>> bret: i'm bret baier. president biden set to address the nation on the state of the pandemic as omicron is on the rise and as his agenda faces major setbacks in the senate. ♪ ♪ >> we have talked, we have talked, we have talked. it's time to put it on the floor and vote. >> yes, we are engaged buried >> bret: senator joe manchin, one of the last holdouts delaying the president's signature social spending bill while senate democrats pushed a moderate to get behind the nuclear option to overcome a stalemate on voting rights. we go one-on-one with senator manchin, only on

"fox news sunday." then... >> we expect to sethe coming we. >> bret: first delta, now omicron hitting hard ahead of the holidays causing concern for health care systems impacting schools, broadway, and the nfl. we will ask national institutes of health director dr. francis collins about what some are calling becoming viral blizzard and sit down with the governors of two states to discuss how they're getting ready. republican larry hogan of maryland and democrat phil murphy of new jersey. then... >> the president said himself that he's planning to run for reelection in 2024. >> bret: the white house facing renewed questions about president biden's plans to run for a second term. we will ask our sunday panel about growing calls for him to officially announce whether he's in or out. plus, a solemn mission to lay wreaths at arlington national cemetery for three decades. >> we need to honor those

people, remember them. >> bret: all right now on "fox news sunday." ♪ ♪ and hello again from fox news in washington. the country is facing a swift spread of omicron now in 44 states just as americans prepared to celebrant the holiday season. hospitalizations are on the rise and daily confirmed cases rising to more than an average of 127,000 cases. while a federal appeals court has reinstated the president's vaccine and test mandate for businesses that employ more than 100 people and it could all go all the way to the u.s. supreme court buried in a moment, we left west virginia senator joe manchin about this development and his ongoing talks with the white house on the biden agenda. but first, let's turn to mark meredith traveling with the president in wilmington, delaware, with details on what the president plans to kill americans in an address tuesday about steps to fight covid.

>> the white house says the president is going to be outlining how the federal government can help communities that are dealing with the rapid rise in covid cases. he's also expected to double down on his message to unvaccinated americans that now is the time to get their shot. >> president biden: for unvaccinated, we're looking at a winter of severe illness and death. >> president biden along with house experts are warning the pandemic is far from over. >> your message to every american is clear, there is action you can take to protect yourself and your family. >> while 61% of the u.s. population is fully vaccinated, the virus continues to disrupt daily life. in new york, the radio city rockettes have canceled remaining performances, a handful of professional football, basketball and hockey games have been postponed and multiple schools or moving classes back online before winter break. on friday, a federal appeals court ruled the president's vaccine or test mandate for large businesses can go into effect. the white house elevating the news, writing "it's critical we

move forward with vaccination requirements." critics of the mandate plan to take the case to the supreme court. meantime, the white house is scrambling to find a path forward for the president's social and climate agenda. senate democrats are men deadlocked over the build back better proposal with moderates morning the country cannot afford to spend trillions more. the white house says it's going to wait till after the holiday break to reengage with congress on a few things, including spending as well as efforts to address voting rights, but with midterm elections looming, bret, time is running out for democrats to deliver on some of their key campaign promises. >> bret: mark meredith reporting from wilmington, thank you. joining us now, democratic senator joe manchin from west virginia, welcome back to "fox news sunday." >> senator manchin: good to be with you, bret, congratulations. >> bret: you are at the center of this negotiation with the president over his social spending and tax bill, a bill, the build back better bill, that is not coming up in the senate before the new year in part

largely because of your reservations. without you, the leadership doesn't have the votes it needs, so today, right now, what's the state of play? >> senator manchin: well, bret, this is a mammoth piece of legislation and i have had my reservations from the beginning when they heard about a five and half months ago and i've been working diligently every day, every minute of every day, i've been working on this, beating up whether it be the president, president biden or the majority leader schumer and his staff, whether it be with nancy pelosi, all of my colleagues. i mean, from all different spectrums of the political spectrum, if you will, from the right to the left. i've done everything possible. and you know my concerns i had, and i still have these concerns and where i'm at right now, the inflation but i was concerned about, it's not transitory, it's real, it's harming every west virginia, making it difficult for them to continue to go to their jobs. the cost of gasoline, the cost of groceries, the cost of utility bills, all of these things are hitting in every aspect of their life and you start looking at -- then you

have the debt that we are carrying number $29 trillion, you have also the geopolitical unrest that we have. you have the covid, the covid variant, and that is wreaking havoc again, people are concerned. with my family, i know everyone is concerned, so when you have these things coming at you the way they are right now, i've always said this, bret: if i can't go home and explain it to the people of west virginia, i can't vote for it and i cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. i just can't. i've tried everything possible, i can't get there. >> bret: you're done? this is a no? >> senator manchin: this is a no on this legislation. i have tried everything i know to do in the president has worked diligently, he's been wonderful to work with, he knows i've had concerns and the problems i've had and you know, the thing we should all be is directing our attention towards

