pandemic. >> john: this is coming on day 64 president biden's time in office, the longest new president has waited in the last century to give the present chance to hold him accountable. we've got team coverage today, brett behr and martha maccallum are going to be joining us. >> sandra: first, kristin fisher is live in the white house for us. >> the white house press corps has been waiting for this moment ever since inauguration day. they have had to wait 64 days, the longest and 100 years. these questions have really been piling up and building ever since january 20th, thus more immediate, obvious questions on issues like immigration, gun control in those recent north korean missile tests less than 24 hours ago but you also have questions that have really been building for months now, things like the job losses stemming from the cancellation of the keystone pipeline, the stopping of construction on president biden's predecessors border wall, and then you also have questions about whatever happened to president biden president biden inauguration day promise of unity and bipartisanship? so in addition to all of those substantive issues that president biden is going to have to tackle, there are also a lot of questions on style. how does president biden handle tough questions from the white house press corps? i do believe he's going to get a lot of tough questions from the report is in the room, but does the president really directly answer the question, or does he dive back more to scripted talking points? the question is how long will this go on for, how many reporters does the president fall on a perhaps my biggest question is will president biden actually call on fox news' own peter doocy who is going to be in the room. john and sandra, i was just chatting with peter a moment ago, we walked into the nose room with a binder full of questions that he has prepared. if present biden calls on him, peter doocy is going to be ready. >> john: a lot of things people want answered, and a question about that. every white house correspondent worth their salt. a little pocket book worth of questions they want to ask the president. but anticipation is building not just because of the fact that it is 64 days before the news conference but also because this was announced nine days ago. you've been talking to your colleagues, that they used this time between the announcement and today to really finally craft and hone their questions into a very well-thought-out covid reform. >> like i said, the white house press board has been waiting for this moment literally since inauguration day before the white house to give them even more advance notice, more than a week of time to prepare questions, that is really something. i know that she says she believes that was not smart but at the same time that has given president biden plenty of time to prepare. he has had a pretty light schedule this morning, likely a good opportunity for him to go over with his communications team all the questions they think might come up in the fact that this is all happening in the middle of president biden's first true test, his first big crisis or challenge, whatever you want to call situation happening at the border, i think the white house unquestionably would have preferred the focus to be on his recent signing of the american rescue plan into law, the progress that he has made, he blew past his goal of 100 million shots in his first 100 days so now there are reports that at the top of this news conference president biden announced that he has expanded that goal to 200 million covid-19 vaccines by the end of his first 100 days. that is what the white house would prefer the focus to be on but you know better than anyone, those are likely to be two big topics that they really try to grill online. >> sandra: expectations are high but he's really going to be watching those reporter questions because they have had nine days to prepare for this, i guess you could make the case almost 70 days to prepare for it. as far as the time expectations, it's going to be interesting to see how long he goes and how many questions he actually takes because as far as precedent, when we dug back into his three predecessors in their first full solo news conferences, president trump had 70 minutes and 33 questions for your bush only went 29 minutes, he took over 20 questions and president obama went almost a full hour, 58 minutes, but he took the least amount of questions. the answers were a little bit longer as we came to expect from president obama. he took just 13 questions, so there's no knowing how long he will take. >> it could really go anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half, two hours if they try to take questions from every report of that is in the room. we really just don't know but i do think it's interesting that inside this room, there were only seats for about 20 to 30 reporters. if the white house had wanted to expand it and make it a little bit bigger they could have done that by holding something in the rose garden or perhaps the larger venue but i will say it could rain today so maybe that played into their decision-making about the location. >> sandra: thank you, we will see you shortly. be when we are hypnotized by the idea that in 64 days before the president took a press conference and the fact that it was announced almost ten days before he actually did, let's bring in brett behr and martha maccallum now. first question to you, one of the things i am curious about here is the timing of all of this. during the clinton administration, bush and to some degree obama, these press conferences were held at night, they were prime time events. they would start at 8:00 in the evening. this was buried at 1:15 in the afternoon. >> that's right, the timing is interesting in the over under of an hour. i will take the under. but you know, john, when you go into these things, as a correspondent covering the white house you do have three, four options as you listen to your compatriots, your colleagues from other networks and other papers. i think nine days is a long time to come up with probing questions and ideally they are short and pinpointed and don't provide a lot of off ramps for talking points. ideally, that is what it is but i bet we see the gambit of subjects, not just about the crisis on the border but in the big picture, where joe biden's head is as president in this meeting at the white house about going big and how he sees the presidency over all, i think that would be pretty illuminating to not only reporters but all of us in the country. >> sandra: martha maccallum here on sat with me. vague anticipation. the question is not how long he will go but what topics do you believe we will see reporters lean into the most? >> martha: he has got to answer questions about what's going on at the border. on my mind, i would love to hear his reaction about what he sees from the biden "let us in equity shirts and flags. i would also like to know what he says to blue-collar workers across the country who want to know if democrats still support to blue-collar workers in this country. that is really a switch from what we have historically seen in terms of the relationship between blue-collar workers and democratic presidents, so there should be questions on that to be sure. i think schools opening, with parents, frankly across the country, who would like to see their kids go back to school. they have been sort of on the side of the unions throughout the course of this. unions have said, there is all the science supporting a 3-foot distance in the classroom, but we want to see 6 feet in the classroom in terms of the seating. so i think there is a lot that can be dug into on those two really big topics for people right now but just one thought with regard to the format here, when you look at the photo of how spread apart these people are and how far apart they are from president biden, generally in these environments you can shout a follow-up question, a close-knit environment, that is not what we are going to see now so it would be very interesting to see these follow-up questions from these reporters today. >> john: one of the interesting things about the picture we just showed as they are using the length of the east room. any time i have in an east room conference we use the weights and the president stands on the entrance to the right to the cross hall, this is more set up for when you have a world leader who is in their and you have the press jammed and all the way across the length of the eastern so it will be interesting to see how this format works and who he calls on first as well. will he randomly do it like president trump did or the old protocol which is to call in the associated press, "the new york times." president biden has signed 37 executive order since taking up office, well above his predecessors. moments from now the white house press corps will get his first official chance to pull the president accountable for sweeping moves made without the consent of congress prelet's bring in the anchor of "fox news sunday." you had a chance during the presidential campaign to ask then candidate biden a few questions. if you were there in the east room today, what would your first question be? >> it's interesting, great minds must think alike because i think, it depends as you well know on when in the press conference you get to ask questions. if you are one of the early questioners, then you have to go for the breaking news, you have to go for border, you have to go for gun control, you have to go for the filibuster. if you are little bit later in the press conference, you can go for slightly more off-topic questions, and like bret, i was intrigued with the meetings with the presidential historians this week, and they apparently talked about, you know, various presidents and how they conducted themselves and the subject of franklin delano roosevelt, not only the man who led us out of the depression but the man who, world war ii came up and apparently biden was kind of intrigued by comparisons to fdr. i think one of the questions i might ask if i were late in the press conference is, you talk about this kind of transformational president, do you see yourself as another fdr who wants to transform the country and if so, what part of the country needs to be transformed? and if i get a follow-up, i have even thought about this, i would say if you're going to transform the country, why fool around? why not go to end the filibuster because of your agenda is so ambitious you can't full around with the 60 votes. if got to say one quick thing, it strikes me that this is going to be judged today the way figure skating used to be judged in the olympics. style points and technical points. it seems to me that style points are obvious. how does he do? how fluid is he? is he stumbling over his words or is he quick to answer the questions? on substance, where is he on the border, on gun control, on the filibuster, on infrastructure and all of those things. we will see whether the judge gives him a 5.8 or 6.0. >> sandra: we are talking about a 1:15 news conference here, trump started his first conference at 5:00 in the afternoon, obama, his first was at 8:00 at night. president bush was 2:40 in the afternoon. do your point, you can take us back to the debates on this issue where we did see expectations were low in most cases for joe biden to answer questions in front of the american public. he could probably make the same case that that is the situation today so what about that? what about his ability, the bar is so low that perhaps he will clear it? >> honestly, we are overhyping this question of how he is going to do. he has not held a news conference but he has answered questions, obviously on his terms, a gavel where he can walk away if he wants to but there is no reason to think he is not going to be just fine in terms of the style of answering questions. it will may disagree with the substance of how he answers, but you know, it's obviously, if he stumbles or has some difficulty, that is going to be a story just like it was a story when he stumbled walking up the steps of air force one. i don't expect that to happen but obviously as you say, the 64 days since he was inaugurated, the nine days since this was announced, people are wondering how he is going to stand up to him? i think he will do just fine. we'll see. >> john: but they stumble up the steps of air force one to raise a question of when he is going to