probably wishes he wasn't one. even old friends are making jokes. >> in my real life, my memory this cat had a lot more anthony and a lot less wiener. >> reporter: or comedians, like shooting fish in the barrel. pants. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. that does it for me. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." "john king usa" starts right now. thanks, wolf. good evening. tonight yemen's president is wounded in an attack on the presidential palace in a nation critical to the war on terror teetering on the brink of outright civil war. plus john edwards enters a not guilty plea to charges he broke campaign finance laws to funnel money to support his mistress and love child. >> i will regret for the rest of my life the pain and harm that i have caused to others. but i did not break the law.

>> up first serious new worries about your number one concern, the economy. you don't need me for the government to tell you the job market is weak but new numbers tonight show the recovery is even more fragile than most economists believed sparking talk of a double dip recession and that president obama's bid for re-election suddenly seems a lot more vulnerable. >> there is nobody here who doesn't know someone looking for work who hasn't found something yet. even though the economy is growing, even though it's created more than 2 million jobs over the past 15 months, we still face some tough times. we still face some challenges. >> the politics of the economy in just a moment. but first the disappointing numbers and some of the factors driving them. let's take a closer look. move over here and take a look. first we'll look at the unemployment rate just over the last two years. remember, the president had been hoping the rate would go down dramatically.

february 2010, hovering just below 10%. august, november, february. started to come down a little bit here. now hovering right up there around 9%. unacceptable to the president of the united states without a doubt. if you look across the country here are the states, ten states with the highest unemployment rate. some of them just happen to be key targets for the president of course in 2012. nevada, michigan among them, florida of course as well. north carolina, and the state of rhode island all presidential targets all above 10%. you see those right there. here is another big question. where are the jobs? that is the question many of you are asking at home. here is over the past two years the number of jobs added by the economy, in the red, economy still losing jobs and recession through the end of '09. then we start to get up and then down, the rocky period right here. this is what had everyone excited. job market was starting to improve but then this. just 54,000 net jobs added right there. that is where you have a problem. now these numbers come on the heels of other recent economic data -- retail sales, housing data that have people in a

sluggish -- thinking perhaps this is a double dip recession. perhaps no surprise wall street closing down yet again this week. how much weaker is the economy, specifically the jobs sector than anticipate staten island. >> this is a huge shock to wall street today. this number was a massive miss, john. the expectation was that we should have added 150,000 to 170,000 jobs. 54,000 jobs added to the economy really doesn't even keep up with the population growth. then you see how much it dropped from the previous month where we had 232,000 jobs added. then you add the other alarm bells for weeks about the problems in the economy, manufacturing growth slowing, consumer confidence down. housing prices are down to levels that we haven't seen since 2002. then of course the icing on the cake is this jobs number. it really put wall street in a funk. wall street did not take this well today, john. >> so how serious is the talk of

a possible double dip recession? >> the big worry is it is talk now. traders i talked to today said no longer are we hearing just whispers but people are actually talking about it. the big worry is if we have millions of people out of work looking for jobs that aren't there, what is really going to growth economy? what does this mean for businesses? what does it mean for revenue? this is really the big issue here that is worrying wall street, john. >> thank you. let's dig deeper into what is causing the recovery to stall and whether the government can or should do more to help. when you look at these numbers, one of the prime questions i have is why is washington having the wrong conversation, dominated by deficits and debt and economists say sure those are important but right now the urgent focus should be on jobs

and stimulus. >> i think, john, you are exactly right. when you look at those job numbers and you look at what is happening in washington, it's really an allison in wonder land situation. this is an incredibly serious employment situation. unemployment at more than 9%. anemic job creation. and what is washington obsessed about? cutting government spending. one of the things driving those unemployment numbers is that the government is firing people -- school teachers. so i think there is a real absurdity and disconnect between the conversation in washington and what's happening in the count country. you said this cob a real problem for the president next year. i think you're right but i think for the republican party as well because the republicans have been pushing the debt and the deficit as the core economic concerns. i think they might find that what americans really care about is whether they have a job or