the variance, the covid that we have coming back at us in so many different aspects in different ways, it's affecting our lives again. we have inflation that basically could harm -- really harm a lot of americans and especially those who are most needy and having a hard time struggling right now. so i think that's where attention needs to be directed towards immediate we. this is been going on for five and a half months. >> bret: you're getting all the focus, senator, but other other democratic senators who are concerned about this bill like you are? heavy doctors with them? >> senator manchin: i'm not going to speak for any of my -- they know the difficulties that i've been having with this. i've been very concerned about this. when i first got to the senate back in 2011 i was having a meeting on armed services and if that's him, mike mullen was the joint chief -- head of the joint chiefs of staff. i'll never forget in this hearing, he was asked this

question, what's the greatest threat the united states of america faces and i think i'm going to hear something basically military threats we might have around the world. without blinking an eye he said the debt of our nation is the greatest threat. the debt was 14 trillion then, but it's 29 trillion now. inflation is real. it's not going away anytime soon. we don't know when the end will come. there's a lot of people hurting right now. this covid we are fighting on a daily basis and this coming at different angles at us, if you will. these are serious, serious things. there's a lot of good, but that bill is a mammoth piece of legislation, a mammoth piece and when it's done even through regular order it would be a tremendous huge undertaking. speeone's are democrats obviously are frustrated and your caucus, progressives especially, but they point to what they've been doing since the first part of this. the senate, the conventional wisdom is the longer it goes, it was going to be trimmed down but the house passed bill was 2.2 trillion down from bernie sanders' $6 trillion, the initial pitch, which was lowered to 3.5 trillion, now comes in at

just under 2 trillion, so your number at the beginning was 1.7. where is the disconnect that you are now a no? you can't get to yes if you're a democrat, you are pushing you? >> senator manchin: right, first of all, when this all came about and i went and spoke to the leader schumer at that time and explained to him where i wasn't the concerns i had and it 1.5 trillion is where i thought the most we could do if we just did it and then basically took care of the things we thought were the highest priorities. as you call, bernie started at 6 trillion, i think he was sincere what he thinks he needs to be done. the changes, they want to three and a half trillion, that went down to 2.2 from the house side and even at one point seven five the thing that never changed was basically the same amount of things that they're trying to accomplish by just changing, if you will, the amount of time that we can depend on it, so if you're going to do something and do it, pick what are prized

priorities are like most people do and their families other businesses, and you fund them for ten years and you make sure they deliver the services for ten years. it's hard to deliver service for one year or three years or five years, and how are we going to continue that unless it's going to put a burden, and less we have to go back and make adjustments, but we should be upfront and pick our priorities. that's the difference, so it hasn't shrunk in the desire. the intent is always there. and what we need to do is get our financial house in order, but be able to pay for what we do and do what we pay for. >> bret: the president put out a statement friday that you still supported 1.7 trillion. he said you needed more time to finalize negotiations and reporters asked you about that and you said the president put out that statement, it's his statement, not mine, so now what you're saying today makes a lot more sense of why you said that. you are a no. >> senator manchin: well, bret, here's the thing. i tried. i really did and the president was trying as hard as he could. he has an awful lot of irons in

the fire right now, he needs for this to continue what i'm having the difficulties i'm having and basically the challenges we have from different parts of our party basically pushing in different ways. so everyone still has the aspirational things they want to do. they said can we still make this event, we will just cut it down to two years versus ten years, we will cut this one down to four years versus ten years or one year versus ten years. that's not -- and that's not being genuine, as far as i'm concerned, with my constituents in west virginia. if i can't explain it -- eei -- the congressional -- it's the bipartisan, bret, congressional budget office. they are upwards of 4.5 trillion. 4.5 trillion if everything that is still in the bill today even though they said they've cut it down, still in the bill, would be paid for in full, you are in that 4.5 trillion. we've got -- again i'm telling you, we've got covid at us, we

haven't tackled that and finish that. we got inflation, which we don't know when it's going to end, and that's going to make a tremendous -- take a tremendous toll. that's where our efforts should be right now. >> bret: last thing on this before we move on. congressman alexandria acosta cortez says people wanted a people wanted manchin. helplessness is not a disposition that inspires confidence or support. the president has tools at his disposal, leadership has tools at his disposal. if it's really just one or two votes, senate should force a vote on build back better, understanding that it's not just one or two votes, it's 51 potentially with all the republicans united against the bill but what you think she's talking about, and without your vote, this bill dies, right? >> senator manchin: the bottom line -- i didn't hear the first of what you said -- >> bret: she said people want to "but manchin," but learned

