about where the judge and her family lived and went to church. that person found the judge's home, shot and killed her son and injured her husband. these acts and threats of violence are not associated with anyone set of partisan or idealogical views. but they are permeating so many parts of our national life that they risk becoming normalized and routine if we do not stop them. that is dangerous for people's safety. and it is deeply dangerous for our democracy. in democracy, people vote, argue and debate. often vociferously to get the policy outcomes that they desire. in a democracy, people must not employ threats of violence to effect that outcome. citizens must not be intimidated from exercising their constitutional rights, their free expression and association by such unlawful conduct. the justice department will continue to investigate violence and illegal threats of violence, disrupt that violence before it occurs and hold perpetrators accountable. we have martialed the resources of the department to address the rising violence and criminal threats of violence against election workers, against flight crews and school personnel, against journalists, members of congress and against federal agents, prosecutors and judges. in 2021 the department charged more defendants in criminal defense cases than in any year in at least the last five. as we do this work, we're guided by our commitment to protect civil liberties, including the first amendment rights of all citizens. the department has been clear that expressing a political belief or ideology, no matter how vociferously is not a crime. we do not investigate or prosecute people because of their views. peacefully expressing a view or ideology no matter how extreme is protected by the first amendment. but illegally threatening to harm or kill another person is not. there is no first amendment right to unlawfully threaten to harm or kill someone. as justice scalia noted in rav very u.s. city of st. paul, true threats of violence are outside the first amendment. because laws protect individuals from the fear of violence, from the disruption that fear engenders and from the possibility that the threatened violence there occur. the latter point is particularly close to home for those of us that have investigated tragedies ranging from the oklahoma city bombing to the january 6th attack on the capitol. the time to address threats is when they are made, not after the tragedy has struck. as employees of the nation's largest law enforcement agency, each of us understands that we have an obligation to protect our citizens from violence and fear of violence. we will continue to do our part to provide that protection. but the justice department cannot do it alone. the responsibility to bring an end to violence and threats of violence against those that serve is public is one that all americans share. such conduct disrupts the peace of our public spaces and undermines our democracy. we are all americans. we must protect each other. the obligation to keep americans and american democracy safe is part of the historical inheritance of this department. as i noted several times before, a founding purpose of the justice department was to battle violent extremist attacks on our democratic institutions. in the midst of reconstruction following the civil war, the department's first principle task was secure the civil rights promised by the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. this meant protecting black americans seeking to exercise their right to vote from acts and threats of violence by white supremacists. the framers of the civil war recognized that access to the ballot is a fundamental access of citizenship and self-government. the voting rights act of 1965 sought to make the promise of those amendments real. to do so, it gave the justice department valuable tools with which to protect the right to vote. in recent years, the protection of the voting rights act have been drastically weakened. the supreme court's 2013 decision and the shelby county case effectively eliminated the preclearance protections of section 5, which had been the department's most effective tool for protecting voting rights over the past half century. subsequent decisions have substantially narrowed the reach of section 2 as well. since those decisions, there's been a dramatic increase in legislative enactments that make it harder for millions of eligible voters to vote and represent those of those own choosing. that ranges from practices and procedures that make voting more difficult to redistricting maps drawn to disadvantage minorities and citizens of opposing political parties to abnormal post election audits that put the integrity of the voting process at risk, to changes in voting administration meant to diminish the authority of locally elected or nonpartisan election administrators. some have even suggested permitting state legislators to set aside the choice of the voters themselves. ed -- as i noted last june, many of the enactments have been justified by unfounded claims of material vote fraud in the 2020 election. those claims which have corroded people's faith in the legitimacy of elections have been repeatedly refuted by the law enforcement intelligence agencies of the last administration and this one as well as by every court, federal and state, that has considered them. the department of justice will continue to do all it can to protect voting rights with the enforcement powers that we have. it is essential that congress act to give the department the powers that we need to ensure that every