on trial this week. we introduce you to the jury deciding conrad murray's fate right here, right now cnn. good evening. i'm don lemon. you are in the "cnn newsroom." president obama begins the new week on the west coast. his trip amounts to a political two-for. he's raising millions in campaign cash from big money donors and using his remarks to push for his jobs proposal. the president started in seattle a few hours ago. then he headed to northern california to tap the wallets in silicon valley. chief white house correspondent jessica yellin is traveling with the president tonight and joins us live from san jose. jessica, good evening. what was president obama's message to his supporters in his stops today? >> hey, don. he is rallying his old democratic donors trying to get that old energy back to the extent he can saying don't forget the energy, don't forget. don't give up now. listen to the message. >> i need you guys to shake off any doldrums. i need you to decide right here and right now. and i need you to talk to your friends and your neighbors and your co-workers. and you need to tell them you know what? we're not finished yet. we've got more work to do. >> he mentioned he's raising millions. he has a total of seven fund-raisers on this west coast swing. >> we've also seen president obama have a sharper tone towards republicans lately. did he keep up that aggressiveness today? >> he absolutely did. and, you know, one of the most effective tactics when you are trying to rally democrats is to remind them of the alternative, which is republicans. and one of his messages today i'm going to read it because we don't have it on tape. he says of republicans, the alternative i think is an approach to government that would fundamentally cripple america in meeting the challenges of the 21st century. of course, talking about having a republican in the white house. this follows in line with his much more sharply partisan message we've heard from him in recent weeks. ever since that debt deal fell apart and he end upped with the political acrimony we saw over the summer. i can also tell you, don, that speaking to well-placed donors that the president saw that his fund-raising base was not rallying during that debt deal. he was not being -- the campaign was not able to get the rsvps, was not able to draw in the money they would have liked to have been able to draw in during the debt negotiation period. but as soon as that was over, as soon as he came out with the american jobs act and as soon as perry and romney and all those guys started debating, those fund-raising numbers started ticking up, and this is a message that seems to be working for them. >> jessica yellin out west traveling with the president. thank you, jessica. in washington tonight, lawmakers are at odds over spending again. and once again, we're facing a threat of a government shutdown. lawmakers say a shutdown can be avoided but they still can't resist deflecting the blame to the other party. candy crowley has more. >> reporter: for the third time this year, a congressional stare down threatens a government shutdown. let me start with you, senator warner, and ask you if there is a point at which you think this is embarrassing. >> yes. it is embarrassing. >> are we there? >> can we once again inflict on the country and the american people the spectacle of a near government shutdown? i sure as heck hope not. >> reporter: the u.s. government runs out of money at the end of this week unless a temporary spending bill is passed on capitol hill. inside the house version is money to replenish the federal emergency management agency, fema, which assists disaster victims. tornadoes in joplin, hurricanes in the northeast. the remarkable thing is that basically congress can't agree on something everyone is for. funding fema. the crux of the matter is how and when to decide how to pay for it. >> the house version says that a disaster has to be dealt with. we're going to help people that have been affected by disasters, but we're going to start cutting the government in other places where the money is not so important. >> reporter: senate democrats have rejected the house version saying republicans are proposing to pay for increased fema funds with cutbacks in programs that create jobs. nobody's budging. ergo stalemate, a looming shutdown and the politics that's ensue. >> i'll give the senate democratic leader most of the credit. he manufactured a crisis all week about disaster when there's no crisis. everybody knows we're going to pay for every single penny of disaster aid that the president declares. and that fema certifies. >> one point about who to blame or not to blame on this current, hopefully nonshutdown is that there is a group. and i do believe it is mostly centered in the house in terms of some of these tea party republicans who say on every issue we're going to make this a make or break. >> pointing fingers about an impending shutdown can be good politics, but an actual shutdown is likely to hurt any politician in a 50-mile radius of washington. odds are good they'll figure this out. they have till friday. candy crowley, cnn, washington. also tonight, at long last, two americans are spending their first night back in the u.s. >> after 781 days in prison, shane and i are now free men. >> their imprisonment in iran now over after more than two years after they stepped off the plane in new york, they finally got to make some comments that they've waited nearly 800 days to get off their chests. susan candiotti was there. >> reporter: back on u.s. soil, freed hikers josh fattal and shane bauer came out swinging at iran calling themselves political pawns and iran's officials liars for calling them spies. >> they do not deserve undue credit for ending what they had no right and no justification to start in the first place. the only reason we have been held hostage is because we are american. >> reporter: and they disclosed how they found out their two-year ordeal was over. last wednesday in prison, they were inexplicably given street clothes, fingerprinted and taken to meet an envoy from oman who told them -- >> he looked at us and he said, let's go home. >> within hours, they ran off a plane in oman and into the arms of their families, including the mother of josh fattal. >> what was that like for you? >> we