not. >> and, professor, before we get too deep into politics let's focus on the people. i want to look at total unemployment. yes this is a political conversation in washington but if you're unemployed you really don't care about the politics. about 14 million americans are unemployed. more than 6 million have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more. that's a problem there. then if you bring these people into the equation as well, you tap in here and you get more. another 8.3 million americans are working part-time. they are just under 40 hours a week but they want to work more. so 22 million americans either unemployed or under employed and that number has actually been high higher because these surveys don't count people who have just given up. is there any short-term hope for these people? >> the only short-term hope we really can have is if we do something about the very large trade deficit that we have. one of the reasons we need this huge budget deficit and all this government spending to keep the economy going is we send so many

dollars abroad to buy chinese goods and expensive, imported oil that don't return to buy u.s. exports. america is suffering from a shortage for demand of what americans make. beran bernanke put his finger on it when he said china's policy is showing the recovery in the united states. secretary geithner has been working with the chinese to get them to re-evaluate their currency. the president said last october, you know, there are things we can do if you don't act. the president may have to come to the conclusion that it's time to act unilaterally to correct a trade deficit with china and also may have to accept we have to drill for more domestic oil simply to create jobs in the energy sector and even if gasoline is expensive have the money spent here rather than the middle east. >> to look even closer at the numbers, you mentioned a bit earlier about the sector changes. i want to bring this up.

business services is gaining a little bit. health care is adding jobs. this is a sad one here. last month we were talking about made in america might make a rebound. now they're going down. and local governments which have no money continue to hemorrhage and lay people off. professor, when you look at the different sectors of the economy, what is the most troubling to you right now? is it manufacturing that we thought might be rebounding or what else? manufacturing because that is where we have to get the growth. we can't expect housing to lead us out. we simple have millions of homes yet to be sold, foreclosures and so forth, that we built during the boom that we didn't need at that time and we have to work off that inventory. manufacturing is where we need to see the growth. local governments will follow that up and down depending on whether the tax revenues are there. so if we don't get it in manufacturing we just aren't going home again. >> we just showed the rate is up again, the rate has been staying

there for sometime. another problem for americans, wages. this is growth in wages month to month. in may six cents an hour. as you can see wages dropped a lot. this is the height of the recession. starting to trickle back up and then down here now flat lined again. not only do you have a jobs problem but for many americans they have an income problem. >> john, you have hit on what i think is the most important and least discussed factor in what is going on in the job situation, which is that it's not just a question of do people have jobs it's what kind of jobs. the american economy is going through a profound, structural shift. the economists talk about it as hollowing out of the middle class. the kind of jobs you're seeing a come back is lower paying service jobs and those are not going to replace the higher wage manufacturing jobs that used to be able to maintain a family. so i think that is a real issue for the economy. the one place where we are

seeing real growth even believe it or not a bubble, is the technology sector. in high end tech jobs there is actually a shortage of workers. so you are seeing a real polarization of the american work force. >> so, professor, if we're at 9.1% unemployment right now and i'll bring the number back up so people can see it though it's been depressing when you show it, where are we going to be a year from now? >> i think if the economy continues to grow at this anemic rate it'll stay above 8%. if we go into a second dip which is a real, real issue because it's very hard to grow at only 2% without cycling down, then we'll be at 12 or 13. we're not going to stay at 9.1. we're either going down to about 8 or up into double digits again. >> when you hear the professor, you just heard the conversation about a double dip. do people really believe that? is it fear or reality? >> i think it's becoming a reality. i think the professor is absolutely right that it is hard

to keep on treading water is the right metaphor i guess. >> right. >> either you start swimming or you sink. i think this summer turned out to be a real turning point. >> thanks for coming in tonight. a tough story to talk about but important. we'll stay on top of it. still ahead here are the politics of the economy. rising unemployment means rising anxiety for the obama re-election campaign but do republicans have a better jobs program? next, marchers chanting "freedom" gunned down by a syrian regime whose ruthlessness appears to know no bounds.

