the president and first lady started with the helicopter tour getting a bird s eye view of just the scope of the massive amounts of damage here in lee county, alabama. they then landed and took a walking tour of one of the neighborhoods that suffered some of the worst devastation. there, they met with families who lost loved ones in sunday s tornado. they include the family of sheila creech and marsha lynn grimes, a couple that died in the storm. mr. grimes 10-year-old daughter remains hospitalized and she was not well enough to go to the parents funeral and the daughter s friend, 10-year-old taylor thornton who was over for a visit at the time died in the storm. family and friends held a funeral service for taylor this morning. after touring the devastation, president trump visited a church that is serving as a staging area for relief efforts. there, he met with volunteers and first responders and thanked them for all their hard work during the hours and days following the tornado.
my dream car. it turns out, they want me to start next month. she can stay with you to finish her senior year. things will be tight but, we can make this work. now. grandpa, what about your dream car? this is my dream now. principal we can help you plan for that . charles: president trump arriving a short while ago in florida. he was in alabama earlier today visiting the victims of the tornado that killed 23 people this past sunday. jonathan is in lee county, alabama with the details on the president s visit.
disaster. now, let s go to a live shot that we have from the town of smith station about 20 miles away from where i m standing. you can see recovery efforts are well under way. the president s visit is receiving praise even from the other side of the aisle. the senator says such visits have a way of connecting washington politicians with communities in need on a much more intimate and enduring level. and now, coming back to our live location here in beauregard, alabama, look at all this debris on the ground and up in the trees. that s a concern as we go into the weekend because, charles, more severe weather is forecast for alabama. the worst storms are expected to pass to the north of us. but with all this debris on the ground, even moderate winds could scatter it. and the concern is that we ll slow down some of the recovery efforts. charles, back to you. charles: thank you very much, jonathan. now to an official who met with president trump in alabama today. joining us on the phone,
jillian, putting a final point on this. the jobs part of this. the one thing that has blown me away, i got to tell you, seven consecutive months of blue collar wage broke more than 3%. we haven t seen anything like this in well over a decade. six of those seven months, wages for blue collar workers growing faster than their supervisors. those are jobs in the heartland and jobs that president trump promised. yeah, we re seeing last year in october, record breaking unemployment. i was excited to see today that small business hiring is up. so lots of good signs here. and you know, there s also a fed paper that just came out today and it s looking at the impact of such a tight labor market and really showing that when the economy is booming like it is right now, that no one is left behind. so the theory here is that female workers, people of color, workers with a lack of skills or lack of education in a labor market this tight, businesses are going to give opportunities to all of them.
race? let s get reaction from the hill s editor-in-chief and the wall street journal s jillian melcher. bob, let s start with you. we had an amazing run in wealth. the fourth quarter affected some softness in housing. obviously, those aren t the numbers that the president wants to go into in 2020. how important are they? very important, charles. i mean, that is what trump has. he has the economy. the economy has improved. i think what you re going to hear from the president in his re-election campaign is what you ve heard from prior candidates when the economy is booming is are you better off than you were four years ago? that s something the democrats will have to grapple with. it s a long way before 2020. we don t know what s going to happen with china. that china deal, if it happens, will greatly impact the market. but right now, it is the one thing that trump is going to repeatedly mention. of course, going after democrats for investigations but the economy being something that