freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect. the covid-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms. there is no military exclusion from our constitution. the ruling temporarily blocks the pentagon from punishing navy seals who refuse the vaccine. pentagon spokesman john kirby said tonight that defense officials are aware of this injunction and they are reviewing it. this comes as the omicron search now threatens classroom shutdowns across the country once again. if the struggle to get kids back in school is lighting up parents, but some teachers unions are pushing to start the new year remotely. president biden is back from his delaware holiday, returning to a very snowy d.c. monday attic covid testing crisis speaking just as americans need to get back to work. biden is expected to make briefer marks tomorrow about the pandemic. we begin with the changing federal response to omicron, including mixed messaging on quarantines and a push for boosters for kids. let's bring a correspondent dan springer, he joins us from seattle with the details. good evening, dan. >> hi, gillian, covid-19 cases are surging across the country as infections are hitting all-time highs in the cdc doesn't even have the most up-to-date numbers because for three days over the holiday weekend, there wasn't apparently anybody in the massive agency to update the covid tracker. still the worst is expected in the next few weeks. covid-19 cases led by the omicron variant have soared to new records in the u.s. on december 29th, there were more than 450,000 new infections reported. many areas in the midwest and northeast are seeing positive test rates of 20%. in detroit last week, a record 36% of the tests came back positive when these numbers don't include all the people that use home test kits. it has health officials, who predicted even higher surge in january, worried they are running out of hospital beds even though they knew variant typically results in less serious illness. >> i think what we had to think about more is having a virus that is going to be and, we're going to have to be regularly ready to deal with it and to be able to manage it just like we do with the weather. >> an even bigger problem than the virus right now is the nationwide hospital staffing shortage. there's also fallout from the fda decision today to approve booster shots for children as young as 12 years old. the move was made without any input from a panel of vaccine advisors, leading critics to attack the biden administration are not following normal scientific protocols on vaccines. >> we don't have enough tests to be testing, everybody and look at where they are directing tests to schools. the lowest risk population on earth. >> a tweet directly naming president biden saying approving the booster for young kids is a slap in the face to science and undermines the integrity of the fda standard process. gillian. >> gillian: dan springer in seattle, thank you. abide no administration is facing a covid testing shortage now just as millions of americans are returning to work after the holiday and millions of kids are getting back to class. here's white house correspondent jacqui heinrich. >> unclear whether president biden thinks the revised cdc quarantine guidance should have included a testing component. >> i will be talk about that later. >> after his two top public health officials make conflicting statements about whether it's necessary. >> pcr test after infection can be positive for up to 12 weeks. so that is not going to be helpful. if you got a rapid test at five days and it was negative, we weren't convinced that you weren't still transmissible. >> why not test people at that time? i myself feel that that's a reasonable thing to do. >> now the administration is floating more possible policy changes in response to public pressure. >> there has been some concerns about why we don't ask people at that five-day period to get tested. that is something that is now under consideration. the cdc is very well aware that there has been some pushback about that. >> and then there's the question of how to require testing when tests are so hard to find and the 500 million promised by the biden a administration are no closer to reaching americans' door straps with the contract to buy them still in the works and the website to order them not yet set up. as the demand for tests builds, many school districts are requiring students and staff to test negative before returning to class, some opting to go virtual in the meantime, something education secretary miguel cardona wants to avoid. >> the goal is full-time in person learning for students because they've suffered enough. >> teachers unions say not until the current wave of debates. some saying returning kids to school will worsen the crisis and is chicago's teachers union saying its members will only do remote work until there can safety -- safety concerns are met. >> probing the biden demonstration tonight about why there is such a dire testing shortage despite congress having allocated more than $80 billion over the last two years to expand testing. senators burr and blunt wrote to hhs secretary how they are becerra demanding answers. at the white house, jacqui heinrich, fox news. >> gillian: the new york city health department says it will consider race as a risk factor now in prioritizing treatment for covid. correspondent lauren green has the details tonight from new york city. good evening. >> good evening, gillian. the battle against covid has proven to be an uphill fight as new york's health department is prioritizing treatment for those at higher risk and will consider race a risk factor. if medical treatments and drugs become limited, the department of health s issued guidelines for who should step to the front of the line. along with the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, race will also be considered. nonwhite race or hispanic latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor as long-standing systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from covid-19. so far there's no indication of the new guidance has increased secluded anyone from getting treatment but critics accuse state officials of playing racial politics with the public of austria's health. meanwhile, the new year also ushered in a new record of covid cases as new york shattered its one-day record with more than 85,000 reported on saturday alone. the surge has had a ripple effect is both the new york police and fire departments are seeing major staffing shortages due to the covid rise. 21% of police were out last thursday. the city deployed 100 new emt workers to shore up the deficit and new york's transit was also impacted, staffing shortages forced the city to suspend some subway lines and reroute others. big apple's new mayor has vowed to keep the schools open as well as keep the city running. in his inaugural address, eric adams assured that the city will not cower. >> we face our fears and we start a new comic confident a crisis will not define us. >> tonight new york could be facing another test as a snow storm the city. covid-related staffing shortages could have snow removal -- hamper snow removal and cripple emergency services. >> gillian: lauren green in new york, thank you. holiday travel chaos that hit coast-to-coast is showing no signs of letting up tonight. the holiday nightmare at america's airports is bleeding into the new year and now for the second day in a row, over 2700 domestic flights were canceled. also feeling the turmoil, severe winter weather. a senior national correspondent rich edson reports live from reagan national airport in arlington. good evening, rich. >> 85% of the flights scheduled from reagan national airport today never left. it was a mess even getting to the airport, this heavy wet snow smothered roads in the d.c. area, closing schools, businesses, and government offices. red flight boards greeted hopeful travelers here at nashville airport, many left without boarding a flight, costing them more time and money. >> this is more money being spent, more unnecessary money and it's just -- it's a lot. it's a lot going on. people have confusion over here, workers, they don't know what to do. and it's not their fault. i mean, you can't control how the weather is going to be. just wish they could be more prepared for stuff like this. >> it's impossible to get a taxi on there, on the city. i waited like one hour and day were giving information but it never came. >> it was supposed to land in palm springs but i'm going to san francisco. >> that's like a six-hour drive, right? >> i believe eight hours. >> she said she never got a refund for that first flight. she booked another and hopes to be at least on the correct coast within the next day. this is on top of backed up flight schedules from holiday travel, earlier storms out west, and covid infections hitting workers and airlines. the ap reports united is offering pilots triple or more of their wages to pick up open flights through this month. if spirit is paying its flight attendants double through tuesday. here in washington, a tradition, snow state natives rip on the capital city's cold-weather preparedness. >> the slope will be slippery and probably they should have gotten some towels out. maybe now they will. >> despite the omicron surge, d.c. closed its in person covid testing because of the snow. some school district's are already canceling in person classes tomorrow, and there's more snow in the forecast thursday. at reagan national airport, richardson, fox news. >> gillian: as we begin now the third year in the grip of the pandemic, there's plenty of medical and legal angles to tackle and tonight let's bring in the panel. we've got cal berkeley law professor john you and immunologist, -- thank you to you both. doctor, let's go to you first. i want to talk about schools and testing. a lot of public health officials now including dr. mcgarry are saying this universal testing for schoolkids is becoming wasteful, that essentially we are using a whole lot of tests, tens of millions of tests, on a low risk population that really could be better serving high-risk populations like the elderly or the immunocompromised. what do you think? >> well, in general i agree. i think that these tests unfortunately are very volatile and what i mean by that is you know, you can take a test one minute and the next minute you can sort of acquire an infection from wherever you are. i think in general it's a good idea to actually limit this high-risk population and people who are actually some dramatic so that we can actually quarantine people appropriately. i do think that there's a large waste going on frankly, and the disparity between the screening test for the actual virus versus screening for immunity is quite massive. think we get a lot more bang for our buck if we were screening for immunity as opposed to the virus itself. >> gillian: also on schoolkids, john, this breaking. a group of 11 new york city schoolteachers are suing new york. they're asking the judge for a restraining order against in person learning for at least the next two weeks. what you make of that? >> that sounds like a publicity stunt without a whole lot of chance of success. it's one thing i think to challenge the federal government's vaccine mandate, which may well lie out the powers of the national government but no one questions that state and city governments have the authority under the constitution to decide whether there should be vaccine mandates, whether teachers and people should be going back to work or not, and the conditions of that work. i don't see what legal right teachers have to not do their jobs, to not be in the presence of students unless they are -- it just doesn't sound like it has much legal plausibility, and it shows. in fact i think the real problem with sending kids back to school has not been the children of the parents, it's been the teachers unions. >> gillian: john, you mention to the federal mandate, the bite