more. a new terror tactic revealed wild fires. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com we begin with new developments in a growing diplomatic crisis dogging the obama administration. the chinese dissident who escaped house arrest and sought refuge, but the u.s. embassy in beijing is now appealing directly to president obama for help. chen guangcheng was basically pushed out of the embassy and abandoned, but the top american diplomat in china tells cnn a very different account of what happened. cnn's stan grant is in beijing and has been following this story from the beginning. dramatic developments, huge interest at stake, stan. you had a chance to speak with the u.s. ambassador gary locke about all of this. what is the very latest? >> reporter: yes. he is gary locke, the man with the answers about what went wrong at the embassy. chen guangcheng said he was encouraged to leave and without knowing the full range of his threat that the family was posing. i sat down with the ambassador to get his side of the story. here's what he had to say. >> reporter: ambassador gary locke is the man in the hot seat, to answer a crucial question did the united states fail chen guangcheng? >> we took extraordinary steps to retrieve him. we found out that he had escaped and was in beijing and wanted to talk to us. we undertook almost like a mission impossible retrieval to pull him into the embassy. >> reporter: according to chen himself, that mission impossible is looking more like mission failure. chen, a blind activist who fled what he called brutal house arrest to take refuge in the u.s. embassy more than a week ago tells cnn he wishes he never left the dip the maic compound. in an interview yesterday he accused embassy officials of encouraging him to go and then deserting him at a beijing hospital. the embassy kept lobbying me to leave, he said. they promised to be with me at the hospital, but this afternoon, soon after we got here they were all gone. locke maintains that embassy officials have been back to the hospital several times to see chen. >> when we spoke to chen guangcheng he made it very clear he changed his mind and wishes he never left the embassy. do you now wish you never aloud him to leave. >> it was very clear all along. he wanted to be reunified with his fa and h wanted to stay in ch to be a freedom fighter. >> reporter: well, that was then. chen is now appealing to president obama to get his family out. he wants to go to the united states and he's even said to president barack obama in the interview we have with him, please president barack obama, do everything you can to get me out of this country. >> it's apparent he's had a change of heart. >> reporter: he was very explicit. >> well, i understand. he says he wants to leave this country and he's in fear of his life. >> we need to first have that conversation with him and we need to make sure what his desires are and we'll take that up and start discussing that. we need to explore all of the options. >> reporter: ambassador locke was by chen's side every step of the way as he left the embassy. time and again he told me this was chen's own decision. >> and we said what is your choice? what do you want to do? are you ready to leave and we just stopped, and then two minutes later he jumped up beaming, excited, happy and says let's go. >> reporter: chen guangcheng remains in his hospital bed. his wife and children alongside him, but they fear being sent back to their village where they were held for 18 months after chen served four years in jail for a crime he said he did not commit. he said guards there warned his wife they'd be waiting with weapons. his only choice, he says is to leave china. >> reporter: now the difficulty is how to get out of this country? ambassador locke said to seek asylum first chen would have to be on u.s. soil. that would include the american embassy. ironically, the very place that chen walked away from. mission impossible indeed, wolf. >> how is this affecting hillary clinton's visit to beijing? timothy geithner, the treasury secretary is with the secretary of state, as well. it comes at a rather awkward moment, all of this. >> reporter: you know, they came here to talk trade and that's a contentious issue enough, of course, with china, this rising economy threatening to overtake the united states in the next couple of decades. they have their issues there, but this has been completely overshadow overshadowed. we hadn't heard much from secretary clinton. she did talk about the issue of human rights and we're expecting to hear more from her in the next 24 hours and there have been suggestions that chen wants to leave on the secretary of state's plane when she leaves beijing on the weekend. >> that would be dramatic if the chinese would allow him to do that. we'll stay in close touch with you. thank you. >> the white house is facing growing questions about the diplomatic crisis, but it's backing up the account of the u.s. ambassador gary locke. >> at no point during his time in the embassy did mr. chen ever request political asylum in the u.s. and at every opportunity he expressed his desire to stay in china, unify with his family and stay in his country. all of our diplomacy was directed at putting him in the best possible position to achieve his objectives. >> the republican presidential candidate mitt romney is mincing no words in assessing this current crisis. listen to this. >> it's also apparent according to these reports if they're accurate that our embassy failed to put in place the very phiable measures that would ensure the safety of mr. chen and his family. if these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom and it's a day of shame for the obama administration. >> u.s. officials in beijing, they say they'll try to stay in touch with chen. we'll see what happens, but the stakes clearly are enormous. we're also getting new information just coming into "the situation room right now. face book's initial public offering. ali velshi is