oath keepers will be in court this afternoon in connection with the attack on the capitol. stewart rhodes will appear next hour facing a major charge of seditious conspiracy. stewart and ten members including edward vallejo are accused of planning violence to stop congress for formally counting the results of the election. according to the indictment, rhodes sent the group an encrypted message within two days of the 2020 election. it said, quote, we're not getting through this without a civil war. and on the day of the riot, prosecutors say he reminded the group that prior to the american revolution, the nation's founders had stormed the governor's mansion in massachusetts. a short time later, some members of the oath keepers began moving into the u.s. capitol in military formation. rhodes stayed outside during the attack but prosecutors say in the weeks that followed, he met with his group to plan more violence and spent $17,000 on weapons and ammunition. in an interview this week rhodes claimed he did nothing wrong. >> i don't do illegal activities. i always stay on this side of the line. i know where the lines are, and it drives them crazy. >> in 30 minutes, in arizona, prosecutors allege edward vallejo was prepared to transport firearms into washington to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power. today's court appearances come as the congressional panel probing the attack expands its investigation, now demanding information from major social media companies. january 6th committee has subpoenaed reddit, twitter, and the parent companies of google and facebook. they're asking for details on what those companies did and did not do before and after the riot. joining me, nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, nbc news digital senior reporter ben collins, and nbc news capitol hill correspondent leigh ann caldwell. pete, what can we expect from these two court hearings today and what do these charges tell us about the doj's investigation right now into the january 6th attack? >> oh, these charges are a formality, because they were arrested in both texas and arizona. they will have an initial appearance before a federal judge. and then arrangements will be made to get them back here to washington where all these cases are now consolidated here in the u.s. district for the district of columbia. and that's where they would stand trial. so the first order is to formally present the charges. then at some point the magistrate judges will set a date possibly for a detention hearing. there will be maybe another detention hearing when they get here to washington. so these are all preliminary steps. as for what these arrests say about the investigation, remember that these charges build on an existing conspiracy charge against the oath keepers. so it ratchets it up in two ways. one, it adds this charge of seditious conspiracy. the current case before yesterday was a conspiracy case that did not include that charge. secondly, it adds the leader of the oath keepers, stewart rhodes. what it tells us is that they're continuing to gather information about the oath keepers and anybody else who was planning to come to washington to carry out violence to try to stop the counting of the vote, joe. >> ben, you've had a chance to look over this indictment. what stands out to you about these plans leading up to attack, the day of, even after? >> well, you know, there is this big talking point on the right about where are the guns, where were the guns the whole time, these people were bringing in all these other sorts of weapons like mace and things like that, but why aren't the oath keepers, a very armed group of people, bringing guns to the capitol? now we know. they were leaving them at the hotel and with other people who they called quick response force or qrs. those people were to shuttle in the guns after they got control of the capitol, which is shocking but somewhat what we read on the internet on the day before the 6th. there is a picture right there of what was on thedonald on the day before the 6th. that user specifically said, if things light up that day, we'll go back to virginia and collect these guns. that's what you heard from lots of people the day beforehand. the oath keepers were taking the same strategy there, saying we'll come back, maybe we'll take boats back, they said they would dock outside, basically, the white house, and take the guns over -- through the potomac, underneath bridges, just in case the lanes were closed, they literally said, one if by land, two if by sea, in some of these texts. >> msnbc legal analyst joyce vance is joining us. a similar question to you, what stands out to you now that we've had 24 hours to digest the indictments? >> the most important issue that this indictment raises for me is the framing. the justice department, when it speaks, has a different burden than when folks in the political lane or in the news media speak. doj negotiation if it makes an allegation, it has to be able to prove it in court with admissible evidence without a reasonable doubt. so the fact that doj is now calling what happened on january 6th an insurrection and referencing violence, and the firearms, the storing of firearms across the river that you all have just been talking about, strikes me as very significant. it confirms the importance of this event. it was not a tourist day in dc. it was not a riot. it was an armed effort to overthrow our government. >> these charges aren't the only development on january 6th. leigh ann, we'll bring you in to talk about these new subpoenas from the house committee. any