release his updated health records. we will see if those are forthcoming. thanks, standby. we are all going to be watching this in the next few minutes. >> sandra: the entire team is going to stand by. the president 'his team announced that this news conference would be happening more than a week ago which means reporters have had quite a bit of time, as john just mentioned, to prep their questions and prep their questions and multiple situations he is currently facing, so will they be prepared? will he be prepared? let's bring in dana perino, who has been through this drill several times, she is coanchor of "america's newsroom" and "the five." the author of the book "everything will be okay." will everything be okay? welcome, dana, we have so many really important numbers and president as far as these news conferences are concerned but take us back to the bush days, what we might be seen from president biden a few minutes from now. >> i would have to defer to my former colleague and our colleague now, ari spicer because he was the press secretary for those first press conferences early on. it's interesting to think back to 2001, the beginning of that year was really a push for restoring the tax cuts that president bush wanted to do. he wanted to get his education build on what she was doing but of course by september, everything changed after september 11th because of the terrorist attack. i was there more for the later press conferences. i love press conference day, i love to anticipate what the questions might be from reporters. i was pretty good at it. most reporters show up thinking if this is the day i better have something ready. i think in some ways the news of this week actually could benefit biden in some way in terms of being able to talk about something he cares about and that is based cares about a lot in that people on the right are concerned about and that is he will bow for some sort of action on gun control and i would imagine, especially a mainstream media outlets, that will be the main headline coming out of this press conference for them. i think when he talks about the border, if he blames president trump for the current crisis that will certainly be a headline. there is a ton happening, and of course, americans are wondering what is happening for me. sometimes they are very focused on foreign policy news. we haven't heard the president talk a lot about syria, north korea, afghanistan, the big deadline coming up. sometimes those can actually elicit a little more news than you anticipate. >> john: i remember, i think it was a ronald reagan conference, my colleague got called on and he hadn't prepared a question and he said, what am i going to ask about and he said, mr. president, what about the russians? apparently he got a very good answer. dana, during the bush administration we got a few hours notification at the very least. you pointed this out, that there was going to be a press conference, the most snap conference i remember from president trump was when we were in dallas and we heard the president come in 15 minutes will dominic, the president will be holding a press conference. what has the weight has been doing to prepare the president for this day? >> dana: they announce a days in advance, which is not what i would do but it works for them. one of the things they have done is this can be very much an action event for policy development and decision-making because it's been 65 days that there hasn't been a press conference but they have only been in office 65 days. some of these issues they need to get a decision on. i think they need to make a policy change at the border and quickly. something like this, the chief of staff will say hey, everybody, he's going to get asked about x, y, and z on thursday so we are going to need an answer by noon on wednesday, that to me as an action-forcing event that makes it worthwhile. >> sandra: that is a live look at where the president will be taking the questions. because so many of us are reading through past presidents' first formal news conference, it was an interesting statistic about who holds the record the most televised noon conferences >> sandra: that goes to george w. bush, 34 per year, that was pretty interesting to hear. before i'm actually surprised by that number. i wouldn't have guessed that. of course, john, you were there, bret baier was a white house correspondent during those years but also that was over eight years, so that was a lot of tv. >> john: just didn't seem like that much during the time. the president is looking to spend trillions more in infrastructure to boost the economy. even weekly jobless claims fell to their lowest level since the start of the pandemic last week. all that new spending needed and who is going to pay for it? we expect him to face some questions on that. room at the white house, the president now officially 5 minutes late. let's bring in shannon bream, the host of fox news at night. shannon, what are you looking for today? looks like shannon may be having difficulty hearing, can you hear us? >> sandra: we will try to reach her. >> john: we will get that connection going. i am interested, sandra, that we are 5 minutes late for this. when we had formal press conferences that would begin at 8:00 at night the president would walk out at 8:01, so you had a little preamble, the anchors were teeing up the coverage, and at 8:01:30 he would see the president walk out there. we are not seen that coming is now 6 minutes late. apparently we have gotten connection with shannon bream, what are you going to be looking for today? >> shannon: you mentioned the $3 trillion package coming down the pipe, i would ask the president about bipartisanship. he is something he talked a lot about the other day, the anniversary of the affordable care act which was passed with zero republican votes, he talked about how this is how you can get things done when you work together. he also mentioned that $2 trillion covid package which not only passed with zero g.o.p. votes, there were democratic votes against it. he can get things done that way in a partisan manner and he can also continue with the executive orders. i think sandra mentioned 37 so far, but you will find what president trump found. the attorney general are going to challenge him. 26 g.o.p. attorneys general across the country. they have filed lawsuit blocking his moratorium on deportations, they are suing him over the keystone pipeline over things that are in the $2 trillion covid package. there will be legal action and keep in mind we know it is not unique. the new hhs secretary, he said the trump to administration more than 100 times filed lawsuits when he was attorney general of california. the biden administration is going to continue to move up against that if they continue to pass things strictly on a partisan basis. i will ask him about bipartisanship, those used by reconciliation to pass again without any g.o.p. votes. it certainly drives up spending and it creates problems potentially for democrats in 2022 when they have to justify all of these huge measures that are going to have an impact on the economy. and face some questions about why they didn't get a single republican vote in the process. >> sandra: it's a great point, the question of unity is a great one. i imagine it will come up in the briefing room here to your point again, 37 executive orders since you took office. double that of president trump and obama, four times the number of george w. bush. to go back to the infrastructure, we know there are plans for mass spending on that front. what that entails, we don't know. we will look for details on that. something else that jen psaki in one of her press briefings, she gave away a lot about a potential tax hike affecting individuals making $200,000 a year, if it's a family that makes $400,000. he promised, he vowed to voters in the campaign that he would not raise taxes on anybody making less than $400,000. will he be asked to clarify that? what are his intentions? >> shannon: i think that would be a great question for him to get point-blank today, not going to the press secretary or anyone else but asking the president because he is the one who made those assertions, those promises during the campaign. he was very clear about them and now they are taking messages on the tax hikes now. very popular with people across the board regardless of whether they self identify as a democrat or republican, when it turns out it is going to hit your pocketbook or your family, they deserve answers. senator joe manchin, a democrat has said listen, we have to think about how we are paying for these things, we can't just think about passing things across party lines, so he is asking the questions, these are just republicans or conservatives asking questions about how it's going to be paid for. it doesn't work if you don't talk about having to raise taxes and when people see, we are going to raise them on corporations, corporations will say, we have to pass those costs on to somebody. i heard a progress of the other day saying we can just decide not to. that is not how many businesses operate so we will see but it's a great question i think he should get. >> sandra: thanks. stand by if you will. a little bit of activity in the room. we've got a two-minute warning. 10 minutes late but we should see him shortly. your expectations as we await the president? >> john: just the logistics here, that is the greenroom that the aide is walking, that door right there, the president will walk through the greenroom into the east room of the white house. it's a long ways, and now you have 30 reporters from different outlets socially distanced in that room. not all 30 will get questions, but we will see how many of them. peter doocy is one of those, he is obviously been pressing jen psaki at the white house briefings and the press pool getting questions when he can over this time, the 64 days, to president biden. i agree with dana perino. i think these press conferences do go down the road sometimes of foreign policy and make a lot of news. expect some big hot spots to be talked about but the big issues at the beginning, the border, guns, infrastructure and the filibuster, what this president is going to be focused on. >> john: all right, bret, you will be watching along with the rest of us as we look at the greenroom there. typically the set up is across from the east room and the president makes the long walk down the hall. we show them use the greenroom, the president walks down and gives their remarks and it will be interesting to see, do you have any bets on who he will call on first? i'm thinking the associated press. >> sandra: you and i discussed that and i watched obama, he did the traditional, called on the aps and reuters, cbs down the line. president trump certainly mixed it up but what a moment this is when you look at what is happening in this country right now and really the focus on the southern border as you look at the surging number of migrants crossing into our country right now. he has a lot to cover right now and the press has a huge responsibility to ask very important questions in that room. >> john: the two-minute warning has officially expired and here comes president biden for the first presidential news conference of this administration. >> president biden: good afternoon. before i take questions i want to give you a progress report to the nation on where we stand, 65 days into office here. on vaccinations and a few other top priorities for the american people. first, on vaccinations, on december 8th, i indicated that i hope to get 100 million shots into people's arms in my first 100 days. we met that goal last week by day 58. 