eligible voter can cast a vote that counts. but as with violence and threats of violence, the justice department, even the congress, cannot alone defend the right to vote. the responsibility to preserve democracy and to maintain faith in the legitimacy of its essential processes lies with every elected official and with every american. all americans are entitled to free, fair and secure elections that ensure that they can select the representatives of their choice. all americans are entitled to live in a country in which their public servants can go about their jobs of serving the public free from violence and unlawful threats of violence. and all americans are entitled to live in a country in which the transition from one elected administration to the next is accomplished peacefully. the justice department will never stop working to defend the democracy to which all americans are entitled. as i recognized when i spoke with you all last march, service in the department of justice is more than a job and more than an honor. it is a calling. each of us, you and i, came to work here because we're committed to the rule of law and to seeking equal justice under law. we came to work here because we're committed to ensuring the civil rights and civil liberties of our people. we came to work here because we are committed to protecting our country as our oath says. from all enemies, foreign and domestic. together we will continue to show the american people by word and by deed that these are the principles that underlie our work. the challenges that we are facing and will continue to face are extraordinarily. but i am moved and humbled by the extraordinary work you do every single day to meet them. i look forward to seeing more of you in person soon and to our continued work together. thank you all. >> martha: all right. there you have it. merrick garland speaking to the department of justice. we bid you a good afternoon. i'm martha maccallum at fox news head quarters in new york. this was a rare address from the attorney general as he gave an update on the investigation into the january 6 riots. tomorrow marks a year since the overtaking of the u.s. capitol. let's get more from matt whitaker and fox news contributor, andy mccarthy. seems the attorney general made a strong effort to convince those that feel like he hasn't done enough that he has and he's been committed to seeing through these prosecutions and these cases. we know there's been about four people that have received significant time. several of those were for assaulting law enforcement. that has garnered the most serious time in jail. so there were two parts to this map. the first part is basically that. you know, talking about what happened on january 6 and how earnest he is in making sure that people serve time where necessary. the second part is about looking forward. i'd like to address the first part here with you about how they're doing so far and how this is going. >> well, it's good to be with you. political violence is never acceptable. the people that did those things on january 6 should be prosecuted. but really, this speech was below the office of attorney general. i was not impressed with his update. i think it's inconsistent with the department of justice possession of not speaking about evidence and not speaking about cases and letting the filings and the trial speak for themselves. martha, i really -- i think while merrick garland needs to impress people that he's doing everything he can, to some extent there's only so much you can do with the evidence that they have. we need to protect and support law enforcement. i would have liked to have him also name the 59 other officers that nationwide have given their lives in the line of duty. >> martha: andy mccarthy, your thoughts. >> i think he pivoted away from a number of things that have been criticisms of the investigation. he took pains to say that the five police officers that repeatedly -- people around the justice department on the democratic side of the aisle, a number of commentators continue to say that five police officers were killed in the attacks. he made a point of saying that they had five officers had lost their lives since the attacks. that's a little subtle as you hear it but a big change from the rhetoric. he appropriately stressed that that is in comparison to 140 police officers that were injured. i think it was wise on his part to stress that something that the country overall can basically agree with, which is that the priority cases are the ones where police officers were assaulted and those are getting the major sentences. what he left out is that even though the sentences have increased when the courts have turned to the felony cases, the sentences don't come close to approaching what you would expect in a terrorism case where you would expect like multiple life sentences because of the loss of life. so there's a shift in their rhetoric toward the reality of what happened on january 6. there's a lot of amnesia that the way they keyed this up the last year. >> martha: good point. it's worth noting and we recognize the seriousness of what happened on january 6 and how gut wrenching. it's routinely referred to as the insurrection. there's not one charge of insurrection for any of these individuals. why is that? >> well, because it doesn't meet the legal definition. it was a riot. it was violent. there were people that were doing things including assaulting police officers that they shouldn't have done. this was not -- there's no way that this could be under the law an insurrection. that's why