President Obama Meets with Congressional Leaders; The Senate Approves $64 Billion to Rebuild After Super Storm Sandy
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: John, thanks. We begin tonight with breaking news about your paycheck, your unemployment check, your defense job, the entire economy, you name it. All of it is at stake if the country goes over the fiscal cliff. It's a cliff that lawmakers built. They set the Tuesday deadline, they knew it was coming for more than a year. But until now, even now, they have done precious little to agree to a package of tax increases and spending cuts by that time. "Keeping Them Honest," the people in this building have known what's coming on Tuesday, yet they're only returning to this building to get back to work just now. Senators came back yesterday. House members, well, they won't be back until Sunday. This afternoon, house and Senate leaders met with President Obama at the White House. They talked for about an hour. Afterwards, President Obama said he was modestly optimistic. Bypassing house speaker John Boehner who had trouble getting his fellow Republicans to agree to anything, the president called on Senate majority and minority leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to work out a deal and then present it to a house. He also laid out a scaled down mini deal if they can't manage it.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we don't see an agreement between the two leaders in the Senate, I expect a bill to go on the floor, and I have asked senator Reid to do this, put a bill on the floor that makes sure that taxes on middle-class families don't go up, that unemployment insurance is still available for two million people, and that lays the groundwork then for additional deficit reduction and economic growth steps we can take in the new year. But let's not miss this deadline.</s>KAYE: As for the two Senate leaders, they spoke shortly after the meeting and they sounded more hopeful than the president.</s>SEN. HARRY REID (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: I think it was a positive meeting. There was not a lot of hilarity in the meeting. Everyone knows how important it is. It's a very serious meeting and we took an extended period of time, as you all know, waiting for us.</s>SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: I would just add, I share the view of the majority leader. We had a good meeting at the White House. We're engaged in discussions. The majority leader and myself and the White House. In the hopes that we can come forward as early as Sunday and have a recommendation that I can make to my conference and the majority leader can make to his conference. And so, we'll be working hard to try to see if we can get there in the next 24 hours. And so I'm hopeful and optimistic.</s>KAYE: Sounds good, but also sounds familiar. Right? Senator Reid said a vote could happen on Monday, but people have heard so much talk about the crisis but seen precious little action. The president tonight echoing that frustration.</s>OBAMA: 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 time table. Why everything always has to wait until the last minute. Well, 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.</s>KAYE: But, it remains to be seen whether lawmakers on both sides of the aisle get it. Some even sounded miffed to have to work over the holiday. Democratic senator Charles Schumer telling the "New York Times," quote "I didn't realize how much I didn't want to be here until I got here." And Republican senator Rand Paul saying he would rather be playing soccer with his kids and telling the "Times" quote, "this is no way to run things." And Wall Street agrees, the Dow industrial is losing more than 150 points, ending a fifth straight day on the down side. Joining us now with the very latest, chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin. So Jessica, was any progress really made today? Was there any movement at all besides this being dropped in the Senate's lap?</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Randi, by Washington's standards, that is progress. And I know it's hard to believe, but the fact that all these leaders left this meeting in agreement about the next step is a hopeful sign. The good news here is that this could have been much worse. They could have come out of the meeting saying it's impossible to reach an agreement. We cannot even begin negotiations. There will be no deal. That did not happen. And so, the fact that they have a game plan for the weekend and for the next step, it's better than a lot of people hoped for. So, now, everyone is holding their breath.</s>KAYE: Yes. I guess we have to be thankful for the little things. But, how did we get here? We heard the president say today he's mildly optimistic. Why?</s>YELLIN: Well, that optimism has to do with the fact that it could have been worse. I mean, that all the parties in there did want to get to a deal, that they would rather find a way out of this instead of going over this cliff. But the bigger picture is what you said, how did we get here? And the problem is what they're fighting over while it seems silly and petty right now, is about the fundamental difference between the democrat and the Republican parties. It's about the role of government in Americans' lives. Lower taxes versus more of a social safety net. And every time they come close to a deal, it falls apart because they have this fundamental disagreement about ideas. That's how we got here. They cannot agree on this basic negotiation over this ideological divide in America, Randi.</s>KAYE: So, what happens next then? I mean, wow likely it is we will go over the fiscal cliff. I'm curious what the mood is like in Washington, right now?