good friday morning to you. big news just in time for the weekend. i'm jim sciutto. poppy is off today. new jobs numbers for the month of july show 528,000 jobs added last month. that number double expectations. it lowers the unemployment rate to just 3.5%. cnn's matt egan is here to help us break down the numbers.

frankly the headline number, matt, is a big one here. also it shows healthy growth in several sectors of the economy. >> yeah, jim. this is blockbuster growth. and it is pretty remarkable. this number is going to go a long way towards shutting down this idea that the u.s. economy is already in recession. to be adding more than half a million jobs, in a month, at this stage of the recovery, is pretty impressive. let me give you some context around this 528,000 job figure. this is twice as much as the consensus from economists. not only that, but it is 200,000 more than even the most optimistic forecaster had pencilled in. two big milestones that came out of this report, the labor market has now fully recovered all of the jobs lost during covid. total nonfarm payroll is back to february 2020 levels. the unemployment rate is now down to 3.5%. that matches the half century low set before covid.

again, none of this suggests an imminent or ongoing recession. but here is the problem, a heating up jobs market is exactly the opposite of what federal reserve wants right now. the fed is trying to put out this inflation fire by cooling off the jobs market. they're worried adding this many jobs, wages this hot, it is just not consistent with helping inflation. and so today's numbers suggest that the fed is actually going to have to do more to slow this economy down. and that means even potentially more aggressive interest rate hikes than the months to come. that is a concern to investors, as soon as this number came out, we saw stock futures fall pretty sharply because the market is starting to get concerned that the fed may actually have to do even more to cool off this inflation fire. >> yeah. >> jim, i'm not able to hear you, so back to you. >> matt egan, thank you for the update. for more on the state of the economy, what the numbers mean, i'm joined by austin goalsby, a

professor of economics at the university of boot school of business. good to have you on this morning. it is a big number. double expectations. does this mean as you look at this that the u.s. economy is not entering a recession? >> yeah. i mean, this is jaw dropping number of this magnitude. there has never been -- it is -- not only is it double expectations, there has never been a time when the unemployment rate was this low that we're putting up numbers like this. normally numbers like this are reserved for times when unemployment is very high. and you're really booming coming out of a downturn. there is no way that i can see that for the first six months of this year when we added several million jobs that you could consider that a recession.

still, if the fed starts raising rates more, it is already raised rates at a very fast clip. that could turn around any kind of a rapid basis because eventually we're going to run out of bodies. you can't have an unemployment rate be at the 53-year low and keep adding 500,000 jobs a month. there just aren't enough people. so we could rapidly just run up to the wall. >> we used to talk about maximum employment around 6%. these numbers are remarkable historically. the fed already has been raising rate as you know pretty aggressively. when you look at this, does the fact that the job market remains strong, could that be an indicator and i know this is early, that it is perhaps engineering a soft landing here or is it just too early to say? >> it is too early to say, but let's keep our fingers crossed that is what it means. we have gotten two observations in a row now, one that job

vacancies fell without an increase in unemployment, and now a jobs number that was extremely strong, suggesting there is a little space that they could reduce the heat in the job market without sending us into recession. but all of this hinges on whether we're getting the positive supply shocks in the language of the economists or whether this is the inflation is coming from demand. if you are more of a demand person, then they're going to be arguing and it seems like the market is arguing oh, we're going to have to cool things off even more now. but if we're getting -- if what we're getting is kind of the opposite of the downturn that came from covid, we could be in for a very nice surprise, it could be a lovely fall. >> it is a good point. this idea that, you know, the inflation is really post

pandemic because of supply issues. i want to ask, this number also showed some pretty robust wage growth, i believe above 5%. does that potentially add to inflation figures going forward? >> almost certainly. you never will hear me say a bad word about a job report where we got more than half a million jobs in a single month. so that said, it is the fact that if wages keep growing, they're not growing as fast as inflation. but if they keep growing at this kind of speed, it sort of sets a lower bound on how much inflation can come down. because it is hard for inflation to come down more than to be below wages for an extended period. so that is a danger. that's why the market is a little nervous about seeing a strong number like this, because they think that means the fed is going to actively try to cool it down. >> yeah, the market is always

