four kids too. there s only a couple places in the country somebody would look at $400,000 and think it s extremely wealthy. even in washington, d.c. if you make $400,000 for a couple you re rich. this weekend the president s been a tough negotiator. as you said with republicans. i think he s been tough. the general reports about one meeting with boehner, quote, at one point according to notes taken by a participant, mr. boehner said i put $800 billion in tax revenue on the table. what do i get for that? you get nothing. i get that for free. august of 2011. you missed your opportunity on that, the president told him. i m suspicious of the way these quotes are remembered. first of all, i ve learned this from reading lots of books. nobody remembers exact quotes. three years ago he said to me verbatim. did you have a recording device?
i m glad they re shooting at each other and not the rest of america. that s why i like you. by the way, i m only saying, i don t think he s a crook. the big point is, and joan s right about this. the freedom works is important to the tea party. we want matt kibbe back here. the group collapses, it s bad for the tea party, it s good for the people who don t like the tea party. i want them to get out of the way of government work. that s my number one concern. happy new year, i mean it. happy new year, chris. not sarcastically either. i know. you two are among my favorites. when we return, let me finish with who is really running the tea party. if you re a member of congress and a member of the tea party, who s your boss, john boehner, m.i.t. rom mitt romney? don t bet on it. the angry man or woman in the back row of the tea party, the angry one that stands up and scolds him, you betrayed us, you
its editorial pages and straight paper. did you get the sense this is a little tilted towards the republicans because of the sourcing? just about the way they admitted the source. didn t the obama people say we didn t want to participate in this because they thought it would harm the negotiations in progress? mark from politico had extra reporter around that. the president was saying when he said i get the $800 billion for free was pointing out people like johnny isaacson, tom cole in the house, conservative republicans who said look. we ought to get this done for the middle class. i think obama was saying to boehner look, i don t need to give that. $700 billion just for getting the middle class tax through. just for that. yeah. this is what he told his members in the congress. because of stories like this, that can paint the picture to the voters that obama s not playing ball. trying to explain this to somebody from pluto.
say in australia now. saying when congress wrote the cliff, defined it, spend cuts, increases on income, tax increase on state. they wrote it up as this horrible thing that nobody would want to face. either side, right? they designed it that way. now they re walking right over that cliff. over niagra falls. explain. it s like congress is on pluto and we re all on earth. they say they want deficit reduction. if you go over the cliff, you get deficit reduction, you just don t get it in the responsible, accountable way. it s like chopping off on arm. like says i want a shower, i m going to niagra falls. they still can t get it done. we re dysfunctional. no other explanation. i think they can stop the roller coaster and make it go. they re doing a dance now because republicans don t want to do something to rates. obama wants to play hardball. but i think they ll have a different argument later in the year.
record. reach out to him. we always get i get into this. everybody knows i get into this. you say something the wrong b way. he referred to them as aggressively homosexual. what he meant was he s a gay rights advocate. it s not in his personal life. all he was accused the guy of is believing deeply in the rights of people born like him had the same rights. that s what the aggressive line meant. yeah. i think that hagel at the time said that he wasn t sure that someone of that aggressive homosexuality should represent the united states of america. i think it was a more serious statement, actually, than just saying he was aggressively homosexual. that s right. he meant in terms of rights. he was the first gay out gay ambassador of the united states. there might have been others but they were not out at the time. i think he was basically raising you know, i was in chuck hagel s office years ago and there was a picture of him standing next to doing bear hugs with george bush