Transcripts For CNNW CNN 20240703 : comparemela.com

A surprisingly strong jobs report crushed economists expectations this morning. U. S. Companies on a hiring tear in september, creating 336,000 new jobs, nearly double what economists were expecting. President biden did hope to take some credit for it, talking up his bidenomics plan to help the economy. Listen to this. Mr. President , can you be specific about what you did to try to reappropriate those border funds, especially when democrats controlled both chambers . I was told that i had no choice. That, you know, Congress Passes legislation to build something, whether its an aircraft carrier, a wall or provide for a tax cut. I cant so thats not the right sound bite. Nevertheless, President Biden did try to take credit for the surprising jobs report. We have cnns matt egan to break it all down for us. Walk you throughs it. Where were the biggest job gains . Reporter boris, these were Blockbuster Numbers and the best part is virtually no one saw it coming, 336,000 jobs added, you know, that is spectacular growth in any economy, but in an economy where youre dealing with high Borrowing Costs and high inflation, it really is impressive. As you mentioned, about double consensus, but even more impressive is if you look at the range of forecasts, this was 80,000 jobs stronger than even the most optimistic forecaster had anticipated. Now, there really was strength across the board, as you can see, hiring heating up. When you look at the sector breakdown we Saw Tens Of Thousands of jobs added last month in health care, government, leisure and hospitality. With he see bars and Restaurant Employment is finally back to precovid levels. The Unemployment Rate is now at 3. 8 , it stayed unchanged. This is really low. Miles away from that spike to almost 15 back in the spring of 2020. So you put all this together it paints the picture of a strong economy, a strong jobs market. It should go a long way towards quieting those recession fears. I mean, an economy adding 300,000 jobs in one month is nowhere near a recession. If anything, though, the question is is this economy and is the jobs market too strong from the perspective of the Federal Reserve and their quest to get inflation under control . Remember, wall street and washington really wanted goldilocks, not too hot, not too cold. This report, boris, was on the hot side. No question about that. We will have to see how the fed reacts. You alluded to markets wanting a sort of goldilocks jobs report. What did we see in the markets, because the dow had a bit of a shift today. Reporter yeah, you can say that again. You know, as soon as this number came out stocks went down, right, because immediately investors were fearing the fed was going to have to do more to put out the inflation fire. It looked like we were going to be in one of those situations where good news for main street is bad news for wall street, but look at this, everything turned around in the stock market, the dow was down about 200 points at one point, now its up about 400 points, 172 . Two reasons, some investors and leading economists are saying, do you know what, the fed is still going to keep Interest Rates unchanged at the next meeting, november 1st. And thats because not every part of this jobs report was hot. When you look at wages, wages actually cooled off. Paychecks are still growing, theyre still growing faster than inflation, but theyre growing at a slower pace, which is exactly what the fed wants to see and here is why this is all important, right, the higher that Interest Rates have to go from the fed the higher Borrowing Costs are and the greater risk that they do too much and tip the economy into recession. For now, though, boris, looks like everyone is sort of in agreement, this is unequivocally good news. Matt egan, thanks for walking us through that. Two prominent republicans are now competing to fill the power vacuum their party created on capitol hill. Congressman jim jordan and Steve Scalise are courting fellow Caucus Members Behind Closed Doors hoping to lock down enough support to win the speakers gavel. Emotions and opinions over Kevin Mccarthys ouster are still very raw, but what happens next will be critical for cobsngress and e house gop and america at large. It may be no surprise that donald trump is getting involved. He likes to be center stage. The 2024 republican president ial front runner and criminal defendant just endorsed jim jordans candidacy and has offered to step in as Interim Speaker until this is all settled. Lets get more on todays Back Door Maneuvering from cnn capitol Hill Reporter Melanie Zanona. A lot going on in your neck of the woods. How far is the house gop from uniting around a single candidate . Reporter pam, i can tell you in talking to my sources no one is very confident that House Republicans are going to be able to elect a new speaker by next week. Right now its a competitive twoway race between jim jordan and Steve Scalise. Steve scalise is really leaning on his Leadership Experience and his Fundraising Skills and in his pitch to members and then jim jordan is the chair of the judiciary committee, he has ties to the far right and also just picked up an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. But both jordan and scalise are making a play for the more moderate members in the party whose votes are really up for grabs and they are also among the most burned and feel