A wall is an immorality. It is not who we are as a nation. The president has been clear he wants Border Security and until he gets it well have to stay in a shutdown. He doesnt want them to know how hes hurting them and keeps the subject on the wall. Hes a master of diversion. We have Government Shutdown. Where are their priorities . We gave them an opportunity to show their priorities. Not doing a wall. Does anybody have a doubt . We are not doing a wall. The wall they should be worried about is not the wall at the south border but wall street. Jobs, jobs, jobs. The u. S. Economy adding 312,000 jobs in december, a powerful end to a strong year for the economy. But the stock market is not the economy. Its a doubleedged sword as far as the number is concerned. The market rallied on word that the u. S. And china resuming trade talks. Because of this correction, theres an awful lot of pessimism. There is no recession coming. There is no recession in sight. All right. Im going to talk to you about stocks and the markets and the economy in a mubtd. Breaking right now, congressional leaders are meeting with President Trump at the white house about the Government Shutdown. They have been inside for 90 straight minutes. We havent seen any members of Congress Leave the white house yet. Or say anything. As soon as we get any news, we are going to bring that to you live. Well taking a look at the markets right now. They are surging in part because of a jobs report but in part because of comments from the Federal Reserve and some talk that china and the United States are sitting down to come up with a trade deal. But lets start with the jobs report. Every first friday of a month you get the jobs report from the last month. This would mean from 2018. The last jobs report for 2018. The economy added 312,000 net new jobs in december. This is huge. This is a very big deal. This far exceeded economist expectations of 176,000 jobs and just so know this is adjusted for seasonal employment patterns like Holiday Hiring so Holiday Hiring is not actually the driving force here. This is good oldfashioned job creation. The Unemployment Rate contrary to what you expect rose to 3. 9 . Thats because more people joined the work force and looking for jobs so the denominator increases. The pool increases. It is important to remember the Unemployment Rate only represents worker who is are without work but actively speaking jobs. 419,000 people entered the work force. That brings the Work Force LaborParticipation Rate to 63. 1 . That is an increase of. 4 compared to a year ago and sure the Unemployment Rate went up but for the right reasons. Meanwhile, wages up 3. 2 over last year, a significant gain but inflation is also there so the 3. 2 is the wage. 2. 2 as of november was inflation. This may be down a little bit since then because oil prices have come down and take the two numbers and consider themselves. And that brings average job growth for 2018 to 220,000 jobs a month. Thats stronger than the averages for all of 2017 which was 182,000 and 2016 which is 195,000 so this is pretty good. Now go to the markets and see the reaction. As i said, not necessarily to the job numbers but to an announcement or a comment by the Federal Reserve chief to think about not increasing Interest Rates or at least thats the implication. Look at that. 800 points. 800point gain on the dow. That is more than 3. 5 higher. We have seen 3. 5 . We dont step cli see it to the upside. I want to caution you that the Market Reaction is not really to the jobs numbers. It is more to the talk of the fed saying, indicating it might not increase Interest Rates this year or the short term and possible talks or progress on talks between the chinese and the americans. Joining me now to work through this is Grant Thornton chief economist diane swank. Thank you for being here. Good to be here. We have spent years parsing jobs reports. This ones not bad. Lots of jobs added to the economy in december. The Unemployment Rate went up. People tweeting me how can those two things happen at the same time. Weit was a great jobs number and whats interesting is how many women are throwing their hat in the ring and saying they want to rejoin the labor force. Thats where the biggest gains have come, particularly this month and over the last year, as well. We are still lagging on men rejoining the labor force and some of the hardest hit by unemployment. Women have not only gotten higher Educational Attainment but seeing opportunities and when you raise wages which we saw wages pick up in the professions to be women dominated that brought women in the labor force. I love the jobs report because the Labor Department of statistics gives you so much data. You can live in this stuff. You will remember there were times when donald trump and others questioned the accuracy of job reports, particularly when they were strong during the obama administration. I think this is a good time to remind people, these job report numbers put together by Civil Servants and theyre a survey. A product of two surveys and tend to be accurate. Over time they tend to be accurate. Volatile month to month. We have talked about the conspiracy theories. Right. You cant make the data up. The number of people to survey to get there you cant make the data up and it is nonsense. I spent a lot of time with these statisticians and you have to drink with them. It is hard not to get bored with what how theyre trying to think how to make the data better. Theyre great, wonderful people. Never heard them about their personal politics but trying to make the data better and thats the important thing. Right. When you go through