may have been substantial because it isn't just the all you can eat fish fry has him hooked. >> they do have the best pizza in town. >> but the restaurant isn't taking the bait. he's been banned. i suppose between the unpaid tab and calling the police and the picketing, unlike bill at the all you can eat fish fry, they've had enough. that's what we call the scales of justice on the ridiculist. thanks for watching. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next. the truth about mitt romney's work at bain capital. does it add up? answers. and a midflight scare. u.s. fighter jets scrambled. a flight diverted en route from paris to charlotte. and could george zimmerman walk free? one expert says so, says there's no case. tonight he's "outfront" to make that case.

good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, is mitt romney richard gere? with all this talk about bain capital, i had a flash back to "pretty woman," when he takes julia roberts to din we are the ceo of a company he's planning to buy out. >> if you were to get control, and i don't think you will, but if you did, what do you plan to do with the company? >> break it up and sell off the pieces. >> i'm sure you'll understand i'm not thrilled at the idea of your turning 40 years of my work into your garage sale. >> at the price i'm paying for this stock, mr. morris, you are going to be a very rich man. >> i'm rich enough. i just want to have my shipyard. >> julia roberts then says slippery little suckers. all right. the image is the one president obama though is hoping sticks about mitt romney.

here are clips from two ads supporting the president running right now. >> having a good paying job that you can support and raise a family on is hugely important. >> that stopped with the sale of the plant to bain capital. >> i thought that i was going to retire from there. i had about 2 1/2 years to go. i was suddenly 60 years old. i had no health care. >> those stories are wrenching, and they call into question mitt romney's claim that he created 100,000 jobs. >> in the business i had we invested in over 100 different businesses and net-net taking out the ones where we lost jobs and those that we added, those businesses have now added over 100,000 jobs. i have a record of learning how to create jobs. >> is the number real? okay. when pressed on whether that 100,000 job number included the number of jobs lost during his

tenure, now, he said net-net, okay, but here is how he responded. >> it includes the net of both. i'm a good enough numbers guy to make sure i got both sides of that. >> okay. but bain's own numbers don't actually seem to support it. we got the numbers from bain, and they say that mitt romney created a net, i actually did the math here, 120,336 jobs at 24 companies. now, bain actually lays out every company and every number. they pull it from press reports. you have to give them credit, 40 jobs here, 294 jobs, very specific. the problem is that bain invested, as mitt romney said, in 100 companies while romney was the boss, and we don't know what happened at the other 76. so i went somewhere else. we looked at studies of private equity firms' impact on jobs. there have been several. evaluating 3,200 buyouts found companies bout out lose about 1% of their workforce. that seems to support the more positive view of private equity which is that firms like bain take over weak or faltering companies where everyone might

lose their jobs, build a stronger company where the remaining jobs are more stable. maybe that's what cory booker, the unfairly maligned mayor of newark, was saying when he appeared on "meet the press" sunday. >> i have to just say from a very personal level, i'm not about to sit here and indict private equity. to me we're getting to a ridiculous point in america. >> personal. maybe because booker was referring to newark-based thibault. it's america's oldest continually operating wallpaper company. private equity firm riverside bought it in 2006 which the ceo, bob sr. said saved the company from liquidation and he says created jobs. that's the image mitt romney wants voters to have. romney wants voters to see him as this richard gere, the one who builds companies. thanks to julia roberts' influence. >> mr. lewis and i are going to build ships together, great big ships. >> so which is the truth? ed conner is former manager director of bain capital and author of "unintended

consequences" and john avlon joins me as well. thanks to both of you. i really love the richard gere thing. got to get "pretty women" references in. >> always a win. >> ed, let me start with you. you spent a long time at bain. you are an unapologetic defender of free market capitalism. obviously your book takes aim at that, but can you just answer the fundamental question here. mitt romney is trying to say he created jobs, but let's be clear here, his number one goal had nothing to do with creating jobs, right? >> i think that's a cartoonish portrayal of business. people want to forget. people want to pretend the only thing business is doing is working for investors but what's left out of that, the half truth is businesses are working for customers. customers decide what businesses are going to be successful, whether businesses grow or don't grow. in the end if you satisfy the customer, you will end up satisfying the investor. but you can't jump straight to the investor without first working for the customer. >> okay. all of that is true, but still the way you do that is try to come up with something people want.

