remote learning we will ask dr. ashish jha, one of the nation's top public health-- experts about the surge. then? >> our focus is moving forward with our relationship with senator mansion in our efforts to get bill back better done. mike: the front-- fate of the president's signature spending bill dashed by fears of debt as the-- those call on the president to take action. we will talk to senator cardin to get reaction to the fate of the spending legislation from senator roy blunt, a member of gop leadership. plus, from the botched withdrawal from afghanistan to the situation at the border, we will ask our sunday panel to grade the biden administration first year responds all right now on "fox news sunday" and. mike: and hello again from a fox news in washington. president biden approaches his second year in office fighting fire on multiple fronts having won the job by arguing he could bring competence back to the white house mr. biden faces a prolonged pandemic, rising prices and a stalled agenda and early next year the administration will defend vaccine mandates and arguments before the supreme court and this week the white house reduced its push for voluntary vaccination and promised help to hospitals. we will discuss that response with the dean of the brown university's school of public health at dr. ashish jha, but first let's turn to alexandria hoff and washington with a look at new pressures as omicron spreads. reporter: my, the daily covid-19 case rate in washington dc is the highest in the nation per capita and the white house and close contact with the president and vice president has tested positive all-americans while americans at large have struggled to find a testing. president biden is now expressing regret. >> i wish i had thought about ordering a half a billion. reporter: for not ordering 500 million rapid covid-19 test weeks ago. instead the president promised to distribute them to americans free of charge next month. >> we are getting bombarded, showered with testing. it's to the point where we ran out of test. reporter: holiday testing demand comes during one of the busiest travel times in the year and airlines canceling hundreds of flights due to staffing shortages. covid-19 cases across the country surge. the omicron variant is the most dominant strain. >> we are not shutting down. we are not cutting back. we will fight our way through this to new york city mayor bill de blasio felt the pressure and scale back the city's new year's eve celebration. hundreds of public schools will not immediately return to in person learning following the christmas break citing high community infection rates and in several universities including ucla, columbia and at duke will start their spring semester online. >> we are at a critical point and how well these measures are implemented by all of us caring for ourselves and for one another will largely determine the outcome of the coming weeks and months ahead. reporter: several large cities like dc and la are joining new york to implement proof of vaccination to enter certain businesses. this as president biden's vaccinate or test requirement for larger companies will face the supreme court a week from next friday. if it's upheld, osha would begin implementation at the january 10. >> we need to have the therapeutics, have the medicine, have the tests and better assess ability to vaccines and boosters moving forward. reporter: last week the fda cleared pfizer and merck antiviral covid-19 treatment. pfizer's medication was found to reduce hospitalization and death i up to 90%. mike. mike: alex, thanks. joining us now is dr. ashish jha, dean noted brown university school of public health. doctor, welcome back to it "fox news sunday". >> good morning. thanks for having me back. mike: doctor, according to white house public health officials omicron variant represent 73% of new cases and in some places in the nation 90%. however, in south africa where omicron was first detected a month ago they have begun to experience a surprising drop in new cases with the top infectious disease as scientists they are saying looking at preliminary data he expected quote every other country or almost every other to follow the same trajectory. dr. ashish jha, would you agree with that early assessment? >> yeah. early is right, we don't have a ton of data, but certainly south africa is a hopeful sign that this wave of infections is sweeping across america will rise very very quickly, but hopefully peak quickly and come down quickly as well and i think that's what most of us expect. obviously, we will have to see how it plays out. mike: dr. ashish jha, the antiviral drug developed by merck was approved thursday by federal regulators and found to cut the risk of hospitalization and death in high risk patients by 30%, but some experts fear it will fuel the rise of new variants or could cause mutations and people who take it is that a legitimate concern? >> you know it is a legitimate concern, mike that's why i'm not show -- so sure we want to use that. the pfizer pill is, i think, a much much better option and that will probably become the standard of care once it's more widely available. mike: earlier this week president biden had this to say about children in the school. >> covid-19 is a scary, but the science is clear , children are safe-- as safe in school as they are anyplace assuming the appropriate cautions have been taken mike: cdc is promoting its strategy test to stay, still more than 800 schools across the us unexpectedly closed this week according to rubio with more than 500 schools closed in the first week of january. dr. ashish