absolute chaos is the way he put it, e.j., if this happens now, what s it mean for the debt ceiling? right. and i think that we have to be very careful about social media. what it does is it empowers activists. i have never seen a headline in the paper, millions of angry moderates demand reasonable compromise. and so what you ve got is an echo chamber, particularly right now on the right, where they tell themselves everybody is against obama care. everybody wants to deny health insurance to 11 million people, which is what would happen if we shut it down or delayed it right now. e.j., i just had this or they could form their own view that ted cruz is, exactly as lynn said, a very famous guy right now. that does not mean that this represents a majority or anything close to a majority of the country. i just had this headline flashing, maniac moderates on
50/50 arrangement. and for the republican membership maintenance, they have to allow the sequester to go into effect. they re going to take us over this next cliff, but that really is a disservice to the country and just another manmade crises. thank you so much for your time today. thank you. i want to bring lynn and dana back. what s your reaction to the comments you heard there by the representative? the president said let s delay this, put a short-term delay in for a bit of time. he did that last week, not his front-burner issue right now. he s on the road. does he need to amp up the heat a little here? well, i think not because, remember, that obama really wanted just to lift this any kind of well, no, that was the debt ceiling. here s my point, obama s going to turn up the heat as it gets closer to the deadline. as dana and i have been talking about, we both think the can s going to be kicking down the
50/50, the american people agree with that. but as dana and lynn were pointing out, it s going to be hard to get to that here in the congress. and while the american people will just blame congress, and i think that s quite true they won t distinguish so much between the parties, the reality is, democrats have been willing as we ve seen from the $2.2 trillion in deficit reduction we ve already done to more than meet the gop half way. but the gop s going to have to be a negotiating partner with us and a lot of the fight right here on the hill right now is not between democrats and republicans. it s between republicans and republicans in the house of representatives. they ll be looking at congress and saying democrats or republicans, it s your fault. there ll be many that won t discriminate between the two parties. but here on the ground, there is, i think, recognition that within the gop, there s no willingness to enter into a
it s sort of like, well, we should be looking out for the less fortunate among us, we should look out for the middle class but need to focus on the economy. that s where romney gets the benefit benefit of the doubt. if you can make the argument what they used to say was if you want to live like the republicans, vote for the democrats. expain how you fortify these middle class institutions and the social safety net and that that leads to more millionaires, more money all around. it s not just right but good. as lynn said, you can t fake empathy or connection. you re not going to be able to fake a good economy. romney s strength on the economy come trt fact that people think it s a terrible economy, that the obama administration s projections fell well short of the kine0of projections they were hoping for economy and now economists will worry there s going to be another downturn in the summer. when you have all this focus on the buffett rule that the white house and campaign workin
some democrats say that they will not vote to keep the government open and operating if there is not a deal for dreamers on the table. this is what the president says. i don t think the democrats want to make a deal. i think they talk about daca. but they don t want to help the daca people. i don t know if there will be a shutdown. there shouldn t be. congress has until the end of the day friday to fund the government to reach some kind of deal. let s talk about all of this, joining us, cnn political commentator alice stewart and simone sanders and lynn sweet of the chicago sun-times. i want to start with you, lynn. you spoke to dick durbin, a key player in all of this as well. it was senator durbin who,ly sa publicly said the president says blank hole. he said very clearly i stand by every word and i think my colleagues now have restored