response from the social media companies about this? >> hey, joe. so the social media companies, three of them, say that they are cooperating with the committee despite these subpoenas. one, twitter, says that they have no comment. but let's take a step back here, because this is a followup from an august 26th request to these social media companies to provide information to the january 6th select committee. and this is one of the very first public acts of the january 6th select committee did after it got formed, is reach out to these social media companies. and so while the focus on the social media companies hasn't been around in recent months, this is, we know, something they're extremely clued into and what to know more about. jamie raskin, a member of the committee, told me what these companies provide could be critical to their investigation. what the committee wants is a little bit different for each social media company, but here is one example. for alphabet, parent company of youtube, they say they have information that is critical to the investigation concerning how alphabet developed, implemented, and reviewed its content modernization algorithmicant tog on on those social media apps but they also want to know what the social media companies were doing about it, joe. >> ben, you probably know social media better than just about anyone here. you pointed out that forms like thedonald, that's the name of a forum, moved away from reddit months before the 2020 election. what other companies should the house committee target, if it's not reddit, if it's not twitter? >> you know, i think leigh ann has a really good point there. you can hand over basic posts from what were going on on facebook and twitter, and that's not really enough. you want to see what the decisionmaking was like for leaving the stop the steal pages up, they were available until january 10th or 11th on facebook. these were large scale groups that were able to organize these protests and part of the january 6th rally on facebook. that's what you want from places like facebook. all the worst communities from reddit poured over in the last 6 to 12 months before the election. those communities stole reddit's code, which is open source, created their own extremist forums. most went over to the great awakening, those places were really the breeding ground for people posting pictures in the days before the 6th and where to meet up and plans and maps. >> looks like we're having a little pause there. joyce, i want to take a step back there and talk about these federal charges, these sedition charges. up until now the justice department has been careful not to push the idea of sedition. one reason, it is notoriously hard to prosecute that charge. so you've been looking over the documents here. knowing how hard it is, does it look like a strong case in your mind? >> it is a strong case. and it's important, i don't think we can discuss enough that while people have been critical of doj for how slowly it has moved, we now see that there's a good reason for the deliberate pace that doj uses, because some of the information in this indictment makes it very clear that doj has cooperating individuals who have turned over, for instance, private communications, that it would be very difficult to obtain in an era when there's just some sorts of communications that can't be cracked by the means that law enforcement would have used ten or 20 years ago. the fact that they have access to these communications that they know who was talking to who, but more importantly what they were saying, is essential to proving a conspiracy, because we can't get past that core requirement here. doj will have to prove there was an agreement to do this. and it will have to prove who was involved in that agreement and what they agreed to do. the fact that they have access to cooperating individuals is what will make this case very strong. backing that up with, of course, the photographs we've seen of people moving, you know, firearms wrapped in bedsheets into hotel rooms. the evidence in this case appears to have been very, very carefully put together before doj went to the point of indicting and setting forth its claim that it believed it could prove this. >> joyce, if they are convicted, what would sentencing look like for these co-conspirators if it's sedition they're convicted of? >> always tough to predict actual sentences, because as you know from our prior conversations, the way our criminal system works, we have statutes that can contain typically a statutory maximum. for instance you can be put in prison for up to 20 years for some of the conspiracy charges. guideline sentences can be lower. but in a case like this, particularly for leaders like stewart rhodes who was involved in organizing the group and who was involved in organizing something that was particularly complex and something that involved firearms, you could see fairly serious sorts of sentences that would get close to those statutory maximums. >> a lot to keep an eye on as this moves forward. pete williams, ben collins, leigh ann caldwell, joyce vance, thanks for joining us. coming up, what's next for the white house after multiple setbacks for the president. and the supreme court strikes down a vaccine mandate for large employers. how it's impacting businesses and the effort to vaccinate more americans. and later, a new twist in the ongoing saga of novak djokovic. australia cancels his visa for a second time. is his bid to play in the australian open over? 