the chinese activist at the center of the firestorm interrupted a hearing, cried out for help. chen guangcheng the blind chinese dissident who sought refuge in the american embassy in beijing called into the emergency hearing about his case and pleaded through a translator -- you can see the call happening, asking specifically to speak with secretary of state hillary clinton. >> translator: i really fear for my other family member's life and we have installed radio cameras and even with electric fence. >> now, all of this comes after a whirl wind day of developments that forced the u.s. to explain why chen said he wanted to leave. he said he needs to leave for his safety. and that put ambassador gary locke on the defensive. >> this was his decision and he indicated of what he wanted. he had the option of staying in the embassy for years if necessary. >> congressman chris smith spoke to chen today. he was overseeing that committee hearing on human rights. he is outfront tonight. >> good to see you. >> we saw some video of you there as the translator was telling you what chen was saying. it sounded like he asked for secretary of state hillary clinton. did he basically go through the state department switch board and ended up with you, how did this happen? >> no, pastor bob foo set up the phone call. i had been trying to get in touch with chen guangcheng and he made the contact and then beput -- then we put it to the microphone so all could hear his comments. he's concerned about his welfare, but even more so about his family, his extended family, his nephew, as well as people like the woman who actually brought him in her car to the embassy. she has disappeared. she may be under house arrest. but she's in terrible, terrible situation. we're concerned about her. >> what else did he say? obviously you're talking about we heard some of what he said on the microphone. what else did he say? >> well, he's also concerned that even though there seemed to be an agreement and i'm very concerned myself it was never written down about what safeguards he and his family were given and who enforces it. there was a hurry-up effort it seems to me to get him out of the embassy, you know, i heard the ambassador say he might stay here for years. but with hillary clinton and her entourage coming in to get this all done, signed, sealed and delivered before this big summit. my thought is that this should have been done painstakingly slow to ensure that if he wants to come to the united states, if he wants asylum for himself and his family that we leave no stone unturned in order to do that. >> all right. well, thank you very much, congressman. we appreciate it. i have been hearing from a lot of people which is the u.s. rushed this through and made some serious mistakes. now, we spent the day today talking to chinese dissidents who found refuge in the united states and canada and spoke firsthand about what it's like to be at the center of this kind of drama. we wanted to find out what went down at the embassy when chen went there. i have been to the u.s. embassy in beijing, it's impressive, in a new building. it's the second biggest embassy after baghdad and it has the most sophisticated anti-bugging technology in the world. it's only a few years old. the security firm lawrence liverpool designed the countersurveillance. i couldn't bring my blackberry in, couldn't take photos even in mundane, unmarked areas and there were no exceptions to the rule. i was told that in the center of the compound which is like a college campus. you have six or seven big buildings. some classified, some unclassified. there's a motel 6 style building that's where the u.s. marines who live at the embassy stay and that's where chen guangcheng stayed as well. i'm told by sources familiar with u.s. diplomatic relations with china they said they've never heard of a situation where a dissident was given asylum at the embassy and then released back into the streets until now. so what will happen to chen? we speak to a man who was jailed for 17 years for criticizing the government. now, the clinton administration negotiated his release in 1997. he was talking to our producer susie sue in mandarin today recalling the jail guard approaching him in his cell saying you've got two choices. stay in prison here for the rest of your life or leave immediately for the u.s. it was a quick choice he had to make. out of the blue. he chose the latter. he has lived in this country ever since. but he says he longs to go home. now, he says he's indebted to the united states for his freedom but he's critical of how chen was treated by the u.s. he said, i think the u.s. government didn't handle this way. they were clearly in a hurry to come to an agreement. when asked what he thinks chen's future in china will be, quote, it's unimaginable what will happen to him, the chinese government will find ways to punish him. and the chinese government will likely deal with him in a hard-handed way. perhaps sending him to a remote location for house arrest. i was told, quote, every day is an embarrassment for senior chinese officials right now. keep in mind they're ready for the biggest change in power since 1949. saving face is important. but the u.s. didn't get this right either obviously rushing chen's release ahead of secretary clinton's visit and sending a desperate man to what can be a terrible fate. and we have a cover story on this, it's called "the people's republic of scandal." it's a great read. great to have both of you with us. stan, i know you talked to gary locke today, the u.s. ambassador. you had another chance to speak with chen. what do you get a sense of what's going to happen here? is this in limbo and chen may just quote/unquote disappear? >> i can tell you what is happening right now, erin, and this is a man who's in fear of his life, in fear of the safety of his family is right now in a hospital surrounded by chinese guards who are not even letting u.s. officials in to see him. that's his situation. at the same time, he's calling in to the u.s. congressional hearing, he's speaking to us and saying over and over again, get me out of here. yesterday when he spoke to us, he appealed directly to president obama saying please, sir, do everything you can to get me and my family out of this country and to safety in the united states. now, this is someone who's heard directly from authorities back in his village saying they're waiting there in his house with weapons if