42 days ahead of schedule. the second goal is, by my 100th day in office have administered 200 million shots in people's arms. that's right, 200 million shots in 100 days. i know it's ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has even come close, not even close to what we are doing. i believe we can do it. and today, we made a historic investment in reaching the hardest hit and the most vulnerable communities. the highest risk communities as a consequence of the virus by investing an additional $10 billion to be able to reach them. i also set a goal before i took office of getting the majority of schools in k-8 fully open in the first 100 days. now, thanks to the enormous work done by our administration, educators, parents, local, state education officials and leaders, the recent department of education survey shows that nearly half of the k-8 schools are open now full-time, five days a week for in person learning. not yet a majority, but we are really close and i believe in the 35 days left to go we will meet that goal as well. as of yesterday, more than 100 million payments of $1,400 $1,400has gone into people's bak accounts. that's real money in people's pockets bringing belief instantly, almost. and millions more will be getting their money very soon. one final note, since we pass to american rescue plan, we are starting to see new signs of hope in our economy. since it was passed, a majority of economic forecasters have significantly increased their projections on the economic growth of that is going to take place at this year. they are now projecting it will exceed 6%. 6% growth in gdp. and just this morning, we learned that the number of people filing for weekly unemployment insurance fell by nearly 100,000 persons. it's the first time any year the number has fallen below the pandemic high. so there are still too many americans out of work, too many families hurting, and they still have a lot of work to do. but i can say to you, the american people, help is here and hope is on the way. now, i will be happy to take your questions. seek, associated press. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. he mentioned your progress on covid-19, would like to ask you on some other questions in your presidency. one of the defining challenges you face in the coming months on how to deliver your promise to americans on issues like immigration reform, gun-control, voting rights, climate change. all of those right now are facing stiff, united opposition from republicans on capitol hill. how far are you willing to go to achieve those promises you made to the american people? >> president biden: look, when i took office, i decided that it was a fairly basic, simple proposition, and that is, i got elected to solve problems, and the most urgent problem facing the american people i stated from the outset was covid-19 and economic dislocation for millions and millions of americans. so that is why i put all my focus in the beginning. there were a lot of problems but all my focus on dealing with those particular problems. and the other problems we are talking about, from immigration to guns and the other things you mentioned are long-term problems, they have been around a long time. and what we are going to be able to do, god willing, is now begin one at a time to focus on those as well, whether it's immigration or guns or a number of other problems that face the country about the fundamental problem is getting people some peace of mind so they can go to bed at night and not stare at the ceiling wondering whether they lost their health insurance, whether they're going to lose a family member, whether they are going to be in a position where they are going to lose their home because they can't pay their mortgage, or that millions of people are going to get thrown out of their homes because of the inability to pay the rent. so we are going to move on these one at a time, try to do as many simultaneously as we can, but that is the reason why i have focused as i have. and here's the deal, i think my republican colleagues are going to have to determine whether or not we want to work together or decide the way they want to proceed is to just divide the country, continue the politics of division. but i'm not going to do that, i'm just going to move forward and take these things as they come. >> reporter: mr. president, can your presidency be a success if you can't make progress on those four challenges? climate change from immigration reform, gun control, voting rights. >> president biden: i plan on making progress on all of them but that is for the american people to decide. i doubt whether, maybe you did, maybe others did, i thought many of you thought there was no possibility of my getting the plan i wanted passed, passed without republican votes. pretty big deal. got past, growing the economy, things are changing. we will see what happens. all i know is i have been hired to solve problems, not create division. okay, how about -- >> reporter: thanks so much, mr. president. you have said over and over again immigrants shouldn't come to this country right now, this isn't the time to come. instead, the perception of you getting elected as a moral, decent man is the reason a lot of immigrants are coming to the country. how do you resolve that tension and how are you choosing which families can stay and which can go, given the fact that even though, those families are staying. is there a timeline for when you won't be seeing these overrun facilities when it comes to unaccompanied minors? >> president biden: look, i guess i should be flattered that people are coming because i am the nice guy, that that is why they are coming, that i am a decent man or however it was phrased. that that is why they are coming, because biden is a decent guy. but the truth is nothing has changed. 31% in the last year in 2019 before the pandemic and the trump administration. it happens every single, solitary year. there is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of january, february, march. it happens every year. in addition to that, nobody -- and by the way, does anybody suggest there was a 31% increase under trump because he was a nice guy and he was doing good things at the border? that's not the reason they are coming. the reason they are coming is that it's the time they can travel with the least likelihood of dying on the way because of the heat and the desert, number one. number two, they are coming because of the circumstances in-country. the way to deal with this problem, i started to deal with it when i was a united states vice president for putting together a bipartisan plan, over $700 million to do the root causes of why people are leaving. what did trump do? eliminated that funding. he didn't use it, he didn't do it. in addition to that, what he did, he dismantled all the elements that exist to deal with what has been a problem and has continued to be a problem for a long time. in fact, he shut down the number of beds available. he did not fund hhs to get people, get children out of those border patrol facilities where they should not be. not supposed to be more than a few days, a little while. but he dismantled all of that. so what we're doing doing now is attempting to rebuild, rebuild the system that can accommodate what is happening today and i like to think it's because i'm a nice guy, but it's not. it's what happens every year. let me say one more thing on this, if you take a look at the number of people who are coming, the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of people coming to the border and crossing are being sent back. are being sent back. thousands, tens of thousands of people who are over 18 years of age and single people, one at a time coming, have been sent back, sent home. we are sending back the vast majority of families that are coming. we are trying to work out now with mexico their willingness to take more of those families back, but that's what's happening. they're not getting across the border. and those who are coming across the border who are unaccompanied children, we are moving rapidly to try to put in place, dismantled, what i said. for example, of all the children who are coming across the border, over 70% are either 16 or 17 years old. we are not talking about people ripping babies for mother's arms, or a little 3-year-old standing on the border. i think it's less than 1.5% fall in the category of the very young. so what we are doing is providing for the space, again, for people to be able to get out of border patrol facilities which no child, no one should be in any longer than 72 hours, and today for example, used all the resources available to me, went to the defense department and the secretary of defense, said make available, 5,000 beds be made immediately available. 5,000 beds on the texas border. so we are building back up the capacity that should have been maintained and built upon that trump dismantled. it's going to take time. the other thing we are doing i might add, am i giving you too long an answer? because if you don't want the details -- no, no, but i don't know how much detail you want about immigration. maybe i will start there. >> reporter: my follow-up question is one, the families that are being allowed to stay, why they are being able to stay, when it comes to filibuster, immigration is the big issue, republicans are passing the bill after bill trying to restrict voting rights, chuck schumer is calling it an existential threat to democracy. why not back a filibuster rule that at least gets around issues including voting rights or immigration, jim clyburn, someone of course who you know very well, has back to the idea of a buster when it comes to civil rights and voting rights. >> president biden: look, i'm going to deal with all those problems. the question is, the priorities as they come, and land on my plate. let's go to the first question you asked. the first of the second question, excuse me, and that is, what about dealing with families? why are some not going back? because mexico is refusing to take them back. they are saying they won't take them back, not all of them. we are in negotiations with the president of mexico, i think we will see that change. they should all be going back. i'll be going back. the only people we are not going to let sitting there on the other side of the rio grande by themselves with no help our children. -- our children. and it's important to understand, i know you understand, i don't mean to say it that way, an important point to focus on, the vast majority of people under the age of 18 coming to the united states come with the telephone number on a wristband, or come with a telephone number on their pocket in the united states. a mother, father, a close relative, grandma and grandpa. what's happening before, it's taking literally weeks and weeks or months before anyone would pick up the phone to call and see if there really was someone there. we have set up a system now where within 24 hours there is a phone call made as that child crosses the border and a verification system being put in place as of today to determine quickly whether or not that is a trafficker being called or whether that is actually a mom, a dad and or a close relative. they are establishing that right off the bat. if it is mom and dad, dad says come in the extreme case, i've got a birth certificate. then guess what? we are getting that kid directly to that parent immediately. so that is going to reduce significantly. there's two ways to reduce child populations and circumstances that are not acceptable like being held at a border patrol station. one is to get them to a place where they have a relative and set a date as to when the hearing can be held. the second way to do it is to put them in the health and human services facility that we are occupying now, licensed beds across the country that exist as well as, for example, federal resources like fort bliss to get them safely in a place where they can be taken care of while they are returned. filibuster, filibuster. with regard to the filibuster, i believe we should go back to a position of the filibuster has existed just when i came to the united states senate, 120 years ago. that is that it used to be required for a filibuster and i had a card on this, i was going to give you the statistics but you probably know, though, that it used to be that from between 1917 and 1971, the filibuster existed. there are a total of 58 motions to break a filibuster. that whole time. last year alone, there were five times that many. so it's being abused in a gigantic way. for example, it used to be that you had to stand there and talk and talk and talk and talk until you collapse. and guess what? people got tired of talking and tired of collapsing. filibusters broke down and we were able to break the filibuster and get a vote. so i strongly support moving in that direction, in addition to having an open mind about dealing with certain things that are just elemental to the functioning of our democracy like the right to vote, like the basic right to vote. we have amended the filibuster in the past, but here's the deal. as you have observed, i am a fairly practical guide. i want to get things done consistent with what we have with the american people and in order to do that in a 50/50 senate, we have to get 50 votes of the vice president of the united states can break the tie, or i get 51 votes without her. and so i'm going to say something outrageous. i have never been particularly poor at how to calculate getting things done in the united states senate periods of the best way to get something done, if you hold near and dear to you that you like to be able to -- anyway. we are going to get locked on and if we have to, if there is a complete lockdown and chaos as a result of the filibuster then we have to go beyond what i'm talking about. okay, hang on. sorry. oh, kim. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. to follow up on the filibuster, do you believe it should take 60 votes to end a filibuster on legislation or should it take one? >> president biden: if we could end it with 51 we would have no problem. you're going to have to come in the existing rule, it's going to be hard to get a parliamentary ruling that allows 50 votes to end the filibuster, the existence of a filibuster, but it's not my expertise, the parliamentary rules on how to get there. our preoccupation with the filibuster is totally legitimate, but in the meantime we've got a lot we can do while we are talking about what we are doing with the filibuster. let me get here, okay, celia vega. >> reporter: i would like to circle back to immigration, please. you just listed the reasons people are coming, talking about in-country problems, it happens every year can be blamed the last administration. just got back last night from a reporting trip to the border where i met a 9-year-old who walked here from honduras by himself along with another little boy. >> president biden: astounding. >> reporter: he had that number on him and we were able to call his family. her mother said that she sent her son to the country because she believes you are not supporting unaccompanied minors, that is why she sent him alone. so sir, he blamed the last to administration but is your messaging and saying that these children are and will be allowed to stay in this country and work their way through this process encouraging families like giselle to come? >> president biden: well, look, the idea that i'm going to say, which i would never do, if an unaccompanied child ends up at the border we are just going to let them starve to death and stay on the other side. no previous administration did that, either. except trump. i'm not going to do it. i'm not going to do it. that's why i have asked the vice president of the united states yesterday to be the lead person on dealing with focusing on the fundamental reasons why people leave honduras, guatemala, el salvador in the first place. it's because of earthquakes, floods. it's because of lack of food, it's because of gang violence, it's because of a whole range of things that when i was vice president, had the same obligation to deal with unaccompanied children, i was able to get it slowed up significantly by working with the heads of state in those community to do things like, am one of those cities, they couldn't walk the street because their kids were getting beat up or shot or gang violence. what i was able to do is not give money to the head of state, because so many of them are corrupt, but i was able to say okay, you need lighting in the streets to change things, i will get the lighting in. i paid the contractor, we got the lighting in the streets and did not go through the government. violent crimes significantly was reduced and people didn't seek to. when the hurricane came, instead of helping a major way so people wouldn't have a reason to believe in the first place because they didn't have housing or water or sustenance, we did nothing. we are going to do a lot in our administration. we are going to be spending that $700 million plus a year to change the life and circumstances of why people leave in the first place. that mother did not sit around on the kitchen table and say, you know, i've got a great idea, i'm going to make sure my son gets taken care of is i'm going to -- how old was he or she? >> reporter: she's nine. i also met a 10-year-old. >> president biden: a 9-year-old, i'm going to send him on a thousand mile journey through the desert to the united states because i know joe biden is a nice guy and he will take care of him. what a desperate act to have to take. circumstances must be horrible, so we can do something about it. that is with the vice president is going to be doing. what i did when president obama asked me to come and deal, i was in turkey at the time. he said, you've got to come home and take care of this. so we put together a plan and it had an impact, so the question here is how we go ahead and do this. there is no easy answer. >> reporter: quick follow if i may, do you want to see these unaccompanied minors staying in this country or should they be deported eventually? >> president biden: well, the judgment has to be made whether or not -- in this young man's case, because of the mom at home, there's an overwhelming reason why we put on a plane and flown back to his mom. >> reporter: follow, sir, you mentioned circumstances must be horrific. the customs and border protection facility in texas, i was there, is at 1556% capacity right now with mostly unaccompanied minors. kids are sleeping on floors, they are packed scots. i have spoken to lawyers who say that some of these children have not seen the sun in days. what is your reaction to these images that have come out from that particular facility, is what's happening inside acceptable to you? and what is this going to be fixed? >> president biden: that's a serious question, right? if it's acceptable to me? come on. that's why we are going to be moving a thousand of those kids out quickly peer that is why i got fort bliss opened up. that is why i started working from the moment this happened to find additional access for children to be able to safely, not just children, but for children to be able to safely be housed while we follow through on the rest of what's happening. that is totally unacceptable. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. i want to ask you about afghanistan. you faced a may 1st deadline for the withdrawal of u.s. troops from that country. as a candidate in foreign affairs you wrote that it is past time to and these forever wars. can you commit to the american people that by may 2nd, the u.s. will no longer have forces in afghanistan? >> president biden: the answer is that it's going to be hard to meet the may 1st deadline. just in terms of tactical reasons, hard to get those troops out. so what we have been doing, what i've been doing, and was secretary has been doing is we have been meeting with our allies, those other nations that have nato allies, who have troops in afghanistan as well, and if we leave we are going to do so in a safe and orderly way. we are in consultation with our allies and partners on how to proceed, and secretary blinken has a meeting in brussels this week with our nato allies, and particularly those who have forces there. and general austin, i am waiting for the briefing on that, leader in afghanistan and kabul. there is a u.n.-led process that is beginning shortly on how to mechanically end this war. but it is not my intention to stay there for a long time. but the question is how and under what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by president trump to leave under a deal that looks like it is not being able to be worked out to begin with, how is that done? but we are not staying a long time. >> reporter: do you think it's possible -- >> president biden: we will leave. the question is when we leave. >> reporter: sorry, do you believe it's possible we could have troops next year? >> president biden: i can't picture that being the case. okay, kristin. >> reporter: thank you very much, mr. president. given the conditions that were just laid out at the migrant facilities at the u.s. border, will you commit to allowing journalists to have access to the facilities that are overcrowded? >> president biden: i will commit when my plan, very shortly, is underway to let you have access to not just them but to other facilities as well. >> president biden: -- be able to have access to the facilities, we have obviously allowed inside one but we haven't seen the facilities in e packed together to really give the american people a chance to see that. will you commit to transparency on this issue? >> president biden: i will commit to transparency as soon as i am in a decision to be able to implement what we are doing right now. one of the reasons i haven't gone down, my chief folks have gone down, is i don't want to become the issue. i don't want to be bringing all the secret service and everybody with me to get in the way. so this is being set up and you will have full access to everything once we get this thing moving. >> reporter: just to be clear, how soon will that be? >> president biden: i don't know. to be clear. >> reporter: -- your responsibility for everything happening at the border now, he talking about past administration, you decided to roll back some of those policies. did you move too quickly? >> president biden: to rollback what, i'm sorry? >> reporter: did you move too quickly to rollback some of the policies of your predecessor? >> president biden: first of all, all of the policies that were underway did not help at all, did not slow up the amount of immigration, as many people coming. rolling back the policies of separating children from their mothers? i make no apology for that. rolling back the policies of remain in mexico sitting on the edge of the rio grande, the muddy circumstances, not enough to eat. i make no apologies for that. i make no apologies for ending programs that did not exist before trump became president that have an incredibly negative impact on the law, international law, as well as on human dignity. and so i make no apologies for that. >> reporter: i want to ask about foreign policy, overnight we learned that north korea tested two ballistic missiles. what, if any, actions will you take and what is your redline on north korea? >> president biden: let me say that number one, u.n. resolution 1718 was violated by those particular missiles that were tested, number one. we are consoling with our allies and partners, and there will be responses if they choose to escalate. we will respond accordingly. but i am also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization. so that's what we're doing right now, consulting with our allies. you've got another hour now, okay? >> reporter: diplomacy, can you define what you mean amp former president obama warned the incoming president trump that north korea was the top foreign policy issue that he was watching. is that how you assess the crisis in north korea? >> president biden: yes. okay, hang on a second here. nancy, cbs. >> reporter: thank you very much, mr. president. i want to go back to voting rights, and republican legislatures across the country are working to pass bills that would restrict voting particularly democrats', young voters and minority voters who helped you get elected in november. are you worried that if you don't manage to pass voting rights legislation that your party is going to lose seats and possibly lose control of the house and the senate in 2022? >> president biden: what i'm worried about is how un-american this whole initiative is. it's sick, it's sick. deciding in some states that you cannot bring water to people standing in line waiting to vote? deciding that you are going to end voting at 5:00 when working people are just getting off work? deciding there will be no absentee ballots under the most rigid circumstances? it's all designed, and i'm going to spend my time doing three things. one, trying to figure out how to pass the legislation passed by the house, number one. number two, educating the american public. the republican voters i now find this a despicable republican voters ! -- the republican voters i know find this despicable appeared in public and voters! i'm not talking about elected officials. i'm talking about voters, voters. i'm convinced we will be able to stop this because it is the most pernicious things. this makes jim crow look like jim eagle. i mean, this is gigantic what they are trying to do. it cannot be sustained. i do everything in my power, the house in the senate to keep this from becoming the law. >> reporter: is there anything else you