Saying about those numbers. We begin with deidra. What happened . Well, neil, that december jobs number was a wow when that number crossed. Surprised. Labor department saying the u. S. Economy added 312,000 jobs in december. That blew past forecasts that data rounded out the year well. In total, if you look for 2018, employers added an average of 220,000 jobs per month. Making 2018 the best jobs growth year since 2015. More jobs added to the u. S. Economy and wage growth gains. It went up 2 . Annual raid, best full year gain in a decade. Unemployment did move higher. Went from 3. 7 to 3. 9 . This was mostly due to more workers entering the work force. Director of National Economic council had an optimistic take on the report with reason. There is no recession coming. There is no recession in sight. Consumers are strong. Jobs are rising. Wages are rising. Neil, when you look at the other reasons the jobs reports are not worrisome, traders heard a more cautious tone even what he said about a month ago. Traders, a lot of that began to estimate that a slower pace of potential future rate hikes is possible. And signs of progress between the u. S. A. And china on tried. Both countries sending high level officials to beijing. A trifecta. Jobs, fed and trade. All giving investors a little hope. Back to you. Neil we needed that in an up week on the first trading week of the year. The dow was in excess of 1 here. Most investors will take it. Thanks very much. Have a good weekend. Rich edson at the white house with how the president was responds to this. Hi, rich. Good afternoon. Just after that meeting here at the white house the president had with congressional leaders on trying to reopen the government, the president came out to the rose garden and talked about the economy. The better than expected 12,000 jobs added last month and all signs according to the white house here of an economy that is strong. One of the things that is so beautiful to watch is 3. 2 wage growth. That hasnt happened in so long for our country. Thats an incredible thing. That means people are getting more money, taking home more money. Government pointed to 2. 6 million jobs added in 2018. Best numbers since 2015. Investors outside of todays trading have been concerned about rising Interest Rates, slowing global growth, the john going trade fight with china. The said theres a massive trade negotiation with china and the United States is doing very well. He was asked about apple, down grading its cutting its rev forecast because of slow iphone sales in china. He says hes friend with tim cook and hes urging tim cook to Start Building iphones here in the United States instead of china. Also jay powell, not only talking about Interest Rates today but he was asked would he resign if the president asked him too. Powell said no. Neil, back to you. Neil thats the way im going to be. If they tell me to go, im not leaving. Its a good strategy. Thanks, rich. Just to show you how widespread this job numbers go, it cant be overstated here, this was across the board. Every key sector of the economy added jobs. Think about it, healthcare more than 50,000. Construction, 38,000. We saw restaurants and bars, 41,000. Manufacturing, 32,000. Retail 24,000. We saw the prior months also had an uptick in activity from the prior period as well. The average gains had been in excess of 250,000 jobs that kind of pace shows a pick up in activity. What would that mean and does that mean that whatever is ailing china is unique to china and not us . Traders joining us with michelle jerrod and scott martin. Michelle, how broad based is this . As you said, neil, it was across the board in terms of job growth. Another thing that is impressive that economists like to look at, not only were more people working but the people that are working, their companies had them working longer hours, which is like the equivalent of another 300,000 plus jobs. There was a strong labor input and companies were having their workers making a lot of goods. As you said, it suggests much better momentum at the end of the year than some of the other reports and certainly than some of the pessimism has has overtaken the markets. Neil all of that is very true and obvious, but its the mirror opposite of yesterday. So given the extreme swings, which is accurate . I dont know yet. Ill tell you monday, neil. Youre right. The market has been very schizophrenic. Michelle, im a pessimist now. The thing that i do like is the strength in numbers. You pointed out the broadbased nature of it. Weve had the numbers before. Yes, maybe not 312, but weve had close to 200,000 for several months. Tell me why the tenyear note has plummeted from 3. 2 in october to a low of 2. 60 or low yesterday in yes, it bounced back today. But the bond market is trying to tell us something. I dont want to be accused of pouring out the party punch here at the party but the reality is the bond market is saying theres more disinflation ahead. Neil kevin, in the middle of this, we had the Federal Reserve chairman saying, look, i dont see a reason to pounce or anything. Im paraphrasing here about raising rates. But his message seemed to defy a strong economic report, that you could argue would necessitate continuing the tightening cycle. What did you make of that . He says hes going to pay close attention to the Financial Markets. They got his attention the last month. What Financial Markets have been saying is that there is some worry out there. So the bond market, the yield curve flattening, the tenyear yield moving down like just said, that is indicative of a weakening Global Economy. Where we see most of the weakness outside of our borders. The data here in the United States has been very the strong. The story here is good. We got more evidence of that today. The rest of the world, not so much. Foreign investors have been funneling in to our economy, driving up the treasury and down the