former presidential candidate, john edwards. boil it all down, edwards won. prosecutors alleged he knowingly and willingly accepted $1 million from two wealthy donors to hide his mistress, rielle hunter. the jury deadlocked on the other five counts, including conspiracy, illegal con trib g contributions and making false statements. outside the courthouse, edwards, who had said virtually nothing except good morning during this trial spoke publicly. >> all i can say is thank goodness we live in the couldn't interest i that has the kind of system that we have. i think those jurors were exemplar for what jurors were supposed to do. they were very, very impressive. the second thing i want to say just a word about is responsibility. this is about me. i want to make sure that everyone hears from me and from

my voice that while i do not believe i did anything illegal or ever thought i was doing anything illegal, i did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. there is no one else responsible for my sins. none of the people who came to court and testified are responsible. nobody working for the government is responsible. i am responsible. if i want to find the person who should be held accountable for my sins, honestly, i don't have to go any further than the mirror. it is me. it is me and me alone. next thing i want to say a word about is the people that i love. it has been an incredible experience for me to watch my parents, my dad just turned 80. my mom, who is 78 tromp up here

in robbins, north carolina, every day to be with me and to support me. i love them so much. they did such a wonderful job raising me and my brother, blake and my sister, kathy, who i also love dearly. i also want to say a word about my own children. kate, who all of you have seen, has been here every single day. she has been here no matter what, no matter how awful and painful. a lot of the evidence was for her. evidence about her dad, evidence about her mom, who she loves so, so dearly. but she never once flinched. she said, dad, i love you. i will be there for you no matter what. i am so proud to have had her with me through all this

process. finally, emma, who turned 14 recently, emma claire and jack, who just turned 12, who i take care of every day. i have not been able to see them quite as much but i see them in the morning. i get their breakfast ready and get them off to school and then we get home at night and we all eat supper together. i love them both so dearly. they are such an important part of every day of my life. then, finally, my precious quinn, who i love more than any of you could ever imagine. and i am so close to and so, so grateful for, so grateful for quinn. i am grateful for all of my children, including my son, wade, who we lost years ago. this is the last thing i am going to say. i don't think god is true with me.

i really believe he thinks there is still some good things that i can do. whatever happens with this legal stuff going forward, what i am hopeful about is all those kids that i have seen in the poorest parts of this country and in some of the poorest places in the world that i can help them in whatever way i am still capable of helping them. i want to dedicate my life to being the best dad i can be and to help those kids who i think deserve help and who i hope i can help. thank you all very much. >> our senior correspondent, joe johns, has covered the trial in greensboro, north carolina. jeffrey toobin and sunny hostin, joe, i want to start with you. you are there throughout the trial. you also know edwards from his career in politics. he said little to anybody except spaul talk.

good morning. how are you during the trial. he decided not to testify. then, that very powerful and emotional statement there. take us to that moment. >> the first thing i thought of was, here is the statement he would have said to the jury had he testified but he would have been subject to cross-examination john, which would have been a huge problem for him. he might have not gotten this result in this trial, which was actually very good for him. you certainly saw there a measure of contrition that we haven't seen before, sort of embracing his daughter, quinn, the daughter he had with his mistress, rielle hunter, while his wife, elizabeth edwards, was dying of cancer. then, at the end, sort of footnoting the kind of twilight zone moment we have had here in greensboro. you almost sort of saw this pivot of john edwards very

quickly towards a measure of rehabilitation by talking about helping poor kids around the country and the world. this is sort of an echo from something he has been saying for a long time, one of the reasons perhaps he actually wanted to go ahead and fight this fight so that he could keep his law license, stay out of jail, because he said he wanted to start a poverty law practice. perhaps the beginning of john edwards' new life presuming the justice department doesn't decide to retry these five charges that he got a mistrial on. >> let's come to that question. i heard you earlier. very smart legal. this is why you went to law school. calling this a mess. it was a mess. it is also a very complicated case. there were questions about whether the justice department should have done this in the first place, should have tried to bring this to trial. do you see any possibility they would say, let's do it again? >> i think it is an extremely