his family is sent back there. so this is a very, very desperate image right now. and very, very concerned about how this was rushed through in the embassy. he says he didn't have all the information and he was being urged to leave the embassy. now he regrets doing so, erin. >> jim, this does seem that this was bungled. is that your sense in your reporting? >> oh, yeah, this was handled very badly. it was a lose/lose situation in which the united states in an attempt to make sure that this diplomatic meeting concluded on schedule on thursday it seems like they made a lot of quick choices and made a lot of bad choices. chen is in a bad spot and this could be very bad for the obama administration. >> do you think the president is going to be forced to end up speaking out on this? i mean, whether he wants or doesn't want to, obviously that's a huge diplomatic question for the president of the united states to speak. >> yeah, i don't think he can stay silent on this, because that's ballooned into a much larger issue. i think this is going to come back to haunt the administration. over history, history will judge this as a rush to make sure that something happened and it turned out it wasn't the right thing. >> stan, what can you tell us of chen talking about, obviously he's in the hospital. senior diplomatic officials have been telling me he'll stay there for a little while until both sides figure out what to do here. we were hearing from congressman smith about the woman who drove him to the embassy. that she's missing. how many people are currently involved in this perhaps facing repercussions from chinese authorities right now from your reporting? >> this is a really interesting issue, because we actually spoke to her, the lady who brought him to beijing. we interviewed her late last week. about an hour after we spoke to her, she was taken away. we spoke to another activist friend of chen's who actually took him to the u.s. embassy. again, a couple of hours later he was questioned and later he was released. incredible images of man standing out in front of the hospital demonstrating for chen and security dragged him away forcibly. despite the talk of a deal between the china and the u.s., here is a man holed up in the hospital, surrounded by security who don't care what the rest of the world sees or thinks. they're prepared to lock people up and drag people away with immunity. >> the bo xilai story is part of this too. there are issues in the chinese government. >> they're looking forward to a smooth transfer of power, but these two stories have knocked it off course. people are wondering if the communist party knows what it's doing or has its act together and the communist party is trying to get through this because they're panicked. >> wow. all right, thank you very much. certainly sort of -- an amazing moment in history. just to watch all of this happening. thanks very much to both of you. "outfront" story two is up next. still "outfront" -- adult sex slaves. >> this man is luring the women through internet sites. he started prostituting them. and a cocky stance, all this when we come back. with the ability to improve roi through seo all by cob. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. i'm going b-i-g. [ male announcer ] good choice business pro. good choice. go national. go like a pro. ahead outfront, more evidence in the trayvon martin shooting and what happened in the exact moments when george and trayvon met. and a look inside herman cain's head. part of our second story. tonight the fbi pleading for more women to come forward. it's an extraordinary sex trafficking case out of california that authorities are calling tragic. >> what was so tragic to me is people that are down on their luck, sometimes they turn to the internet, you know, because they want to find a relationship where they think someone is going to take care of them. in this particular instance, we find somebody who is, has -- or allegedly is intentionally luring them in because he's going to prostitute them out for his own personal gain. >> 36-year-old rashawn kevin porter has been indicted under slavery statutes for getting women to fall in love with him before turning them into prostitutes. he found his victims on website which include craigslist and seekingarrangements.com. we have seen the founder on that program before. he wined and dined them for months at a time and then turned them into prostitutes. miguel marquez has been following the story for us outfront and joins us now. miguel, this is pretty incredible, especially these sites that he's viewed. i know you talked about five victims coming forward. the fbi says there's more. how many more do you think? >> reporter: they believe as many as 12, 13, perhaps 14 women out there that were taken in by this guy. it was absolutely stunning that he was able to take these women for months at a time, sometimes over a year he would groom them and turn them into prostitutes. but the fbi or local police here in california really want to hear from these other women because this trial is set to start in june, erin. >> miguel, what -- how -- how exactly -- we were talking a little bit about how he operated and how he worked, but what more have you found about how it goes from wining and dining to turning someone into a prostitute? >> reporter: he worked hard at it. from all accounts, he was a very charismatic man. he would literally put ads on craigslist or seeking arrangements looking for dates essentially. he would lure them in. he would convince them it was love, that it was a monogamous relationship, that he was the only one for them. that they could trust in him. in some cases it took months. in one case it took a year and a half before he started allowing these women -- or making these women go on nonsexual dates and then it morphed into sexual dates. at one point they were locked into a motel 6 literally days on end for months at a time turning tricks for as little as $100 for 15 minutes. >> thanks very much, miguel. appreciate it. last night mitt romney's senior adviser said his candidate has been consistent on his views on the auto bailout, but does it add up? next. high schools in six states enrolled in the national math and science initiative... ...which helped students and teachers get better results in ap courses. together, they raised ap test scores 138%. just imagine our potential... ...if the other states joined them. let's raise our scores. let's invest in our teachers and inspire our students. let's solve this. 