funny and sometimes good news, turns into bad news about where things are going. catherine rampell made the point this means the u.s. economy has just about replaced all the jobs lost during the pandemic. as an economist, that period of job growth and the speed with which that happened, is that historically unusual? >> unusual, totally unprecedented. there has never been anything like that, but that was true on the way down too. there never have been any collapse of jobs that quickly, and there has never been a recovery of jobs as rapidly as we have recovered. in large part, that's probably because covid was unlike any previous recession. i've been saying we should call it a downturn, but we shouldn't even call it a recession, it looks so different from all other recessions. part of that is the indicator that the economy fundamentals, they probably are still quite strong in a way that is unprecedented compared to other business cycles.

>> yeah, the headline figure, 3.5%, just remarkable. austan goolsbee, thank you. >> great to see you. secretary of state antony blinken is responding after russia signaled overnight it is willing to negotiate a potential prisoner swap with the u.s. for wnba star brittney griner. just yesterday she was sentenced to nine years in prison following a guilty plea for smuggling a small amount of cannabis oil into russia. back at home, her team, the phoenix mercury, held a moment of solidarity with the opposing team before last night's game. many of them becoming emotional. wiping away tears. and griner's coach spoke about her sentencing. >> to hear her words and her apologies and just trying to send love and prayers to her and strength, i couldn't imagine being that situation and she was so courageous and continuing to be a good role model in so many ways of this impossible

situation, she showed great strength and great humility and we just want her home. >> cnn's senior international correspondent frederik pleitgen is in moscow. the u.s. courts suggested a prisoner swap before her sentencing, russia wasn't happy with that, they wanted to add another convicted murderer to that list, someone held in germany. do you sense a substantive change here in the comments from the kremlin spokesman about their openness to a swap? >> to a certain extent, yes. it does seem as though there might be a little bit more momentum than we have seen before. now certainly a lot of that or all of that is probably going to be behind closed doors. but you do see the fact that for instance sergey lavrov said they're willing to engage with the united states in talks. that is certainly something that we hadn't heard from them before. now, of course, all of this comes after brittney griner's conviction yesterday, and that nine-year jail sentence that was handed down. and, you know, one of the things that brittney griner's legal team had been telling me before the verdict even took place is

they said that they believe that there needed to be a verdict and needed to be sentencing before a possible prisoner swap to take place. so maybe we are seeing some momentum in the wake of that. again, it is very difficult to say. they also said during that trial that they believe that none of the arguments that they had actually put forward in the trial and the appeals that her coach was talking about, we can see some of that on our screen just now, some of the comments that brittney griner made while she was in that cage yesterday, they believe that none of that was taken into account by the judge when that verdict came down. and when the sentencing came in. i want to listen in quick to what the lawyers had to say after the trial. >> she's very upset. very upset. very stressed. and she is -- she can hardly talk, honestly. so it is difficult time for her. >> the average is five years or around five years. and almost a third of the people

convicted get the parole. >> and the lawyers told me once again today they are going to file an appeal against this verdict. but they also have been clear on the fact that they believe at this point in time a possible exchange is probably the most realistic way forward. and that brings us to the diplomatic sphere, we have seen a little bit of that momentum, it is interesting because not only sergey lavrov commented, but the kremlin did as well. and one of the things that dmitry peskov said, he said, of course these negotiations can take place. apparently instrument for that has already been put in place at the summit between president biden and president putin. last year in geneva, they put forward a mechanism to deal with such cases. he also said that none of the details of that are allowed to be public or these things simply will not take place. so expect all this to happen behind closed doors, but we know the u.s. is pushing hard. >> it is not unlike what you see from iran, big sentence and negotiations start. fred pleitgen, thanks so much.