some of this stuff theres an interesting indicator. Its the rise in job levers. People that quit one job and actively seek another n. A really bad economy that doesnt happen. Because people are afraid to leave the jobs. We saw 839,000 people leave their jobs for a dimpfferent jo in december. What do you make of that . Again, thats a sign that the labor market is better than it has been and still good and the disconnect of the labor market and the economy or and the stock market. I would also underscore all that volatility of the stock market much of the labor market strength right now has been in low wage, entry level jobs, food services, retail sector, health care services. Thats really important. Theyre not as affected by the stock market but are affected very much by wage gains and lower prices at the pump. You make a really good point because next year picture on the screen is the dow up 830 points. But its not a good barometer of the economy because so many people are not in stocks. Jobs are really a big deal because everybody has to have an income. Exactly. And one of the most important things is fewer people own the stock market today than prior to the crisis and come back from the lows and wechb the 401 k s we dont have the Stock Ownership we once did and so its not as shared across the economy as it was. This is important to understand because lower income lower wage jobs finally seeing increases theyre also middle class jobs that had to take a lower pay and finally getting some wage gains and spending it kicking up the heels a little bit. I was out at disneyland this year and it was packed, absolutely packed and thats good news that theyre getting some time to spend discretionary income. We have had ten years of a big pool of workers that the economys been trying to sop up and for years we kept saying Unemployment Rate lower, seeing strong hiring. Why are the wages not going up and finally starting to see that happen in a meaningful way for a few years and starting to see it happen. In part, january 1st, there are minimum wage increases in many parts of this country but this is a december report and we are seeing stronger wages. Who do we have to thank for that . In part amazon. Amazon increased with large retailers, increased the entry level wages and cut some executive wages and had spillover effects. They were front running the minimum wage hikes we were seeing and helped to bring up wages in the Holiday Season and talking to retailers many of the new people they pulled in with the higher wages are Better Qualified than they expected an hope to keep many of them on. Lo and behold you pay better and get better quality people and interesting, as well. This phenomenon more on the low end of the wage scale than the higher end where it was highly concentrated earlier in the recovery. We have more broad based gains. Thats the good news for the domestic economy. Mixed news on this is the wage data, the Employment Data is back ward looking. Things like the ism index and china. We hope that we come up with something and more forward looking and we still have some uncertainty out there. Today we have seen some things come together to lift the veil of uncertainty that let the markets run. I just want to remind people. I love talking to you about economics but this is your sweet spot. You are a labor economist and understand these things very specifically. Typically, on a strong jobs day, you dont always see a positive Market Reaction because sometimes investors dont like the idea that wages are increasing because that could cut into profitability but in todays case we have the Federal Reserve chair powell who spoke at a panel with former fed chairs yellen and bernanke and he made this comment which a lot of people might find interesting. Lets listen together. Theres been discussion of a face to face meeting between you and the president. If invited, would you accept that kind of invitation if its made . Nothings scheduled. I have no news on that. I would say that meetings between president s and fed chairs do happen. And they have happened i think in the i cant think of any fed chairs that didnt eventually meet with the president. Again nothing is scheduled. I dont really have anything to report on that. If the president asked you to resign, would you do it . No. So got a bit of a chuckle, diane. I think people breathed a sigh of relief to hear him say, no. He wont allow the Federal Reserve to be politicized by the president that doesnt like the concept of rising Interest Rates. Exactly. He said things that walk back the tenor of the comments in december saying that the rates are not on a preset course and used the word patience in talking about the next rate hike and shift. Key words pulled out of the comments very deliberate and if they had to they would shift and dealt with the Balance Sheet and if an issue for markets, of course wed deal with it. Flexibility and what markets are responding to is that ironically a fed with less certainty of where rates are going, going forward, is better news for financial markets. Right. Theyre responsive. More encouraging to investors than certainty about raising rates. And this Federal Reserve, they do not want to go down as a Federal Reserve that killed the expansion and dont want to be the ones to blame. Thank you for talking with me. Diane swonk at Grant Thornton. Thank you. We could hear from congressional leaders meeting with the president right now on day 14 of the partial Government Shutdown. Todays meeting is longer than the one held on wednesday at the white house. Well keeping an eye on the white house and bringing you updates as they