>> hostages in a synagogue in texas. breaking details. and president biden prepares to face reporters after a bruising week as the newest star in the republican party takes office. >> all right, glenn youngkin, do swear. >> glenn youngkin sworn in as governor in a state president biden won a year ago. >> no matter who you voted for, i pledge to be your advocate. >> ask about his plans for day one as conservatives watch to see if his path to the governor's mansion could be a road map for the midterms.

glenn youngkin, his first interview since taking office. on "fox news sunday." and then the confusion on covid when it comes to masks, testing and mandates. we'll ask one of the nation's top public health experts all the pressing questions. plus. >> president biden's story is that democracy is on death's door. >> potential breaking point in mr. biden's presidency as his agenda stalls and his approval numbers sink to new lows. we'll ask our sunday panel about the political pressure points on the right and the left. >> we have a very slim majority in the senate and in the house that makes things more challenging. >> all right now on "fox news sunday." >> hello again from fox news in washington. we start with breaking developments out of texas as law

enforcement rescue a rabbi and three other hostages from a tense hours' long standoff at a synagogue in the dallas-fort worth area. dispatching elite hostage rescue team from quantico, virginia to the situation. and president biden was monitoring the situation. the latest for us. hi, lucas. >> john, good news out of texas this morning. all four hostages are alive, the suspect is dead. >> colleyville is one of the safest cities in texas and this is something you don't ever expect to have in your own city. the rabbi is a personal friend of mine. >> standoff at the synagogue lasting nearly 11 hours. it began during a morning service, a congregation at beth israel. ended at 9:00 p.m., members of the elite hostage team stormed the synagogue.

texas governor greg abbott tweeting prayers answered. president biden saying in a statement "there is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage-taker. let me be clear to anyone who spreads hate, be will stand against anti-semitism." and texas hostage crisis felt as far away as israel. the prime minister closely monitored the situation. the british government says the hostage taker was british. he demanded the release of a pakistani neuroscientist educated at m.i.t. and known as lady al-qaeda, currently serving an 80 year sentence in fort worth for attempting to kill soldiers in afghanistan in 2008. >> we will continue to investigate the hostage taker, his contacts. our investigation will have global reach. >> about a decade ago, the

taliban and isis made separate proposals to free american hostages in exchange for sadiki. both offers were rejected. >> thank you. now the week in washington, president biden facing a stalled agenda and dropping poll numbers. this week faced reporters in a rare formal news conference. just the 10th of his presidency, and coming on the eve of his first year in office. heading into the midterms, republicans hope to seize the moment and borrow from the play book laid out by glenn youngkin sworn in saturday in virginia, a state joe biden won by ten points little more than a year ago. >> i come to this moment and to this office knowing that we must bind the wounds of division, restore trust, find common cause for the common good, and strengthen the spirit of

virginia. >> virginia governor youngkin joins us exclusively from richmond in his first television interview since taking office. governor, welcome to "fox news sunday." i wanted to start you off with reaction to the events yesterday in texas. by virtue of the fact that you signed an executive order combatting anti-semitism as one of your first orders of business and still do not know the full background of these events, but the gunman did attack a synagogue and the woman he wanted to have released from custody is an avowed anti-semite, and the team from quantico helping resolve this. governor youngkin, your thoughts on what happened yesterday. >> well, good morning, john. and i'm coming to you from the great commonwealth of virginia and yes, one of the first things we did yesterday was sign an executive order to press forward with virginia being a leader in combatting the anti-semitism,

with laws to make sure virginia is the safest place to live and work and raise a family. we have seen animosity and hatred toward the jewish community on the rise and we are not going to stand for it in virginia or this country. there is no place for it, and virginia will be a leader when it comes to standing up for religious freedom and combatting hatred. >> and the first day on the job, governor, you signed 11 executive actions, nine were executive orders, two were directives. you kicked off the inauguration at the reconciliation statue in richmond, and reconciliation a theme of your inaugural address, you said no matter who you voted for i pledge to be your advocate, your voice, your governor. a large slice of the population backed the other, what would you do to ensure the voters know you