jha, are we headed for full-scale remote learning and as a public health matter, closed versus stay open? >> this is unfortunate. here we are almost two years into the pandemic and we know how to keep schools open and safe. this really should not even be on the table and i'm disappointed to see this happening. we know that for kids being in school is the right thing for them, for their mental health, for their education and we have all sorts of tools to keep schools open, so i don't really understand why districts are doing this. i think we can keep schools open and we should absolutely keep schools open. mike: what about the other health concerns of shutting down schools in terms of school-aged children such as mental, emotional, physical and social health? >> absolutely. this is why i and i think many of us have said schools should absolutely be the last place to close in the first place to open. there could be times when you have such severe staffing shortages that it may be hard to keep schools going and that should be the only context i think at this point otherwise schools should absolutely be open for the reasons you outlined. mike: the white house wanted to make booster shots available to all adults eight months past their initial vaccine series beginning in september, but federal regulators and some outside scientist said there wasn't enough data to support that white of an authorization. you even went through your own evolution in thinking on this recommendation. in the end, it was four months before all adults were eligible. in light of this, in this crucial time in getting in front of omicron, did the bureaucracy blow it? >> i do think it's a critical time and i think the bureaucracy closed-- slowed us down. my evolution was around late july, early august, i started to see compelling data that people needed that third shot so when president came out august 18, i think, and he said every adult should get one i agreed and then i think we spent three months fighting and going through a bureaucratic process and it slowed us down and it's one of the reasons why so few americans have gotten a booster particularly high risk people who absolutely needed. mike: on wednesday doctor wilensky repeated the cdc's recommendation that those that want to gather for holidays among other things get tested first. dr. ashish jha, there is a shortage of tests and testing, are the federal regulations coupled with vaccine mandates creating a run on supplies? >> yeah, this is a good question, mike. first of all, i agree with the doctor's recommendation that it is safe to get through the holiday season as opposed to last year because we have summing people vaccinated and boosted and if you are that's great. also, we really think-- i think people should get a test before they get together especially with high risk people. unfortunately, we have plenty vaccine supply and that's not a problem, but we do not have enough tests. this is something we should have been on top of it for months and i'm disappointed this is where we are as a country right now and i hope in january we will see more testing available, but it would've helped over the holiday season. mike: the bottom line criticism, the biden administration handling of cobit is that they have been reactionary to developments, not aggressive enough. in an interview this week with abc news president biden defended recent comments by the vice president who said we didn't see delta coming. i think most scientists did not upon whose advice and direction we have relied and did not see delta coming. the president said of omicron, how did we get it wrong, no one saw it coming, no one in the world who saw it coming, but here is how others characterized it. >> i believe the vice president was referring to the fact that if you look at the number of mutations in omicron, it's unprecedented ischemic increase of omicron proportion is what we anticipated and what we have been preparing for. mike: dr. ashish jha, does it appear administration officials were taken by surprise and what else accounts for the challenges we have seen in recent weeks to address the omicron surge? >> so, i think there are parts of the administration that have gotten it right. the push on boosters, availability of vaccines has all been terrific and even now you can glad get a vaccine tomorrow and there's plenty of supply. i think both on omicron and delta, the administration did not do enough to get ready with testing and through communication so the two places where i would say the administration needs to do a better job communicating with the american people and certainly making testing more widely available. that's not happened as much as it needs to and i'm hoping that this time around the president's promise of 500 million tests widely available in january that finally we can get that issue under control. mike: dr. ashish jha, israel is rolling out its fourth shot with one of its public health officials saying while they don't have all the data on the level of immunity, they don't think they can afford to wait. this comes as pfizer ceo said earlier this month that people might need a fourth shot sooner than expected. dr. ashish jha should people here in the us anticipate another round of shots will be needed and is our health system prepared to make that happen? >> if we need it i think our health system is prepared, but let's talk about if we needed a war not end at this moment based on the data i'd seen i'm skeptical we need a fourth shot. part of the question is what are we trying to do? are we trying to block every single infection? maybe that is our