fugelsang and brett o'donnell, presidential campaign adviser and will cain is a columnist with blaze.com. nice to have all of you with us. no surprise, i think, about the charges yesterday. there was sort of a flurry that, in fact, george zimmerman would be charged and then there was a sense that maybe it wasn't coming immediately and then there was a 6:00 pm press conference held by the special prosecutor. >> i would say i'm a little surprised. his former attorneys suggested they had some kind of exculpatory evidence that they had sitting out there. i thought they would it that would preclude charges. >> i guess i meant there's a sense that there were rumors that charges were about to happen. >> second degree is a little bit of a surprise as well. >> that is. >> just short of first degree. it's pretty much the harshest penalty they could apply. >> possibly do. yeah. it's interesting. trayvon martin's parents are reacting to the charges. hear what they said. >> today, we filed an information charging george zimmerman with murder in the second degree. we did not come to this decision lightly. this case is like a lot of the difficult cases we have handled for years here in our circuit. and we made this decision in the same manner. let me emphasize that we do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition. we prosecute based on the facts of any given case as well as the laws of the state of florida. >> we simply wanted an arrest. we wanted nothing more, nothing less. we just wanted an arrest. and we got it. and i say thank you. >> we will continue to walk by faith. we will continue to hold hands on this journey. white, black, hispanic, latino. we will continue to walk. we will march and march and march until the right thing is done. >> so, in order for a conviction, here is what would have to happen. the prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that trayvon martin is dead. that zimmerman's criminal act caused martin's death and that martin was killed by an act that was dangerous and had no regard for human life. an attorney who has defended george zimmerman before, she joins us this morning p nice to see you. thanks for talking to us. >> good morning, soledad. >> tell us about your experience with george zimmerman. you represented him in 2005, 2006, correct? >> that is right, soledad. my experience with george is that he was a young man at the time. he was very concerned about his future. he was interested in making sure that these felony criminal charges were dropped and he was very proactive in his defense. and very interested in making sure he received the best result. i'm sure in this case he will work hard and diligently with his attorney to get the same exact result. >> tell me about that particular case you were representing him in. he had a dispute with law enforcement. and the charges eventually were dropped and then dismissed. it's where that original mug shot that people saw, i think, early on when we started talking about jrge zimmerman. that's where that mug shot came from. can you tell me more about that case? >> that's correct, soledad. that is that mug shot from that arrest. in that case, he was alleged to have come to the aid of his friend, who was being arrested. he was a bar employee, his friend, for serving underage minors. and the allegation is that george came up to see what was going on, why his friend was being arrested and undercover law enforcement officer actually stopped him and said, hey, don't go there. showed him his badge and it's alleged that in that case george said to the officer, i don't care who you are. f off. and that's when the officer directed him away physically and george pushed him away. that is the allegation. and he was charged with battery of a law enforcement officer and resisting violence and charges were dismissed. >> are you surprised, as some on this panel are, that he is facing a second-degree murder charge? >> i am. we, as a legal community, thought that the charge would be only manslaughter. i'm not sure what happens happened in george's life in the last six or seven years since i've represented him. i've heard that he wanted to be a lawence forceme encenc encene officer. i don't know what happened with that. some critics may say, look, here he is again, not listening, taking matters into his own hands while supporters will say he was protecting his friend, wanting to find out what was going on. >> i have a question about the charges for battery of a law enforcement officer. they were dropped after he agreed to undergo anger management, right? >> he signed an agreement with the state attorney's office. we plead not guilty for him and he entered into an aversion program and had a program such as an anger management class, which is usually about eight hours long. >> thank you. >> let me ask you a question. i think what people are looking for is sort of insight into george zimmerman's personality and as someone who represented him, i would be curious about that. there's a bunch of folks who would say you have a guy who is a neighborhood watchman, frustrated policeman wanna be. does that describe the george zimmerman you know? >> not necessarily at the time. i could say, soledad, as a 21, 22-year-old young man, he was very involved in his defense, where some young college kids that age will kind of go and just do what the attorney tells them to do. >> why do you think that was? >> he was very concerned. he was not just some young guy that we could tell him what to do and he would do whatever we said. he would very involved, very concerned. i think that's reflected in his personality now with the allegation that he wants to take things, and find out what's going on and he doesn't take what people tell him at face value. he's curious and wants to investigate on his own. he that personality back