happen. Hey, batter, batter, batter, batter. [ crowd cheers ] like everyone, i lead a busy life. But i know the importance of having time to do what you love. At comcast we know our customers time is valuable. Thats why we have 2hour appointment windows, including nights and weekends. So you can do more of what you love. My name is tito, and im a techhouse manager at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. Were back with breaking news from the white house. Congressional leaders with meeting with President Trump about the partial Government Shutdown. They have been meeting since 11 30 this morning. Well bring you any information as we get it. As the new Congress Settles in, democrats are basking in the glow of a return to power as a Record Number of women enter the chamber. One new congresswoman is causing a stir. A video of michigan congresswoman talib appears to show her hours after the swearingin ceremony calling for the president s impeachment and describing him using colorful language. The president responded asking, quote, how do you impeach a president thats won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong, no collusion with russia . It was the dems that colluded. The most successful first two years of president and most popular republican in Party History 93 . Im not going to waste your time Fact Checking that tweet. Republican Kevin Mccarthy and Sarah Sanders slammed the congresswoman and defended the president. Look at the congresswoman and the language of what she says to her son in a rally that she thought was private last night. Their whole focus here trying to attack the president while we try to move america forward. Look, you wont impeach this president when he had two of the most successful years any president has had in modern history. House democrats responded. Some trying to tamp down the outcry. Others defended talib. I dont like that language but i disagree with what she said. It is too early to talk about that intelligently. Look. We have a lot of new members who are bringing the viewpoints and passions and convictions of their constituents and sharing those with the caucus. There are a lot of people in america who are asking for impeachment. What i have said over and over again is that i think at this moment its a little premature. You cannot accomplish very much of anything unless you have civility. She represents a group of people that have strong feelings. She had strong feelings and expressed it. Thats great about our caucus. I dont like that language. I wouldnt use that language. I dont again, establish any language standards for my colleagues. But i dont think its anything worse than the president said. All right. You heard from a lot of people about it. Congressman talib was unapologetic this morning tweeting i will always speak truth to power. An office pointed to an oped written on thursday calling for the president s impeachment. The congresswoman talib of michigan. Joining me now is Nbcs Kelly Odonnell at the white house, Garrett Haake on coapitol hill and julia ainsley. Kelly, its been almost two hours. Reporter in the last few seconds i noticed the sound of some of my colleagues running toward what we refer to as the west wing position. It appears thats the camera shot right there. That may or may not be a sign that there is movement. What we expect at that location is that democrats would be willing to come out and give us their take on whats happened in the meeting with the president. Thats the guidance we were given by top aides to Speaker Pelosi of a likelihood, not a firm yes, but a likelihood she would want and the other democrats with her would want to talk about their meeting. Pushing two hours is notable. I thought we would have concrete sort of readout from the meeting. We dont have that yet. We also anticipate just based on movements around the white house here in terms of some of the technology that gets in place when the president has an interest in speaking we think theres a possibility that he would also choose to come before cameras if the democrats do. So we dont have those specifics yet but were this is one of those days where sometimes looking at the environment here on the white house campus actually can be a road sign for us about what is about to come. So nothing substantive for you except to tell you that this meeting in the situation room with the top eight congressional leaders of both parties is something officials called a negotiation. The president earlier today sent a letter to all members of congress outlining in great detail his view that this is a national emergency, that there is a crisis, humanitarian as well as security crisis, coming from the southern border. He provides facts and figures that we have not had a total opportunity to run down yet but making his case to members of congress about the need for Border Security. Will there be any movement on the language of the wall . We have seen some of that with certainly republican who is are advocates of the president trying to find a deal and perhaps its something border in terms of security and democrats saying they want border but not funding the wall. Okay. If you hear anything, yell out that you hear anything or see anything. Reporter will do. Julia, in a briefing that the white house sent out to congressional leaders it listed staggering figures about the border. It said that nearly 4,000 terror suspects were apprehended. And all sorts of facts and figures in it. Have you had a chance to see whats true and not in there . Yeah. I want to pay particular attention around that 3,755. This is what Sarah Huckabee sanders was kritding telling reporters that 4,000 te