remote possibility that this case will be retried. let's start with the fact that he has been acquitted of one count. double jeopardy clause, that's all she wrote on that case, on that count. there would be an argument that the government would be precluded from making some arguments that it made in the initial trial. plus, this case was tried at great length and expense where everyone who knows the federal sentencing guidelines knew that a minimal jail sentence would be the likely outcome. even if he was convicted on all counts. we kept repeating that he was eligible for 30 years. he would never have gotten 30 years. he might have gotten one year. he is certainly not going to get any time if it ends here an even in a retrial, he wouldn't have gotten it. the deterrent effect, which is something that is often talked about when the prosecution decides whether to bring back a case, how many cases are like

this? this case is so bizarre. the facts are so strange. it is unlikely to occur or deter other people from potentially violating the campaign laws in the way the judgment department alleged. i don't see any rational for going forward with this case. john edwards is humiliated, discredited, appropriately out of american politics. i don't see any reason why this case should go forward. i don't think the justice department should do it. >> sunny, in this case where the federal government losing a case, did they overtry or have too many charges or try too hard or make it more complicated than they needed to. is there a lesson to be learned on how the case was prosecuted? >> the lesson is, you just don't try these type of cases. this was an unprecedented use of campaign finance laws. it has never happened in terms

of the theory the government was using, the way they were trying to interpret the law and bring this case. i agree with jeff. i suspect we will not see john edwards facing any other trial on the five remaining counts. i suspect the government will not be bringing any cases like this. this is a case of anything that would have been a civil case. perhaps a case that the fec would have looked at but not a criminal case in federal criminal court in north carolina. many people are now, rightfully so asking why even bring the case. was this politically motivated? >> just one point. john edwards thanked a lot of people. one person he didn't thank was abbey lowell and his defense team who did a phenomenal job in not an easy case.

this he deserve a lot of credit. they won and the justice department lost. >> john and jeff and sunny, appreciate your insights. we are going to turn our attention to a feisty day in the 2012 case. both the romney and obama campaigns deciding to get into each other's face. we will hear from david axlerod. >> the guy ducking his record is governor romney. every time a local business opens its doors or creates another laptop bag or hires another employee, it's not just good for business, it's good for the entire community. at bank of america, we know the impact that local businesses have on communities. that's why we extended $6.4 billion in new credit to small businesses across the country last year. because the more we help them, the more we help make opportunity possible.

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transitions® lenses automatically filter just the right amount of light. so you see everything the way it's meant to be seen. experience life well lit, ask for transitions adaptive lenses. and then treats day after day... well, shoot, that's like checking on your burgers after they're burnt! [ male announcer ] treat your frequent heartburn by blocking the acid with prilosec otc. and don't get heartburn in the first place! [ male announcer ] one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. now to a day of crackling exchanges between the obama and romney campaign. a fight on the massachusetts state house, democrats led by top obama strategist, david axlerod. governor romney raised spending by 6.5%. his proposals were for 8%. this group of people reigned him in and exercised some responsibility. so you know we all know he

actually vetoed 800 bills along the way, almost all of them overridden. most of them for the benefit of republican primary voters in other states shall not for purposes of governor nance. he was a drive-by governor on his way for running for president of the united states. >> you might hear the heckling and booing. that was romney supporters who turned out to disrupt the event. david axlerod more than happy to engage them. >> it is great to be in massachusetts obama country. i get tweets in some of these folks, so i feel close to them. >> you can shout that down but it is hard to etch a sketch the truth away.