that's your goal. >> absolutely. >> as a private equity investor your goal is to do that and make money doing that. >> sure. jobs theoretically flow out of that but it's not definitional and it's not part of the evaluation process. >> i think they flow out of the success of that, let's put it that way. >> so overall though, 1% less -- the study we looked at which is not the only one out there, but shows they do net net slightly fewer jobs. >> if you look at the big picture, don't forget in the 1800s the luddites were breaking down the machines because they thought productivity was going to slow down employment. productivity gains have increased employment. if you compare the united states to europe and japan, we have added 40 million employees on a base of 100 million employees in the 1980s. europe and japan grew combined 20%, half the rate of the u.s. why is that? u.s. productivity has been higher and our employment growth has been faster.

we put 20 million immigrants, the families, we gave them homes, gave their families jobs. we educated their children -- >> you're saying that's because we allow people to fire people, turnover quickly. it's free market capitalism -- >> it's because we make businesses stronger and can grow them faster. none of us investors are being successful if we don't make the businesses that we invest in successful. >> john avlon, the problem in all of this for mitt romney is, and it seems to me why aren't they coming out with thibault. why did i find it? i can see why corey booker who is an ardent democrat and believed in president obama also has positive things to say about private equity. the two things are not mutually exclusive, right? >> they're not at all. especially if you're trying to turn around a city or state and you need investors in companies that are in danger of going bankrupt, especially if they have been struggling in your city for a long time. the point of this line of argument, the president is drawing a clear line in the sand saying this is what the election is going to be about. it isn't simply about trashing private equity, it's about appealing to middle class voters who have been feeling squeezed

for decades. squeezed by big government and they see high finance coming in and possibly precipitating a massive economic downturn. and being the first one to come out of it smelling like a rose. they're frustrated and squeezed. it's about whether or not mitt romney as a former head of bain capital can connect with those folks who have been struggling since way before this recession began. >> whether he can become that second richard gere. >> they want to make it an argument about employers versus employees. employees versus employers. and they think that's a winning strategy, but the truth is these commercials vilify all of business because there's not really a difference between what private equity is doing and what business is doing generally. they have to deliver more and more value to customers and they do have to do it at lower and lower costs and they have to do it more successfully than competitors. are there tough decisions that have to be made along the way? there are tough decisions that have to be made. >> but, look, when mitt romney says he's not running on his record as governor of massachusetts, he's running on his record at bain. therefore, the obama campaign accepting that term of the debate and saying let's take a

closer look. saying that criticizing specific situations it's tantamount to a general attack on free markets doesn't hold up. it just doesn't hold up because all free market -- free enterprise doesn't amount to private equity they're different sides of the equation. there's manufacturing, there's the fact that when private equity comes in, they try to take care of debt and take care of efficiencies. in the short run it may cost a few jobs. >> if you step back and look at the big picture, bain invested in 350 companies. a small minority of those companies were unsuccessful. the rest of them through two and a half times faster than the s&p 500. created close to $100 billion of increased revenues in the companies. so are they cherry picking off examples of difficult situations where we weren't successful? yeah, they're picking off examples where businesses aren't successful as if businesses could be successful without also having some failures along the way. it's a cartoonish portrayal of business. it's actually very anti-business. it goes way beyond lbos. i don't think they realize that. what they're doing right now is test marketing commercials for

later in the campaign season to see what's effective. >> it seems to me from a political point of view the romney campaign should fight back by finding other examples because it is on the table and he did make it to the center so he has to defend the record and make the case. >> that's right. the strongest argument he can make is, look, i'm a problem solver, i'm a turn around expert. i take companies and turn them into competitors again like i will for the american economy. that's the best argument he can make. >> are you going to vote for mitt romney? >> i think everybody knows i'm a major contributor to mitt so yes. absolutely. >> sometimes people make an argument but their heart is in a different place. thanks very much to both of you. appreciate it. ahead, new warning signs for president obama. we have a brand new poll. and then this, so you text a friend who's driving. your friend gets into an accident, and you could get sued. this could be a major turning point. there's a case going on right now. and a new and alarming warning about what could happen to the economy if the do-nothing congress continues to do nothing.