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in syria today dozens of people were killed when government officials opened fire on a crowd of protesters. the demonstrators were chanting "freedom freedom" and calling for an end to the regime of assad. cnn has been denied permission to send our own correspondents and crews to syria during what is now a three-month uprising but arwa damon is working her sources from inside syria from neighboring lebanon. what more do we know about this latest bloody clash? >> the deadliest day to date since this uprising began according to activists and

eyewitnesses, the greatest amount of bloodshed taking place in the city of hama as you mentioned. tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in different neighborhoods trying to converge on a central square one day saying syrian security forces indiskrcriminately opened fire them. it has been even more difficult than it is in the past for us to even begin to ascertain what is happening inside syria because according to activists the regime shut down the internet in many parts of the country. activists believing that this is because the regime is trying to prevent the truth from getting out. that is why we have actually seen a significant decrease in the number of youtube videos emerging but activists telling us the demonstrations pretty much taking place throughout the entire country, in many cases again being met with lethal force. in other cases being met with tear gas.

most certainly hama appearing to have been the deadliest city to be in on this day, john. >> you have this situation where in the public statements whether the granting of amnesty or saying he is willing to talk to his opponents, the regime trying to appear open to dialogue if you will while closing down the country and from everything we doon in o do in our own reporting essentially killing his own people. >> reporter: that is right. that is most certainly the perception that is created. analysts will tell you that this talk of reforms or these so-called reforms that are being put into place by the assad regime are not necessarily an attempt to appease the opposition or an attempt to better the image in the international spotlight. they're more of an attempt to try to hold on to the regime loyalists that they can then turn around and say, look. this is a president who is actually trying to reform the country. but at the same time, we continue to see no matter what reforms are being talked about the same methodology being

employed time and time again when it comes to these demonstrations. we see demonstrators who appear to be unarmed who appear to be chanting "freedom", chanting "peaceful", chanting that they want the down fall of the regime, the martyrs blood not to be in vain, not calling for violence, being met according to activists with indiscriminate force. that has been the trend since this uprising began. >> thank you. also disturbing news from another middle east trouble spot, yemen on the southwest tip of the arabian peninsula close tonight to all out civil war. demonstrators and forces loyal to the country's president clashed in several cities throughout the week. today the violence reached yemen's capital. yemen's president was heard in audiotape on state television tonight just hours after surviving a deadly attack on his presidential palace. mohammed jabjoon monitoring this. what do we know about the condition of the president after

this attack? >> well, jonathan, throughout the day officials insisted he had only sustained a slight wound on his head, was fine, and would be delivering an address to the country at some point during the day. we waited hours and hours. finally there was an audiotape that appeared on yemeni state television in the evening in which the president thanked all the sons and daughters of the security forces for well wishes and thanked the security forces for going after who he called gangsters who perpetrated this attack. but the reason this audio tape was greeted with more worry than happiness is because it made people wonder if presidethe pre actually sustained more injuries than the government would like people to believe. he has a very big media apparatus at his beck and call. he can go on television at any time. the fact that it was so delayed and the fact you saw no video and he sounded woozy and tired when he was giving these remarks and they were so short really made people wonder if he was more hurt than people would like

to believe and is increasing fears among government officials i'm speaking with as to how vulnerable the president is and his forces are. the presidential palace is a fortress, so heavily fortified and guarded. the fact that tribesmen were able to get this close and shell it a very worrying development in a country where there are so many fears it is on the verge of civil war. >> most americans as we watched the dramatic developments throughout the region you tend to say you're rooting for the pro democracy demonstrators. in the case of yemen, al qaeda and the arabian peninsula headquartered there, having tried to engineer attacks against the united states. what are the calculations about how this civil strife is affecting for better or worse the strength of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula? >> john, there is so much concern about al qaeda in the arabian peninsula right now. that is really the number one fear for the west and the regional allies of yemen including saudi arabia just to the north of yemen. to give you some perspective, i