helplessness is not a disposition that inspires confidence or support. >> senator manchin: okay, i got you. here's the thing, just vote. just vote. if that's what people need to show where they are, then vote. i've been trying to say it, how many different ways i can say it. the frustration for my colleagues, friends of mine on both sides of the aisle, but my democratic colleagues who are frustrated, this has been strung out for so long, five and a half months, they're trying to make this adjustment, this adjustment, they're just trying to make the adjustment for the time to fit the money or the money to fit the time. not changing our approach, not targeting things we should be doing, making sure that people, basically that truly need it, are getting it. making sure we can do things in a much better fashion. we have things that we can do in a bipartisan way the way the senate is supposed to work. we will just let it happen. just go through the committees, let's work it. >> bret: a couple things first. there's a lot of criticism that says that you're doing this about environment and climate

change, your critics, your biggest critics say west virginia has had a reliance on coal industry and that you personally profit from investments in the family called brokerage that you founded. what's your response to that? >> senator manchin: i've heard all of those things and i understand where they're coming from and basically they are trying to get an agenda they wish to have. the main thing that we need is dependability and reliability. if not, you will have what happened in texas and what happens in california. no one's talking about defense of our country either. we just had a committee hearing on do we have the energy that we need to defend our country in a time when we have a conflict or a war. all these things, and the reliability and affordability. i have put as chairman of the natural -- energy and national resort spending in the last two years working in a bipartisan bill, billions of dollars in clean energy technology. we are doing everything him only possible -- we've doing more that's ever been done in the past and we are continuing to do that, but you can't let technology be behind basically

the needs of -- technology is not there, we got to make sure that we are able still to rely on united states of america, we have been energy basically independent for the first time in many, many years, 67 years or more, and we should not have to depend on other parts of the world to give us the energy or be able to hold us hostage for the energy or the foreign supply chains that we need for the products we use every day. that's all i'm trying to do. >> bret: build back better is essentially dead as written without your vote but there's another push for voting rights and changing the filibuster in some way to get voting rights were formed through. are you open to changing either the rules or the structure of the filibuster to do that? >> senator manchin: well, first of all, voting, just voting is the bedrock of democracy, we should all be concerned about that. it shouldn't be democrat or republican. as an american and the democracy and the freedoms we enjoy becomes because we have an open process of electing officials,

so we should be working on that together. and next of all, if you can make the senate work better, the rules are something we've changed over the years, 232 years there's been rule changes, but there's never been a change with the filibuster. the rights of the minority, and i made no commitment or promises on that. i am working on trying to make the senate work better, bringing bills to the floor, amending them, having debates, understanding, being transparent to the public. if >> bret: you are in the seat of former senator robert byrd from west virginia. 60 vote threshold stays under what you are proposing, maybe some redemptions or reforms, is that what i'm hearing? >> senator manchin: what you're hearing is basically can work on the rules that make the senate work rather than the deadlock we have right now. everyone thinks the end all do all is basically in the filibuster. it's basically in how we operate and proceed every day of the senate, which we are not doing. that's what needs to be changed. >> bret: last thing, vaccine

medic, you had friday, ruling from the sixth circuit court of appeals allowing president biden's vaccine requirements for large private employers to move forward. if you've been cleared you've been against mandates on businesses. what's your reaction to that and what you think is going to happen? >> senator manchin: first of all, my reaction is president biden has been doing every thing humanly possible to get vaccines and making sure people understand how serious this is. i've had all of my vaccine shots and my booster too. my whole family has. i recommend and basically plead with every west virginia group, every american to do so. but with that, i've said first public dollars, we are working for your tax dollars. then the government employees, the military, all the services that we depend on by what we are supporting through our public dollars, should be that mandate which the president put out as an order. i agree 1000% with him. i did not agree on the private sector of 100 plus members -- employees of a business or more, i thought businesses really should make those decisions. they have done and they want to

do keep their employees healthy, they should be able to make the decisions, it shouldn't be the government has to make every decision in the private arena. that's all, but now the courts -- the courts have spoken. that is the law. i pray to good lord that everyone abides by this law and get vaccinated. please get vaccinated. >> bret: senator manchin, as always, good to talk to you and merry christmas. >> senator manchin: good to talk to you, bret, merry christmas with you and your family at all those who are watching, god bless. >> bret: up next, states are seeing spikes in covid as the omicron variants perez. we will get the latest on the state of the pandemic and talk with governors on both sides of the aisle about what this means for schools, travel, and mandates. ♪ ♪ ♪ helping them discover their dreams

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♪ ♪ >> bret: pfizer, one of the chief vaccine makers friday predicted the covid pandemic could last until 2024, just in time for the next election. joining me now, dr. francis collins, the outgoing director of the national institutes of health. dr. collins, welcome back to

