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 there completely vindicated, but this was not a person who deserved to be in prison for this set of activities. i thought his lawyer, abbey lowell, did a terrific job, had it just right when he said john edwards committed sins but not crimes and we don't put people in prison for sins in this country. >> after the verdict in his remarks john edwards went on to say there's no one else responsible. let me just say it, it's clearly me. i'm going to play a little bit of that and we'll talk on the other side. >> 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. >> what did you think of that press conference afterwards? it sounded to me like there was just such the weight of a guilty conscience and he just wanted to sort of tick through all the things that he had done wrong for so many months and years. what did you think? >> one thing i found about john edwards over the years, chasing him through this scandal is that john edwards admits the truth when he has to admit the truth and usually only the part of the truth that he has to, like when he first confessed to the affair on abc after "the enquirer" broke the story, he still denied paternity of the child. when shown a picture he said i take pictures with lots of babies, i don't know who that baby is so the weight on him certainly for his actions but in terms of ability to tell the truth through the years, not proven. >> jeff toobin, apparently they could retry him, correct? >> they certainly could. >> do you think that's likely? >> no. >> why? >> i think this case is over. this was a very marginal, unusual prosecution. no one had ever been prosecuted under campaign finance laws for these kind of charges. is' be he's been acquitted on one account and those charges can't be brought again. campaign finance law has been changed in such a profound way that bringing a criminal charge today is a very different thing than it used to be and i don't think, and basically the united states supreme court is in the process of deregulating american campaign finance, basically saying the first amendment allows people to give money under more and more conditions, and i think bringing another criminal case after this very expensive case failed in dramatic fashion, would be irresponsible by the justice department and i don't think they're going to do it. >> i thought it was interesting and again in the comments that john edwards had, after the trial, when he talked about his family and sort of named each kid separately and he talked about cate, who we saw every day going into the courtroom and coming out of the courtroom, really next to her dad all the time. here's what he said about cate. >> cate, who most 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'll be there for you no matter what," even i'm so proud to have had her with me throughout this process. >> he goes on to talk about baby quinn which i thought was a little unusual, sort of given what the trial was ultimately all about, right? david? >> yeah, it was a little unusual but that is his daughter and it's time that he recognized her, and the fact is that, after denying paternity, he does see the child on a regular basis. >> he ended that press conference and i'll ask this question for both of you, saying that i don't think god's done with me and i still have a future. do you think, jeff, that he has a political future and, david, i want to you weigh in on what is the future? >> i was really struck by the end of his news conference. i thought it was appropriate what he said about his own personal responsibility, very appropriate talking about all his children, but i thought it was just weird at the end when he was talking about god is not finished with me yet. he seems to think he has a public career, and in short, i don't. i think he should do something in private life that does not involve the public eye, but people who are in the public eye like to stay there and that comment he made about god is not finished with me yet and started talking about his work with children, it really started to sound like a stump speech and i was thinking, are you kidding? i just thought it was weird. >> started strong in the coming out of the courtroom and then it sort of started going a little bit in a strange direction. what did you think, david, at the end? god is not done with me yet and i want to go work with the poor children i think is pretty much what he said. >> well i thought the compact same thing, almost thought like i was listening to a speech where he's getting ready to resume public career, assume public office again or run for public office. i thought can he possibly think after all this that anybody would vote for him? but one of the things that got lost in the entire mess is the message of poverty in america that he espoused when he was running for office. that's unfortunate because of all the people he betrayed he betrayed a very important message so he made a complete mess out of everything and for him to sit there and think he's going to resume public life in terms of a political career, not going to happen. do some good, go work on your message, do some public service. i think everybody would be fine with that. >> i think everybody would agree with you on the big mess of everything. david perel and also jeff toobin, who will stick around and join us at the table in a moment. >> absolutely. >> appreciate it. christine romans is updating the top stories for us. in the first few months after he was elected, president obama secretly ordered sophisticated cyber attacks on the computers that run iran's main nuclear facilities, according to a new report in the "new york times," it says president obama decided to significantly expand an operation called "olympic games" a program started by the bush administration by unleashing a worm called stucksnet. at one point it reportedly took out nearly 1,000 centrifuges iran had operating at the time in order to purify uranium. we're hearing from the two american tourists kidnapped at gunpoint in egypt, both from houston, told cnn affiliate kprc