then. >> the cases do share a little similarity. he was aggressive in both cases. do you find him to be an aggressive person? >> not personally. not as an individual. but you are correct. the allegation is there was some aggression, some questioning of authority, as some people have commented, regarding the 911 tape in this case when they tell him don't follow. there's some evidence that he did follow. some people say he did follow. george's version is, no, trayvon came after me. so, i think that's a similarity. whys wou why was he not listening? >> zahra umansky defended george zimmerman in the past. thank you for talking with us. >> thank you, soledad. >> mark omara will join us live. natalie jackson has been on the program before, attorney for the trayvon martin family. first, though, we've got to get to some of the headlines making news today. christine romans has those. a wake-up call, two strong earthqua earthquakes, magnitude 6.9 and 6.2 coming minutes apart, hours after another quake measuring 7.0 hit western mexico. that one was felt hundreds of miles away in mexico city, cause people to evacuate when tall buildings began to sway. confusion, panic and her people getting in the way. we're hearing for the first time the 911 tape from the night whitney houston died. obtaining the tape of a hotel security guard making the call after houston was found face down in the bathtub. he says a woman in houston's hotel room was pretty much out of it, wouldn't let him in to try to perform cpr. >> okay. you don't know if she's conscious or breathing at all? >> apparently she wasn't preething and she's 46 years old. >> she was not breathing? >> yes. >> she is breathing now? >> i don't know. the person who called me was irate and pretty much didn't get anything out of her. >> does it sound like the person is still not breathing? >> that's correct. >> is there any way you can get into the room so you can try cpr? >> yeah, we're going in now. >> can you get me into the room to give you cpr instructions? >> no. because she kept hanging up on us. >> her assistant and bodyguard were reportedly the only people in the room at the time. jury selection begins today in the jury trial for former senator john edwards. the trial is expected to last at least six weeks. edwards faces six fel nochlt y charges for conspiracy, false statements and using campaign money to support his mistress. if convicted he faces $1.5 million in fines and prison time. sony is cutting 10,000 jobs wor worldwide, part of a new revival plan after the company suffered big losses because of sagging tv sales. it now plans to build up its game and mobile business. and a lawsuit could eventually -- could mean cheaper ebooks. the federal government is suing apple over alleged ebook price fixing. five book publishers are accused of colluding with apple. three of those have settled with the justice department. apple conspired with publishers to drive up book prices and basically force amazon's hand, which was selling most ebooks for $9.99. apple hasn't responded to the lawsuit just yet. stock futures are up, suggesting a higher open on wall street. snapping an ugly five-day losing streak yesterday. there's hope for solid earnings reports. googles earnings will be out later. mrs. obama joining the colbert nation, marking her one-year anniversary for joining forces program for military families. asked about a possible source of tension between her and the president -- >> you are popular. do you ever loured over the president, hey, i'm more popular than you? i might campaign against you? >> i might do that when i get home. >> are you prepared to endorse the president? zblie am prepared to endorse barack obama. i think he will be a phenomenal president. he has done a phenomenal job. he's my man. >> since you're on the show tonight -- >> yes. >> i feel fairly confident that the president is watching this broadcast right now. >> probably. >> we have a photo of the president watching right now. he seems to be enjoying it. he seems to be enjoying this interview very much. >> soledad, probably the biggest most important person to endorse him and campaign for him is probably michelle obama. >> i bet. mitt romney wishes michelle obama would come in and campaign for him. that could help him a lot. thanks, christine. appreciate it. still ahead on "starting point" we'll talk about mitt romney's wife and a shot at her. listen. >> his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. >> that was ridiculous, honestly. we'll talk about that, straight ahead. that was hilary rosen, who has been on this program several times. and in our get real, vegas and the videos. gsa story is the gift that keeps giving, we like to say. now hawaii. that agency that was in charge of saving taxpayer money, five-day trip for one hour's worth of work. what happened there. >> they're stepping it up. >> it gets better. about to head to work, you don't need to miss the show. log in at cnn.com/startingpoint. here is john's playlist. never heard of that. black rebel motorcycle "weapon of choice." this is an rc robotic claw. my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪ that's off brett's play list. that's bonnie raitt "i will not be broken." you can see our playlists at cnn.com/start i cnn.com/startingpoint. and you can follow me on twitter @soledad o'brien. hilary rosen has been on this show and has says this about mitt romney's wife, ann. >> with respect to economic issues, i think, actually, that mitt romney's right, that ultimately women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. but there's -- but he doesn't connect on that issue either. what you have is mitt romney running around the country saying, well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. and when i listen to my wife, that's what i'm hearing. guess