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our second story "outfront." two major polls showing a tight race for the white house. an abc/"washington post" poll

has the president up by one point outside the margin of error but the true story lies under the surface where we find warning signs for both candidates. oh we did find them, reihan salam is here and jamal simmons joins me from washington. i wanted to lay out for each of you, first, the warning signs for president obama. talk about those, and then we'll get to mitt. warning sign number one, 30% of people polled say they are not as well off as when the president took office. that is on par with bush 41 at 32%. the gender gap is narrowing. president obama is now up 7% among women compared to last month when he was up 19% and in 2008 he won them by 13%. and the third problem, it's a statistical tie on who handles the economy better. 46% obama, 47% romney. jamal, let me start there. considering mitt romney is trying to run as a business guy it would seem this is a good

thing for the president but you're not so sure? in terms of the economic one. >> i don't think so. i think the president has to be a little more ahead of mitt romney on this question. ultimately it's going to be an election on the economy and which one they trust most to handle the economy and all the issues they face, so that 46/47 number is a little troubling. the one piece of good news here is it's may and not october, and so he's got a lot of time to fix that and get that number up a little bit. >> reihan, i wanted to ask you about the gender gap narrowing. now, the president gave a commencement address at barnard, a women's college. he did the abc show "the view" with all women. he was sitting sandwiched between the lovely ladies. his proxies including nancy pelosi have been talking for months about a republican war on women. if all of that was working, you would think this gap would be getting wider, not narrower. >> i think that's absolutely right, and i also think republicans just have a structural advantage among men that democrats have to overcome by having a fairly wide gender gap with women and that's just not happening now so that really

is a concern. another concern in that "washington post"/abc poll is that that poll sampled democrats way more heavily than republicans in a way that might not pan out come election day and let's not forget, it's a poll of registered voters rather than likely voters. republicans tend to be older, more reliable voters when crunch time comes. that's another thing that might be a liability. some of those older married women, might wind out turning up for mitt romney where as younger single women if they're disappointed by the economy, they might not turn out. >> reihan -- >> go ahead, jamal. >> i think reihan is right, that he has to be a little nervous about how the poll is conducted. but also remember it's not just younger single women. it's also older divorced women who are part of that democratic coalition. >> let me get to the warning signs for mitt romney. number one, among people who say the economy is not so good, they vote for president obama 58% over romney 36%.

obviously not a good thing for mitt romney. enthusiasm gap, a quarter of romney voters are not enthusiastic. only 9% of obama voters say the same thing. and when asked the question, who better understands economic problems people are having? 48% to the president, 40% to mitt romney. reihan, enthusiasm gap, this is obviously hugely significant for mitt romney. a quarter of the people who say they'll vote for him aren't enthusiastic. they might not even turn out. >> absolutely. i think that's a huge issue. i would actually throw out that the number about who understands your economic problems is a really, really big one. mccain got blown away on that number in 2008. if you don't believe a candidate understands where you're coming from economically, you're not going to support that candidate. >> jamal, there's some good news in the economy here though for president obama. >> absolutely. and i think reihan is right about that number. this goes back to that issue of trust. ultimately, the president has been to be able to convince people, mitt romney may have done some things

on business but can you count on him to understand who you are and where you are and what you need? if he can get people to buy that he's the one to trust, they will be okay. >> thanks to both of you. "outfront" next, texting a friend who is driving to meet you. well, you could get sued. and an american bound flight diverted. fighter jets scrambled for a u.s. airways plane. a passenger comes "outfront" ahead. pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you! [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? dude you don't understand, this is my dad's car.

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our third story "outfront," the texting while driving case that could be a game-changer for the whole country. a new jersey judge is expected to decide this week whether a woman who sent text messages to her boyfriend who she knew was driving at the time can be sued for contributing to the crash while he texted her back. the two motorcyclists that he hit in that crash each lost a leg. now, texting while driving is illegal in 34 states, including new jersey. and people who text while driving are 23 times more likely

to be involved in a crash according to a virginia tech study. deborah feyerick spoke to the victims of the crash and she's "outfront" with the story. >> reporter: the accident happened in new jersey along this winding country road. motorcycle buffs david and linda kubert were out for a sunday drive. >> went around a curve, and i saw a pickup truck coming right for us with -- i saw the young man with his elbows steering, his head down, and he was texting. next thing i know, he hit us. >> reporter: both david and his wife lost a leg in the head-on collision. cell phone records show the driver, 19-year-old kyle best, was texting a girlfriend shannon, virtually at the moment of impact. in a potentially precedent-setting case, the kuberts are suing them both saying the girl knew her friend was likely driving home since they texted each other almost every day. >> if shannon knew that kyle

