This is a rush transcript from “The Five,” December 28, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, everyone. I’m Rachel Campos- Duffy along with Joey Jones, Richard Fowler, Dr. Nicole Saphier, and Tyrus. It is 5:00 in New York City, and this is THE FIVE.
Joe Biden is giving up and going to the beach. The president has no events today and instead is in Delaware for a holiday getaway while omicron spikes all across the country. Now back when he was a candidate, Biden promised to shut down the virus. Then once he was president he bashed GOP governors for not doing enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The administration’s failure around testing is colossal. And it’s a failure of planning, leadership, and execution.
We will deal honestly with the American people. And we will never, ever, ever quit. That is how we will shut down this virus.
I’m going to shut down the virus.
I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.
We need to scale up testing. So anyone who needs one can get a test. After 10 months of the pandemic, we still don’t have enough testing. It’s a travesty.
Some state officials are passing laws or signing orders that forbid people from doing the right thing. If you’re not going to help them, at least get out of the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Now the president is singing a much different tune, saying there’s not really much you can do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Look, there is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level. I’m looking at Governor Sununu on the board here. He talks about that a lot. And then ultimately it gets down to where the rubber meets the road, and that’s where the patient is in need of help or preventing the need for help.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: But people all across the country still don’t have access to COVID tests and they are stuck waiting hours in line when maybe it didn’t have to be this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARC SIEGEL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Under President Trump, you had three major tests approved, BinaxNOW by Abbott, Quidel, and BD Veritor. Those are the three main ones that are out there now, those home test. Guess what just got approved? The Roche tests just got approved one year into the Biden administration. One year. And that’s a terrific home test.
They finally got an emergency use authorization, but was stalled in front of the FDA under the Biden administration. So, the blame game doesn’t work and for sure President Biden has to say what did President Trump get right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, I’m going to start with you Joey because the failures of this administration have been very personal for you and of course I’m talking about the humiliating exit from Afghanistan and the needless death that was caused in that situation, but here we are. He said he was going to have the test. We don’t have the test. And he also complained about the other president not having the test and we don’t have the test, Joey.
JOEY JONES, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: You know, it feels like maybe somebody just played Joe Biden’s words for Joe Biden and he listened. Hey, just get out of the way and let — if you’re not going to help, get out of the way and let those that will do it. And that’s what he’s doing. He’s going to go to — he’s going to go on vacation and some governors are going to step in and do the right thing, I hope.
It really is amazing. I mean, can you imagine the billboards that will pop up in places like my hometown in Dalton, Georgia where it says it’d be Joe Biden’s big face that’s going to say there is no federal solution. There is nothing President Joe Biden can do by his own words to help in any of these any of these things we’re struggling with, from inflation to like you said what happened in Afghanistan, to what’s happening at the border, and now coronavirus.
I just don’t know how — I don’t know how you work for this man and not just hang your head in shame when he sits up there and he says something like that. I mean, he’s got a staff there that’s working every day. I think they they’re honest in their work and he really has just taken the air out of their — out of their balloon. I don’t know how they keep going to work every day at this point.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Nicole let me start with you, too, because you’re a doctor – – you’re my friend, but you’re a doctor, too. I have a question about omicron that’s just on my mind as I see all this play out. Omicron is very virulent and it spreads rapidly, but it appears to not be deadly. So, explain to me why this wouldn’t be a great opportunity to kind of let it rip through the population and get herd immunity?
NICOLE SAPHIER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Rachel, first of all, out of all the global data from South Africa, U.K., Scotland, others including the United States, there is a lot of information that is suggesting that the virulence of omicron is much less with the much lower hospitalization rate. Anywhere from 40 to 80 percent less than we saw with delta and preceding earlier variants.
Now, it doesn’t mean that it’s not as contagious. It’s actually much more contagious, much more transmissible which is why we’re seeing such a high rise of cases right now, but you know, in terms of should we just let it rip, it’s a fine line, Rachel. First of all, you know, by doing that and by letting things just go unchecked in the population you will have preventable illness, preventable hospitalizations, and preventable death.
However, I wrote a piece on foxnews.com a couple of weeks ago that was met with criticism because I said at this point in the pandemic we have the vaccines, we have boosters, we have a large amount of natural immunity, and we finally have a variant that, yes, is highly contagious but seems to be more mild especially more mild in people who are fully vaccinated and people who are boosted.
So people have the tools at this point to prevent infection and if they do get infected it tends to be more mild, less serious, and now we finally have treatments that are proving effective. So, yes, getting that hybrid immunity, that vaccine-induced immunity, plus a breakthrough infection so some level of natural immunity, that is by far the strongest wave of protection that we could have moving forward.
And this could be our step into making this virus become endemic and that is how the mindset needs to change. I’m glad President Biden has finally realized that it will not be a black and white federal solution. I remember — I’m old enough to remember when President Trump said a couple of years ago this needs to be on the onus, needs to be on the states.
It is the federal government’s job to secure these private public partnerships and get out of the way. And that is exactly what “Operation Warp Speed” did. They allowed people to get that private public partnership, get things to the market and unfortunately we’re not seeing the same urgency under the Biden administration.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, you’re so right doctor because President Trump said from the very beginning that states should be allowed to do what they think is right for their state. So Richard, now it seems like the Biden administration is agreeing with Trump on this. Do you agree that this is no — this should have always been a state solution?
RICHARD FOWLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, a couple things here. Number one, I do think that it has to be a mixture of both the federal government and the state government working together to ensure that people get supplies, folks get ventilators, which you saw at the beginning of the pandemic when hospital — when states were searching for ventilators. It was on the federal government to make sure they had those ventilators.
But with that being said, what I really hate is these the president’s on vacation headlines, right? We saw this — this is this headline rears its ugly head every single year. It happened under George W. Bush. It happened under Barack Obama. It happened under Donald Trump. It happened under the White House. And I think the American people are smarter than that.
They know wherever the president goes, so goes the White House. Both the White House communications office, all the necessary advisers the president needs to have on hand to make decisions, the nuclear football, military, everything moves when the president moves. So this headline that news of outlets continue to put out there, it’s just so misleading and it’s so ridiculous.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes. I actually agree with you, Richard. I think that, you know, with technology the president can go wherever he’s at. Now, if the president’s not in good shape mentally that’s another issue. It doesn’t matter where he’s at in that case. Tyrus, let me go to you because the president’s top COVID advisor is Dr. Fauci as we know, and he’s saying we need to cancel New Year’s. I’m hosting New Year’s for Fox News. We’re not canceling. What do you think?
TRYUS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, as someone who gets to stay home for New Year’s, cancel away. No, I’m just kidding. It’s wrong. You know, the only thing that is refreshing is that the president finally did throw his hands up and said we dropped the ball. There’s nothing we can do on the federal level. It’s up — it’s up to the governors and state.
And I’m kind of, at least give me that, because we’ve heard nothing but nonsense coming out of the federal government under this administration since they came in. They were going to do all this other stuff.
And here’s the part that drives me absolutely mad is they’ve wanted all of us to act like we’re in — remember, when we were kids it was like code orange and code red, and it was — it’s been code orange COVID pretty much since the administration took over, but they still ran out of test, which means that on the surface you’re telling us it’s terrible.
But in the closed doors you’re saying don’t worry about it we can go on vacations. We can — we’ll just lower the CDC, you know, from 10 days to five days so we can make up for not having testing because federal workers can’t go back to work unless they have a negative test on their on their COVID test if they get COVID.
So, they continually changing — it’s like a Rubik’s cube where someone peels the stickers off. That’s what this administration is doing. They just put new stickers around saying look we solved the Rubik’s cube, and no, you didn’t. It’s a hot mess. Get it together.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes.
SAPHIER: I love that.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes. They definitely look like they’re making it up as they go along. All right, well coming up next, we all know Joe Biden’s poll numbers are terrible, but wait until you hear how bad it just got. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY FALLON, LATE NIGHT SHOW HOST: How much do you pay attention to approval ratings?
