>> i wouldn't keep the baby how close to that glass i don't care how thick that glass is. that's it for me. thanks very much for joining us. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." the news continues next on cnn good evening. i'm john king. tonight, china's leadership blocks access to a blind dissident who says he wants to seek asylum in the united states. the administration says chen ga gaunchung left at his request. >> michele bachmann and rick santorum finally make peace with governor romney? new poll numbers tell a is your rising truth about the republican right. fast moving developments

surrounding chinese human rights activist, chen guangcheng. he has been pleading for help and asking to come to the united states with the family. he left the safe haven of the u.s. embassy on monday but says officials misled him. he had a congressional hearing and described the conditions at his home. >> translator: i really am afraid for my other family members' life. they have installed seven video cameras. even with the electric fence. >> among those watching closely, president obama's campaign opponent, mitt romney. >> the reports are, if they are accurate, that our administration, willingly or unwittingly, communicated would chen an implicit threat to his family and probably or may have sped up the process of his decision to leave the embassy. if these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom.

it is a day of shame for the obama administration. >> stan grant joins us from beijing. your team spoke again to chen today. this is very confusing, some conflicting accounts here. what's the latest from his perspective? >> he is bottom line, he doesn't trust the chinese government. he doesn't see he has a future here. he still maintains his family's lives have been threatened and he wants to get out. yesterday, when we spoke to him, he made a direct appeal through us to president obama saying, please, mr. president, do all you can to get my family out of here. now, he is also saying he wants to speak to secretary of state, hillary clinton, who is in beijing right now for top-level trade talks. there are some even suggestions that he wants to get on her plane when she leaves on saturday. there is no doubt this is a man holed up in his hospital bed who has been very ill, caught between china and the united states in this growing

diplomatic riff. all he wants to do is make sure that his family can live safely. >> the united states and chen have a lot less leverage. he has left u.s. embassy. so technically, he is on chinese soil right now. are the chinese limiting access to him? can the ambassador from the united states go see him? could secretary clinton go see him if she wanted? >> reporter: the hospital that he is at, john, is very, very heavily guarded. journalists have been pushed away from there. there was an extraordinary image of a very senior official from the embassy having to wait outside in his car, because he could not get in. we actually put it to chen, are you being held, basically, as a prisoner in the hospital? he said, i don't know but if i am being held here, it is not the hospital that's doing it, i.e. it is the guards waiting outside. he is regretting the decision to leave the embassy. i think you saw those images of the smiling chin hugging officials. he told officials at the embassy that he wanted to stay in china

and be a freedom fighter here. from leaving the embassy, getting to the hospital, meeting his wife, hearing about the level of threat, the volume of tleng coming towards his family and speaking to us, he had backtracked. he said, no, i want to get out of here. he was upset with the embassy saying they should not have encouraged him to leave. i sat down with gary locke today. he said, no, they didn't do that. at all times, this he were guided by what chen wanted. chen has changed his mind. >> stan grant continues to keep us ahead of this traumatic story. thanks so much. fareed zakaria, when you hear there, there is some conflict. we are not there. we are here in the united states. chen says he feels he was duped. one thing u.s. officials concede, they told him about the risks but never talked to his wife. that strikes me as amateur.

>> this whole thing has been mishandled. there weren't any good options. what appears to have happened and what my sources tell me, chen was very unstable in the u.s. embassy, emotionally, and may have had a breakdown. they should have understood there was a great likelihood that he would change his mind or his mood and in that context, change his mind or mood. i do think this could have been handled better. >> i will let you list to a host of u.s. officials, ambassador and white house press secretary, all choosing their words very, very carefully. >> we need to talk with him. we need to make sure we understand fully his wishes. then, we will take it from

there. >> we are not sure what his intentions and goals are. >> we made clear we would continue to monitor his case and be enter touch with him as time moved on so we could raise concerns if there were concerns that needed to be raised. >> now, i understand that you understand better than i, fareed, this is about as sensitive as it gets when it comes to foreign policy challenge. they act as if they don't know what he wants. he has been calling reporters and his friends to say he wants secretary clinton to come see him and leave on her plane and come to the united states with his family. now that he is out of the embassy and not on technical u.s. soil, is there any way the administration could make that happen? >> it is going to be very difficult. you are right. the report suggested that he seems to have changed his mind. he had indicated many times he wanted to stay in china, be a freedom fighter in china. he appears to have changed his mind. he could have asked for asylum in the first place. now, granting him asylum becomes very difficult.