the most upset by the Kevin Mccarthy removal earlier this week. So it makes sense that both scalise and jordan are trying to pitch themselves as best positioned to unite this bitterly divided congress. Our manu raju caught up with jim jordan earlier today. Here is what he had to say. Reporter youre saying youre united. What is different between you and Steve Scalise . I think its just that this race comes down to two questions, i said this yesterday, who can unite the conference, who can also unite i guess maybe three questions. Who can you auto night the congress, who can unite conservative republicans in our party around the country and then who can go tell the country what were doing and why its important to them, to their to their family, to their business, to their community. And, look, i like the job ive got now, i never wanted to do this job, but someone has to, who can bring the Team Together and go communicate to the country and thats why im running. Reporter and in a sign of how chaotic it still is inside the gop and how emotions are still so raw, were told that both jim jordan and Steve Scalise backed out of a planned fox news joint televised interview that was supposed to occur on monday from the capitol. This after they were receiving fierce and swift blow back from within the party over that idea. House republicans will still hold their own Candidate Forum on tuesday, candidates will get to come make their pitch Behind Closed Doors and then on wednesday House Republicans will once again meet Behind Closed Doors where they will elect their speaker but only a simple majority is needed to become the republican nominee. The bigger question is whether they can get 218 votes on the floor and at this point its not clear that either candidate can. Pam . And, melanie, you have some reporting about everything with this fox forum that the candidates said they would do, now theyre pulling out. Whats going on with that . Reporter yeah, so as i was mentioning, they were supposed to do this fox news joint interview, some sort of forum where they were going to get together and be broadcasting from the capitol, but the second that plan was announced my phone started blowing up with messages particularly from moderate republicans who said this is a horrible idea. They were worried it was going to turn into a circus, they didnt like the idea of these candidates talking in front of fox news instead of coming Behind Closed Doors so it quickly fell apart almost as quickly as it came together. Thank you so much. Boris . As migrant crossings at the Southern Border surged this week the white house rolled out a plan to add 20 additional miles of Border Barriers in south texas. The thing is President Biden campaigned against adding even a single foot to the wall and he says that border walls dont work. Earlier today a mayor in the Rio Grande Valley getting those new barriers also told us they dont work, at least in the planned location that theyre coming up in. And President Bidens Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently clarified the administrations stance is that a border wall is not the answer to the immigration crisis, so then why are they adding it at all . Cnns Priscilla Alvarez is here to explain. President biden was asked about this again a short time ago, what did he say . He maintained what his officials have been saying which is that they had to do this. Its not so much that he wanted to do this. Lets listen to what he had to say. Mr. President , can you be specific about what you did to try to reappropriate those border funds, especially when democrats controlled both chambers . I was told that i had no choice, that i you know, Congress Passes legislation to build something, whether its an aircraft carrier, wall or provide for a tax cut. I cant say i dont like t im not going to do it. If it hasnt been vetoed. If its the law. Reporter you said yesterday that you tried to reappropriate the funds. We tried to ask the congress to consider changing the law. So what hes referring to there is the congressionally appropriated funds from 2019 which was for physical Border Barriers. Sources i have spoken with said that the administration was running up against a deadline. They had to use these funds by the end of fiscal year 2023, which is why theyre doing just that. Boris, this comes down to what a president campaigns on doesnt always look the same when youre governing, in this case it was because of something that had happened before he took the office. Absolutely. And we should note while the administration asked congress to reappropriate those funds in 2021, democrats did control congress for two years before that. So his hands were tied, he says, but democrats ultimately held the key. Biden is also unveiling some new policy when it comes to venezuelans who enter the country illegally. Tell us about this. This is a major breakthrough. For years the u. S. Has not carried out regular deportation flights to venezuela because of frosty relations with the country. That changes now where they will be able to do direct deportation rights. The reason its so important now is because there are more than 7 million venezuelans who are moving across the Western Hemisphere and have fled that country, many of them are coming to the u. S. Southern border and that has been a unique challenge for the Biden Administration when all they could do is process them and release, detain or send some