BIDEN: Well, not anymore. No, I’m joking. I was paying attention when they were in the mid -60s, but now that they’re in the 40s, I don’t pay attention anymore.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: President Biden claims he doesn’t care about his approval ratings but the next poll might make him pay attention. His approval rating has now fallen below as deeply unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris for the first time since their time in office. The president clocking in at 43 percent to Harris’ 44 percent. The sad state of affairs for the White House is a major boon for the GOP with Republicans becoming increasingly bullish on the prospect of a red wave in next year’s midterms.
You know, Rachel, I want to come to you first on this. Do you think its inflation or maybe the crisis at the border or maybe just the inability to set an agenda and pass it that Americans can get behind. Why are Americans so down on President Biden and Kamala Harris for that matter?
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, first of all, I just want to comment on Jimmy Fallon. How nice he is to Joe Biden? Remember he had to apologize for humanizing Donald Trump when he had him on. It’s so interesting. Look, he is wildly unpopular. I think the first thing that happened that really made people stand up and go no more was what happened in Afghanistan. I brought that up in the last segment because I think it was just so emblematic, but there is nothing that has gone right.
For me personally, I think the biggest issue is the loss of freedom that we’ve experienced over the last couple of years. It’s this normalization of the government taking control of our lives whether it’s when and if we can go to church, when we can open our businesses, if our kids can go to school. This is outrageous.
And frankly, look, I think there’s going to be a huge wave for Republicans. There’s no doubt in my mind. The question is do they deserve it and what will they do with that power because with just a few exceptions, Rand Paul, Senator Ron Johnson who’s been a hero in the Senate, Jim Jordan. I don’t hear Republicans talking enough about our loss of freedom, about the road that we’re on, I believe, to a Chinese — communist Chinese credit score system.
All of these things that are happening that are so scary and so un- American, these are the things I want to hear Republicans talk about for them to deserve our vote. Of course, I’d vote for them over what I see here, which is absolute failure on the part of the Democrats. I don’t see one thing that Biden is doing right, but I would like to see more from Republicans in terms of speaking up for the liberties that we’ve lost over the last two years.
JONES: That’s powerful and it’s absolutely right. We should be able to sit here and say man, I’m excited about what this politician brings to the table instead of holding our nose and voting for whoever, you know, hasn’t made our life worse today.
Tyrus, I remember 2019 sitting there going, you know, only Donald Trump could lose this next election for Donald Trump. Then we got hit with a virus and things kind of changed and I think the virus was a big part of why he lost the election in 2020. Can Republicans, you know, what can they do to prevent themselves from hitting this red wave because the map sure looks good for them?
TYRUS: Well, I mean, first of all, yes, I don’t — it doesn’t matter who was president during a pandemic. You’re not going to see that through even though I thought President Trump did an outstanding job in terms of getting the vaccinations going and getting people an opportunity to get better faster and his focus was always on getting America back to work.
People heard that. They got behind that and they believed in that. This administration, you know, they all — their entire thing was to undo everything he did. The only thing I would tell him you want to undo maybe just don’t like undo a like on one of his tweets because his deeds, the deeds ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the deeds outweigh the tweets.
And now we’re seeing no deeds and no tweets. So we can’t even get entertained while we’re being treated miserably. Here’s the thing though, to be fair, to be fair, President Joe is more like neck and neck with V.P. You know what I’m saying? It’s like within an area of one or two points. I can tell you right — here’s some — here’s something free. You want to get 10 points right now, 10 points right now on those polls? Simple.
All you got to do is go to the camp. When you’re on vacation, sit up at the beach, and be like hey, previous administration, whoever was in charge was running since we got rid of you guys, we’re going to bring you back, we’re going to pick your brain about the border, bring back some of your old — some of the things that you were doing right and we’re going to get it right.
We are bad. We’re going to stick with that. We got the border lock down. That in itself is accountability, knowing what’s right, and you’re going to get some points back for that. Try that. Deeds. Get some deeds done.
JONES: I think they would love to get 10 points in any way they can right now. Dr. Saphier, we just talked about how President Biden and Kamala Harris probably were elected based on this premise that they’ll bring some sort of resolution to coronavirus. Here we are a year into it, we know exactly where we sit. We’re in boxes. We’re not sitting at a table in New York City right now. Has President Biden done anything to validate that narrative from the 2020 election in this last year?
SAPHIER: Well, Joey, the reason that he is now below and I guess Tyrus sees neck and neck, but he is technically below V.P. Harris, and that is because the way that he’s handled the pandemic and in that it has been he completely has politicized the virus. He blamed the unvaccinated for spreading it. Now that Democrats are actually getting breakthrough infections, you even have “Washington Post” saying no, no, we shouldn’t be shaming people for getting COVID.
Well, we shouldn’t have been shaming anybody all along. They catered to the teachers unions that kept children out of school. They’ve completely flubbed the booster roll out which caused two high-level FDA administrators to actually leave. And now that we have omicron here that we have the high amount of immunity in the population, a milder variant, and now is the time that we should say hey, it’s time to move forward, but Fauci and Biden just can’t get out of the way.
The best thing that they could do coming into the midterms is to remove these federal mandates because as we know we have COVID circulating in the vaccinated, the unvaccinated, and even the boosted. The message needs to be do what you can to protect yourselves, protect your families, but we’re going to get out of the way.
We’re going to remove that OSHA mandate. We’re going to pull back on a lot of these lawsuits and let states take for — take accountability for their people and get people back to work because these mandates caused the worker shortages which is what is causing this complete spiral out of control right now.
JONES: You know, Richard, Build Back Better, BBB is DOA. Inflation is no longer transitory. And Governor Abbott’s building us a wall down there. What can Democrats do to get some momentum on their side or just to tweak Americans interest in possibly voting for one of them here in just about a year and a half?
FOWLER: Well, I think that’s a great question and I agree with Tyrus to the idea that you have to have some deeds here. But let’s be very clear, if you voted for Donald Trump in the last election you’re not going to vote for Joe Biden for his re-election so, Joe Biden should have talked to those voters and instead should focus on the 78 million people that got him to the White House.
And that means he has to deliver on the promises he made to those voters. He made a promise to fix student loan debt in this country. He made a promise to ensure and secure voting rights for African-Americans, the people of color all across this country. He made a promise that he was going to have a conversation with the base that got him to the game which were African-American voters. And now more than ever the president needs to talk to his base. If he’s talking to his base he will have a good midterms. If he stops talking to his base he won’t and I thought what was very interesting in this poll was this. Every elected leader in Washington was negative outside of John Roberts the chief justice of the Supreme Court who’s not elected and appointed and he runs away from politics as fast as he can.
JONES: Well, maybe he should talk to Joe Manchin if he wants to know where Americans are his base or not. All right, up next, Chicago 911 dispatcher says all hell has broken loose in the city and it’s (inaudible) got liberal leaders.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TYRUS: A Chicago police dispatcher who was once praised by Mayor Lori Lightfoot now speaking truth to power and sounding off over the rising crime and the shortage of cops.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEITH THORNTON, CHICAGO 911 DISPATCHER: It’s outrageous and I’m not happy. When you say Chicago people are afraid. It looks like it’s a death zone. Several of my officers who texted me, okay, and said that they were scared. They’re tired of this nonsense. They have no backing and they’re scared of being out there by themselves.
This mayor does not care about Chicago police officers period. She doesn’t care about any first responders. She doesn’t care about the damn city.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TYRUS: And the dispatcher wasn’t done calling out the mayor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THORNTON: At all hours of the day there is a massive amount of crime taking place within the city of Chicago and I mean, it’s horrendous. People are being shot, killed. Our citizens deserve more backing out there and the acknowledgement that things are going on and action needs to be taken. And more importantly our first responders, not just the police, but fire department, EMS, the dispatchers, call takers that are out here doing these wonderful jobs.
They have absolutely no backing. They’re being overworked. And with the shortages going on right now, it’s only affecting the citizens of Chicago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TYRUS: It’s just so disheartening to hear this. Joey, let me go to you first because a lot of the men and women who wear the badge that I’ve talked to, a lot of them were veterans as well and they described what it’s like being in the streets of Chicago and a lot of the blue cities these days. It’s like being in a foxhole under fire and you’re calling for helicopter support and there’s just nothing coming back.
In your experience when you — when you look at these cities, can you — is there any advice you can give these men and women who are in these situations, were basically left. They’re just — their sixes are just not covered?