administration is taking this to the supreme court on friday. you said you think they've got a losing case. lay that out for us. >> yes, i think it's actually very much a rerun of what we saw earlier this fall when the supreme court struck down the biden administration's effort to ban all landlord-tenant evictions. similarly here, the buy demonstration is taking the law, the occupational safety health act, which is supposed to prevent workers from coming into can't tact with toxic substances claiming that covert virus is a toxic substance and requiring almost all -- two-thirds of employees to have to get a vaccine. i think this is not a plausible reading of the statute but it's also outside the powers of the national government, which are limited and don't include the power of public health. >> gillian: interesting. doctor, you've got to -- and be in your bonnet about booster mandates for college age kids. i want to pull this up on screen so our viewers can read it. it's a petition for nearly 200 boston college faculty staff and students. there has been a booster mandate put into effect there and they oppose it. they say we have very serious safety concerns. it's clear the college administration hasn't exercised sufficient circumspection and creating clearly delineated, medically rational off ramps from the booster mandates. it is a serious problem that a medically unnecessary third booster shot can prove dangerous and irreparably harmful and such already well immune individuals. talk to us about this. >> that's right. so look, i think that unfortunately many colleges and universities are between a rock and a hard place. first of all, they are starting with very poor guidance from the federal public health agencies in terms of how to handle the booster mandate, so most of them are coming up with these blanket one-size-fits-all mandates in the setting frankly where not only is the risk of omicron infection relatively low in younger people already been mandated vaccinations, so for example at boston college they have some work upwards of 95% mandated vaccinations for the kids have gotten two shots already. many of these kids have actually had prior infections, so by definition of dr. fauci himself, these kids have hybrid immunity and are bulletproof, so now they are being mandated to get a third shot. there's really no rationale, no medical rational to get these very well immune people to get mandated booster shots on top of it. in addition, there's a category of students who have been evaluated by doctors and these people actually should have off ramps again from the mandate. also, there are kids who have been vaccinated relatively recently within the past six months in the bank it mandates being applied to them as well. so i really think there is room for circumspection here, and to allow administrators to essentially make medical decisions or, you know, underqualified physicians to be making his medical decisions i think is a real big mistake and i hope that some of the colleges like boston college and the others could actually step back a little bit and be a little more circumspect about this. this is a medical treatment, it's not -- it's not a sort of a perfectly safe medical treatment. no medical treatment is perfectly safe, so we can minimize harm by actually sticking with medical necessity. i think we should be doing this right now and we are not. >> gillian: we've got to leave it there. doctor, john, thank you so much for joining us tonight, happy new year to you as well. >> happy new year to you. >> happy new year. >> gillian: you bet. the founder and former ceo of the biotech company sarnoff is now facing up to 20 years in prison. elizabeth holmes has been found guilty of criminal fraud on 4 out of 11 total charges. senior correspondent has that story tonight. she's in san jose, california. good evening, claudia. >> jillian, this end of a verdict is a big win for the prosecution and came after the jury said it could not agree on three counts relating to whether elizabeth holmes intentionally defrauded three investors out of millions of dollars. but that still left eight counts left and that's where the jury was unanimous, handing down a verdict that was split down the middle. essentially convicting her on four counts of defrauding three other investors and finding her not guilty on four counts of defrauding patients about the effectiveness of her blood testing technology. the verdict came after seven days of jury deliberations and a 15 week trial that captivated silicon valley and beyond. the prosecution presented 29 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits, including recordings of homes herself clearly making false statements to investors and reporters saying her finger prick test could accurately perform an array of lab tests on just a few drops of blood i'm a which wasn't true. nor was her claim that those devices were being used by the military. testifying in her own defense, holmes admitted she made mistakes, but said she was protecting trade secrets and blamed older and more experienced colleagues for not being completely forthcoming with her about whether the company of festiva's blood reliable. after the verdict was read, she hoped her family but showed no emotion, it had nothing to say as she left the courthouse followed by a throng of reporters. she faces 20 years in prison, her conviction, plus potentially millions and finds restitution. the defense will appeal those four convictions and the government may retry homes on the three counts on which the jury deadlocked. but for now, she is expected to be sentenced in the next 90 days, possibly around the same time her ex-boyfriend, former coo and accused coconspirator, stands trial. unless he cuts a deal with the government, he faces the same fraud charges, the same prosecutors, the same judge, and the same evidence when his federal trial begins here in san jose next month. gillian. >> gillian: claudia, thank you. the justice department has a couple more months now to