best was leaving work, and i believe she did, and she was texting him, then i believe she's just as responsible. >> reporter: although not physically in the car, the kuberts' lawyer say her texting put her in the car electronically. saying she helped trigger the disastrous crash. >> it is as if you are putting your hands over the eyes of the driver, preventing that driver from seeing ahead of him. >> reporter: kyle best pleaded guilty to careless driving, failure to stay in the lane, and improper use of a cell phone. the couple is suing for an unspecified amount in damages. during a deposition, she testified in her words she may have known her friend was driving but her lawyer argues the suit should be dismissed because quote, a message sender has no way to control when, where or how a message receivers acts after the message is transmitted. david lost not only his leg but his job and insurance after the crash.

>> it could have been prevented. it was not an accident. >> reporter: a judge is set to rule friday on whether they can move forward and sue both texters. >> deb is with me here now. this is an incredible story. what is the reason they decided to do this, to go ahead and sue both the man who was driving and the woman texting him? >> in part it is an issue of money, unspecified damages. the bigger issue is they say the woman who texted knew that the guy was in the car, and by doing so she willingly was a participant to the distraction. i think it's really to send a message to teens and to people texting out there that if you know you are sending a text to somebody who is driving, there are consequences, and that is fundamentally what is the heart of their message. >> our paul callahan was saying this is something that there could be a precedent for this sort of thing in terms of if you sell alcohol to a minor and they then drive and someone is hurt or killed, you can be sued as the person who sold the alcohol or a parent who a party is in

your home you can be sued for the damage your kids do. so there's precedent. >> think about how many accidents there are every year because people are texting. if you're going to send one, you will maybe think twice. that's part of the psychology behind this as well. >> i think people who text while driving should go to jail, ten years minimum and i'm only partially kidding. that would stop it. still "outfront," the do-nothing congress a frightening warning about what could happen to the u.s. economy if congress files to act. and george zimmerman, will he even go to trial for the killing of trayvon martin? one expert says zimmerman won't go to trial, will go completely free. he's outfront coming up. and then... [ click ] it just clicked. get it? it clicked... like the thing...click...

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all right. welcome back to the second half of "outfront." we start the second half of our show with stories we care about where we focus on our own reporting from the front lines. the head of the iaea says he's reached a tentative agreement with iranian leaders to give access to sites where there

could be nuclear testing. they didn't say specifically that that meant where we have been reporting extensively on, but if it does that would be a break through. iranian state media reports scientists have inserted a nuclear fuel rod into a reactor. we also have new satellite pictures from north korea's nuclear test site. i'll show them to you. according to defense publication ihs james, the activity is a sign that the country is preparing for a test. the images from april show mining equipment removing earth and debris from a tunnel. more recent pictures, this one shows new road networks. yesterday glynn davies told reporters it would be a serious miscalculation if north korea works to engage in a nuclear test. of course, the u.s. has not said what any reciprocation might be. jpmorgan's $3 billion trading loss front and center in washington.

there was a senate banking committee meeting. mary schapiro appeared and commodities futures trading commission chairman gary gensler. you saw him right there. both told the panel they're investigating the loss. also on capitol hill, three senators announce their plan to introduce legislation that would remove bankers from fed boards. of course, that came up in this whole situation because jamie dimon is on the new york federal reserve board of directors. the senators say it poses a conflict of interests. sales of existing homes rose in april. 3% to 4% higher. the median home price, $177,400. that's up 10% from a year ago. so where are they going up the fastest? according to data compiled for cnn, here is where you should be looking. they're all in the western part of the country. madera, california, number one. oregon has three cities in the top five.

these are some of the play -- places that were hit the hardest. it has been 292 days since we lost our credit rating. we ask every night what are we doing to get it back? i'll tell you this, if housing gets better, that will do it. it's the single biggest reason this country fell into what could have been a great depression. if housing prices go up, it will mean a miracle. which brings us to our fourth story "outfront." members of congress, consider yourselves warned again. the congressional budget office announcing about an hour ago that unless you take action to prevent the bush tax cuts from expiring at the end of the year, we'll likely be in a recession early next year. now, the end of the year is also when automatic spending cuts start to take effect. that's the whole super committee super fail that we're a little obsessed with. beginning of the year $109 billion of those will hit. in other words, the fiscal cliff that we americans are rushing towards. we've been passionately warning about it for ages, so have many economists. so a washington heed the warning now that the cbo has finally stated the obvious? well, in typical washington

