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reacting straight ahead. >> and there's more breaking news. pamela. student loan uncertainty. new cnn reporting on president trump's plan to dismantle the department of education. trillions, trillions of dollars in student loans are now in question. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in the situation room. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> and we begin this hour with the breaking news. the february jobs report is now out with numbers covering the first full month of president trump's second term. the u.s. economy added 151,000 jobs. that's lower than expected, but still a

solid month of job gains. unemployment edged up to 4.1% from 4% the month before. we're covering this story from all the important angles right here in the situation room. let's begin with cnn reporter matt egan. matt, what's the biggest takeaway from this latest jobs report? well. >> wolf, coming into today, there were real fears that this report was going to show trouble in the jobs market. thankfully, that is not the case. this report shows that the economy added a solid 151,000 jobs in february. that's actually a slight improvement from january, which was revised lower to 125,000. so that suggests that this jobs market, it's not going off the rails, at least not yet. the unemployment rate, though, that was the more disappointing news because we were expecting it to hold steady at 4%. it did not hold steady. it ticked higher to 4.1%. that is still historically low, but it went up because there's more

people unemployed and there's fewer people looking for a job. now, one thing we should call out is what we saw in the federal workforce. we saw the biggest drop in federal employment since june of 2022. and that doesn't even account for the mass layoffs led by elon musk and doge. one other point here is the economy has now added jobs for 50 months in a row. that is the second longest streak in american history. of course, wolf, the question is whether or not that streak is going to continue. when you think about all the mass layoffs and the trade uncertainty. >> let's hope that it does continue. we will see though. matt egan reporting for us. matt, thank you very, very much, pamela. >> and several industries, wolf. saw significant job growth last month while others lagged behind. so let's go live now to cnn business and politics correspondent vanessa yurkevich in new york. vanessa, break down these numbers for us by job sector. >> yeah, let's look at the job sectors that gained in the month of february. you have health care, finance, transportation

and warehousing. and also i'll add manufacturing to that list. you can see those numbers right there. those are added jobs. manufacturing gained about 10,000 jobs. and we've already heard from the white house this morning touting that number because of president trump's initiative to bring u.s. manufacturing into the fold and really produce jobs in that sector. they're pointing out that a lot of those jobs were in the auto sector. but let's look at different industries that lost in the month of february, in particular, leisure and hospitality lost 16,000 jobs. a lot of that, this report notes, was due to strike activity. but this is an industry that you want to keep an eye on because it really is tied in with consumer sentiment and consumer spending. what is going to happen to that industry? and then the federal government, as matt mentioned, lost about 10,000 jobs. look at the breakdown, though really quickly, of where those losses were. about 3500 losses in the

u.s. postal service alone. that is a space to watch. as we note that the doge impacts aren't fully impacted in this report, but we need to look at the next month's report to see where those impacts do start to play out. pamela. >> all right. vanessa yurkevich, thank you so much. wolf. >> all right. let's find out. pamela, the how the trump administration is responding to this new jobs report. i want to go to our white house reporter, kevin liptak. he's over there on the north lawn of the white house. kevin, what are you hearing? >> yeah, they are embracing this report. this first full month of the trump administration embracing not only the top line number, but also those bottom line numbers as well, saying that this is a reflection of the president's attempt to bolster manufacturing. they're also embracing those job losses in the government sector, saying this is all evidence that the president's plan is working. listen to the president's top economist, kevin hassett. >> i'm much more positively surprised by the numbers than

the market. the bottom line is that the biden administration created a lot of jobs, and they tended to be government jobs. about 25% of the job creation was government jobs. and we actually, as president trump intended, reduced government jobs by about 10,000. i think it's a fantastic report. it's showing exactly what president trump intends to do. he intends to reduce government spending, to get rid of wasteful government jobs and to create manufacturing jobs. and that's what you see. >> i think one of the reasons the white house is embracing this report, because it shows a healthy job market that can absorb some of the shocks that many trump allies see coming down the line, whether it's due to these whipsaw tariffs, whether it's due to massive government layoffs. already, you've seen the white house just in the last day trying to calibrate some of those effects, whether it's delaying the tariffs on canada and mexico or whether it is trump telling elon musk that he wants him to use a scalpel instead of a chainsaw to execute that massive shrinkage of the federal government, wolf. >> all right. kevin liptak

