Speaker Boehner Talks with CNN; Someone's Watching Me
KING: Check that out -- a live picture of the White House. We get snow sometimes in Washington, but this is pretty good snow by Washington's standards. It's pretty hard to see the White House obscured there by the snow now. The president is home safe and sound but check this out -- the one guy who normally does not get stuck in traffic is the president of the United States. But he could not helicopter in from Andrews Air Force Base tonight. He was in Wisconsin, as we just told you, so when he came back, the president is in one of those SUVs. That's the media trailing behind him shooting the pictures coming in from Andrews Air Force Base in slushy rush hour in Washington, D.C. in from the suburbs to the White House, a much longer ride than normal for the president of the United States, but he is safe and sound tonight in the White House and they got nice fireplaces there. I'm sure he's warming up. With me now is CNN's Kathleen Parker, she of course the co-host of "Parker Spitzer," which comes up at the top of the hour, but Kathleen is with us. You just had a little experience getting through the snow and you weren't that far away, up at the Capitol to see the new speaker.</s>KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN'S PARKER SPITZER: I did and my feet are still thawing as we speak because it is some kind of cold out there. But I did meet with Speaker John Boehner. We sat down together just the two of us in the small room where dignitaries meet with him, and in fact, where the president sat and was held until he gave his speech last night, so we had a nice chat and --</s>KING: Let's listen to some of it because one of the things you wanted to press him on is of course the big debate here in Washington and the president talked about it. Both Republican responders talked about it. The question is what will they do about it and you raised debt and deficit with the new speaker.</s>PARKER: We know that we're talking about debts and deficits in the trillions. We've got to do some serious, serious cuts. Are you talking about doing -- you know cutting Medicare, Medicaid, defense, those are the big areas where we spend the most.</s>REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: Well I do think there will be some reductions in the defense budget. I don't think there is any agency of the federal government that -- where there's not room for improvement so I would expect defense, we'll find savings there, as well. When it comes to the big entitlement programs, as I've said it's time for us as Americans to have an adult conversation with each other about the serious challenges that face us. I was a little surprised last night in the president's speech that he didn't say more about working with us on real entitlement reform. There was somewhat of a mention, but I think that the American people want us to have this conversation. We have to remember that I as speaker of the House, Republicans only control one of the three levers of government. The Democrats still control the Senate and the White House.</s>JOHN KING, HOST: He says there he's a little surprised the president essentially wasn't more forthcoming, didn't show more cards, didn't get deeper into what he wants to do. I guess he has to say that publicly. But can he really be surprised in the sense that we all know at the beginning of this chess game, the Republicans haven't laid out a lot of details yet either?</s>KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN'S PARKER SPITZER: Well, exactly. I mean we can't get anybody to lay any cards on the table. And that's what I said to the speaker. You know we all talk about cuts, cuts, cuts, but nobody wants to say what. And you know, I -- you'll have to watch tonight to see what he says but he was, you know, fairly reluctant. He said everything is on the table, but when I pressed him for specifics, you know, he was like most people on the Hill, he wouldn't say what exactly.</s>KING: Like most politicians.</s>PARKER: Everything is on the table.</s>KING: Everything is on the table. And you know, you have a nice fancy studio in New York where you do the show. But you've never been around the magic wall here. So if you want to walk over here, I will show you.</s>PARKER: Oh my gosh. It's the magic wall.</s>KING: Because if you want to talk about -- you know they have the -- he says everything is on the table and we know now why. CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, put out some new estimates today. We go back in here through history. This is the federal deficit as a proportion of GDP, as a proportion of the economy. And here's where we are now, 62 percent, which is pretty high. Post -- right in the middle of World War II we got way up here -- right up here. Some projections say now it will go up here back into the '90s, if -- 90 percent of the economy will be deficit if we don't get this under control. This is the new numbers out from the Congressional Budget Office today. So obviously they've got a lot of work to do in terms of dealing with the deficit. Some other interesting things in here. I find this striking not just for President Obama, Kathleen, because John Boehner, if he's going to stay speaker, Republicans need to do pretty good in this next environment, too. This is the unemployment rate. The Congressional Budget Office projects 9.4 percent today. They think it will stay at 9 percent for the rest of the year and maybe get to 8.2 percent or so in 2012 when not only is the president of the United States up for re-election but all those House members that could keep John Boehner speaker. Do you get the sense from him -- he's a legislator by trade. John Boehner's worked out deals with Democrats in the past but now he has the tensions of these Tea Party guys who don't want to give him too much of a leash to do business with the president. What was your sense of talking to him about that?</s>PARKER: Well, I asked him about the Tea Party, particularly in light of Michele Bachmann's, you know, standalone response last night, and Speaker Boehner held fast to what he has said to me before. And that is, there's not that much light between the Tea Party and Republican establishment. We all want the same thing and he seems to feel that they'll -- you know, they'll be able to work it out. He wasn't -- I don't think he said anything that would surprise you in that regard. You know, he is convinced that they can come together, find some cuts, what they're going to be, I don't know. He says Michele Bachmann has a right to speak just like anybody else and as he has done in previous years so we'll see.</s>KING: I want your take on this part of the interview, as well. Because we were watching it feed in while you were up on Capitol Hill doing it. And later in program, we're going to break this down. The president of the United States thinks this is a calculated Republican code to discredit him. Let's listen to John Boehner talking about American exceptionalism.</s>BOEHNER: They've refused to talk about American exceptionalism. We are different than the rest of the world. Why? Because Americans have -- the country was built on an idea that ordinary people could decide what their government looked like. And ordinary people could elect their own leaders. And 235 years ago that's a pretty novel idea. And so we are different. Why is our economy still 20 times the size of China's? Because Americans have had their freedom to succeed, the freedom to fail. We've got more innovators, more entrepreneurs, and that is exceptional, but you can't get the left to talk about it. They don't -- they reject that notion. I don't.</s>PARKER: Why do you think that is?</s>BOEHNER: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if they're afraid of it, whether they don't believe it. I don't know.</s>KING: Now does he really believe the left doesn't believe this and specifically the president doesn't believe? We're going to break this down more a little bit later in the program but the president and his team think this is a fabrication, that it's part of a deliberate Republican strategy to convince people whether they're the birthers, whether they don't -- you know, whether they just don't think Obama is like them. It's a deliberate effort to essentially disqualify Obama. He's not like you.</s>PARKER: Well, I see why they would feel that way. I brought this question up because as I told you last night when we were on the balcony waiting for the speech, I was sort of listening for that word because I heard the president say it in another speech and I thought, wow, I've never heard him talk about exceptionalism or talk about America's being exceptional. And I was sort of curious to see if he was going to put that in somewhere. This is a speech about common purpose and you know defining America. And that's -- you know this is a word that is -- that has a lot of meaning for a lot of people in this country because I think most Americans really do think we're exceptional. There are shades of meaning within different groups, the shining hill, you know, sitting on the hill, is it God's country, is it one thing or another? But conservatives feel very strongly that the president needs to declare himself and so I think, you know, the White House can feel defensive but the White House could also just say, look, of course, I think we're exceptional.</s>KING: That's an interesting way to put it. We're going to break this down more in the program, and all of Kathleen's interview with Speaker Boehner at the top of the hour on "PARKER SPITZER." Appreciate your coming in. Braving -- the weather is not so bad, right?</s>PARKER: It's wonderful. Thanks, John.</s>KING: You can come anytime. You're welcome here. You don't even need to go back to that New York place.</s>KING: And when we come back we'll break down what the president believes is the code. What conservatives believe is an essential issue. American exceptionalism.