new this morning, china's ministry of foreign affairs is taking dramatic steps in response to house speaker nancy pelosi's visit to taiwan. including canceling future phone calls and meetings with u.s. defense leaders. all this as taiwan reports a record number of incidents by chinese warplanes today as well as really alarming military exercises around the island. cnn white house reporter natasha bertrand and cnn correspondent selina wang following all the headlines. natasha, first to you, it strikes me as a change from the white house approach on this. after initially cautioning pelosi away from this trip, you know, at least in private, even some of the public comments from biden, now they seem to be saying, hey, china, you're the one enflaming the situation with these exercises. >> exactly right. and they're making public the fact they actually summoned the chinese ambassador to the u.s. to the white house in order to essentially condemn what china is doing right now near taiwan, to dress him down according to john kirby who told us this in a statement today, he said they

brought him in to demarche him about the chinese provocations and they view it as competely unacceptable. the way the white house is viewing this now, this is a pretext by the chinese, according to kirby to up the ante in tensions so they can create a new status quo. and the united states is saying, we're not going to accept that status quo, we're going to continue operating in the western pacific as we have for many decades and the fact that china now is increasing its aggression does not mean we're going to take the bait, does not mean we're going to respond in kind. we do not want a crisis here and that is why they're continuing this high level dialogue with the chinese as much as they possibly can. >> new status quo meaning china attempting to push u.s. forces back from things like going through the taiwan strait, that sort of thing? >> essentially making it seem as though they now have this, you know, military activity around taiwan that is going to continue, right?

increased tensions and keep it that way, in a sense pushing the united states out or trying to. that's what the united states is saying we're not going to accept. >> a dressing down. selina wang, in beijing, taiwan reporting, well, a record number of incidents by the people's liberation army of china. you see that in the pictures there. missiles launching within sight of public beaches on the coast of china. what specifically are taiwanese officials speaking about? >> well, that's right. we learned from the taiwanese officials that 68 chinese warplanes flew into taiwan's self-declared air identification zone zone. this is the air space where china frequently flies its warplanes into. but this is a record number of daily incursions and comes after that news yesterday according to chinese state media that chinese missiles had actually flown over taiwan island, not around it, but over it. so all of these moves are part of the very inflammatory military drills happening over the course of several days that essentially encircle the island.

the message china is sending to the world, we have a powerful modern military that has the ability to cut taiwan from the rest of the world. but that punishment also being extended to the u.s. we just learned that china, is canceling, suspending bilateral talks with the united states on a whole wide range of issues, including a military defense in climate change, in illegal immigration, anti-drugs, and that canceling of talks and climate change is extremely critical and damaging because this was one of the only areas where the u.s. and china were still talking over the course of these past several years despite these recent tensions, that is a major blow to the world, to the future of solving the climate crisis, jim. >> selina wang in beijing, natasha bertrand in washington, thanks so much to both of you. coming up next, critical step in the democrats' efforts to pass the biggest climate investment in u.s. history as well as changes to tax laws and prescription drugs. how they got kyrsten sinema on board. plus, a cnn exclusive, what we're learning about talks

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a major legislative win for democrats. senator kyrsten sinema indicated she's ready to vote yes on the party's sweeping economic package after party leaders agreed to change some new tax proposals. those changes include adding an excise tax, which leaves the remaining deficit figure at 300 billion. democrats say this is paid for with the arizona senator's support democrats will likely have the 50 votes the caucus needs to push the bill through their chamber. a couple of weeks ago, folks thought this was dead. sunlen serfaty is on capitol hill. so pending parliamentarian ruling, a little in the weeds here, but the parliamentarian

has to decide if the pieces of this legislation qualify as budget measures. how long do we expect before we hear a final word? >> yeah, jim, this is certainly a major hurdle that this bill has to overcome and we could see a ruling from the senate parliamentarian as early as today. now this is a process that the senate parliamentarian goes through, known on capitol hill as the bird bath. she's looking at each and every provision in this bill, making sure that each and every one of those provisions has an impact on federal revenue, has an impact on spending, and has an impact on the deficit. and that is certainly a critical moment for senate democrats because they, as we have been talking about for the last weeks and months, they want to pass this through by the process of reconciliation. budget reconciliation. so they need this to have a favorable ruling from the parliamentarian to be able to get this through by only a simple party line vote, 50 democrats here in the senate. so stern certainly a critical m

