Country since lincoln. Mike tobin is in the city now ringed in high fencing and barbed wire and people in the military could pose a threat and those that want to see a civil war in the United States. Well speak with sarah carter investigating the politics of this moment and the dangerous nature of these groups and what they want. Also with us today, Stephanie Carter overseeing the vastly changed inaugural festivities for the Biden Administration. First, we go to mike tobin. Hi, mike. You cant make it a few blocks without running into some of this fencing. Checkpoints, security personnel and the ubiquitous presence of the National Guard. We saw platoon after platoon, squad after squad of the guard arriving. Were told the number of troops present in d. C. Has gotten up to 21,000. Were told the troop presence ultimately will exceed that 25,000 number reported yesterday. The secretary of the Army Confirms that with the help of the secret service, background checks are being done on troops
economists are a bit skeptical on them because they may be in part skewed by factors including seasonal employment. bill: bring in our expert. stuart varney, anchor of varney & company , fox business network. take us through what we know here. jobless claims down 30 odd thousand. that looks good superficially but it is affected by seasonal numbers. second set of numbers, durable goods orders looking good, up 1.6%. degg deep. take out aircraft orders you have a big drop of over 1%. dig deep and these numbers are not as good as they look on the surface. bill: does this amount to a general reversal in jobs? no, sir, it does not. it does not. 350,000 new claims for jobless benefits, that is still a very high number and implies layoffs are still going strong it this economy. it doesn t really change the overall jobs picture which is negative. bill: you just mentioned this. we re learning that businesses cutbacks on orders for long-lasting factory goods. what does that mean?
report. it will look like it shows a growth rate less than 1 1/2%. that is economy fully on its back. bill: thank you, stuart. stuart varney with us here. here is martha with more context. martha: you have the two factors stuart talked about. you ve got growth where you get in the gdp. very significant where the economy is headed and you have the jobs. here is chart december 07 before the beginning of all the trouble you can see as the line goes up t goes all the way to today. the big spike in 2008 that was the worst of the worst, okay, to 2009. we re at this number, 253,000. the trend line looks good. it is hard to argue with that trend line. that is 353,000 right there. the yellow line shows you where we would be if we were in a healthy economy. you want to stay right in that zone. we re in that zone right now. what you need to do is put together weeks and then months that show you that the economy is truly headed in the right direction. we ve been under the 375 for severa