>> not to be undone. governor romney staged his own bit of political theater taking it to the bankrupt green energy company, solyndra. obama gave them more than half a million dollars in stimulus funds. they suggest the warnings were ignored because some company officials were big obama campaign donors. >> this building, this half a billion dollar taxpayer investment represents a serious conflict of interest on the par of the president and his team. it is also a symbol of how the president thinks about free enterprise. free enterprise to the president means taking money from the taxpayers and giving it freely to his friends. >> the presumptive gop nominee responded to the boston event attacking his record as governor. >> when i was governor of massachusetts, we took the unemployment rate from 5.6% to

4.7%. i think that's a pretty good number. my guess is the people of america would be very pleased if they could see a number like 4.7%. i would hope to be able to get there if i were president. >> our chief white house correspondent, jessica yellin is here and jim acosta is with us as well. jess, to you first, what was the overriding goal of going into governor romney's backyard? >> the obama team is trying to attack mitt romney's central case for the presidency, which is his claim that he is an expert at creating jobs. they keep pointing to the statistics that he was 47th in the nation at job creation and that its growth in moving the unemployment numbers down was more sluggish than the rest of the nation. even politifact agrees with that fact. now, they are saying he applied that lesson to his record as

governor and it showed he wasn't that great at creating jobs. that's their argument. they will go on to make a case that you will see in the olympics in a different way when he ran that. they are trying to make the case that just because he was so good at making money doesn't mean he is that great at making jobs. he will hit back on that. >> he did so today. let's get out to jim acosta. we knew the david axlerod event was coming. they told us about that yesterday. solyndra was kept a secret until the last minute. why? >> a little bit of cloak and dagger out here on the west coast a romney adviser got on the press bus. we had not been told where we were headed but that the romney adviser said, we are headed to solyndra. the reason we are engaging in secrecy is because we are concerned that president obama would try to block the romney campaign from having this event

out here thichlts a firm that received half billion dollars in stimulus money through loan guarantees. they were concerned that the obama campaign or president obama himself would try to block them from having this campaign event here. we asked mitt romney about that. he wouldn't go that that are. he would only say, people out there who don't want this story to get out. i have to tell you, a lot of us were already placing our bets, making some educated guesses and when we got here, there were some satellite trucks here, even ours. we did guess right. we were coming to solyndra. they could have taken us to alcatraz. >> how much is a reaction to them knowing the obama campaign is going piece by piece through the romney resume? how many of that is a reaction

saying, fine, you are going to go piece by piece through the presidency? >> that's what's happening right now. this is going back and forth. they were being very secretive about what happened today. take a look at the message discipline that the romney campaign had with this event. there were no protesters or off-script moments out here. contrast that with what happened in boston which was really sort of a circus for the obama campaign. not a clear victory from a publics relation standpoint. romney had a clean event here but there is the issue of timing. as mitt romney stepped off his press bus, all the news networks were switching over to the white house to cover the president with the portrait hanging that was going on with former george w. bush. not exactly a win/win for either side. >> a little advanced 101 failure. you say olympics. they are going to keep going with this. the country has some pretty big fundamental issues. both campaigns are going to play. >> the obama team's attack on

the romney record is to try to chip away at this argument that he is an expert at creating jobs because he was so successful in the private sector to something that jim said. i'm not sure how the president of the united states would stop any candidate from doing an event anywhere on its face. it is the united states of america. you can do a public event on a public street. i would explain that i have talked to a number of senior republican strategists and explained that the sol indra criticism of the president has been going on for a long time. it is really an attempt to discredit him on not just his ethical moral standing, that he is seen as this ethical president but also to go with this argument that he is not ready for the job. >> can't pick a winner. >> right. >> jessica, jim, this is going to go on 159 more ways. a lot more in your face. i suspect we will hear from david axlerod to his response to the romney's accusations of cronyism. why new york city officials

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welcome back. here is kate bolduan with the latest news you need to know now. >> you have been more busy than i have. >> you have been busy as well. let's get you caught up on all the other headlines. the u.s. court of appeals in boston declared a major part of the defensive marriage act unconstitutionaled to. the law, known as doma, defines

legal marriage as a union between one man and one woman. >> in the house today, they rejected a bill imposing criminal penalties for abortion based on the sex of a fetus. most republicans supported the bill calling it a matter of protecting the rights of the unborn. it did not get the two-thirds majority it needed under a hurry-up procedure republicans leaders used to bring the bill to the floor quickly. new york may be the city that never sleeps but new yorkers might no have sugary drinks to help them out and keep them awake for much longer. they are proposing to ban large size sodas and sugary beverageses. major bloomberg tweeted his support saying more than half of nyc adults, 58%, are overweight or obese. we are doing something about that. the big gulp is going to be a collector's item? man, what is the world coming to. >> it is a tough call.