reporting from the white house. thank you very much, kevin. pamela. >> all right. well, wolf, today, some of crypto's biggest names are descending on washington as president trump prepares to host a first of its kind crypto summit at the white house just one day after signing an executive order to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve. so let's go live now to cnn's senior business writer allison morrow in new york. so what do we know about this summit, alison? >> this is hard to overstate how important it is for the crypto industry. it is christmas morning for crypto. they are getting a seat at the table for the first time ever in about 15 years of existing. and they're getting a bitcoin reserve, which ultimately is going to backstop the price of an asset that all of these executives who are descending on dc own a lot of. so it's a it's great news for crypto and plenty of critics would have issues with the reserve. but right now the crypto industry is very happy. >> all right. so walk us through the strategic bitcoin reserve.

what exactly is that. how much does the government have on hand. >> so there's a lot of logistics to it. but basically the government has about $17 billion worth of bitcoin that it has seized over the years in criminal and civil forfeitures. a lot of that money is sold off in tranches. it is used to compensate victims. and some of the leftovers go to law enforcement. so basically they're taking that amount of money, that 17 billion worth of bitcoin and putting it in a fund that will grow over time. and you know, they're saying that they're still going to use those funds to compensate victims. but there's a lot of details still to work out about how it will be set up. >> allison morrow thanks so much, wolf. >> you know, pamela, there's more breaking news we're following right now. very disturbing breaking news. two active duty u.s. soldiers are now being charged with selling america's military secrets to buyers in china. according to the indictment, one of the

soldiers allegedly sold nearly two dozen hard drives marked secret or top secret. let's go live to our national security correspondent, natasha bertrand. she's over at the pentagon for us. natasha, what more are you learning about these charges? very serious developments. >> well, wolf. >> as you said, two active duty u.s. army soldiers who were stationed in washington state, as well as a former soldier, they were accused of selling secrets to china. and all three of them were arrested on thursday. now, we don't know too much about these soldiers that were arrested, but what we do know is that one of them was a battery supply sergeant, one was a health service, health services administrator, and the third former soldier. his service record is unknown at this point, but he only served for about three years until 2017. now, according to the indictment, one of the active duty soldiers is accused of selling nearly two dozen classified hard drives marked either secret or top secret.

he's also accused of selling information about himars rocket systems to buyers in china, and he received about $15,000 beginning in august of 2024 for selling those secrets, according to this indictment. another current army soldier, as well as the former soldier they apparently conspired between 2021 and 2024 to steal sensitive information about u.s. army operational capabilities, including bradley and stryker vehicles. interestingly, you're seeing some of these capabilities, including the himars rocket system and the stryker vehicles, things that the u.s. has been providing to the ukrainians, that the russians, of course, have had to be fighting against. and so this is not the first time, of course, that the u.s. military has had to grapple with their service members selling secrets to china. several have been accused of doing so over the last several years, wolf. >> yeah, very, very disturbing development indeed. natasha bertrand at the pentagon for us. thank you very much. pamela. >> certainly. is. wolf, breaking news coming in. a federal judge is denying an attempt by federal workers unions to lock down

private data from doj's work inside the treasury department. joining senior crime and justice correspondent katelyn polantz. what more are you learning about this ruling and the significance of it? well, pamela, we've been waiting for this from this particular judge, judge colleen kollar-kotelly, in the federal court in washington, because this is the judge just a week ago who was asking all of those questions. what is doge who is involved here? what are they doing? who is in charge? who's giving them direction? and this is about the treasury department and the very sensitive payment information. personal information that is held within that department when they make payments, trillions of dollars sent out to people in checks from the federal government. what the judge decided today is that these unions that are suing, they just don't have enough evidence right now to show that they're going to be harmed immediately, that the people working with doge, working at the treasury department, looking at these