can do about it to stop it? >> president biden: yes but i'm not going to lay out a strategy in front of the whole world now. >> reporter: on a related note have you decided whether you are going to run for reelection in 2024? you haven't set out the reelection campaign yet as your predecessor had by this time. >> president biden: [laughs] my predecessor needed to. my predecessor, oh god, i miss him. my answer is yes, i plan to run for reelection, that is my expectation. >> reporter: one more thing on bipartisanship, your old friend mitch mcconnell says you have only spoken to each other once since you took office and that you have moved far left since taking office. do you see at the same way he does? have you rejected bipartisanship? >> president biden: now, i haven't at all. when was the last time a president invited the opposite party down at least a half-dozen time to talk about issues, everything from how we work, we are working with a group of 20 members of the senate right now on how we reestablish our ability to make computer chips, how we get ahead of the game, how we can work together. we are working together on a lot of things. i know mitch well, i would expect them to say exactly what he said but this is a matter of i would like elected republican support. but what i know now as i have electoral report from republican voters. republican voters. agree with what i am doing, ands mitch says, the last thing i did, the last piece of legislation is so far left, well then you ought to take a look at his party. over 50% of them must be over that edge as well because they support what i did. okay, where am i here? let me see. caitlin. >> reporter: thank you very much, mr. president. i have a question for you but first i would like to follow-up on a question -- >> president biden: that counts as a question but go ahead. >> reporter: okay, i will make it quick. >> president biden: no, no, go ahead. >> reporter: john lewis is funeral obama says he believes the filibuster is a relic of the jim crow era, do you agree? >> president biden: yes. >> reporter: why not abolish it if it is a relic of the jim crow era? >> president biden: successful electoral policy is the art of possible bid let's figure out how we can get this done in move in the direction of significantly changing the abuse of even the filibuster rule first. it has been abused from the time it came into being by an extreme ways in the last 20 years. let's deal with the abuse first. >> reporter: it sounds like you are moving closer to eliminating the filibuster, is that correct? >> president biden: i answered your question. >> reporter: you also just makes amazed by by saying you are going to run for reelection -- >> president biden: i said that it is my expectation. >> reporter: is that a "yes" you are running for reelection? >> president biden: look, i don't know what you guys come from. i've never been able to travel, i am a man of faith, i have never been able to plan three, four years in advance. >> reporter: if you do brownwood vice president harris be on your ticket? >> president biden: i would fully expect that to be the case, she is doing a good job. she is a great partner. >> reporter: do you believe you will be running against former president trump? >> president biden: i have no idea, i have no idea if there will be a republican party, do you? i know you don't have to answer my question, but do you? the way i do things, i become a great respecter of faith in my life. i set a goal, to get things done for the people i care most of barth which are hardworking, decent american people getting it really stuck to them. i want to change the paradigm, i want to change the paradigm when you start to reward work, not just wealth. i want to change the paradigm. if you notice, don't you find it kind of interesting that my republican friends are worried about the cost and the taxes that have to be had, if there is any tax to be had as they talk about it, in dealing with the acts that we just passed? which put money into people's pockets, ordinary people? did you hear them complain when they passed close to $2 trillion trump tax cut? 83% going to the top 1%? did you hear them talk about that at all? i love the fact that they found this whole idea of concern about the federal budget. it's kind of amazing. and the federal budget is saving people's lives, and then they don't think it's such a good idea. when the federal budget is feathering the nest of the wealthiest americans, 90 of the fortune 500 companies making billions of dollars, not paying a cent in taxes. reducing taxes to a point where people who are making -- if you are a husband and wife, schoolteacher and a cop, you are paying a higher rate than the average person making a billion dollars a year is. something's wrong. their newfound concern. i'm concerned -- look, i meant what i said when i ran and a lot of you still think i'm wrong and i respect that. i said i'm running for three reasons, to restore the soul, dignity, honor, transparency to the american political system. two, to rebuild the backbone of this country. the middle class. hardworking people and people struggling to be in the middle class. they build america. and unions build them. the third reason i said i was running was to unite the country. and generically speaking, all of you said no, you can't do that. well, i have not been able to unite the congress but i have been uniting the country based on the polling data. we have to come together. we have to. so from my perspective, you know, to me it's about just getting out there, putting 1 foot in front of the other and just trying to make things better for people. just hardworking people, people who get up every morning and just want to figure out how to put food on the table for their kids, to be able to have a little bit of breathing room, being able to make sure that they go to bed not staring at the ceiling like my dad did, wondering because he didn't have health insurance what would happen if mom got sick because he got sick. these are basic things, basic things. i'm of the view that the vast majority of people including registered republicans by and large share that same view, that same sense of what's appropriate. justin, bloomberg. >> reporter: thanks, mr. president. i wanted to ask about your relationship with china and how you have been in office a couple months. obviously there was the meeting in alaska that was a little theatrical and there are continued human rights -- so today i am wondering, are you more likely than you were when you came into office to maintain tariffs on china? are you considering banning imports of forced labor products? and would you consider cutting off u.s. investment or chinese access to international payment systems? >> president biden: well, look, they are each specifically legitimate questions, but they only touch a smidgen of what the relationship with china really is about. i have known xi jinping a long time. allegedly, by the time i left office is the vice president i had spent more time with xi jinping than any other world leader because president obama and the chinese president decided we should get to know when each other, and since it is inappropriate for the president of the united states to spend time with the vice president of another country but it was obvious he was going to become the new leader of china. so i spent hours upon hours with him alone with an interpreter, my interpreter and his come up into great detail, very, very straightforward. doesn't have a democratic bone in his body but he is a smart, smart guy. he is one of the guys like v8 who thinks that autocracy is the way of the future and democracy can't function in an ever complex world. when i was elected and he called to congratulate me, i think to the surprise of the china experts who were his people on the call as well as mine, listening, we had a two hour conversation. for two hours. and we made several things clear to one another. i made it clear to him again, i have told him in person on several occasions, that we are not looking for confrontation, although we know there will be steep, steep competition. two, that we will have strong competition but we will insist that china play by the international rules. fair competition. fair practices, fair trade. thirdly, in order to compete effectively, i indicated that we are going to deal with china effectively, and we are going to need three things to do that. first, we are going to invest in american workers and american science. i said it all through the campaign, i'm setting up my administration to be able to do that which is that, back in the '60s we use to invest a little over 6% of our entire gdp in pew research and investment in science. today, it's .7%. i'm going to change that. we are going to change that. the future lies in who can in fact on the future as it relates to technology, quantum computing, the whole range of things including the medical field. and so what i am going to do is make sure that we invest closer to 2%. one of the reasons why i have set up the president's -- with scientists and the like is we're going to invest in medical research. cancer, alzheimer's, diabetes, the industries of the future. artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotech, and we are going to make real investments. china is out-investing us by a long shot because their plan is to own that future. the second thing we are going to do is reestablish our alliances and i have been very clear, it's not anti-chinese, and we have talked about it. i want to make sure that, for example, later today, shortly after this, which is fine, we are going close to an hour and i would be happy to go longer, but one of the things i'm going to be doing, i'm going to be speaking with 27 heads of state in europe and very shortly, maybe in the next hour or so, and earlier this month, apparently it got the chinese attention, that's not why i did it, i met with our allies on how we are going to hold china accountable in the region. australia, india, japan, the united states, the so-called quad. because we have to have democracies working together. before too long, i'm going to invite an alliance of democracies to come here to discuss the future, and so we are going to make it clear that in order to deal with these things, we are going to hold china accountable to follow the rules. follow the rules. whether it relates to the south china sea for the north china sea, or the agreement made on taiwan, or a whole range of other things. and the third thing, and the thing that i admire about dealing with xi, is he understands, he makes no pretense to not understand what i am saying anymore than i do with him. i point out to him, no leader can sustain his or her position unless they represent the values of the country. and i said, mr. president, as i have told you before, americans value the notion of freedom. america values human rights. we don't always live up to our expectations, but there is a value system. we are founded on that principle. and as long as you and your country continues to so blatantly violate human rights, we are going to continue in an unrelenting way to call to the attention of the world and make it clear what's happening. and he understood that. made it clear that no american president -- at least one did -- would back down from speaking out against what's happening to the uighurs, what's happening in hong kong, what's happening in-country. that's who we are. the moment the president walks away from that because the last one did is the moment we begin to lose our legitimacy around the world, it's who we are. so i see stiff competition with china. china has an overall goal, and i don't criticize them for the goal but they have a goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world. it's not going to happen on my watch because the united states will continue to grow and expand. >> reporter: following up, is that we make these decisions about sanctions? >> president biden: now, that's why make sure we are all on the same page. i predict you, your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded, autocracy or democracy, because that is what is at stake, not just with china, look around the world. we are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution of enormous consequence. will there be a middle class? how will people adjust to these significant changes in science and technology, the environment, how will they do that? our democracy is equipped because all