childhood obesity and diabetes is a health crisis but then you ask, is this the government's job? >> fascinating debate but i love me a big gulp. >> you know, what i might say next will get me in trouble. so i will stop right there. kate, we will see you in a little bit. much more ahead on the john edwards trial. you will hear him after the jury gave his verdict. the obama campaign, senior strategist, david axlerod answers mitt romney's claim that he knows better than the president when it comes to creating jobs. >> he is misrepresenting himself when he calls himself a job creator. that is not what he was in his business or what he was as governor. a living breathing intelligence bringing people together to bring new ideas to life. look. it's so simple. [ male announcer ] in here, the right minds from inside and outside the company come together to work on an idea. adding to it from the road, improving it in the cloud

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the top strategist behind the obama campaign's in your face attack on romney's record as massachusetts governor. consider what could be next for john edwards after today's acquittal and mistrial. a sometimes tearful, sometimes funny and very memorable day as george and laura bush return to the white house. the obama campaign has a favorite political trivia question that al gore doesn't

appreciate. who was the last person elected president of the united states despite losing his home state? the answer in a moment. here is a hint. it wasn't al gore. he would have been president if he would have upon tennessee. team obama love the question. polls show president obama with a big lead over mitt romney in the republican's home state of massachusetts. the obama campaign heaped big attention on the base state not because it is worried about winning but because it wants to convince you not to believe what governor romney promises now. >> a look at mitt romney's record here in massachusetts and pull back the curtain. he is not what he seems. >> in leading that rally under the massachusetts state house steps, the raid on governor romney's territory was the president. senior adviser, david axlerod, who joins us from boston. >> my word, not yours. your criticism of governor romney's record. you are saying essentially he is a fraud. >> i'm saying he is misrepresenting himself when he calls himself a job creator. that is not what he was in his

business. that's certainly not what he was as governor. massachusetts had a laggered record when he was governor. he said i know how business works. i know how to create jobs. when he became governor, massachusetts plummeted to 47th in the nation in job creation. wages fell, rather than crew, even though the rest of the country wages were growing. much as with his business record, there are real issues about how he governed and the decisions that he made and whether it bears up his self-representation as an economic guru. >> his team would say that perhaps they were 47th out of 50 but they say and they say on this day that in his tenure as governor, more jobs were created in massachusetts and jobs have been lost during the obama presidency. they say, even as you say, it is a failure. it is better than your guy. >> let me say that 40 months

into the romney administration, they had created 4500 jobs in the state of pass mass. 40 months into our administration, there is more than 20,000 new jobs in the state of massachusetts. so if you compare our record to their record, apples to apples, 40 months in, we are doing a lot better than they did. >> governor romney would say he took office in tough times. that sounds familiar to what the president says. >> the thing about governor romney is that he is fond of having two sets of rules, whether it is in business where companies go bankrupt. he walks away with millions and the workers get caught holding the bag or on something like this. when we took office in the teeth of the greatest recession since the great depression 4 million jobs lost before we walked in the door. he finds that unpersuasive.

so it is a little hard to turn the tables and say in a much milder recession that he had such a tough time of it. the fact of the matter is, every state was living through the same recession. massachusetts underperformed. >> you called him a drive-by governor, saying he took the job essentially as a springboard to running for the president. didn't really care all that much about the people of massachusetts. forgive me. some people say that about senator obama. they say he came to washington and missed a lot of votes and was quickly running for president. if he was a drive-by governor, did you have a drive-by senator? >> i would only judge from the polls. the last poll i saw in massachusetts, mitt romney was behind in his home state by 25%. president obama is well ahead in illinois where he is held in highest steam for the service that he performed. nobody ever doubted his commitment to the state or to the middle class in the state or to building the kind of economy that would work for all people. that's not the impression people in this state had.