that they feared their captors would kill them. >> all the windows had bars on them and they nailed the door shut and then they were outside shooting their assault rifles the whole night and all the way through the morning. they were all very loud and aggressive and speaking in arabic, and i mean, we had no idea, no clue what their intentions were. >> the americans were freed in a trade for a relative of their captors, a relative who had been arrested this week on drug charges. minding your business this morning, u.s. stock futures are down sharply ahead of the big jobs report. economists expect 150,000 jobs added to the economy that last month and the unemployment rate they think stayed unchanged at 8.1%. the report comes out at 8:30 a.m. eastern. we'll get you the news as soon as it's released. a federal appeals court in boston ruling the federal defense of marriage act unconstitutional. judges agree with prosecutors it was discriminatory because federal benefits like social security were being denied to gay couples in states where same-sex marriage is legal. the indiana teenager who was stuck in mexico because of a visa technicality is back in the u.s. this morning, and will graduate with her class as scheduled tomorrow. elizabeth olivas born in mexico was trying to follow the law when she returned to apply for a visa 180 days before her 18th birthday. because of a miscalculation elizabeth was one day late and had to stay in mexico as a result. >> i just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible but i had to continue to wait, but it was worth it, because in the end, i'm good and i can continue to pursue my dreams. george w. bush making a rare return to washington. the former president and wife laura welcomed back by president obama for the official unveiling of their portraits. obama thanked his predecessor for his extraordinary service to the country, among other things >> your kind words of encouragement, plus you also left me a really good tv sports packa package. >> when you're wandering these halls as you wrestle with tough decisions, you'll now be able to gaze at this portrait and ask, what would george do? >> yesterday was just the second time the two have met since president bush left office, soledad. >> that was funny. thanks, christine. appreciate the update. still ahead on "starting point," politics getting kind of personal. we'll tell you how the former governor mitt romney and president barack obama are digging deep into each other's pasts for some dirt, and sending hecklers even to oppositions' rallies. plus a get real to the head football coach at vanderbilt after he told a radio station he'll only hire assistants who have got cute wives. play that louder, that's martin sapp, come on, pastor sapp, "power." we're back after this short break. i have three daughters and my son, and then i have eleven grandkids. right when you see them, they're yours, it's like, ah, it's part of me. it's me again. now that i'm retiring they all have plans for me. i'm excited. really? 25 grams of protein. what do we have? all four of us, together? 24. he's low fat, too, and has 5 grams of sugars. i'll believe it when i--- [ both ] oooooh... what's shakin'? [ female announcer ] as you get older, protein is an important part of staying active and strong. ensure high protein... fifty percent of your daily value of protein. low fat and five grams of sugars. see? he's a good egg. [ major nutrition ] ensure high protein... ensure! nutrition in charge! 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 all in real time. good idea. ♪ it's the at&t network -- providing new ways to work together, so business works better. ♪ a little more than five months to election day and both sides are getting personal, each taking to the other's home turf to try to plead their case, first it was a former governor, mitt romney, making a surprise visit to the shuddered solar panel solyndra, bankrupt after two years after receiving $535 million in stimulus money from the obama administration. governor romney was there trying to focus attention on what he called a symbol of the obama administration's failed economic policies as well as its use of cronyism. >> this building, this half a billion-dollar taxpayer investment represents a serious conflict of interest on the part of the president and his team. it's also a symbol of how the president thinks about free enterprise. free enterprise to the president means taking money from the taxpayers, giving it freely to his friends. >> the obama administration took to the steps of the massachusetts state house, senior adviser david axelrod appearing alongside former and current state officials blasting governor romney's record as the state's former governor. romney supporters held a prebuttal news conference, among them house minority leader brad jones, nice to see you sir. thank you for talking with me. >> my pleasure. thank you for having me on. >> there was so much secrecy in the getting of the people to the shuddered solyndra plant. why was that? >> well, i was focused on boston yesterday, so i'm assuming it was an opportunity to highlight the failed economic policies of president obama. >> which obviously that was the message but i know that sort of the strategy was to cart people off in buses not really tell them where they were going and sort of a lot of the drama around it. we know there was heckling certainly when it came to the press conference where david axelrod was trying to talk about governor romney's policies and i'm curious to know if you feel like to some degree some of this is beginning to feel not very presidential. >> well, i think it's disappointing that a number of my colleagues and president obama's chief campaign adviser feels the need to come and trash massachusetts which is currently governed by one of their leading spokespeople who yesterday was on your show and saying some positive things about governor romney's record here. >> forgive me for interrupting. did you feel he was trashing massachusetts, they've been trashing massachusetts in what ways? >> i certainly think there axelrod