what? his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. she's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids? how do we send them to school and how do we worry -- why we worry about their future. >> well, ann romney -- >> hilary! >> ann romney gets on twitter to respond and she tweets this. i made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. believe me, it was hard work. >> hilary rosen only hurt her own cause by this. you want to come out and say mitt romney's in a bubble and doesn't understand women's issues, that's great. but you don't bring the wife into it. ann romney has raised five kids. that's hard work. the entire burden of proof, the sympathy has shifted over to mitt romney now. a democratic strategies is seen as attacking stay-at-home moms. >> it's inappropriate to suggest that somehow ann romney as a woman who has decided to stay home with her five kids doesn't also get a vote on the economy and as a female has a perspective on t like you don't count because this is a choice you made? it's ridiculous. it's insulting really. >> it's not a matter of her working or not. it's a matter of her knowing the important issues and she can be smart enough to know that the economy is an important issue, whether or not she worked. >> she did work. five boys? you could many in to work just to rest up for that. >> hilary, hlry. i like hilary. we're friends. >> uh-oh. whenever someone starts i like hilary and we're friends, but -- >> this turned this war on women into a war of one woman who then becomes a proxy for so many women who shares similar lifestyle, stay at home, raise children. maybe not five. that's a lot of kids. >> four. >> you're telling them that's not a hard day's work. >> we can all agree on that. the other thing that bothers me about this, we start pitting women against women. working women who are working outside the home and working women who are working inside the home. that really troubles me. >> can i tell you what troubles me? we start pitting americans against americans. female americans against male americans. when we divide and conquer on class, on gender. that troubles me. >> really, does that trouble you? i noticed that the past couple of months, sarcastic snitty man at the end of the table there. >> even if hilary is correct and ann romney lives in this bubble, it's not relevant to the campaign, it hurts her cause and you don't make fun of a candidate's spouse unless it's todd palin. that's just good manners. >> lives in a world of privilege. >> it's irrelevant whether she lives in a bubble or went to work in calcutta with mother theresa. it's not relevant to mitt romney and his agenda for this country. people don't care. >> let me throw in hilary's response. is ann romney mitt's touch stone for women who are struggling economically or not? nothing is ann romney's history as we've heard it, hardworking mom she may have been, leads me to believe that mitt has chosen the right expert to get feedback on this problem. he professes to be so concerned about. >> now they have a war on stay-at-home moms. >> that's how it comes off. >> and how did it only become relevant to people who are struggling economically? it's for everybody. >> hilary made a bad choice here, taken a bad position. she is a mother as well and made a bad -- >> look who is mr. concilla tchtconcillatory this morningment. >> no, no, no. hilary had a bad idea. this is wrong. great person, mother of two children. >> the whole war on women is a bad idea. >> stupid, stupid. >> this is a distraction to a campaign that's struggling to find its voice so far. and, you know, i think the romney folks have backed them into a corner. >> if the democrats want to make this stick, they'll say it's a war on women's reproductive independence. but this will backfire on them. >> the panel is in agreement. my goodness. it may infer happen again. still ahead on "starting point" that $800,000 vegas junket and embarrassing videos, apparently only the tip of the iceberg. it's ges getting worse for the gsa. details of a trip to hawaii that we, as taxpayers, got to pay for that was fabulous. it really made me wish i was working there at that time. five days of travel for one hour. get real is next. and robert earl keen from will cain's playlist. cuban cajun raw seafood pizza parlor french fondue tex-mex fro-yo tapas puck chinese takeout taco truck free range chicken pancake stack baked alaska 5% cash back. right now, get 5% cash back at restaurants. it pays to discover. our "get real" this morning. first it was the $800,000 vegas junket and the embarrassing videos that followed and now we're learning that gsa, the agent in charge of saving the government cash, sent employees to hawaii for five days for, drum roll, please, one hour of work. it was all released from this transcript that came from the house transportation committee that employees spent five days in hawaii for one ribbon-cutting ceremony, complete with snorkeling in the morning because they had free time. paid $130,000 to move one employee from denver to hawaii and that was an employee who quit a year later. so, i think -- i believe that actually you'll see more of these little bits and pieces coming out. because -- >> i mean, they were on hawaii timele one hour's work in a week of hawaii, that's highly productive. >> now we know where all the money they're saving is going. >> snorkeling lessons, clearly. >> government's anti-lobby christmas present come early. ha haliburton may have ripped off the government but at least they didn't have the good sense to film it. we'll talk to george zimmerman's new attorney after his two attorneys we spoke to yesterday were dumped. we are back in a moment. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. guys. come here, come here. 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