perhaps? both clintons marking their territory this week on the hottest races. what s behind their latest moves? the brain trust is here. sther armour, and perry bacon. perry bacon jr., political editor the grio, also an msnbc contributor. and i ve done the math, has appeared here on the brain trust more than any other trustee. wow. congratulations. no pressure, perry. no pressure. there is a cake, actually. oh, there is a cake. let s start with the clintons. let s start with hillary clinton. i want to show our viewers at home who may have missed this, secretary of state hillary clinton in a video supporting same-sex marriage earlier this week. take a look, take a listen. lbgt americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends, our loved ones. and they are full and equal
politics. the white house s charm offensive is set to continue this week. will head to capitol hill in an attempt to solve the budget standoff. i want to bring the brain trust in, dana millbank, washington post columnist and perry bacon jr. we should note here, political editor at the grio and amy homes is back an anchor at the blaze and also a speech writer for senate majority leader bill frist. good to see you. dana milbank the only not smiling at the beginning. dana, we begin with you. last week the president had dinner with a dozen or so senators and is heading to congress this week. how will this attempt to how will it work for the president? well, it s already worked for the president in the sense that we re all talking about how charming he s being and how he s reaching out to the hill, even though i don t think anything substantive has really changed
noises from the republicans on taxes. this will all have to come eventually. i wouldn t say we re going to be celebrating some big deal in the coming days, but my office is just a block from the jefferson so i m ready to go celebrate. craig, if i can add one more thing. you asked perry what was the president s motivation. i have a number for you, it s 46, and that s where his approvals are right now by gallup, 46% after the sequester campaign. i think he was trying to change the subject, and, you know, frankly americans like to see our politicians getting along. what say you to that, perry? do you think it was all poll numbers? i guess i disagree. i don t think he s as obsessed with the numbers because he already won re-election. he does want to get this deficit reduction agreement done, and i think the people in the room, particularly the dinner, the people you have to work through. john boehner on some level doesn t matter when we talk about these kinds of agreements because if
here as perry has noted. nothing? you don t think anything has changed substantively? well, not yet. we don t have anything on the table that s that s suggesting there s some grand deal possible. it s going to have to happen eventually. it s the only way out of this whole mess. maybe we have a little more leeway now. there seems to have been some good faith gestures but we still don t have anything on the table and taking some senators to dinner, taking paul ryan over to the white house for lunch isn t really going to get us there. perry, you write in the grio, quote, there is room for negotiation here, and obama appears ready to explore it. what was the impetus here? i mean, what do you think happened? did someone finally get in the president s ear and say, you know what, if you really want them to work with you and want them to like you, in d.c. you ve got to take them out for a nice dinner? i don t think the white house thought the sequester would go
around the country, flying around the country and berating republicans and blaming and pointing. now what does that do? that causes the republicans to retrench and put up a wall and to fight back. reality is both sides blame each other, of course. is from any way to objectively say who s at fault, anna? i think that that is going to be the next 30 days right now you re going see republicans, democrats, we ve already seen the war of words of who starting the sequester. but really i think what s going to happen in the next couple of weeks you re going to have obama continuing to go out on the stump, continuing to try to make the case. and at the same time, republicans aren t here. everybody left. the congress is out. there s no real sense that there s going to be a decision anytime soon to move forward on this. yeah. you know, perry, you talked about the low and middle income american families. can you get kind of specific on who s going to feel these cuts first and hardest and whe