will be an advocate for them? >> well, what we heard from voters on november 2nd, from all voters, not republicans versus democrats, but from virginians, they are ready for a new way forward. we won the independent vote, we had droves of democrats across the aisle. we saw virginians come who have never been in the same room together, forever trumpers and never trumpers. we won the hispanic vote and the asian vote. a greater percentage of the black vote than republicans got in recent memory. what this demonstrates to me is virginians are ready for a new direction. we are going to stand up for low taxes and, to reestablish our high expectations and get politics out and the critical, critical math, science and reading skills we need for our children to be college-ready

or career ready. invest in law enforcement, create opportunity for all virginians and the rights under the constitution we hold dear. a new day in virginia and virginians spoke loudly, they want a new direction and this is what we delivered on day one. >> it's no surprise you are at a school there, governor, part of the credit for your victory there in virginia went to your stance on schools. one of your first two executive orders was to end the use of divisive concepts in public education, including critical race theory and to give parents the choice of whether their kid wears a mask in school. i want to get to the critical race theory in a moment. but first the issue of masks. some concern if parents tell their children to take off the masks or school districts say masking is optional, that it will run afoul of a law passed by the virginia legislature, which dictates the schools have

to follow closely c.d.c. guidance. can you give comfort to parents at home and to school boards who might opt out, if they do, you'll have their back? >> well, we said all along that we were going to stand up for parents because let's just be clear. what's happened over the last few years is bureaucrats and politicians have absolutely stopped listening to parents and in virginia it is clear under law that parents have a fundamental right to make decisions for their children's upbringing, their education and their care, and so we are providing parents an opt-out. providing them the ability to make the right decision for their child with regards to their child's well-being. we are going to use all the authority that i have to consider all options to protect that right, and i think this is exactly what virginians voted for in november and we delivered yesterday. >> let me move on to critical race theory, a huge flash point

in the november election, part of the reason you are credited with the victory there in the commonwealth, and likely a big issue in the midterms as well, and end the conflicts in schools, and critics of your position, including barack obama, say critical race theories not taught in schools and merely a trumped up phony culture war, what do you say to that and what does your executive order actually do in terms ofcal race theory? >> well, anyone who thinks that the concepts that actually underpin critical race theory are not in our schools has not been in the schools and i think the school systems in virginia and loudon county, we are in

fact going to increase transparency so that parents can actually see what's being taught in schools and we have instructed our board of education, i have instructed our secretary of education, our state superintendent of public schools to review the curriculum and get racially divisive and other divisive concepts out of the school system. we are not going to teach the children to view everything through a lens of race. yes, we will teach all history, the good and the bad. don't know where we are going until we know where we came from. but to teach them one group is advantaged and the other disadvantaged because of the color of skin, cuts everything we know to be true. martin luther king words, we must judge one another by the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

founding principle of the executive order. >> is it your contention that critical race theory is being taught in virginia public critical race theory. all of the principles of critical race theory, the fundamental building blocks of actually accusing one group of being oppressors and another oppressed, burdening children today for sins of the past, for teaching our children to judge one another based on the color of their skin, yes, that does exist in virginia schools today and that's why we have passed, i signed the executive order yesterday to make sure that we get it out of our schools. >> i ask the question about the courses in critical race theory, again, that's a contention of critics that there are no courses on critical race theory taught in virginia public schools and a member of parents against critical race theory has this message for you, governor. he says promising to ban c.r.t.