was there in yemen in february. i spoke to the prime minister at that time. he is one of the parties that was injured in today's attack at the mosque at the presidential palace. i asked him point blank when i was there, will al qaeda in the arabian peninsula try to take advantage of political turmoil? he said he thought they would. in the past week alone we've heard of a city in a hot bed for militancy in that country, which was overtaken, seized by islamic militants. just in this past week they've been battling with security forces in that city for control. the fact that that has happened at this time is really stoking concerns that al qaeda is going to make a move on other cities there and really try to take advantage of all the turmoil in that country. >> thank you. up next here a new government report warns billions of your dollars may end up going to waste. find out why and where after the break. she felt lost...

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welcome back. here is the latest news you need to know right now. the house today passed a resolution criticizing president obama for not consulting with congress before ordering u.s. forces into action over libya. the lawmakers rejected a resolution demanding a u.s. pullout from nato's ongoing military operation. a report out tonight warns billions of taxpayer dollars may be wasted in iraq and afghanistan if their governments neglect projects like health clinics, police training facilities, and even roads. those projects all started by the united states. the assisted suicide advocate dr. jack kevorkian died today of natural causes. he was 83. the government has wrapped up two weeks of online bidding for items that belonged to the unabomber ted kaczynski taking in about a quarter million dollars that will be used to compensate some of his victims. no evidence was found that an organized slowdown by sanitation workers was responsible for new york city's poor response to last december's big blizzard. however the report did find at least one instance of workers

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the government's tough new jobs report today cast a cloud

over what was designed as a bit of a victory lap for president obama. here you can see the president at a chrysler assembly line in toledo, ohio. he was there in a bellwether presidential politics state to make the case the government's decision to bail out general motors and chrysler is paying huge dividends. fnch >> if we let chrysler and gm fail, plants like this one are shut down, dealers and suppliers would have shrivelled up. then ford and other auto makers could have failed too because they wouldn't have had the supplies they needed. by the time the dominos stopped falling more than a million jobs in countless communities and a proud industry that helped build america's middle class for generations wouldn't have been around anymore. >> let's take a closer look. many might remember the auto bailouts were quite controversial at the time. first let's look at auto growth, jobs growth in the auto sector. all this red the industry back to 2007 just bleeding jobs, bleeding jobs. here, the recession, boom. late in the bush administration,

george w. bush, that's the initial government loan. continued to lose jobs. then you start to see with one quarter here down, there has been job growth. since the third quarter of 2009 job growth in the auto industry. now how much money was spent? that is one of the big political controversies. general motors got just shy of $50 billion. chrysler got about $12.5 billion. their financial arms got some money. 24 billion has been paid back by chrysler -- by gm. chrysler almost $11 billion there. here is what the government looks at now. about $81 billion went out. the projections right now is the government will lose at most about $14 billion of that money might not come back. this is still a work in progress of course but that is the current projection. most republicans opposed the auto bailout including the man whose the nominal front runner for the republican presidential nomination the former massachusetts governor mitt romney. you can kiss the american auto motive industry good-bye was

governor romney's 2008 prediction of what would happen if the bail out was approved. cnn's poppy harlow sat down with chrysler's ceo today to get his take. yes or no? bail out save chrysler or indifferent? >> reporter: no question about it. i was rereading that 2008 op-ed from mitt romney when he said, look. don't just hand a check to chrysler and gm. he actually said let detroit fail. this is not the way to fix the american automotive industry. remember mitt romney's father helmed one of detroit's auto firms a few decades ago. i asked the ceo of chrysler point blank, do you think that if the government did not step in in such a massive way to rescue gm and chrysler that chrysler could stand on its own two feet? could it have stood alone and made it through this alone? i want to play his answer and his reaction to what mitt romney had to say for you now. take a listen. >> whoever tells you that is smoking illegal material. that market had become absolutely dysfunctional. it had become absolutely dysfunctional in 2008-2009.