goal and if that's our goal then maybe we need a fourth shot or are we trying to prevent serious illness and death which i think should be the primary goal so i'm pretty unconvinced at this moment that we need a fourth shot. if we do, our system can handle it, but let's get more data before we even really start to seriously think about it. mike: asked again this week whether cdc is considering revising its definition of fully vaccinated, director wilensky said the agency is looking at that now. from your perspective and public health, is this going to be a necessary and inevitable revision? >> i do think we will end up there. look, we have lots of vaccines that are three shot series, polio is a four shot series so i don't think the idea of a three shot covid vaccine series, to be fully vaccinated, is either unprecedented or unusual. "my take" is that it's probably where the science has landed us-- actually that's where the science is landing and i think in the upcoming weeks or months the cdc will revise it to say fully vaccinated at three shot. mike: as the supreme court hears arguments soon over the presidents vaccine requirements wearing costs, benefits to the economy and the workforce already, is it changing the fully vaccinated definition the right thing to do? >> well, certainly if we change it, and the cdc changes it, then it will put pressure on businesses, on universities that have required fully vaccinated people to then update it to include boosters. i think it's starting to happen. i see a lot of businesses requiring employees to get the booster so i don't know how much of an impact it will make. it will have some impact and we will see where it plays out. mike: thanks very much. dr. ashish jha, happy holidays. cap next the president's agenda faces a critical reckoning in the new year with potential consequences for the senate and the courts. we will discuss with democratic senator bennett cardin next. ok, let's talk about those changes to your financial plan. bill, mary? 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>> well, mike, not only did the majority leader send a letter out, we also had a caucus this past week and there is unanimity in our caucus that we want to get to the president and we are working to see what the bill will contain. president biden's directly involved in these negotiations. we need to deal with the affordability of childcare because it affects our workforce and having workers available for our economy. you got to deal with the cost of higher education. we know working families have tax issues. we have to extend certain tax provisions to help working families and families with children. there are things that need to get done that shouldn't be partisan. we should be able to get these issues worked out. we are prepared to move we just need to make sure we have unanimity in our caucus and that's what we are working on and we will start on that next week when we returned. >> to your point are democrats looking to scaling it back more or passing standalone's that may attract senator mansion or even some gop on some of the issues? >> that's a strategy decision that's negotiated. we are open to reach the finish line and we want to make it as comprehensive as possible because the needs are just there and we recognize families need help that when affordability and that's what this is about, making our economy affordable for families and it will be fully paid for. that's very clear. we understand the risk of inflation and we are committed to making sure that we really offset all expenses, so i think with those parameters we want to see this comprehensive as possible, but we need to make sure we have the votes to pass it and that means it will be different than some of us would like to see. mike: does scaling back the bill to win over moderates risk losing progressives in both the senate and the house? >> we have to find that sweet spot and i think as long as everyone is at the table as we negotiate with president biden as he's always included all parts of our caucus in these discussions, i think we can reach this sweet spot. a lot of us will be disappointed. we won't let perfection be the enemy of getting something done. we need to get something done. i think we will be pragmatic, but we want to make sure it deals with the issues we are facing in our communities. mike: president biden said in an interview with abc news this week quote the only thing standing between getting voting right legislation passed and not getting past is the filibuster i support making an exception on voting rights of the filibuster majority leader chuck schumer said the senate would quote consider changes to any rules which prevent us from debating and reaching final conclusion on important legislation. senator, you have said in the past you'd be open to eliminating that, but because the votes that do that don't exist you would like to see bipartisan buy into reforming the rules. what's your position now >> might, i have been in the senate for 15 years of what i would like to see is a return to the senate was operating when i first came to the united states senate and that is allow issues to come to the floor of the senate so we can debate. that would be the greatest debating institution in the world. we need to be able to debate issues, but we also need to make sure that the minority have an opportunity to offer amendments and get votes on their amendments and at the end of the day we should be voting up or down a legislation. that's what we need to do is to reform the senate rules so that it acts in its her jewish-- traditional set we are doing that