0 thank you so much, toure, and good afternoon. it's friday, february the 22nd, and it's seven days and counting. ♪ freak out >> for the first time in my life i am ashamed of my country. >> the scare-quester. >> it's embarrassing when the president is a demagogue. >> it's going to take a disaster to turn people's attention away from their narcissism. >> the president knows that the polls show that the american public for some reason sides with him on this. >> 51% of the voters elected barack obama. 49% of us are not that stupid. >> i think the republicans have betrayed their own values. >> the republicans have great messages, but there is a news media in this country that simply is on the president's side. >> the people who we need to reach are the people who aren't paying attention. >> that's what the economy said, but, robert, isn't this the republican rampage against government, not through the ballot box because, of course, they lost the presidential election, but through the excuse of the sequester? >> look, i think in some ways it is. there are certainly programs that you enumerated there that they would be happy to watch any federal funding squeezed off of. i do think if you again look at their rhetoric from last fall around what's going to happen to military readiness and national security, they were holding their hands up and waving them furiously just a few months ago that we couldn't possibly let this happen to now going to a mere shoulder shrug of bring it on. i think they go into this, martin, with a huge disadvantage, as you showed with the polling. i think they've got very bad cards, and they seem intent on sitting at the card table and playing each and every one of them. >> it is incredible. now, paul ryan is one of the republicans who likes to call this the president's sequester, as you know. however, i'd like you to listen to his thoughts on sequestration from a few years ago. take a listen. >> we want to make sure we put a system in place with binding caps that are tough to circumvent that are backed up with sequesters so congress actually makes the tough choices. >> this from the same man who says it's the president's sequester. can you explain that, mr. gribs? >> i can't explain it and i doubt paul ryan can either. i think again their rhetoric never seems to match the reality in this. they've got a bad hand to play, yet they seem intent on playing it, and i will say i think this sets back even further the image that they have to turn around and that is that they are not a party that is serious about doing what is possible or what needs to happen to both compromise and to govern this country. i think it's why they continue to lose important national elections time after time. >> now, you speak about messaging and you know how important the media can be in disseminating a message. here are some republican mouthpieces on exactly what's happening. take a listen to this. >> ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my life i am ashamed of my country. >> it is outright deception and i don't have a problem with what he said. >> liberals never understand rush. it frustrates me. >> it's us. we're turning into bare barians, we americans. it's not that americans are bad people. they're just apathetic -- >> may i go the other -- >> they don't care. >> they blamed the president. now they blame the people deriding americans as apathetic, narcissistic, and disinterested. can i ask you, isn't there some fundamental misunderstanding here that the will of the american people was evidenced in the way they voted in november? that's what the american people think. >> right. we've had an election where we had a bigger turnout than we'd had four years ago that came out to say we wanted to stop the insanity of some of these policies. and as you mentioned earlier, republicans spent the last two weeks trying to mount a campaign to have the blame for sequester be put off on the president rather than on themselves. it didn't work in the polling. the public isn't buying it. it's not that the public is apathetic, martin. it's just that they're a whole lot smarter than the people you showed there in the video montage. >> okay. well, we have seven days, robert, seven days before some of these horrendous cuts will begin to take effect. you've been in washington for a long time. you know the president very well. what are your odds on their being some kind of resolution given that we literally only have seven days left? >> yeah, martin, i wouldn't put a lot of money on the fact that these cuts are going to be averted. i'm pessimistic largely because i don't have a real sense of why i should be optimistic. i think you touched on this. republicans are simply unwilling and, look, ray lahood, who has been a great secretary of transportation, said this as well. it's not rocket science. we just need republicans to come sit down and understand that we've got to get a balanced approach, that everybody is going to have to give a little bit to solve these problems and republicans are at this point categorically unwilling to do anything like that. i think, again, they've got really bad cards in this yet they seem insistent on playing this hand out, and i don't think it's going to end well for them, and i think several weeks into this when the lines get long for -- to catch a flight, when air-traffic control towers are shut down -- >> when parents fail to receive funding for head start. when families don't get meals on wheels. when disabled people have no transportation. i mean, is that what needs to happen for republicans to reach a compromise? to absolutely see abject suffering in the lives of people? >> i think it is going to take the sequester kicking in and watching the real impact of these cuts across a broad spectrum of people's lives to get republicans to sit down at the table. they understand what could happen, and that's not certainly motivating them towards compromise. >> and there was me stupidly thinking they won election to serve the people of this country. robert gibbs, sir, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> next, john mccain outraged over benghazi, but when it comes to assault weapons, not so much. stay with us. >> i'm asking you, do you care -- i'm asking you, do you care whether four americans died. >> ha that assault weapons man will not pass the congress of the united states. that assault l not pass the congress of the united states. hi. hi. i'm here to pick up some cacti. it should be under stephens. the verizon share everything plan for small business. get a shareable pool of data... got enough joshua trees? 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