for democrats and this sis a major piece of the biden agenda. and on tax provisions, that's what senator sinema has in recent days expressed concern over and she was successful in pushing for democrats to make some very specific changes to this bill. they dropped a $14 billion carried interest tax provision from the bill. and also they're making changes to the democrats' plans to pair back how companies can deduct their depreciated assets from their taxes. as you mentioned at the top, to make up for that lost revenue, they're adding in a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks. certainly an important moment, the senate will be in this weekend working, they'll be holding a procedural vote at some point this weekend, trying to push it forward in the senate and when and if they pass that, it is over the house for final passage of this bill. jim? >> sunlen serfaty, thank you for covering.

joining me now to discuss this, senior " ron brownstein. ron, a straight up list of the democratic party's legislative accomplishments, by the way, call several of these bipartisan, the budget bill looks to be on track now. you had gun legislation, bipartisan, the chips legislation got through, semiconductor production in the u.s., also membership for sweden and finland. when you add that up, how does that stand in previous administrations for getting that kind of legislation passed and that period of time? >> yeah, they are on track to get a lot done. obviously there is a lot of democrats care about that passed the house that got blocked in the senate, particularly voting rights. but when you look at what they were able to do, on several of these with bipartisan support, it is a significant list. and this bill is as joe biden might have once put it, a bfd.

the prescription drugs is something that democrats have been seeking for 20 years since part b of medicare was created under george w. bush. and the climate investment, which are the biggest investments in transition to our clean energy the federal government ever made, estimates that will bring down u.s. climate emissions by 40%. and politically gives democrats really the first, i think, positive thing that they can go to young voters with and say your vote makes a difference. previously their message was mostly negative, stop republicans from taking away your rights. this is something positive and it does add up to a legislative record, even with many party priorities that were still blocked by the filibuster. >> the number one issue for voters that you often see in

polling is the economy and inflation, and bernie sanders, of course, who caucuses with the democrats, his criticism of this bill is that it doesn't hit the bottom line for most americans in the way many are demanding. some way to help them get through and over these higher prices. is that, from a political standpoint with the midterms three months away, is that a miss in this budget legislation? >> i think that democrats do to ron's point need to go out and have something concrete they can pitch to voters. and this is it. if you look at it, this is essentially a slimmed down version of the build back better legislation that the biden white house first put forth but has a new name. not called the inflation reduction act. namely because democrats are acutely aware that inflation is the primary concern that voters have. when you talk to economic analysts there is no expectation this bill will in any tangible way actually help bring down rising costs before november. that is just not a realistic

proposition, but it is a messaging strategy and i think for democrats it is one thing to be able to put forth legislation. democrats have consistently struggled at being able to message those wins. that's something they struggled with for many months around the infrastructure bill. and i'm curious if this is different and they're able to pitch it to voters. that's part of it. not just passing it, but pitching it. >> ron, the sort of contradiction in the midst of this, right, is that you have president biden achieving many of his legislative goals, in some cases against the odds in recent months. if we were talking two weeks ago, we would have said any version of build back better was dead. but at the same time, you have democrats certainly privately but more and more openly questioning whether joe biden should even run for president in 2024. rick wilson of the lincoln project, he tweeted about this earlier today and saying, quoting him here, jesus, democrats can't organize a two-car motorcade, but can turn the guns on the leader of their party 90 days before an election. do you agree with that criticism

here, that the party surprisingly is not rallying around the president in the midst of this? >> well, look, i think the 2024 conversation is real, it has a lot to do with biden's age, and i don't think that's going away no matter what legislative achievements he has. the more immediate question, the more immediate problem is that biden's approval rating among democrats have fallen -- democratic voters have fallen below 80%, and that threatens to compound what is the typical affect going back 150 years where the party out of power is already usually more motivated to vote in a midterm election than the party that holds the white house. and i do think this achievement does have the potential to restore faith in the near term, leaving aside 2024, among some democrats, particularly younger democrats. his approval numbers among young voters have been terrible. and this is something that is a big -- can i also put one flag in the ground, all of this reminds me of what barack obama