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>> yeah, i want to say on the front end here that the president has gotten a bunch of wins. he passed a massive covid relief package and he passed an infrastructure package. both of those kind of on their own are huge victories. so let's start with that. but recently it's been a very rough road for democrats. the build back better act, which was the centerpiece of the president's agenda, as you indicated, is stalled because of joe manchin and -- primarily joe manchin. voting rights is going nowhere. in its current form it's not going to pass. joe manchin and kyrsten sinema have been unmoved and unwilling to blow up the filibuster, that 60-vote threshold that requires 60 votes for passage of any legislation. a big bill to combat china is also stalled. criminal justice reform, also stalled. legislating is hard. i don't want to give a sense that it's easy. it's very difficult and made even more difficult by the fact that it's a 50/50 senate and there's a five or six-seat majority in the house of representatives. that's all very difficult. it seems to me, and i hear this all the time up here on capitol hill, the president needs to govern as if he has 50 seats in the senate and a slim majority in the house. and he can't govern -- and this is not me saying it, this is what members of congress are saying, he can't govern with 50 seats in the senate, he has the slimmest majority with two senate democrats who are unwilling to bend to his entreaties on a whole host of issues. it's not too late for him to get victories on these issues. i have to imagine there would be a slimmed-down version of the build back better act, i defer to peter on what they might do on that. the voting rights push will have to be bipartisan, that's where the senate has found itself one year into this administration. >> peter, i'll throw that to you. is there a slimmed-down version of build back better that you see getting through? >> i think that's the obvious plan "b," you're not going to get everything you want through so get what you can through. a lot of these policies pulled together in this one package are pretty popular, with the public and with democrats. it was partly the fact that they were all slammed into one big bill, a $1.8 trillion bill. it wasn't described in a way that emphasized to voters what they would get out of it. it made it politically harder to get through. if you told senator manchin we're going to vote on just this priority or that priority, some of which he shares, they might have a better chance. they're still trying to see if they can get the bigger package passed through the finish line. the problem, and jake knows better than i do, time is running short. we're into an election year and the further you get into an election year the harder it gets to legislate big, big items. if they go to a plan "b," it will have to be in a relatively short amount of time to get some wins on the board. >> president biden is a creature of the senate, known as the senate whisperer. his powers of persuasion don't seem to be working, at least when it comes to those two key senators. how much is biden's problem structural versus self-inflicted wounds over the last year? >> look, president biden came to office promising that he understood how to make the system work, because he had been part of it for so long, that he could work across aisle, that he could make some breakthroughs with republicans. he did on infrastructure, as jake rightly pointed out, but he hasn't been able to on anything else. that shows the limitations on his ability to work with the system and the system itself. it's not the same system joe biden was first elected to almost 50 years ago. one thing you hear the democrats say is he was probably overconfident or maybe even naive about his ability to move a 50/50 senate, as jake referred to. when you have a 50/50 senate, you have no margin for error especially if you're not going to work with republicans and republicans aren't going to work with you, you have to have every single democrat in the house and almost every single democrat in the house to agree. that's really hard. one thing those democrats agreed on a year ago was they all didn't like donald trump and were happy to get rid of him in favor of joe biden. what they disagreed on was everything else. that's where joe biden has had a hard time pulling them together behind a single consensus view of policy and politics going forward. >> so jake, let's look forward. without gop support, without support from the entire democratic caucus, the biden agenda does look lost. so now what? there are still nearly ten months left before the midterms. what do democrats plan to do, try to get done to turn things around? >> here's how i see it going down. we're in, what, the middle of january, right? i think the next couple of weeks, at least the next week will be spent on voting rights and i think they're going to try to find some sort of small bipartisan solution for that. government funding, we have a government shutdown on the brink on february 18th. once that's cleared, you'll have the second half of february to try to put together some sort of build back better package. i can't imagine they'll call it that, but some sort of slimmed-down package to get moving before biden's state of the union on march 1st, the latest state of the union in american history. and i have to guess that that will be their priority. but now, remember, the senate represents the cooling saucer, as we say. but the house is really the base of the democratic party, filled with progressives that are going to see a bill come back from the senate that looks nothing like the