in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. economists didn t sigh this one coming, one expert calling the may jobs report shockingly low. that s the weakest growth in a year and the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2%. it s a brutal setback for the economy and a serious setback for the obama campaign as well. the president out on the campaign trail is struggling to convince voters he s part of the solution, not part of the problem. briana keiller is traveling with the president. the president urged the crowd to look at the broader economic trends and said the economy is improving, albeit slowly. we re still fighting our way back since the worst economy since the depression. our businesses have created 4.3 million new jobs over the last 27 months but as we learned in today s jobs report, we re still not creating them as fast as we want. just like at this time last year, our economy is still facing some serious head winds.
political reporter shannon travis. it is a long way to november. not that long a ways away. but we re already seeing some major shifts in the campaign, aren t we? reporter: that s right, don. leave the primaries behind. all that stuff is all behind us. this is a new day. mitt romney is probably feeling like a new man. you re already seeing the party from conservatives, maybe some independents starting to coalesce around him now that he s officially clinched the number needed to become the nominee. again, it will be official in tampa, in florida. but he s pretty much going to be the nominee. another thing that we saw happen as he clinched the nomination was on wednesday, president obama gave mitt romney a phone call. happened wednesday morning. we got word of it a little bit after. but both sides tell us it was a very brief conversation between the two men. they wished each other well. they said let s have a healthy debate. they talked a little bit briefly about their famili
here s what john edwards had to say after the trial. 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 ever doing anything illegal, i did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. the federal government still has the option of a retrial, that doesn t seem very likely at this point. joining me to talk about all of that, senior legal analyst jeff toobin and david peril managing ed tord of radaronline.com and former editor-in-chief of the national enquirer which first broke the john edwards pregnancy scandal. jeff, are you surprised by this verdict? not at all. this was a weak, weak case, but john edwards was a deeply unappealing person to the jury, so you can see how the jury was pushed in different directions and i think in a way, a mostly hung jury is sort of appropriate resolution of this case because you wouldn t want to see john edwards given how he lived his life walking out of ther
seriously. the national spelling bee champ wins with the word most of us have likely never used, maybe not even ever heard of. the answer to that is probably no, right? these kids are really bright nowadays. nothing surprises me anymore. every year they get smarter and smarter. good morning, everybody, welcome to early start. we re really happy to have you here this morning. we are bringing you the news from a to z 5:00 a.m. here in the east. let s get started. up first, john edwards likely off the legal hook for good after a jury acquitted him of one count of campaign finance fraud and was hopelessly deadlocked on five other counts. the judge declaring a mistrial on those charges. and many legal experts don t expect prosecutors to retry the former presidential candidate who was accused of misusing campaign contributions to hide an extramarital affair during the 2008 election. here is our jeffrey toobin. i don t see any rationale for going forward with this case. jo
to congress with voters knowing he s gay. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. captions by vitac www.vitac.com a very weak jobs report is having a very chilling effect on wall street and the economy right now. the dow jones industrials closing down about 270 points only moments ago. the other major indices also taking a hit. we learned today that only 69,000 jobs were added to america s workforce last month. that s the weakest growth in a year and the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2%. president obama on the campaign trail today. he s struggling to convince voters he s part of the solution and not part of the problem. our white house correspondent brianna keilar is traveling with the president right now. brianna, what s the latest reaction? reporter: wolf, it was a similar refrain we heard from president obama. he urged americans to look at the broader trends for jobs and unemployment, and he did give congress a little credit specifically for passing th