>> i'm calling this in your face day in presidential politics in the sense that you are leading a rally on the massachusetts state hou. governor romney is about to make an event appearance to solyndra. what would you say about that attack from the romney campaign? >> the president never bought a company, load it up with debt, bankrupt the company and walk away with millions of dollars while the creditors and the workers were left holding an empty bag. the president has never done that. >> governor romney would say the taxpayers are being left with the bag in the solyndra decision. >> the fact is we will have doubled the use of renewable energy in this country. there are jobs being created all over this countries a result of those investments. we have planted the seeds of a whole new industry that will allow us to compete with the chinese and india rather than

withdraw. the company is going to benefit from that record. the fact that governor romney is looking for a diversion to take attention away from his own private dealings. >> the answer to the critic that says you are trashing governor romney's record because you can't defend your own. >> look. we have got $25 million on the air in those battleground states right now with spots on our record that we are proud of and our vision about how you build an economy that works for the middle class. how you build an economy that is fair where everybody plays by the same rules an everybody that works hard had a chance to get ahead and we are talking about that all over the country. the guy who is ducking his record is governor romney. >> appreciate your time today, david axlerod. >> the answer to that question was, the answer to that he question was woodrow wilson in 1912. 100 yearsi ago, someone got elected without carrying their home state. >> a student of history, a

student of politics. i know you love your native chicago but enjoy what i leave is america's greatest city while you are there. >> i love broston. coming up, what mr. axlerod has to say about the president's path. jooishlgs [ creaking ] [ male announcer ] trophies and awards lift you up. but they can also hold you back. unless you ask, what's next? [ zapping ] [ clang ] this is the next level of performance. the next level of innovation.

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159 days out. yes, i'm still counting. more proof that the press election is a nail biter. iowa, dead heat. colorado, dead heat. nevada, yep. dead heat. those three are among the states here we call them toss-ups as we look at the electoral map. i say the president has 248 247 votes leaning. governor romney, 206, leaning or solid romney. those three states, iowa, colorado, nevada, toss-upstates right there. we have a very interesting map right now. trust me. a slight early edge. team obama grateful. >> they are called battleground states for a reason. they are battle grounds. they are evenly divided. they are going to be close throughout. i think there are many more of them that are open to us than him. as you say, we start with a bit of a head start. i like our math in terms of

getting to that 270. we are going to have to fight hard. >> the truth is the president does have an early an important advantage. more room for error on his path to 270 electoral votes. any historical model and the current economic climate tell you governor romney has a very, very good chance to be the next president of the united states. to get there, he and his team would benefit from remembering a little campaign 101. someone, for example, should have prevented this picture from happening on a day that donald was hyperventilation about the birther conspiracy and today's event at poster child solyndra was made for live cable coverage except the romney staff let it happen at the very moment george w. bush was returning for the white house for his official portrait unveiling. on the public schedule. little things, sure. in a very, very close estimate, never miss underestimate the impact of good or bad advanced work. for those of you who think i am

trying to pick on the romney campaign, this applies to team obama. back in may, 2010, many warning that solyndra was a disaster waiting to happen. the president still took this tour and still said this. >> the true engine of economic growth will always be companies like solyndra. >> little things sometimes matter. here to talk truth, republican consultant and cnn contributor maria cardona. what do we make of today at the end of today? governor romney goes to sol indra. let me start on the little thing thing. you have been? a lot of campaigns. whose job is it? they could have called their friend at fox and friends and said, what's on the president's schedule today and maybe timed their events so that that didn't

happen? no. pretty easy. >> it is you should. you always want to dot your ts and cross your is. >> that's what they did. >> the problem with something like that is you are trying to put something together that nobody knows about. you are going to go to solyndra and you do worry that you are going to have a bad event. you worry that somebody is going to find out about it. the president will send protesters like happened in massachusetts to axlerod. you worry that you are near san francisco and city government is going up and ask you for a permanent. there is a lot going on. it doesn't always work as efficiently as you like. >> i think they could have planned that a little tiny bit better. to same point, it is a bigger issue, a half million in taxpayer's money that went to solyndra. why didn't the political team listen to them? >> that's certainly something that will continue to be discussed. i would like to point to something that clearly the romney campaign is focusing on solyndra. >> this is the pivot. the romney campaign is focusing