JONES: You know, everybody hates a bad cop. Everybody hates anybody in position of authority who would abuse it or use that. Even casually to talk down to someone or put them in a corner and I hate that feeling myself. But the majority of cops, and when I say majority, I mean my belief is my presumption when a cop walks up to me is that’s not the case.
And for any cop out there, veteran or not, remember why you took the job. Remember why you put the badge on. It wasn’t for the pay. It obviously wasn’t for the glory. It was because you felt like you could do something to make your community better. And if every single one of the cops out there that believe that and join for that reason and act that way, I don’t think politicians will have the opportunity to continue to undermine them because communities will support them. That’s what I think.
TYRUS: Well said bro, well said. Richard, I go to you. When you hear some of the things that Mayor Lightfoot has said and practiced, when you look at, you know, in a democratic scheme of things, she didn’t want help from the previous administration. You know, she said that merchants and retailers need to do a better job, it’s their fault that the crime rate’s high.
She won’t speak to reporters unless they’re a person of color. When you hear all these missteps and the optics of this, how hard is it as a Democrat to be able to just get behind any of this or is this just something I’m missing?
FOWLER: No, I don’t think you’re missing anything here. I have no love loss for Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago. I think that she has done a dismal job of leading the city. Not only do we have an increase in crime, but she’s also failed to talk to members of the north and — the south and west side of the city.
She promised to be a candidate that would unite the city and deal with income inequality, and deal with the disparities that exist in the south and west side of the city, and she’s failed at that miserably. She failed to implement a testing and contact tracing policy even though the Biden administration gave her over $1.8 billion in our public schools in the city of Chicago.
And as a result of that there was a school just a couple of weeks ago in the city of Chicago, Jensen Elementary that witnessed an outbreak that caused two mothers to die of COVID-19. And this is all happening on the mayor’s watch. And she has admitted that she has failed when it comes to implementing a policy to decrease the spread of COVID-19 in her cities.
So, shame on Mayor Lori Lightfoot. And big ups to all the people who are fighting against her on the southwest side of Chicago.
TYRUS: Dr. Nicole, I mean, for lack of a better term, diagnosis murder, it’s up 68 percent in Chicago. When you hear these kinds of numbers, you know, and I literally — and I kid you not, at one point, someone said yes, but attempted murder is down. I don’t even know how to even tackle that.
When you look at these numbers of violence and crimes, where do you think the best way for Chicago to start to turn this around?
SAPHIER: Well, that’s right, Tyrus. So, COVID deaths are down 30 percent in Chicago, but their homicides and shootings are up 60 percent. And you know, public safety is a fundamental responsibility of the local government.
And so, when you see cities like Chicago that is high in crime, this is a direct failure of the elected officials and the policies being implemented. And people are starting to see that elections have consequences. So, when you have a city like this high in crime and low in health because you have police officers, because of under-funding, that are retiring or they are quitting, you know this puts people in a very precarious situation and you are going to see more violent violence.
Perhaps President Biden, Dr. Fauci, et al, should start focusing on this public health crisis because this is the one that is rapidly expanding that there is no end in sight to, and spend a little less time on COVID.
TYRUS: That’s a great point. Rachel, final thoughts.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Amen to that Dr. Saphier. More children have died of gunfire in Chicago than COVID for sure. I’ll say this was powerful because this was a dispatcher. Dispatchers get the calls, the 911 calls, and have to make the heartbreaking decisions, you know, to send out responders. And then, if there’s not enough cops, they have to let those people in distress know.
So, this man knows what he’s talking about and that’s why he’s out there. And it’s really powerful that he is. I lived in third-world countries. My father was in the military. And when I was in those countries, there wasn’t enough funding for law enforcement there. And it was rich people who were able to you know have their own private security and their own basically fortresses around their house.
We’re seeing that now in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, rich people, you know, mitigating — you know, basically covering their bases, their houses with private security, and then it’s the poor people who are left to deal with this crime. We are turning our country — our biggest cities into third-world countries. And it’s done deliberately, it doesn’t have to be this way, the funding is there, she’s just choosing not to give it to law enforcement and safety.
TYRUS: Wow. All right, up next, here we go again. New signs that liberals want to lock down your kids and return to remote learning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOWLER: Some of our nation’s biggest school districts are considering the idea of shutting down in-person classes and returning to remote learning. The Chicago Teachers Union is reportedly asking members if they support a district-wide pause in in-person learning, allowing them to pivot to online.
And New York City teachers are pressuring their unions as well as the mayor to bring back remote learning. But outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio doesn’t seem willing to budge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL DE BLASIO, MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY: Our schools have been extraordinarily safe, bluntly the safest places to be in New York City, very low levels of COVID. Schools need to be open. Everyone talks about the needs of our kids, their health needs, physical health, mental health, nutrition needs, their social development needs, their academic needs. Schools need to be open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOWLER: So, listen, every time i hear headlines about teachers’ unions, I always take the time out to remember that teachers’ unions are made up of workers, and public sector workers, and educators. And I’ve done some time interviewing educators and what you see them saying is that we want to be back in our classrooms but we’re also trying to balance that with the safety of ensuring that our students don’t get COVID and bring it home to their parents or to grandma.
So, Dr. Saphier, my question for you is how do we help both parents and educators bridge this balance of the importance of having in-person learning while also ensuring that these children aren’t spreading COVID-19 to their loved ones back at home?
SAPHIER: Yes, that’s a great question. And I can tell you, one of the biggest failures of our entire response throughout the pandemic is taking children out of school. But the biggest failure is keeping them out of school. The fact that this is even an option at this point is a continued failure of us from a federal level, a state level, and a local level.
Under no circumstances should these schools switch to remote learning unless there is a very specific need. And it is — it is about — yes, it is about the teachers getting COVID-19, it’s about the children getting sick, it is about them bringing home the virus to those around them.
But time after time, we have now been able to prove that there is a low amount of transmission in schools no more than normal flu in cold season. We need to stop stigmatizing normal seasonal respiratory viruses. RSV and flu are very severe in children.
So, yes if you have a low — or a high absentee where you have enough children who are out sick, oftentimes they will close down a classroom so that they can sanitize and give children time to recover and get back to the classroom. But they shouldn’t preemptively be going to remote learning in anticipation of positive cases coming back from the holidays. There is no reason for that.
We have now gone to a place where you have an entire generation of children who have been — have poor performers when it comes to education. They have not had adequate education, they have had poor socialization, and that has been a complete hindrance to their mental and physical development.
It is far more dangerous to keep them out of school than bringing them into school when we know at this point these again continue to be the lowest risk population when it comes to COVID-19. High-risk children and those that live in homes with high-risk individuals have the ability to be vaccinated, have the ability to be boosted. And from there, it is time to move forward and let this mild illness in children otherwise circulate so that they can get that immunity and we can continue keeping them in school because that is what’s best for them long term.
FOWLER: Thanks Dr. Saphier. So, Joey, I guess my question to you is this. I mean, because there is this prevailing balance that I think that Dr. Saphier laid out there, right? So, how do you balance educators who want to be with their — with their students when you have government failure when it comes to testing, contact tracing, ensuring that folks have access to the vaccine?
JONES: Well, you know, maybe you say get parents to the school board to advocate for their children, but I guess that’s a cardinal sin now too. You’ll have the FBI breathing down your back I guess.
The problem now is that we have the — you talk — you opened the segment talking about how school union — teachers unions are made up of the worker, the person in there with the kids. The members are, but the leaders are not. The leaders are bureaucrats. The leaders are corrupt individuals who now serve to satisfy themselves and the entity.
And I don’t mean that to attack teachers’ unions. That’s what unions have become in a place where we have communication. It’s a lot harder to take advantage of workers which is what started the idea of a union to begin with. That’s one of the problems in this country. What we need to do is be less selfish.
What we haven’t learned in two years is how coronavirus affects children. What we have learned in about a year is how badly being out of school affects children. So, if I’m looking at those two things, face to face, I’m going to do the unselfish thing, put my kids in a classroom, and make sure they have the social and learning opportunities that every American needs to survive in this life.