was and some of my democratic colleagues were out there. you have to understand we have an overwhelmingly democratic legislature when governor romney was here, it was north of 85% democratic legislature so for governor romney to have achieved the things that he did in terms of a $3 billion deficit to a $2 billion rainy day fund to reducing the unemployment rate to increasing the number of jobs, net job growth in massachusetts, facing a huge head wind, contrasted with president obama, who came in with a democratic senate, democratic house, and yet has added to the debt, has added to job losses, you know, i mean in the end, i think we can fairly say that the at the end of four years, governor romney left massachusetts a far better place than he found it when he took the oath of office in 2003, and i think that's a happy contrast that the romney campaign is willing to make with president obama because the country is certainly far worse off than when president obama took the oath of office in 2009. >> that's a little bit different than what governor patrick devalue was telling us yesterday on the show. i'll play you a little bit of what he said. >> okay. >> i didn't say he didn't add any jobs. i said that in a good economy we were growing third from the bottom compared to other states around the country. that's no longer true. when he said that, for example, he was going to make government smaller, it is a fact that he added more people to the workforce. he said he was going to show us fiscal discipline. it's a fact that he left a $1.1 billion deficit. these aren't attack points. they're just facts. >> that's governor deval patrick as i flipped his name, he'd kill me if he heard me say that. i hope he didn't. the long list where the former governor was weak that now governor patrick has right now. >> as someone who was here, governor romney made a certain series of cuts before he left office to be sure we were on sound fiscal footing. governor patrick restored every single one of the cuts. unfortunately he attributes that level of spending to governor romney when in fairness and fact it was governor patrick's decision to do that so again, governor patrick is obviously entitled to his opinion but not entitled to his own facts. >> there have been republican colleagues and really i think many people predicted this from the primary battle that was very, very nasty that people would be cherry-picking sound bites and putting them into political ads and that's exactly what happened. we'll play you a little bit and ask you a question on the other side. >> if mitt romney is an economic heavyweight we're in trouble because he was 47th out of 50 in job creation in the state of massachusetts when he was governor. >> he ended up third from the bottom in job creation. >> we created more jobs in the last three months in texas than he created in four years in massachuset massachusetts. >> do you think it's damaging to have his republican colleagues quoted and put into ads? >> clearly the contrast is in president obama, that was the point the obama team was trying to make. i think not well yesterday, and the fact is that, from the time governor romney took office to the time he left office there was net job growth in the commonwealth of massachusetts. that's a fact. i don't think anybody is disputing that fact. when president obama took office to the present there's been net job loss, so i mean, i think that's a happy contrast and i think if president obama had anything positive to say about his record, as you said five months out from the election he'd be talking about that. as an incumbent president you'd think you want to talk about the things you've accomplished, look what i've done and here's what else i want to do and give me that opportunity. he doesn't have that record to run on. it's a dismal record, the debt issue, the downgrade in the bond rating for the united states, the first time any president's presided over that. that's not something you're going to run on. >> certainly you're not going to blame that on the president, that was a congress arguing as you well know so that might be debatable in the future. we're out of time -- >> i will not dispute there's plenty of blame to go around in washington, d.c., absolutely but i think again, governor romney's record both in the private sector at the olympics and as governor of massachusetts is being able to come in and work with quite a disparity of personalities and people to move the agenda forward and accomplish good things, either in the private sector, at the olympics, in the commonwealth of massachusetts and hopefully as president of the united states. >> brad jones is the massachusetts house minority leader, nice to see you. thanks for talking with us this morning. appreciate it. >> thank you. still ahead on "starting point," vanderbilt's head football coach in a little bit of hot water after he tells a radio station he's not going to hire an assistant unless his wife is hot. "starting point" team, jeff toobin back with us, abby huntsman and will cain. this is abby's play list "dancing on my own." we're back after a short break. hi guys, good morning. >> good morning. d@ [ female announcer ] introducing coffee-mate natural bliss. made with only milk... cream... a touch of sugar... and pure natural flavors. coffee-mate natural bliss. from nestle. add your flavor naturally. actually it can. neutrogena® ultra sheer provides unbeatable uva uvb protection and while other sunscreens can feel greasy ultra sheer® is clean and dry. it's the best for your skin. ultra sheer®. neutrogena®. ♪ oh, i love starting my money with kenny chess know. >> do you? >> not really. i like him, it's just kind of lulls you back to sleep a little. >> he has more upbeat songs. >> here it s hang on, wait for t wait for it, wait for it. there it is. >> we'll be waiting all day. ♪ >> that's it, see? you would have missed it, abby, if i hadn't had you wait. that's will cain's choice, he's a columnist for theblaze.com, abby huntsman, political come tate nor, jeff toobin, cnn's senior legal analyst. >> good morning. >> we st