remember, the fundamental fact here is we don't have a lot of leverage with the chinese. the chinese are very, very tough on these issues in general. think about it. in 1989, at a time when the chinese economy was much smaller, the u.s. was much more powerful, fong wiji, the astro physicist asked for asylum and we granted it. huge controversy and turmoil and we worked out a deal where he went back to china and had to write a letter of apology to the chinese government and promise never to engage in subversive activities again. they take this very seriously. it is a mistake. this kind of repression never works. it is tough to see how china today, the largest creditor in the world, the second largest economy, is going to roll over when we ask them to grant asylum to somebody who is not even on

u.s. soil. >> very important reporting. fareed, thanks. we are going to stay on top of this story. we will talk about a u.s. activist who has been in touch with chen guangcheng. facebook will cost between $28 and $35 a share if you are lucky enough to get in on the ground floor. they set the price range about two weeks before the company goes public. let's talk with ali velshi. how do these numbers stack up to some other big names? >> you and i talked about this a few months ago when we heard they were going public. this is the range we thought facebook was going to come out in. it still makes it a very expensive stock. it is going to price in this range assuming there is the right demand. the company says the range they would like to be and they go out starting monday with morgan stanley and start going to hedge funds and mutual funds and saying, how many shares do you people want? if the demand is high, it comes in at the high end of the range.

if low, the low end of the range. there are examples of it coming in much lower than the range they give or much higher. orn the night before the ipo, may 18th, march 17th, we will get a signal from the company that says demand has been stronger or weaker and the actual price of the stock will come out. you will not be able to buy it at that price. it willis the on the next morning on may 18th when the first trade opens on nasdaq. it will be anyone's guess as to what happens. i'll give you an example. if facebook prices at $35 and it starts trading and it is up $10 right at the beginning. you can't buy it until it is out on the open market. let's say you paid $45, i think i would be lucky to do that. you are paying 87 times last year's earnings. that's the price to earnings ratio. that's how you determine what a company is worth versus its peers. google closed at $611 a share,

only 19 times last year's earnings. if facebook was at $45, it would be expensive vis-a-vis its peers. it doesn't mean it is not going to go up. it means it is expensive. if you remember back to google days, the stock was priced at $85. that's what the ipo wachlt. that's what it traded at. it closed at $100. many of us thought, wow, that's pretty high. a year later, $280. today, as i mentioned, $611. this is not an endorsement for facebook, john. it is just something to tell you. successful, good tech companies like google, like apple, have done particularlily well. >> that was the follow-up question. you seem to lean into it a bit there. you want to be careful not to put the ali velshi stamp of approval on it. does it seem like a good-bye for the guy at home? >> here is my view. generally speaking, yes. it will probably go up from its first day in the first year of

its trading. the individual who wants to buy that stock should know what they want to pay for it. don't go in all willy-nilly and excited saying i am going to get myself 100 shares no matter what it costs. decide whether it is $45, $55 or $65 or $100, are you prepared to pay for that. if it goes higher, don't buy it. if it comes in at a price you think is fair, buy it. if i were not me and i were looking at that, i would say facebook has a bright future, probably worth the investment at a certain price. that's personal as to how you determine what that price is. >> i always apply the vegas rules. if you are not prepared to lose it, don't bet it. appreciate your help on that. in just a moment, we will talk with the activist who feld the phone today as chinese dissident chen guangcheng asked the u.s. for help. ♪