decide if they want to intervene in the controversial safe injection site debate. doj officials originally faced a wednesday deadline to weigh in about a case concerning the so-called safe house in philadelphia, but then late monday afternoon, that deadline was moved to march 7th. meanwhile, the site in question in philly is closed now as part of ongoing litigation. residents of boulder county colorado are now left with a trail of destruction left by this weekend's wildfires driven by intense winds. it leveled nearly a thousand homes and investigators and are looking into whether a burning shed seen the day fires began could be the cause. two people remained missing after one person was found on sunday. d.c.'s first snowfall of the year has washingtonians battling it out on the mall and then this, bring your dog to paddle boarding? we've got the day's best viral videos coming up next. ♪ ♪ ing up were cooking with mom. so when she moved in with us, a new kitchen became part of our financial plan. ♪ ♪ find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com new vicks convenience pack. ♪ ♪ dayquil severe for you... and daily vicks super c for me. vicks super c is a daily supplement with vitamin c and b vitamins to help energize and replenish. dayquil severe is a max strength daytime, coughing, power through your day, medicine. new from vicks. psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff,... ...swollen, painful. emerge tremfyant®. tremfya® is approved to help reduce joint symptoms in adults with active psoriatic arthritis. some patients even felt less fatigued. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if 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mall to launch snowballs at each other. this year's fight was appropriately dubbed battle of the snow-micron. that's rousing applause for nypd officer keith wagon houser as he exited new york-presbyterian hospital in very good health sunday. the officer was struck by a bullet while sleeping in his car during a shift change on new year's day. the 33-year-old required immediate surgery to remove fragmented bullets from his fractured skull and we here at fox news -- "fox news @ night" thank him for his service. now for something completely different. a rescue in italy, firefighters they're digging with their bare hands to save two dogs stuck in a fox done underground. if brigade crew is trained in animal rescue and they were able to successfully pull the pops to safety. lots of celebrations as americans rang in the new year. this may be one of the most unique ways. people in idaho dropping a potato, the tradition out of boise places a massive starch at the top of a crane and drops it as the clock strikes midnight. finally, we are leaving it with another dog story, but it's hard to resist watching. these paddle boarding -- tempe lake in arizona. the obedient dogs are sitting beside their owners enjoying an afternoon on the lake. if you have any videos you want to share, hit us up on social media. ♪ ♪ capitol police are facing major staffing challenges just days ahead of the one-year anniversary of the capitol riot and tonight a police union is taking aim at a short-term fix. congressional correspondent aishah hasnie is following that story from capitol hill. >> capitol police is down about 400 officers and tonight the police union taking aim at their short-term solution. of more than 130 officers quit or retired after january 6th and no new hires, because training academy was shut down for ten months due to covid. meanwhile, security threats at the capital skyrocketed from about 900 in 2016 to more than 9,000 by the end of 2021. that's why the department is now planning to hire private security contractors. >> we've identified posts where we believe we don't need sworn capitol police officers, typically secondary posts, posts that whether they are in a garage or something like that, where people have already been checked before they've gotten to that point. >> that is drawn criticism from the chair of the police union, who writes the last thing we need our private security contractors who are not trained to our standards. it's a recipe for disaster. the union also raising red flags about the fact that capitol police has only implement at about a quarter of the more than 100 recommendations the inspector general made to keep the ground safe. and the chief insists those operational and intelligence failures of january 6th have largely been addressed. in washington, aishah hasnie, fox news. of ♪ ♪ >> gillian: first up on tonight's where in the world, iran's president says he will seek revenge on the u.s. if former president donald trump doesn't face trial and execution for the assassination of top iranian general qassem soleimani two years ago today. the threat comes as iraqi security officials confirm two armed drones were shot down while heading towards an iraqi base hosting u.s. forces near the baghdad airport. yemen's rebels seizing a ship in the red sea they say carried military equipment. the saudi-led coalition fighting iran -- the ship carried medical equipment and accuses the rebels of "armed piracy." their civil war has now dragged on since 2014. another hong kong media organization, it's called citizen news, shut its doors just a few days after police raided the pro-democracy outlet stand news and arrested several of its employees, claiming they planned to publish seditious material. the closures come as hong kong increasingly cracks down on dissent. firefighters returned to south africa's parliament building in cape town after flames reignited the roof. the national assembly building suffered extensive damage sunday, one man was arrested at the scene. president biden was snowed in today on his return from holiday. also now trying to dig out his agenda from the ice over senate. is there any chance for a change in the political temperature in the near future? we will debate with the panel coming up next. ♪ ♪ in austin, texas. i work as a personal assistant to the owner of a large manufacturing firm. i've got anywhere from 10 to 50 projects going at any given time. i absolutely have to be sharp. let me tell ya, i was struggling with my memory. it was going downhill. my friend recommended that i try prevagen and over time, it made a very significant difference in my memory and in my cognitive ability. i started to feel a much better sense of well-being. 