Nothing affects socioeconomically, underprivileged kids worse. Nothing bridges that gap wider than this at-home learning. Because kids with rich parents and attentive parents won’t have the same problems that other kids who need to be in classroom should have the opportunity and attention.
FOWLER: So, I mean, what was your take on that, Rachel?
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, let’s start with what Joey was talking about with the unions. Public school teachers don’t work for the unions. They work for us the taxpayers. We pay their salaries and that’s who they work for. It is very clear when you have mental health just skyrocketing, mental health problems among children as young as 4 or 5 years old. You have a 50 percent increase in suicide attempts among teenage girls.
The pandemic is really — the epidemic is mental health among our kids and it’s all been orchestrated by people with political motives. We have absolutely destroyed their childhoods. We’ve taken away their extracurriculars. We’ve crushed sports dreams for so many kids. We’ve isolated them. We’ve caused them to lose years of learning.
Our special needs kids by the way are suffering um the most. And by the way, we’re torturing them. We’re masking them as they go to school. This is outrageous and it shows that we don’t care or prioritize our children as a society.
If you look at China, 94 million Chinese have been going to school since the pandemic started. This is a culture that values education and clearly values their future. We are not and we’re allowing political actors very bad and corrupt political actors run the lives of our children and ruin them.
FOWLER: So, Tyrus, to Rachel’s point there, I mean, how do we sort of compete with the global world when we see that in countries like China, India, and South Korea, their investment in public education and making sure their students have the best education is far outpaces America?
TYRUS: Well, you can never really compare United States to any other country because we are a country of freedoms and we have choices. They don’t have a choice in necessarily in China to homeschool or whatever. But I will say this as a parent and a former educator. Homeschooling your own children and teaching your own children is the toughest job in the world because it’s just — it’s just really difficult.
And masks in the school really hurt younger children’s development because you don’t realize how much children develop by mimicking the teachers, watching the teacher phrase words, how they say things, interactions. Those things, those movements that we need — it also has to do with comfort — the kids aren’t getting that.
So, you know, a lot of things go wrong when you’re not in the classroom because you’re just not getting in that environment and you’re not getting the stuff that you need. And it puts a lot of burden on mom and dad who are working two jobs trying to play catch up for when they couldn’t pay rent and et cetera.
So, in school — in-home learning is a really bad idea. We need our schools open. And of course, the teachers always get the brunt of it, but it’s the administrators who need to get their act together.
FOWLER: I agree with that. Administrators do need to get their act together. And from my years of journalism, I know that when teachers raise their voices, they’re raising it for their students. And don’t go anywhere. “THE FASTEST” is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SAPHIER: Well, welcome back. It is time for “THE FASTEST.” First up, a family celebrating Christmas getting the shock of a lifetime after one of their neighbors barged into their house with this demand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can I ask you guys to turn it down? It’s about 10 after 11.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You need to get out. This is not your apartment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get out of my house right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? In the house?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAPHIER: I mean, so you have this family celebrating Christmas, they’re singing, they’re gathering, they’re being merry, if you will. Tyrus, the neighbor barges in and says to keep it down. What do you make of that?
TYRUS: Well, you know what, in my neighborhood, you would have walked in, you would have been carried out, or at least walked away with a limp in a really scary story for next year’s Christmas.
I mean, with the exception of Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, he’s the only person who can pull this off. This is extremely intrusive. And like I said, you’re walking in, but you get carried out, period.
SAPHIER: Rachel, I’ll be honest, I mean, this seems like every night at the Campos-Duffy house. I mean, do you, Sean, and the kids kind of have — do you try and keep it down for your neighbors?
CAMPOS-DUFFY: It’s impossible. We actually — when we purchase a house, we make sure we don’t have neighbors too close because they might get mad. My first thought was, this is definitely Hispanic family. It is loud, just like ours.
My second thought is in the Christmas spirit, it would have been nice if they had invited her in and maybe that’s what she really wanted. She was born at home, and she wanted to be part of the fun.
SAPHIER: Yes, Richard, so what do you make of this? Do you — do you think that maybe instead of yelling at her, they could have said hey, you know what, have a cup of eggnog. Maybe that’s a little spike and she’ll have a good night.
TYRUS: She going to have a good night.
FOWLER: Not so much on this. And I actually want to copy and paste everything that Tyrus said. Because if you walk in my house like that, you’re going to be coming — you’re going to be dragged out. That’s for sure. But bah humbug to this Karen. I mean, she is just the opposite of Christmas spirit. And as adults — like unlike children, we sort of ask the Christmas spirit to come in and beg her to come into our lives. And this Karen didn’t do any begging to the Christmas spirit at all here.
SAPHIER: Joey, what is your take on this Christmas Karen bah humbug?
JONES: They’re neighbors. They probably know what kind of person she is. And apparently, it’s not a very joyous one, very much a Grinch. I think it’s awesome that Hispanic family celebrates on the 24th that night. They celebrate all night, wake up on Christmas morning and play with the toys they got the night before.
I’m going to adopt that tradition if I can. And wow, what kind — what kind of Christmas spirit don’t you have unless there’s something going on in their life? Maybe the Chick-fil-A role of empathize with people that are mean, but man, that was just terrible. How can you — how can you do that? That’s terrible.
SAPHIER: I think I would have given her a little eggnog and cookies and see if we could cheer her up. But stay tuned, “ONE MORE THING” is up next.
TYRUS: Cheer her out.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Welcome back to THE FIVE. It’s time now for “ONE MORE THING.” I’m going to lead the way here. This is a Catholic Boys School in Rhode Island. The audio went out during the Star-Spangled Banner and the — everyone in the stadium decided to just belt it out themselves. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMERICAN CROWD: Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave. Over the land of the free and the home of the brave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right, that just made my heart warm up and get really big. I love this Catholic school. I love America. And I love hockey because they still are very patriotic. Joey, you’re next.
JONES: Yes, listen. Since 2012, an organization called Luke’s Wings has filled a gap not a lot of people know about. They pay for flights for injured and wounded service members and veterans to go home and spend the holidays with their family. One really cool thing they’re doing, they’re sending my best friend Danny Ridgeway, a Silver Star recipient, home to duck hunt with me on New Year’s. He spends every Thanksgiving and New Year’s with me. And I just can’t thank him enough for helping Danny out. Please go donate. You can donate money or SkyMiles at lukeswings.org. Richard?
FOWLER: So, today marks —
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right, that’s awesome stuff. All right, Richard, what do you got?
FOWLER: So, today marks the third day of Kwanzaa, which is — which is dedicated to Ujima which is the principle of collective work and responsibility. This pledge today is that on this day, we pledged to build and maintain a community together with our brothers and sisters problems as our own.
As the wise African saying goes, if you want to go far, go alone. If you want to go fast — if you want to go — if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with a group.
JONES: Awesome.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right, Dr. Saphier.
SAPHIER: I love that. And speaking of learning responsibility, my youngest of three boys was gifted for Christmas a little puppy and helping to get him some responsibility, but we’ll see. So, this is us waking him up Christmas morning. My husband and I dressed as little elves.
At first, he thought it was a stuffed animal, so we almost threw it across the room. But when I left it off the hood, he actually saw what it was. Thank you, mommy and daddy. And that is Woodley because he’s the color of wood.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Tyrus, close this out. That is the cutest puppy ever.
TYRUS: That’s tough to follow. But, you know, a lot of you want to know how I was able to defend my world television championship in NWA. Well, it wasn’t by doing it like this guy. Check this guy out. Weight, skateboards, and jump ropes, the only way to — the only way to get ready for the New Year, so I’m proud of him.
SAPHIER: I love it.
JONES: Wow.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right —
FOWLER: That’s impressive.
TYRUS: Yes. That’s — I’m not sure what exactly muscle that isolates, but you know what, it’s cool. And cool sometimes is enough.
SAPHIER: All of them.
JONES: I’ve done that by accident in the gym.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: I’d like to see you try that, Tyrus. It’s your goal for the New Year. Well, that’s it for us, all of you. “SPECIAL REPORT” is up next.
