they are david blake, can. gomez, rolf, mike, paul, and roger. they build 10 instrument that sit on the broker. i can describe a few of them. we can start off with everyone's favorite, which are the cameras. .

and we have two instruments inside the rover there. and what you can see in those instruments is the middle

composition of what's down there on mars. so we hear about all these minerals that we see and now we're going to be able to determine the compoms of those minerals. and in addition to that, we can also take a look for organic car bon. now, let me emphasize that we are not a life detection mission and we cannot look for folves of any type. but we can look potentially for car bon that might be preserved there. a primarily goal is to explore habittable environment. that means we have water, a source of energy for microropserobse to live and we also have a source of car bon for life as we know it. but here's the trick. if we want to look for car bn, we have to be able to work with rocks that look like this one does. this comes from the early earth almost 3 billion years old. and it tells us a lot about the early environmental evolution of earth particularly the rise

of oxygen on earth and these layers are what we are interested in. this rock started out as sedimentry particles and those may have been associated with organic matter but here's the problem. when the sediment becomes a hard rock, all that can be destroyed. so this is a very, very difficult challenge that we have for us on a planet that contains life on earth we almost never see organic car bon preserved. so that's what we can hope for. what we can promise and deliver is an understanding of the environmental history of mars. so if we go to the next one combha we can see the rover itself so i would like to skip on to the next one and what you can see here is where we'll land in the images that we were

showing. right in the center we have something that looks like one of these water lane deposits. we think that water was flowing along and transporting sediment particles and in the blue outline we have this very hard rock. we don't know how this is formed. it's a big mystery to us but it looks very special and it's one of the thing that is goes along. then we can drive out and go out to where it says clays, which is one of the types of minerals. and that patch of green there is a place that we would study. then we go up into where it says sullfathes another kind of a hydrated mineral and then we work our way up the mound. so we're exploring a jee logical environment that consists of a stack of layers. so let me skip to the next one. why do these layers matter? well, this is the history of geological exploration on earth

and 150 years ago when explorers discovered the grand canyon they discord these layers of rock. if you start at the bottom of the pile of layers and go to the top, it's like reading a novel and we think that's going to be a great novel about the evolution of mars that offers strong prospects potentially for the discovery of habittable environments and maybe even a shot at potentially discovering organic compounds. but even if we don't find those orgnicks what we learned like studying a place like the grand canyon is the environments changed on earth and we think that we're going to get that. let me finish with the last one. this is what our book is going to look like. we're going to start out the first chapter is going to be what we've got in the landing elips and then we're going to head out and go towards that green star and that's where the

clay minerals are forming the layers. and then after we're done with those we're going to head into the third chapter and look at the sull fates where the yellow star is. and then after we're done with that we can go through the top. and now we've gone through hundreds of meters. and with the opportunity rover we've been working for 7 years we've gone through 20 meters of rock. we see hundreds of meters of rock so we have that many more pages to read in this book in the early history of mars. and one thing in addition to these minerals that we can see from orbit that gives us a lot of excitement for the cite is in the next slide the blue star is a feature that we can see from orbit that's been observed elsewhere on mars, we see these fracture systems. they occur all over mars and in some places they are developed gale crator is 21 of them. and they're developed hundreds

of meters up into that story about the environmental evolution. and what we see the fracture that blue star is on, it makes a line and notice that there's a dark line right in the middle on either side there's two white lines tell us that was likely an open space in which there was water that filled in with minerals and that's kind of thing that we think is a very bright prospect for a habittable environment. so we have many attractive possibilities with gale. we think it has exceptionally high diversity for different kinds of habittable environments and it is possible that some of those might preserve organic carbon. so i will turn it back to dwayne. >> i would like to ask the media if they can make their way to the microphone. and i would like to remind folks that you can find all of this information on www

.nasa.gov. and if you have google earth, an incredible google mars component. check that out. and i think it's certainly appropriate not only to give a round of applause again to the folks up here but also to all of the folks across this great country and worldwide that are working on this mission and particularly the folks at the kennedy space center who are going to take us back to mars. [applause] ok. let's go to the phone line here with eye rein. we'll come back here. go ahead, eric. >> some people on your science team are saying this could even be a bath tub. others are worried that maybe some of these watery signs could just be carried in almost

as a layer of dust by wind. what's your best estimate for how much water was once in gale crater and can you describe some of the ways in which it would have gotten there? >> well, one we're going to begin to get answers to these questions and right now what we've got are hype thesssess. and the way we can go about testing them is using the payload to make particular estimates of the environments that water may have been present in. and what i would say, the most important thing that we need to be left with is to make sure that in the year that we arrive at the landing cite we can continue to refine our hype thess ises and come up with particular observation that is we would make. and i think the most important thing is the question of how much water may have been there. there may not be one answer. there could be multiple answers. the reason it's attractive is there's likely to be multiple scenarios in which water could