fashion, senate majority leader harry reid responded to it immediately saying we could avoid the so-called fiscal cliff tomorrow if republicans would agree to extend the middle class tax cuts. okay. what we need from our leaders is leadership. that statement tells me we're going to be seeing more gridlock ahead. doug holtz-eakin, robert reich, former labor secretary for bill clinton and author of the new e-book "beyond outrage." that's how i feel when we start talking about congress and how it deals with some of our problems these days. okay. so is congress finally going to wake up because of this, bob? we have been saying this for months. everybody has been saying it for months, years. is this going to do it for congress? >> hi, erin. officially, i don't think there's going to be any wake-up. i think one has to be beyond optimistic to think in an election year congress is going to actually compromise on anything. now, the hope is that with this warning shot by the cbo, at least behind the scenes staffers

and maybe some moderate republicans to the extent there are any left and maybe some moderate democrats will get together and begin planning some way of avoiding this fiscal cliff. >> doug, do you think this will be a wake-up call? because i see that statement from harry reid and want to throw my hands up in the air. obviously, he wants to get rid of the tax cuts for middle class americans and raise them for everybody else. that's his point of view, but it would seem when the cbo comes out with something like this, the first thing that you want out of your leader isn't just to go out with the line in the sand that you've drawn that hasn't worked so far. >> it is disappointing. i think there are really three things to take away from this. first, it's a very big deal. i cannot remember the last time the congressional budget office predicted a recession. for them to do so is really quite an extraordinary moment. the second thing is that they said two things. they said it would be a good idea to avoid the fiscal cliff and a recession but they also said it would be good to avoid the cliff and take care of our long-term debt problems. that leaves us with number three

which is the state of play and the house has, in fact, passed legislation to substitute the sequester and they will pass an extension of the bush tax cuts and they've passed a budget which takes care of the debt, but on the democratic side in the senate, there's zip, zero, nada, and so far the president has been silent as well. from where i sit, we really need presidential leadership on this, and the truth is all hands may get forced because if investors start looking and seeing their tax rates go from 15% to 44% on dividends, they're not going to wait for january to declare a problem. we're going to start to see it in the economy quickly, and that's bad for all incumbents, house, senate, and presidents. >> bob reich, i was talking to john boehner last week and he said to me -- he had come out with sort of a similar thing to harry reid but it was on the debt ceiling. i'm not going to raise it if you don't give me a cut for every dollar i raise it, the republican line in the sand that they draw, but he was right when he said one thing, which is i don't see why we should wait until the election. and he got me thinking about

something because you're going to have november is the election an then this all happens by the end of december and all of a sudden we're going to get a grand bargain that solves the sequester and medicare and the debt ceiling. >> no. >> yeah. >> it's a lame duck congress after the election, and lame duck congresses are not known historically to do very magnificent things. it's pretty clear john boehner and harry reid are drawing lines in the sand mainly for bargaining advantage. the hope is that with regard to taxes and letting the bush tax cuts maybe go on a little bit longer, particularly for the middle class and that's what the president has wanted and he's stated very specifically, but also avoiding that sequestration, avoiding the major cuts that even the congressional budget office says are very dangerous when the economy is still in the gravitational pull of the great recession. in order to do that, we've got to make sure that at least some people in congress, some members of congress and their staff, are working behind the scenes so that after election day there can be a bipartisan proposal.

i know it seems very unlikely, but otherwise we're going to be in a recession. >> erin, i just want to point out we may not until after the election. for the sequestration agencies are going to start right now to put aside funds so they can meet those cuts and the economy is going to start to suffer from the prospect of those tax increases. so it would be wise, as the speaker said, to move in advance of the election if only to cement in place for a short time current policy so that the victors could sort out how they want to lead the nation afterwards. >> thanks very much to both of you. we're cheering for people like tom coburn, mark warner, those are the guys right now working across the aisle to get something done, reasonable people, and we hope that they succeed. there was a scare over the atlantic today. a woman claiming she had a device surgically implanted inside her forced a u.s. bound flight, a u.s. airways flight to make an emergency landing. flight 787 was headed from paris

