the incident. a record breaking number of people tuning into the first gop presidential debate on fox news. an estimated 24 million people watched the prime time debate with the top 10 candidates. the debate becoming the highest nonsports cable program of all time. the highest rated cable news program of all time and fox newschannel s most watched program ever. the u.s. job market preparing to be full health. july mark eld the latest month and a streak of solid hiring with employers adding 215,000 jobs. the unemployment rate holding at 5.3%. i m patricia stark. now here is red eye. welcome to red eye. i m tom shillue. let s check in with andy levey at the red eye news desk. still recovering from the big brawl yesterday. quite a day, wasn t it?
i m kate baldwin. john berman is off today. happy friday. it was going so well and now not so much. i m talking about that important indicator of the kpli, the monthly jobs numbers. the disappointing news came out a short time ago, the labor department reporting only 126,000 jobs added last month in the united states. that s the worst performance in more than a year and far below expectations that had been set by those oh, so smart minds. and wages are stagnant. the unemployment rate holding at 5.5%. let s get the story behind the numbers, what it really does mean. one jobs report does not a trend make everyone always says to me. that s right. what do you make of this? march is always a little bit crazy. as you mentioned, this was a huge miss. economists were expecting 244,000 jobs. wow. we learned that the last two
issue going on. do either of you support president obama in terms of his policies? i know he s a likeable man. but what about his economic policies? i definitely support him in terms of his policies. the reality is what we ve had for the last four engineers republican leadership that focused more on preventing barak obama s reelection kelly: how has that delivered jobs? they ve not been focused on delivering jobs. the unemployment rate came down with the help of the stimulus. it would be logical to have another jobs program to bring it down further, but the republican leadership is preventing that. kelly: let s bring up the graph of the unemployment rate right now. sabrina, i know you want to tackle this. jump in as we look at the graph of the unemployment rate holding at 8.2%. the president wanted to bring it down much lower than that. what happened? you know, i think the problem is that these economic reports have become just business as usual with this administration. i
the unemployment rate holding at 8.2%. doug mckelway has more from washington. rick: the romney campaign pounced on the jobless numbers and on it comments from the obama camp that appear to minimize the impact of only 80,000 jobs created in june. the president called those number has step in the right direction. his advisor, david plouffe, stays, quote, what everybody expected. it prompted this response from the romney campaign. with millions of americans facing what even vice president biden called a depression, it s clear president obama is simply out of touch with the difficulties facing middle class families. the president did not mention the jobs numbers in his weekly address today. instead, focusing on the stimulus effects of his signing of the transportation and student loan bills. first they will keep thousands of construction workers on the job rebuilding our nation s infrastructure. second, it will keep interest rates on federal student loans from doubling this year, whic
bottom of the hour now, a quick look at what s driving the day on a friday. the opening bell ringing on wall street just now. investors are watching how the market will react to the latest jobs report, smoke the unemployment rate holding stead date steady at 9.6%. this is the last report before the midterm elections. florida s candidates for november nor will meet face-to-face the first time, their debate in spanish and english and debates for ohio and wisconsin, senate races there the south carolina s governor s race, too. don t be alarmed if you see more security than usual while riding the rails today it has nothing to do with increased terror threats in europe. in fact, amtrak is actually running a previously scheduled security training drill called rail safe. other stories making headlines today, police in anaheim, california, now say an amber alert issued over the night for two boys is a parental abduction. police believe 4-year-old jacob and his 2-year-old brother, justi