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what does it spell for the party? >> will certainly, gillian, the president has his plateful and he's going to speak on the variants tomorrow in terms of the covid crisis. going to give an update to the country, to your point, gillian, in terms of this testing situation, 500 million tests going out this month to americans. so certainly that is a key focus as he campaigned back in 2020 on ending the covid crisis. that's the number one priority for this it administration but certainly as you mentioned as well, inflation is certainly a key concern. he had a meeting today with some of the leading meat producers in the agriculture industry to talk about some of the rising costs around food and meat production in this country, so tackling these issues one by one had on with this president flying back from wilmington today, as you mentioned, gillian, to tackle all these issues. it's going to be a lot of things, like i said come on his plate, but he's up for it -- for all these tasks. >> gillian: we certainly hope so. horace, let's take a deeper look at spiking violent crime. i want to put up a map for you guys to take a look at. 17 cities in the united states set new homicide records this year. they are literally -- you can see the cities, they are literally spread out across the nation in all directions. coast-to-coast. some might argue that this is as big a threat to the nation as omicron itself right now. >> well, they would be right, actually. but let me just turn back just a little to the set appear about how the president is preparing for the new year. when you look at the various problems that our country faces, the first thing that comes to mind, and it's not just my take, it's the american people's take. president biden has made it worse. he's made inflation worse. he's made the supply chain problem worse. he has so bungled covid-19 management, he has made it worse, and now his justice department being much more interested in tracking parents who might be upset about crt in the classroom rather than focusing like a laser on shouting down the rising crime wave. he has made it worse, and this is a reckoning that the american people are going to bring forward as a response to him having made it worse. >> gillian: kevin, you can kind of agree or disagree that whether he's made it worse. i'm guessing you disagree, but -- >> i disagree, i disagree wholeheartedly -- >> gillian: out of these crises have abated over the last year and there are no signs they are going to get any better again before the midterms, which is liable to spell disaster for your people. >> well, let's tackle crime had on right now. we saw double-digit increases in the last year of the trump administration, a growing trend that is horrifying on our city streets. we saw just as many homicides as we did in chicago in the last year, 2020, of the trump administration. so crime has been on the rise i think directly as a result of the helplessness a lot of americans are feeling with the covid crisis. but the biden administration and department of justice just two months ago announced $140 million more to hire a thousand more cops on the streets, so oris is pointing at the by demonstration -- >> gillian: you and i both know that in the scope of the federal -- i just want to interrupt you because in the scope of the federal government, right, $140 million is nothing. i mean, it's like pennies. >> gillian, how about $350 billion to pass in the american rescue plan last january by this administration solely by democrats? direct aid to state and local governments. many of those governments are using that money to hire back police. they were let go during the covid crisis into bring on more cops, including republican governors that are doing just that, gillian. >> gillian: this is what kevin lays out, a case that actually jen psaki has tried to make from the podium, which is that democrats are the party of protecting police and shoring up police department's around the country. what do you say? >> we are. >> when you pull the rug out from under law enforcement, when you at every stage work to create a -- excuse me, a false narrative that it is law enforcement that's the threat in our community, not actually the criminals, we had mayhem occur in the last summer of the trump administration and i didn't see any progressives -- i didn't see any on the left stand up and say president trump, we will stand with you. if we need to bring in the national guard, if we need to bring in a task force of federal prosecutors, what they said instead was they are marching, they are peaceful or even mostly peaceful. all that happened was no support was allowed to shut this down in the last year and now it has metastasized. >> gillian: all right, take a quick listen to new york city's brand-new mayor eric adams. >> i don't subscribe to the belief of some that we could only have justice and not public safety. we will have them both. our police officers will be responsible, they will understand how to properly release our cities but we will also send a loud and clear message, you will not bring violence to this city. >> gillian: horace, just a couple seconds left but i wanted to play that clip because it follows on to a point you made a moment ago. is it really possible to do with this democratic mayor wants to do? justice and public safety, are they compatible agenda items? >> the drive by the left-wing for so-called justice has been devastating grandmothers, for toddlers, for small businesses. there needs to be a decision. set that radical agenda to the side and let's go back to crime control