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>>> president obama kicked the budget battle up a notch today by making clear he with would
not accept the short-term stopgap bill and by emphasizing republicans got everything
they wanted, obama may have thrown house speaker john boehner off his game a little bit. after
the president spoke, boehner could only manage a vague, sweaty, nervous-sounding press conference
where he had this bizarre admission.
>> the white house is proposing cuts that are far beyond things that we would imagine.
and so we want to get an agreement and we want to keep the government open.
>> why didn't he justed a in mitt that the white house has given them more than they
wanted? but he is right. they have given in over and over again. i mean, i'm -- i don't
get it. if you were a republican at this point, not like a tea partier, like i want a billion,
a trillion, a gas zillian, a brazilian, out of cuts. if our real republican, if somebody
hands you a gift, why don't you take it? shouldn't you be frustrated at boehner? what is his
real motivation? we will talk about that in a second. even though it was the republicans
who are obviously holding up the budget earthquake the american people apparently are split on
who to blame if the government shuts down on friday. a pew poll found that 39% of people
would blame republicans and 36% would blame the obama administration. 16% would blame
both. in a "post" poll, each got 37%. i'm stunned by that. that -- how could you -- how
can you look at those things and go, oh, yeah, they are being as obstinate? i have told you
over and over again, we had at first 40 billion given in by the obama administration, got
no credit for t then 4 billion and then 6 billion and then 20 billion and then another
3 billion. and then republicans haven't moved at all. who how can it possibly be even? there
is a second answer to that. let me give you some perspective, democrats appear to be in
much worse shape than they were leading up to the last government shut down in 1995.
back then, 46% of people said they blamed the republicans and only 27 people said the
clinton administration would be at fault. so, what happened here? why is it so much
different today than it was back then? i got to be honest with you, its it's because one
side isn't making its case. we showed you the clips in the first segment, the republicans
come out and it is their fault, their fault, they are being unreasonable and they are shutting
the government down. you ask the president and he is like, i don't know, i don't want
to blame anybody. but you're in politics. you've he got to make your case, otherwise,
how do people know? and it turns out, look at the polls they don't know. they are like,
i don't know who is at fault. that's crazy. somebody's got to change that dynamic and
that somebody is the president. all right. now, joining me is davider is rota it, a syndicated
columnist and author of the book "back to our future," also with us, ryan grimm, congressional
correspondent for the " huffington post." ryan, i want to start with you. i keep saying
me it is crazy. boehner, give him exactly what he wanted in february, said, no i want
more, you give him more, says i want 7 billion more today. does he not want a deal?
>> fundmently what he is doing is he is grafting his bunnell wet audience in mind of his tea
party caucus and as long as he is doing that as long as he is trying to pass a bill through
the house with only republican votes, he is not going to get it through the senate and
this isn't a serious negotiation until he decides that he is going to have to pick up
say 40, 50 democratic votes and then start whippen republican cards because i just don't
see how there is a path that goes from 218 republica and gets enough democratic support
to pass there and get to the white house because the tea party is going to want too many cuts
in order to -- so -- and the senate democrats aren't going to go along with that.
>> well, ryan.
>> until he abandons that, this is just change.
>> right, but does that mean -- is there some chance he actually wants to shut down, say
to the tea party, look at this i shut it down for however long, two days, a week, two months.
i don't know then he goes back and negotiates but gets his bona fides with the tea party?
>> yeah, i don't know exactly what's in his mind, but that would make sense tactically
because then he can say, look, i did everything i could. senate democrats wouldn't go for
it t and we shut the government down. so, that's some read meat that the tea party,
then after a couple of dives that they see the ramification and then he comes back, cuts
a deal with some house democrats that goes to the senate, goes the white house and then
perhaps the tea party wing of his conference will give him a pass for negotiating with
democrats, say, well, the guy did shut the government down, we got to give him that
>> david, i want to go with you, see the president here, he comes out this is a big deal, wasn't
supposed to come out, comes out, 135is 3 billion that's it, do you believe him? do you think
he is going to stand his ground at 33 billion or give in more?
>> i don't understand why we should believe him this is a president who started out the
budget debate by conceding the very terms of debate by saying the first position the
administration took was sayinging we need to freeze domestic spending entirely. he has
been giving and giving and giving and not drawing line in the sand. i think the republican,
frankly, as a negotiating tactic why should they stop the tea party votes saying why should
we stop? pass the farthest right bill through the house, tram through the house, go to the
senate, get amended go into conference committee and they will be starting on the house side
with the most extreme conservative position possible. i think what we are seeing is republicans
really understand negotiation 101 and the obama administration either doesn't understand
negotiation 101 or is actually ideologically with some of the more hard-core conservative
policies and ideologies of the tea party that is controlling the house of representatives.
>> let me build on david's point a little bit and give this question to you, ryan. had
had is the first time the president has come out in public and said this is where i stand.
he didn't say that in the beginning where he -- like if he had come out and gave a big
speech, i'm giving away $40 billion in cuts. now the republicans have to come to me it
would have been very public, right? then when the republicans didn't come to him they would
have seemed unreasonable, he didn't do that in public and didn't do that until now. now
that he's done this in public, if he doesn't concede anything more going forward, isn't
he -- i mean, look, i wouldn't concede a nickel, right? but you know how president obama is.
isn't he going to feel like, well, in order to seem reasonable, we should give them at
least a couple more billion?
>> yeah. i mean whatever the administration has been doing for the past couple of months
clearly hasn't worked because we are now in a situation where we have, you know, almost
9% unemployment with a lot of economists saying what we need is to stimulate the economy and
instead, congress is doing the exact opposite. so something isn't working. the administration
has accepted the argument, as david said that what we need are cuts now. just a few months
ago, people were still acknowledging the fact that the economy could news eust more stimulus.
while we are for long-term cuts, we want to get the budget in order in the long term in
the short term we want don't want to damage this fragile recovery. here we are, all of
a sudden, talking about cutting billions and billions of dollars from programs that really
do actually cut deep into what's happening and they are -- and it is not a controversial
thing to say that these cuts will cost thousands of jobs. mark zahndy, his figure was $700,000,
an adviser to john mccain. so, this is like basic economics here.
>> no, look, the thing is they are holding the economy hostage. because if the economy
loses jobs, republicans then turn around and say all obama's fault, couldn't he create
jobs and try to get their guy into the white house whereas obama thinks he is desperate
to create jobs, he can't risk a shut down. so, they have all the advantage. given that,
david, last question to you, you know, you see how this has developed. you see what ryan
pointed out there, which is a great point. what does that tell us about what might come
in 2012? because now we have got the giant battle, the $4 trillion, $6 trillion battle
coming up for that budgetsome that a sign of terrible things to come in terms of concessions
from the democrats and that bat?
>> i absolutely think so i think it is really tragic. i keep going back to the terms of
the debate. we are not having a discussion about how to stimulate the economy. we are
having a discussion about how to cut, cut, cut, at a cost of what most economists think
are going to be at least tens of thousand it is not hundreds of thousands of jobs. put
that rhetorical frame into the super-heated cauldron of presidential politics where the
republican nominee is going to be saying more cuts, more cuts, more cuts. and president
obama, who has said yes, yes, yes, i will give up these cuts, i will continue to give
up these cuts and we are in a political downward spiral that i think is going to have tragic
ramifications for the budget and for the economy in the country in 2012.
>> all right, david is sir rota, ryan grim, thank you both for joining us. i really appreciate
it.
>> thanks, cenk.