on everyone involved in the case we don't know what to expect as kohberger's status hearing at the top of the hour. we can ex pect to get a read from his attorney on how fast she wants to go to a preliminary

hearing, supposed to be within 14 days. they have the option of being within 14 days. she may make an argument that kohberger should be allowed to post bail and get out of the county jail. last week's appearance ann tailor said she needed more time. an uphill battle. the magistrate on the indicate is also the judge who signed the no knock, no bail arrest warrant for kohberger before he was picked up in pennsylvania. there is also a lot of evidence to overcome including kohberger's white elantra and cell phone records and dna lift evidence from a knife sheath found at the crime scene. elantra was caught on video passing the house four times right before and after the murders, a doorbell kam may have helped investigators. yesterday was the first day of classes for spring term at the university of idaho. for the first time since the murders november 13th the campus was very busy as everyone tries to get back to normal. among the students returning chapin's triplet siblings and

enrolled at the university of idaho and parents released a rare statement on facebook said everything we had is now frozen with the defense. for us it involves two vehicles, belongings and a nice set of golf clubs. not known if the chapins will be here. they live in western washington. the other parents live in coeur d'alene. >> dana: new details emerging in the case of missing massachusetts mom ana walshe. her husband is accused of misleading investigators about the case but not charged in her disappearance. one family friend says ana promised a big surprise in the new year. the "new york post" revealed a note she wrote on new year's leave. let's bring in our panel.

criminal defense attorneys. good to have you both here. let me lay it out. this is the letter that she apparently left on new year's day obtained by the "new york post" says wow, 2022 what a year. yet we're still here and together. let's make 2023 the best one yet. we're the authors of our lives, courage, love, perseverance, compassion and joy, love ana. so this case is still developing. the husband is only arrested on impeding the investigation. how do you see it? >> from that letter you just or the statement you read it doesn't seem like she had any kind of emergency she would have to leave. circumstantial evidence can be the most powerful evidence in a criminal case. i believe this case is headed towards a murder prosecution. what is that circumstantial evidence? you have the man going out in violation of the terms of his house arrest spending $450 on cleaning materials and you put

that with the fact he was reportedly found with a knife and blood in his basement. on top of that in the trash system, dana, we have a hatchet. a hacksaw and bloody trash bags. it paints a picture of a murder prosecution. they will rely on at least the circumstantial evidence and charge this man with murder, i believe and they are getting their ducks in a row. it is a matter of time. this all points to an abandoned and malignant heart. someone who planned to cover up the crime. he would get the death penalty if they had it in massachusetts. >> dana: molly, put on the screen for everybody the evidence that phil was just talking about. going to the whole foods and cvs saying he was going to ice cream but he didn't among other things phil mentioned. how do you sight, molly? >> i think from the criminal defense perspective yes, circumstantial evidence is powerful. the government has to prove the

case beyond a reasonable doubt. we have somebody on home confinement because of the terms and conditions of his federal case that he was con factoid of last year. perhaps lying about where he was because he doesn't want to get in trouble given his conditions he is currently under. i have think including not only that letter but we also have a letter that ana wrote to the court for his sentencing for his federal case that he was convicted of, an art fraud case where she speaks with such respect and reverence for who he was as a father and husband and who he was to her and to her family, her mother. so where is the motive? the prosecution doesn't have to prove motive but until we have that a jury may not find that this circumstantial evidence is enough. >> dana: we have a letter from a doctor in a 2019 affidavit filed in plymouth probate court he saw

brian -- he attempted to kill 4 or 5 guards that came to talk to him about the crime. he is very angry and physically violent person. where do we go from here, phil? >> that doctor spoke to the motive, you are right. they don't have to prove it. it shows he is somebody easily provoked. he turns to violence when he is. if it walks and quacks like a duck in this case it's a murder. you have a hacksaw and you have him going on google and searching how to destroy and dismember a 115 pound body. there is only one reasonable conclusion, dana, that you can get from all this. they are building a murder case. i imagine that they will file it any day now. but that's where this is headed. they may not have a body but i do believe they'll find some of the evidence that they have obtained is going to lead them in their quest for additional evidence. this case will be a murder

charge, mark my words. >> dana: final thought? >> when it comes to these forensic pieces of evidence, bloody knife or hacksaw from a criminal defense perspective we wait for the lab results before we draw any conclusions. >> dana: would you draw conclusions from his google search? >> i don't like that. that is a problem to me. >> dana: good to have you both. thank you so much. have a great day. >> thanks. >> bill: breaking news. the latest peter doocy reporting a moment ago the report that came out yesterday about a second batch of documents that were found we were never told where they were found. peter doocy reports they were found in the president's home in wilmington, delaware. the president's lawyers have searched both his homes according to the special counsel to the president biden. we're waiting on him and should be out in a matter of moments.

