john boehner and house democratic leader nancy pelosi met at the white house yesterday afternoon with the president and vice president. here s where things stand right now. the senate leaders are meeting aiming to avoid tax hikes. and they may vote on a deal sunday or perhaps on monday. jessica yellin is our chief white house correspondent. lisa day jar dayne is on capitol hill. the president used his bully pulpit to reinforce the idea that senators need to get busy. so let s listen. the american people are watching what we do here. obviously, their patience is already thin. this is deja vu all over again. america wonders why it is that in this town for some reason, you can t get stuff done in an organized timetable, why everything always has to wait till the last minute. we re now at the last minute. and the american people are not going to have any patience for a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy. not right now. so jessica, you were in the room for the pre
welcome back to the cnn news room, i m martin savidge. if you re just joining us, thank you for tuning in. we re following the breaking developments on a store i that affects every single american. that s the fiscal cliff. we reach the brink in two days. let s go live now to dana bash on capitol hill. because of news of a setback. dana, what do we know? that s right. we got this word from democratic sources about a half an hour ago. maybe a little bit more. that they consider a major setback to be going on right now. a poison pill, something that the republicans offered last night and democrats rejected today. it s called technically chain cpi, the buzz word for it. what it means for real people and real terms, would be that social security recipients would see smaller checks on a monthly basis and that s why democrats are saying that this is a nonstarter. the president did propose this to the house speakers as part of a larger deal. he even talked about it again this morni
already come or is that still perhaps lurking out? we do not know the answer to that. all of the events are capricious such as sandy. you can t tell which wave is going to be packing the most punch. sometimes it s the second, third, or last one. so it s sort of a train wreck coming through slowly but surely. and you have to make sure that you have a very good idea that the worst is by you before you start sending people back into the areas that could be affected. so of course as you prepare for the worst, you mentioned the phrase train wreck. i ve talked to a number of people live on air. and the good news it seems is though people in hawaii have been through and while concern is high, there s no real panic. that s correct. we have a lot of experience with it. the one public was that it was a very short fuse. when it happened in japan, we had about six hours. when it happens off the coast of south america we have that much, maybe more. this was 2 1/2 hours. because it s
standing with conservatives and why isn t it on display yet? with he want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. we continue with cnn s live coverage of today s breaking news. the shocking death of an american music legend. prince. he was 57 years old. he had canceled several recent concerts due to illness. investigators say he was found unresponsive today in an elevator at his mansion outside of minneapolis. prince s music topped the charts again and again for decades. grammy-winning albums like purple rain and number one songs like kiss and when doves cry. tonight, prince s fans are gathering outside of his home in minnesota and we re getting new information from investigators. our correspondents and guests and analysts will be joining me. let s start with cnn respond paul vercammen who is joining me with details on the breaking news. what do we know? reporter: well, we now know, wolf, th