and make our communities safe again. >> gillian: all right, thanks to both. with got to leave it there but happy new year to you both. look forward to talking to you soon. >> happy new year. >> thanks, gillian. >> gillian: two united airlines captains are now on indefinite unpaid leave because they refused to comply with the airlines vaccine mandate. they're calling it a crisis of conscience they are taking it to court next. ♪ ♪ . only tylenol rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast for fast pain relief. and now get relief without a pill with tylenol dissolve packs. relief without the water. i'm steve. i lost 138 pounds in 9 months with tylenol dissolve packs. on golo and taking release. golo saved my life. i was way overweight, and that's what sent me down the path, was i--i wanted to make sure and live for my kid. plain and simple. i've always been running. to meetings. errands. now i'm running for me. i've always dreamed of seeing the world. but i'm not chasing my dream anymore. i made a financial plan to live it every day. ♪ at northwestern mutual, our version of financial planning helps you live your dreams today. find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com ♪ ♪ >> gillian: the fifth circuit court of appeals in louisiana heard arguments monday in the case of united airlines employees who have been fired or punished for objecting to the company a positivist covid vaccine mandate. let's talk about how those arguments went into nights "is it legal" segment with cofounders of airline employees for health freedom, captain jerry walker and captain laura cox. good evening, ladies, thanks so much for joining us. united airlines was the first major carrier to move forward with a vaccine mandate, and so far 2,000 exemptions have been issued and 200 pilots have been fired. what do you of that? >> actually, to correct those numbers, 354 pilots are on unpaid indefinite leave. we have 11 who have actually been terminated. >> gillian: okay, thanks for that clarification. what do you make about the numbers here percentagewise? >> well, we do know that the crisis and scheduling issues over the holiday weekend that had our ceo used all of the pilots and flight attendants, we could've eliminated a good portion of those delays for the covid vaccine -- or the covid outbreak. >> gillian: key factor in employee's frustration with mandate from the ceo here is he didn't provide any alternatives as other airlines have done, saying the option to do weekly testing or even daily testing in some instances. >> that's very true and we actually offered to do that. we offered to test twice a week. delta is testing only once a week for their unvaccinated employees and offered to test on our own dime. american southwest don't test their unvaccinated crew members at all. >> gillian: take a listen to vice president of southwest, i want to get your reaction. >> we think it should be a decision made by each pilot and we will continue that position going forward. you know, the mandates at this point has been paused at southwest, which is a good thing for us, and we will see how this court ruling moves forward, but we still remain at a pilot should have his choice to be vaccinated. >> gillian: should pilots have say over what goes on in their own cockpit? >> absolutely. >> welcome honestly -- sure. and i think honestly they have say over what happens in their own body. title vii affords us the opportunity to seek reasonable accommodations. that's what we are asking for unfortunately. it looks like our ceo at the deck stacked against us from the beginning when he determined that there would be not very many of these exemptions authorized and the tape of him in a town hall demonstrates the frustration that we have. >> gillian: what you say to ceo scott kirby who insists he's doing this for safety? he also goes on to say that this mandate has already saved lives. >> i think it's very hard to determine whether or not a mandate has saved lives. we know that it has ruined lives. as for safety, judge pittman in the fifth circuit court has already identified that mr. kirby's claims are pretextual. in other words, they are false claims of safety. >> gillian: this is kind of a layman's question, but it strikes me that cockpits spend a lot of time solo or maybe with a copilot in the cockpit, there's really not a lot of exposure to passengers, at least on flights that i've been on during my lifetime. is that accurate? >> that's very accurate. at the same time, during our temporary restraining orders hearing, our vice president of flight operations offered the choice between testing or flying with a vaccinated pilot, suggested that he would prefer to fly with those who are tested versus those who are vaccinated and at the same time, we support our spare seat in the cockpit -- none of which are mandatorily vaccinated. >> gillian: interesting. captains, thanks so much for taking time for us tonight, we wish you the best going forward. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> gillian: some good news for you before we say good night. it nearly dozen employees of the aerial tramway in new mexico stranded by frosted cables after ringing in the new year were brought to safety new year's day. the state search and rescue team used helicopters and ropes, lowering people one by one about 85 feet to the ground. it is an effort that took several hours. thankfully there were no reported injuries. that does it for us, good night from washington, i'm gillian turner. ♪ ♪ d be hurting your stomach. vazalore... is the first liquid-filled aspirin capsule clinically shown to cause fewer ulcers than plain aspirin. try new vazalore. aspirin made amazing! nyquil severe gives you powerful relief for your worst cold and flu symptoms, on sunday night and every night. nyquil severe. the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, best sleep with a cold, medicine. as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? 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