told he was en route to the room and stopped to talk to the folks. >> dana: probably the lawyers. >> bill: bret baier stops by. good morning to you. listen, for 90 minutes we've been saying there are more questions and answers at the beginning of the story. how do you see it right now? >> this is developing as you look live at the white house there. i think karl rove, your guest earlier with the white board and all the questions that we have yet to know the answers to, was pretty good. and he laid it out. the fact that we don't know what the documents were and the fact the president said his lawyers said don't ask about what the documents were. that was for the first batch. now you have the second batch found in his home in delaware. does he know what those documents pertain to? i think that this is really a sticky thicket for the attorney general merrick garland, who is obviously dealing with the

mar-a-lago documents and what will happen on the d.o.j. side and now you have all of these developments. and what the president said previously on 60 minutes and elsewhere about the handling of classified information. >> bill: now the report is from reuters that they were found in his garage at his home in wilmington, delaware. >> dana: so as in not a locked closet. i don't know, bret. one of the things you have to imagine is that the white house thinks could it be even more, right? they want to get ahead of it. one of the reasons he might be late he realizes there might be questions shouted at him. it is remarkable when he said the lawyer said not to ask what they are. he is in charge of our national security? shouldn't he want to know? it's possible they're inoctoberous documents. a lot of overclassification in the government. the fact remains that if you work in the government and you sign your name saying you understand the law, you will

protect the documents, they are remain in your custody or be returned to the custodian, if you break that law as a lower level person your life and career could be ruined. >> yeah. how the statute reads is gross negligence of handling of those documents. that goes back to remember when we talked about hillary clinton's emails and what then f.b.i. director james comey, how he read the statute about it. and the legal handling of classified information. so remember all of this is when vice president biden has left office and these documents are then in the civilian joe biden's hands, not as vice president of the united states at that moment. and much like a former president, it is different as apples and oranges as far as numbers of documents so far we've been told and how they were handled as far as when they were found.

but the fact that they were discovered before the mid-terms and then we get this revelation of these new discoveries after the mid-terms is kind of troubling. >> bill: found on the two of november as you point out. in the first location that the penn biden center right around the corner from where you work in washington, d.c., they removed at least twice we know of. people -- these were there. whether they checked -- whether they knew it was classified or went in the box, we don't know. we should know. i think it will take some time to know, however. do you know what the penn biden center does? we learned that he made almost a million dollars between the period of 2017 and 2019 to give his name to this center. >> right. it's a think-tank. a lot of administration officials were in and out of there as a policy center, and it

is from penn, which another question on karl rove's white board was the foreign donations to the university and did they go to somehow either pay for then vice president biden's salary or somehow tie into the biden center? there are all kinds of questions about that just from the university perspective. this is a think-tank designed to create policy for one would think the next democratic administration as they are coming out of the obama/biden administration and i think it is a problem. the fact that you have other reporters in the white house briefing room besides peter doocy who is usually asking the questions that are uncomfortable in that room, asking these questions and probing on this issue, i think it is going to be an issue for this white house to deal with. so far karine jean-pierre does not have answers. she has punted to the legal team. >> dana: i wonder something. we have heard that the president

is preparing an announcement for his run for re-election in 2024. i imagine that when they found this out on november 2nd they thought that's inconvenient, to say the least. they might have said do we have any other documents anywhere else? are we absolutely sure? they commence a search and now you have this all coming out right before he is supposed to do 1 of 2 things. the re-election announcement and the state of the union. and what happens in the situation like this, bret, as you know, he might want to talk about x, y and z but the press won't want to talk about that until he answers to this partly because he was so strident about how irresponsible donald trump, he said, had been with documents when he left. >> yeah, i remember that q and a plainly with scott pelly about and peter quoted it yesterday in his question to the white house press secretary. i think that is part of the issue that fuels this. the other part is that, you have