was able to do in 2012 with the auto bailout. i think when you look at the combined effect of the investments in this bill, encouraging domestic manufacturing, the infrastructure investments, and the semiconductor bill, encouraging domestic manufacturing, i think you're going to see biden or whoever is the democratic nominee in 2024 going to rusted out industrial communities and making the case that we have invested in your prosperity the same way obama s awas able to do across the midwest. >> a lot is happening. good to have you on. looking forward to having you back soon. coming up next this hour, the attorneys for former president trump are now in direct talks with the justice department about its january 6th investigation. and specifically how far they believe they can take their executive privilege claims. we're going to inin ining to hm cnn's exclusive reporting coming up.

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now to our exclusive cnn reporting, former president donald trump's lawyers are now in direct talks with the justice department about its ongoing criminal investigation into the january 6th insurrection. talks are said to be focused on whether conversations the former president had can be kept from investigators under trump's broad claims of executive privilege.

katelyn polantz joins me now. what do we know about the substance of these conversations and what position trump and his lawyers are taking? >> well, jim, what we really know here is this is for first time we're able to confirm that they're talking. the justice department and donald trump's defense team. and the reason that this is happening, this is coming in amid all of this grand jury activity that we're seeing in this criminal investigation being run out of d.c. in that grand jury activity we know there are some top witnesses from the trump white house and from vice president mike pence's office who have either been into the grand jury to testify or subpoenaed to come in and testify. that's two people from the vice president's office and then the two pats from the white house office, cipollone and philbin. when they come in to testify, they share what they know, but we know they're not able to share everything that they witnessed. specifically things that trump would have said or may have been said to trump as advice and donald trump and his people, they still want to protect those

statements. and so that's what this conversation is about. prosecutors want access to more about what donald trump was saying, so it is a fight over executive privilege, that's where the -- that comes in. when we asked for comment about the news of these direct talks, we went to trump's team, a spokesperson came back to us, did not give us a direct answer, instead gave us a preview of what their legal argument may be. he said, how can any future president have private conversations with his attorneys, counselors and other senior advisers, if any such adviser is forced basically, to reveal those privileged confidential discussions, even potentially after the pres president -- that's what trump is saying to the justice department and the justice department has history on its side here. this came up in the nixon investigation, watergate. the justice department won they got the tapes released to the grand jury that ushered in nixon's resignation a few days later. >> different supreme court now

though. >> that's true. >> katelyn polantz, thank you. joining me to discuss, former u.s. attorney michael moore, partner at moore hall law firm in atlanta. good to have you. to ckatelyn's point, i thought this was settled, the executive privilege claims cannot extend into criminal investigations in the simplest terms here. why is this still an open argument and how far do you and how long do you see it going? >> well, i'm glad and you're right under the old supreme court cases, during the nixon days, the rule was that you can't use executive privilege as a shield to protect you from a criminal case. and so here it is a little bit different because we had this ongoing inquiry into both political activities as we have seen, through the january 6th case, and now investigation on the hill, and now into the grand jury probe. and so i actually agree with

some of the arguments being made by trump's attorneys, and that is, you know, executive privilege is a necessity. we want presidents, forget about trump, let's just take him and set him aside, we want presidents of the future to be able to seek advice from people in a candid way without having to worry about whether or not those people may be called before a grand jury, a congressional committee or otherwise, to talk about the delivery process. the problem is the norms have changed. we're now seeing something where we're talking about a president being possibly indicted, whether or not there was an effort to overthrow the government and overturn an election, these are different days. you're right, though, the supreme court is different. and you may find as we have seen take a very different -- pay very little attention to -- in cases from before. >> so to that point, brett kavanaugh, in a decision earlier this year, on -- when the court did require the former president

