Rebels, not al qaeda, but rebel ins in yemen staged a coup, took over the palace there. U. S. Officials say theres no plan to immediately evacuate the american embassy. Theres a plan to do it, theyre not just planning to do it at this moment if you know what i mean. Also, the president just made a dramatic change in u. S. Policy in cuba making it easier for americans to travel there, making trade easier, making a lot of things easier. Ill speak to bill nelson a man from florida and the republicans stefanic the youngest woman elected to congress. Chris wallace will be here in the rotunda for a preview of tonights speech and as is tradition and as i mentioned to gretchen moments ago, had lunch with the president today and the rest of the anchor monsters and well go through the entirety of the list of things that we had for lunch today because its tradition and Everything Else is off the record. So lets get to it. Now, Shepard Smith reporting live from capitol hill. Thank you guys. Time is running out to make life or death decisions whether to give in to terrorists or risk the execution of Islamic State hostages. A new video from that terror Group Demands japan pay 200 million to free a pair of prisoners. Isis gives tokyo 72 hours to pay up or the hostages will die, they say. Japans leaders have not said whether theyll pay that ransom but officials at the Foreign Ministry say the country will not give in to terrorism. The video in this case is a lot right one isis put out before. The hostages wearing the orange jumpsuits weve seen, the militants hiding behind masks. This is the first time the group has publicly demanded ransom certainly the first time weve heard a dollar figure. Its also the first time isis terrorists said theres a chance the hostages could go free. Its foxs top story this hour. Jennifer griffin is on it at the pentagon. Tell us more about these hostages and developments in that situation, if you could, jen. One of them, haruna, went to syria after his wife died after setting up a business to provide security in war zones. He wanted to train syrian militants to fight the assad regime, and kinji goto a videographer who has reportedbaye children in year zones for years knew yukata and reportedly went to syria to bring his friend home safely. The 200 million fig wrurure is the amount japanese pledged to Coalition Efforts to combat isis, humanitarian, not military aid. Japans Prime Minister issued the following statement i will take the lead and as a whole the japanese government will deal with this case putting peoples lives first. The video surfaced while the japanese Prime Minister was on a sixcountry tour of the middle east, shep. Lots ahead on that. Jennifer, theres also news from yemen today. Talked about it a little bit about the white house this afternoon. Rebels there stormed the president ial palace and theres great concern for where that countrys going. Thats right. The situation in yemen as we speak is fluid right now. A shia faction known as the houthis have stormed the president ial palace according to the commander in charge of security at the palace. Yemens president was under fire at his residence where he remains. Surrounded by armed militants. He may have been overthrown today in a coup. Its not clear. This is a big setback for the u. S. And its fight against al qaeda in Arabian Peninsula which was responsible for the paris attack. Theyll take advantage of the vacuum. For now, u. S. Officials say that no decision to evacuate the u. S. Embassy in yemen has been taken. Even though there are reports that a u. S. Embassy vehicle came under fire in the capital, sanaa earlier today. Back in september, president obama called yemen a success story, shep a model for how the u. S. Planned to fight isis. Today the situation looks very different. Yeah. What are we expecting, Foreign Policy as complicated now as any time in recent memory. On what are we expecting the president to focus on tonight from your perspective . He usually doesnt spend more than a quarter of his speech on foreign affairs, but a lot has changed in the last year. Heres what he said about iraq a year ago. The United States is more secure. When i took office, nearly 180,000 americans were serving in iraq and afghanistan. Today, all our troops are out of iraq. Today, there are 3,200 u. S. Troops back in iraq and more on their way to the region. The pentagon announced last week that nearly 1,000e9 n more will be sent to train the Syrian Opposition in saab rainudi arabia, turk ka, and qatar. That wont begin until the spring. Meanwhile, Canadian Special forces have come under fire in iraq. Theyre the First Western forces to find themselves in fire fights on the ground. Many questions remain about the strategy against isis. Shepard . Man, you got a busy building. Is it does it feel different now, jen . Im just curious. No, it has felt this way for some time. So many different contingencies. So many different directions. It really when i started here eight years ago, it was nothing like this. All the focus was on iraq and afghanistan. Now its so diverse, the number of contingencyies. It really is. Jennifer, thank you so much, Jennifer Miller at the pentagon. Chris wallace is with us here from Fox News Sunday. Were not allowed to talk about the lunch with specificity because its off the record. What struck me the most is how much there is going on all over the world and how complicated the landscape has become. It was one issue after another issue after another issue with no real concrete solutions. You know, its so interesting that clip that jennifer played of president obama a year ago in the state of the union talking about iraq is more secure. We didnt we had never heard about isis. I certainly hadnt. And we didnt have any american troops there. Now we are at war with isis. We have warplanes firing on both iraq and syria. Jennifer mentioned, 3,000 american troops on the ground. More