people are not being charged with it, martha. >> martha: andy, if you can, there's an effort to extend january 6 to current politics. we've heard it from senator schumer and attorney general garland. he talked about redistricting and how there's the efforts to thwart democracy from january 6 to today are ongoing. quick thought on that before i let you go. >> yeah, i think it shows they're shifting to voting rights, martha. the justice department is in sync with the administration and congressional democrats. they seem to be turning the page from the economically based bill that they were obsessing over before the holidays and now it's on to voting rights. they are going to try to inject january 6 in to every item of their agenda. how successful they'll be with that i have my doubt about. >> martha: it's interesting to note, i read an analysis of redistricting this morning that says so far there's actually a slim advantage for democrats in the redistricting that has happened thus far as we continue to keep an eye on that. thank you, gentlemen. andy mccarthy, matt whitaker, thank you. so ahead on "the story," i'm joined by florida's surgeon general who has sparked controversy who said that it's time to rethink covid testing in america. very interesting take that he has. we will ask him some questions about that and former education secretary betsy devos on what she believes the white house and potentially the first lady, who is a prominent teacher herself should be saying or doing as teachers in chicago refuse to go to class despite billions in u.s. taxpayer dollars that we all spent in other words to keep all of these schools open so that kids could be in class and learning. >> we're more than equipped to ensure schools are open. >> the president couldn't be clearer, schools in this country should remain open. >> martha: grady trimble reports. grady? >> martha, mayor lori lightfoot and chicago's top public health officials say schools should stay open here in chicago, this cdc and dr. fauci says it's safe and president biden says schools should stay open. yet the chicago teacher's union members voted by 73% to shut down in-person classes today in the city of chicago. the district says there are no classes going on today either in-person or virtually. in discussing why schools should stay open, president biden pointed to the more than $122 billion allocated to schools as part of the american rescue plan. you can see by the numbers, new york city, los angeles and chicago got nearly 10% of all of that money with $1.8 billion going to the city of chicago's public schools. schools got more money from previous stimulus packages and yet the chicago teacher's union says that the district is not doing enough to keep them safe. they want more testing and they want the district to hand out better masks. >> that money went out to the states. the states and the school districts have spent this money well. many of them. unfortunately some haven't. >> when our district was remote, our children suffered. there's no disputing that reality. >> across the country this week, more than 4,500 schools are either closed or fully online right now. chicago public schools say they don't oppose closing certain schools if there's a spike in covid cases and a staffing shortage because so many teachers are sick. they say shutting down the system districtwide like we're seeing today is not an accessible option. as of right now, there's still an impasse with the teacher's union and chicago public schools. >> martha: thanks, grady. as we mentioned, secretary devos is standing by with her thoughts on this. first, a mother of two children in the chicago public school system, susie, thanks for being with us. tell us what the impact is on your children from this decision. >> right now my children are at home. they're doing nothing. they're not learning, they're not experiencing any socialization, nothing. >> martha: what is the impact on your family on the whole in terms of going to work and living your life? >> well, in terms of calling off my job at 11:00 p.m. last night, it's not a good situation. so i'm missing a day of work and my children are not in school. it's very hard on my family right now. >> martha: so given the fact that the u.s. taxpayer dollars, $122 billion went to make sure that schools were modified so that they would be safe to return to, your taxpayer dollars, everyone else's as well, what would you say to the chicago teacher's union about that and about their responsibility? >> i would say that ceo martinez put it eloquently. the science backs up our children are safe in school. our children need to be in school with masks, with social distancing. they're doing everything that they can to keep these kids safe in school. there's no reason for them to be at home. my kids are being held hostage at home. >> martha: thanks, susie. good luck to you and good luck to your kids who are really being ripped off of their opportunity to get an education today. we hope that they have an opportunity to make up that time because these teachers need to make sure that they fulfill their requirement, which is to educate all of these children and the union is pulling the strings here. thank you, susie. all the best to you and your family. let's bring in betsy devos, the former education secretary under president trump. betsy, always good to have you with us. what is your reaction to what's going on here? >> it's unconscionable. the mom put it well. her kids, the kids in chicago, kids in urban areas, primarily urban areas, that are heavily controlled by the teacher