END
<Copy: Content and Programming Copyright 2021 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2021 VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.>JACKIE DEANGELIS, FOX NEWS HOST: And it really underscores the point why people have to vote in their local elections because that’s where some of these changes are made. Always great to see you, sir. Thank you so much. We are going to leave it there for the moment. That is us — it for us today. Thank you so much for joining us. THE FIVE starts now.
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, everyone. I’m Rachel Campos- Duffy along with Joey Jones, Richard Fowler, Dr. Nicole saphier, and Tyrus. It is 5:00 in New York City, and this is THE FIVE.
Joe Biden is giving up and going to the beach. The president has no events today and instead is in Delaware for a holiday getaway while omicron spikes all across the country. Now back when he was a candidate, Biden promised to shut down the virus. Then once he was president he bashed GOP governors for not doing enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The administration’s failure around testing is colossal. And it’s a failure of planning, leadership, and execution.
We will deal honestly with the American people. And we will never, ever, ever quit. That is how we will shut down this virus.
I’m going to shut down the virus.
I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.
We need to scale up testing. So anyone who needs one can get a test. After 10 months of the pandemic, we still don’t have enough testing. It’s a travesty.
Some state officials are passing laws or signing orders that forbid people from doing the right thing. If you’re not going to help them, at least get out of the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Now the president is singing a much different tune, saying there’s not really much you can do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Look, there is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level. I’m looking at Governor Sununu on the board here. He talks about that a lot. And then ultimately it gets down to where the rubber meets the road, and that’s where the patient is in need of help or preventing the need for help.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: But people all across the country still don’t have access to COVID tests and they are stuck waiting hours in line when maybe it didn’t have to be this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARC SIEGEL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Under President Trump, you had three major tests approved, BinaxNOW by Abbott, Quidel, and BD Veritor. Those are the three main ones that are out there now, those home test. Guess what just got approved? The Roche tests just got approved one year into the Biden administration. One year. And that’s a terrific home test.
They finally got an emergency use authorization, but was stalled in front of the FDA under the Biden administration. So, the blame game doesn’t work and for sure President Biden has to say what did President Trump get right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, I’m going to start with you Joey because the failures of this administration have been very personal for you and of course I’m talking about the humiliating exit from Afghanistan and the needless death that was caused in that situation, but here we are. He said he was going to have the test. We don’t have the test. And he also complained about the other president not having the test and we don’t have the test, Joey.
JOEY JONES, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: You know, it feels like maybe somebody just played Joe Biden’s words for Joe Biden and he listened. Hey, just get out of the way and let — if you’re not going to help, get out of the way and let those that will do it. And that’s what he’s doing. He’s going to go to — he’s going to go on vacation and some governors are going to step in and do the right thing, I hope.
It really is amazing. I mean, can you imagine the billboards that will pop up in places like my hometown in Dalton, Georgia where it says it’d be Joe Biden’s big face that’s going to say there is no federal solution. There is nothing President Joe Biden can do by his own words to help in any of these any of these things we’re struggling with, from inflation to like you said what happened in Afghanistan, to what’s happening at the border, and now coronavirus.
I just don’t know how — I don’t know how you work for this man and not just hang your head in shame when he sits up there and he says something like that. I mean, he’s got a staff there that’s working every day. I think they they’re honest in their work and he really has just taken the air out of their — out of their balloon. I don’t know how they keep going to work every day at this point.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Nicole let me start with you, too, because you’re a doctor – – you’re my friend, but you’re a doctor, too. I have a question about omicron that’s just on my mind as I see all this play out. Omicron is very virulent and it spreads rapidly, but it appears to not be deadly. So, explain to me why this wouldn’t be a great opportunity to kind of let it rip through the population and get herd immunity?
NICOLE SAPHIER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Rachel, first of all, out of all the global data from South Africa, U.K., Scotland, others including the United States, there is a lot of information that is suggesting that the virulence of omicron is much less with the much lower hospitalization rate. Anywhere from 40 to 80 percent less than we saw with delta and preceding earlier variants.
Now, it doesn’t mean that it’s not as contagious. It’s actually much more contagious, much more transmissible which is why we’re seeing such a high rise of cases right now, but you know, in terms of should we just let it rip, it’s a fine line, Rachel. First of all, you know, by doing that and by letting things just go unchecked in the population you will have preventable illness, preventable hospitalizations, and preventable death.
However, I wrote a piece on foxnews.com a couple of weeks ago that was met with criticism because I said at this point in the pandemic we have the vaccines, we have boosters, we have a large amount of natural immunity, and we finally have a variant that, yes, is highly contagious but seems to be more mild especially more mild in people who are fully vaccinated and people who are boosted.
So people have the tools at this point to prevent infection and if they do get infected it tends to be more mild, less serious, and now we finally have treatments that are proving effective. So, yes, getting that hybrid immunity, that vaccine-induced immunity, plus a breakthrough infection so some level of natural immunity, that is by far the strongest wave of protection that we could have moving forward.
And this could be our step into making this virus become endemic and that is how the mindset needs to change. I’m glad President Biden has finally realized that it will not be a black and white federal solution. I remember — I’m old enough to remember when President Trump said a couple of years ago this needs to be on the onus, needs to be on the states.
It is the federal government’s job to secure these private public partnerships and get out of the way. And that is exactly what “Operation Warp Speed” did. They allowed people to get that private public partnership, get things to the market and unfortunately we’re not seeing the same urgency under the Biden administration.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, you’re so right doctor because President Trump said from the very beginning that states should be allowed to do what they think is right for their state. So Richard, now it seems like the Biden administration is agreeing with Trump on this. Do you agree that this is no — this should have always been a state solution?
RICHARD FOWLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, a couple things here. Number one, I do think that it has to be a mixture of both the federal government and the state government working together to ensure that people get supplies, folks get ventilators, which you saw at the beginning of the pandemic when hospital — when states were searching for ventilators. It was on the federal government to make sure they had those ventilators.
But with that being said, what I really hate is these the president’s on vacation headlines, right? We saw this — this is this headline rears its ugly head every single year. It happened under George W. Bush. It happened under Barack Obama. It happened under Donald Trump. It happened under the White House. And I think the American people are smarter than that.
They know wherever the president goes, so goes the White House. Both the White House communications office, all the necessary advisers the president needs to have on hand to make decisions, the nuclear football, military, everything moves when the president moves. So this headline that news of outlets continue to put out there, it’s just so misleading and it’s so ridiculous.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes. I actually agree with you, Richard. I think that, you know, with technology the president can go wherever he’s at. Now, if the president’s not in good shape mentally that’s another issue. It doesn’t matter where he’s at in that case. Tyrus, let me go to you because the president’s top COVID advisor is Dr. Fauci as we know, and he’s saying we need to cancel New Year’s. I’m hosting New Year’s for Fox News. We’re not canceling. What do you think?
TRYUS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, as someone who gets to stay home for New Year’s, cancel away. No, I’m just kidding. It’s wrong. You know, the only thing that is refreshing is that the president finally did throw his hands up and said we dropped the ball. There’s nothing we can do on the federal level. It’s up — it’s up to the governors and state.
And I’m kind of, at least give me that, because we’ve heard nothing but nonsense coming out of the federal government under this administration since they came in. They were going to do all this other stuff.
And here’s the part that drives me absolutely mad is they’ve wanted all of us to act like we’re in — remember, when we were kids it was like code orange and code red, and it was — it’s been code orange COVID pretty much since the administration took over, but they still ran out of test, which means that on the surface you’re telling us it’s terrible.
But in the closed doors you’re saying don’t worry about it we can go on vacations. We can — we’ll just lower the CDC, you know, from 10 days to five days so we can make up for not having testing because federal workers can’t go back to work unless they have a negative test on their on their COVID test if they get COVID.
So, they continually changing — it’s like a Rubik’s cube where someone peels the stickers off. That’s what this administration is doing. They just put new stickers around saying look we solved the Rubik’s cube, and no, you didn’t. It’s a hot mess. Get it together.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes.
SAPHIER: I love that.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes. They definitely look like they’re making it up as they go along. All right, well coming up next, we all know Joe Biden’s poll numbers are terrible, but wait until you hear how bad it just got. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY FALLON, LATE NIGHT SHOW HOST: How much do you pay attention to approval ratings?