possible. Maybe even likely. I did an interview on Fox News Sunday a little over a weekend ago with the chairman of the joint chiefs martin dempsey, and, you know, as you say there are a lot of problems and a lot of ones that just in the last year have popped up and or have become more secure. If youre the president tonight, where do you first of all, what is your goal with two years left to go and two houses of congress im not sure what difference another house of Congress Makes because you cant get anything passed through the Republican House anyway. But with two years left to go and a lot of executive orders coming in, what are you focused on if youre the president tonight . Well, from everything that weve heard, it seems like its going to be much more of a political speech than a policy speech. And i mean by that that so many of the things hes proposing are dead on arrival in congress and he knows that. Hes going to propose tax increases, 320 billion over 10 years. No way that the Republican Congress is going to pass it. Hes going to talk about Free Community college. No way congress is going to pass that. Having said that its not a bad political platform, and it may help the democrats in the 2016 election, both in their senate and house races and whoever the democratic nominee he or probably she turns out to be. But in terms of actually getting anything done with this new republican majority, for all the talk since the election about bipartisan compromise, lets find areas of agreement there sure seems to be precious little of it on either side of capitol hill. Yeah. No Movement Much of any kind. This is the first state of the union that i can remember where we dont expect to hear anything new on policy or otherwise tonight. Pretty much everything thats going to be brought up tonight, its our understanding, unless theres a surprise, has already been discussed, has already been put out there, has already been campaigned on, if you will. Well, it is interesting, you know, it used to be ive been covering these since Ronald Reagan in the 80s that the state of the union was a big deal and there was always some drama as to what was going to be in it, what was going to be said, and there would be new policy pronouncements by the president , but this president has apparently decided this time because there was a new republican majority in the house and the senate, that he didnt want to give all the activity and discussion of agenda. Hes been traveling the country as you say for the last couple of weeks basically passing out all these various goodies. We know what hes going to say on taxes. We know what hes going to say about Community Colleges and infrastructure and a whole bunch of other things. I think theresat was a decision he couldnt basically get out of the spotlight for these two weeks. That has allowed them to get a lot of News Coverage but it means hes not going to have much new to say tonight. Thats one of the reasons theres so much focus on Foreign Policy because he hasnt talked much about cqnfnthat. We want to hear in the wake of the terrible attack in paris, is he going to say the words islamic radicalism . Is he going to say that or not . Why is that a talk i dont understand that chris. Its not as if he has pretended that this isnt something awful and that group isnt extremely dangerous. Im curious why those two words together are so important to one side of this argument. Help me understand this. Well, because its the fact. I know it is. I mean, you know, in it was christian radicalism or extremism, then its sort of like hes why is he unwilling to say what it is that we confront . Would we have used that with tim mcveigh . I just dont tim mcveigh was one person. You know if youd had a 15year war against christian extremism, i would think you might say it. I just have theres some sort of push, something political, i dont understand it. Im speaking from the heart now. I dont understand it. Because no one has made any suggestion that this is anything but a bastardization of the religion taken the peace out of the religion and turned it into what it is. Theres one side of this argument that wants to hear islamic extremeistextremist. Thats what they want to hear, right . Islamic fror islamic terrorist. When you have these folks in paris going in shooting slaughtering, seven, eight people at this magazine and said we did it to avenge muhammad that seems to be part of it. I wonder why those words are important, and for a for one side to demand he say them and b for him not to say them although i think he did say them. He really has avoided it. Why do you think that is . Theyre having the summit. I think on some level he may take the position that you just stated which is that this is such a perversion of the religion, i dont want to give it, that it is part of the religion. It seems to me, you can call it islamist or jihadism. To sort of deny there is an islamic part, component to this i dont think hes denying it, is he . Hes just not saying it. I dont know. I just havent understood that. I always wonder, is it because they want to bring up this old thing thats hes sympathetic to the islamic call . I dont think thats it. I really dont. Ive seen it happening around me. Why not just say what it is . I dont know. I dont know. I dont know why its worth discussing, but we just did it. We just did. I should have talked more about the menu because the one thing i did not know going into this can we quickly point out that you were at the lunch and i was not . You do this every year. If i were handing out the invitations i would hand them to you. I understand that. This is going to hurt my feelings, but you go ahead. You relish in feelings hurt. I understand that. I do. The one thing i did not know yes. About this lunch today was what we were going to eat in advance advance. It may have been the best lunch of these lunches i ever had. Really . Better than any of the ones i