know, there were a lot of democrats who were hammering the former president and republicans running for office in the mid-term about his handling of classified information. it was used on the campaign. if it had come out about this prior to the election, that would have been inconvenient for some of those races as well. some of those democrats running for office. so it is -- it has to be dealt with. it will have to be a story that continues because we're finding new information in the second batch. the biggest question is what are the documents? yesterday i had the chairs of the senate and house intelligence committees democrat and republican on special report. both were frustrated that they have not been briefed on anything as far as the documents, either the mar-a-lago documents. they asked for a briefing of the national director of intelligence and -- haines, and

they also -- man, oh man, so much stuff up there you get screwed up sometimes. i think that they want to get briefed and now this and they haven't had a lot of intel coming their way. >> bill: we are going to -- >> dana: i just think the other thing that's frustrating to me so the president says the lawyers told me not to look at them. the press secretary says i won't answer it. do you know what happens when you send reporters to the white house counsel's office. they are basically doing a circular no comment zone. in the meantime we've been talking about this story that bloomberg reported people familiar with the matter saying that both the mexican and the united states cabinet officials did not have time to talk about the migrant crisis at our southern border and that this story is important. the documents one but it also is a way for them to skirt under having to talk about that very

real issue as well. >> the fact that he didn't see migrants really in big numbers or didn't talk to any. the fact that there wasn't any focus on that. there are real questions about what the administration is doing there as we know. >> bill: they said they ran out of time. why make the trip? >> dana: no one is leaving this room until we do is what i would say. >> it would be like talking to the chinese not mentioning covid. >> dana: maybe that happened, too. >> that may have happened, too. >> bill: bret, some of the reporting now the university of pennsylvania took in $54 million from foreign countries of which 14 1/2 came from china. now we learned david spunt and others telling us the department of education has this available on its website and harvard took money, the university of southern california took money. many of the ivy league schools

took money and penn was in the center of it. mark meredith now from the white house. >> i'm here at the white house. >> bill: just give us a preview of what you are hearing, a garage in wilmington, delaware is the latest headline we have now. >> the statement coming from the white house counsel's office. an idea they would be facing a lot of questions what was being done to try to trace some of these documents back. it is interesting, of course. it was yesterday the white house was facing a barrage of questions simply saying we don't have anything more to add given what the president said in mexico city. this appears to be the attempt to try to get out in front of some of those questions that will come later on today. also interesting in the statement that was released this morning they mentioned that some of these documents may have been shipped to the then former vice president's residence in delaware during the 2017 transition and in their statement they say that these locations where files might have

been shipped over the course of the transition. there could be other places where the other documents might be. a sign they realize there would be questions about what else will be there. curious whether the not when he says his remarks about the latest consumer price index numbers in a few minutes, whether or not he will take questions. not like they have it scripted but the reporters in the room will be shouting about this latest information. i would imagine he has to say something about this because the pressure is just building. also imagine what kind of fuel this will give congressional republicans start to ramp up investigations into the administration. they will see there has been a double standard when it came to the former president last year and the white house will say they're more forthcoming and what about the timing? when did they first realize this? you would think the second after the news broke about the former president that maybe they would have done the same thing, could

this happen? what will it mean for other former presidents? whether we'll see a review of anybody else in the oval office, whether or not the documents go back to other administrations. i would be curious to hear from those who have been in similar positions of power what kind of custodial system they have set up for something like this. they have their libraries. a lot of questions even to be answered today. >> bill: stand by along with bret as well as we continue to wait here. want to get to david spunt. you were with us a half hour ago. the whole line you ended your report with was intriguing. the department of education has the information for which american schools take foreign money and it is posted online. tell us about that. >> it is required to do so. this is required by law section 117 of the higher education act. that's publicly available. we are just learning here at the department of justice that

attorney general merrick garland will be making a statement at 1:15 this afternoon. curious because i sent out an email to the fox staff a minute before i learned about this that d.o.j. and f.b.i. continue not to comment. but the pressure continues to build on merrick garland so appoint a special counsel to look into this matter involving his boss. it is incredibly unique that he is now involved in an investigation that involves his direct boss, president joe biden. so what we don't know exactly what merrick garland, the attorney gain general will say at the department of justice it's possible he could announce a special counsel or the next steps here. you have to remember we've been reporting, bill and dana, that the u.s. attorney for the northern district of illinois based in chicago has spent several weeks looking over the