yields. Ultimately in the Global Economy erodes us bad, its going to affect us here at home. Were on the precipice to say which way the ball bounces. Neil and the market likes the talk out of the fed chairman saying they wouldnt move rates right away. Were still factoring in i think two rate hikes this year. Are you . Im still expecting the fed will nudge rates up a little bit more. My outlook is one for the comply to continue to perform well. I think a big point about todays number, as you said in the context of the weakness yesterday, you cant take any one piece of information, you know, as the rule of as the gospel. The bottom line is the economy doesnt swing from growth to recessions back to strong growth like these Economic Indicators do. What today did is remind people that hey, the Global Economy they be slower. The u. S. Growth may be slower. But talking about slowing from over 3 in 2018 to maybe around 2, 2 1 2 in 2019. That is not a recession forecast. Its still above trend growth and still potentially keeping the fed saying hey, we should not be we should be cautious about raising rates too much and also about falling behind the curve if in fact the economy does perform better and we see an inflation pickup. Neil scott martin, when it comes to the Federal Reserve, he was asked point blank about this. Jerome powell said even if the president asked him to resign he wouldnt. What did you think of that . A good answer. Hes more confident. With the market going up after his markets, gosh, you can a tribute 35 southbound points to powell and the group today. A nice little reunion with bernanke up there, too. Havent seen him in awhile. I have to forget neil it was like a monetary avengers team. Powell and like a High School Reunion except i was made fun of. What is funny, too, to michelles point, i dont see inflation anywhere. Thats what i dont get about the fed. Theyve been so concerned about inflation, reducing the balance sheet. Yet powell talked about until today, this outlike for inflation that i dont see. I think they have room to pause here. The market is telling them to do that, if they do pause going forward, youll see the stocks get support. Neil kevin, your thoughts on powell if his job is safe. Yes, his job is safe. The message in the markets since the markets volatility picked up a couple months ago has been this cant lower expectations for Interest Rates. It wasnt today. Those expectations got started to get backed out of the market through the month of november, through december. All paul did today is sort of confirm that. The market was already on a tear coming into the session this morning and helped by the employment figures, which were very strong. Neil thank you all. Happy new year. We got the first week out of the way. Meantime here, i want to tell you a little bit about this. Carl ikahn. He rarely talks to the press. When he does, he makes a lot of news. Hes going to be talking to us on fox business. Were going to be replay ago lot of that on this show. Carl icahn, noon eastern time on fox business, which car will tell you, if you dont get it, demand it. Youll lose money. If thats what you want to do. Do you think we are anywhere close to resolving this shut down . The president says hes prepared to wait months if not years and stands by that. Does Republican Congressman jim jordan . Hes next. We told the president we needed the government open. He resisted. In fact, he said he would keep the government closed for a very long period of time, months or years. Chairs working out for everyone . I dunno. Im still a little stressed about buying our new house. Well, its a good thing we dont have to worry about Homeowners Insurance. Geico can help with that. We can get Homeowners Insurance help from geico . Well, sure. And they could save us a bunch too. Mmhmm . Im starting to feel better already. Get to know geico and see how much you could save on homeowners and condo insurance. Neil im kevin corke. Two very different viewpoints of a meeting today at the situation room here at the white house between republicans and democrats. The president was upbeat. He called the conversations productive despite the nearly two week old government shut down saying even on a day that saw the jobs report and the markets soar, he would be happier if a deal could get worked out to end the shutdown. Ill be even more proud if we could have great Border Security for the first time in really the history of our country. The southern border. Its a dangerous, horrible disaster. Weve done a great job. You cant really do the kind of job we have to do unless you have a major powerful barrier. And thats what were going to have to have. Our aim will be to find a solution, not just simply to end the government shut down, to provide funding to end the crisis at our southern border to achieve real Border Security and to build a wall on our southern border. Earlier at the white house, Speaker Nancy Pelosi drew a line in the sand that could frankly p p pretend of a painful shut down. Both sides will have working groups at the white house over the weekend hoping to move closer to ending the shutdown. Neil . Neil but it seems its going to last awhile. Thats the impression were getting. Yeah, could be months. Im not kidding. Neil kevin, thank you very much. Kevin corke at the white house. Lets get a read on things and where theyre going or not going from a high Republican Congress map, jim jordan. Congressman, happy new year. Good to be with you. Neil same here. Is it your sense this could drag on . Democrats are more focused on stopping the president than they are than helping the country. Until that changes, its difficult to get to a solution as the Vice President said. The solution is real simple. Democrats should support what ney have supported before, funding for a Border Security wall. Unfortunately doesnt look like they want to go there. Well see. Neil i know its all over