payment systems, are going to be releasing their confidential information somehow. and so the judge says, i can't give you what you want at this time, an injunction. i'm not going to to block doge more than the the agency is already doing themselves to make sure people are complying with the law, with privacy laws. she's not going to limit doge operating at the treasury department. there's a lot of lawsuits like this. privacy, being concerned about doge, their access to data. a lot of them are falling flat at this stage because there just isn't a lot of evidence. and these agencies are now taking steps, like at the treasury department to make sure they're compliant, to make sure sensitive information is not going to be released publicly. and as far as we've seen, it hasn't been yet, because i think a lot of americans are wondering, what are they doing with our private data? yeah, they are clearly looking at the software and the systems that

exist there. there are clearly payments that the trump administration doesn't want to have go out. that's where this originated from. concerned that they would shut off some payments at the treasury department. but the doge people there, they've gotten some training from what i understand, and they are not sharing sensitive personal information at this time. and the courts need a lot of evidence in order to step in and do something here. and it's just not there yet. all right, katelyn polantz, thank you so much. >> caitlin, thank you from me as well. and still ahead, fireballs in the night sky for the second time this year, the spacex starship spacecraft explodes mid-flight. and how far the debris was seen. we're going to tell you. and next. go ahead. >> yeah. i mean that's extraordinary video coming in. up next, when will the massive federal firings come into play? when it comes to the jobs report? we're going to discuss that with chief economist at moody's. you're in the cnn situation room. we'll be right

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up a little bit in the month, remains low. it's around 4%. that's close to full employment. but as you said, you know, there's a lot of script to be written here dead ahead. it feels like that. you know, this is the calm before the storm. we saw a little bit of weakness in federal government employment, but we're going to see a lot more. you know, i do when we get this report for for the month of march, a month from now. and the other thing to consider, obviously, is the trade war. we're now in the middle of a pretty significant knock out, drag out kind of tariff war, and that's going to do some damage already is. you can see it in the stock market. you can see it in terms of uncertainty of businesses. so i expect we'll see that showing up with weaker job numbers in the months ahead. so i you know enjoyed this number while you can. i suspect that the numbers we're going to get in the next few months aren't going to be nearly as good. >> tell me a little bit more about why you think that and how much the doge cuts might play into your thinking. on on why it may not be as good as what we're seeing right now in the future.

>> yeah, certainly. there's the doge cuts. i mean, the federal government employment fell ten k in the month of february. of course, that was based on a survey done by the bureau of labor statistics earlier in the month. so it doesn't catch all of the layoffs and other actions that have been taken since then. and there are many now we're talking about, you know, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of job loss in the federal government that will play out over the course of not just next month, but in coming months and maybe over the next year or two, but more importantly, it's it's the the tariff war, the trade war that's now unfolding. and that's already, you know, doing a lot of damage in terms of the uncertainty it's creating among business people. they don't know what to do with all this. i mean, it's on again, off again. which products, which companies, which countries, over what period of time. and they're not cutting yet. you know, they're kind of sitting on their hands trying to make sense of it and get some clarity. and hopefully they get it. but the longer this drags out, the trade war drags

out, the more the uncertainty is going to turn into decisions about cutting jobs and cutting investment. and i suspect that will be the case here. now. now, maybe the president will figure out a way to kind of cool things off and win the trade war, tariff war down. but at this point, it doesn't feel like that. >> yeah. what do you think about the fact that he had implemented these tariffs on on canada and mexico and then sort of pulled them back? you know, is it better in terms of sending a signal to to just stick with the plan or, you know, or pull it back when you see the reaction from the stock market, but then lead to that leads to sort of that uncertainty and that chaos. >> well, it's hard to answer that question. i don't know. you know, what's the thinking here? you know, around all this because hard to discern what the motivations are. you know, what exactly is the end game? what's the motivation? you know, if it's a, you know, more about cutting individual trade deals with different countries and, you know, make some actions with

regard to in the case of canada and mexico, fentanyl and immigration. okay. that's one thing that would imply that, you know, maybe this is going to be short lived and we're not going to go down a full blown trade war that they'll reach deals, they'll declare victory, and we'll move on. that's kind of sort of what happened in president trump's first term. but, you know, increasingly it feels like this is more about revenue because this is a tax, right. the tariffs are a tax on american consumers, american businesses. maybe it's about the revenue that it's generated. if that's the case then these tariffs could be higher for longer and do a lot more damage. and other countries are going to retaliate. and it's going to be a much more significant event. so very hard to know what the motivations are. and that's critical to understanding what the economic impacts are. but the mere fact that i and many other business people are sitting around trying to figure out what this all means is not good for business, right? because of the uncertainty that it creates. and you have uncertainty. you freeze. yeah. >> well, and you know, we've

