avlon in for john berman this morning. it is the clearest sign yet that the criminal investigation into january 6th zeroing in on former president donald trump himself. our exclusive new cnn reporting reveals that trump s lawyers are talking directly with the justice department about the events of january 6th. the talks are said to be focused on whether conversations the former president had while in office can be kept from investigators due to executive privilege. now, in an interview with cnn s kasie hunt, liz cheney, the vice chair of the january 6th committee, weighed in on a potential trump prosecution saying the justice department must rise to the challenge. they have to make decisions about prosecution, understanding what it means if the facts and the evidence are there and they decide not to prosecute, how do we then call ourselves a nation of laws? joining us now is cnn anchor and chief national affairs analyst kasie hunt, and daniel goldman, a former federal p
frankly the headline number, matt, is a big one here. also it shows healthy growth in several sectors of the economy. yeah, jim. this is blockbuster growth. and it is pretty remarkable. this number is going to go a long way towards shutting down this idea that the u.s. economy is already in recession. to be adding more than half a million jobs, in a month, at this stage of the recovery, is pretty impressive. let me give you some context around this 528,000 job figure. this is twice as much as the consensus from economists. not only that, but it is 200,000 more than even the most optimistic forecaster had pencilled in. two big milestones that came out of this report, the labor market has now fully recovered all of the jobs lost during covid. total nonfarm payroll is back to february 2020 levels. the unemployment rate is now down to 3.5%. that matches the half century low set before covid. again, none of this suggests an imminent or ongoing recession. but here is the problem,
fine, despite persistent fears of a recession. the u.s. government released the latest jobs report this morning. and it far exceeded what economists expected. it showed the economy adding 528,000 jobs in july. that s more than double the number analysts expected. on employment, falling to 3.5%. and these numbers present a new complication for the federal reserve, which has been hoping to cool the jobs market, in an effort to bring down inflation. at the same time, senate democrats now poised to pass a massive bill that could impact everything from the price of prescription drugs to the fight against climate change. we re going to have more on that in just a moment. we start first with the strong jobs report and cnn s matt egan is live with us in new york, cnn s john harwood is live at the white house. matt, we ll start with you. break down the numbers for us, tell us what these numbers are showing. jessica, this is a hot jobs market that just defied all expectations but get
and we ll go inside the negotiations. and this cnn exclusive, sources say donald trump s legal team is now talking to the justice department. it signals that there is a big and ugly fight coming over what the former president can shield from federal investigators. but we begin the hour with a wow. the july jobs report gives president biden important economic momentum on employment hitting a 50 year low. 500,000 plus more americans hired just last month. so forget recession talk. at least in the short term. yes, inflation is high, but the recovery is still humming. the economic news caps the giant week for the biden presidency. wins on veterans and a top strike to take a terrorist off the battlefield. and now a leap forward for the democratic agenda. kyrsten sinema, the lone hold out, is today a yes. but we start on the stunning and surprise jobs numbers. matt egan is joining us. tell us more. yeah, this is a blockbuster number. and here is the best part. no one saw it com
jobs report any minute now at a bill signing. but let s look at the numbers. joining us is rahel solomon and jeremy diamond. let s look at the gains. the fact that this was more than twice what experts were expecting. and so some experts have said that this was an uncomfortably hot jobs report, at the very least it was surprising. when you look at the report and where the jobs were, line after line, industry after industry, it was growth, growth, growth with some of the largest gainers in industries like leisure, professional services, health care. 57,000 jobs being added for government. and when you look at month over month sort of what we re seeing in the labor market, look, i mean, we are still on an upswing. you would have expected between some of the reports that we ve been hearing that maybe we would start to see some cooling in the labor market, that this number the july number would actually be declining. but that is not what we re seeing which leads me to when you