BIDEN: Well, not anymore. No, I’m joking. I was paying attention when they were in the mid -60s, but now that they’re in the 40s, I don’t pay attention anymore.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: President Biden claims he doesn’t care about his approval ratings but the next poll might make him pay attention. His approval rating has now fallen below as deeply unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris for the first time since their time in office. The president clocking in at 43 percent to Harris’ 44 percent. The sad state of affairs for the White House is a major boon for the GOP with Republicans becoming increasingly bullish on the prospect of a red wave in next year’s midterms.
You know, Rachel, I want to come to you first on this. Do you think its inflation or maybe the crisis at the border or maybe just the inability to set an agenda and pass it that Americans can get behind. Why are Americans so down on President Biden and Kamala Harris for that matter?
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, first of all, I just want to comment on Jimmy Fallon. How nice he is to Joe Biden? Remember he had to apologize for humanizing Donald Trump when he had him on. It’s so interesting. Look, he is wildly unpopular. I think the first thing that happened that really made people stand up and go no more was what happened in Afghanistan. I brought that up in the last segment because I think it was just so emblematic, but there is nothing that has gone right.
For me personally, I think the biggest issue is the loss of freedom that we’ve experienced over the last couple of years. It’s this normalization of the government taking control of our lives whether it’s when and if we can go to church, when we can open our businesses, if our kids can go to school. This is outrageous.
And frankly, look, I think there’s going to be a huge wave for Republicans. There’s no doubt in my mind. The question is do they deserve it and what will they do with that power because with just a few exceptions, Rand Paul, Senator Ron Johnson who’s been a hero in the Senate, Jim Jordan. I don’t hear Republicans talking enough about our loss of freedom, about the road that we’re on, I believe, to a Chinese — communist Chinese credit score system.
All of these things that are happening that are so scary and so un- American, these are the things I want to hear Republicans talk about for them to deserve our vote. Of course, I’d vote for them over what I see here, which is absolute failure on the part of the Democrats. I don’t see one thing that Biden is doing right, but I would like to see more from Republicans in terms of speaking up for the liberties that we’ve lost over the last two years.
JONES: That’s powerful and it’s absolutely right. We should be able to sit here and say man, I’m excited about what this politician brings to the table instead of holding our nose and voting for whoever, you know, hasn’t made our life worse today.
Tyrus, I remember 2019 sitting there going, you know, only Donald Trump could lose this next election for Donald Trump. Then we got hit with a virus and things kind of changed and I think the virus was a big part of why he lost the election in 2020. Can Republicans, you know, what can they do to prevent themselves from hitting this red wave because the map sure looks good for them?
TYRUS: Well, I mean, first of all, yes, I don’t — it doesn’t matter who was president during a pandemic. You’re not going to see that through even though I thought President Trump did an outstanding job in terms of getting the vaccinations going and getting people an opportunity to get better faster and his focus was always on getting America back to work.
People heard that. They got behind that and they believed in that. This administration, you know, they all — their entire thing was to undo everything he did. The only thing I would tell him you want to undo maybe just don’t like undo a like on one of his tweets because his deeds, the deeds ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the deeds outweigh the tweets.
And now we’re seeing no deeds and no tweets. So we can’t even get entertained while we’re being treated miserably. Here’s the thing though, to be fair, to be fair, President Joe is more like neck and neck with V.P. You know what I’m saying? It’s like within an area of one or two points. I can tell you right — here’s some — here’s something free. You want to get 10 points right now, 10 points right now on those polls? Simple.
All you got to do is go to the camp. When you’re on vacation, sit up at the beach, and be like hey, previous administration, whoever was in charge was running since we got rid of you guys, we’re going to bring you back, we’re going to pick your brain about the border, bring back some of your old — some of the things that you were doing right and we’re going to get it right.
We are bad. We’re going to stick with that. We got the border lock down. That in itself is accountability, knowing what’s right, and you’re going to get some points back for that. Try that. Deeds. Get some deeds done.
JONES: I think they would love to get 10 points in any way they can right now. Dr. Saphier, we just talked about how President Biden and Kamala Harris probably were elected based on this premise that they’ll bring some sort of resolution to coronavirus. Here we are a year into it, we know exactly where we sit. We’re in boxes. We’re not sitting at a table in New York City right now. Has President Biden done anything to validate that narrative from the 2020 election in this last year?
SAPHIER: Well, Joey, the reason that he is now below and I guess Tyrus sees neck and neck, but he is technically below V.P. Harris, and that is because the way that he’s handled the pandemic and in that it has been he completely has politicized the virus. He blamed the unvaccinated for spreading it. Now that Democrats are actually getting breakthrough infections, you even have “Washington Post” saying no, no, we shouldn’t be shaming people for getting COVID.
Well, we shouldn’t have been shaming anybody all along. They catered to the teachers unions that kept children out of school. They’ve completely flubbed the booster roll out which caused two high-level FDA administrators to actually leave. And now that we have omicron here that we have the high amount of immunity in the population, a milder variant, and now is the time that we should say hey, it’s time to move forward, but Fauci and Biden just can’t get out of the way.
The best thing that they could do coming into the midterms is to remove these federal mandates because as we know we have COVID circulating in the vaccinated, the unvaccinated, and even the boosted. The message needs to be do what you can to protect yourselves, protect your families, but we’re going to get out of the way.
We’re going to remove that OSHA mandate. We’re going to pull back on a lot of these lawsuits and let states take for — take accountability for their people and get people back to work because these mandates caused the worker shortages which is what is causing this complete spiral out of control right now.
JONES: You know, Richard, Build Back Better, BBB is DOA. Inflation is no longer transitory. And Governor Abbott’s building us a wall down there. What can Democrats do to get some momentum on their side or just to tweak Americans interest in possibly voting for one of them here in just about a year and a half?
FOWLER: Well, I think that’s a great question and I agree with Tyrus to the idea that you have to have some deeds here. But let’s be very clear, if you voted for Donald Trump in the last election you’re not going to vote for Joe Biden for his re-election so, Joe Biden should have talked to those voters and instead should focus on the 78 million people that got him to the White House.
And that means he has to deliver on the promises he made to those voters. He made a promise to fix student loan debt in this country. He made a promise to ensure and secure voting rights for African-Americans, the people of color all across this country. He made a promise that he was going to have a conversation with the base that got him to the game which were African-American voters. And now more than ever the president needs to talk to his base. If he’s talking to his base he will have a good midterms. If he stops talking to his base he won’t and I thought what was very interesting in this poll was this. Every elected leader in Washington was negative outside of John Roberts the chief justice of the Supreme Court who’s not elected and appointed and he runs away from politics as fast as he can.
JONES: Well, maybe he should talk to Joe Manchin if he wants to know where Americans are his base or not. All right, up next, Chicago 911 dispatcher says all hell has broken loose in the city and it’s (inaudible) got liberal leaders.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TYRUS: A Chicago police dispatcher who was once praised by Mayor Lori Lightfoot now speaking truth to power and sounding off over the rising crime and the shortage of cops.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEITH THORNTON, CHICAGO 911 DISPATCHER: It’s outrageous and I’m not happy. When you say Chicago people are afraid. It looks like it’s a death zone. Several of my officers who texted me, okay, and said that they were scared. They’re tired of this nonsense. They have no backing and they’re scared of being out there by themselves.
This mayor does not care about Chicago police officers period. She doesn’t care about any first responders. She doesn’t care about the damn city.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TYRUS: And the dispatcher wasn’t done calling out the mayor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THORNTON: At all hours of the day there is a massive amount of crime taking place within the city of Chicago and I mean, it’s horrendous. People are being shot, killed. Our citizens deserve more backing out there and the acknowledgement that things are going on and action needs to be taken. And more importantly our first responders, not just the police, but fire department, EMS, the dispatchers, call takers that are out here doing these wonderful jobs.
They have absolutely no backing. They’re being overworked. And with the shortages going on right now, it’s only affecting the citizens of Chicago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TYRUS: It’s just so disheartening to hear this. Joey, let me go to you first because a lot of the men and women who wear the badge that I’ve talked to, a lot of them were veterans as well and they described what it’s like being in the streets of Chicago and a lot of the blue cities these days. It’s like being in a foxhole under fire and you’re calling for helicopter support and there’s just nothing coming back.