there were attempts made by a variety of people to find a strategic alliancalliances with car makers on a global scale. the government stepped in as the actor of last resort. it had to do it because the consequences would have been just too large to deal with. >> reporter: sergio marchionne there not mincing words at all. the president today at that chrysler plant in ohio. of course a key campaign state for him said american manufacturing, american industry is back. he called the resurgence of chrysler improblem. >> governor romney's argument at the time in 2008 was if you give the industry money it's never going to change its behavior. he wrote this. with it the auto makers will stay the suicidal course of declining market share. what is the verdict on that? >> reporter: it's simply not the case. this isn't a disputable issue. this is a fact. when you look at the numbers for chrysler, general motors, and

ford, ford didn't get government money. look at all three. their sales are not only up substantially in the u.s. but globally. china is the biggest market for gm, bigger than the u.s. when you look at chrysler specifically where president obama was today, chrysler sales when you look at may, last month, are up 27% from where they were a year ago. now look. these companies owe the u.s. money but the bottom line is their sales are up from where they were and they would not have stood were it not for the bail out and the white house projects they say conservatively a million american jobs would have been lost if they weren't to come to the rescue of the auto makers. >> and so there's the big political debate, is this the government's job? should the government ever intervene? or should the government just let them crash? obviously the government did intervene and the question now is what chrysler, that $1.3 billion still in the red to the government. general motors is about $10 billion still to be paid back i think. the question is overall worth it, was it a worth while investment propping up the industry? you say a million jobs, the white house says, i'm sure there

is someone who is going to dispute that but bottom line is it worth it? a great question. one we'll hear time and time again at the debates including the republican debate coming up. the bottom line is when you look at the investments that these companies have made in the u.s., they're substantial. general motors, ford, chrysler pouring billions of dollars into their factories here. chrysler a good example. cocomo, indiana relies solely on the auto industry. chrysler has just poured a lot of money in there, that means a lot of auto jobs. we have to be fair here. though chrysler did repay its loans to the u.s. government six years in advance, obama making a big headline on that today, at the same time they still do owe taxpayers $1.3 billion. we're not going to get that back. gm more than $10 billion is owed to taxpayers. what we're likely going to see i think is the treasury pretty soon is expected to sell its shares in general motors. it doesn't want to be part of a private company and we could likely lose billions to general motors. so was it the ideal scenario?

no. at the same time you look at the american jobs and you look at a city like detroit, john, they still have what secretary geithner called unaccept bli high unemployment in detroit but unemployment in detroit is down one-third from where it was two years ago and i can tell you, spending a lot of time there, there is no way that would have happened without a bail out of the auto industry. it is going to be very interesting as president obama touts this accomplishment as he calls it for his team heading into obviously the election cycle. it's going to be interesting to hear republicans say, look. ford didn't take a bailout and look how well they're doing now. john? >> one of the debating points on the economy sure to carry over through the presidential campaign. poppy harlow, thanks so much. so perhaps the president can sell the auto industry bailout as a success story but he still have to defy history to win re-election. not once in the modern era has a president won a second term with an unemployment rate above 7.2%? and you will not find an economist who thinks it will drop even close to that number by the time president obama asks

for your vote next year. so is he doomed to just one term? let's ask two people who understand the politics of the economy as well as anyone. the former two-term michigan governor jennifer granholm and political columnist joe klein. governor, to you first. listen to the president out of the box here. he has a tough job. unemployment ticked up again today. the recovery is very fragile. the president is trying to tell the american people it would be worse if not for me. >> there are still some headwinds coming at us. lately it's been high gas prices. caused a lot of hardship for a lot of working families. then you have the economic disruptions following the tragedy in japan. you got the instability in the middle east, which makes folks uncertain. there are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery. >> you can't argue, governor, with anything the president just said there. however, can you win an election in a tough economy by essentially saying well then this happened, then this