unions, those are the kids that are being harmed. they've been harmed for almost two years. and what continues to go on, the politics that they keep playing with kids lives and futures is just unconscionable. it's despicable. i credit secretary cardona for calling for schools to be open, president biden. they have to continue to do so. they have to get after randi weingarten and all of her counter parts at the teacher's union. they have continued to hold kids hostage. the mom put it well. kids are being held hostage. we know the harm that's been done to them. >> martha: here's randi weingarten when she applauded the $122 billion that came from the american rescue plan. >> the glue that holds it together is resources and relationships. the resources from the american rescue plan and the collaboration among educators including administrators and union reps and parents. >> martha: so where did that money go, betsy? >> most of that money hasn't been spent. it's been closer to $200 billion that's been designated for kids in k-12 education. most of that money has not yet been spent. so it is only a further testimony to the fact that this is only about a union agenda, political agendas and it's got to change. i encourage mayor lightfoot if the schools that the teachers unions don't put their workers back to work and the teachers back in the classroom, send the money to the families and let them find the option for their families. >> martha: they have walked in a big way, families that can have pulled their kids out. is there a role here for the president and potentially the first lady who is an educator herself? >> they need to be very, very clear and stand up to the teacher union politics. it's clear it's nothing but politics that are being played here. we know kids are being harmed in cities across the country. they've been harmed for months. they're continuing to be harmed. i urge them to stand up and stand up to the union leaders. >> martha: these children are owed an education by right, the public education system over seen by the department of education. so something at the government needs to make sure that they get what is coming to them and what they deserve as part of the american taxpayer paid public education system. thanks, betsy. good to see you. >> thank you. >> martha: nearly 1 in 100 americans, covid positive in a single week. is it time to unwind the psychology in this country around testing that's been put in place by the federal government? that's what the florida surgeon general has said. he joins us with his side and his thinking next. some of my best memories growing up, were cooking with mom. she always said, “food is love.” so when she moved in with us, a new kitchen became part of our financial plan. ♪ i want to make the most of every meal we have together. ♪ at northwestern mutual, our version of financial planning helps you live your dreams today. find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com >> vo: my car is my after-work decompression zone. planning helps you live yo♪ music ♪ today. >> vo: so when my windshield 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risk. he says testing healthy people could do more harm than good in some cases. the cdc says you can be contagious before you're showing symptoms. so we're glad to be joined by the florida surgeon general, joseph ladapo. he holds degrees from wake forest and harvard medical school. thank you very much, doctor, for being with us today. as i mentioned, you have gotten a lot of pushback. probably more attention than anticipated based on that comment. here's another doctor on cnn. i want to play what he said and give you a chance an opportunity to respond to what he said. >> it's hard to believe those comments came from the surgeon general of one of the largest states in this country. you're trying to keep businesses open without testing, you're allowing the virus to continue to spread unabated. so if anything, we need to do more testing, not bury our heads in the sand of florida and hope for the best. >> martha: doctor, welcome. what do you have to say to dr. renner? >> thanks for having me on. yeah, i think if you listen to that doctor's words, you'll actually hear the answer to the more important question that americans need to be asking, which is the best way to approach this pandemic. so you just heard that gentleman say that you need to do more testing. so, you know, look at the totality of evidence that we have right now. i mean, how is more testing the answer to a surge that is very obviously outstripping our ability to, you know, trace it and to keep up with it? it's sort of ridiculous. it's a pattern that we've seen the whole pandemic. when a policy doesn't make sense, whether it's the mask mandates or, you know, now the vaccine passports, when they fail, people are doubling down and tripling town. it doesn't make sense. i hope more people realize that the policy proposals are total failures. so instead, what we're shifting towards here in florida is to remind people something that everyone knew before the pandemic on the clinical side. all clinicians knew this before the pandemic. it's what is happening now that is abnormal, what is new. we test to improve outcomes. so if a test is likely to improve a patient's outcome, that is a good reason to do a test. if a test is unlikely to help and if a test is unlikely to change anything, what was the value of that test? the test may not have had much value. that's what we're trying to come back to. >> martha: i understand if someone has mild symptoms and they're going to get over them