is empty unless he, the governor, is willing to publicly state he will also ban the tenets of c.r.t. and it's only a framework. will you ban the tenets of c.r.t. and how do you ensure as you just said, that we will teach all of our history, the good and the bad, in a fair way? >> well, first of all that's exactly what we did yesterday was we actually went at the tenets of c.r.t. we went at the tenets of racially divisive concepts. we have to recognize what the left liberals do here is try to ob fiscate the issue saying there is not a course of critical race theory. of course there are not in

elementary school. but it's present in the schools and what the executive order went. >> let me ask you about the rape in loudon county, a couple of rapes. the fourth executive order you put out, promised to investigate wrongdoing in loudon county, illusion to the rape that occurred late in the school year before the summer break last year. the boy that was accused of raping scott smith's daughter and one other was sentenced to probation. >> i suggest you listen to me loud and clear, pay attention to what's happened here in loudon because it's coming to your community next. >> what, in fact, will this investigation be looking into? >> well, we are going to be looking into the entire circumstances around the decisions that were made to actually move this young man from one school to another to not inform parents, to not inform the community, and oh, by

the way, clearly to put other students in, at risk for their safety. there is one fundamental tenet between government and those we serve, to keep them safe and when it comes to our children it is paramount that our school systems live up to that value. what we see here, strong, strong, strong evidence that in fact it was not only, not taken seriously, it was hidden, and so we have asked the attorney general to go to work. we are going to get full transparency and make sure we hold this school board accountable for the decisions that were made. >> in terms of holding them accountable, do you think people need to be fired? >> i think people -- i think people should have already resigned and my clear sense is that once the full scope of what happened here is well understood, there will be resignations, and i do believe there has been dereliction of

duty so all actions in order to hold this school board accountable should be taken. >> let me ask you about the vaccine mandate for coronavirus, this was the subject of a landmark supreme court ruling last week. you have said that you will challenge the vaccine mandate for health workers in facilities that receive federal funding. but the majority of the supreme court justices, included some conservative-leaning justices, said such a mandate "fits neatly in the power given to h.h.s. by congress." are you still going to challenge the mandate, is that your plan and how will you get around the scotus's ruling? >> let me start with the fact that i was very pleased by their ruling on the osha mandates, and i think it fully reflects the fact we should not, should not be penalizing people by forcing employers to fire folks who don't get the vaccine. to be clear, i am a strong advocate for the vaccine. i've gotten the vaccine, i've gotten the booster, my wife has and the booster, we think it's

the best way to keep your family safe but also believe it's an individual decision that should be left to people to make with regards to their own health. and the circumstances with virginia's hospital system, we are in a crisis. an executive order currently in effect to allow hospitals to in fact have much more flexibility with regards to their staffing protocols and how they are handling patients. we need to do this because there is a surge going on in covid-19 hospitalizations. i'm disappointed, disappointed in the ruling from the supreme court. the supreme court has ruled, and so we have to go to work to make sure we don't have a further depletion of the resources in our hospital systems. one of the most important things we can do is expand capacity in virginia hospitals so people who need care can get it. >> sure, is it still your plan to challenge the mandate? >> i think the supreme court has ruled so we are going to go to work to make sure every power i

have as governor is being brought to bear to give the hospitals the flexibility they have to make sure that we have the staffing we need to make sure that we have the intensive care facilities to treat virginians. we are seeing a surge in certain parts of virginia and make sure the hospitals are prepared. >> one of the aspects of this, too, a lot of schools are going back to remote learning, just over 53% of the schools in virginia are open for full-time learning, and you have said in the past that school closures have caused too many setbacks for virginia's children and shameful politicians in richmond bow to special interest instead of what's best for children. thinks you would go out there and write a new emergency declaration that says you have to be back in school. are you prepared to do that? >> well, there's legislation moving through our general

assembly that in fact says absolutely that, that schools must be open five days a week, that in fact, virtual learning is a tool of last resort, and right now we need to get our kids back in school. i also think there is a tremendous opportunity to revise the protocols that we are using when a child is exposed but showing no symptoms in school. and tests to stay is an incredibly important tool for us but the challenge we have is we don't have enough testing kits and here we are in january dealing with a surge, and we don't have enough testing kits and so we are doing everything we can within our department of health and human resources to expand testing availability to our schools, but also to those areas where we have those virginians that in fact are most vulnerable, particularly elderly. we should not see a testing deficiency in virginia, one of my big frustrations. >> not just a problem in the commonwealth but the country as