on solyndra. guess what governor romney did when he was governor? he also, quote, unquote, picked winners and losers and gave two biotech companies almost $5 million in taxpayer funds and guess what they did several years later? they went bankrupt and laid off all those employees. if you are going to point something like that out, you are going to have to be open to hypocritical issues, because that's what he did as governor. >> is this almost the down side of having a race that is so fascinatingly close and it is, that they have to argue over what i'll call small ball. people that think solyndra is a waste of taxpayer money. it is not a lot of money. in governor romney's case, he did have some programs that went to companies. they went up and criticized the record. the country has some pretty fundamental problems, what do you do for job creation and tax reform and what about medicare and social security? we are playing down here small ball. >> that's what happens in this stage of the campaign when the candidates control everything.

they are not doing that many interviews but press events. december 31st, this year, we have this taxmageddon going. two visions of what the governor should look like after december 31st. the obama campaign wants to make sure at some point in this election if the american people decide they don't want to give obama four more years and they look to romney, that they say, you know what, no, he is not the guy. they want to disqualify him. >> one thing that struck me today is that politics 101, it is hard for me to criticize david axlerod. he ran a brilliant campaign last time and he has a great mustache, which is important. just as detroit roit as they we time, do you want to start your record on massachusetts when your company has an 8% unemployment rate, you want to attack the guy that has a 4.7%.

it is not the way you get going. their campaign looks forced. they always look like they are trying to put the square peg in the round hole. you are thinking this guy won't defend his own record and he is twisting the other guy's. >> that's where he is twisting the other guy's. they are absolutely embracing their record. they are doing several tracks. they are pointing out a lot of it, though. >> they talk about romney running away from massachusetts. i haven't seen an obama health care ad yet. >> it was front and center in that 17-minute documentary that first came out. >> that went to supporters. you can't say today it is not out there. >> it is the reverse of, have you stopped beating your wife question? they are not attacking mitt romney. he is not as successful as you think he is. how successful is he? >> he is embracing his record. >> erin brunette has been

waiting patiently. she is coming up at the top of the hour. you are there in the city. new york mayor, michael bloomberg, pushed for a healthier sit citi. when you go to the movies, do you get that big one with sugar? >> i'm sort of in a sense grateful for this. help me from myself in a sense,john. yeah, we are going to talk about this. a lot of people are saying, this is an assault on american freedom. it can't spread around the country. what if mayor bloomberg is a superman standing up to some of the most powerful and deep-pocketed companies in the country and i'm talking about big food. we have done the numbers, how much they spend on lobbying, and what returns they get. the cost of some of the ingredients in the food, in terms of the health care costs are in sane. maybe the major is a valiant hero standing up to the forces of corporate america. >> it is a fascinating debate. i am not sure if he is right.

i think it is a debate worth happening. we will see you in a few minutes. george and laura back at the white house to unveil new portraits and offer a little light-hearted advice. >> you will now be able to gauge this portrait and ask, what would george do? [ male announcer ] this is genco services --

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still no reaction this evening from federal prosecutors or their bosses at the u.s. justice department after today's mistrial in the john edwards' case. the north carolina jury acquitted the former presidential candidate on one count in the illegal campaign contribution. they deadlocked on the other five. the judge called a mistrial. here's part of what edwards had to say. >> while i do not believe i did anything illegal or ever thought i was doing anything illegal, i did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. and there is no one else responsible for my sins. none of the people who came to court and testified are responsible. nobody working for the government is responsible. i am responsible. and if i want to find the person who should be held accountable for my sins, honestly i don't have to go any further than the mirror.