</s>YELLIN: So, there's an infinitesimal increase in optimism because of the mood out of that meeting today. But I still would say the odds, the people who are placing bets in this town still expect that the nation will go over the fiscal cliff. So, still a little more hope than when we woke up this morning, but no one is counting on being off on New Year's Eve.</s>KAYE: Jessica, thanks. More now on the raw politics with "New York Times" columnist Ross Douthat, and Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher. Good to see you both. Cornell, let me start with you here. The president said that he wanted to see a straight up or down vote. As we mentioned, that will happen on Monday in the Senate. He could lose that up or down vote.</s>CORNELL BELCHER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think what you're likely to see is something come out of the Senate. You have to pay attention, especially on the Senate side, to tone. And what the minority leader McConnell was saying today, the tone was right. I think you'll see something coming out of the Senate on an up or down vote which they'll have to let go rules that will happen. But I think the problem comes on the house side, whether or not in fact speaker Boehner is going to allow what the Senate sends their way to go out on an up or down vote without having a majority of the majority.</s>KAYE: And Ross, so this is what speaker Boehner said he wanted, to push this off to the Senate, but nothing we saw today. Helps us answer to big question, can the speaker bring his conference onboard? Could house Republicans now be ready to accept a compromise even if they don't like what's in it?</s>ROSS DOUTHAT, OP-ED COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think a lot depends on what the Democrats are willing to give at this point. And the Democrats sort of have an interesting dilemma, the bird in hand issue. I think if you have something come out of the Senate that where the tax threshold goes up to $400,000 rather than $250,000 where there's some kind of concession to Republicans and frankly to some Democrats from upper income states who would like that to go up as well, then I think there would be a lot of pressure on Boehner to bring it to a vote and have it pass. Again, it probably wouldn't pass with a majority of the majority. It would end up passing with a chunk of Republicans and a lot of Democrats. But if the Democrats just want to push things and say no, you know, it's $250,000. I mean, that might not get out of the Senate. If it gets out of the Senate, I don't think it gets through the house.</s>KAYE: And Cornell, let's back up for just a moment here. Not going over the cliff isn't actually much of an achievement, is it? I mean, it's just avoiding the worse. So, that's the least both sides can do, right?</s>BELCHER: Well, I think long term is more problematic because what you see right now is you have one side of Congress that is completely dysfunctional. I mean, one side of your congress, the House of Representatives, is not functional. And I think what we're seeing is we're in the midst of a civil war on the Republican side. I mean, when the speaker of the house puts out his own bill and just moments later has to pull his bill back because his caucus is in full revolt, that says something. I think we're in the midst of a civil war going on, and unfortunately, I think the American public is going to be much of the collateral damage to the civil war going on in the Republican side. So, I think we're looking at this problem sort of on down the road until Republicans and the speaker get their act together. If he remains speaker, if in fact he has an up or down vote without a majority of the majority.</s>KAYE: And Ross, speaking of the American public, I mean, even if they manage to avoid the worse here, the way this process has played out before us probably won't fill Americans with a whole lot of hope for the next two years, will it?</s>DOUTHAT: No, although in a sense, you could argue if they did actually pass something in the next 48 hours which seems a little more likely right now than it did a day ago, if that happens, then you could argue, well, the cliff worked as designed, right, because as people have been saying on CNN for days, right? This was something designed by Congress to force congress' own hand. And so, if something passes at the last minute, it's a case of sort of at least that part of the system working out. Congress sort of doing what it forced itself to do. I would also add, I mean, I think Cornell is right about the problems facing Republicans right now, right, which is the incentives for each individual member of the House of Representatives, every Republican member, are in a sense to oppose President Obama as strongly as possible because most of them represents state seats where the biggest danger is a primary challenge from the right. But the incentive for the party as a whole is, you know, look, the legislative landscape is tilted very strongly against Republicans right now. Taxes are going to go up in some sense no matter what. And for the long term future of the party, it's probably better to sort of retreat and find new ground to fight on. So, you have those sorts of dueling imperatives at work.</s>KAYE: Ross Douthat and Cornell Belcher, thank you both, and we'll see what happens on Monday. More breaking news coming up. A rare case of lawmakers over on the Senate side actually getting something done. Something that the hard-hit survivors of hurricane sandy are counting on. Also, we'll tell you about people who got the job of going after unethical lawmakers and bipartisan efforts by lawmakers to eliminate those watch dogs, Keeping Them Honest.