the people get to speak to compete. it is clear, absolutely clear, and most of the scholars i have dealt with agree with me around the country that this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies. if you notice, you don't have russia talking about communism anymore. it's about an autocracy. demand decisions made by the leader of a country, that is what at stake here. we have to prove democracy works. >> reporter: mr. president, i'm sorry, i know you have had a chance to address the tragedies in georgia and colorado, you have said to stay tuned, wondering if you make a decision, sending the manufacturer liability bill on day one or if executive actions like going after -- and giving money to cities and states to battle gun control? >> president biden: all of the above, it is a matter of timing. as you all have observed, successful presidents better than me have been successful in large part because they know how to time what they are doing. decide order and priorities, the next major initiative is, and i will be announcing aunt in pittsburgh in detail is to rebuild the infrastructure both physical and technological infrastructure in this country so that we can compete and create significant numbers of really good paying jobs. really good paying jobs. and some of you have been around long enough to know this is a great republican initiative. i still think the majority of the american people don't like the fact that we are now ranked, what, 85th in the world in infrastructure? the future rests on whether or not we have the best airports that can accommodate air travel, ports that you can get in and out of quickly so businesses decide, some of you, if you were ever local reporters and you found your governor or mayor trying to attract business to your community, what is the first thing the business asks, what is the closest access to an interstate highway, how far am i from a freight rail? is there water available, enough water available for me to conduct my business? all of the things are related to infrastructure. we have somewhere, i asked the staff to write it down for me and they did, not for this but a longer discussion. we have somewhere in terms of infrastructure, we ranked 13th globally in infrastructure. china is investing three times more in infrastructure than the united states is. bridges, more than one-third of our bridges, 231,000 of them need repairs. some are physical safety risks for preservation work. one in 5 miles of our highways and major roads are in poor condition. that is 186,000 miles of highway. aviation, 20% of all flights, 20% of all flights were done on time, resulting in 1.5 million hours lost in production. six to 10 million homes in america still have lead pipes missing their waterlines. we have over 100,000 wellheads that are not capped, leaking methane. what are we doing? and, by the way, we can put as many pipe fitters and minors of us to work capping those wells at the same price that they were charged to dig those wells. so i just find it frustrating, frustrating to talk about. last point i will make on infrastructure and i apologize for any more time is that if you think about it, it's the place where we will be able to significantly increase american productivity, and at the same time providing really good jobs for people. but we can't bill back to what they used to be. we have to build committee environments, it has already done significant damage. the roads, it used to be above the water level, didn't have to worry about where the draining ditch was. now you have to rebuild them 3 feet higher because it's not going to go back to what it was before, only get worse unless we stop it. there's so much we can do. look at all the schools in america. most of you live in the washington area now, but in your hometowns, i don't know where you are all from, how many can't take the water out of the fountain? how many schools are still in the position -- how many schools don't have adequate ventilation. how many homes, buildings, office complexes are wasting billions of barrels of oil over time because they can't hold in the heat or the air-conditioning because it leaks to the windows that are so porous. it's amazing. so there is so much we can do that is good stuff, makes people healthier and creates good jobs. i think i've got one more question here, janet from univision. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. we are reporting from the border, just like cecelia, we ran into a pair of siblings who were detained, at the phone number for the mother, we have contacted the mother and the only way they know her kids are here because they have not contacted the mother, so when can we expect the promise of things getting better -- >> president biden: they are already getting better but they are going to get real, a whole hell of a lot better. we can get this done. we are going to get it done, a long meeting with the entire team, several cabinet level officers the other night. we are going to be moving within the next week, over 100,000, 1,000 people out of the border patrol into safe, secure bids and facilities. we are going to significantly ramp up, already out there contacting everyone from getting some of the employees and hhs. there's a lot of them doing other things, making those calls. we are in the process of rearranging and providing for the personnel needed to get that done. but i admire the fact that you were down there, you're making the calls yourself. it's real. the next thing that has to happen, though, as you well know, there is going to have to be some certitude, mom, dad, whoever, and there's ways to do that, ways to do that a little bit like determining whether or not you got the right code for your credit card. what was your dog's name? i'm being a bit facetious, but not really. and also seeking harder data from dna to birth certificates, which takes longer, so i want to do this as quickly as humanly possible. >> reporter: it doesn't change things overnight. how do you realistically and physically keep this family from coming to the u.s. when things will not get better in their country right away? >> president biden: well, i can't guarantee that but i know the whole thing, the journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step. you know as well as i do, you coverage. it's not like you have someone sitting somewhere in guatemala, or mexico or guadalupe bay said i have a great idea, let's sell everything we have, give them to a coyote, have them cross the border into the desert where they don't speak the language, won't that be fun? let's go. that's not how it happens. people don't want to leave. when my great grandfather got on a ship to get to the see the expectation wasn't that he would live long enough to get there but they left because of what the brits were doing. they were in real, real trouble. they didn't want to leave but they had no choice. i can't guarantee you we are going to solve everything. but i can guarantee that we are going to make everything better. we can change the lives of so many people in the other thing i want to point out to you and i hope you point out is it's much more heart wrenching and it is, to deal with a 5 and 6 and 7-year-old but you went down there and saw the vast majority of these children, 70% are 16 years old, 17 years old, mostly males. does that make it good, bad, or different, but the idea that we have tens of thousands of kids l facilities. that are really little babies crying all night, there are some, that's true. that's why we have got to act and yesterday i asked my team, the agencies and two others, i asked them, and i asked their opinion because they are the experts but i said, focus on the most vulnerable immediately. but there is no reason why in the next month there are people across the border, that phone call can't be made in the next 48 hours. >> reporter: if i may ask one last question, have you had any talks with senate republicans who are threatening this administration by not considering the immigration legislation in the house until the situation of the border has been resolved? >> president biden: no, not because i know they have to posture for a while to get it out of their system. this is -- but i am ready to work with any republican who wants to help solve the problem and make the situation better. but folks, i'm going. thank you very much. [reporter questions] >> john: president biden there after 64 days holding his first news conference, calling on ten questioners. most of whom had multiple questions, and if you took over on the one hour bet you won because he went for about an hour and 2 minutes there, broadly falling into five categories. immigration, filibuster, china, north korea and saying that he intends to run for reelection in 2024. >> sandra: past white house secretary noting the use of notes the president used throughout the news conference, often referencing them at times, appearing to read directly from them and answers on china as well as north korea. incredibly important issues that he took questions on, let's bring in bret baier, martha maccallum, shannon bream, have all been standing by with us. martha, i will start with you, the crisis at our southern border. transparency on that issue for the american people and whether or not he would commit to allowing journalists inside of some of these facilities that he himself in the news conference labeled as unacceptable. he said he would eventually allow journalists in but he would not provide a time frame saying that "once we implement what we are doing now, presumably he is saying when the situation improves, martha. >> shannon: he didn't have a lot of hard deadlines for any of his answers. i thought there were a lot of very nice, polite questions that were asked. the follow-ups were also in that category. he was impressed very hard on anyone of his answers. one of the things that came up in that particular answer that stood out to me is that he said the majority are being sent back. those are not the numbers we are seeing. in fact, the numbers i saw today said 13% are being sent back, so he was impressed on that when he said jen psaki has said from the podium that the vast majority are being sent back home. our indication is that is not the case. he said most of them are 16, 17-year-olds. the reason that's interesting is because many of them are coming to work, they are practically adults and they are getting across the border and a lot of people have been -- tough questions about that given the fact that everybody in this country is trying to get back to work at this point, so not pressed on any of these topics to the extent that some of us would have liked to have seen. peter doocy was not given a question, which we would like to note as well. we want the vast majority of people who are coming over the border are mexicans because of an agreement between the united states and mexico, they can be sent back but the ones from the northern triangle countries cannot. i know you've got to go prepare for your show, we will see you at 3:00. let's move on to you. i will play sound clip number six here. there really seemed to be a kind of -- i don't want to say threat, but a warning from the president that the filibuster is on the line here in the senate. listen to what he says. >> president biden: here is the deal, as you observed, i am a fairly practical guy. i want to get things done. i want to get them done consistent with what we promised the american people and in order to do that in a 50/50 senate, we have got to get to the place where i get 50 votes so that the vice president of the united states can break the tie. and so i'm going to say something outrageous. i have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the united states senate. >> john: he says he supports amending the filibuster to put it back where it was in the past, he said "if there is complete lockdown and chaos then we will have to go beyond what i'm talking about." the filibuster is in his sights. >> bret: i totally agree, that's what i took from it. it is not tiptoeing anymore, it is walking right up to the line. the president indicated in one question, was it like what president obama had said, a relic of the jim crow era, essentially saying the filibuster is racist, and he said yeah. once you say that it is tough to walk back to you are going to somehow stand up for it. he kind of bounced around on the answer but what i took from it is what you took from it, that we are heading down the