well. let me ask you about politics. embraced president trump's policies, former president trump to a degree but the same time kept him at arm's length enough you did not alienate the voters you needed to win. is this a road map do you believe for other republicans in the november election? >> well, what we did in virginia over the last year was give everyone a great big bear hug. we in fact embraced all virginians, and i've said before that i so deeply appreciated president trump's support. we brought together a coalition of folks that had never been in the room together, forever trumpers and never trumper, moderates, democrats. campaigned places that republicans have historically not campaigned and that resulted in record vote vote levels and all minority communities.

we demonstrated this is about bringing people together and yes, things people disagree about but so much more we agree on and comes to getting taxes down, our schools refocussed on excellence and politics out of the school and investing in law enforcement and standing up to fight crime and making sure we have a great economy and we are protecting the rights guaranteed under our constitution, these are not values only shared by a political party, but universally shared by virginians. the bear hug is the path forward we as republicans can build a bigger tent and embrace all virginians, the opportunity in virginia is for all. >> definitely is a road map for many other candidates. one last question if i could about the weather. you've got a big storm about to dump on virginia there. ralph northam on the way out of the door gave you the power to

do almost anything you want to do. how do you make sure that senator tim kaine and thousands of others don't spend hours on i-95 when it hits. >> we are well prepared. national guard is redeployed, and we have been out pretreating the roads and a good job with virginians to not travel, stay home, let the storm come and go, and we are going to be ready. >> my wife and son and jennifer griffin and her son are coming back from a lacrosse tournament in virginia beach. so hopefully they'll make it or another night in virginia beach. governor youngkin, appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you for having me. if they stay an extra day, virginia is a great place to stay an extra day. >> and for the record, i am an

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>> in just a few days we expect the white house to launch a

long-touted website where americans can order their own free rapid covid tests. it's a high stakes gamble on technology and test supply in hopes of getting a handle on omicron spread as americans try to sort out some kind of new normal. joining us now is dr. ashish jha, the dean of the brown university of public health. doctor, welcome back could fox news sunday. appreciate having you with us. >> good morning, thanks for having me back. >> you tweeted out earlier this week we are likely to see the peak of covid cases fueled by the omicron variant in the next couple three weeks. south africa and the u.k. have pointed the way for what's expected here, a sharp spike up and now back down. in your estimation, how bad will it get in the days and couple weeks ahead in terms of hospitalizations and deaths before it gets better? >> yeah, great question, john. as you know, hospitalizations and deaths always lag, so we have seen a spike that has peaked in new york, new jersey,

i think in new england, probably florida, and what i expect is hospitalizations to peak in the next week to ten days in those places. the rest of the country still has some ways to go, so i think the next 3, 4 weeks are going to be hard for all of america. >> and how bad do you think it will get in terms of hospitalizations and deaths? >> i think it's going to get much worse. right now about 150,000 people in the hospital with covid, more than we have ever had. i expect those numbers to get substantially higher. the problem is we are running out of healthcare workforce, we don't have the staffing. so that is going to be a challenge for many weeks ahead. >> and we heard the virginia governor talking about that a moment ago, one of the reason why he opposes the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers and federally funded facilities. the president -- he ripped president trump for not doing a good job in responding to covid. but despite the rhetoric, president biden seems to be

falling flat in terms of testing, now saying a billion test kits to americans, but likely those will not be seen in the american households until the end of the month or the beginning of next month. doc, is that too little too late, given the idea you think omicron is going to peak in the next ten days or so? >> well, first of all, i think we all agree we needed more tests during the surge and i'm sorry we didn't have it. i think it really did hamper our ability as a country to manage this. i don't believe that omicron is going to be the last wave we see. having widespread testing available is going to make an enormous difference as we get beyond the surge and before we face the next one. so, i'm thrilled to see more tests coming, i think we will need them and use them, obviously we wish we had more tests going in. >> i want to ask you about the messaging coming from the government and what you make of it. it seems to be about as clear as mud and it was highlighted at the senate hearing last week, and we want to put up a