ever went to . Probably. Just the fact i wasnt there, did that add i didnt drink the wine today which im sort of sad about. Rachel maddow had a little wine. I didnt have any wine. Hartford chardonnay. I think i didnt have it because i was afraid id be buzzed out here. I had water ahead. This is what im really jealous about. Were going to go through it through the course of the program. We dont want to give it up at the beginning. People obviously tuned in for this, chris, and your presence obviously. With the salad, there was bacon encrusted with sugar. That sounds really good. It really is. Victor emanuel, our producer in the booth used to give me for christmas this bacon dipped in chocolate and it came from a Lower East Side little confectioners place and it was really good. This, however, though missing the chocolate, bacon with sugar is my favorite food today. Well, you know who has a new cookbook out next week. I just want to very quickly say that she does do a thing with mrs. Sunday. A week from friday, were going to be promoting the book, but she does a thing with maple syrup on the bacon. Lucrative. Everybodys got well, thats true. Im going to go through this menu for the rest of this hour. Thats it. So much for the news. Theres news, too. [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ] [ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat . Campbells healthy request soup lets you hear it in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. Great taste. [ mm. ] [ tapping ] sounds good. Campbells healthy request. Mm mm good. ® if youre running a business legalzoom has your back. Over the last 10 years weve helped over one million Business Owners get started. Visit us today for legal help you can count on to start and run your business. Legalzoom. Legal help is here. 16 minutes past the hour on studio b. Shepard smith reporting we changed that three years ago. Have a nice day. Bill nelson of florida, Senior Member of the Armed Services committee and good enough to join us. Brought him on earlier than anticipated because youre between votes over there. Armed services committee. You guys are very, very busy. On what does the president need to focus . Well, i think he will, Cyber Security. We have a committee, john mccain will be our chairman, and Armed Services and one of these emerging threats, Cyber Security has been added to it, and certainly weve had reminders with sony and all of that. I think the president , of course, will talk about all of the threats abroad as well as here at home with terror. So there will be a full plate in the Armed Services committee. What do you make of this strategy, new to me, to tell everyone what youre going to be talking about in the state of the union in advance and have no new policy pronouncements that we know of, no new initiatives nothing fresh tonight. More politics than policy. What do you think of that strategy and why its implemented . I think its whatever hes comfortable with. I mean the nation is entitled to know the state of the union. Whether it all comes in one speech, or whether its dripped out as it has been over the lastjtk several days. But i wouldnt be surprised shepard, if theres not a surprise. It just feels like the president is going to come forward with some tax increases on the rich to try to help the middle class thats a nonstarter. Just about everything thats been talked about is not going to make its way anywhere. It seems this is just an exercise in political separation. Heres where we are on our points, heres where you are on your points as we head toward 2016. Is there anything else going on or am i well there is. There are those of us who are really looking to find that bipartisan sweet spot so that we can get some things done. Now, take, for example, the president s proposal on taxes. You know, the likelihood is if we can get agreement, we can get it in the area of Corporate Tax reform, which is desperately needed. One example why keep having Companies Move overseas just to get a tax break . Youre not going to get an increase in the capital gains, not with this. No way. But maybe thats not the sweet spot. Isnt that dispositioning . What about tax changes in order to really put some serious infrastructure building in this country . Republicans suggest you need to start over with this thing. You cant theres no bandaid. I think theres some area out there for bipartisan agreement, so lets give it a little chance. Youre about to take a vote, you said on some amendments to the keystone xl pipeline bill. Is there any movement there . I mean i see that as just a political football, anyway, but at the end of the day if you dont ship the oil all overseas and instead it becomes a conduit, the pipeline just to run canadian oil out to other countries thats the plan. Well thats the plan, but i dont like it andm a lot closer. Remember, if you have all the republican votes all you need is six votes so i think it would come very close to have over 60 votes if you made that change. The president s base will not like that. Oh i understand that. Thats the problem. Keystone has been too much of a political football instead of good solid public policy. Senator, nice to see you. Thanks shepard. All right. Lots more coming. Well speak with the republican lawmaker a little later. I mentioned she is the youngest woman voters have ever sent to congress. Plus colorado movie massacre trial got under way today and we learned this is the largest jury pool for any file in american history. Were live at the courthouse on state of the union day in washington. Its good to have you. You know, just because your bladder is changing, it doesnt mean you have to. With tena, let yourself go. Be the one with the crazy laugh. And keep being their favorite playmate. With tenas unique super absorbent micro beads that lock in moisture and odor. Tena lets you be you. You total your brand new car. Nobodys hurt,but there will stil