documents that were found at the penn biden center in november. we're told that initial review is complete and earlier this week merrick garland on his desk had this important decision to make about where to go through and forward with this. now we're seeing this updated statement from the white house counsel's office and we're told that review ended last night and these documents were found in wilmington, delaware, in the garage. merrick garland has more to decide now. appointing a special counsel is what republicans want and many democrats want. it would take things away from the department justice somewhat. a special counsel works for the department of justice but the u.s. attorney for the northern district of illinois may not cut it for critics who want this fully investigated. >> dana: it does something else, david. so karine jean-pierre is scheduled to do a press briefing

at 1:30 p.m. today. merrick garland makes the statement at 1:15 and if he says he is appointing a special counsel the white house press secretary can say special counsel, i can't comment. it might be appropriate. i don't know if there were further answers beyond that. that's another thing that happens. the timing of his statement at 1:15 and her press briefing at 1:30 is very interesting. >> it is interesting. former press secretary you know. something else important to point out dana and bill. there is a special counsel right now looking into the mar-a-lago documents. a special counsel john durham we have talked about him for three years looking into the origins of the russia investigation. however, the investigation into hunter biden, the president's son, is being run by the u.s. attorney in delaware. sure, he is a trump hold over like the one in illinois, davidwise.

weiss. maybe garland thinks he will get points for that. calls for him to appoint the special counsel on the hunter biden investigation as well. we'll see what a.g. garland has to say. >> bill: we're well within the two-minute warning a short time ago. >> dana: a half hour ago. >> bill: the latest from reuters. new nuggets. small number of documents classified markings found in the garage of his home in delaware. a single document was discovered in a room adjacent to the garage. no documents were found at the beach house in delaware and apparently they're in full cooperation mode. >> president biden: good morning. i'm a little late. please have a cismd i'm due at the national cathedral a little after 11:00. good morning. today we've got some good news, good news about the economy. for the sixth month in a row inflation has come down.

measured over the last 12 months it has fallen 6.5%, down from 7.1% the month before. it's down from 9.1% this summer. inflation is now at its lowest level since october of 2021. when we look at the just the last three months, we see the inflation fell to 1.8% on an annual bases. down from more than 11% in the first three months of last year. the data is clear. even though inflation is high and major economies around the world, it is coming down in america month after month giving families breathing room. the big reason is falling gas prices. my administration took action to get oil onto the market and bring down prices. now gas is down more than 1.70 from its peak adding up to a typical family with two vehicles to a savings of $180 a month every single month.

it stays in their pockets instead of being spent at the pump. food inflation is slowing as well. last month we saw the smallest increase in food prices in almost two years. much of that increase was due to the avian flu outbreak which drove up the egg prices in the united states. when we look at what economists call core inflation, which takes out energy and food, we see welcome news as well. core inflation is down to the lowest level in a year. over the past three months core inflation has come down to 3% on an annualized basis. that is down from more than 6% at the beginning of 2022. cost of goods is falling as prices from everything from computers to used cars are coming down as well. and inflation and the core services is moderating as well. as inflation is coming down, take home pay for workers is going up.

workers' wages are higher now than seven months ago adjusted for inflation. wages for lower income and middle income workers have gone up even more. it all adds up to a real break for consumers, a real breathing room for families and more proof that my economic plan is working. when i came to office almost two years ago the economy was flat on its back as you will all remember. millions of people had lost their jobs through no fault of their own. millions who kept their jobs saw the hours and paychecks cut. hundreds of thousands of small businesses permanently closed their doors. people were hurting badly. that's what we inherited. the pandemic was raging and economy was reeling. we acted decisively to put in place a new strategy to rescue the economy from the pandemic downturn. at the same time we laid the foundation for a stronger more resilient economy for decades to

come. grows from the bottom up and middle out. two years in it's clearer than ever my economic plan is working. what we learned last week, unemployment is the lowest it has been in 50 years. say that again. the lowest unemployment rate in half a century. my first two years in office were the two strongest years for job growth on record. we created nearly 11 million jobs including 750,000 manufacturing jobs. there were two of the strongest years ever for small business creation as well. and today unemployment rate is near record lows for blacks and hispanics. black and hispanic workers near record lows. the lowest ever on record for people with disabilities. we see american families breathing a little easier, more americans have health insurance than they did ever in our history. fewer families are facing