road that is going to be very, very bumpy when it comes to the filibuster and it's going to be up to democrats, joe manchin, distance and amount to make the determination whether it lives or dies as it is. remember, this is 60 votes. and the pretext he uses for changing is because it has been abused in recent months and years. just the past year, was democrats issuing filibusters. if you remember under senate republican control under mitch mcconnell. >> sandra: chris wallace, give us your thoughts and i will highlight some of the foreign policy that he did hit in his speech on staying in afghanistan. we will leave, the question is one. north korea, testing ballistic missiles, how we will respond, consulting with allies, there will be a response if they choose to escalate. your takeaways? >> i have to say i was also struck by the fact that it seemed on every foreign policy question, not the others but on foreign policy, he went to his briefing book like jen psaki does sometimes in the briefings and was reading obviously white house the guidance white house talking points. covering ronald reagan for six years i never saw that. watching a lot of news conferences over the years i have never seen that, a president and a news conference reading talking points. he did that on it seemed every foreign policy question. you know we always talk about the questions, oftentimes a lot of the news comes out of the opening statement and there was a big piece of news there, the president now upping the goal from 100 vaccination shots in the first 100 days, but of course has already happened, to 200 -- i'm sorry, 200 million vaccinations in the first 100 days, which if they continue is a pretty impressive number, i agree with you and john, i didn't get the sense he is going to spoil for a fight on the filibuster right away, but i get the sons, one of the things he talked about his presidential timing, that he is going to want to bring some things up there, have them be rejected on the 60 vote filibuster and i think he hopes to build up opposition to continuing the filibuster and joe manchin and kyrsten sinema aboard so he can end the filibuster but certainly, the threat was there. if this continues, i'm going to do something about it. i thought the subject he talked most emotionally about, most strongly about, viscerally about was voting rights. he called the restrictions on voting rights that are happening in a lot of republican states un-american, sick, and you could certainly see the possibility that on what he viewed as an existential issue like that about our democracy, that might be the issue he would want to break the filibuster on. overall, i would say he was empathetic, he handled himself well, he was not fast, certainly. a lot of the answers were pretty slow in coming but he was well briefed and he understood and had control of his brief in terms of what he wanted to say and what he didn't want to say. >> john: standby because we want to get dana's thoughts on how he did by virtue of her former position. she would have been counseling the president before he comes out and shannon bream as well. first of all, let's go to peter doocy, fresh out of the news conference. we mentioned he took questions from ten people. you and fox news not among them. >> that's right and i mentioned last night i had a binder full of questions. i think some people were kidding, i was not kidding. we had a lot and most of the stuff we did not get to. for example nobody asked him about this big plan that he has got, this big idea to completely transform the economy to make it all green. that is something we were hoping to get on the board with and there were not a lot of questions about covid, particularly the investigation into the origins of it. that is obviously something he spends a lot of time focusing on ways to move away from but there is very little looking back at the origins of covid, so we did not get on the board with that, nobody else asked about that, and to chris's observation, i can add to it that in the room, there were some aides including the press secretary, they were monitoring what he was saying, it looked like they were checking their phones to get the instant reaction but while he was up there he was pretty much on his own. usually, the last few of these, the last when i can think of like this would have been in wilmington, they had an eight off to the side with the list of reporters to call in. today was fighting with the list and once they got there about an hour and 20 minutes, he was done. i'm not sure if that was the end of the list. if we were on it he did not make it down that far. >> sandra: i said bingo because there was talk about not enough jobs for the american people, still struggling economic environment in this country but not a lot of detail, not a lot of specific answers as to how he plans to revive the economy as we climb out of this pandemic. he tried to defend a $3 trillion infrastructure plan, but on unity, what did you hear from the president, particularly, republicans will have to determine if they will work with him. he was also asked about his speaking with the head of the republican party in the senate. >> and his answer was basically, i can do whatever i want without the republicans, but if they want to figure out an issue where they want to come and work with me then we can do that. it's notable, though, for the entire length of the transition and the campaign before that, biden was talking about how post trump, d.c. was going to be less polarized place because he was a uniter. he thought republicans were going to have an epiphany as soon as trump was done i wantedd want to reach across the aisle to work on progressive priorities. not only has that not happen, we know he has had very little if any outreach to mitch mcconnell and so it's not clear where biden thinks that is going to start, this convincing republicans that they should be working with the other side. but it did not sound like he was going to run back into his private office and called his old colleague mitch mcconnell today. >> sandra: we saw you in that room, we know you were prepared for it, thanks for showing us your binder and sorry you didn't get a question. >> maybe next time. >> john: next time. having been where peter is right now we should let him go because he is an awful lot of work to do between now and 7:00 tonight. thanks so much. let's go back to our panel, and dana, i said in a different world that would have been you who was standing at the sidelines waiting for the president to come up. give us your opinion on how you think it all went today. >> dana: had i been there i would have told the president to call on peter doocy. peter doocy is not jim acosta and he has gotten good questions and the president has shown he is willing to answer questions from all those other people and what peter doocy just said, the president would have had to answer them. why make peter to see the story? just take his question and move on. the president also should've come out with bigger needs to begin with, so the fact that we have 200 million vaccines out, that's great but i also think most americans think they were already on track and doing very well in vaccines. what i might have done is held the vice president, harris' news about taking over the border issue until today. because then he would have been able to lead without or lead was something about an executive order on guns to start that out. i thought the answer to celia vega of "abc news" about the 9-year-old was probably his worst answer. i watched her broadcast the other day when she was down there and met the 9-year-old. it was a very touching moment. that obviously meant a lot to her about his answer, not great on that. the afghanistan news, making news a little bit there that he can't see troops there in a year but he will see some. i think he did fine and fine is all they needed because if you were bored watching that thinking, so boring compared to the previous president, that is exactly what joe biden wants. that is exactly what he wants come exactly where he wants you if you are board. >> sandra: but if you wanted to know what he's going to do next on gun control you didn't get any answers, bret. >> bret: now, i think he started to get that he is going to lay out in a certain time frame what see as the priorities and he wants to do it all. he wants to change the paradigm. that is big thinking. we were talking earlier about the meeting with historians in the white house. this sounds a lot like a big swing at some big ticket items that would change the dynamic in the u.s. if he has the votes and it all comes down to numbers. i just want to read this quick, senator ben sasse, a relentless defender of the filibuster but now that president biden looks in the mirror and sees fdr, he is keeping the door open for a complete 182 blow up the institution he spent decades defending, and that is senator sasse's response. i will say also that i haven't seen a president have a book like a white house press secretary at a briefing and flip through and sometimes read the answers. i haven't seen that. i think overall he did well but there were a couple times when he went into a rhetorical cul-de-sac and couldn't get out of it and then just punted as we saw him do on the primary debate sometimes. overall, more than an hour and i took the under, i was wrong. >> john: i took an hour 10 so i missed by 7 minutes or so. there was the one time when he was talking about the filibuster where he seemed to lose his focus and just wrap it up. what is your headline going to be for "fox news at night" tonight? >> shannon: i think he was able to punt on a couple of things when he was asked a very specific questions, when we will get press access not to the secondary facilities but the ones that are overcrowded. he said i have a plan, when we can go, when the plan is in practice, then you can go. what is your plan on north korea? he would say have got a list of three things on any particular subject, whether it was china or something else and i'm sitting there, one, two, three and a lot of times we didn't get to three, so i think there were a lot of very vague answers that didn't give us exactly what we were looking for and we wanted to hear directly from the president, not just his press team but him on very important issues, so a lot of those loose ends are still very loose. we are hearing more and more from democrats and the left that we want to reward those who work and not those who are wealthy. there has been a lot of talk about tax hikes coming and how they will play out. we hoped he might get a specific question really nailing him down on language, which income levels are we talking about, who is going to be excluded, but the theme of rewarding work and not rewarding wealth is something we will continue to hear more and more about on the hill. democrats are using it pretty broadly as well. >> sandra: all right, if you could standby we are going to bring in joe conger, fox news contributor and media columnist for "the hill." jump into the conversation because leading up to the 64th day in office, the day he finally held a formal news conference, he talks a lot about the lack of questions he was taking and the lack of transparency in this administration. >> and after that one hour press conference that we just watched, we still don't really have any answers in terms of specifics to the pressing problems within this country and look, i hate to differ about from some folks that have folk in already but this was a disgrace for most of the press corps and for the president. he said some outrageous things that demanded to be pressed on and of course no one in the room can decide to do it. when the president of the united states as for instance that he has the support of a majority of republican voters, i just checked gallup, he is at 10% support amongst republican voters so what is he talking about? the reporters were chosen for him come he is reading off a predetermined list, one that didn't include peter doocy so that is a question for the white house handlers of mr. biden, why are you so afraid of a rookie white house press correspondent but again about the document in front of him that he continually had to refer to, ari fleischer wrote, i wish someone would have asked him about that, what is that no book that you appear to be flipping through and why are you referencing and reading from it and aren't you confident enough in your own answers to provide an