bill they voted for nor the bill that they promised to get to the president's desk. and they're going to have to make a tough choice. is nothing better than a slimmed-down package? and i don't know the answer to that. that's something we're going to see i would imagine in four, five, or six weeks. >> jake sherman and peter baker, thanks for joining us on this friday, appreciate it. still ahead, the impact of the supreme court striking down a vaccine mandate for large companies. why it means vaccine levels in the u.s. might stay stagnant. also ahead, a walkout in the nation's third largest school district. why students say chicago officials are ignoring their covid concerns. s are ignoring tr covid concerns subway®... has so much new it didn't fit in our last ad. like the new deli-style oven-roasted turkey. and new hickory-smoked bacon. it's the eat fresh refresh™ at subway®. there's so much new we don't even have time for this guy! but i'm tom brady! oh, and there's smashed avocado too! could we be looking at the end of new vaccinations in this country? a permanent drought when it comes to first timers getting their shots? it's a question some are asking after what happened around this time yesterday when the supreme court struck down a vaccine or test mandate for large businesses. the decision effectively took the teeth out of any further government efforts, at least at the federal level, to force more shots into arms. and it left businesses confused and unclear what they should do next. joining me now, nbc news correspondent jake ward from richmond, california. and msnbc medical contributor dr. kavita patel. she served as white house health policy director during the obama administration. jake, i know you're at a business that's struggling to navigate this decision. so where has all of this left them? >> joe, let me give you a sense of the scene here. this vast building you see behind me was at one point a ford assembly plant. during world war ii they put out combat equipment from here inform in 1953, it shut down right at the height of the polio epidemic. the ford company and anyone in here now no longer has to worry about that because of course at the time and all the way through to today, you cannot attend schools as a child unless you're vaccinated against polio. today, however, this is occupied by several companies belonging to the columbia sportswear company. one of them is called mountain hardware. their corporate headquarters are here but there is also a retail place here. so in the same building, you have two groups of workers who in fact have two separate vaccine policies. to be a corporate headquarters employee on site, you have to be vaccinated. to be a retail worker, you do not have to be although you're strongly encouraged to do so and paid for the time it takes you to get there, all because the ceo told us they basically have a thicket of national, local, state regulations that they have to deal with along with the competitive pressure of there being some retailers that do not require a vaccine. we spoke to the ceo about it. here is how he described the complication. have a listen. >> we have some stores that straddle county-wide. so what are we supposed to do? which county do we rely on? the one where the cash register is? anyway, it adds to the level of complexity. we have to hire people to help us manage these laws so that we operate properly in every jurisdiction that we have stores. so the level of complexity is enormous. >> the ceo says to us, joe, that typically he wouldn't want the federal government intruding on his business. but in this particular case, he wishes they would get involved to simply level of playing field across all companies, joe. >> so, dr. patel, let's look at what's happening around the country. right now almost 87% of u.s. adults have one does. 73% are fully vaccinated, notwithstanding that strange 14% discrepancy there. now without a federal policy in place, let's be honest, it's likely those numbers aren't going to go up much more. what are your thoughts on this? >> yeah, that's right, joe, you aren't going to see those numbers dramatically change. we're talking at best maybe a percentage or two. you're right, there really is at this point, with the vaccine so widely available, there are very little barriers to receiving them. so other than a mandate, you would imagine people won't get them. and that's what honestly, as a health official working in the field, i worry about that every day. >> so many americans were already confused by the administration's messaging on quarantine periods, on masking. now there's probably a lot of folks out there who don't really understand what's happening with vaccine mandates, at least at a federal level. does the scotus ruling, the supreme court ruling, only make matters worse when it comes to confusion, dr. patel? >> i do think it makes it confusing, because remember, this ruling applied to the osha vaccine requirement or test. there's separate requirements for health care workers which the supreme court did uphold and there are separate requirements for other types of federal workers. postal service employees are carved out. i commiserate with any of these employers and people in general who are just confused. i think we do need to make it simpler. i also think the administration is actively pursuing other options, as the president has already said. but you could potentially make people even more confused and unintentionally disenfranchise the very audience you want to come in and get vaccines. i hope at the local level we make this an even playing field, because