were hooting and hollering and we were waving our scarves and we just couldn't wait until they got down to us. i couldn't have asked for anything better. >> reporter: in prison, spending months in isolation with no diplomatic visits and being told lies about their families, they said they were haunted by cries from other prisoners. >> we heard the screams of other prisoners being beaten and there was nothing we could do to help them. >> what was it like to hear the beatings and the screams? >> not being able to help another human being. being completely impotent and unable to do anything to ease their suffering was something i will never forget and will always be with me. >> reporter: and when they complained to their prison guards about their treatment -- >> the guards would immediately remind us of comparable conditions at guantanamo bay. we do not believe that such human rights violations on the part of our government justify what has been done to us. >> reporter: josh and shane wouldn't take reporter questions asking for privacy for now. and as for shane and sarah's engagement we've heard so much about -- >> i'd rather not. >> you'd rather not focus on it? >> everyone knows we're engaged. >> have you not set a date yet? >> no. >> we want more than anything to begin our lives anew with this fresh taste of freedom. >> they left the room without revealing any more details about their two-year ordeal. susan candiotti, cnn, new york. when we come right back here on cnn -- >> a gunman opens fire near a stadium full of children playing football. tonight, we have new video of those kids taking cover from the bullets. 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[♪...] >> male announcer: now, for a limited time, your companion flies free, plus save up to 65%. call 1-800-sandals. conditions apply. i want you to pay close attention now. new video in to cnn of a police shoot-out with a gunman near a youth football game in suburban seattle. >> is there any exit? is there any exit over here? >> we're fine right now. we're all underneath bleachers. >> you can hear the gunshots in the background there. kids and parents scrambled for cover at the high school stadium as police confronted a man firing two rifles at a nearby elementary school. police say the unidentified man had tried to break into a car at the school. then tried to break into the cab of a piece of earth moving equipment on school property. police converged on the scene killing the 51-year-old gunman before he was able to get near the football game. no one else was hurt. this week begins one of the most high-profile and possibly gut wrenching criminal trials you may ever witness. dr. conrad murray, the man blamed for michael jackson's death will defend himself in court on charges of involuntary manslaughter. opening statements begin tuesday. tonight, cnn's ted rowlands gives us a preview of the case against the doctor. >> your honor, i am an innocent man. >> reporter: the jury in the conrad murray manslaughter trial will have several questions to answer. one, did dr. murray give michael jackson a lethal dose of propofol? prosecutors say there's no doubt murray and his attorneys say there's no way. >> there's no way that dr. murray would pump michael jackson full of propofol sufficient for major surgery and walk out of that room. it's not going to happen. that's not the dr. murray is. >> reporter: he claims he only administered 25 milligrams of propofol, far less from what was found in jackson's body by the coroner. >> how did it get in him? >> that's a good question, ted. do you have any idea how it got in him? >> reporter: the defense is expected to argue that jackson somehow gave himself the lethal dose. >> could michael jackson have done it? >> is it possible for an individual to inject himself with a drug? yes. yes. >> before jackson died, he spent hours struggling to go to sleep according to a time line murray gave police. murray says he gave jackson five doses of three different drugs between 1:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. at 10:40 a.m. he says he gave jackson the propofol. >> did anybody witness what happened? >> no, just the doctor, sir. >> 911 was called at 12:21. emergency responders will testify they believe jackson was dead when they arrived. another question jurors must answer is was using propofol, an anesthetic for surgery as a sleep aid so reckless that murray should be held responsible for jackson's death? doctor after doctor gets up and says this should never be used outside a clinical setting or hospital setting. >> the fact the circumstances may be demonstrated to be unusual does not make it egregious. that alone does not make it egregious. >> reporter: they'll argue jackson was a drug addict and in horrible physical shape and he was getting drugs from other doctors that murray didn't know about. prosecutors plan to argue that jackson was in good shape and planned to show this clip from the documentary "this is it." of jackson rehearsing just days before he died. so now more than two years after jackson's death, a los angeles jury will be presented with the case and ultimately decide whether or not dr. conrad murray should be held responsible. ted rowlands, cnn, los angeles. >> and i will be in los angeles all week to cover the trial for cnn and bring you the very latest from inside the courtroom. stay tuned. ahead this hour -- unemployment crosses color lines. but should president obama be doing more to reduce black unemployment? some african-american members of congress say yes. we're going to discuss it after the break. edicine and natural ingredients from around the world. he called it vicks vaporub. today, the vicks journey continues. introducing new vicks nature fusion cold & flu syrup. powerful multi-symptom medicine flavored with natural honey instead of artificial flavors and dyes. so you can feel good about what you take to feel better. there's so many choices. the guests come in and they're like yeah i want to try this shrimp and i want to try this kind and this kind. they wait for this all year long. 