side-by-side picture here. head of the c.d.c., rochelle walensky double masked while she was speaking giving her testimony before the senate, and then we had anthony fauci take his mask off when he was giving testimony. do you leave the mask on, do you take the mask off, what kind of mask should you wear, apparently cloth masks are not good at dealing with omicron, the c.d.c. came out with that information on friday, we don't know where to get tests, not sure what tests to get, how long to isolate, when to come out of isolation, what to do after isolation, can you make head or tail what the government is talking about? >> yeah, we have different agencies not on the same page and that part has been a real problem. what we know right now, people should be masking indoors, especially in large crowded spaces. that makes a lot of sense. we are switching, i think from using the p.c.r. tests, using the rapid antigen tests more

commonly, that's going to be more common, and so the science here is changing. i think the messages has not kept up. >> so what's the problem? during the trump administration you might not have liked what you heard but as we were talking before we came on, you had one message that was going out. now you have multiple messages that are often contradictory with each other. >> yeah. i think what happened on the trump administration, you had, as you said, one messenger, president trump, he often said things wrong but there was one message. right now you have c.d.c., f.d.a., n.i.h. i think the white house needs to get the messaging discipline together, speaking from the same page. my sense is that has not been happening consistently and enormously helpful to the american people if it was more consistent. >> all the muddled messaging, is it creating problems? >> certainly harder for people

to know what to do, and the public health crisis likes the one we have, getting the public to understand the moment we are in, what are the key things to keep themself and their family safe is important, and if we don't get it right it will hamper our response. >> with omicron virulence from previous strains of coronavirus, talk to whether or not we need to change the paradigm and how we approach this. bill gates, during a twitter q and a last week said once omicron goes through a country, covid can be treated more like the seasonal flu. is it time, dr. jha, to say this thing is here to say, we can't continue with the lockdowns, isolation, quarantine, we need to accept people are going to get sick, a mild illness, probably like a cold, maybe even a mild flu, and let's all just get back to normal? >> well, no doubt. in my mind we are switching from this kind of acute phase of the pandemic emergency, two years,

into a more endemic phase. the challenge for unvaccinated people, john, it's still pretty deadly. i finished two weeks of attending in the hospital. a lot of very, very sick with omicron who are not vaccinated. we have a challenge ahead, make systemic changes, but we have to treat this virus differently than the way we have in the last two years. >> you mention people unvaccinated, president biden says it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated but listen to what dr. fauci said about it. >> virtually everybody is going to wind up getting exposed and likely get infected. but if you are vaccinated, and if you are boosted, the chances of your getting sick are very, very low. >> listen to what fauci said, does not sound like it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated, sounds like if you are vaccinated it will be milder disease but certainly it's not just limited to the unvaccinated. >> no. with omicron, because of its immune evasiveness, we are seeing vaccinated people get

infected. the big difference is as dr. fauci alluded to, unvaccinate d people or unboosted high risk people are ending up in the hospital. severe illness, it is absolutely targeting those groups, but i do think that there's a high risk that you know, as the pandemic continues, all of us will end up getting exposed and many of us will end up getting infected. >> right. now questions testing for omicron, what is the best test and some more confusion. everybody is doing the nasal swabs, maybe the deep nose swab, but now a swab to well, infects mostly the throat, so better for a throat swab or saliva test. to your knowledge, what is the best way to test for omicron and what should people be looking for when they find one? >> yeah, i think the best kind of test we should be using on a regular basis, the rapid antigen tests available or soon

hopefully available in greater quantity to use at home. based on the directions. directions ask people to put it up their nose. a lot of random talk about throat swabbing and spitting. my direction is stop. focus on the direction, use it up your nose, that's what is tested. use it on a regular basis. the doctor may use a different test if they need to, but regular people at home, that's what i use. >> there are spit tests as well, i was using those last year in the springtime, and they seemed to be pretty accurate as well but don't seem to be readily available. dr. jha, always good to talk to you. thank you for joining us on "fox news sunday," appreciate it. >> thank you. >> coming up next, bring in our sunday group to discuss the youngkin effect on november's midterm, and what about that interview that kamala harris did last week? der what everyone's doing on their phones? they're banking, with bank of america.