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guangcheng. he has been pleading for secretary of state, hillary clinton, to take him back to the united states. he called for a hearing to discuss his current situation. >> he wants to come to the u.s. for some time of rest. he has not had any rest in the past ten years. i want to meet with secretary clinton. i hope i can get more help from her. i also want to thank her face to face. >> the man holding the phone right there, bob fu, helped organize chen's escape from house arrest and was there testifying on his behalf. bob, it is good to see you. a dramatic phone call like that, a chinese dissident in a hospital surrounded by chinese

authorities, allowed to call into a u.s. congressional hearing. yet, u.s. embassy officials that want to see him in person are kept outside the hospital and not allowed in. what does that tell you about what's going on in the chinese leadership? >> i think it shows the chinese leadership are having some difficulties to find the easy solution to handle this man and his story. >> i want you to listen to gary locke, the u.s. ambassador who says that he says that the united states team laid out the threats and risks and that chen wanted to go. >> he was very, very clear all along. he wanted to be reunified with his family. he wanted to stay in china to be a freedom fighter. he did not want to go to the united states. >> you hear the ambassador say he d ot united states. as soon as he made it to t hospital, it see a change of heart. what happened? was one message conveyed by the u.s. officials to him before he walked out of

the embassy that make his heart heavy. he was asked if he didn't walk out of the u.s. embassy that they, he would no longer have an opportunity to reunite with his wife and two children. he did explicitly tell me that he felt very, very hard it was almost a one-way street he has to walk to see his daughter, his son and his wife. he felt that he would have some insurance for the u.s. government for safety and freedom. >> you say some assurances. you don't chust trust the chinese government. anybody that has been involved in this kind of diplomacy before, doesn't trust the chinese government. do you think the ambassador should have said, stay and give us a few days to see if we can work on getting your wife in here as well or did the u.s. embassy handle this right?

>> i do think it was a mistake to just let him walk on may 2nd after six days. i do think the ambassador and u.s. negotiators should give him more days to think through and give him all the options. especially, why not invite his family members to the u.s. embassy. >> secretary clinton is there for another 48 hours or so. what should she do in your mind? >> she should go to the hospital and request a meeting with mr. chen around his wife and their children and to listen to them in an unthreatening environment and what do they really want to do and what to go? >> what if he says, i want to go and his wife is sitting right there. he doesn't have a chinese passport. what leverage does secretary clinton have? >> it demands a political

negotiation. even the chinese government did not characterize this chen guangcheng that he and his family members are criminals. they have no legal ramification around them. this he are free men. they are normal chinese citizens. they should be given chinese pass ports as a normal citizen applied to come to the u.s. for a visit. >> if the secretary of state leaves and chen stays behind, what do you think will be his situation? >> i am so concerned. i wish that would not happen. i think things could be worse now than in the past. >> we appreciate you coming in. we will stay on top of the story. >> thank you, john. >> thank you. early tomorrow morning, the government relees a critical report. the job situation last month. it will tell you about the economic climate. it will tell the president a lot about his re-election prospects.

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xwl. >> welcome back. alison kosik with the latest news. a crackdown on students appears to be the syrian government's latest move to crush dissent. this he arrested at least 200 during a rai l university. six students were killed. syrian troops fired into a

hospital where more than two dozen wounded students were being treated. political groups in egypt are calling for mass demonstrations to protest this week's pre-election violence. at least 11 demonstrators were killed yesterday when people protesting their favorite candidates disqualification were attacked. a sit-in is in its sixth day. egypt's presidential election is on the 23rd of this month. sl. >> congressional republicans are getting ready to go after attorney general eric holder over the fast and furious scandal that let mexican drug car tells get ahold of illegal weapons. darryl issa send out a contempt of congress resolution today. here is what he said last week on john king usa about his frustration with the attorney general. >> he is totally stone walled discovery of why congress was lied to on february 4th in a letter and in live testimony. he has made that off limits

finding out why we were lied to. ultimately, the american people were misled for more than ten months, told there was no gun walking. >> issa indicated the committee may vote on the measure in an upcoming session setting up a showdown in the upcoming administration. spirit air's carry-on bag fee is about to become the highest. november 6th, you will have to pay a whopping $100 for your carry-on suitcase to register at the gate. this he will allow passengers to carry on personal items like small purposes and briefcases for free that fit in the seat in front of you. >> $100? >> yes. that's if you forget to check it at the gate. >> $100. remember on snl, what do they do on that week? really? we need to get amy croler back

on that one. ahead, you might call this the financial storm. some folks at the federal agency including the weather service just got caught trying to spend your tax dollars on a imagine jigs. the mayor that tried and failed to get a temporary handgun ban when his city hosts the republican convention. [ male announcer ] this is lawn ranger -- eden prairie, minnesota. in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ helping you do what you do... even better. to get people to try on these new depend silhouette briefs,