"fox news sunday." >> dr. collins: nice to be with you, bret, it's my last day as nih director, glad to be part of it. >> bret: we appreciate your last stop being here. doctor, on that note, it does seem like we're going backwards here. >> dr. collins: well, omicron is certainly providing a very serious challenge. this variance virus with its 57 mutations certainly a difficult one for us to cope with because it is so contagious, more than adults or, more than alpha, beta, all of the other previous variance tale by comparison in terms of the rate at which this one is spreading, doubling every two to three days first in south africa, now in parts of europe and the u.s. is on that exponential curve right now, so we are in for a world of trouble, i'm afraid, in the next month or two, but there are things people can do and i hope we can talk about that, because this is not one of those situations where we are just

helplessly facing the oncoming virus. we have things we can do, and especially those are vaccines and boosters and being careful about masking again. and i know people are sick of hearing this, but the virus is not sick of us, it's thrown us a new curveball and we got to be ready to hit it. >> bret: can you definitively say that omicron is less severe? >> dr. collins: i cannot say that for the u.s. i have seen data as recently as yesterday from south africa -- and let me just say that south african scientists have been incredible transparent about everything they know, and what i saw yesterday does seem to indicate that in south africa, there is less hospitalization than the people who are getting hospitalized are less likely to be in the icu. but remember, that's a different population it's generally younger. most people in south africa already had delta, so they have some immunity from that. they don't have boosters there, so we have that on our side. have to be careful not to extrapolate what we seen, but i'm hopeful that is an

indication that welcome incredibly contagious, this virus is maybe a bit less likely to make people really sick and obviously that's something we've got to hope for or our health systems are going to be overwhelmed. >> bret: the nfl is already postponing games during the outbreak, the ncaa, teams are changing things, the nba, the nhl has postponed. here's the issue. the nfl, the nba, the nhl, they have vaccination rates at 95, 97, almost 100%, so what you say to people, and many of those players are already boosted. what you say to people who look at that and say what happened to vaccination being the solution to getting back to normal life? >> dr. collins: i'm glad you're asking that because while vaccination does not prevent the possibility of a breakthrough, it greatly reduces that. it certainly has for delta, and for omicron, if you've had two doses of pfizer or mcdermott, you are somewhat protected against the breakthrough infection. if you have a booster, you're

much better protected, up there around the sort of 85-90% rate, so vaccinations are going to be very much part of our solution here, and everybody should take advantage of them, but they are not perfect. this is where i get upset because people point to anecdotes of somebody who got sick even though they had been vaccinated and said "there, you see, it doesn't work!" that's way too simplistic. if you've gotten sick after vaccination, the chances are you're going to have a pretty mild case. you will have the sniffles may be or sick for a day or two with a fever but you won't be in the icu. the vaccinations are really good at protecting against severe disease. it we should all take advantage of them. and it's got to be really, really frustrating in this country with all of its technological advance that we still have about 50 million people who haven't even gotten started on vaccinations. how did that happen? how did we get all of this so mixed up with social media, misinformation, and political insertion into the discussion. this is the thing for me on my

last day as nih director that i find particularly frustrating. >> bret: we always hear follow the signs and finances observation, description, experimentation and expo nation, but it seems that a lot of health policymakers have been trying to silence opposing views. in a newly released set of emails received from freedom of information act between you and dr. fauci in october 2020, you reference the great barrington declaration, a group of epidemiologist and health scientists who wrote "we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of prevailing covid-19 policies continuing current lockton policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health" in this email to dr. dr. fauci, you write "hi, tony e great barrington definition link. this is for three french epidemiologist who met with the secretary seems to be getting a lot of attention and even a cosignature from a nobel prize winner at stanford.

there needs to be a quick and devastating public takedown of its premises. i don't see anything like that online yet. is it underway"? francis, did you write that? >> dr. collins: i did write that, and i stand by that. let me explain. what was being proposed there was basically saying "let's not worry about mitigation, let's just let this virus rip." this is of course before we had vaccines and basically these -- i will call them french epidemiologist who really did not have the credentials to be making such a grand sweeping statement -- were saying let the virus run through the population and then eventually everyone will have had it and we will be okay. hundreds of thousands of people would have died if we had followed that strategy, so i'm sorry, i was opposed to that, i'm still am and i am not going to apologize for it. there are times when people make crazy proposals on the basis of pseudoscience, and that needs to be called out. >> bret: i guess it follows this track with the early days downplayy from wuhan