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ask our sunday panel about the changes the r.n.c. is demanding and the debate commission response next.

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>> time for our sunday group, senator mitch mcconnell's former chief of staff and co-host of "ruthless" podcast john holmes joins us, and chad pergram and former state department spokesperson marie harf. let's start off with you, josh,

your thoughts about glenn youngkin, we had on earlier on the program. promised like all politicians do to be for all in virginia, but given the tone of politics in the country and president trump is a big part of the reason why he won, can he be a governor for all virginians? >> yeah, i think he can, john and i thought your interview was exceptional, into the nitty gritty of the executive orders he signed on day one, not only was he ready but thought what he wanted to do in response to the electorate that elected him as stated in the interview, removed from the ten-point joe biden victory. obviously a lot of things need to happen there and i think what glenn youngkin showed, the ties that bind the electorate together, right, left and the center, and people who showed up to vote for him, among the issues, like covid response, critical race theories, keeping schools open.

he mended all of those fences that has been frayed and made a lot of progress for republicans a good way to do it going forward. >> do you believe he can govern across party lines here? >> well, i hope he can. as a recent convert to being a virginia resident, but look, i think that glenn youngkin, and virginia in general statewide races are a little bit of unicorns. he's a unicorn in the republican party. look at the congressional races on the house and the senate side, republicans are not trying to keep donald trump at arm's length as glenn youngkin kind of did in this race. they are embracing him to one-up each other to see who can embrace him the most. and people like john catco and other republicans in the house choosing not to run again. i think glenn youngkin did a really impressive thing in his victory in virginia. he was a republican who spoke to the base but kept trump at arm's

length. i'm not sure republicans can or want to replicate that anywhere else in any of these midterm races. >> well, certainly one place they don't seem to want to replicate it, arizona. kerry lake is a candidate for governor there. a good chance, according to folks familiar with arizona politics she could win and she figured very prominently in president trump's address in arizona. >> kerry lake, she is incredible. >> we love you, so thankful you are here in arizona and when i'm elected we will finish your big beautiful wall. [cheering] >> chad pergram, glenn youngkin embraced president trump's policies and base but holding him at arm's length. wrapping yourself around president trump, will that potentially be a strategy for victory in arizona? >> that is the dichotomy facing the republican party. president went out there, like a rock concert where he plays all

the greatest hits, the drum solo, the guitar solo, you know where it's coming and talked about michael bird, ashley babit, mitch mcconnell, his problems there. republicans have to make a choice which direction they want to go. glenn youngkin, how does he deal with the storm coming here in the next couple days, compared to what happened a couple weeks ago in virginia. virginia continues to be a purple state. he is, you know, undoing the mask mandate, the city of richmond, the school system there has already said they are not going to comply. this comes as omicron is spiking and if all this happens, it could backfire on him if, you know, he says i'm going to fix the schools, we are not going to have the masks, omicron spikes, and still issues with the schools. that's a real problem for him and the balancing act that all republicans have to walk. how much do they embrace president trump, and how much do they go the other direction. >> it could be said this is the first big test for governor