today. i do hope we have republicans join us in this effort so the senate can restore the way that it should be considering legislation. mike: of course, some folks favor changing the rules when they are in the majority and then when they get to be in the minority they don't care for it so much; right? >> mike, i've been working in the majority and minority with senators from both sides and we recognize that the senate is broken as far as the way it operates and we have to fix that and yes, voting rights is a good example. there is no reason why we shouldn't be debating this issue on the floor the united states senate. it's a tough issue and it needs to debate the united states senate and we should be voting on amendments and we should allow the majority to rule on these votes on amendments. let's have a real debate and let the senate carry out the historic role, so i felt this way when we were in the minority when i could not offer amendments and i feel this way and the majority when we can't get votes up or down. let's listen to each other and fix the senate and take-up issues such as voting rights. mike: in that letter to colleagues this week senator schumer seemingly took a shot at senator joe manchin stating every senator would have the quote opportunity to make their position known on the senate floor, not just on television. here's a joe manchin from an interview he did this week. >> i'm from west virginia. , not from where they are from and they can just beat the living crap out of people and think they will be submissive. mike: senator, he's an elected official from the state of west virginia, one of the reddest states in recent years and he's been in the u.s. senate since 2010 and then prior to that served as governor. is it possibly has a point that some policies and build back better just don't rate with his estate? >> and he is certainly expressed himself and he is asking for a vote in the united states senate. he's asking for us to take the issue up and vote on it so we all have our own constituents and at the end of the day i think senator joe manchin understands the importance of getting legislation to the president to deal with the issues and build back better. he doesn't agree with all of them, so let's sit down and find that area where we can all come together for the sake of our country and all of our states including west virginia, maryland, the citizens will benefit from that. mike: charles lane who is part of our panel this week wrote for the "washington post" sort of all politics is local peace regarding senator joe manchin's announcement that he can't support build back better basically pointing out there are parts of the legislation that may benefit other parts of the country, but what is in it for west virginia and then adds at time joe manchin's motivation for resisting bbb have been portrayed as a mystery. the real mystery is why the white house and senate majority leader charles e schumer but their political future and getting joe manchin the to vote for a bill such as this one. is it possible west virginia is quite different from new york, california or even maryland? >> each state has unique issues. i represent the people of maryland and i can tell you chesapeake bay is important to our state. i think it's important to the entire country. i'm sure joe manchin has issues in west virginia that he wants to see us pay attention to in washington. that's what our job is. our job is to represent the people of our stay, but also to represent our nation and i think we can come together on this. affordable childcare is in every one of our 50 states has issues where parents have a hard time dealing with the cost of childcare and preventing some people from entering the workforce. every state has a challenge with the cost of higher education we need to deal with this as a nation. these are international issues that affect all states, so i hope we can find a spot. there are certain issues more important to some parts of our country than others, but that's what the senate is about. let's find that common spot that can help all of our states and help our country. mike: leader schumer may have been referring to senator joe manchin's letter, but senator what about the other democratic members who are up for reelection in 2022 who represent states who have competitive races, moderate politics, new hampshire, catherine cortez of nevada, mark kelly of arizona for example. is it possible joe manchin is taking the heat for a number of your moderate colleagues >> i can tell you that everyone of my colleagues in the senate have strong views into one needs to be and build back better and they express themselves on these views. at the end of the day, we think the american people want to see the united states senate act on these issues. they recognize we have challenges. they want to make sure it's fully paid for and we want to make sure it's fully paid for. we want to make sure we deal with core issues, so we-- whether it's on the ballot this cycle or not it's in our political interest as well as the policies of the country to get this right, so to me the worst outcome is in action and getting nothing done. we got to get something done. mike: several prominent republicans including minority leader mitch mcconnell and senator john cornyn of texas have been openly recruiting joe manchin to switch parties. joe manchin has said he hopes there's still room for him in the democratic party. senator, is there still room for joe manchin and other senators that represent states they may not support some progressive policies on that bill? >> absolutely. the democratic