seen these warnings about the prices going up. americans are worried about rising costs on everyday goods. let's take a listen to what treasury secretary scott bessent said last night. >> access to cheap goods is not the asset, is not the essence of the american dream. the american dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility and economic security. for too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this. >> what is your reaction to that? >> yeah, i agree about the opportunity. i mean, i think that is the american dream. that's key to it that, you know, we all have the opportunity to succeed if we work hard and do the right thing and are innovative and creative, all for that. but i'd also say part of the american dream is also having a good standard of living, meaning that i'm able to afford the things that i need

and i want and, you know, raising tariffs and taxes means that that's harder to achieve that goal. and that's definitely part of the dream. i mean, we do these things because we want a better standard of living and purchasing the goods that we import from the rest of the world are a part of that standard of living. >> mark zandi nice to hear your analysis and having you on our new show. thank you so much. >> yeah, thanks for having me, wolf. >> and pamela. spacex is trying. this morning to figure out what went so wrong when its starship spacecraft exploded. >> take lots. >> i'm taking video. >> take pictures. >> the uncrewed spacecraft had a, quote, rapid, unscheduled disassembly over the caribbean, which is that explosion that you've just seen right here. the faa temporarily stopped flights into several florida airports because of the falling debris. watch this. >> we just had the rocket launch

and it blew up. if you guys are close to the debris and need to deviate, let us know if you're just seeing it. that's okay. there's no due to a space vehicle mishap. debris response has been activated. pretty much from the orlando area south. you guys do see any falling debris from that?. starship explosion? let us know. >> we're told that astronauts from the international space station could actually even see the spacecraft explosion. this is the second consecutive failure of a starship spacecraft this year, pamela. >> all right, wolf, up next, sounding the alarm about what he says is the trump administration's overreach. we're going to speak to democratic senator peter welch about his concerns over doge. >> erin burnett out front tonight at seven on cnn. >> time to rewind with neutrogena rapid wrinkle repair. it has derm proven retinol expertly formulated to target skin cell turnover and fight not

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800 481 17 zero zero coventry direct redefining insurance. >> twitter breaking the bird premieres sunday at ten on cnn there's breaking news we're following right now. >> the jobs report on president trump's first full month in office is out, and it shows mixed results for the u.s. economy. employers added 151,000 jobs in february, slightly lower than expected. we're now told, by the way, that the president will be making a statement. i assume the statement will be on the jobs numbers right at the top of the hour. we'll have live coverage coming up right here in the situation room. but joining us right now, democratic senator peter welch of vermont, he sits on the senate finance and judiciary committees. senator, this mixed jobs report comes amid growing confusion around president trump's tariffs and the fact that thousands of federal workers are being laid off right now. what do these numbers tell you about the u.s economy? >> it's a very sketchy. i mean,

the trump administration seems to have chosen disruption as opposed to stability as a way to try to address our economy. and the disruption is really creating havoc. the tariffs, by the way, are still in effect on parts of canada, but canada has imposed its tariffs on vermont, and we are looking at in vermont, 1025 to 40 cent increase in the cost of gasoline. we're going to have. >> vermont export to canada. >> well, we're one of 34 states where canada is our biggest trading partner. so it's not just vermont. and we do a lot of electronics to canada. we do. we work with them on maple sirup, of course, and in manufactured goods to vermont. so pardon me to canada. so vermont is that's our biggest trading partner. but keep in mind it's 34 states that have the biggest trading partnership with canada. and canada has remained imposing its