to turn over written records to the national archives, he did say, quoting from that decision, a former president must be able to successfully invoke the presidential communications privilege for communications that occurred during his presidency, even if the current president does not support the privilege claim. he does go on to qualify that to some degree to say to be clear to say that a former president can invoke the privilege for presidential communications to occur during his presidency does not mean that is absolute or cannot be overcome. as you know this court pretty well, and as you hear a statement like that, and you know by the way there are members to the court to the right of brett kavanaugh, do you see the path for trump lawyers to go to the court and get a friendly decision? >> i wouldn't be surprised at all if they got a friendly decision. especially when we're talking about direct communications with white house counsel. that's what's really spurred this on, there has been this flurry of activity on the democrats frankly have gotten very excited thinking that because the white house counsel has been subpoenaed, they must be getting all the dirt now on

trump and he should be indicted. i would take a step back, take a pause. that's like getting a pimple and self-de self-diagnosing yourself as having leprosy. this is one little indicator the investigation is moving forward. it is going to be important and these witnesses will be expected witnesses under any circumstance because they had a front row seat to the action. whether we're talking about trump, whether we're talking about the other lawyers involved, sidney powell, rudy giuliani, mark meadows, whoever we're talking about developing to develop this scheme and this plan. so this -- these are expected witnesses. doesn't mean they have the silver bullet to the case. so the fact that there are discussions going on, i think it would be malpractice for trump's team not to do it, because they know there are things out there they want to protect. does that mean at end of the day they'll be able to hide behind executive privilege, we'll see what the court says. these are different discussions when we talk about communications between a president and white house counsel as opposed to

necessarily just another cabinet member and, you know, a president may be just the secretary to the state in a circumstance like this. would the lawyers give him advice about what to do and what they think? >> michael moore, we'll see how it plays out. thank you very much. >> good to be with you. thank you. coming up next, a tragedy next to the white house. cnn just confirmed two people killed by lightning strike at a park just across the street from the white house last night. we'll have an update coming up. if you wake up thinking about the market and want to make the right moves fast...

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this just in to cnn, two people have died after being struck by lightning just across the street from the white house in big storms here last night. cnn's tom foreman joins me now. sad to hear. i heard this as they were first reporting the emergency last night. how do we know -- what do we know about how this happened? >> well, what we know is that the storm blew up very dramatically at the end of a very hot day here in washington, d.c. when it blew up, the lightning was just unbelievable for a while here. it hit very fast, easy to get caught out, and that may be what happened with james and donna mueller, both in their mid-70s from wisconsin. they were visiting the town and somehow they got here and what you could describe as the front lawn of the white house, lafayette square there. authorities say that that lightning strike that you're watching happened very close to the statue of andrew jackson, right in the middle of the park, many, many tourists as you know come to this park, all the time, just to see the white house and

to be close to it. we don't know the circumstances of them. we know two other people were knocked down at the same time. the good part about this was that u.s. park police and secret service were right there and they rushed over when people started saying there are people down out here, they were getting medical attention almost immediately and rushed off to hospital, but this is the power of lightning that it nonetheless did this. there were two national guard members hit in the same park a couple of years ago. they were injured, but not obviously that seriously. and they were able to recover from it. but it really was one of those circumstances. when this storm blew up, at the end of yesterday, it truly happened so quickly, it is easy to see how anybody local or visitor could be caught out. and it is also easy to see how truly you're there five minutes earlier, you're there five minutes later this might not have happened but it did with devastating results. >> it is sad news. where everybody goes to take the

pictures in front of the white house. sorry for their family. tom foreman, thank you for walking us through it. coming up next, a jury says alex jones owes $4 million to two parents of children killed in the sandy hook elementary school. but that trial still not over. there is a second round of damages being considered and that's today. rivers and oceans by travel and leisure, as well as condé nast traveler. but it is now timeme for us to work even harder, searching for meananingful experiences and new adventures for you too embark upon. they say when you reach the top, there's only one way to go. we say, that way is onwards. viking. exploring the world in comfort. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized we needed way to

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large out-of-state corporations have set their sights on california. they've written prop 27, to allow online sports betting. they tell us it will fund programs for the homeless. but read prop 27's fine print.