foreclosures today and before the pandemic. we still have more work to do, though. we're clearly moving in the right direction. there is more breathing room in store for american workers and families. starting last week, as of january 1st, a month's supply of insulin is now capped at $35 for seniors on medicare. some were paying hundreds of dollars every month for insulin. not anymore. starting last week, big pharma raises prices faster than inflation they'll face big penalties. starting last week, americans can get tax credits when they install energy efficient apply nesss like heat pumps or solar panels or buy electric vehicles. these were all pieces of the big law we passed last year. now they are kicking in and americans are starting to feel the benefits in their everyday lives. that's not all. we're seeing historic

investments in american manufacturing turn in new factories and jobs. from arizona, ohio, georgia, new york, companies have announced nearly $300 billion in manufacturing investments here in the united states since i became president. instead of exporting jobs like we did for decades we're creating jobs and exporting product. creating jobs and exporting product. that's the idea. now the house has elected a new speaker, i can call and congratulate him and ready to work with him. republican congress to make progress for the american people. like many americans i was disappointed that the very first bill the republicans in the house of representatives passed would help wealthy people and big corporations cheat on their taxes at the expense of ordinary mild class taxpayers and add $114 billion to the deficit. the very first bill.

house republicans campaigned on inflation. they didn't say if elected their plan was to make inflation worse. house republicans introduced another bill blocking action that would help lower gas prices and help consumers. on top of that, house republicans are preparing to vote on a national sales tax bill. national sales tax. that's a great idea. it would raise taxes on the middle class by taxing thousands of everyday items from groceries so gas while cutting taxes for the most wealthy americans. if i'm not mistaken they'll introduce it would totally eliminate the i.r.s. feels good except it is all going to be sales tax. go home and tell your moms they will be excited about that. come on. is this how house republicans are starting a new term cutting taxes for billionaires, raising taxes for working families, making inflation worse? let me be very clear. if any of these bills make it to

my desk, i will veto them. i will flat veto them. i'm ready to work with republicans but not with this kind of stuff. they tried to cut social security and medicare since americans are paying into. i will use my veto pen to stop that as well. if republicans want to work together on real solutions to lower inflieation, i'm ready. let me close. today's inflation numbers are good news about our economy. we have more work to do. we're on the right track. we're seeing bright spots across the country where great things are happening. roads and bridges are being built. factories coming online, people back to work again, families breathing a little easier. that's why i can honestly say and you heard me say it before and i mean it. never more optimistic about america's future than i am today. we have to remember who in god's

name we are. this is the united states of america. there is nothing -- nothing beyond our capacity if we work together. so god bless you all and may got protect our troops. >> mr. president -- [shouted questions] >> classified materials next to your corvette? what were you thinking? >> president biden: i will get a chance to speak on this as good willing soon. as i said this week. my corvette is in a locked garage not like they are sitting in the street. as well as my corvette. but as i said earlier this week, people know i take classified documents and classified material seriously. i also said we're cooperating fully and completely with the justice department review. as part of that process my lawyers reviewed other places where documents from my time as

vice president were stored and they finished the review last night. they discovered a small number of documents of classified markings in storage areas and file cabinets in my home in my personal library. this was done in the case of the biden penn center, the department of justice was immediately -- as was done, the department of justice was immediately notified and the lawyers arranged for the department of justice to take possession of the documents so we're going to see all this unfold. i'm confident -- thank you very much. thank you. [shouted questions] >> how is the first lady? >> president biden: doing really well. she was under a long time, for five hours. what they were doing is redo the

moles, remove what they thought might be cancerous and test it and see what it was. she is doing really well. she is up. we had breakfast this morning and she is recovering. and she will be sore for a while because of the work they did on her eyes and -- that's where one of these were. but she is 0 to 1% chance of the return of any cancer so thank god she is doing really well. thank you for asking. [shouted questions] >> bill: there it is. and we did get a bit of a food fight. he chose to answer one of the questions related to documents but he was reading that off the paper he had in front of him. >> dana: he was delayed in getting there. maybe having a conversation to read the statement. he wasn't taking questions off the cuff. bret, you listened to that with