retaliatory tariffs on us. >> so it's going to have an impact on vermont. >> a big impact. >> the president, as you know, though, is temporarily, temporarily key word delaying most of the tariffs he slapped on canada and mexico, for that matter. the effect is the president's chaotic on again off again tariff strategy is having on the country is questionable right now. what do you think of it. >> it's really making it hard for folks who have to make everyday decisions about their business, about their manufacturing, about their supply chain issues. we had a roundtable in vermont, and what we did there is true all along the northern border. they just don't know what they can count on. so it is making them extremely uncertain, really affects what they can invest in. it affects what their employment situation is. and they literally never know from day to day who's on top. and this disruptive approach that the president is taking is undercutting even whatever his objective may be. you know, the tariffs with canada are

supposedly national security. i can see canada from where i sit in vermont, no tanks are massing. i mean, we get along with canada. so this is an idiosyncratic position by the president that just has immediate and negative economic consequences on everyday families in vermont, higher electricity bills, higher home heating, fuel bills. >> and it's causing an enormous amount of criticism on the part of not just democrats, for that matter. the wall street journal editorial page. i assume you saw the editorial is slamming president trump's tariff, saying he doesn't even have the power to impose sweeping tariffs and that someone should sue him over it. do you agree? >> well, i do agree. i mean, the congress decades ago gave national security emergency authority on tariffs to the president. it was done with an expectation that a president would do it with restraint and where it actually had some military protection component to it. what the president is doing is he frequently does is totally

overreach. and then using this as a bargaining tool for whatever it is he wants to bargain for. and the other issue is that he's doing it in a chaotic kind of way. you know, he should sit down with democrats and with congress because we're supportive of tariffs on china. you know, there's a real trade imbalance there. and it's unfair trade practices, but it's just shooting ourselves in the foot to essentially unravel the the usmca. ironically, an agreement that he said was the best ever. and he negotiated this is doing extraordinary harm to trust between us and our partners. and it's doing real harm to vermonters. and you don't unwind this that quickly. you know, i heard mark zandi i do think the economy is starting to to to deteriorate a bit. the consumer confidence numbers are way down. and part of that is because of the instability in chaos is not a policy that reaps good rewards

for everyday americans. >> a lot of uncertainty and a lot of economists don't like all that uncertainty. after elon musk got a mixed reception from republicans up on capitol hill this week, senator president trump says he wants to use a scalpel, not a hatchet, on federal agencies. you've been sounding the alarm over musk and doge. do you see this as an acknowledgment from the president himself that some of his cuts have simply gone too far? >> here's the acknowledgment. they cut first and looked and planned later. you know, what they did in their cuts is they really got email lists of people in these various departments, like veteran affairs, like social security, and they sent out 7000 to each of these cases, 7000 firing notices. somebody goes to their inbox and they're fired. there was no plan. how do you make government more efficient? how do we better deliver services for social security beneficiaries? how do we help our veterans better? they just fired people. so doge essentially is about getting a

body count as many people as you can, fire as quickly as possible, and then claim savings. but that unravels the capacity of that organization to do its work. the second thing that i think people are really starting to see, there's a lot of cruelty in this. we've got 7000 veterans who've been fired. they served our country and for no reason, not because of performance, but just because that's what doge decided to do. we fired 7000 folks from the irs when its tax filing season. so you call the irs, you're going to be on the phone for 30 minutes or 45 minutes. that's not right. so what's really so terrible about this is the idea of making our government more efficient. we're all on board on that. we could sit down and do this in a thoughtful way, where at the end of the day, we're doing more for less, but we're not also inflicting this cruelty. >> and so you're not on board dismantling and firing the department of education. all the workers who work at the department of education. >> i'm not at all. i think there's got to be a thoughtful plan. i mean, if this was any

business and you're looking at how can we save money and be more efficient, you'd actually do an inquiry, you'd do a plan, you'd assess where you're doing well, where you're not, and then you'd implement what doge did is essentially drive through the building with a tank, just wrecking everything in sight. and there was a lot of human suffering as a result of that. but also at the end of the day, it means they'll fail, not succeed. >> senator, thanks so much for joining us. enjoy the skiing in vermont that's coming up. appreciate it very, very much. thank you, senator peter welch. appreciate it. >> it's been great ski season in vermont. just ahead, the education department, as we were just talking about, oversees more than $1 trillion in student loans. but dismantling the agency could put current and future borrowers in limbo. we have the new cnn reporting. up next. >> anderson cooper 360 tonight at eight on cnn.