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this half hour, you footed the bill for this crown that performed at a government convention. it almost happened again.

a different agency yanks' helped-wanted ad for a imagiima jigs. >> it is a good day for mitt romney. a formal rival joins his team. he is closing the gag in king swing states. why it is a wakeup call for team obama? tomorrow could prove a defining day in the presidential campaign. the unemployment situation jobs numbers will be released. if april was as rough a march, it will be a blow to the president's re-election campaign. the projection for tomorrow's report is about 160,000 new jobs in april. that's not enough to make any serious dent in the nation's unemployment crisis. cnn chief political analyst, gloria borger, is here to assess

the crucial politics at the economy. it is early some would say. pollsters will tell you the psychology of the economy is around the time of summer vacation, voters decide, good or bad. >> some republican pollsters are saying the next 30 days are going to be key to voters assessing who they are going to vote for for the presidency. if the economic numbers do not take a turn upward, people's optimism will continue to stay where it is, which is no the good for the president. most people believe we are not headed in tri direction. when you look at the polling, john and you say, who is better able to handle the economy in the future, the president and mitt romneybout as parody. that's not good. >> not good if you are the incumbent president. let's look at three key states, florida, ohio and pennsylvania. you see the unemployment rates there.

there is a mistake in that graphic. who is better to handle the economy? florida, 40, obama 49. >> florida and ohio, john, those are must-win states for mitt romney. if you look at those numbers, that's good news for mitt romney. those people want somebody who can handle the economy, because, of course, it is the top issue for everybody who is going to vote right now unless something happens in the foreign policy arena. >> do the people view the glass as half empty or half full and assess that the president is right when he said, i inherited ass. elections teach us, he is the president. people tend to hold him responsible whether or not he could blame the past. if you look at the total jobs

lo lost and gained, he would like to break even by november. if you get about 150 a month, he will get there. that's just barely. >> you can't win by saying, look, it would have been worse if we hadn't had the stimulus plan, et cetera, et cetera. wa both these candidates have to do is come out with a plan for the economy. we have seen from mitt romney, a 59-point plan. i would argue, he has to narrow that down a little bit and say, okay, if we are going to reform the tax code and reduce the deficit, this is how we are going to do it. he has enforced paul ryan's budget. even that is not specific when it comes to the tax side. president obama has got to do the same when it comes to cutting spending. of course, as you know, after this election, there is going to be a showdown on the question of the extension of the bush tax cuts for the wealthy. >> we will have a better sense this time tomorrow, sort of the numbers fueling that. >> it is psychology. >> it is psychology. >> gloria, thanks so much. >> florida's governor are fueding over gun control.

bob buckhorn wants to pan firearms from downtown tampa during this summer's republican national convention. the mayor wrote in the potentially contentious environment, a pfirearm increass the threat of imminent harm and injury to residents and visitors. governor scott promptly denied the request. mayor buckhorn is with us tonight. were you acting out of an abundance of caution or do you have warning about a problem on your hand? >> i think it was a combination of both. mayors tend to be practical. my job and responsibility is to make sure this is a safe environment for the visitors and conventi conventioneers and protesters. as evidenced by what we saw in cleveland a day ago where five occupiers were arrested about to blow up a bomb, there is a potential for violence to occur.

