bridge collapses. sending a tourist bus plunging into the forest below and the death toll could get higher. clock is ticking and tensions are soaring and if you want an idea how things heat are over the debt crisis, listen to this. president obama storms out of yesterday s meeting vowing he will veto any extension of the debt ceiling that is only short term. reports say he said to aeric cantor, quote, many could bring down my presidency. the august 2nd deadline is looming and pessimism is growing. a major rating agency says it will review the nation sterling bond rating for a possible downgrade. we are covering the angles of this all-important debt talk story. dan lothian at the white house with reaction to the extraordinary ratcheting up of tensions. ali velshi is giving us the bottom line on the economics. why should you care that u.s. bonds could face a brutal reality check? ali, let s start with you. a downgrade would be like seeing your personal credit score take a
this is ali. chris seen on a well-deserved vacation. we have a lot going on today. let s get to it. high drama and high stakes over raising america s debt ceiling. we are now just 20 day ace way from the treasury deadline. president obama will meet again today with congressional leaders for the fifth straight day of negotiations that ended abruptly yesterday. republicans saying the president stormed out of the talks. this morning, democratic source is telling cnn president obama shut down the meeting after house majority leader eric cantor continued to push for a short-term extension of the debt ceiling. something that the president categorically opposes. that s when sources say the president got agitated saying, quote, this could bring my presidency down but i will not yield on this. end quote. then he added, talking to eric cantor, eric, don t call my bluff. i m going to the american people with this, end quote. let s go live to dan lothian at the white house. differ acco
ammunition and apparently a tank. this according to an eyewitness who said there were also fatalities in that air strike. ben, obviously this has been a concern, particularly in the last couple of days as we ve seen gadhafi forces basically move away from tanks and start using the same kind of vehicles that the opposition forces have been using. do we know, is there communication at all between opposition forces in the field and nato? reporter: as far as we can tell, no, there s barely any communication between the opposition forces themselves, because the cell phone system in the area of brega has been down for quite some time. there may be units out there that do actually have proper communications, but looking around, there s no indication, at least from what we ve seen that they have anything at all. anderson? nic, i ve been hearing a lot
as former soldiers from the old regime. now, one bit of information i just received, a bit of time ago is that apparently there was a nato air strike that mistakenly hit a convoy of anti-gadhafi fighters. you see this truck full of ammunition and apparently a tank. this according to an eyewitness who said there were also fatalities in that air strike. ben, obviously this has been a concern, particularly in the last couple of days as we ve seen gadhafi forces basically move away from tanks and start using the same kind of vehicles that the opposition forces have been using. do we know, is there communication at all between opposition forces in the field and nato? reporter: as far as we can tell, no, there s barely any communication between the opposition forces themselves, because the cell phone system in the area of brega has been down
and i saw them also preparing to move back in the direction of brega to try to retake that town. but there s absolutely no guaranty that they re going to make any progress whatsoever. and this is fairly surprising given that before the real impediment for their advances was the libyan air force. the libyan air force is now gone. there s a no-fly zone. there are nato air strikes. there s several in the area of brega today. but that doesn t seem to be able to provide that critical breaking point they need to move forward. they re still plagued by this chaotic system. they don t have any command and control. they don t even have communications because the cell phone system in this area has gone down. so it is chaos. and it s hard to imagine how they re really going to make any progress whatsoever, given the lack of command and control, given their basic ignorance and