us. the president gave a long song and dance about the economy and attacked republicans and the next thing he did is take a question from peter doocy was able to get one in. how could you leave classified documents in a garage with your corvette? the answer was it's a locked garage. is that going to cut it? >> that's a tough answer. no, the answer then is i handle classified documents and i take that very seriously. in a garage next to the corvette at the wilmington home and then this is the second batch found. he did go on to say his lawyers were vetting out other places that documents could have been and immediately contacted the justice department. the question is not immediately did it all come out. the first batch again as we pointed out was before the mid-terms. the answer will have to be more complete about what they were. he hasn't talked about knowing what the documents were that were in the garage and at the penn center.

and the fact that he read the first statement in mexico and then read the second statement here suggests that we're probably not going to see the end of this. a lot of people yelling questions as reporters often do in that scenario. he chose to take peter's and then one about the first lady. >> bill: a couple more guys, andy mccarthy and jonathon turley. the first lady had a procedure and that's the question about the canserous cells. hopefully she is doing fine. andy mccarthy, what is your read on what appears to be the very early stages of a significant story? >> i don't think they are in control of it. he has obviously had a number of different locations he has been at in the interim between the time he was obama's vice president and his own presidency. where he was writing a memoir

and clearly had documents. i don't think they have corraled it yesterday. it is remarkable to me they could delay for two months to make the disclosure and then not have accounted for every document. they are not in the control of the narrative right now. >> dana: what do you think about merrick garland making a statement at 1:15 today. we could maybe imagine the subject. >> as jonathan turley will tell you, it better be about a special counsel. it doesn't make any sense if they have one for trump and not one for this. >> bill: jonathan turley is on the phone. you wrote a piece yesterday that least in the first reporting of the penn biden center that the documents were moved at least twice. it was a major point you made yesterday. the news changed 24 hours later. where are we now? >> we're not in a good place

when it comes to the white house. what this means is that these documents had to be repeatedly moved and distributed. what we know is that the penn biden center office didn't even open in washington until at least a year after he left office, which means these documents likely were removed when he left office. so they had to have gone from one place to another. now we have these documents held in a garage and the problem is they gave the president a written statement and then he decided to preface that statement with a uniquely ill-advised statement saying that this was, after all, a locked garage where i keep my corvette. that's going to really resonate with a lot of people. corvette standard doesn't appear in the federal register.

although corvette did have a slogan for many years that it's like a car, only better. we don't apply that to classified documents. so he is really not in a good place here because he is refusing to answer very basic questions. he is giving -- he is repeating his reaction to the discovery rather than addressing his action. presumably he asked for documents to be removed from the executive branch when he left as vice president. there should be a record to that effect. it will be hard for him to continue to say the lawyers don't want me to know what these documents are. he is a key witness. the f.b.i. has to determine what the possible compromising of highly sensitive material occurred. and he has got to be able to answer questions about that. >> dana: do you think there will be a special counsel announced by merrick garland at 1:15

>> i don't see how he could avoid the appointment at this point. he has been in just almost an incomprehensible position for two years. refused to appoint a special counsel on the biden influence peddling. but what is really bizarre is when he made the appointment of jack smith on the trump matter he was aware the president had been found to have classified documents in his private quarters. if the reason he appointed jack smith, one of the key reasons he said well trump just announced for the presidency. i really don't have much of a choice. joe biden is the president. so -- >> dana: and about to announce for re-election. >> right. so it doesn't make any sense. so this is getting to rather a point of just embarrassment for merrick garland, for the department of justice. he has to appoint a special

counsel. >> bill: sir, thank you. we'll be in contact often. the story has taken a turn today and clearly since yesterday. >> dana: the white house press secretary is supposed to brief at 1:30 today. the attorney general statement at 1:15 if it's about a special counsel you won't get any other answers out of the white house press secretary. the story has moved significantly and harris faulkner will have more. here she have is. >> harris: president biden responding just moments ago after a second discovery of classified documents. he said they were locked up in his garage, quote, next to his corvette. the documents should have been professionally secured and now have popped up in a second location at his home in wilmington, delaware. i'm harris faulkner and you are in "the faulkner focus." again, the president responding moments ago. let's watch. >> president biden: i will g