he's not talking about the enormous cost of the immigration crisis on the southern border, at least not extensively yet. a we'll break it down, those costs a bit later. and we'll talk with republican senator john cornyn of texas. first up tonight, white house correspondent peter doocy live on the north lawn. >> the president hasn't said anything about the border in a week and a day now, all of his public events have been focused on the covid-19 including this afternoon. he talked about rival companies coming together to make the single shot covid-19 vaccine from johnson & johnson. >> just one. >> announcing an additional order for 100 million johnson & johnson vaccines, president biden says once americans have been vaccinated, he will share the surplus with the rest of the world. >> this is not something that can be stopped by a fence no matter how how you build a fence or a wall. we aren't going to be safe until the world is safe. >> he didn't speak about the border but he did finally hear about it from officials he sent down there last weekend. >> he heard from the delegation on what they observed to the visit to the border region of the facilities they toured to. >> the white house southern border coordinator was not on that trip but did discuss the big picture of his border policy goals. >> do you think it's a coincidence that as soon as trump and his immigration policy were on the way out and biden and his policy were on the way in that this historic storage at the border started? to speak at one of the things i think is important as we have seen surges before. they tend to respond to hope. and there was a significant hope for a more humane policy after four years of pent up demand. >> what may have given migrants hope? as a candidate, this is how biden talked up reforms. >> i would end this notion for the first time in history that people seeking asylum have to be in squalor on the other side of the river and desperate situations. they should be able to come to the united states and have a judgment made as whether or not they qualify. >> experts say that kind of talk inspires people who may want to enter the country illegally. >> when you're released thousands of people into the united states, some with covid and you don't want to detain them, you send a clear message to the world. >> president biden tweeted a day "help is here" referring to the stimulus package that he once insisted would be bipartisan. >> i think we can get some republican spirit >> no republicans voted for it, the white house admits it's not bipartisan. >> the most progressive bill in american history. >> next week he's heading to the philly suburbs to sell the covert release package that already passed today, one year to the day of covid changing everything -- we were in a community college gym in cleveland waiting for him at a campaign rally, he canceled on the way in the pandemic has remained the number one issue ever since. >> bret: hard to believe, peter doocy live on the north lawn. the senate has confirmed merrick garland to be the next attorney general with a strong bipartisan vote of 70-30, he was federal appeals court judge who was snubbed by republicans for a seat on the supreme court in 2016. he was present obama's nomination. the house has approved one of the largest stimulus measures in u.s. history, lawmakers porting to 20-211 in favor of president biden's $2 trillion coronavirus relief package which includes $400 billion or $1400 direct payments too many americans. congressional correspondent chad pergram has other details tonight from capitol hill. >> the motion is adopted. [applause] >> it's the first big initiative of president biden's legislative agenda but republicans characterize the $1.9 trillion bill as something else. >> socialism. >> socialism. >> democrats challenge the republican description of the bill. >> if a democrat had a potluck picnic, republicans would call socialism. >> they have hope because now they can pay their rent, pay the mortgage, buy the milk, get the automobile repair to. >> the bill includes what republicans double blue state bailouts, $300 billion goes to states to bolster state pension programs, the measure prohibits states from cutting tax if they use their share of 1.9 trillion. g.o.p. critics claim $300 billion for schools, pay back to big-city teachers unions with much of the education funding not even being spent for two years. >> what the democrats believe, school should wait a couple years to get their money but not planned parenthood. we got to get that money there quick. >> democrats say money in the bill is essential. >> to listen to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you wonder where they live? according to them, all the issues have been resolved, the pandemic is gone! >> with vaccines in the pipeline in states reopening, there is worry so much money could overheat the economy. >> the federal reserve printing this amount of money is inevitably going to result in inflation. >> this may not even be the last bill. >> you just have to ask the virus. >> no republicans and other body voted for the bill despite promises of bipartisanship from democrats, only one democrat in either party opposed it, jared goldman of maine. expect both sides to know to voted yea or nay on this bill in next year's midterms. >> congress has voted $5 trillion to the virus in a year including adding an extra year and a half of total government spending. >> bret: thanks. stocks mixed today, the dow surging 464 to a record close likely on the stimulus passing, the s&p 500 gained 23, the nasdaq lost five. texas is leading the way in the effort to push back coronavirus restrictions and jump-start its economy correspondent casey stegall reports on the reopening tonight from dallas. >> for the first time