why spend the time doing that when we are talking about observation, description, extermination, and expo nation? i mean, now it seems like the lab lick is a real possibility. >> dr. collins: well, bret, i'm really sorry that the lab leak has become such a distraction for so many people, because frankly we still don't know. there is no evidence really to say most of the scientific community, myself included think that is a possibility but far more likely this was a natural way in which a virus left a bat, may be through some other species and got to humans and there was no lab leak involved. we won't know unless china decides to open up about this, which they have not done, and shame on them for that. but this is been a huge distraction. >> bret: basically keep it -- everybody should take this seriously is your bottom line message? >> dr. collins: yes. yeah, we've got to remember, this is the enemy. it's not the other people in the other political party. it's not the people on facebook

for posting all sorts of crazy conspiracies. this is the enemy, we in this country have somehow gotten all fractured into a hyper polarized, politicized view that never should have been mixed with public health. it's been ruinous in history will judge harshly those people who have continued to defocused the effort and focus on conspiracies and things that are demonstrably false. a shaman all of us that we've gotten into this kind of pickle. we could still turn this around but you know, it's christmas. so let's think about that. let's think about how our weary world could maybe start rejoicing because we have a gift coming to us on christmas day that ought to be better than any of the things we're talking about right now. at the point that we need to get together. if >> bret: dr. collins, merry christmas, happy holidays and thank you for the service to the country. >> dr. collins: thanks, bret. merry christmas to you too. >> bret: joining us here in washington, maryland governor larry hogan. welcome back to "fox news sunday."

>> good morning. >> bret: you just heard that conversation, you are seeing covid spikes in maryland, are you considering major changes in other lockdown possibly? >> governor logan: no, look, we are concerned about rising cases, we got hospitalizations of about 150% the past two weeks and we are taking steps to try to provide more support for hospitals, and we are putting more into testing. we are pushing monoclonal antibodies we are trying to do everything we can to get the last 9.2% of our population vaccinated. we are encouraging boosters, but we are not anticipating any lockdowns at all, we are not considering that. >> bret: what's the stat that you look at? hospital officials saying 93% of hospital beds across your state are full. covid is not the dominant condition there but it's still affecting things. what you look at? people are looking at cases. do you look at hospitalizations? >> governor hogan: the main thing we have focused on from the very beginning for nearly two years now has been hospitalizations and deaths buried at that's really what we're trying to -- it's not just

about case rates and positivity rates, it's about hospitalization, keeping people safe. that's our main jobs as governors a muscle are hospitalization you're right, our hospitals are fairly full with other things, but that extra ten to 15% of covid cases loaded on top of it is what's helping because of the problems we are having with shortages in some of our hospitals and we are working to address that. honestly, we are pretty concerned about this omicron variant in that even though it seems to be less berland and less dangerous, it's like four times more contagious. you know, the percentages, we are still seeing i would say in the next couple of days, omicron is going to be the dominant variant in our state and we are anticipating over the next 3-5 weeks probably the worst surge we've seen in our hospitals throughout the entire crisis, but we don't expect it to last for long, we are hoping it starts to taper off fairly quickly, but we are facing a pretty rough time. >> bret: prince george's county, the school district friday became the major school district to

extend a systemwide shift back to remote learning. which is a big deal. >> governor hogan: it's a big deal and a terrible mistake, and something where very opposed to. you know, are duly elected school boards in these counties have the powers to make those decisions. unfortunately i don't have the power as governor but we are going to make it very clear that we think it's a mistake, we all want to keep our kids safe but with got protocols in place. there's a hundred cases in prince george's county out of 131,000 students. you know, if there's a particular outbreak in a classroom or in a school you want to ramp up testing and make sure we keep those people safe by shutting down in the entire school system of kids that have already struggled with distance-learning for nearly a year, it's just outrageous and wrong. >> bret: what's your take on his federal appeals court ruling on the mandate for vaccines for businesses with more than 100? where do you think it goes, where do you do it? >> governor hogan: i don't think it's going to stand. i think the courts are going to stop it from happening and we've

been able to, and we are one of the most vaccinated states in america, 90.8% of everybody 18 and over vaccinated in our state and 99.9% of our seniors without mandates. look, i'm focused on, you know, convincing people that this is a great way to keep yourself and your family and your neighbors safe but mandates aren't working. they're sort of having the opposite effect and people are digging in their heels and saying you can't make me do it. we would rather encourage people to go out and get vaccinated and it seems to be working in our state, we are either the best or second-best in nearly every category. >> bret: i want to talk about a couple other issues, one is crying. baltimore has at seven consecutive years with more than 300 homicides. just had a police officer ambushed wednesday on life support. some of your tough crime proposals face resistance in the democratic resort he state legislature. baltimore city state attorney marilyn mosby has called your renewed call to action a political stunt asking how it's even unwilling to develop long-term solution to address