to charlotte this morning. it didn't get there. it diverted to bangor, maine. federal law enforcement officials say a woman on board gave the flight crew a note claiming she had a device implanted inside her. fighter jets were scrambled. escorted to the delight in maine. doctors were on board that flight. they examined the woman. she's from cameroon. they were able to determine she did not have a bomb because she didn't seem to have any scars. if it were implanted they would have seen that. she is being held by federal authorities tonight and they don't believe at this time it's terror related. passengers were loaded onto another flight, just got into charlotte a little bit ago, but "outfront" tonight one of those passengers andrew kobayashi. thanks very much for taking the time to be with us. tell me what happened and what you saw? how did this go down? >> well, initially they made a call to see if there was a doctor on the plane. i was asleep at that time, but shortly -- i mean i want to say maybe five or six hours into the

flight they made an announcement that there were unprecedented head winds and they would have to make an unscheduled fuel stop in -- they didn't say where, just an undisclosed place and that they would be landing shortly. and within ten minutes of the announcement they had landed and as soon as we landed customs and border patrol came on board an handcuffed a woman and led her off the back of the plane. >> wow. it's interesting from what you said, just a couple things as someone who flies. they didn't tell you what it was. you didn't know it was a security incident. that sounds like a really quick landing. usually the whole process -- was it that you noticed that, a sharp descent? ten minutes is fast. >> yeah. it was a little strange. nobody either the crew or any of the passengers seemed to be kind of unduly worried about it. i think everybody was like, oh,

this is a strange thing, my girlfriend turned to me and said should we be worried they didn't put enough fuel in the plane? but nobody seemed too concerned about it outside of it being just kind of minimally a strange thing to have happen. >> when the woman was escorted off, did you -- i'm not sure how close were you sitting and were you able to -- did you observe her at all during the flight? notice anything about her? how was she acting? >> she was probably about six rows behind me. i noticed -- i had gone to the restroom earlier in the flight and i noticed that she had been sitting alone in the back of the plane and seemed kind of sweaty and nervous, seemed on edge, but no more so than somebody who is nervous about flying. i saw her -- when they led her off the plane, i saw her, she seemed to be a woman in her mid-20s, mid-30s. there wasn't any sort of scuffle when they led her off the plane or anything. it was all done very quickly and very quietly.

>> interesting, she was young. andrew, thank you very much. what an experience. thanks for taking the time to share it with us. we'll keep following that. find out what really happened on that plane today. still "outfront," one criminal expert says george zimmerman will not even go to trial. and meet the congressional candidate who believes posing topless will win the election. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪ ...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline, with no blackout dates. in here, great food demands a great presentation. so at&t showed corporate caterers how to better collaborate by using a mobile solution, in a whole new way. using real-time photo sharing abilities,

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and now to tonight's "outer circle" where we reach out to our sources around the world. we begin in egypt where people go to the polls tomorrow to vote for president. it's the first democratic presidential election in history there. voting will last two days with a runoff in mid-june if no candidate gets more than 50%. ben wedeman is in cairo, and i asked him what voters have been telling him have been driving them right now. >> reporter: the polls have been all over the place. let's keep in mind that this is the first time in egypt's more than 5,000-year history that egyptians have had the opportunity to choose their head of state, so let's keep those polls aside. what are people worried about? the economy, stability, security, all of which have taken a hit since the revolution almost a year and a half ago. but this election is critical. many egyptians feel the country

will decide whether it should go to a new islamic order or stay closer to the status quo and bring life a bit back to normal. erin? >> all right, thanks to ben. now to mexico where natalia juarez, a congressional candidate, has breathed new life into her campaign with a revealing new strategy. juarez posed topless with six other party supporters for a campaign poster. she says it's a wake-up call to energize voters. rafael romo is covering the story, and i asked him whether the new campaign is playing well with voters. >> erin, we're still 40 days from the actual election. the 34-year-old philosophy professor has become the best-known candidate for congress in mexico. when juarez noticed her bid for congress was off to a slow start, she decided she would be more transparent with voters in a way they didn't expect. she has been targeted on social media. who needs brains when you have these one writes on twitter?