youngkin, the winter storm coming in. ask john lindsay, the ex-mayor of new york. >> and tim kaine. >> tim kaine knows what it's like to get stuck in traffic. so president trump obviously is going to remain a force in the republican party, and josh, i want to ask you about this because of your ties to the senate minority leader. lindsey graham said he's not going to vote for mitch mcconnell again as senate leader unless he develops a relationship with president trump. listen to what he said. >> here is the question. can senator mcconnell effectively work with a leader of the republican party, donald trump. i'm not going to vote for anybody that can't have a working relationship with president trump. >> lindsey graham said in the interview we did with him on "america reports" he doesn't know if the relationship can be repaired. i'm wondering, josh, does mcconnell even want to repair it? >> well, look, i think this is exactly the kind of thing the republicans are going to need to avoid over the next year if they

are going to have success in the midterm and beyond. this is bait, as we say on "ruthless," the bait that republicans unfortunately too often take, and i think what you see demonstrated on the democratic side of the aisle is very real danger that you have when you get into the internesting fights with each other and you are not sort of responsive to the issues with the american public. you have the b.b.b. bill, covid, inflation, all kinds of economic concerns driving what the public is concerned about. republicans cannot fall into that same problem over the next year. >> you know, republicans, marie, for the most part content to stand back and watch the biden administration shoot itself in the foot but the beginnings of this as josh put it, internesting warfare in the republican party, does that diminish their chances in november because they are no longer unified? >> possibly, right.

and democrats hope that they will continue to fight amongst themselves and there will be a debate about how closely to embrace donald trump, a former president who is unpopular. when his name is on the ballot or weighs in races, he does no the always win. they are acutely aware of that. the challenge, john, for democrats, they have to show to voters them having power, complete control has benefitted them. some good statistics the best year in american history for job creation, lowest unemployment rate, biggest drop in unemployment rate in american history. those are good statistics but the american people still feel uneasy and so democrats have to go out, put the political noise aside, and make the case directly to voters, here is what we did and here is why you should keep us in power. you know, that's a hard case to make when we have inflation, the pandemic still raging, it's a challenging political environment. >> chad, one other quick political topic and quick

answer, the r.n.c. wants a pledge from all the presidential candidates that if they become the nominee they will not participate in debates that are sponsored by the commission on presidential debates because they don't believe they are fair. c.p.d. said the plans for 2024 will be based on fairness, neutrality and firm commitment to help the american public learn about the candidates and the issues. mitt romney said opting out of the debates is just nuts. >> it's not written in stone that you have to have these debates and run by the commission, only been around for 34 years, yet another way by the republicans, the r.n.c. to take on the washington establishment and try to enforce orthodoxy inside the party. >> okay. we have to take a quick break, thank you. up next, president biden has one of the toughest weeks of his presidency. we'll discuss disappointments and the plan of attack for key agenda items when our panel returns, coming up next.

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>> there's a lot of talk about disappointments and things we have not gotten done. we are going to get a lot of them done, i might add. >> president biden on friday on his administration's record one year in and back now with the panel. marie, start us off on this. joe biden is going to try to recover from his version of alexander's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. when he sums up a year of accomplishments in the preamble to the press conference wednesday, will he have much to point to? seems the one big accomplishment of his administration was a bipartisan effort on infrastructure and that all of the partisan things that he's tried to get done have failed. >> well, john, i think this press conference is important to start, an important day for reporters to ask him questions. but there is good economic news in many ways. i mentioned the low, the biggest year for job creation in

american history, unemployment rates, inflation now starting to tick down a bit and he's going to talk about, without taking a victory lap, right, some of the covid success. so many shots in arms, the fact so many more people are vaccinated and boosted and therefore surviving covid. it's a long fight against covid but also has to lay out a proactive agenda for the future, we'll hear it in the state of the union, how we are going to keep fighting omicron, get the economy growing even more, get this inflation under control and here is how i'm going to work with congress to do that. so he has a lot of agenda items he needs to address in this press conference. >> josh, you want to respond to that, particularly on the issue of covid, with all respect to marie, it's a mess. >> yeah, i think there's a cold hard wind of reality blowing in the face of the administration when it comes to sell just about anything we just heard. look, i think the reality is that everybody knows joe biden was elected president in large part because he convinced the

american people that you could fix covid if you change the occupant of the oval office. that has not happened. we are in a worse place, made worse by the administration seeming to not focus on it. he traveled to atlanta to make a "voting rights speech" while you've got empty shelves, rising inflation, covid everywhere, all of these problems that are uniquely affecting the american people, he seems radically out of touch and poll numbers reflect that. >> he made the voting rights speech only to come back to washington and having sinema and manchin saying it's not going to ham. his approval rating, 33%, coronavirus, 39%, which was his strong suit.