standing by. what are you hearing? >> i'm working on some numbers because there are conflicting numbers. the shares will start trading on may 18 between now and may 18 facebook is going out with morgan stanley. they'll go to hedge funds and mutual funds and they say we'll give you guys an opportunity to buy our shares and they've set the target price between $28 and $35. that is the price at which these institutions will be able to buy the stock. that is not the price that the public is likely to be able to buy this stock. what happens is depending on how in demand these shares are, the night before it starts trading, the night of may 17th, they will issue a price at which that stock begins trading and that will be the price that facebook trades out on the first day. this is generally an indication that it should be at the low end $28 and at the high end if everybody wants a piece of the action $25. i'll tell you what that does for the company, it gives facebook a valuation if it comes in at the high end of the range. if it comes up at $35 a stock, and facebook will have our calculation of $75 billion. so $75 billion company. quite remarkable to see that kind of valuation for the first time, wolf. >> that sounds relatively reasonable. $28 to $25 a share. look at what apple is doing, for example, right now. google, so the key question is should folks out there who are watching plan on buying this stock? well, remembera i lot of these offerings and think about google which came out at $85 and closed its first day $100 and a year later was at $280 and has kept on going. here's the way you should think about it, wolf? should you buy the stock at the right price? sure. you are you likely to buy at this range? probably not. understand that's the range and you'll likely have to buy it at a range. buy it at a fair price. >> thank you. jack cavery is standing by right now, he's got "the cafferty file." no secret, it's shaping up to be a ties race between president obama and mitt romney especially in the crucial swing states and new polls show romney closing in on the president in both florida and ohio. the quinnipiac poll shows romney up by a poll in florida, 44-43 and the president up by two points in ohio, 44-42. president obama has widened his lead over romney to eight points, 47 to 49. keep in mind no one has won the white house since 1960 without carrying at least two of these three states. pollsters say some of romney's gains come in voter perception that he's as good as or better than president obama when it comes to fixing the economy. for millions of americans, the economy will be issue one come november. a recent pugh poll shows 86% of registered voters say the economy will be very important to their vote while 80% cite jobs. other top issues include the economy, deficit, health care, energy and taxes. at the bottom of the list come immigration, abortion, birth control and gay marriage. wouldn't it be nice for a change if the politicians took note and stayed away from the wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage this year and instead talked about what merely concerns most people? meanwhile, there are those two key supreme court decisions that are due out in june which could throw the national focus right back on health care and immigration. here's the question. what issue or issues will ultimately decide the presidential election? go to cnn.com/cafferty file or go to the situation room's facebook page. >> i'll give our viewers a clue, unless there is a national security crisis, a war on terror or another war, it's the economy, and that is going to be the key issue. i think everybody appreciates that. that's just my clue, jack. >> well, i think you're probably right. you may be on to something there. >> maybe. maybe. thank you. mitt romney is out to win over social conservatives and why he may be in for a bumpy ride. also, he's just given up his bid for the whois. what's news gingrich's big -- i'll ask him. and love letters from barack obama long before he was president, long before he was in public office. two ex-girlfriends sharing their personal stories. stand by. 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he sure does, wolf. looking at his schedule, it is no secret mitt romney is trying to rally social conservatives, but for now it's a work in progress and something republicans do while running for the nomination, not after it's locked up. >> good morning! >> reporter: mitt rom no was doing more than just sizing up a new running mate in virginia governor bob mcdonald and taking shots at the president's new one-word campaign slogan forward. >> if the last three and a half years are his definition of forward i'd hate to see what backward looks like. >>. >> reporter: he's out to win social conservatives picking up the endorsement of his one-time rival michele bachmann. >> this is what victory looks like! >> reporter: bachmann predicted romney couldn't win. >> he is the only governor in the history of the united states that has put into place socialized medicine in his state. >> reporter: this week the presumptive gop nominee has taken hits from e vafrngel cal leaders who were outraged offer richard grenell, a supporter of seym-sex marriage who happens to be gay. his resignation prompted one blog tore declare victory. >> i will flat-out guarantee you he is not going make this mistake again. there is no way in the world that mitt romney is going to put a homosexual activist in any position of importance in his campaign. >> it did send a message. i don't think it was an in-your-face message, it could have been an oversight, but nonetheless, a troubling oversight. >> the recent conservative backlash was partly because evangelicals don't trust romney who changed his position on abortion or other issues. >> he has basically checked all of the conservative boxes on the issues of life and marriage and family, but his past policy positions are still, you know, kind of cloud that. >> reporter: romney is trying to mend fences