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you have student loans right now, what does this potential order from president trump mean for you? well. borrowers who have. >> student loans already are facing long customer service backlogs because of a shrinking staff at the office of federal student aid. they're also facing fewer loan repayment options because of legal limbo that some of these lawsuits have put these more affordable repayment plans into. i've learned that fsa officials have been meeting to try to figure out which new plans they can offer to some of these borrowers to get them back on track in paying their student loans. but they haven't reached any conclusions because of some of this legal fallout. if you are a high school senior or someone who is looking to go to college or to take out loans, there is potentially going to be some lapses in disbursement or lack of clarity from schools. we've learned that some of these schools have been asking the agency for communication that they can offer to help them navigate some of this uncertainty, and i'm told by employees that the agency simply has not been able to offer that. >> yeah. because, you know, some

people might be wanting to take out loans for college right now or whatever, you know, just a. >> few weeks they're going to get their admissions letters. >> exactly. so what does this mean for them? >> well, there's going to be a lot of uncertainty going forward. and it comes at a time, pam, where a lot of these students have had payment pauses for the last several years, and they're about to start to have to repay these loans at higher payments per month. and employees say there's going to be a wave of defaults on a portfolio of $1.6 trillion in loans, where 40% of those loans are already delinquent. one employee tells me that it is like a tidal wave coming for an unprepared village. the fallout. this employee says, is not even hypothetical now. >> wow. kayla tausche, thank you for bringing your reporting. we appreciate it, wolf. >> all right, kayla, thank you very much for me as well. meanwhile, there's more news this morning. a senior hamas official is now telling cnn that the group wants to maintain direct talks with the u.s. over a hostage deal, but accuses president trump of, quote, blatant double standards. the official says the trump white

house is focused on dozens of israeli hostages, but ignoring thousands of palestinian prisoners held by israel. the direct u.s. talks with hamas, by the trump administration, by the longstanding u.s. policy. for decades, washington has refused to engage with groups it considers terrorists. no direct talks. the u.s. designated hamas a terrorist organization back in 1997. joining us now here in the situation room is rubi khan. he's the father of the israeli-american hostage, itai. itai was just 19 years old and a soldier in the israeli military when he was killed in the october 7th terror attack. his body was then taken by hamas into gaza. rubi, thanks very much for joining us. i know you've been here in washington for the past few days. you listened to trump's joint address to congress. you've had some meetings, i take it, at the white house, as well as with pentagon officials. what's your reaction, first of all, to this new u.s. policy during the trump administration of having direct,

not indirect, but direct talks with hamas? normally those talks go through qatar or egypt or some some other country. >> i welcome those talks. you know, the u.s. in the past has also spoken to the taliban when needed. there's a function inside of the state department called sfiha, which is a special presidential envoy for hostage affairs. and legally, they are allowed to speak to anybody in order to get us hostages out. and if there is a embassy and the israeli prime minister and israel is not able to move talks, we do not want to see these talks stalled. so i welcome the president for thinking out of the box and willing to do what is needed in order to get the 59 hostages out, including five five u.s. citizens, including my son. >> your son grew up where. >> grew up in tel aviv, but we have family here in new york, new jersey, and we come here every summer. >> so you're still hoping that perhaps you'll get some closure on this?

>> yeah. we were notified by intelligence, but we do not have any evidence. concrete evidence. hamas have not acknowledged or given any type of indication about my son. and we, you know, we'll always have that hope or belief that until it's not done, it's not done. >> i want to read to you, president trump has issued what he's calling a last warning to hamas to immediately release all the remaining hostages in gaza. let me read to you what he wrote earlier in the week. release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is over for you. only sick and twisted people keep bodies and you are sick and twisted. this is your last warning for the leadership. now is the time to leave gaza while you still have a chance. also, to the people of gaza, a beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. if you do, you are dead. what's your reaction to that? >> i think that the united states needs to tell anybody

that takes u.s. citizens as hostages. this is a liability, not an asset. and there are consequences to the fact that you are holding us hostages. and i welcome that type of language. and i do hope that hamas are listening very carefully to what will happen to them if they do not release these u.s. hostages. >> i know, ruben, you've been in touch with other hostage families. what are they telling you about what they hope happens now? >> well, we saw this week that we saw the hostages coming to washington, and they actually met the president. and i would ask you, why is it that the returned hostages are actually getting on a plane coming to the united states to meet president trump and not meeting the prime minister? it means that we have a lot of faith in this president and this administration to to think differently, to get all of the hostages out, including my son, and being able to have the closure that all of us are looking for after over 500 days. >> you, when you were at the white house this week, did you and your fellow hostage family members have a chance to meet with the president?