happened, then that happened? it is not a terribly optimistic, upbeat message. >> well, all i can say is, look what happened in michigan in 2006. i was running for a second term. we had the highest unemployment rate in the nation. it's all about a choice. and the voters want to know, do you have a plan? are you like me and do you have a plan? and obviously he is going to be up against somebody, let's just say for example it might be mitt romney. well, mitt romney ran massachusetts and it had the third worst unemployment rate or third worst job growth rate in the country. so, you know, it's all going to be about a choice. i think people want to know, do you have a plan? how are we going to get out of this? i think that's really going to be the key part. how do we create jobs in america. >> well, the governor mentioned mitt romney. i'll read a little bit of what he said today. he is the son of michigan where governor granholm is from and now the former governor of massachusetts. he said about the jobs report today unemployment numbers show we are going backwards and that is the wrong direction for america. president obama's policies made

the recession worse and as a result more people are out of work. i want to get to some history in a minute but do you hear as yet from any of the republicans, not just governor romney, a compelling new narrative about the economy or is it essentially just the old left-right pick? >> well, i think what you see from mitt romney, and i just came back from there, is a compelling new focus on the economy to the exclusion of social issues and foreign policies and a whole bunch of other things. he understands that if a republican is going to be elected in 2012 it's going to be on the basis of the economy because as we just saw the argument that obama is trying to make, things could have been worse, is the toughest of all possible arguments to make in politics. >> governor, you mentioned your re-election in 2006. i want you to look more recently at 2010 and if you look at the polling data showing the president has a problem. if he has a -- his biggest problem with the electorate i would say is with white men,

blue collar workers. and you see it in the republican gains in your state in 2010, in the other industrial states around michigan, where the president will be campaigning for re-election. how does the president break through with those blue collar, i'll call them reagan democrat types who, yes, they might vote democrat, but they're also not afraid to vote republican? >> right. well where was he today? toledo, ohio. he has saved this auto industry and i think the more he can tell that story, the better off he is but it's not just about the past. he has to be very specific about the future. what is the plan for america to be competitive in a global economy when other countries especially in areas like, you know, energy, and jobs in that realm are eating us for lunch. we've got to have a uniquely american solution to creating jobs and what the republicans are offering is hands off. >> how much of this is the numbers, getting the rate to drop. getting people to look at the statistics and say, okay. the economy is going in the

right direction. i ask in the context of a campaign we spent a lot of time covering in 1992, both in our teens, when george h.w. bush rightly so made the case things are getting better. unemployment got up near 8% then started coming down closer to the election. he kept saying it is getting better and guess what? the voters had just decided no it's not. the right track wrong track in this country was at 76% wrong track in october, 1992. even though the numbers were on president bush's side back then, he could not break through. could president obama have the same problem? >> well, yeah. he could have the same problem. bush had another problem which was that he was running against a genius campaigner of my political lifetime. i mean, bill clinton really knew how to make a case. barack obama on the other hand has gotten himself into -- trapped into issues that the american people don't care all that much about. he spent the first year of his presidency on health care reform when people were concerned about the economy and jobs.