in a few days and i understand that, what difference what it make. the treatment will be the same either way. the question comes in for people that are not showing symptoms yet and might be contagious and might be around a grandparent or a vulnerable person whose health is compromised. because of that, that person might end up hospitalized. >> right. allow me to help sort of unwind some of the beliefs that unfortunately our federal leadership has convinced so many persons is true. so first of all the island that, you know, stopping the spread of a virus is the objective of a public health campaign when, you know, probably somewhere around half or more of people with that virus have no symptoms whatsoever. that is completely speechless. that should never have been something that the federal leadership convince americans that was possible. so the scenario you laid out is not quite right, which is about the objective. spend time with grandma or grandpa. so in that situation, think about your options, right? if you're concerned you have symptoms, you might be ill, maybe it's not the time to spend close contact with someone who is vulnerable. if that person doesn't have a history of natural immunity, you know, there's vaccines available if that individual has concerns. what else do we have available? we have treatments available, this is a healthier, more sustainable approach rather than unfortunately again the federal leadership and the public health leadership and being successful and convincing americans that their responsibility is to forever try to detect asymptomatic disease. it's completely unrealistic. it's obvious that it has failed. we need to focus on treating people that are ill and we need to focus on getting on with living. we're stuck in a rut with this sort of preoccupation that goes on in our lives around covid. >> martha: governor desantis said that it's not good to use testing as a tool to limit the opportunity and education. you're on the same page. dr. ladapo, thank very much. i hope you join us again with a different take on this. it's interesting to note that britain and israel say you don't need a pcr test. if you do a home test, it's positive, trust that. leave the pcr on tests for other people that need them. >> it's a sustainable way to approach it. we're not restricting access but we're saying let's focus testing on where it can actually improve a patient's outcomes. >> martha: thank you, doctor. >> thanks. >> martha: thank you, sir. dr. joseph ladapo, the surgeon general in florida. joining me now, fox news contributor dr. marc siegel, medical director of nyu langone medical center. great to have you with us as always. what do you think about dr. ladapo's take? he's been criticized in a number of places. we gave him an opportunity to share his thoughts with us here. >> first of all, all of this criticism and flak for somebody stating their opinion, i have a problem with it. he's not only a physician and an internist and has a degree from health policy from harvard. he's entitled to his health policy decisions. the problem with this pandemic, too many people have opinions that are not qualified. he's qualified. in terms of what he's saying, putting the testing together with the outcome, that's interesting. i want the home tests. i'm in the middle here. i don't want everybody flocking out to a supermarket or a walmart waiting in line, coughing and sneezing on each other, freezing, fearful, hysteria. i want the home tests. they should have been there months ago the way that michael minnert from harvard said a year ago. how about the pill? how about mono clonal anti-bodies? if somebody is at high risk or quite smartly as you said to him, you're with someone that is at risk, if i got a home test and it's positive, i know what to do, i have a treatment, i have a plan. not just widespread hysteria with people flocking out somewhere. clearly the pcr test should be reserved for a confirmation of either an exposure or being ill. but having said that, i see a value here. >> martha: most people, if you are very sick and you go to the hospital, they'll give you a pcr test, right? that's the first thing that they'll do to confirm you have it. >> they what i do. >> martha: i want to ask you a quick cdc question on the five days and done. if you want to test at the end of the five days -- it's one or the other. it's either they'll have tests to encourage testing or they feel confident that you are contagious a couple days before and maybe two to three days after and that that is it. due agree with that? >> no. they made a mistake and they should admit it. we need more humble pie in this situation. cdc has thousands of employees that i have a great respect for. i have a great respect for dr. walensky. why is this a mistake? she said 90% will be free of not being symptomatic at the end of five days. you should have a rapid test available as icing on the cake. here i go again wanting a rapid test. five days with the rapid test. seven days if you can't get to a rapid test. the reason the cdc made a mistake here, no rapid tests in site. if you had a home test and a ploy year wanted to see a negative home test after five days, that would work 0. they are wise, seven days. >> martha: thanks, doctor, for tamping down the hysteria. i encourage everybody to read your piece 0 five ways to get through omicron without getting hysterical. very good to see you. >> thank you, martha. >> martha: so this is a quote. keep these babies in your prayers. that from the mayor of philadelphia after a house fire killed 13 people including seven