Republicans Start to Give Up as Obama Clowns Them on Meet The Press
President Obama appeared on Meet The Press this morning to talk about the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations. His 30 minute conversation with host David Gregory was pretty cordial and never really got heated at any point. Those looking for Obama to show anger at Republicans were probably disappointed, but he dug into them at several moments for their inability to take any of the deals that he offered over the past month.
There were really three pivotal moments in this interview that made Obama look like a car salesman who has been dealing with the world's most picky and frustrating customers, which is what this interview was really meant to do.
The quote that made Obama's advisors fist pump behind the camera:
They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme.
The quote that made John Boehner spit out his Sunday brunch:
I put forward a very specific proposal to do that. I negotiated with Speaker Boehner in good faith and moved more than halfway in order to achieve a grand bargain. I offered over a trillion dollars in additional spending cuts so that we would have $2 of spending cuts for every $1 of increased revenue. I think anybody objectively who's looked at this would say that we have put forward not only a sensible deal but one that has the support of the majority of the American people, including close to half of Republicans.
The quote that made everyone pretty angry at Republicans for not taking this deal:
I offered not only a trillion dollars in — over a trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years, but these changes would result in even more savings in the next 10 years. And would solve our deficit problem for a decade.
Obama was also asked about his goals for his second term. He said that he wants gun violence measures and immigration reform passed in the first year. He also stressed the importance of stabilizing the economy and putting a new focus on producing energy.
Over on Fox News Sunday, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was already offering his concessions to President Obama saying, "The president won. The president campaigned on raising rates and he's going to get a rate increase."
"He stood his ground. He's going to get tax rate increases," Graham said. "It will be a political victory for the president."