now since he lost in the 2010 election he's been focusing on deficit reduction, long-term deficit reduction, which like health care reform is a problem we have to deal with but it's not what the people care about. they care about what the governor just said. they care about jobs. which is why i think that the auto bailouts is one of the strongest stories he has out there to tell. it's made a difference in the midwest. i saw it when i drove through that area last september. and it made a difference in the way people perceived him. i think that he has to do the same for the rest of the country. but it's really hard for him to do that right now because where is the money going to come from? >> governor, give us your thoughts. >> i'd say a couple things. providing low or no interest loans to manufacturers and technology so that they can take root here and not just watch them be poached by these other nations. putting on the table a commitment as a nation to having 80% of our energy come from clean sources by 2035 like he's

done but really go out and fight for it and tell people that will create a market here. >> does he not fight enough? >> he doesn't fight enough. you know, interesting, a fascinating little fact of romney's appearance at a town meeting today. he talked about, this republican talked about unfair trade deals. he talked about china, specifically. chinese currency manipulation. now, this is something that the -- that the president hasn't talked about at all. when you go out into the middle of the country the governor can, you know, confirm this. you ask people what is the president's position on china, which is an issue that concerns them tremendously. they don't know what it is. for good reason. >> no doubt about it. i mean, he needs to be fighting like a tiger for jobs in this country. he needs to play both offense and defense on behalf of our economy. we're not going to lose more jobs and we're going to create our jobs and we're not going to be victimized by the globe but

take advantage of it which is why going overseas and inviting international companies into america and say come here and create jobs for our citizens and not just see this be a one way street somewhere else is critical. >> jennifer granholm, joe klein, appreciate your time tonight. you heard the governor right there saying the president needs to fight like a tiger when it comes to making the jobs case. let's button up the conversation with a reminder of why the president has such a steep argument. this is 9.1% unemployment. this is the last two years. essentially, almost a flat line. a little above 10%. this has been the last two years in the united states of america. a little dip. now up at 9.1%. very tough challenge for the president heading into a re-election campaign. if you look at this number right here, 14 million americans who don't have jobs. the numbers actually higher. many americans have just checked out, not looking for jobs anymore so not counting but about 14 million americans who don't have a job then add in 8.3 million who are under employed working part-time, not getting the job they want. more than 22 million americans

unemployed or under employed. a tough challenge for the president heading into the re-election campaign cycle. we'll continue to track this, your number one concern. jobs and the economy. up next, john edwards speaks out for the first time about his legal troubles. >> i never, ever thought i was breaking the law. >> but a federal grand jury's indictment suggests otherwise. how strong is the government's case against the former democratic candidate for president? that's next.

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this afternoon a federal judge released john edwards on his own recognizance but the one-time senator, vice presidential nominee and presidential candidate is looking at federal charges that could ultimately send him to prison for up to 30 years. edwards pleaded not guilty to a six-count indictment charging him with conspiracy, making false statements and breaking campaign contribution laws because he accepted more than $900,000 the government says in an attempt to cover up his affair with a campaign worker. >> there is no question i've done wrong and i take full responsibility for having done wrong. and i will regret for the rest of my life the pain and the harm that i have caused. but i did not break the law and i never, ever thought i was breaking the law. >> joe johnson joins us with jeffrey toobin. you know john edwards.

you've covered him over the years. what was the mood, your sense of the man today? >> i have to tell you, john, i walked into the courtroom expecting to see john edwards. he was there sitting down in front surrounded by his lawyers. the first thing i was struck by and has sort of stayed with me is here is a guy who was one of the last men standing in the 2008 run for the democratic nomination, remember him from the south carolina primary debates that probably the last time i got a good look at him. today he was stand go up again only this time before a judge with some very serious charges before him and still it looks very much like the same guy but basically a whole lot of trouble, in large part because of his own doing, this illicit if you will extra marital affair with rielle hunter that led to a child. essentially arguing, hey, my relationship with her is something i wanted to try to

keep secret and the government saying that he got hundreds of thousands of dollars from two contributors, philanthropist buddy mellon and fred baron a lawyer out of texas to essentially try to cover that up. and this is wheretoday. so it's probably going to be a long and complicated legal battle and very interesting, too, and especially because north carolina is a place that's going to be the center of american politics next summer. >> joe, stay with us. jeff, i want to get to the particulars of the case, but john edwards is an accomplished attorney before he was a politician. i just want to ask you, did you read any significance into exactly what he said where he said i did not break the law and i never, ever thought that i was breaking the law, why would that intent be important? >> because this crime is what's called the specific-intent