since july, veronica bradley can once again invite customers inside her dallas brewpub to sample what's on tap. >> there is nobody in the entire world that wants to operate at 100% without masks on more than me. >> she and countless others are celebrating as today marks the first day all texas businesses were allowed to fully reopen at 100% capacity. the statewide mask and face covering mandate is also gone. now it's up to business owners to decide if they will still require customers to wear them. >> there is no right thing to do because we're going to make customers angry. >> many texans say it's about time. >> i think we need to go back to living life. i know people are dying from covid and people die from the flu every day. >> infectious disease experts warn that this decision could have dire consequences. >> we've already had 45,000 people lose their lives in the state of texas. now it's going to go up even more. >> decline in covert hospitalizations the governor said in part helped him decide on relaxing the restrictions in addition to the vaccine effort. however, cdc stats show only about 80% of the state has received their shot. >> we are still running to the bottom of states that are vaccinated population. >> a growing number of states are also beginning to slowly ease restrictions, at least five have let their mask orders expire, while 34 including the district of columbia and puerto rico still have one in place. some, like alabama, just extended past easter. >> we're not there yet but goodness knows we are getting close. >> most major school districts across the state of texas have also decided to keep their mask mandate in place through at least the end of the academic year. governor abbott's order also allows county officials to reimpose mandates if covert hospitalizations spike. >> bret: thank you, let's talk about the covert situation as well as the border situation with texas republican senator john cornyn, thanks for being here. i want to start with the situation on the border, i understand you're traveling there friday, tell me about that trip and what you see as the issue. >> unfortunately we've seen this movie before. the biden administration seems determined to reverse all of the policies of the trump administration without regard to what the consequences would be. we are seeing a flood of new people coming across the border in a pandemic. a border patrol is not being vaccinated, people are not being tested and are going into the interior of the united states to spread the virus. in the meantime, families are sending hundreds and thousands of children, unaccompanied to the border and they are overwhelming the capacity of our border communities and officials to house them and take care of them. this is the starting of another humanitarian crisis. >> bret: i want you to listen to white house chief of staff ron klain and a top democrat in the house reflecting on this border situation. >> i think we inherited a real mess. we inherited the facilities we have -- it's hard, this is one of the most vexing problems we face and it is a very difficult situation. >> the biden administration i think is doing well and it's going to approach the situation on the border in a compassionate fashion, which is 180 degrees the opposite of the approach that the trump administration took at the border. >> bret: the main message there is they are doing it different and they want to do it differently from the trump administration, that's just difficult. >> they took a tough situation and made it worse by not thinking about what the consequences of it would be. i thought those words of the second gentleman there were telling. i think the guiding principle was "whatever the trump administration did, we are going to do the opposite but they didn't consider, they didn't have a plan in place the transition from the public health order, title 42 that restricted cross-border traffic in light of the pandemic. they simply had -- simply unprepared to deal with this flood of humanity and the message has been received that if you can make it to the border, you can make it across the border and jump ahead of people who are trying to do it lawfully. >> bret: you're making that trip with a texas democrat, henry cuellar who is talked about this as well. some democrats say this is an issue for republicans ahead of 2022 and eventually this is all going to come down but it's a political issue more than anything else, how do you respond to that? >> i think time will tell, i think they are living in denial of the reality is we've experienced it in texas and border communities there. we've seen this movie before, we need to change our laws in order to get people who are qualified for asylum the opportunity to make that argument in front of an immigration judge. right now it's catch and release and hoping people will come back years later for a hearing in front of an immigration judge which just doesn't happen. the cartels, the people who get rich charging thousands of dollars for an individual to move them across the border, they are having a heyday, this is a real moneymaking proposition for them and right now it's creating havoc and overwhelming the capacity of people who intend well, who mean well, who want to do their jobs and be doing them honorably from being able to do them because it's a crisis, it's overwhelming their capacity. >> bret: i want to turn to covert relief legislation, i had senator joe manchin on the show last night, he said there was g.o.p. input into that bill that he saw a being formed. if here is chuck schumer about the legislation going forward. >> we want to work with republicans, any republicans we can and we hope they will work with us, but job number one trend, get that agenda done. republicans want to join us and that, our