fast, sending top aides to meet with newt gingrich and setting up a private session with rick santorum. the gop contender went behind closed doors with conservative bloggers, all part of an effort to improve relation with the republican base. >> do i believe the supreme court should overturn roe v. wade? yes. >> reporter: nobody is enjoying the run to the right more than dell democrats that have a new web video that seeks to sound the alarm for women voters? some women across virginia are outraged as governor bob mcdonald signs bill seeking an abortion to first undergo an ultrasound. >> reporter: social conservatives say romney's next test comes in a little more than a week when he speaks to the liberty university, but the romney campaign is not concerned. it's confident the gop is motivated and unified to program in the fall. >> thanks very much, jim acosta. let's dig a little bit deeper right now with our chief, political analyst gloria borger. no surprise romney has been spending callet time in virginia. >> virginia is one of those battleground states that republicans think they can win back because it's historically republican. barack obama won it last time around and george w. bush won it in 2000, 2004, the republican governor there right now. the most recent polls show it's a dead heat with romney up just a touch, but there are other swing states both sides are paying attention to. take a look at our little map here which we'll be being looking at. the states in yellow are our swing states. wolf, we just mentioned the state of virginia, indiana and north carolina are two more states that are traditionally republican like virginia. and then we see some of those others, arizona, and nevada, and those are some with hispanic voters that are really the key to winning those battleground states. romney's political action committee is already up with nine battleground states and the president's reelect is already up in six of those battleground states. so the money is starting to flow into those states. everybody who lives in a battleground state, get ready, because you're going to be seeing a lot of political ads. >> great moments for those tv stations and the owners. you want to be an owner of the tv station in those battleground states because millions will be coming in. >> still key, always will be key, and as you pointed out before, the polls in those states are very, very close. the romney campaign believes that those two states are really must-wins for them because george bush won them again in 2000 and 2004. here ate good news for the romney campaign. there's a poll that asks the question in both ohio and florida of who would do a better job on the economy and look at that. romney in florida beats president obama and again, mitt romney is up in the state of ohio and you can see why he's going back to the economic message and trying to get away from the issues that bogged him down during the campaign and not just conservatives want him to talk about that. the economy is what's going to get him a win. >> it's the economy. >> i've heard that before, wolf. >> thank you. >> newt gingrich may be out of the presidential race, but he's not done talking politics. i'll speak live with the former speaker. i'll ask him who he thinks mitt romney should think of his running mate. my interview with him coming up right here in "the situation room." 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. it's real milk full of calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply delicious. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk. >> i'm wolf blitzer. here are some of the stories we're working on for the next hour. a college student is left in a cell without food and water. get this, for five days. the incredible things he did to survive. stand by for that. >> congress is ready to go after a high-ranking obama administration official over the scandal in which federal agents led mexican drug cartels get illegal guns. new information coming in. and fresh evidence that osama bin laden was plotting destruction until the very, very end. what we're learning from the documents seized from his compound. they have been declassified. they've just been released. stand by. you're in "the situation room." it certain leigh was a roller coaster campaign for newt gingrich. at times he was written off only to bounce back with very strong debate performances and two critical primary win, but in the end, gingrich like the others was outspent and outgunned by mitt romney. the former house speaker dropped out of the race only 24 hours ago and newt gingrich is here in "the situation room with us right now. mr. speaker, thanks very much. >> good to be with you. >> looking back first, what was the biggest mistake you made? >> i think not starting out very early and legg out the kind of agenda i laid out yesterday and sticking to it and ignoring the day to day political infighting and the day to day news stories because i think the more visionary i was the better we were doing including being the front-runner in december and the more i got sucked into daily politics the weaker we were. >> when we started off with a major speech and then you went to the greek islands and what was that all about? >> we were laying out for a year what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. all of that stuff got blown way out of proportion. i made a mistake in bringing in traditional consultants. >> what does that mean, traditional consultants? >> people who wanted to focus on raising money and wanted 30-second attack ads. >> which is what mitt romney has, and worked out well. >> romney can run the kind of campaign he wants to run and that wasn't the kind of run i wanted to run, and i wanted a campaign for the reason i was running was to develop a new generation of big solutions and it turned out to be much harder to bring that into the political conversation than i would have expected. >> the way he did it, basically spending a ton of money crushing you in iowa and t