i don't think a firearm interjected into that volatile environment is necessary. i am a gun owner and a support ter of the second amendment, i also have a responsibility to make sure our police officers and law enforcement officials are safe. i don't think we need guns in that environment. >> you wrote, as governor, you have the duty to meet dangers presented by such events as the rnc. the governor wrote back, it is at just such time the constitutional right to self-defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach. is this done now? only the state has this power. have you lost, sir? the question now is, if you have lost this fight, what will you do if you are worried in terms of extra police? >> i assume you get extra help. >> the state ledges lagislature pretempted the local from doing anything about guns. the governor has sided with

those on the other side and i think made a decision that if he were mayor, i think he would perhaps reconsider. we will continue to train. we anticipated this decision would come from him given his store cal support of the gun issue and the florida legislature's support of the nra. so i'm going to try and do the best i can to make sure we think of every possibility and plan for every eventuality, that we train and prepare for the worst but hope for the best. >> so help me here. someone watching will say the democratic mayor picking a fight with the republican mayor. is that what it is? >> no, absolutely not. i am going to be best host that the republican national convention has ever had. this is an economic development opportunity for our city. i am excited they are here. we are working with them hand and glove. this is not about politics at all. this is about the practicality of interjecting weapons into a potentially volatile environment. i have to make things work and don't get to sit on some perch

and have some young lawyer draft a response. i have to protect those delegates, protect this nominee and those that choose to exercise their first amendments. it is to me a simple decision. this is a national, special security event. this is not a random football game. i think this warrants special attention. >> mayor buckhorn, appreciate your insights tonight. we will see you a little bit down the road. >> look forward to seeing you, john. >> looking forward to seeing it, john. your tax dollars offered up by a government agency for a imagine jigs. we are not talking about the government's services lavish convention. this is another government agency that just yanked its controversial ads. dana bash is here. hello. what is going on? >> reporter: of course, given the highly, highly publicized controversial things like a bike-building contest, a mind reader and a clown that the gsa

had in their las vegas convention, it is hard to believe another agency did it. you really have to see it to believe what the national oceanic and administration agency did. they put up a help wanted ad for a conference they are going to have in d.c. next month. it asks for presentations with magic tricks, puzzles, brain teasers, word games, humor and team-building exercises. the person they were looking to hire was asked to create a unique model of translating magic and principles of the psychology of magic tricks, techniques and so forth. it has been taken off the website but not before senator scott brown sent out a cut and paste and saying this was a complete waste of tax-pair dollars. >> he is campaigning for re-election. i am sure it helps him to screen about this. with he would think after the gsa that government agencies would be thinking twice or thrice about these things. we are waiting for what we would hope would be a lengthy response

by noaa that this got up on the website. they preferred this solicitation from the general counsel at noah and the operations management. we don't know how much this person was going to cost the taxpayer dollars. they do point out an underscore that no one at the end of the day was actually hired to come and be a imagine jigs at their conference. >> government resources were spent putting up the posting and all that. maybe it is admission that the magicians do the weather forecast. i'm not quite sure. dana, thanks so much. coming up, four months after dropping out off the race, congresswoman michele bachmann endorses her former rival, mitt romney. will her supporters follow her lead? i've discovered gold. [ female announcer ] new roc® retinol correxion max. the power of roc® retinol is intensified with a serum.

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it took a while but michele bachmann is now on team romney and enthusiastically so. >> mitt romney's future for america would be a legale zation of american energy, a legalization of millions of high-paying jobs. that's our future in america. that's something to get excited about. it is why we must elect mitt romney as the next president of the united states. tomorrow, governor romney meets with another van quished rival, rick santorum. he will be on board quickly. many others to the right of romney are on record suggesting the gop base can't trust him.

>> we are never going to get rid of it unless we have a president committed to getting rid of it. if you believe that states can have it and it is constitutional, you are not committed. if you have implemented this in your state, you are not committed. i am committed to repealing obamacare. >> governor romney raised $700 million in staxes and fees. i never voted to raise taxes. governor romney suggested raising taxes on the top 1%. i'm not going to adopt that rhetoric. i am going to represent 100% of mafrns wechlt are not raising taxes on anybody. >> here is tonight's truth. governor romney has consolidated the republican base more quickly than he could have hoped. it is a source of optimism for the republicans. three swing state polls. in pennsylvania, president obama holds a healthy overall lead. romney has 84% support among republicans, the president, 83%