it's true, county to county, city to city, it feels like you have to readjust and determine which set of guidelines and regulations you follow. as a regular individual, vaccination is critical. and having that vaccine mandate be evenly applied, not just in the united states, joe, but think about it internationally, that will help a lot of people get over this confusion. >> so dr. patel, we've sort of accepted that covid is here to stay. many are wondering, though, can we reach the endemic phase of this virus? help us understand what that would look like and can we get there, do you think, without a vaccine mandate? >> yeah, so getting to an endemic phase is really where we get beyond -- obviously right now we're in the pandemic phase. a lot of people talk about endemic as having kind of countrywide outbreaks that don't devastate or paralyze the whole globe as we feel like we are right now. but i want people to understand, endemic is a little bit like herd immunity, there's not one imagine threshold where today i'm pandemic, tomorrow i'm endemic. it's really a question of, to your point, wider vaccination availability, immunity from that vaccine to prevent disease, that's why we're always talking about being up to date with boosters, israel is talking about fourth shots and giving those out. so i think we're getting closer, joe, but it's not going to be a light switch effect, it will be more like a dimmer, like we're getting a little bit closer. let's see how, past omicron, which i hope we peak in the next several weeks, let's see what we look like in the rearview and see if we can limit the impact that this virus has had to a smaller population. that's when we know we've kind of comfortably moved into the next phase of the pandemic. but since we're talking about history, historically, those phases take a lot longer than two years. i know that people don't want to hear that. but we do have covid with us for a long time, that we need to contend with, prepare for, and hopefully prevent with vaccines and therapeutics as well. >> jake, when we talk about impact, covid has really closed the inequalities in this country. we're tight on time, but help us understand who is at the most risk because of this supreme court ruling. >> this is the most important takeaway, i think, of all, joe. we spoke to researchers yesterday at boston university and the university of minnesota who have been looking at the impact of the state and local policy on workers and they say people earning less than $25,000 a year at a company are four times more likely to miss a full week of work with covid than someone earning above $100,000 a year. so it's one thing to imagine a world in which covid falls on all of us equally. but the fact that the most vulnerable people are the people earning the least and who have the absolutely greatest role in society, the front line essential workers, teachers, retail people, waiters, all of these -- health care workers, all of them are at far greater risk. and yet this new -- the striking down of the mandate means it's going to be that much harder to close that inequality gap. >> so many people making the most often have the luxury of working from home as well. thank you very much for your time. we're following court appearances this afternoon for two oath keepers charged in the capitol riot, the latest on that next. former president donald trump is set to hold a rally in a state that flipped from red to blue. m red to m red to blue for rumba lessons” plan. find the right plan for you from unitedhealthcare. get medicare with more. subway® has so much new it didn't fit in our last ad. like the new artisan ian and hearty multigrain bread. it's the eat fresh refresh™ at subway®. it's so much new there's no time for serena! wait, what?! sorry, we don't even have time to say they were created by world class bakers! oh, guess we did! seriously?! my bad. ♪♪ ♪♪ a court hearing is expected to begin any moment for edward vallejo, one of the oath keepers charged with conspiracy in the attack on the capitol. according to the court documents, vallejo coordinated a quick response force on the day of the insurrection, a group that prosecutors say was prepared to bring weapons to washington. and next hour, the leader of the oath keepers militia, stewart rhodes, will appear before a judge in texas, charged with seditious conspiracy. joining me now from plano, texas, is nbc news correspondent morgan chesky and by phone, tom winter morgan. we'll start with you, rhodes is set to appear in an hour. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: we're keeping a close eye on this situation. we're waiting to confirm word that rhodes is inside this courthouse in plano, north of dallas. this of course is happening after he's been held in custody for about the past 24 hours before he'll be facing this judge for the first time to hear these sedition charges. of the documents that have been released over the last 24 hours or so, this is evidence that the government says is a clear indicator that he was planning to do harmon that january 6th attack on the capitol. we have heard from the attorneys for rhodes who say that the evidence is insufficient to suggest that. and right now, we are -- we do have a person on the inside of this courthouse right now, keeping a very close eye on these proceedings. we do know, we have seen some security start to arrive here around this courthouse. but some of right now, we do not definitively know if rhodes is inside the building. however as you mentioned, he will be facing a judge for the first time now in about an hour, if that