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[ trapp ] creating an experience instead of just a meal that's endless shrimp. my name is angela trapp. i'm a server at red lobster and i sea food differently. all right. the president is pitching his jobs plan on a daily basis. republicans already are lining up in opposition. meantime, african-americans, his strongest supporters, have an unemployment rate approaching a 25-year high. at around 17%. close to 17%. now is the president doing enough to help them, and could he do more? i want to talk about it with cnn contributor and political anchor for new york one, errol lewis. here in atlanta, goldie taylor, editor at large for the grio.com. good to see both of you. let's start with the president's speech at the dinner hosted by the congressional black caucus last night. before i'm going to play something from emmanuel cleaver. before i want to ask you, what did you think of the president's speech? >> i thought it was an interesting speech but a gutsy one. depending on who you think he was talking to last night, he was right on base or dead off base. and so that remains to be seen. >> right on base or dead off base mean -- >> if he was talking to members of the cbc and telling them to get up off their keisters and get into the streets, maybe he was dead on. if he was talking to the american people, talking to african-americans about where their fight is, then maybe the comments were misplaced. ? >> people were a bit critical of it because they said that for people who have been unemployed for a few years or have lost their homes to repossession, saying, you know, let's move. stop complaining may not have been the right message. >> i didn't hear him as a really aiming at anybody other than the black political leadership that was in the room there, frankly. i mean, he was telling them to stop complaining. stop criticizing and to work with him. he's going to need all of their help in their key districts in the swing states if he's going to get re-elected. it was a pretty naked appeal to them to try and close ranks and help him as he tries to mount this re-election bid. i don't know if he was asking the unemployed to do anything for him, other than to be a little patient with him. >> but before the dinner iasked the cbc chairman if he finds it hard to criticize the president. take a listen. >> i've been black all of my life. and i know that african-americans are going to be careful about providing any comfort to those who would like to politically dismantle this presidency. and so, obviously, and unapologetically, we're going to be careful about things that we say that might reflect negatively on the president. >> all right. so the president again, that was before he spoke at the cbc. goldie, we've discussed this situation but the jobs situation isn't getting better. should african-americans keep their criticisms private? i'm surprised more people aren't marching in the streets when it comes to this economy and unemployment. should african-americans keep it private? >> they have to begin acting in their own interest. if you look at african-american unemployment where it remains in double digit, continues to decline while the rest of the economy begins to table off there are key issues there we have to be concerned about. last night's speech for the president with the cbc, he needs them. he frankly cannot win this election without them. during the 2008 election, he had 67% or better turnout for african-american voters during the midterm elections the following two years, there was 37% african-american turnout. if that 37% only turns out again next year, this president goes back home to chicago. >> and this is real talk, errol. i think it's "the washington post" that i was looking at online and i think the headline says, president obama courting black voters again or something like that. i'm paraphrasing. >> yeah, i don't know that he ever stopped, actually. you know, he's been doing quietly over the last few years is when a major policy initiative comes out, especially domestic policy, he'll convene members of the plaque press and sort of tell them. look. this is what this means for your readers and constituency. this is what it means in black communities. i think some of the criticism, when emmanuel cleaver says he would be complaining if it was some other kind of a president, you have to wonder, what specific policies are they talking about? i mean, you know, the president has done a whole bunch of stuff and he's talked about a lot of it. when you look at some of the things that maybe aren't pitched as to help black youth, but when he's putting money into community colleges, when he's putting money into failing high schools, many of which are in inner cities, he's doing what they have asked for. i'm not sure exactly what they are getting at. maybe around some of the mortgage relief? >> i think that the quote was, as again a paraphrase if bill clinton was president, he wouldn't stand for this or if 34% of white women were unemployed, we'd be marching in the streets. again, that was the gist of what he had to say. i have to say this. the overall economy is starting to worry a lot of people. i talked with conservative analyst david frum. he had some pretty dire things to say. take a listen. >> we are facing a global economic crisis. it's not just in the united states. although things oar we have enormous problems here as americans continue to cope with the enormous debt load they piled up during the housing bubble. and as so long as consumers are weighed down by those debts it's hard to see how they find their footing. >> errol, are we headed toward a global recession, and if so, is there anything the president can do to prevent it? >> a lot of the signs are pointing to some really hard times ahead. i don't know if david frum has really analyzed it the right way, frankly, though. if consumers hunker down and do what he seems to be suggesting like repay their personal debts, that leads you right into recession. you know, the problem with recession, the definition of recession is that not enough people are spending. and when not enough people are spending, the stores start slowing down and the credit starts to dry up and the whole machine grinds to a halt. so what can the president do in the president can do what he's been trying to do which is sort of get the morale back, get some kind of stimulus going and hope he can get somewhere with congress. >> he's got to do it in 12 to 14 months. >> he's got to do it. he's got do it in a shorter time than tha