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[ female announcer ] new ensure clear. nine grams protein. zero fat. twenty-one vitamins and minerals. in blueberry/pomegranate and peach. refreshing nutrition in charge! coming up outfront, some developing news in the trayvon martin case, and the unpredictable herman cain, the way i love it, live. in living color. first, our third story outfront. gm reported a billion dollars in earnings today. for the first quarter of the year. it was the ninth profitable quarter in a row. three years after the government bailed the company out, mitt romney's position on the bailout is still being debated. so remember this. mitt romney wrote an op-ed titled "let detroit go bankrupt." that was back in 2008. now, newspaper editors write the headlines so he did not choose that one but it still haunts him today, because it implied that while he thought everything barack obama was doing was wrong. if he had a problem with the way his position was characterized in that headline he didn't say so publicly. but at a debate here on cnn earlier this year, he explained, frankly using the same words that he used in that op-ed, his point of view. >> my view with regards to the bailout was that whether it was by president bush or by president obama, it was the wrong way to go. i said from the very beginning they should go through a managed bankruptcy process, a private bankruptcy process. we have capital markets in bankruptcy. it works in the u.s. >> now, mitt romney's senior adviser eric fehrnstrom is saying that president obama followed mitt romney's advice on the bailout. so is that true or is mitt romney trying to have it both ways? john avlon joins us, reihan salam and michael waldman all with us now. let me ask this question, reihan. exactly how we stand here, because obviously mitt romney when he wrote that op-ed used the words managed bankruptcy, and he used in the cnn debate. now that people like the bailout and think it worked, i'm going to say it was my idea. but when i had a headline when i said i hated it, i was cool having people think that i thought it was terrible. >> well, this is the problem in politics with anything that requires more than three sentences worth of explanation. he backed a managed bankruptcy process and we saw a managed bankruptcy process. we saw a process that many people think was not managed terribly well, that rewarded some creditors over others and rewarded the uaw in a way that was actually pretty inappropriate. so i think that's the concern. the idea is if you had a clean managed bankruptcy process, you could have had a company on a sounder footing, but also a company that wouldn't have as huge an advantage over ford as gm does now. if the taxpayers had been less generous, you might have had a somewhat different outcome. but i think you're absolutely right to say that, look, this is a problem when you have to explain a complex idea in a complex evolving situation, that's always going to be politically difficult. >> right, it's interesting, joh avlon, these aren't words most americans are used to but i can boil this down pretty simply. barack obama managed the unions in a very different way mitt romney would have managed the unions. this is a union question. >> it's a union question downstream. when mitt romney wrote that op-ed with the headline let detroit go bankrupt, he was placing a bet on an argument being made at the time. bush started with the bailouts, obama continued, stopping that freefall so they get to that place in managed bankruptcy. there's a clear contrast. he said if the bailouts occurred, kiss the auto industry goodbye. that's far from what happened. in fact it's back. all of a sudden, eric fehrnstrom said that actually obama followed romney's advice, you've got a fundamental problem in politi perception and this does not pass the smell test. >> i think a lot of people actually perceive mitt romney to basically say let them go under, let all the jobs be gone, which to be honest he did not say. but that nuance is -- it requires a couple of sentences, as ryan said. >> even the experts and people in the auto industry will say that without the federal money there would have been a liquidation if they had gone bankrupt. but this is a big problem for him because when a politician is faced with a position that's unpopular or something they wish they hadn't done, they have to figure out what to do with it. so here he says the auto bailout he opposed he was really for. but on the other hand obama care, which really was his idea, he says he's against. it's a challenge politicians face all the time. fdr gave a speech for a balanced budget when you ran for president the first time. then he did the new deal. he asked an aide, he said figure out a way to reconcile what i did with that speech. >> he didn't live in the world of blogs. >> etch-a-sketch roosevelt, i love it. >> the guys said deny you were in pittsburgh. >> it does come down to that. as another statewide massachusetts elected official said i voted for it before i voted against it. this is the problem romney finds himself in and it's compounded by that history of reversals on issues between the time he was governor and running for president. >> one final thing about where the polls are today. it seems -- how much of this is going to come down to it doesn't really matter what we see in the popular vote, it comes down to the electoral college. that's what everyone says. >> we are still in the third inning of a long ball game so don't put too much stake in them. but they are indicative of the way the trends are going. and so they're worth watching. but everyone keep a sense of perspective. save everyone's suspense. for the next couple months the headlines will be polls are tightening. because guess what? they're going to because mitt romney will be pivoting for the general. >> some of the states that you might not think are close or strong romney states are looking like they're strong for president obama, such as virginia where i saw a poll saying he was up by eight points. it's really interesting what's happening in all the different states, which don't necessarily add up to the same tightness of the race that you see in the national polls. >> you know what, no matter who ends up winning, tighter polls are fun. it's fun to talk about it, fun to debate it and we'll have all fun with it. thanks to all three of you. outfront st