a degree of clarity to the seemingly stalled steps to keep the country out of default. ruling out any talk of a stop-gap plan. nbc s kristen dahlgren joins us from washington with more. kristen, good morning. good morning, lynn. another day, another meeting, another deadlock on a deal of trying to raise the debt ceiling. they ll try again, meeting again today, but with three weeks to go until the august 2nd deadline, it doesn t seem that they re moving closer. still far apart on the issue of spending cuts and taxes. in a news conference yesterday, the president said he would be willing to put the democratic sacred cows of entitlement like social security and medicare on the table in exchange for the republicans unbending on some tax loopholes, the republicans insisting that any tax increases would be a burden to job creation. they say that is not on the table at all. they continue to look for a
administration is concerned about the economy. and if you, if they risk it deteriorating by this pushing up against this deadline, that is one thing. flip that around, republicans have to risk losing potential voters out there, getting letters in the mail about veterans and medicare. neither side wants the debt ceiling crossed. both sides want a deal. it s like juan said, a game of chicken. finding something that is not going to push democrats too far one way or republicans too far the other. the question is what is that deal going to be? republicans want obama to get involved and put his own plan on the table. because he has been vague as charles was saying. being vague in the debt talks as well. they re like what is your plan, is what the republicans are asking? they are putting that pressure on him to see if he can come up with the solution. he hasn t so far. bret: last thing, juan, we talk a lot about unemployment numbers and how they ve changed. if you look at the markets si
iran is engaged in ten days of war games and says the missiles can travel 1250 miles. iran monday unveiled underground smart missile silos containing weapons it says are ready to launch if iran is attacked. a top state department lawyer told a senate committee today that the president is within the law in ordering u.s. attacks against libya. meanwhile, the prosecutor for the international criminal court is urging muammar gaddafi s aides to arrest the dictator. the court monday issued warrants for gaddafi and two others. they are accused of crimes against humanity. still to come, another possible fix for medicare. but up next, it has declared war on fox news. so should media matters retain its tax-tempt status?
many of them here through advocacy of the tea party. they are not going to go for anything fewer than $2 trillion. most want more than that. the kind of tax agreement that the two sides will probably settle on won t amount to anywhere near the cuts they need in the end. that is where you run in the problem right now. to get the big money, the big savings, to really make a dent in the deficit. you know, democrats are calling for, you know, tax hikes to bring in hundreds of billions of dollars. of course, republicans aren t ready to create anything like that. they won t be either. bret: juan, when you have senator joe lieberman, independent who caucuses with the democrats coming out with a plan on medicare with senator tom coburn, and lieberman saying if we do nothing, medicare will go broke and take the government down with it. that s powerful statement, even from someone like lieberman who is on the democratic side of the caucus. very powerful statement,
but those who look at this for some time, something has to be done about medicare and something has to be done about medicaid, which is also ailing anding is has to be done about social security. entitlement reform is foremost in the mind of anyone looking at the size of the budget deficit. the problem right now is both sides i think are playing a game of chicken. they both think august 2 is not here yet. why should we put our best deal forward? it will do nothing but invite the other side to pillar it. bret: you predict possibly a deadline of august 1 like we had with talks in december where we were here until the last night? yeah. it is craziness. the whole notion of building confidence, not just in the part of the consumer but in the part of business is totally depleting that confidence to say we don t know what is going to happen with this deficit deal. it s hurting everybody. right now, president obama s numbers as you may have noted in the broadcast on the economy are his w