children. it is the deadliest single fire in the city in a century. it started just after 6:30 a.m. no word on the cause. one neighbor says he worried that he may know one of the victims. >> there was a young man and i hope he wasn't there. he's a teenager now who sometimes did odd jobs for people on the street. i knew him. we always said hello to each other. i just hope he wasn't one of them. >> officials have not identified the victims. no word on the young man. investigators say there were four smoke detectors in the building but known appeared to be working. war and poverty in afghanistan causing so much desperation. some families are reportedly selling their children in order to raise money in order to feed other family members. it's a desperate situation. mike pompeo on the apathy as he sees it from the biden administration. he explains next. and it's easy to 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>> martha, it is tragic to see the reporting that is coming from there, the devastation that is being wrought on afghanistan today. we shouldn't forget primary responsibility. this goes to the taliban there. they're responsible for taking care of the people in that country. it's their duty to get this right. when i spoke with him, they talked about how they wanted better lives for every afghan. they're not delivering that. we need to put the burden on them to deliver good governance. the biden administration has not lived up to the promises that you showed on that tape, the commitment that he made to get u.s. citizens, green card holders, those that have the right to come to the united states, they haven't done everything that they can do. they've been resistant to allowing folks to come home. i've been part of the effort as well, private citizens have been working to get folks out of harm's way, people that supported the united states and took risk of their lives. they need to do more. the biden administration can't walk away from of course. i don't know when the last time i heard president biden talk about afghanistan was. i regret that. it is still a serious matter. we have american interest in protecting terror from that place. we have to focus that that doesn't take place. >> martha: exactly. you don't want it to become another safe haven for terror, which is what it was before september 11th. that's what it was about initially. now you have this vacuum of starvation and hunger. this is a quote from an a.p. articles, a reporter in a.p. aziz consoled his doubter without telling his wife, taking a down payment to feed his family. without the money, he had to sacrifice one to save the rest. the trump administration that you were part of wanted to leave afghanistan. how -- would you have done anything differently? can you assure people that you wouldn't have allowed something like this to happen or is this just the nature of what going to happen when the united states left? >> martha, i can assure everyone it would have been different. my proof for that in four years it was. you're right. president trump made clear he wanted to get americans home from afghanistan. we did that. we brought back almost everyone from there. we went from 15,000 uniformed folks to just a little over 2,000 in our four years. american people wanted their kids home as well. the american people also understood there were other makeses, to make sure terror didn't emanate from there. we had to make sure the way we deported provided that security. this is where the biden administration went wrong. they other up the planses that we had. we talked about getting the last 2,000 out. we said the conditions are not right to do that yet so we didn't pull the last couple thousand folks out. we managed to establish what was good deterrence afghan style. we didn't have an american killed over the last year in office. the biden team came and ripped up the plan. that way we proceeded would have protected the american interests and likely protected the tragedy that you're seeing in afghanistan today. i know it would have preserved american credibility in a way that has been just thrown away by the way in which we departed afghanistan. >> martha: we also want to remember the 13 service members killed at the abbey game. president biden assured them that at a time and place of our choosing there would be retaliation. we have not seen that yet and we don't know when that choosing will be. we expect there will be satisfaction for the families and retaliation ultimately. secretary pompeo, thank you. >> thank you. great to be with you today. >> martha: did you catch this last night when you watched "the five"? >> just google it, greg. if donald trump told people to google where to get a test with lines around the block. >> martha: the debate on that you don't want to miss. should you have to google it to find your test in america? the oldest u.s. veteran of world war ii died today at the age of 112. god bless him. his secret to a long life and dedication and patriotism to his country next. >> woman: what's my safelite story? >> vo: my car is more than four wheels. it's my after-work decompression zone. so when my windshield broke... >> woman: what?! >> vo: ...i searched for someone who really knew my car. i found the experts at safelite autoglass. with their exclusive technology, they fixed my windshield... then recalibrated the camera attached to my glass so my safety systems still work. who knew that was a thing?! >> woman: safelite has service i can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ shhh... you think she's still awake? don't worry. the lexus