it's me. it is me and me alone. >> we're back with ryan, alex and maria. ryan, what was striking in that statement was very personal, very poignant. i think he took responsibility and also said god is not done with me. what do we make of that? >> i feel like every once in a while we need someone like john edwards to just beat the what out of to make ourselves all feel better. so leaving, you know, his personal life aside and the sins that he's committed, to me the big takeaway of this trial is the relationship between donors and politicians. and we never know enough about these things when we're covering these guys. we didn't know about bunny mellon. we didn't know when you get into trouble, this is what you do as a politician, you go to your big donor. to me that's the big takeaway. there's got to be a way to fix that system and fix that relationship. >> god may not be through with him, but i think the american people are. despite his rant there, i mean he spent a great chunk of time

telling us what a great son he is, what a great father he is and how he's going to continue to serve mankind. one of the problems in washington is that americans rightly think there are a group of people here who are corrupted by it. with this great power it basically is fertilizer for their egos. and we've just seen it today. >> the wrath of god might not be done with him yet, but i just -- i want all of this to be over, not because i think that he has suffered enough, because what he's done clearly, obviously everybody thinks that it's just unshakeable what he has done, but his children. his family. every one of them. i think it was very poignant when he actually mentioned quinn and he got choked up, so i give him credit for that. but it needs to be done because of his family. his children have gone through this. as a mother, that is the part that i just cannot take anymore. >> well, maybe, and i assume they won't retry this case. maybe it's the beginning of the

rebuilding for the children and senator edwards can do what senator edwards does. kate bolduan is back with the latest news you need to know right now. >> today the syrian government cleared itself of all blame for last week's massacre of 108 people, including 49 children in the town of houla. a government-run investigation even called the victims martyrs and blamed the massacre on, quote unquote, armed terrorist groups. witnesses say government-organized gangs rounded up people and shot them at point-blank range. and back in the u.s., grim news about the economy. reports out today show hiring is weaker than expected with only 133,000 new private sector jobs in may. another report counts 62,000 layoffs in may, an eight-month high. also today the government lowered its estimate for how much the u.s. economy grew in the first quarter. 1.9% instead of what was expected to be 2.2%. and finally, the spacex dragon space capsule

successfully dove into the pacific ocean today, completing the first ever commercial flight to the international space station. the station's robotic armory leased the shuttle early this morning nine days after the historic mission began. with it, about 1300 pounds of trash, scientific research and experimental samples. pretty amazing that they pulled it off. >> i'm wondering in the history of all this, these capsules dropping, if there's ever been a poor guy in a fishing boat out there. >> i sure hope not. >> tonight's moment you missed happened this afternoon at the white house. if you didn't miss it, it's worth seeing again. the obamas hosted the bushes. both presidents and first ladies attended the unveiling of the portraits of george and laura bush. some of the one-liners, priceless. listen. >> it was really gracious of you to invite us back to the white house to hang a few family pictures. and i'm sure you know nothing makes a house a home like having portraits of its former occupants staring down at you

from the walls. >> and when you are wandering these halls as you wrestle with tough decisions, you will now be able to gaze at this portrait and ask "what would george do?" i am pleased that my portrait brings an interesting symmetry to the white house collection. it now starts and ends with a george w. in 1814, dolly madison, famously saved this portrait of the first george w. now, michelle, if anything happe happens, there's your man. >> the warmth is truly reflected in these portraits and i promise you -- i promise i'm going straight for it.

>> okay. you have to appreciate there's a small club of presidents and former presidents. boy, president obama has gone at president bush's record. i'm sure president bush not terribly fond, but that was all in good spirit. >> it was all in good spirit. i've got to tell you, you don't hear much from george w. anymore and he does have a great shtick. >> it was good to see him back at the white house. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. outfront next, mayor bloomberg hates your big gulp. why the mayor of new york city, though, is taking on some of the biggest and most powerful and deep pocketed companies in america. and new details about the man responsible for the zombie-like attack. the last thing he said to his girlfriend before he left for the gruesome face-eating assault. plus, the guy who did this comes outfront. >> i'm sick of it! every year we give power to one person!