dollars and whether we call it a wall. Is it your sense that it is over dollars though . Not so much whether they call it a wall and if it is over dollars and the 5 billion represents just a down continuing down payment on something that will be 25 billion, where is this going . I dont know if that is accurate, neil. Remember what they said. Nancy pelosi said a wall is immoral, which is an amazing statement. So if a wall is immoral, where is the legislation being introduced by the democrats to take down the wall between tijuana and san diego . I think it is the term in some regards at least with if democrats. Of course, its about the money. But this is common sense and the president said it today in his press event. He said look, were going to do what hes told the American People hes going to do hes going to stand firm for that. Thats exactly the right mow situation. We have to keep making the argument and the American People have to keep speaking up in support of it. Thats when we get the democrats to do the right thing. Neil the president says in the name of National Security he can do this on his own. Can he . I think he can but that will get challenged in court. Thats why this is the better approach. To appropriate dollars by the government to do what we said we were going to do. If you want to deal with the gang problems, the Human Trafficking problem, the drugs problems, build a wall like we all promised and like democrats have supported in the past but now for some if you need no other evidence, look to what happened yesterday. Theyre more concerned about stopping the president than helping the country. Brad sherman files articles of impeachment on the very first day. Representative talib make her disgraceful comments last night about the president. Thats not for the good of the country. The wall is. Lets get back focusing on what helps this great nation. Neil lets talk about china potential trade deal that could happen next week and if china, of course, itself was going through a slow down, some are worried about a trade deal. They might not followthrough on commitments anyway. But we have to remind ourselves, our economy is doing fine. Whatever is plaguing them isnt plaguing us. You think that distinction has been made . How good or economy is doing . The democrats dont get it. Again, 312,000 jobs added last month. What do the democrats do . Pass a rules package that looks to raise taxes, introduce impeachment resolution and a new member of congress from michigan saying the disgraceful things she did about the president. I dont think they understand what think about this president. Taxes cut, regulations reduced, economy growing at an unprecedented rated, 312,000 jobs last month, gorsuch and kavanaugh on the court, out of iran deal, new nafta agreement and hostages home and what are the democrats focused on . Impeaching the president and saying the terrible things they said yesterday. That is the fundamental problem. We can Work Together if theyre willing to focus on the country and not president trump. Neil i dont meet to hit you with this, but were getting reports that the Mueller Investigation grand jury is reportedly been extended some six months. So at least six more months of this. Yeah, six more months and theyll continue to try to find something. They havent Fund Anything there. Six more months . The whole premise was to show that there was some or find out if there was some type of coordination between the Trump Campaign and russian interference. Not one bit of evidence and now extend it six more months . I havent heard what theyre doing exactly, but look, i hope it winds up soon so we can get focused on the things that will help the country. Neil thank you, congressman. The grand jury in washington d. C. With muellers team looked to be extended six months. On it goes. More after this. Hey, who are you . Oh, hey jeff, im a car thief. What . im here to steal your car because, well, thats my job. What . What . . What . laughing what . . What . what . [crash] what . haha, it happens. And if youve got cutrate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. So get allstate. And be better protected from mayhem. Like me. t easy. 12 hours . 20 dogs . Wheres your belly rubs . After a day of chasing dogs you shouldnt have to chase down payments. vo send invoices and accept payments to get paid twice as fast. danny its time to get yours vo quickbooks. Backing you. Neil all right. Were just learning as i touched on in the prior segment here that a federal grand jury in washington d. C. With special counsel muellers team has been using has been extended. The original term of 18 months expired today. Were told it was extended an additional six months. No way to confirm that. Sources in the courthouse are telling our producers there that the extension is for another six months. Typically a grand jury term caps out at 24 months. So this is going on for 18 months. So that would mean at the very least that this investigation will go into the summer and thats just when its wrapped up. Doesnt necessarily mean that the full report and the full findings are released but it does give you a sense this could drag on awhile. Reaction from christy and dan. Dan, what to you think . I suppose it doesnt necessarily mean its going to extend for six months but obviously going to go forward now. A couple things here, neil. This is the problem with special prosecutors. We used to have an independent counsel law back in the reagan years. Congress ended the independent counsel law because these investigations tend to go on forever. Years and years. The independent counsel or special prosecutor, theres a question of accountability. I would say here, neil, if this thing starts dragging on, that once the new attorney general, hopefully, is confirmed, william barr, i think attorney general barr, Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein probably should call in