the root causes of crime in our city? wise's only solution to climb more police and mandatory minimum sentences? you've been in office since january 15th. how do you respond to that? >> governor hogan: i would say she's completely wrong and she's a big part of the problem. we have a prosecutor in baltimore city that refuses to prosecute violent criminals, and that's at the root of the problem, but you know, we put massive amounts of -- we've invested over $1 billion into public safety in baltimore city. i'm not the mayor, i'm not the prosecutor, but have started a national "refund the police" initiative. defunding the police is about the dumbest idea i've ever heard. marilyn mosby was in favor of that idea. we need more police, more investment. we've just invested another $150 million in state and local police but also have tough crime bills, which the leaders in baltimore city have been opposed to for tougher mandatory sentences for people that commit violent crimes and commit crimes with a gun in the big problem as we passed it through our senate, 70% democrats, our statehouse has refused to and i'm going to

continue to put pressure on them. we had 17 people shot on friday in baltimore city. it's out of control. >> bret: after 15 seconds. if former president trump runs or he doesn't, are you considering running for president? >> governor hogan: i'm just going to be governor of january of '23 and then i will take a look at that. >> bret: do you think were republicans can win with former president trump at the top of the ticket? >> governor hogan: i think it would be bad for the party and dr. president trump and bad for the country so i don't think he's going to run and my advice would be that he did not run. >> bret: governor hogan, we appreciate your time. >> governor hogan: thank you. >> bret: up next we will talk with governor phil murphy who was -- after surprisingly tough election bid.

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>> bret: we will ask our sunday panel but the democrats road to get the white house, coming up.

♪ ♪ mother: right here baby, look! uma! grandma: ¡feliz cumpleaños! ¿cuántos años tienes? father: noah! vo: something more than a birthday is happening here.

group: ¡feliz cumpleaños a ti! vo: once you can see it, you can help. the sooner you recognize the signs of autism, the sooner you can make a lifetime of difference for your child. start by answering a few simple questions at screenforautism.org ♪ ♪ >> bret: some 13 democratic governors are seeking reelection in 2022 with covid precautions overshadowing much of their time in office and midterms coming as opposition to more mandates across the country is on the rise. joining us now, governor phil murphy of new jersey, who will take over as chair of the democratic governors association in 2023, post-midterms. welcome back to "fox news sunday." >> governor murphy: good to be

with you, bret, thanks for having me. >> bret: governor hogan just mentioned the spike in maryland, u in new jersey have a spike as well. you sit every things on the table if these numbers continue to rise. what does that mean for new jerseyans? >> governor murphy: listen, this virus has humbled all of us. every time you think you've got it figured out, it takes a turn you don't expect an 8 out of 10 of those turns are negative. so you've got to leave all those options on the table. right now we think we have the right package in place in terms of a layered approach to deal with this, but our numbers are going up. the omicron variant is real. we've already been battling the delta variant. this is unrelenting. there is an enormous amount of fatigue out there as it relates to this virus. by the way, i've got it, i've got that same fatigue, but we've got to stay vigilant and we will stay vigilant. >> bret: you've locked down before and this is, as you said,

serious. would you consider locking down the state of new jersey again? >> governor murphy: you have to leave it on the table, but i don't see it, honestly. among other reasons, we have a very high degree of vaccinations. folks are getting boosted, which clearly gives another layer of protection against this. i was in the biggest mall in north america yesterday, a very high rate of masking, which is a good thing. we largely have folks, as fatigued as they are, they are largely accepting of what you need to do to push back at this, and for the time being, at least we think that's going to -- that's going to work for us. >> bret: you mentioned the fatigue and the frustration. now you have these federal courts weighing in on this new vaccine mandate for businesses over 100. your reaction to that and where do you think that's going? >> governor murphy: yeah, my reaction is not ace strident as others because the notion that

you've got to get vaccinated or you've got a testing option, that's what we have right now for state employees, for educators and the take-up is very high. and the rate of transmission, thank god, so far, has been low, so i don't think this is as radical as others may think. and i -- for the most part i think it's consistent with what we've been standing for as a stage. >> bret: asked governor hogan about crime, i will ask you as well. you had a man gunned down early in saturday morning. second record of the year, 37 murders in 2013, three less than last year's record of 40, the trenton mayor says it's a national trend, some 30% increase in violent crimes. how do you get a hold of it? >> governor murpi things. number one, it is a national trend. we are not immune to that. secondly, i separate very clearly violent crimes from

common sense gun safety and gun safety laws. we are hyper aggressive, unrelenting of the violent crime front, whether it's legislation, whether it's law enforcement or a combination of each. on the other hand, we can't continue to see kids with guns shooting at kids and other sort of just open loopholes that we know that we can close, and i think we have to separate those and we do in new jersey, and we will continue to be bearing down on both fronts. >> bret: two quick things. i mentioned you're going to head up the dhea in 2023. this follows this close call in november for your election. what message did you take from how close that was an traditionally blue new jersey with 1 million more democratic voters than republicans back >> governor murphy: yeah, a couple things. number one, thank god we put the policies in place that we did that we built the coalition that we did, otherwise we would have been swept away along with other democrats.