he is so far underwater he's got to be breathing nitrous. >> they are victims here of overpromising and underdelivering. you want to do the opposite in politics and that's not what happened, not what happened with the voting rights bill and the filibuster this past week. when you get into build back better, what the republicans did 2010, 2012, repeal and replace obamacare, they never quite got there. this is the problem for democrats when they said we are going to pass build back better and change the filibuster and make d.c. and puerto rico states, none of those things have happened and why you have the left wing of their base very upset. >> there was a real head scratcher last week, marie, when kamala harris sat down with craig melvin of the "today show" for an interview and seemed to fold up like a cheap suit at even the most mildest challenge. listen here. >> six former administration officials last week wrote that open letter urging the administration to change course,

to change strategy. is it time? >> it is time for us to do what we have been doing and that time is every day. every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down. >> marie, what did you make of that and what does it portend for the future? >> yeah, administration's never like to admit they need to change course, even though some of them often do, and that's not an indictment of everyone who is working or all the things they have tried to achieve. and so i do think that this white house will look at this next year, year two, and hopefully will say ok, maybe we don't need to change everything but we need to double down on making the case of the american people about what we have achieved and how it's impacted their actual lives. i think they are a little bit scared of their left and the right flanks. i think we know what they want to accomplish but sometimes they talking point it too much, don't want to cause waves, they want

to go down the middle and you know what, when you are in a pandemic and have the crisis, sometimes you have to make waves. i hope they do that more. >> josh, how did you view that, an administration official that did not want to admit to make a change or someone who was wholly unprepared for the interview, didn't have statistic, didn't have figures, didn't have timelines. >> i think it's the latter, john. and this is basically the problem from vice president harris since the very beginning of this administration, she does the interviews, there's not a message that she's pushing. there's not a strategy. she's trying to survive the interview so it begs the question, if the vice president of the united states has no idea what the strategy of this administration is when it comes to things like covid, who does? right? i have not heard much out of the president either and so i think they have a more fundamental problem than switching tactics or anything like that. i think they don't have any clue what they are doing at this point. >> chad, give us a quick read on

the week ahead. we have the press conference on wednesday, chuck schumer will try to go back to the well on filibuster reform. what are we looking at in the next few days? >> well, they are going to try to move this voting rights bill, that's not going to happen. they need 60 votes there, that's not going to happen, whether or not chuck schumer goes all the way through with the failed procedural vote and nuclear option as we call it, kind of what happened in 2013 and 2017 remains to be seen because what he is essentially doing here, john, is he is weaponnizing that vote against members of his own party, sinema and manchin. usually you hit the votes to hit the other side, it's rare you apply pressure on them and they don't seem willing to move. >> doesn't look like they are willing to say we were wrong, let's blow up the filibuster for voting rights. panel, great to have spent time with you. josh, chad, marie, see you again very soon. appreciate it. coming up next, a final word on

the week ahead.

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reports," 1:00 eastern. have a great week. we w banks across the bay area sy

they are facing a shortage of volunteers to reason right now is such a critical time. also ahead, health officials in san francisco say teenagers there have the highest rate of covid infections than any other age group. the reason for that uptick in cases that 90% of that group is vaccinated. plus it's game one in the playoffs with the 49ers this afternoon, a preview of today's game and have the bay area is showing its support. from ktvu. fox two news. this is mornings onto. good morning to you and welcome the mornings onto on this. sunday january 16th i'm clouding wong claudine. hi, everyone. i'm frank mli