crime. it's not just that you broke the law. you intended to break the law. when you're caught speeding it doesn't matter what your intent is. speeding is not a specific intent crime. if you say to the cop well, i didn't intend to go 80, the cop doesn't care because speeding doesn't require any level of intent, but if you commit the acts that the government accuses you of in a case like this, what you didn't intend to violate the law, you are acquitted or you're supposed to be under the jury instruction, so i think he is laying down the beginning of a defense that says, hey, look, i was dealing with a troubled marriage. i was dealing with a child, but i was not thinking about the campaign finance laws. it didn't even occur to me that i might be break the law, that's what he was saying, i think. >> let's stay with this for a second because the government knows that argument's coming and here's part of the indictment, the purpose of the conspiracy was to protect edwards' canda

candidacy for president of the united states by secretly obtaining and using hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions well in excess of the election act's limit to conceal edwards' extra marital affair. nice try, you were trying to protect your campaign and not just your echl bear asment and your marriage. >> that's why it's important to wait and see what the evidence is. here's one of the complications. the money came from two people, bunny melon and fred baron died over a year ago so these not going to be a witness. bunny melon is not 99 years old and she is 100 years old and it is unclear that she will be able to testify at the trial. they will prove it largely through the testimony of andrew young who was the one-time aide who turned on edwards and then wrote a book about it. he is going to be a witness who will be quite extensively cross examined. so the government is going have some real challenges here in proving its case. it's got a lot of advantages, but this is not a slam dunk

case. >> on that point, joe johns, we both reported this, there were plea negotiations before hand and i think you were reporting that he did not want to plea to a felony because he would have to give up his law license and he doesn't want to go to jail. do you see any possible negotiations between now and trial date or has edwards and his team simply decided that they can go into court and win this case? >> well, you know, that's anybody's guess, but it certainly looks like they laid down a marker today and the other thing that people don't talk a lot about, but is very true, he was a very successful trial lawyer here in the state of north carolina. he understands juries. he understands what you have to do to win. so he's also got some very good attorneys working with him, greg craig who worked on the impeachment of president clinton and others. so it's pretty clear that they're prepared to go to the mat. now whether there could be a negotiation somewhere down the

line, that's anybody's guess. the fact of the matter is, uyou know, both sides, i don't want to use the term locked and loaded, but both sides are pretty read to go to battle here. >> joe johns and jeff to be in, it is bizarre to see, this is the arrest warrant. this is a formality. they prepared the warrant and he came to court on his own and he's cooperated and it's odd to see an arrest warrant for the man who was viez presidential nominee not that long ago. >> >> john, read his name on the arrest warrant. i didn't know that was his name. >> johnny reid edwards. >> johnny. >> we'll watch this case as it plays out. you saw kate edwards over her father's shoulder there. there are two younger children involved as well, so this is not just a tragic event, it's tragic for the edwards family. those kids recently lost their mother. >> when we come back, a candidate for president who speaks chinese and mitt romney announced a run for president

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>> governor huntsman was the former ambassador under a democratic president to china. a little humor there. i want to take you back in time just before the midterm elections in 2010. john boehner, the republican speak are-to-be. our correspondent asked him about his relationship with the president of the united states and had an idea. let's listen. >> it is not a state secret that you and the president don't exactly have a warm and fuzzy relationship. if you were to achieve your goal and if you were to become the next speaker of the house how would you -- how would you work with him? maybe a golf summit or something like that? >> listen, i like the president. we get along personally. we disagree, but yes, we're not especially close, but i suspect in the coming months we'll have an opportunity to get a lot closer. >> maybe in the coming days. we'll show you some pictures. both of these guys like golf. we've had beer summits and we'll have the golf summit. they'll go golfing on june 18th. a lot to negotiate he