testosterone test, if you will. harry reid is the leader of the senate, and he felt he was sold out, that joe biden came in and did his job. when he negotiated with mitch mcconnell. and the administration gave up too much in the view of some democrats in those negotiations. so harry reid s point is i m the point person in the united states senate, respect my job, mr. president. i have had your back in a lot of fights. don t go around me or behind me. the problem is with zero trust, the president is betting that john boehner gets to the point where he sees the republicans getting most of the blame and perhaps the majority going away and he blinks. the speaker is betting on the fact that the president sees the prospect of default and even though the republicans get more of the blame, if the economy tanks, what happens to the president s second term? then he will blink. the only way to get this done is to put them in a room and if they don t trust each other, leave them there until th
boehner who walked out of the negotiation, even though they were this close, and that included mandatory spending, a whole range of issues. look, we should not be holding the debt ceiling and the continuing resolution, funding the government hostage. let s pass it and we can have all the negotiations we want. so, let s be clear. let s look where we are now. we are willing, ready to negotiate. republicans in the house have already appointed negotiators. the president has said he does not want to negotiate. if harry reid wants to send people over to negotiate, we re ready and willing to do it. at the same time, if we could get the senate to do what we ve done in a bipartisan manner this week, we have passed bills in a bipartisan manner to open up much of the government. if the senate would just pick up those bills, you would see a lot of those issues be swept away.
let s go to jim acosta. any hint whatsoever of even a little progress? reporter: maybe just a smij. no price at this news conference president obama came out swinging at republicans, then as he was almost finished taking questions, he seemed to crack the door open just a bit to a potential breakthrough. it wasn t long after president obama walked to the podium that it sounded as if the standoff was once again at a stand still. let s stop the excuses. let s take a vote in the house. let s end this shut down right now. let s put people back to work. reporter: but as president obama moved his way through the final moments of a one how muur press conference, he said he would agree to a short-term debt ceiling increase. but only after the government is reopened and a default is
first. so this has been looked at before. go ahead. it seem does s to me that yo a distorted view of reality when it comes to the debt. jack lew, treasurer made it clear that somewhere around the date october 17 is when we must, must take action on raising the debt ceiling. so if you re saying that you re not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling, then let s get it done he says he s willing to negotiate on the debt ceiling, congresswoman, but he wants concessions from the president on obama care. look. obama care is off the table. the house voted for it, the senate voted for it. affirmed by the supreme court. there are many issues. and let s remember, there was a negotiation with republicans and democrats in december 2012 and august 2011, and it was speaker
we know how it s going to end. sooner or later, the government will resume its functions. sooner or later, we will raise the debt limit. the question is, how do we get there. if there s anybody who disagrees that we re not going to reach that point, i would like to hear from them. so why don t we do this sooner rather than later. but wolf, this is kind of almost a circular issue or circular debate, because what john mccain is asking for sounds reasonable, but when you listen to the president, roll back the tape from today, from yesterday, from the day before, he is insisting, he is not going to talk about those things, not going to negotiate, until and unless republicans agree to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, and then they can talk. so we are still just to put it bluntly in a chicken or egg situation, which is going to come first. so far, we don t know what the answer is to that. we certainly don t. it s an awful, awful situation right now.