in democrats. florida, a dead heat. romney, 87% of republicans, the president, 86% democrats. 89% of republicans in ohio, 84% of democrats for president obama. those numbers don't lie. they tell truths that suggest a very competitive election with both bases locked in. that's no surprise for a president that faced no primary challenge. it is a note worthy achievement for governor romney given the bruises for his chase. let's talk about this. >> jen, are you surprised that if you start looking at this data, there were a lot of questions, suspicions, mistrust of governor romney but the base seems to have said, he is our guy nd ahas numbers equal to the president. >> absolutely not. we always knew when there was a nominee the polls would be closer. we knew this was going to be a very close election. this is about ending three of a

nine-inning game. the president is going to be campaigning. he is going to start to draw the contrast which we have seen vmt biden do. he will be out there doing rallies and making the argument for why he is a better choice. we are at an early stage. we have a long way to go in this race. >> are you surprised given the campaign and the reputation from the last campaign that you flip-flop or can't trust him? is this a pro-romney con sol tati dags or anti-romney? >> i believe i have said the base was going to come behind romney or whoever the nominee was. the intensity is on the anti-obama side. what we didn't see was the folks that intensely support or disapprove of obama's behavior in office outnumber those who intensely approve. that's a problem because intensity drives turnout.

>> you still do hear, ryan, some criticism, some questions, largely from social, christian conservative organizations. how much is legitimate, we don't trust you and how much is that these organizations need to raise money and this is how they raise money? >> if you are on the far left or the far right, you have got to keep pressure on the center. that's your job in politics. i do think i totally agree with your opening here. those numbers are startling. given all of the talk we had in the primaries that he was going to have a base problem. there is some mismatch between those numbers, 80%, 90% support between republicans and the general enthusiasm of republican elites. some of the endorsements haven't matched the enthusiasm. republican el leets don't necessarily speak for the grassroots. he does not have a base problem. >> we learned that in 2010 with the rise of the tea party. the next litmus test if there is one for the right and governor

romney is going to be his vice presidential pick. he promised pro life or anti-abortion. michele bachmann, she would like to be considered. i think probably not. the government of virginia, we had him introduce governor romney. is this an audition? >> we have a difference in vision. the vision of mitt romney versus the record of barack obama, which is a record of broken promises and not doing what he promised 3 1/2 years ago. >> i promise you, parts of it had a little bit more energy. when you look at this, governor romney has gone around the country with several prospects. how important is comfort level as opposed to resume when it comes to picking? >> i think he has got to go with somebody from an important swing state and i think -- >> virginia is pretty important. >> i also think. >> ohio is important. >> he probably has to go with a governor rather than a senator. at this point, the senate is really up in the air. if you poll someone like rob

portman, a great guy and well qualified. if you pull him out, that puts that senate seat in play. there is a pretty big bar to clear. >> vice presidential chess. >> there you go. that's what we are all doing. >> at least they didn't have to worry about that with joe biden. i got a little bit nervous for a while. who would you pick? >> look, history has shown that the vice president and nominee on either side doesn't swing the ticket. so, you know, he has a huge energy and enthusiasm gap, which ryan touched on. he has a huge problem there. who can energize and excite not just base but people that are going to follow him? who is his base? that's a question we don't know the answer to yet. maybe somebody a little more exciting than governor mcdonald who we saw today. >> i don't think his best buddy matters. kennedy and johnson hated each other. >> that worked out all right. >> that worked out okay. >> i don't think biden and

president obama had a particularly warm, cozy relationship. one of biden's people have talked about their whole theory of going in was, we don't have to be best buddies with obama, we just want the responsibility and the power along with the job. >> stand by. we will be back in just a about situation in china. we actually spoke directly today to a few chinese citizens who sought refuge at the u.s. embassy to tell their stories about what the repercussions would be. it's pretty amazing what we found out. we also found out exactly what goes on at the u.s. embassy in beijing, how it's designed and exactly where cheng could have spent him time when he was there. plus we'll talk to the man in washington who got that urgent call today in congress from the chinese dissident so we have all that coming up top of the hour. and you're talking about politics there, john?

i've got mr. 999. >> i haven't heard from herman cain in a while. ask him if he should be on the ticket. erin, we'll see you in a few minutes. john edwards' mistress gushed about her affair with the candidate, telling a campaign worker they were very much in love. here's one way to court the youth vote. governor chris christie is signing a student's tardy slip. i went to a small high school. the teacher that comes to mind for me is my high school math teacher, dr. gilmore. i mean he could teach. he was there for us, even if we needed him in college. cod call him, you had his phone number. he was just focused on making sure we were gonna be successful.

he would never give up on any of us.