argument? but the second question, she is from pbs, your tax dollars at work. this was patently embarrassing to the profession. she made the argument that the surge of the border was only happening because mr. biden is "a moral and decent man." she didn't bother to even quote back biden in terms of what he said when he literally said to migrants to surge the border. mexico's president agrees with that, that the rhetoric of mr. biden fled to the surge as to migrants themselves when you interview them. she then pressed biden to back the filibuster in the name of civil rights. it wasn't even a question, she was advocating for while accusing republicans of suppressing voting rights. this wasn't only biased in broad daylight, it was activism but kudos to kristin welker, the only reporter there to actually press mr. biden on media access to migrant facilities. he said he will only allow access when his plan is implemented, so then she followed correctly by saying, when is that going to happen, by the way? he said he didn't know. look, peter doocy, i'm sure he would've asked some good questions but otherwise, this was an embarrassment to the press organizers. >> john: kristin welker got almost as many questions and as she did when she was moderating the last debates during the election. i thought it was interesting, interesting counterpoint as you pointed out when cecelia vega got up and said, he said the reason why his mother sent him is because of joe biden. compare that to another correspondent who asked a migrant question, would you have done this under the trump and administration and basically said hell no. why did you do it? because of biden. >> mr. biden give a very interesting answer, he said we are not going to send a young boy to the other side of the mexican border so he can starve to death as he did under trump. in other words we are now accusing the former president of murdering actually migrants, at that point. and again and again it seemed the president just wanted to blame donald trump for the border crisis, for instance, and other things. there were answers at points where mr. biden went on for minutes at a time in those interruptions that became so familiar over the previous four years after term, 20, 30, 40 seconds into an answer, suddenly decided to go away and it was like okay, let's not challenge him on a thing. i think that is a headline we take away here, that there were follow-ups but very polite follow-ups. the president was never interrupted and the fact the president also said if we could end it with 51 votes we would have no problem. obviously that was a signal that he is looking to get rid of the filibuster and may be main headline you want to see is unity is now dead. >> sandra: joe concha, if you could standby with us we want to bring chris wallace back in. there was a reference to his predecessor donald trump, man, i miss that guy. he was asked about reelection, he was publicly addressing questions on whether or not he has plans for reelection. his words, my plan is to run for reelection, that is my expectation, but to joe's point about the difference in the way this solo news conference looked compared to trump era solo news conferences, there was a stark difference and it was oftentimes reporters engaging with the president, contentious at times. we didn't see that in that room. >> i kind of agree with you. i think, i was stuck also that that seemed less a question in more advocacy, and i don't know that that was a great moment for the press but i thought particularly when you saw kristin welker, cecelia vega, some of the others, they asked questions and they were pressing the president on the conditions of the border, when is it going to get fixed, the fact that you have rolled back, someone, i forget who specifically said you rolled back a number of terms executive orders and isn't that one of the reasons that they have come out? headline i don't think we have quite talked about enough, when joe was talking about the fact that, you know, he was saying i'm not going to let somebody starve at the border, he made a pretty clear, it seemed to me, i'm not turning people back who come, miners who come across the border, so to the degree that there might have been a message, don't come now, he wasn't sending that message today, he was in fact saying if you come, if you make the trip, it is a dangerous trip, and put all kinds of caveats on why someone might want to make the trip, he wasn't saying you are going to be accepted and we will take care of you. the only other point i would say in response to joe, when he talked about bipartisanship i don't think he was talking about support from republicans in general but joe was completely right, he was talked about support from republicans for the $1.9 trillion covid relief bill where there is in fact 60%, 70% supporting roughly half of republicans are for that specific legislative measure. >> john: i think one of the things he will see talked about a lot for the rest of the days of this idea we talked about that they are going to engage in transparency in terms of the situation at the border when they get it fixed. there was really a village aspect to the springs facility yesterday and it looks like they don't want to let us in to see what the real deal is, at least not right now. and the president also talked for some time at the beginning about coronavirus and increasing the number of vaccines. let's bring in dr. marc siegel on that point. i got my first vaccine yesterday so you can count me among the more than 100 million people who have now gotten it. his goal, to get 200 million by the end of 100 days, seems like it is within reach. >> yes and i think we are on track for that no matter what. i don't think that is where we are heading. we are heading that way with two to 3 million doses a day. i think what is really going to happen after that 200 million doses are given and again, not 200 million people because a lot of them are getting a second dose, what happens when you start getting the noncompliant people, the people who have hesitancy and have concerns or are flat out anti-faxes? that is going to be after 100 days so this was more of a press statement than it was something that i think changes anything. by the way i want to add when it comes to the border, i am concerned about the public health situation. you just mentioned this issue of not letting people into overcrowded facilities. we know that hhs has 300 children that are covid positive right now and they have had 2900 over the past year. the 16,500 children either in the border protection facilities or hhs but we are not assuming hhs is in fine shape in terms of being able to take care of health problems or isolate them. and he flat out says i am not letting you into overcrowded facilities until we make sure that they are in fine shape, as you just said. >> sandra: you bring up a really good point, they are keeping such close proximity and some of those facilities that quite clearly the biden administration, they don't want to let journalists in yet until the situation improves. that being said there was not an emphasis on putting kids back into the classroom that are so yet even though the science says kids can safely return to the classroom. were you surprised to not hear from the president specifically on that? >> i was very disappointed on that. you just contrasted two different world. one is kids in close proximity where they are definitely going to be spreading covid and schools come over they are not because 3 feet of distance and we kind of knew that for a while but a huge study out of massachusetts just confirmed that 3 feet is good enough with masking and the 3 feet of dispensing with testing. absolutely should have been on the table today and i think it's time we get the schools reopened and president biden promised that, he promised when he came in that he was going to do that and i really was hoping to see that. >> john: on that point when you see the united federation of teachers saying weeds trust the science but we don't think this 3 feet thing has been proven, what do you say? >> first of all it was shown last spring and in the summer in europe. it was shown in wisconsin where a big study was shown using 3 feet and the big study in massachusetts, i interviewed one of the main authors and he said 47 different school districts with 3 feet that did not show increased spread. here's the key. the key is it spreads in the community regardless. it actually spreads less within the school because it is a structure where testing is done, where people are watched. in the community where they are not at school they are going to spread it more and that is proven science at this point. >> sandra: dr. siegel, good to have you. if you could stand by we're going to head down to steve harrigan, reporting live from the border for us. you were able to hear the president's news conference, you were hearing the questions he was taking on the crisis at our border, your thoughts? >> looking for news on the border, a couple things we didn't get. we didn't get a clear date on when journalists were going to be able to lead in to the real sites. they had kind of a show tour at a facility yesterday. we also learned they're going to house at least 5,000 children at a military base here in texas, the military wasn't thing the numbers and we are getting a number in the third thing he said, 70% of the unaccompanied minors are age 16 or 17. very interesting, even democrats are pushing for him to start deporting those 16 and 17-year-olds to ease the crisis. >> reporting live from mission texas for us, did you have a question? i'm sorry. >> john: i thought the last question made an important point, this is something we were talking about yesterday about the biden administration playing the long game when it comes to immigration. he was asked, the change in the root cause to cause migration in these northern triangle countries does not happen overnight. what are you going to do to address the border situation now? steve, he didn't have an answer for that. he quoted confucius, the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. >> i think some of the mayors of these texas border towns are not going to be satisfied with confucius at this point. 16,000 unaccompanied youth, more every day. >> sandra: steve harrigan come appreciate your reporting there. from the southern border, thank you, back to our panel. all standing by, to you. >> bret: wrapping up here there are a couple answers that really deserve, to joe conscious point, some more follow-up. i don't think anyone can point to the trump administration saying that kids were forced to start with the border. i don't think you could say that the trump administration didn't drive down those numbers on the border. i dropped some 80% according to studies. i also don't think as martha mentioned earlier that families now are being turned away. in fact, that number is as low as 13% according to actio's in the data they just uncovered so i really think there are some things here that left doors open for follow-ups that didn't happen today. >> john: final thought from you, dana, i thought was interesting that he said china wants to become the most powerful nation, not going to happen on watch, that is what president trump said. >> sandra: he adopted a lot of those and it wouldn't hurt them to say i am following what my predecessor did because he got it right. it's clear that there is going to be a lot of criticism of this press conference from the right but also coming from the left in the white house chief of staff, they are complaining that the press corps did not ask enough about covid. the crisis they're talking about is the border and that tells you everything you need to know. covid's getting better. the border, getting worse. >> john: we will have a lot to talk about the rest of the day. i'm sure on many, many as well. we will see bret at 6:00. >> sandra: and dane on a book with a five." i'm senator smith. >> john: and i am >> martha: thanks. good afternoon. i'm martha maccallum live in new york. here's "the story" today. president biden had to hold a solo press conference. he just did it. 54 days. longest than any president in 100 years and keeping a low profile. he's stretched that out over the first couple months. you remember during the campaign, he was criticized for campaigning from his basement at that point. so president biden faced a very different room than predecessor in a lot of ways. about 20