From Special Report with Bret Baier | Friday, April 6, 2012
On Friday’s employment report showing that the economy created only 120,000 jobs in March, about half the net growth of each of the three prior months:
Well, there are ups and downs, and this is a down number. In part you can explain it away saying that January and February were artificially high because the weather was warm, so you got more hiring in the winter months than you ordinarily have…. You get less [hiring] in the month of March as a result. Normally, with good weather [in March], you would get a lot of employment….
The problem is this — the number at the root of the problems is growth rate. The economy grew at 1.7 percent rate in 2011, which is a rate [at which] unemployment will go up. It’s not enough to sustain the same level of unemployment. So you can get a burst of employment here and there. But in the end unemployment will go up as a result of the fact that this is a sluggish economy, the weakest recovery since the Great Depression….
This is the first time since the Great Depression we have unemployment over eight percent for as long as we have, the longest stretch. So it’s about growth….
I think even if the administration attempts to spin the number and pretend that it’s a good number or it’s not as bad as it could be, it doesn’t work, because the reason that the rate went down is so many people were so discouraged that they dropped out of the labor market — and the way we keep our numbers, [that] artificially makes unemployment look better.
People have a sense at home from themselves and the neighbors… that things aren’t good. So I’m not sure that spinning from above actually works. If there is an increase in people who leave the market, and slight decrease in the numbers, I think in the end it’s reality that prevails on people deciding who they are going to elect in November.
On North Korea’s plans to launch an observation satellite using a three-stage rocket:
So the question is: North Korea will launch a missile next week, or says it will. It is supposedly a satellite, but it’s essentially an intercontinental ballistic missile. Should we shoot it down? The answer is yes, if we can. If it goes over Japan, Japan has said it will shoot it down if it can, and we ought to help them and support them as a way (a) to support our allies who are being intimidated, and (b) to say to the new regime in Pyongyang, you might have walked all over us in acquiring a nuke. We’re not going to allow you to acquire the means to deliver it to Alaska or San Francisco, or Los Angeles.
On Wisconsin’s gubernatorial recall campaign:
It’s the mother of all state races– it transcends party and state. Everybody is watching this. The unions are trying to handpick who the candidate will be. It’s not going to be a Democratic candidate, it’ll be a union candidate. And it’s the unions against the people — who will control the budget and the direction of the state government in Wisconsin? It’s being watched in all other states. The unions are going to put a lot of money into this. I think it’s likely Walker will remain in office. But everything hangs on this.