time holds true, joe. >> tom, we want to bring you in here because you spoke with stewart rhodes' ex-wife. what did she have to say about her former husband in the wake of his arrest? >> reporter: i spoke with tasha adams, the former wife of rhodes, as a matter of fact left him in 2018. the adl describes this group use a large but loosely-organized collection of right wing, anti-government extremists who are part of the militia movement who believes the government is trying to strip american citizens of their rights. she says what rhodes truly, truly believes in is in himself as a historical figure. she says he compares himself to such transformative figures as the founding fathers, martin luther king jr. and other transformative figures in the u.s. and that his goal is to self-promote. interestingly, in yesterday's indictment, it showed that he had purchased, according to federal prosecutors and the grand jury that heard the case, approximately $17,500 in hundreds of rounds of ammunition, scopes, gun parts, other paraphernalia, following january 6th of 2021. adams says despite his militant talk and weapons purchases, all fueled, by donations to the oath keepers and membership fees, apparently he's not very handy with a gun. she says he's not a very good shot. really kind of an interesting figure, somebody who based on our research and reporting into some of these groups in the past, rhodes is very much in line with other leaders of it, somebody who's got some sort of a military background, who is a u.s. army veteran, somebody who is a graduate of yale law school. and if you've seen a picture of him and you're looking at the eye patch and wondering how he got that, apparently it was when he dropped a loaded gun and the round -- the gun fired and a round went into his eye. so quite an individual, quite a backstory. obviously some very dangerous rhetoric. >> interesting to get some of those details, tom. you mentioned yale law school, military background. what else are we learning about rhodes? did you get a sense from the ex-wife that he had changed or his viewpoints have changed over time, or was he always like this in her mind? >> reporter: yeah, that's a really interesting point. there's always a pivot, right? so we see this typically in some of these people, something changes. she thinks it was around the time that he was shot that he started to espouse these -- that he shot himself, to be clear -- that he started to espouse these more kind of extremist type of views. she helped formed, and totally denounces the oath keepers now and their beliefs, but helped form it in march of 2009, that's when this all started to take off. and over time, the groups are believed to have really kind of changed. at first, more antigovernment, nonpolitical, not backing any candidate, to turning into something that turned decisively pro-trump. and obviously that's why we're looking at these sedition charges and the allegations that the justice department brought forward yesterday. >> tom winter, thank you so much for your reporting. and thanks to morgan chesky who will keep an eye on things in plano, texas. donald trump will return to the national stage tomorrow with a rally in arizona. he says he will use this rally to address the years after the attack on the capitol after abruptlycanceling a news conference he had planned on the anniversary of january 6th. axios reports that the speaker's list for the rally includes republicans who tried to overturn arizona's 2020 election result, a result that flipped the state from red to blue. joining me now is nbc news politics reporter jonathan allen. jonathan, trump hasn't said whether he would run in 2024. clearly he wants to remain part of the national conversation. do you get the sense, do national republicans want him to stay part of the conversation right now? >> reporter: when you look at polling, the answer to that is yes. certainly a plurality of republicans want him to run for reelection. and the approval ratings for him range into the 80s. whether the establishment wants him to run again is another question. i think there are a lot of members congress who will privately tell you they don't want him to run for reelection, but would never say that publicly for fear of bringing on his anger, his wrath, his ire, and his efforts to defeat them. >> and you have to wonder what is considered the establishment these days anyway. i mean, we also know trump is cheering the latest republican retirement, representative john katko, the third gop member to vote for trump's impeachment now to retire. does this show that trump's hold on the party is ironclad right now? >> reporter: it's absolutely ironclad. there's nobody who is even close to the force that donald trump is in republican politics. it's hard to remember any candidate, any incumbent president, much less somebody who is a defeated former president as president biden said of trump, who held quite this much sway over the primary electorate. if you're a republican and you come out against trump, you are asking for a primary opponent. in some cases we've seen trump basically recruit candidates to run against incumbents who oppose him and even put out open job advertisements asking for someone to run to oppose them. his grip on the republican party is ironclad not only in that sense, but state republican parties are built in his image over the last few years. it's hard to imagine anyone running against him in 2024 and beating him. >> politico has a report saying trump has turned his attention to the midterm senate races this year. a trump world source told them, if trump