back to mexico but not necessarily deport. Now theyre trying to signal they could Levee Consequences for these migrants crossing unlawfully, while also trying to maintain the stance of providing some sort of lawful pathway for them to come to the u. S. , but this is really a reflection of just how difficult its been to deal with this particular subset of population that continues to come to the board sthoor we will see how this might impact numbers and potentially politically for President Biden as well. Priscilla alvarez, thank you so much. Mexicos president just responded to the Biden Administrations move to build nor Border Barriers, calling it a, quote, publicity stunt because there are elections in the United States. And he describes it as an effort to fall in the good grace of those against migrants. Lets dig deeper with republican congressman Carlos Gimenez of florida. Great to see you as always. The Biden Administration moving forward with new border wall construction. Is that the right move or is this, as amalo describes t a publicity stunt . Theres not so many times i agree with the president of mexico but i will have to agree with him now. This is a smoke screen, a publicity stunt. The situation at the border is completely out of control. Where even mayors and governors in blue states and cities are crying for relief and this is just one way to say to let them say, hey, were doing something about t were building 20 miles of wall. Thats the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard of in my life because he has to build it . Wait a minute, he had to build it in 2021 when he took over and he decided to just stop the construction of the border wall. 20 miles isnt going to do anything. This is just political, political theater. So how about the move to immediately deport venezuelan migrants who enter i will alley, many are fleeing a regime that you have been critical of. Are you okay to send them back . Why is it just venezuelans. We have hundreds of Different Countries coming through, millions of different migrants coming through not just from venezuela. I find it ironic that most of the folks that are up in New York City happen to be venezuelan. Again, i think this is politics. Hes trying to placate the new york mayor who is crying who is crying for relief. And also, you know, the proof is going to be in the pudding. This administration has said they were going to do this or that, were going to control the border by doing this and that. I never ever listen to what they say, i watch what they do. They said they rolled out different policies, saying this is going to stop it. By the way, the border is under control. Now this is more politics. But, again, why is it just venezuelans . Maybe theyre idealogically not aligned with your party. Maybe you know if they become citizens theyre actually going to be voting more republican like they do in south florida. I dont know. It sounds like politics to me. To that question, congressman, if it should not only be venezuelans that are deported immediately should it also be cuban americans like you and myself . What i have said all along is that we need to follow the law. The law says that if you have an asylum claim you need to stay in a third country or you are detained in our country. And so we just need to follow the law. For everybody. Whether its cuban, whether its venezuelan, we need to follow the law. If you have a valid asylum claim, we are welcoming countries with open arms and we welcome you with open arms like they did me and my parents when i came here in 1960. We had a valid asylum claim, we were fleeing from communism. If you have one, then, yeah, i think that, you know, there is a difference for you, but a lot of the people coming through now, you know, like when back in 2019, 18, 90 of the people that were asking for asylum were being denied by the courts because they didnt have a valid asylum claim. We just need to follow the law. Congressman, i do want to get to the question of who should be the next House Speaker and as i do that i want to mention the former president because he endorsed jim jordan. Before we get into that conversation, President Trump weighed in on the border saying that undocumented immigrants are, quote, poisoning the blood of our country and bringing in disease. Is it your thought that someones blood is different because they have a legitimate asylum claim or not . Was this appropriate for the former president to say . No, look, im an immigrant myself and so this is a country of immigrants. I think what hes trying to say is that we have this flood, people are violating the law, this administration is violating the law itself. It opened the border, it caused this Mass Migration to come into the United States. I dont know how many migrants are dying because theyre trying to trek make the trek to the United States. How many migrants are being trafficked, how many minors are being trafficked. For gods sakes we dont know, there are 85,000 minors we dont even know where they are. This is completely out of control. This is the cause this administrations policies and, no, im a migrant im an immigrant myself. Immigration actually strengthens america, but Legal Immigration strengthens america. I appreciate you reading that into the former president s comments but the fact is he said that they are poisoning the blood of our country, evoking language frequently used by people who dont have the same pos