she dismisses those comments saying she's a radical candidate with radical ideas for a better mexico. she says this is nothing compared to the publicity she will unveil in the next weeks. and now the case against george zimmerman. is it in jeopardy? according to defense attorney david dow, he will never be convicted of murdering 17-year-old trayvon martin. zimmerman of course shot and killed the florida teen on february 26 in a gated community in sanford, florida. he said it was self-defense. he's charged with second-degree murder. after newly released evidence including photographs and au audiotapes, david dow says it is unlikely it will go to trial and he says if it dowill not go to

trial. david dow is here. i know you have looked through the evidence. we have about half of it now provided through the discovery. you say the charges against george zimmerman were brought because of public pressure. that's the only reason? you think that the evidence so far does not back up the charge? >> i think that the evidence could back up the charge. i just don't think there's any more evidence -- i don't think there was any more evidence in the middle of april than there was in the middle of march. in the middle of march prosecutors decided not to decide mr. zimmerman in the middle of april. they decide to go forward and charge mr. zimmerman. it was true they had more evidence but i don't think the evidence they gathered fundamentally changed the aspects of the case. so rather than they got more evidence, they needed to placate the public which was demanding some sort of evidence. i'm saying that the evidence that existed that supported the decision to indict him existed

in early march. >> right. well some people might say they completely messed up and thanks to public pressure they did the right thing, but you think the case won't go to trial. why is that? >> i wouldn't disagree with that, by the way, erin. i don't think it's a bad thing for prosecutors to pay attention to what the public thinks but i think it's unlikely that the case will ever go to trial. florida has a very expansive stand your ground law and the way that it works is that mr. zimmerman will appear in front of a judge and he will have to persuade the judge beyond -- by simply a preponderance of the evidence, which means that it's more likely than not that he was entitled to exercise self-defense under the florida statute. and if he can persuade the judge by that very low standard of proof that he was entitled to exercise self-defense under this statute, then the judge will dismiss the charges against him. now, the prosecutors will have an opportunity to appeal that

dismiss dismiss dismissal. but i believe it's likely that the judge will dismiss it. >> you say if it goes to trial, he'll be acquitted. what do you think of david's point of view that it won't be to trial? >> i have to disagree. i think the evidence is coming in in george zimmerman's favor, but i don't see a judge throwing the case out. the reason is because george zimmerman would have to testify at this hearing and assert his self-defense claim. we saw him testify for a little bit at trial when he was doing the public apology and he blew it. he ended up saying something that contradicted the 911 call. >> he thought it was someone to his own age. >> imagine an aggressive prosecutor saying did you really have to shoot a 17-year-old kid who was unarmed? i say he's going to fall apart at the immunity hearing and the jury is going to resolve this

some day. >> why are you so sure he will beacquitted? he had a gun, the other guy didn't. that seems to be the basic problems here. >> first of all, let me say that i think paul could be right. it's possible that zimmerman will just do a terrible job on behalf of himself at the stand your ground hearing. i think we just don't know how that will play out. i think if the case goes to the jury, the burden is on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed a crime. and i think that there are so many conflicting witness statements that it's unlikely that the state will be able to meet that burden. i think there's enough physical evidence including contemporaneous reports that suggest that mr. zimmerman was involved in an altercation that it will be difficult for a jury to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. >> special prosecutor angela corey hasn't commented on the

evidence. what could be the strategy of kind of the way it's dribbling out for lack of a better -- you say most of the evidence so far seems to be in george zimmerman's favor. are they saving the best for last? what's the deal? >> i think they are saving what they have. whatever they have that's strong to the end. that would be common strategy. the other thing with prosecutors there are rules of ethics that prevent prosecutors from aggressively commenting about a case while it's pending. they can be accused of unethical conduct, trying to influence the jury. you can't make the same accusations against defense lawyers. so her hands are tied compared to the defense attorneys. >> all right, paul and david, thank you very much. we know you feel strongly on the case. let us know on twitter what you think. next, facebook face plants. people are saying terrible things about facebook. but we like to go for the kwlun underdog, so we found a group who still thinks facebook is great. we showcase them and their song next. great shot.

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so it's been a tough few days for facebook. the sec said today it will examine issues surrounding facebook's ipo in an effort to insure confidence in public markets. the company's stock was priced at $38 a share.

it opened at $42. today it closed above $31. that is a pretty grim thing. the media has been quick to pile on, calling facebook a flop and face flop, all sorts of things. easy names to do. all is not lost because facebook still has a lot of fans. an international group from singapore, italy, australia, the uk, and right here at home the u.s. has taken to facebook to show their appreciation for facebook by holding up thank you signs and recording a music video appropriately entitled "thank you facebook." ♪ thank you thank you thank you thank you ♪ ♪ thank you thank you thank you thank you ♪ ♪ facebook is free and will always be ♪ ♪ connect with friends faster wherever they may be ♪ ♪ facebook for all the things you do ♪