caucus is going to come together and figure out the next steps. >> bret: you buy that? >> it sounds like their partisan political agenda comes first. second thought is to try to do things on a bipartisan basis. there was no reason for them to jam through this $1.9 trillion bill since we passed another bipartisan covid-19 bill last december. as a matter of fact we passed five of them working together. this is a way to bail out the blue states, cities like san francisco, states like new york, their pension funds, most of this was unrelated to covid-19 and this was a trojan horse to get their liberal, partisan agenda past and they knew they could do it through brute force and unfortunately they were successful. >> bret: democrats say that tax cuts by donald trump in 2017 didn't have a democratic vote, it was a republican conservative list. is this just tit-for-tat? >> it was true that the tax cuts and jobs act was passed with 51 republican votes, i regret the democrats refused to work with us to try to accomplish objectives like cutting the business tax to make our country more competitive around the world and bring more jobs here at home. we use to the budget reconciliation process but this was something very different, they showed absolutely no interest especially when ten republicans showed up at the white house with a $600 billion proposal that we could negotiate on a bipartisan basis. it's pretty clear, they didn't want any republican support, they wanted to jam it through on a partisan basis because that's the only way they could enact their partisan agenda. >> bret: 15 seconds, senator, but do you see a bill coming down the pike that you're going to be able to work with this administration seeing what you saw in the covert relief plan? >> i hope so, there's a lot of talk about infrastructure support. we need our roads and bridges improve for public safety, public health and for our economy. those are the kinds of things that we can and should together and i still remain hopeful that we can. >> bret: senator cornyn, we will check in after your trip to the border. still ahead, secretary of state antony blinken tells a house committee has plans for addressing the china threat. up next, the government has given big breaks to people who cannot pay their rent. so who is helping the landlords? >> we cannot be left out to hang and drive by ourselves as small landlords, we are really vulnerable. we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you, instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing. how great is it that we get to tell everybody how liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so when it comes to your business, you know so you only pay for what you need? 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example. people who were behind in rent to the pandemic are getting relief from the government, many landlords are not happy. they are also feeling the pinch without taxpayer support, here is correspondent gillian turner. >> the cdc is extending the nationwide moratorium on evictions of the end of the month. good news for tenants who lost jobs, businesses, and income during the pandemic and those looking to avoid rent and mortgage payments. >> there are definitely a handful of tenants who i would say are not necessarily experiencing any financial hardship and they start to withhold rent which they can do. >> when tenants don't pay, landlords across the country say they are the ones footing the bill. in the nation's capital, one landlord who asked not to be identified more than she died a breaking point. >> we cannot be left out to hang by ourselves as a small landlords. we are really vulnerable. >> many california landlords say they've gone a full year without rent payments from tenants making matters worse for landlords, they aren't receiving any federal benefits. >> many of these independent mental owners didn't receive paycheck protection loans, they didn't receive stimulus checks, they didn't receive special unemployment assistance. >> fox investigation reveals 27 states have yet to spend their federal aid allotment for tenants from last round of stimulus, $25 billion that could be used to pay the rent is now sitting in state treasuries waiting to be dispersed. lawmakers are sending even more money to states anyway. >> millions of americans are behind on the rent and 3 million homeowners are in forbearance. at the same time, we are passing major assistance for renters and homeowners. >> housing providers say all of these problems will hurt residents of major cities the most. >> enough small landlords give up and sell their distressed properties, we are going to end up with more and more institutional landlords, that's not good for any city. >> 20% of american renters are behind on payments averaging about four months or 5600 bucks, nationwide. that's 10 million renters who owe their landlords an astonishing $57 billion. >> bret: gillian turner in washington. up next, increasing threat from the u.s. from china. fox 11 in los angeles said convicted killer celebrates a decision by the l.a. county district attorney that could get him out of prison. >> celebrating going home. >> bret: phillip dorsett and his cellmate are seen toasting george gass cohen, the d.a. issued a new directive calling for the possible resentencing of inmates following 15 years of imprisonment. this is a live look at philadelphia from our affiliate fox 29, one of the big stories there tonight a vietnam veteran said he lived in a self-made apartment hidden inside a veterans stadium two years. 78-year-old tom garvey said he refurbished an empty concession stand inside the former home of the phillies and eagles, he writes about it in a new book. he said his stay 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