rx, built for a modern families. get $1,500 lease cash toward a 2022 rx 350. ♪♪ i may have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. get $1,500 lease cash toward a 2022 rx 350. or psoriatic arthritis. but we are so much more. we're team players and artists. designers and do-it-yourselfers. parents and friends. if joint pain is getting in the way of who you are, it's time to talk to your doctor about enbrel. enbrel helps relieve joint pain, and helps stop permanent joint damage. plus enbrel helps skin get clearer in psoriatic arthritis. ask your doctor about enbrel, so you can get back to your true self. play ball! enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders and allergic reactions have occurred. tell your doctor if you've been someplace where fungal infections are common. or if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding or paleness. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. visit enbrel.com to see how your joint damage could progress. enbrel. eligible patients may pay as little as $5 per month. >> google covid test near me to see the place where you could get the test most often and free. >> martha: the president says google where to get a covid test in the face of long lines and hours of waits. here's the response from jesse waters on "the five." >> if i need a test, i'll google it. can you imagine if trump told people to google it, where to get a test with lines around the block? >> martha: here's katie pavlich and richard fowler, both are fox news contributors. i think there's a lack of sort of confidence in the way the president put that, richard with it was not something that instilled re-assurance in people when they're told, oh, you know, google it. yeah, google where to get a test. >> i understand that, martha. i understand how the american people could feel that lack of unconfidence from the president. with that being said, i think it's worth pointing out here that while this white house was slow on the uptick to get covid tests out to folks with the spread of the omicron variant, what we're seeing from the white house is setting up testing centers in a number of states, signing healthcare resources from the military to back up hospitals that are being decimated because folks on the hospital staff are getting -- >> martha: they banned travel from south africa. it's not like they didn't know it was spreading. >> true. but i think with that being said, nobody expected it to spread as fast as it did in the united states. and pointing out, there's some cities that are working well at getting testing out. here in washington d.c., the mayor has gotten rapid testing by handing them out at local firehouses across the city. >> martha: okay. katie? >> president joe biden was a testing plan last year ahead of omicron variant because we know basic epidemiology tells us there's another variant. this is a president that campaigned on shutting down the virus. so to say that he wasn't prepared for this, he didn't know how rapidly it was going to spread is not accurate. to go back to the 2020 campaign, ron klain tweeted that testing is still not available, it's not working, testing is broken. it's january 5, 2022. there's still not testing available when this is a president that is being held to account for his own campaign promises making the issue of covid political. a political argument during the 2020 presidential campaign. so joe biden saying just google where you can get a test, people are doing that. they can't find a test. you might as well google your symptoms at this point at web m.d. >> martha: are you disappointed by that performance? we see it in the polls. people that had confidence that covid would be managed better are surprised that it's being managed worse when you look at the numbers of dead. >> there's no question that joe biden was slow to the uptick on dealing with this. i think we have to look at -- we have to be realistic and say omicron spread faster than we thought it would spread. now we have to root for this president to get it right. if he doesn't get it right, america doesn't get it right. right now i'm hoping the president sets up as many testing centers as possible as get as many home tests to as many americans as possible to beat the virus. >> martha: a house divided itself cannot stand. we have experienced that for quite a long time in this country. thanks, richard. katie, thank you. good to see you both. the oldest veteran in the united states has died. lawrence brooks was 112. he died today at his home in new orleans. he served in a unit that built bridges and airstrips in australia. even there they had to dig foxholes from what they thought was an invasion from the japanese. he said the secret to his long life was serving god and being nice to people. good advice from lawrence brooks. may he rest in peace. we thank him for his service and being a great guy his 112 years that is "the story" of this wednesday, january 5, 2022. the story goes on and we'll see you back here tomorrow at 3:00. "your world" gets started right about now. have a great day, everybody. >> neil: stocks down because interest rates are going up. the dow tumbling today. close to 400 points. the nasdaq down more than 500 points. all because the federal reserve let loose a policy that shows interest rates could move higher and faster than we thought. we're on top of it all with art hogan following it from the market perspective and charlie gasparino on the fall-out for the business world. let's first get the read on charlie what you make on what happened in the markets today and why they