>> no. we went met with the nsc folks, which is more of a working session. i understand why the returned hostages got the ability to meet the president, which was very important. he also they also met mr. steve witkoff to listen to them one on one and hear the atrocities that they've gone through and what they needed to endure for such a long time. even if this administration has had 100% effort, hopefully it moves them to 101 effort to get the hostages out, and they should not wait on the israeli government and wait for them to lead. this is for the u.s. to lead, to get its citizens out. and hopefully that way all the other hostages will come out as well. >> i understand you were invited to a meeting at the pentagon as well, is that right? >> yes. we see all the different components of the government working in, in, in togetherness, you know, like a football team. we got the quarterback. that's the president. you got the running back, you got the wide receiver. everyone is moving together to make sure everyone's on the same page to get the hostages out and putting extreme pressure, financial, military, whatever is needed to

get those hostages out. >> well, good luck in your efforts. thank you so much, ruby, for coming in. thank you for having me. and give our love to the whole family, please. >> my wife said the best as well. >> give her our love. thank you very much, pamela. >> we're following some breaking news from the white house. we are being told i'm texting with white house officials that at around 11 a.m., president trump is expected to talk about the jobs report that just came out today that economists are saying is solid. it's a little below expectations. but we know the white house has been embracing this jobs report. and now president trump coming up is expected to talk about that. and i'm also told that he's expected to take questions from reporters. so we will see if that happens. we'll be right back. >> with fast signs, create factory grade visual solutions to perfect your process. fast signs make your stay. >> it's odd. >> how in an instant, things can

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that's something i want to believe. [skateboard sounds] >> i'm natasha bertrand at the pentagon, and this is cnn. >> it is an iconic east coast versus west coast battle. and the lakers held on in overtime to pull off the late night win over the knicks. >> i want to go live to cnn sports anchor andy scholes.

andy. adding insult to injury was a major. there was a major injury for the knicks, right? >> yeah. that's right. wolf and pam. >> you know knicks fans, they got their fingers crossed today. just hoping for good news about their star guard jalen brunson. i'll show you how it all went down. pick up the game in the fourth quarter. new york was down three. under a minute to go. brunson here gets the bucket plus the foul. he was pumped up. so was spike lee who was sitting courtside. we'd go to overtime. and it was in ot where luka just getting it done. the fadeaway over karl-anthony towns, then the three. he finished with 32 points. then it was under two minutes to go. brunson was trying to tie the game again. he drives here, rolls his ankle badly on this play. he was in a lot of pain. he would get up and make both free throws before exiting the game. lakers though they would win 113 to 109 luka and lebron. they've now won eight in a row. it's the longest winning streak for the lakers since 2019 2020, which is a season they won the title. so we'll wait and see the news on brunson. now. during this game, a lakers fan named mike had a

chance to make a half court shot for $100,000. and you know, we never show you these when they miss. as you can see, he banked it home to win and showed off his kobe tattoo that he had there on his bicep. so congrats there to mike for winning the 100 k with that shot. wolf, can you make a half court shot if you were out there at a wizards game? >> i'm not going to try a foul shot maybe, but a half court? i don't think so. >> oh come on wolf, i could. >> you could make a half. >> court of course. >> all right i'm going to test you. >> we're going to sign you up. >> let's see what's up. could that. >> be get you that wizards court. >> there you go. >> thanks very, very much andy. >> and coming up we are just minutes away from hearing president trump. i'm told that he's going to be speaking about the new jobs report at the top of the hour from the oval office. stay with us. trains. trains that. >> use the power of del a.i. and intel clearing the way. so you

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