party is proud of having a broad tent as we say it, we have people of different views and local, gives senator schumer credit, we have a 50/50 senate as you know and we have been able to keep unity among all 50 senators. we were able to pass the american rescue plan, we dealt with the borrowing -- a debt cap in our country and we were able to get a lot of things done. there's absolutely room in our party for joe manchin and elizabeth warren and everyone in between with different views, bernie sanders, we are very proud of our caucus and the fact that we have diversity in our caucus and joe manchin is very much welcome in the democratic party. mike: thank you, senator. we appreciate you making time for us today. up next, we are joined by senator roy blunt for republicans reaction to the future of build back better and the state of the gop. as a professional bull-rider i'm used to taking chances. but when it comes to my insurance i don't. i use liberty mutual, they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. wooo, yeaa, woooooo and, by switching you could even save 665 dollars. hey tex, can someone else get a turn? yeah, hang on, i'm about to break my own record. yeah. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. ♪ test. mike: much of the focus of build back better derailment has been on senator joe manchin and democratic leader chuck schumer took aim at senate republicans for congressional gridlock. joining us now senator roy blunt of missouri, member of gop leadership. senator, welcome back to "fox news sunday" schema good to be with you, mike. mike: senator blunt, your democratic colleague joe manchin sunk the build back better bill this week, but that overlooks the 50 gop senators were no votes as well. here's president biden tuesday making an impassioned plea on behalf of a families he says would benefit from passing legislation. >> imagine being a parent looking at a child, can afford, you have no house to borrow against, you have no savings, it's wrong. mike: how do you respond to the criticism from the president? >> well, i think the biggest challenge families are facing right now is that inflation. inflation numbers as high as they have been in for decades. they impact families at the grocery store, at the gasoline pump when they pay their home heating bills. putting more money into the economy at a time when the economy is already overheated, i think, is a bad idea and obviously we want to get people back to work. there are jobs available. people are trying to get people to come and work with them and make the country function economically. we can't solve every problem by just dropping money on top of more money. i thought the congress made a big mistake in the administration made a big mistake right out-of-the-box in march of this year by deciding after five bipartisan bills to fight back covid and what covid could do to our economy. democrats all on their room decide we are going to spend another $1.9 trillion in what they call the american rescue plan in an economy that frankly mike, clearly at that point didn't need to be rescued. there were things that needed to be done, but just sending another $1.9 trillion in has created a big problem. i think another $2 trillion in build back better idea will also create a big problem and families are suffering whether the administration and democrats in the congress wanted to admit that or not. this is not a transitory problem. it's a real problem. this is no time to make that problem worse. mike: senator, one of the casualties of the collapse of that bill is that enhanced a child tax credit which expires at the end of the year. according to the urban institute, continued the benefit could have a significant impact on child poverty, reducing child poverty to about 8.4% from 14.2%, if all of roughly 4%. is that a compelling argument to extended? >> well, i think this is one of the problems in one of the gimmicks in the bill, frankly. we have doubled the child tax credit in the 2017 tax bill. there is a cap on that credit based on income. senator manchin has repeatedly said one of the problems he has with the bill is that sending money to every family that house children under 18, the families that make-- every family that makes up to 150,000 in many families that make up to $400,000, if you look at the house plan just simply doesn't make sense. putting a cap on families in need is what we can do, should do and would do in the country and i think should do in a bipartisan way. again, we doubled the child tax credit just a handful of years ago and we need to look at that and need to move kids out of poverty, but families that make $150,000, for instance, aren't in poverty in missouri and i don't think they are in poverty almost anywhere in the united states and it's a big mistake to assume they are. mike: another argument being made for the enhanced child tax credit is that it would bolster financial security and spur economic growth in missouri by reducing taxes on the middle class and those of striving to break into it. how do you respond? >> well, if you look at the bill back better plan, the second-biggest is pending in the plan is eliminating the tax deduction that almost totally benefits the richest americans, $230 billion going to restore the tax deductibility of all your state and local taxes. there's already a $10000 the duct ability for every family. what we see with the child tax credit is a great example of what democrats want to do with this entire bill. they started the child tax credit at this level in march and now here we are six months, eight months later and they are saying