is planning to run for president, which all signs point to, he is -- the most important thing should be to elect people to the senate who share his worldview. so what do we know about his plan for the midterms over the next nine, ten months? >> reporter: i think that's one of many reasons that he has stayed out of some of the most highly competitive senate races right now because whoever wins that primary is someone trump is going to want to put into office in the senate. if you've got several trump-like candidates in ohio or missouri or pennsylvania right now, trump won't want to have to pivot and endorse somebody. it's true that republicans are going to struggle, as are democrats, to win control of the senate in 2022. if you look to the future of former president trump, if he were to be president again, he would absolutely need strong supporters in the senate to try to get his agenda through. >> jonathan allen, appreciate it. up next, a walkout in the nation's third largest school district. why chicago students say their covid concerns are being ignored. say their covid concerns are being covid concerns are being ignored. great divorce guys. yeah... search 100s of travel sites at once. kayak. search one and done. subway® has so mu ew it didn't fit in our last ad. like the new app with customization, curbside pickup and delivery. there's so much new, we don't even have time to show you who's holding this phone. bet you don't treat brady this way. come on, man! you clearly haven't seen the other ads. it's the eat fresh refresh™ at subway®. and it's easy to get a quote at libertymutual.com so you only pay for what you need. isn't that right limu? 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[a vulture squawks.] oh boy. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty♪ students in chicago are gatheringst downtown protesting their return to classrooms during the omicron surge. they walked out today from at left 30 schools. in a few minutes, they'll will bolding a halle outside the district's headquarters, joining me h is sha quill brewster, set the scene for us, tell us who the students are demanding. >> reporter: well, joe,e worryn front of the chift public cool headquarters right now. you seear 100 students from all across the city. we were on the south side at one school where s the organizer wa as 50 students rushed out of class and headed downtown. take a look. that's the majority of the people you are seeing here are students. we have some adults here helping them. what they're saying and their frustration is these are students that just returned to thets classroom in the past coue of days, after that standoff between city officials and the chicago teacher's union. the problem is many students are saying despite that agreement the two parties came to, faye tell their voices weren't heard in the agreement. they're concerned about the pandemic. they're calling for a range of thing, like better masking, asking tore more test. it goes ae off to technology. they're asking for computers when they have to go remote and concerns about mental health resources inside the school. i spoke to an organizer, watch what she told me this morning. that agreement between ptu and ski officials the, were happy with that or not in. >> the fact that was a minimum. the fact we had to fight, it's insanefa to me. why do we have to ask for covid-19 testing? why do we have to ask our teachers are provided with masks? it's not an impossible thing either. we seen thisle happen in anothe school districts. >> reporter: you heard her mention there other school districts. you aren seeing similar walkou play out across this country. yesterday we saw them in new york. s we know there are walkouts happening in the boston area today. thing i ask is whether or not they feel solidarity with the other districts, the other students that are here. they said, yes, they do feel some solidarity with the fact that other students are stepping up, demanding better pandemic provisions. >> right, shaquille brewster, thank you so much for that report. we appreciate anu it. that does it for me today, katie will be back on monday and halle jackson picks up our coverage next. jackson picks uptantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire next you don't get much time for yourself. so when you do, make it count with crest pro-health. it protects the 8 areas dentists check for a healthier mouth. the #1 toothpaste brand in america. crest. why do people who live with generalized myasthenia gravis want a new treatment option? 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♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ i booked our hotel on kayak. it's flexible if we need to cancel. cancel. i haven't left the house in a year. nothing will stop me from vacation. no canceling. flexible cancellation. kayak. search one and done. we got breaking news as we come on the air this afternoon. any minute, the leader of the far right group the oath keepers will be in front of a federal judge in court. you are looking at that time courthouse along with stewart rowe to answer the charges that he tried to stop the presidential transfer of power. we have morgan chesky and our legal team standing by. we are live at the white house, have you heard these new details breaking in the last couple minutes, about the president's plan to distribute free covid tests to all oufs. we will tell you when they could start showing up at your door. that bomb stel shell from u.s. intelligence, the white house saying that i have a false flag campaign being waged by the cell len, where russia would