90% of profits go to out-of-state corporations, leaving almost nothing for the homeless. no real jobs are created here. but the promise between our state and our sovereign tribes would be broken forever. these out-of-state corporations don't care about california. but we do. stand with us. coming up, next hour, the jury in the alex jones trial will be back in court, and they could decide on a second round of damages against the right wing conspiracy theorist alex jones by this afternoon.

yesterday those jurors ordered him to pay $4 million for lying about the death of jesse lewis, a 6-year-old, murdered at sandy hook elementary school nearly ten years ago. jesse's parents were awarded that amount in compensatory damages. today the discussion will revolve around punitive damages. joining me to discuss, cnn legal analyst and criminal defense attorney joey jackson. good to have you back. the parents had asked for up to $150 million. they got $4 $4 million. pal other sandy hook parents are suing and this may be an effort to parcel out the move money, l some for them. does that make sense to you? >> good morning to you. i think my good friend paul callan has it right. i think in assessing this case you have to look at not only in this jurisdiction, texas, but you have to look at what the other families are enduring. we know there are two pending lawsuits in connecticut. certainly alex jones has made

claims to the limitations of his -- the money he has available. and in the event you issue an award that is so excessive, we already know he's filed for bankruptcy in an effort to protect himself from further liability, what would that do? and the jury certainly could have been of mind to think about that. hey, if we award something that is so excessive, and he's already protecting assets, could it foreclose the parties in connecticut that are suing him? that makes sense. but we do know notwithstanding that, jim, they're moving on today to decide the issue of punitive. very quickly, it is important to talk about the distinction, compensatory damages are z designed to compensate you -- >> we lost joey jackson there. he was making the point -- he was making the point there are two phases of the jury trial, compensatory damages, already decided, the jury is deciding today on punitive damages which they could impose on alex jones as well. we will keep on top of that story. get joey back when we can.

if you want to learn the full back story on how alex jones landed here, don't miss the cnn special report "alex jones: megaphone for conspiracy" tonight at 11:00 eastern time. a blockbuster july jobs report doubled what many economists had predicted, labor secretary marty walsh will join me live. [laughter] hey, i was thinking about going back to school to get my master's... i just saw something that said you could do it in a year for like $11k. hmm! order 11!! yes, see you at 11. ♪ 1111 masters blvd. please. that'll be 11 even, buddy. really? the clues are all around us... some things are too obvious to be a coincidence. ♪

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a bill that would ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy with some exceptions is one step closer to law in indiana. a final house vote there is expected to happen today on a bill that only provides exceptions for rape, incest and when the life of a mother is at risk are. you will remember indiana is the same state where a doctor came under attack recently for providing abortion services for a 10-year-old rape victim.

she spoke to cnn this morning and said the bill would keep her from being able to provide the care her patients need. >> it is very scary for physicians to have a patient in front of you that you know exactly what they need, you know how to save their lives, and yet you're wondering, well, who's going to -- who do i have to check with, who is going to second guess me, do i call my lawyer, do i call the county prosecutor? >> the debate has already begun this morning inside the indiana state house. very good friday morning to you. i'm jim sciutto. poppy is off this week. we're keeping a close eye on several top stories this morning. we start with just a jaw dropping new jobs report. the u.s. added 528,000 jobs last month, double what many economists had forecast. unemployment tumbles now to 3.5%. question now is would a slower

jobs market help produce inflation and protect the economy? lots of questions here, but the headline number very good news. we are going to speak with labor secretary marty walsh in a few minutes. plus, a major boost for president biden's sweeping economic package, senator kyrsten sinema now on board with what is known as the inflation reduction act, giving democrats the 50 votes they need. there is still one hurdle, though, to overcome before it heads to a vet. and in china, the ministry of foreign affairs taking action in response to u.s. support of taiwan. that now includes halting future phone calls and is and meetings. the white house has summoned the chinese ambassador to the u.s. to condemn what it calls china's irresponsible military activities and we begin there. cnn white house reporter natasha bertrand, also cnn international correspondent seli