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let's continue our conversation now.

big unemployment report comes out tomorrow. anticipating it, governor romney out on the campaign trail in virginia saying he would have a very different approach from the president. >> there's a pretty dramatic difference between how we'd lead this country. this president says he wants to lead it forward. if the last three and a half years are his definition of forward, i'd hate to see what backward looks like. >> an attempt at humor from governor romney there. how important is this jobs report tomorrow? you had a very tepid, anemic report in march that had people starting to think, whoa, have we stalled, has the economy flat lined. both economically and politically, how important is it? >> i think every jobs report between now and november will have a political impact, but i think the most important thing is whether people believe the economy is getting better. remember, the jobs numbers we're seeing now are not reflecting the people who have stopped even trying to look for work, so there's about six million of them. you throw them into the current unemployment rate and it pops up to 11%. the bottom line is we've lost a

million private sector jobs on his watch and he promised to cut the deficit in half and he added a trillion. >> if the economy starts to stall and anemic job reports continue, it hurts him, doesn't it? >> i think it's not just about the unemployment rate, it's about many things, what your vision is for moving the country forward. what you're going to do to help middle class families. that's what the president is going to be talking about. this is a choice between what he's offering and fighting for and mitt romney's platform is basically returning to the policies that led to the crisis to begin with. that's the contrast he'll be drawing out there on the campaign trail. >> can romney just hope for bad numbers or does he have to do more proactively? >> he has to put outa pause sieve agenda as well, he can't just tear obama down. any good slogan is not just a positive message about your guy but a contrast saying something negative with the opponen change you can believe in back in 2008 was to point out you can't believe hillary clinton,

it had a negative side. the forward suggests us romney will take us back to the bush era. >> a comparison just to dissect what's happened to the american people from an economic standpoint, we've reached a new normal that is a lower standard of livin thanwe've had in this country in a long time. i think the ospresident obama, who's been charge, to explain why he's worth anothe four years. >> i'm sure he'll talk about e created since he came into office. >> you have to do net jobs. >> thanks for coming in. alison kosik has the latest news you need to know. today the jury at the trial of former senator and presidential candidate john edwards heard more about his affair with campaign worker rielle hunter. a former aide recounted how hunter knocked on his door one day in 2007 and told him she was in love with edwards. he testified that later edwards told him hunter was crazy and denied there was an affair. the nfl is facing a new lawsuit from more than 100 ex-players who say the league hid the dangers of concussions

from them. jamel anderson, chris doleman, o.j. santiago and others added their name to the list of over 1500 players who say they were deceived about the risks that they were taking. the nfl has said over and over that player safety is a priority and that the claims have no merit. are you looking to build your own boat for summer cruising? maybe you'll be interested in this scrap metal from the sea shadow, a radar-evading sea ship built during the cold war. the navy is auctioning its parts with its top bid at about $140,000. they spent five years trying and failing to find a museum that wanted the entire warship. you've got until friday to get your bid in. are you bummed you didn't get invited to the royal wedding last year? now you have a chance to own a piece of the day, a slice of the cake from the wedding of prince william and kate middleton. it goes on the auction block today. the auctioneer tells cnn it's expected to sell for anywhere between $1300 and $1600.

you have three weeks to put in your bid. what would you do with it, john? would you freeze it, eat it, put it on your coffee table? >> i'd rather have the cold warship. >> i'll with you. it will turn to mold. >> i don't know what i'd do with that either. okay, stay tight. let's move on. tonight's moment you most likely missed starts with a very important school yard code most of us remember. if you're going to be late for class, you'd better have a good excuse. one 6th grader nailed it. he gets a slip from governor chris christie after asking a question about bullies at a town hall. >> i kind of need a note for school. >> you need a note for school? >> peter, it just says please excuse peter from school today. he was with me. all right? >> something tells me he's going to frame that and may not necessarily turn it into the teacher. what do you think?