In your experience when you — when you look at these cities, can you — is there any advice you can give these men and women who are in these situations, were basically left. They’re just — their sixes are just not covered?
JONES: You know, everybody hates a bad cop. Everybody hates anybody in position of authority who would abuse it or use that. Even casually to talk down to someone or put them in a corner and I hate that feeling myself. But the majority of cops, and when I say majority, I mean my belief is my presumption when a cop walks up to me is that’s not the case.
And for any cop out there, veteran or not, remember why you took the job. Remember why you put the badge on. It wasn’t for the pay. It obviously wasn’t for the glory. It was because you felt like you could do something to make your community better. And if every single one of the cops out there that believe that and join for that reason and act that way, I don’t think politicians will have the opportunity to continue to undermine them because communities will support them. That’s what I think.
TYRUS: Well said bro, well said. Richard, I go to you. When you hear some of the things that Mayor Lightfoot has said and practiced, when you look at, you know, in a democratic scheme of things, she didn’t want help from the previous administration. You know, she said that merchants and retailers need to do a better job, it’s their fault that the crime rate’s high.
She won’t speak to reporters unless they’re a person of color. When you hear all these missteps and the optics of this, how hard is it as a Democrat to be able to just get behind any of this or is this just something I’m missing?
FOWLER: No, I don’t think you’re missing anything here. I have no love loss for Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago. I think that she has done a dismal job of leading the city. Not only do we have an increase in crime, but she’s also failed to talk to members of the north and — the south and west side of the city.
She promised to be a candidate that would unite the city and deal with income inequality, and deal with the disparities that exist in the south and west side of the city, and she’s failed at that miserably. She failed to implement a testing and contact tracing policy even though the Biden administration gave her over $1.8 billion in our public schools in the city of Chicago.
And as a result of that there was a school just a couple of weeks ago in the city of Chicago, Jensen Elementary that witnessed an outbreak that caused two mothers to die of COVID-19. And this is all happening on the mayor’s watch. And she has admitted that she has failed when it comes to implementing a policy to decrease the spread of COVID-19 in her cities.
So, shame on Mayor Lori Lightfoot. And big ups to all the people who are fighting against her on the southwest side of Chicago.
TYRUS: Dr. Nicole, I mean, for lack of a better term, diagnosis murder, it’s up 68 percent in Chicago. When you hear these kinds of numbers, you know, and I literally — and I kid you not, at one point, someone said yes, but attempted murder is down. I don’t even know how to even tackle that.
When you look at these numbers of violence and crimes, where do you think the best way for Chicago to start to turn this around?
SAPHIER: Well, that’s right, Tyrus. So, COVID deaths are down 30 percent in Chicago, but their homicides and shootings are up 60 percent. And you know, public safety is a fundamental responsibility of the local government.
And so, when you see cities like Chicago that is high in crime, this is a direct failure of the elected officials and the policies being implemented. And people are starting to see that elections have consequences. So, when you have a city like this high in crime and low in health because you have police officers, because of under-funding, that are retiring or they are quitting, you know this puts people in a very precarious situation and you are going to see more violent violence.
Perhaps President Biden, Dr. Fauci, et al, should start focusing on this public health crisis because this is the one that is rapidly expanding that there is no end in sight to, and spend a little less time on COVID.
TYRUS: That’s a great point. Rachel, final thoughts.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Amen to that Dr. Saphier. More children have died of gunfire in Chicago than COVID for sure. I’ll say this was powerful because this was a dispatcher. Dispatchers get the calls, the 911 calls, and have to make the heartbreaking decisions, you know, to send out responders. And then, if there’s not enough cops, they have to let those people in distress know.
So, this man knows what he’s talking about and that’s why he’s out there. And it’s really powerful that he is. I lived in third-world countries. My father was in the military. And when I was in those countries, there wasn’t enough funding for law enforcement there. And it was rich people who were able to you know have their own private security and their own basically fortresses around their house.
We’re seeing that now in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, rich people, you know, mitigating — you know, basically covering their bases, their houses with private security, and then it’s the poor people who are left to deal with this crime. We are turning our country — our biggest cities into third-world countries. And it’s done deliberately, it doesn’t have to be this way, the funding is there, she’s just choosing not to give it to law enforcement and safety.
TYRUS: Wow. All right, up next, here we go again. New signs that liberals want to lock down your kids and return to remote learning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOWLER: Some of our nation’s biggest school districts are considering the idea of shutting down in-person classes and returning to remote learning. The Chicago Teachers Union is reportedly asking members if they support a district-wide pause in in-person learning, allowing them to pivot to online.
And New York City teachers are pressuring their unions as well as the mayor to bring back remote learning. But outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio doesn’t seem willing to budge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL DE BLASIO, MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY: Our schools have been extraordinarily safe, bluntly the safest places to be in New York City, very low levels of COVID. Schools need to be open. Everyone talks about the needs of our kids, their health needs, physical health, mental health, nutrition needs, their social development needs, their academic needs. Schools need to be open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOWLER: So, listen, every time i hear headlines about teachers’ unions, I always take the time out to remember that teachers’ unions are made up of workers, and public sector workers, and educators. And I’ve done some time interviewing educators and what you see them saying is that we want to be back in our classrooms but we’re also trying to balance that with the safety of ensuring that our students don’t get COVID and bring it home to their parents or to grandma.
So, Dr. Saphier, my question for you is how do we help both parents and educators bridge this balance of the importance of having in-person learning while also ensuring that these children aren’t spreading COVID-19 to their loved ones back at home?
SAPHIER: Yes, that’s a great question. And I can tell you, one of the biggest failures of our entire response throughout the pandemic is taking children out of school. But the biggest failure is keeping them out of school. The fact that this is even an option at this point is a continued failure of us from a federal level, a state level, and a local level.
Under no circumstances should these schools switch to remote learning unless there is a very specific need. And it is — it is about — yes, it is about the teachers getting COVID-19, it’s about the children getting sick, it is about them bringing home the virus to those around them.
But time after time, we have now been able to prove that there is a low amount of transmission in schools no more than normal flu in cold season. We need to stop stigmatizing normal seasonal respiratory viruses. RSV and flu are very severe in children.
So, yes if you have a low — or a high absentee where you have enough children who are out sick, oftentimes they will close down a classroom so that they can sanitize and give children time to recover and get back to the classroom. But they shouldn’t preemptively be going to remote learning in anticipation of positive cases coming back from the holidays. There is no reason for that.
We have now gone to a place where you have an entire generation of children who have been — have poor performers when it comes to education. They have not had adequate education, they have had poor socialization, and that has been a complete hindrance to their mental and physical development.
It is far more dangerous to keep them out of school than bringing them into school when we know at this point these again continue to be the lowest risk population when it comes to COVID-19. High-risk children and those that live in homes with high-risk individuals have the ability to be vaccinated, have the ability to be boosted. And from there, it is time to move forward and let this mild illness in children otherwise circulate so that they can get that immunity and we can continue keeping them in school because that is what’s best for them long term.
FOWLER: Thanks Dr. Saphier. So, Joey, I guess my question to you is this. I mean, because there is this prevailing balance that I think that Dr. Saphier laid out there, right? So, how do you balance educators who want to be with their — with their students when you have government failure when it comes to testing, contact tracing, ensuring that folks have access to the vaccine?
JONES: Well, you know, maybe you say get parents to the school board to advocate for their children, but I guess that’s a cardinal sin now too. You’ll have the FBI breathing down your back I guess.
The problem now is that we have the — you talk — you opened the segment talking about how school union — teachers unions are made up of the worker, the person in there with the kids. The members are, but the leaders are not. The leaders are bureaucrats. The leaders are corrupt individuals who now serve to satisfy themselves and the entity.
And I don’t mean that to attack teachers’ unions. That’s what unions have become in a place where we have communication. It’s a lot harder to take advantage of workers which is what started the idea of a union to begin with. That’s one of the problems in this country. What we need to do is be less selfish.
What we haven’t learned in two years is how coronavirus affects children. What we have learned in about a year is how badly being out of school affects children. So, if I’m looking at those two things, face to face, I’m going to do the unselfish thing, put my kids in a classroom, and make sure they have the social and learning opportunities that every American needs to survive in this life.