we can't stop that program. the program we just started and that's exactly the kind of gimmicks that the build back better or as some of my friends call it the build back broker pocket-- package does. they assume once you start all of these programs you will never be willing to stop them. so, you have $1.7 trillion of spending paid for over 10 years, but most of that money is spent in the first three or four years in the child tax credit would be another example, let's extend it for a year and we will have exactly the same argument again next year. and how are we going to extend this 500 billion-dollar program for the second year even though supposedly we are going into a program that's fully paid for and those are the kind of gimmicks joe manchin and every republican in the senate were offended by an americans are going to be offended by them also if they ever have a chance to hear that bill debated as we are now debating it publicly, once we see the specifics of the bill. mike: senator, democrats expressed interest on moving forward for a vote on bill back better and if democrats scale back the bill at some point even more or to break out some provisions and try to pass them as standalone's, are there any parts of build back better you could see republicans potentially supporting? >> well, i'm sure there would have to be. we have never really seen bill back better, but with a bill that over 10 years if you extend all the programs would spend $4.9 trillion, surely there's something in there that i would be for. the senator and i have worked for years to try to see that we treat mental health like all other and that's a relatively small item in this bill. i think it's in there, but that's an item if we put on the floor by itself republicans and democrats would vote for. i think if we extended this program, expanded it a couple times since we first were able to get it passed in 2015. of course, there are things in there you could be for, but i don't see how anyone could in good conscience support a bill that if you take all of the gimmicks out of the bill you will be putting another $5 trillion into the economy over a decade and an awful lot of that goes into the economy immediately. 6.8% inflation could become something bigger than that and 6.8% is way bigger than we can handle right now. mike: senator, you are retiring after 24 years of service of the us house in the u.s. senate and the new senior senator from the jury will-- missouri will be josh holly and u2 have diversion in everything from certification of the 2020 election to legislation recently passed by the senate. senator, does this reflect an ideological shift and some of the biggest issues that is good for the gop? >> well, i think that when you look at the future of our party, the future of our party is to focus on the things that we have done well in recent years. obviously, border security, regulatory policy, tax policy would be at the top of that list and once again our friends the democrats are helping americans figure out the difference in us and them, what we were doing in the previous four years with producing great economic results. even the battle against covid produced five major bipartisan bills. i think the way voters reacted just last month in the election in new jersey and virginia show that there is a real resurgence of people rethinking the difference in the two parties and i think the republican party is going to be-- do very well in that discussion in that debate and those elections next year. mike: one of your colleagues, the number two republican in the senate is weighing a retirement announcement. senator richard shelby of alabama, rob portman of ohio plus richard burr and pat to me in the swing states of north carolina and pennsylvania are leaving already and of course you. have you had any conversations with senator thune and second are you concerned any hopes of future i parse in moments in the u.s. senate will leave with you all? >> well, i think the country is resilient and strong and understands the importance of finding solutions. senator thune and i came to congress 25 years ago. we are close friends and we worked together in senate leadership certainly, the country will benefit if he decides to stay. this is just a decision that he has to make. certainly, in my case it seemed to me that time to bring this chapter to a close and i'm looking forward to what we are going to be doing next year. then cardin and i are working on a couple major issues, mental health issue i mentioned earlier what we could do to put more health research and what did we learn from covid, what do we need to do to enhance testing. i think it's going to be a great opportunity for the congress, certainly i hope senator thune continues to be an important leader in our country and i look forward to working with him between now and the end of next year. mike: senator blunt, thank you. always good to speak with you. >> thank you. mike: up next we bring an arsenic group to discuss out president biden did on covid and other areas when-- one year in. ♪♪ ♪♪ the history she writes in her clear blue skies. the legends she births on hometown fields. and the future she promises. when we made grand wagoneer, proudly assembled in america, we knew no object would ever rank with the best things in this country. but we believed we could make something worthy of their spirit. ♪♪♪ my name is austin james. as a musician living with diabetes, fingersticks can be a real challenge. that's why i use the freestyle libre 2 system. with a painless, one-second scan i know my glucose numbers without fingersticks. now i'm managing