i think the message, bret, for me emma is we've got the right substance, but we have to get into kitchen tables much more deeply than we've gotten into. folks have to understand why we stand for what we stand. how it impacts their lives, their kids' lives, their futures. i think that is where the gap is and i'm committed in new jersey to closing that gap, and i think nationally the races that we've got in 2022, we've got to make sure that folks understand why government is a force for the good, why the policies that we stand for are good for them personally and for their families. >> bret: nationally, president biden, you can't deny it, is politically weak according to pretty much every poll if you got on the issues. understanding the president has had is going to run for reelection in 2024, if he didn't, would you consider running? >> governor murphy: listen, my nose is pressed against the jersey glass, morning, noon, and night. i'm honored to be able to help

out of these governors races around the country, but my commitment and my focus is entirely new jersey. >> bret: i will take that as a no for now. governor murphy, thanks for talking with us. >> governor murphy: good to be with you, bret, thanks for having me. >> bret: up next we will bring in our sunday group to talk about the new senator joe manchin just broke here on "fox news sunday" regarding a signature social bill. but we need something better. that's easily adjustable has no penalties or advisory fee. and we can monitor to see that we're on track. like schwab intelligent income. schwab! introducing schwab intelligent income. a simple, modern way to pay yourself from your portfolio. oh, that's cool... i mean, we don't have that. schwab. a modern approach to wealth management. ♪ my work has been viewed by 100 million people. ♪

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>> if i can't go home and explain it to the people of west virginia, i can't vote for it, and i cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. >> bret: that is a no, senator joe manchin breaking news on this program just moments ago, the massive social spending bill, tax bill, build back better is dead as written without joe manchin's vote. it's time now for our sunday group. fox news national security correspondent jennifer griffin,

gerald seib of "the wall street journal," mo elleitheermer rnc communicats director, doug heye. just moments ago, we had bernie sanders weigh-in, calling for a vote on the floor of the senate on the build back better act, "let mr. manchin explained to the people of west virginia why he doesn't have the guts to stand up to powerful special interests." big news this morning. >> yeah, it is big news and senator manchin said i'm happy to have a vote, but now we know how he would vote if that happens. this doesn't mean democrats can't deconstruct and reconstruct build back better next year. in fact that's probably what would happen i would guess but what became clear over the last couple weeks and perfectly clear today was senator manchin's problem is he thinks it's inflationary by definition, and he thinks there's too much -- long term programs with short-term financing, so they're going to have to figure out a way to fix that second problem if they're going to reconstruct this but i'm sure that will be the effort now. >> bret: this is a big blow to the administration, but how big

politically? they tied these two bills together. they did have a win on infrastructure, but they're going to have a loss here as written. >> yeah, look, if you track the president's approval numbers over the course of the first year, the first half he was doing great because he had tangible things he could .2. shots in arms, money in your wallet, referring to the relief package. they were getting ready to add the third leg of that, jobs in their communities with the infrastructure packaged within that got delayed and that got tied to this and suddenly they lost track of the narrative, which suddenly just became an argument over a big pile of money. most people didn't even know what was in the bill. it was just a big pile of money. they got the infrastructure bill. they cannot focus on those three legs of success as they head into the new year. this is a blow, this is something that they did not want to see happen, but they still have the elements there of a message of producing results for

the american people. if they can do what jerry suggested and take some of the most popular elements of build back better and reintroduce that as the next step, then i think they've got something that they can sell to the american people. >> bret: but that's going to take time to break all of that up and in the meantime, the president, the of administration facing upset on poll numbers on the number of different issues and a covid surge and an mandate concern around the country. >> and mandate concern but i think if i could just follow up on what mo said, this could be a shot of adrenaline for the senate. there are statistics that they have not been debating these bills, they've spent only 12% of their first year in office debating these bills. people don't know what's in it. they need to get back to debating, break up the bill, there are very popular elements of this bill. a family paid leave, child tax credit, we heard joe manchin say he would be in favor of those, he just doesn't want one big omnibus bill. >> bret: which, doug, has not happened on capitol hill for a

