in these behind closed doors talks, we ve heard biden, we ve heard reid, the name we haven t heard is vice-president joe biden. what s the significance of them bringing him in in the 11th hour discussion? i think it s important because he was in delaware this weekend and all of a sudden, suddenly, rushed back to the white house early today and that s significant because when they had things all boxed up a year and a half ago on the debt ceiling and looked like they d hit a brick wall, it was joe biden reaching out to mitch mcconnell and bridged the divide and magically had a deal and some senior aides who say joe biden might be the key to unsticking this, afternoon biden and mcconnell worked on the debt ceiling, many years in the senate, obviously, together and that s why they have that relationship, there s some in the white house who call the vice-president the mcconnell whisperer, as if he has some sort of magic potion that bring people together. stuart? can i just ask you, ed
democrats court. gregg. gregg: will the president focus at all on this topic, in the coming days? reporter: there doesn t appear to be much he can do, he s with his family in hawaii to celebrate christmas and he ll return to washington and landed in honolulu early today for a shorter than usual christmas break, and he says the white house at the white house he s a hopeless optimist but is now scaling back his plan, calling for a middle class tax cut now and, still pushing for a compromise. president barack obama: in this congress, laws can only pass with support from democrats and republicans and that means nobody gets 100% of what they want. everybody has to give a little bit. in a sensible way. we move forward together, or we don t move forward at all. reporter: the president wants to preserve unemployment benefits for 2 million americans which expire at the end of the year. gregg: i hope he can get back
connecticut. the president reflecting how so many of us feel. our hearts are breaking with our fellow americans in connecticut. we will look at a couple of things happening around the country will we are all taking this in. what you are seeing is the flag at half staff at the white house. the president has ordered that to happen as a way to honor the victims in connecticut. it will be flown at half staff and the white house says upon all public buildings and grounds, all military posts and naval stations so if you see this, this is what this is for. we will move to the capitol, speaker boehner early today also saying that the flag will fly at half staff again to honor the victims. ed henry at the white house with us from the briefing room, standing by. you have seen the reaction from the president and jake carney. very report everyone in this room is trying to take a breath.
it s also very moist, there s a lot of foggy problems out there this morning. areas of dense fog, the great lakes, through mississippi and alabama, especially down along the coast, all coastal areas here from south carolina up to wilmington and even san antonio. some of the worst fog is definitely in the lower portion of the great lakes. visibilities are extremely poor from milwaukee to chicago to cleveland. visibility a quarter mile or less now. expect major airport delays around chicago o hare and also cleveland early today. just enjoy this warm weather. it will last probably about two or three more days. but even then, veronica, it doesn t look like a big real cold snap, just maybe returning back to normal. i m liking it. yes. you like it. the ski resorts are bapging their heads, though. thanks, bill. a number of bizarre topics at bradley manning s wikileaks hearings. details ahead. one little girl gets the shock of a lifetime at seaworld. you re watching first look on m
in wisconsin that could prompt a recall of a number of votes. there was an incident in philadelphia early today where a number of black panthers were in front of polling sites the same thing that happened four years ago in income. four years ago in new jersey and now they are stretching the vote for voting to friday. new jersey is usually blue, but they will not have official results until friday so you may not be able to officially report as official as official the electoral votes from that state until friday which could make it a mess and now to my friend don imus on what he makes of all of this. we are not through counting and voting and we have problems. what do you think? imus: i voted on the upper west side of manhattan where i live over on west 65th street and my wife and i are the only two people in a 20-block radius who voted for romney so, you had