my diabetes better and i've lowered my a1c from 8.2 to 6.7. take the mystery out of managing your diabetes and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free at freestylelibre.us earn about covid-19,w. the more questions we have. the biggest question now, what's next? what will covid bring in six months, a year? if you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. calhope offers free covid-19 emotional support. call 833-317-4673, or live chat at calhope.org today. >> after 10 months on the pandemic we still don't have enough testing. it's a travesty. >> what your message to americans who are trying to get tested now and aren't able to get tested and they are wondering what took so long to wrap up testing? >> what happened was the omicron virus spread more rapidly than anybody thought. mike: that was then president-elect biden a year ago on his predecessors pandemic response and then this past week defending his administration's actions and it's time now, for sunday group former republican congressman jason chaffetz, katherine lucy who covers white house for the "wall street journal" and charles lane from the "washington post". welcome to all of you. >> thank you. mike: i want to start by taking stock and the president's first year in office. catherine, mr. biden ran as a dealbreaker who read renewed confidence that government can do big things, but here we are heading into year two with the government struggling to ensure americans have key supplies like testing and now therapeutics and the president is again pressing hard for vaccinations. give us a sense of this covid scorecard on task dick-- tactics and messaging. >> that's right, mike. i think the public is getting a mixed review right now on covid and i think we see that in the polls with frustration around where things stand and i think we have to think about this that the president ran as someone who was in control and this summer he said the country would declare independence from the virus and and then we had dealt and now he's dealing with the challenges of omicron and you really seen them play out holiday season with long lines at testing centers and travel has been snarled. this isn't the festive moment the president was hoping for and what you hear from the white house is a sort of a mixed response here. they are trying to explain what they are doing in terms of efforts to ramp up access to testing and support for hospitals, but they are also trying to argue the countries in a different place now than it was a year ago and that's-- you know there's more people vaccinated in vaccines are widely available, boosters are available, new therapeutics are being made so they are trying to walk that line, but heading into 22 and a top position and facing tough questions as you noted in particular about the testing shortage. mike: jason, we saw helpful from the kaiser family foundation that gives us an early sense of how vaccinated and unvaccinated adults in the us feel about the risks from omicron, 54% of vaccinated adults say omicron makes them more likely to get a booster, but only 12% of unvaccinated adults say omicron makes them more likely to get vaccinated and we also saw former president trump take credit publicly for the vaccine. my question, jason, is there anything the white house or former president trump could say to encourage unvaccinated adults to consider getting a shot? >> well, they have tried just about everything including giving payments to people and other types of assessments. but, i think joe biden is in a very tough spot with kamala harris because i think their plan is failing. they essentially tried to declare victory back in july. i happen to have-- i've been vaccinated, i've had the booster and nine encourage other people to get it, but what really rubbed people wrong, i think, are the mandates, forcing people to do it, saying getting an injection is something you have to have in terms of getting -- going into a restaurant, to having to show your paper. there's a lot of people that believe in the vaccine. they just don't believe in the mandate, and i think politically the president is taking a lot of steps backwards. the other thing is i do think america thinks they need a second opinion. i'm shocked that president biden still has dr. fauci and other mouthpieces out there in front. i think he would do the country a great favor by putting in new fresh face out there getting rid of dr. fauci because there's millions of people that flat out don't believe him. mike: chuck, we will see another key test when the supreme court hears oral arguments over the vaccine mandates. the mandate for large businesses and the mandate for healthcare workers. the white house says it's confident it has legal justification for its policies, but you cover the court, how do you see it playing out? >> i think they have a problem, which is that they have six conservative justices on the court who are known to be skeptical of government regulation in general and the kind of intending weighted linkage to a statute that this mandate rests on, even by the admission of those who supported who just feel it is sort of falls under a category of an older statute that didn't require a new congressional enactment. i don't know how this would play into the core, but i think it's an interesting tracker to the ground has shifted under the mandate since it was proposed. now as your previous guest suggested, fully vaccinated naming three shots whereas when they proposed it it meant to shots and that sort of changes the whole atmosphere around the mandate. mike: jason, we saw a major setback last week on