long time. regular order has not been regular for a long time. >> when i worked in house leadership in 2012-14, regular order was something we talked about a lot and didn't always happen. but with manchin, and we see senator sanders comments today about whether he is the willingness to stand up to special interests, we spend a lot of time focusing on special interests, way too much time in every machination of what happens in the building behind you. as the reality. joe manchin represent west virginia. 29% of west virginia voters supported joe biden. 60% supported donald trump. there's your answer, at least for now. >> bret: the other reality is pushing through a net massive piece of legislation with this majority is just not feasi the question is on voting rights, whether there is some change in there. i tried to get through the specifics of what he's for. >> i don't see a lot of budging for joe manchin or senator sinema on changing the filibuster even for voting rights. i think one of the lessons here, and this is been true for both parties, there's a tendency to overreach. you think you have a bigger

mandate than you do, you act accordingly, and then you pay a price and i think we've seen a cycle of both parties repeating that mistake over the last decade or so. >> bret: how do they sell this coming out of this loss? how is it sold? >> i think they've got to go back to what we've been talking about, focusing on the core popular elements of the bill, repackaging, and putting it out there, talking about that. again, they lost months of controlling the narrative by allowing the conversation to be over in number, over a price tag, instead of over with the proposals were. and the democrats on the hill didn't help with that. that was what they were fighting over while the white house was trying to get back to messaging. so they've got now an opportunity to start fresh in the new year. >> bret: the president is going to give this big speech apparently tuesday about covid and what's coming next. it's interesting he's waiting until tuesday, if it's that urgent, why not do it tomorrow, but the mandate thing, as we mentioned before, is a big political issue. >> big political issue. i've been watching how it's working its way through th is nw

startit getting vaccinated. the courts seem to be siding with the secretary of defense. we've seen some cases, they will go to the supreme court, but right now, pentagon holding firm and those mandates are standing. >> bret: all right, pal, thank you, see you next sunday. up next, an update for a "fox news sunday" family for a man who found a singular way to honor our nation's veterans. ♪ ♪ ♪ “i got you babe” by etta james ♪ ♪ wait hold up, here it comes! alright, everybody stand up straight. okay now let me flip it. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ it starts with a mother's determination

to treat her baby's eczema. and grows into a family business that helps thousands more. it starts with an army vet's dream of studying the stars. and grows into a new career as an astrophysicist. it starts with an engineer's desire to start over. and grows into an award-winning restaurant that creates local jobs. they learned how on youtube. what will you learn? this is your home. this is your family room slash gym. the guest bedroom slash music studio. the daybed slash dog bed. the living room slash yoga shanti slash regional office slash classroom. and this is the basement slash panic room. maybe what your family needs is a vacation home slash vacation home. find yours on the vrbo app. ♪

♪ ♪ >> bret: for the past 15 years, we've made it a tradition here to show the story of the man who created a quiet movement to honor service members every holiday season. this year, he is the one being honored and we were invited to take part. ♪ ♪ it is an iconic image during the holidays at arlington national cemetery, a vivid green reef laying on a humble white headstone. it's a tradition that began when he found himself with a surplus around christmas in 1992. he decided t childhood visit, arlington. >> they are not just tombstones, those are all people. >> bret: that's hi we met him 15 years ago. that time, a photo of his quiet

annual tribute had gone viral. inspiring droves of volunteers to help lay wreaths at arlington and cemeteries in their hometowns. >> where would we be if it wasn't for the military that had our backs? we need to honor those people and remember them. >> bret: he turned this outpouring into a nonprofit called "reits across america," helping promote ceremonies in thousands of cities and american battlefield cemeteries around the world. >> is going to be that one time thing but it was so well received, i said we are going to do that for as long as we can. and here we are 30 years later. >> bret: this year, he will mark his 30th year donating. >> my grandfather. [cheers and applause] >> bret: he was honored this week in washington. >> we just barely scratched the surface. >> bret: did you ever think, watching all these people stream and, that it was going to be this? >> no, not at all.

i knew that we had kind of struck a cord. now you can go anywhere in the united states and you ask about b6 across america and somebody will know that. >> bret: how long do you think this tradition continues? >> well, you know, it will continue for as long as america is free. >> bret: we hope so. it was powerful. this year's volunteers laid 2.4 million reits in 3100 to d.r despite a recenta powerful illus commitme join me weeknights at 6:00 p.m. eastern for "special report" on fox news channel. we will have much more reaction tomorrow to senator manchin big news this hour and its reverberations around washington. have a great week, and we will see you next "fox news sunday." ♪ ♪

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hospitalizations. the omicron covid variant is becoming more prevalent across the bay area. the reason doctors say we are moving into a tried emmick and with omicron spreading, state health officials are urging people to get their booster shots will have tips on how you can gather safely with family and friends. plus a star studded event in san francisco celebrities who made their way to the castro for the matrix movie premiere. from ktvu. fox two news. this is mornings onto.

welcome to mornings onto on this. sunday december 19th i'm clouding wong. good