Nothing affects socioeconomically, underprivileged kids worse. Nothing bridges that gap wider than this at-home learning. Because kids with rich parents and attentive parents won’t have the same problems that other kids who need to be in classroom should have the opportunity and attention.
FOWLER: So, I mean, what was your take on that, Rachel?
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, let’s start with what Joey was talking about with the unions. Public school teachers don’t work for the unions. They work for us the taxpayers. We pay their salaries and that’s who they work for. It is very clear when you have mental health just skyrocketing, mental health problems among children as young as 4 or 5 years old. You have a 50 percent increase in suicide attempts among teenage girls.
The pandemic is really — the epidemic is mental health among our kids and it’s all been orchestrated by people with political motives. We have absolutely destroyed their childhoods. We’ve taken away their extracurriculars. We’ve crushed sports dreams for so many kids. We’ve isolated them. We’ve caused them to lose years of learning.
Our special needs kids by the way are suffering um the most. And by the way, we’re torturing them. We’re masking them as they go to school. This is outrageous and it shows that we don’t care or prioritize our children as a society.
If you look at China, 94 million Chinese have been going to school since the pandemic started. This is a culture that values education and clearly values their future. We are not and we’re allowing political actors very bad and corrupt political actors run the lives of our children and ruin them.
FOWLER: So, Tyrus, to Rachel’s point there, I mean, how do we sort of compete with the global world when we see that in countries like China, India, and South Korea, their investment in public education and making sure their students have the best education is far outpaces America?
TYRUS: Well, you can never really compare United States to any other country because we are a country of freedoms and we have choices. They don’t have a choice in necessarily in China to homeschool or whatever. But I will say this as a parent and a former educator. Homeschooling your own children and teaching your own children is the toughest job in the world because it’s just — it’s just really difficult.
And masks in the school really hurt younger children’s development because you don’t realize how much children develop by mimicking the teachers, watching the teacher phrase words, how they say things, interactions. Those things, those movements that we need — it also has to do with comfort — the kids aren’t getting that.
So, you know, a lot of things go wrong when you’re not in the classroom because you’re just not getting in that environment and you’re not getting the stuff that you need. And it puts a lot of burden on mom and dad who are working two jobs trying to play catch up for when they couldn’t pay rent and et cetera.
So, in school — in-home learning is a really bad idea. We need our schools open. And of course, the teachers always get the brunt of it, but it’s the administrators who need to get their act together.
FOWLER: I agree with that. Administrators do need to get their act together. And from my years of journalism, I know that when teachers raise their voices, they’re raising it for their students. And don’t go anywhere. “THE FASTEST” is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SAPHIER: Well, welcome back. It is time for “THE FASTEST.” First up, a family celebrating Christmas getting the shock of a lifetime after one of their neighbors barged into their house with this demand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can I ask you guys to turn it down? It’s about 10 after 11.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You need to get out. This is not your apartment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get out of my house right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? In the house?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAPHIER: I mean, so you have this family celebrating Christmas, they’re singing, they’re gathering, they’re being merry, if you will. Tyrus, the neighbor barges in and says to keep it down. What do you make of that?
TYRUS: Well, you know what, in my neighborhood, you would have walked in, you would have been carried out, or at least walked away with a limp in a really scary story for next year’s Christmas.
I mean, with the exception of Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, he’s the only person who can pull this off. This is extremely intrusive. And like I said, you’re walking in, but you get carried out, period.
SAPHIER: Rachel, I’ll be honest, I mean, this seems like every night at the Campos-Duffy house. I mean, do you, Sean, and the kids kind of have — do you try and keep it down for your neighbors?
CAMPOS-DUFFY: It’s impossible. We actually — when we purchase a house, we make sure we don’t have neighbors too close because they might get mad. My first thought was, this is definitely Hispanic family. It is loud, just like ours.
My second thought is in the Christmas spirit, it would have been nice if they had invited her in and maybe that’s what she really wanted. She was born at home, and she wanted to be part of the fun.
SAPHIER: Yes, Richard, so what do you make of this? Do you — do you think that maybe instead of yelling at her, they could have said hey, you know what, have a cup of eggnog. Maybe that’s a little spike and she’ll have a good night.
TYRUS: She going to have a good night.
FOWLER: Not so much on this. And I actually want to copy and paste everything that Tyrus said. Because if you walk in my house like that, you’re going to be coming — you’re going to be dragged out. That’s for sure. But bah humbug to this Karen. I mean, she is just the opposite of Christmas spirit. And as adults — like unlike children, we sort of ask the Christmas spirit to come in and beg her to come into our lives. And this Karen didn’t do any begging to the Christmas spirit at all here.
SAPHIER: Joey, what is your take on this Christmas Karen bah humbug?
JONES: They’re neighbors. They probably know what kind of person she is. And apparently, it’s not a very joyous one, very much a Grinch. I think it’s awesome that Hispanic family celebrates on the 24th that night. They celebrate all night, wake up on Christmas morning and play with the toys they got the night before.
I’m going to adopt that tradition if I can. And wow, what kind — what kind of Christmas spirit don’t you have unless there’s something going on in their life? Maybe the Chick-fil-A role of empathize with people that are mean, but man, that was just terrible. How can you — how can you do that? That’s terrible.
SAPHIER: I think I would have given her a little eggnog and cookies and see if we could cheer her up. But stay tuned, “ONE MORE THING” is up next.
TYRUS: Cheer her out.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Welcome back to THE FIVE. It’s time now for “ONE MORE THING.” I’m going to lead the way here. This is a Catholic Boys School in Rhode Island. The audio went out during the Star-Spangled Banner and the — everyone in the stadium decided to just belt it out themselves. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMERICAN CROWD: Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave. Over the land of the free and the home of the brave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right, that just made my heart warm up and get really big. I love this Catholic school. I love America. And I love hockey because they still are very patriotic. Joey, you’re next.
JONES: Yes, listen. Since 2012, an organization called Luke’s Wings has filled a gap not a lot of people know about. They pay for flights for injured and wounded service members and veterans to go home and spend the holidays with their family. One really cool thing they’re doing, they’re sending my best friend Danny Ridgeway, a Silver Star recipient, home to duck hunt with me on New Year’s. He spends every Thanksgiving and New Year’s with me. And I just can’t thank him enough for helping Danny out. Please go donate. You can donate money or SkyMiles at lukeswings.org. Richard?
FOWLER: So, today marks —
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right, that’s awesome stuff. All right, Richard, what do you got?
FOWLER: So, today marks the third day of Kwanzaa, which is — which is dedicated to Ujima which is the principle of collective work and responsibility. This pledge today is that on this day, we pledged to build and maintain a community together with our brothers and sisters problems as our own.
As the wise African saying goes, if you want to go far, go alone. If you want to go fast — if you want to go — if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with a group.
JONES: Awesome.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right, Dr. Saphier.
SAPHIER: I love that. And speaking of learning responsibility, my youngest of three boys was gifted for Christmas a little puppy and helping to get him some responsibility, but we’ll see. So, this is us waking him up Christmas morning. My husband and I dressed as little elves.
At first, he thought it was a stuffed animal, so we almost threw it across the room. But when I left it off the hood, he actually saw what it was. Thank you, mommy and daddy. And that is Woodley because he’s the color of wood.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Tyrus, close this out. That is the cutest puppy ever.
TYRUS: That’s tough to follow. But, you know, a lot of you want to know how I was able to defend my world television championship in NWA. Well, it wasn’t by doing it like this guy. Check this guy out. Weight, skateboards, and jump ropes, the only way to — the only way to get ready for the New Year, so I’m proud of him.
SAPHIER: I love it.
JONES: Wow.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right —
FOWLER: That’s impressive.
TYRUS: Yes. That’s — I’m not sure what exactly muscle that isolates, but you know what, it’s cool. And cool sometimes is enough.
SAPHIER: All of them.
JONES: I’ve done that by accident in the gym.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: I’d like to see you try that, Tyrus. It’s your goal for the New Year. Well, that’s it for us, all of you. “SPECIAL REPORT” is up next.
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