the presidents build back better agenda. as you know west virginia democrat joe manchin told us on this program last sunday that he didn't think he could get to yes, we saw the public reaction from lawmakers. you were a member of congress. how big a blow is this to the president's first year? >> it's pretty shocking. i think the democrats acted as if they had some major mandate. they didn't. i think the expectation and the promise of joe biden and kamala harris is that they were united as a new how to bring people together, but they didn't even attempt to get joe manchin behind this. i think coming around valentine's day somewhere around the state of the union i think they will come back with a smaller package, one that's more palatable and they will pass something. it's a suit too good of a tool to pass up, but i think they overreached, they assumed it too much, they went much more progressive and i don't think there's much of a place or person like joe manchin, the old blue dog democrats are gone, they are extinct and there's no room for them in the democratic party of today. mike: catherine, your reaction on the setback to the agenda? >> certainly it's not what the white house expected a week ago on this show. they were taken aback. they were very frustrated, but you have also heard their tone in the past couple of days. they are arguing that they think they can find a way forward. the president has been careful in his remarks about senator manchin specifically. they think they can reopen negotiations, so i think as jason said there will be enough or in the new year to see what they can come to and then as we have all discussed the question becomes trying to do less things with more time, try to scale back, what kind of paper are they looking for, how did they do something that is smaller and more palatable? mike: a look ahead to the new year with our panels 2022 predictions. >> were back with her sunday group for lookahead of what to want to 2022. we just pick to the president republican scorecard from 2021 we want to go around the horn with her group to see as major items you think will be back here discussing at the end of 2022 what are the major political themes in the coming year, jason let's start with you. >> i think security is going to be near the top of the agenda, security in your house and security on the border and security in your hometown, security in the big cities and certainly security around the world because joe biden has a full plate going into 2022, i think privacy will be a major theme and issue that you need to show papers in this country in order to go into a restaurant, those types of things will be near the top of the agenda and certainly immigration is an underplayed story. >> catherine europe. >> president biden ran the academy in covid under control back on track and i think those will remain the fighting issues especially into midterm if people feel more confident on both of those areas. the other thing i will be watching closely that you mentioned early in the show schools of 2020 more bribery spread to virtual learning, we've seen a lot of free impaired frustration over that, that played out the virginia governor's race and that's another thing to keep a close eye on. maria: check, your turn. >> 's is a prediction we will be back here talking about donald trump in a year, his shadows continues to lie over the whole political system and the whole political future of the republican party especially republican primaries coming up next year were his candidates will be on the ballot and will test his influence, the whole issue of support and loyalty for his view, false view that the election was stolen will continue to be a story, he is man in the news. >> sunday shows are reacting to the news but i want to give each of you a moment to tell us which stories do you think are under covered right now but have the potential to shape the dynamic heading into the midterms. >> again schools are real thing that could end parents and help parents are feeling about these issues and the blowback better plan, childcare and working parents getting back to work. we seen a lot of frustration over access to childcare and support families during the pandemic. do those remain top of mind for families? >> i know about appearance very nervous ian schools closing down going back to virtual. chuck, your turn? >> i think foreign policy of president stalls out in the domestic agenda, foreign even start to take over in the issue of europe, the stability of ukraine and the possibility of war between russia and an invasion of ukraine by russia is already under covered in it could be a huge story next year. >> jason bring us home. >> last week the secret service said 100 plus billion dollars was scammed and a lot of the payments going out there is a lot of scandals going across his administration and i think there will be a lot of surprise issues in their underway right now, look out i think they are coming. >> thank you very much wishing you happy new year. hanna will see you next sunday. thank you for joining us, have a great week. i will see you tomorrow for fox news at night on the mighty fox news channel and will see you back here next "fox news sunday". ♪ orrow morning bright and early at 4:00 a.m. go have a great sunday, everyone. ♪ ♪ ♪ merry christmas, everyone. welcome, i am larry filling in for maria. it has not been a great year for our country. save america and kill the bill is one of the greater things that happened. i'm an optimist and i believe it's conservative values will defeat joe biden's transformational drive. in just moments we are going