have been present. but at this time we don't know how much would have been there. >> i don't know if you can go back a couple of slides to that whole stratig if i that you were showing but have you started to map out how you climb the mountain? that's a three-mile high mountain. i realize that the relief has been exaggerated. >> it's three times vertical exaggeration and we are commiting only to climbing the lower part of the mountain. and in the project one of the things we did to confirm this site as being viable is we conducted a study by a subset of people on the team and within the project called the zpwail summit team and they were charged with the responsibility of making sure that we could actually drive there. so mike and i got together with some of the engineers and a handful of scientists to try to drive this terrain because now

don't forget, this high-rise camera is incredibly valuable because you can see this table from orbit so that means we can come up with accurate models in advance of arriving there and drive them across the terrain so we had multiple paths that we found that we can get us up through those layers. >> and if you were to get all the way to the summit, can you even guess at how long that would take? a full year? >> no. i think basically where the blue star is, that would probably take us two years to get there. and then after that, the warranty expires but if history is a predictor of the future we expect to have some future life left to go. but if we were to go on for ten years, we think we could keep climbing. it's going to take years to get toe the top, if it's possible. >> one of the issues is how long we spend on the scientific investigation. so it's not just a matter of

the engineering capability of driving. it's the fact that there's a sort of rich, suite of things to look at. so there's a balance between characterizing where you're at and going to see the next thing. and that will be a very exciting part of the mission. >> and one last one. can you say how steep a slope this could climb and compare that to them? >> in some ways it's similar. i think probably generally be climbing folks around 20 degrees or so and that's similar in slope capability in terms of traverse to the opportunity. it has similar ground pressure and so we probably expect it to be able to negotiate folks that are similar to what we see in clom be hills or some of the crator eentriss. >> we're going to go to the phones and try to come back. >> i had a similar question

about time frame and how quickly will you be getting information back from this mission and also given that opportunity and spirits going years beyond? do you think this could be going for ten years and beyond? >> we'll see what happens. we have planned for a two-year mission. the two-year mission we understand that we can achieve the principle science goals that we observe and create hypothesis about there. and after that we'll just have to see. but the point that done was making is a good one. if we land and find something that is so incredibly interesting that we want to spend six months there we probably will. so there's no requirement on this mission to drill a certain summer of samples, analyze a certain number of rocks. we are really in the phase now where we are doing true scientific exploration and we will test hype thesssess and when we are satisfied we'll

move on. but that said our plan going into this is that we will move through some targets and we do want to get to the base. that is our target for the mission. >> let's go back to the phone and eye rein. >> i have two questions. if somebody could talk a little bit in the factor was to give gale the edge kind of [inaudible] >> i'll take one crack at it. essentially, it really was flavors of ice cream. very difficult. so one of the things we did is we had a meeting of the mars science laboratory science team so this is the principle investigators and all the coinvestigators involved in the mission and basically did a vote. and we ended up with two front runners.

and then but there's a slight preference for gale. and as there was more discussion and also asking the pis themselves, the people who built the ten instruments, there was a preference for gale and then it's not a one trick pony. we saw there's several different environmental settings that can be explored. any one of which might have the possibility of preserving some organic. so you don't have to have the scientific hubris of thinking that you foe exactly where to go or what mineral to target. you actually have the choice of several different things so that if one doesn't work, perhaps the other one gives you the great payoff. >> i'm going the have to jump in here. we are unfortunately out of time. but i would like to tell the

media who are sitting here and the folks on the phone that these folks will be available following this press conference. and i want to thank you all for joining us. we want to thank the museum for hosting us. when it comes to mars, science never sleeps. thank you. >> house speaker john boehner has announced that he is pulling out of the talks with president obama. instead, the speaker said he will negotiate with senate leadership to work out a compromise deal. washington is less than two weeks away from an august 2 deadline to raise the borrowing limit. after that, the president met with reporters in the white house press room to discuss the situation. this is just over 30 minutes.

i thought it would be useful for me to just give you some insight into where we were and why i think that we should have moved forward with a big deal. essentially, what we had offered speaker boehner was over $1 trillion in cuts to discretionary spending. both domestic and defense. we then offered an additional

$650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs. medicare, medicaid, social security. we believe that it was possible to shape those in a way that preserve the integrity of the system, made them available for the next generation, and did not affect current beneficiaries in an adverse way. in addition, what we sought was revenues that were actually less than what the gang of six signed off on. so you had a bipartisan group of senators including republicans who are in leadership in the senate calling for what effectively was about $2 trillion above the republican baseline that they have been working off of. what we said was give us $1.2 trillion in additional revenues. which could be accomplished without hiking tax rates but

could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions, and engaging in a tax reform process that could have lowered rates generally while broadening the base. so let me reiterate what we were offering. we were offering a deal that called for as much discretionary savings as the gang of six, we were calling for taxes that were less than what the gang of six had proposed. and we were calling for modifications to entitlement programs would have saved just as much over the ten-year window. in other words, this was an extraordinarily fair deal. if it was unbalanced, it was

unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue. but in the interest of being serious about deficit reduction, i was willing to take a lot of heat from my party and i spoke to democratic leaders yesterday and although they didn't sign off on a plan they were willing to engage in serious negotiations. despite a lot of heat from a lot of interest groups around the country, in order to make sure that we actually dealt with this problem. it is hard to understand why speaker boehner would walk away from this kind of deal and frankly if you look at the commentary out there there are a lot of republicans that are puzzled as to why it couldn't get done. in fact, there are a lot of republican voters who are puzzled as to why it couldn't get done. because the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of

the american people believe we should have a balanced approach. now, if you do not have any revenues as the most recent republican plan that has been put forth both in the house and the senate proposed, if you have no revenues at all, what that means is more of a burden on seniors, more drastic cuts to education, more drastic cuts to research. a bigger burden on services that are going to middle-class families all across the country and it essentially asks nothing of corporate jet owners, it asks nothing of oil and gas companies, it asks nothing from folks like me who have done extremely well and can afford to do a little bit more. in other words, if you don't have revenues, the entire thing ends up being tilted on the

backs of the poor and middle class families. and the majority of americans don't agree on that approach. so here is what we are going to do. we have now run out of time. i told speaker boehner, i have told democratic leader nancy pelosi, i have told harry reid and have told mitch mcconnell i want them here at 11:00 tomorrow. we have run out of time. and they are going to have to explain to me how it is that we are going to avoid default. and they can come up with any plans that they want and bring them up here and we will work on them. the only bottom line that i have is that we have to extend this debt ceiling through the next election. into 2013. and the reason is we have now seen how difficult it is to get

any kind of deal done. the economy is already weakened. and the notion that five or six or eight months from now we will be in a better position to try to solve this problem makes no sense. in addition, if we can't come up with a serious plan for actual deficit and debt reduction and all we are doing is extending the debt ceiling for another six, seven eight months, then the probabilities of downgrading u.s. credit are increased, and that will be an additional cloud tover economy and make it more difficult for us and more difficult for businesses to create jobs that the american people so desperately need. so they will come down here at 11:00 tomorrow, i expect them to have an answer in terms of how they intend to get this thing done over the course of the next week. the american people expect

action. i continue to believe that a package that is balanced and actually has serious debt and deficit reduction is the right way to go. and the american people i think are fed up with political posturing and an inability for politicians to take responsible actions as opposed to dodge their responsibilities. with that, i am going to take some questions. >> plip, you said you want the leaders back here at 11:00 to give you an answer about the path forward. what is your answer about the path forward? what path do you prefer? and also, what does this say about your relationship with speaker boehner? >> well, with respect to my relationship with speaker boehner, we have always had a cordial relationship. we had very intense negotiations. i am going to have my team brief you on how these negotiations proceeded. up until sometime early today

when i couldn't get a phone call returned. my expectation was that speaker boehner was going to be willing to go to his caucus and ask them to do the tough thing but the right thing. i think it has proven difficult for speaker daner to do that. i have been left at the altar a couple of times. and i think one of the questions that the republican party is going to have to ask itself is can they say yes to anything? can they say yes to anything? i mean, keep in mind, it's the republican party that has said that the single most important thing facing our country is deficits and debts. we have now put forward a package that would significantly cut deficits and debts. it would be the biggest debt reduction package that we have seen in a very long time.

and it is accomplished without raising individual tax rates. it is accomplished in a way that is compatible with the no tax pledge that a whole bunch of these folks signed on to because we were mindful that they had boxed themselves in and we tried to find a way for them to generate revenues in a way that did not put them in a bad spot. and so the question is, what can you say yes to? now, if their only answer is what they have presented, which is a package that would effectively require massive cuts to social security, to medicare, to domestic spending, with no revenues whatsoever, not asking anything from the wealthiest in this country or corporations that have been making record profits, if that's their only answer, then

it's going to be pretty difficult for us to figure out where to go. because the fact of the matter is that's what the american people are looking for is some compromise. some willingness to put partisanship aside, some willingness to ignore talk radio or ignore activists in our respective bases and do the right thing. and to their credit, nancy pelosi, harry reid, the democratic leadership, they sure did not like the plan that we were proposing to boehner. but they were at least willing to engage in a conversation because they understood how important it is for us to actually solve this problem. and so far i have not seen the capacity of the house republicans in particular to make those tough decisions. and so the question becomes, where is the leadership? or, alternatively, how serious

are you actually about debt and deficit reduction? or do you simply want it as a campaign ploy going into the next election? now, in terms of where we go next, here is the one thing that we have got to do. at minimum, we have got to increase the debt ceiling. at minimum. i think we need to do more than that. but as i have said before, republican leader mcconnell and the senate put forward a plan that said he is going to go ahead and give me the responsibility to raise the debt ceiling. that way, folks in congress can vote against it but at least it gets done. i am willing to take the responsibility. that is my job. so if they want to give me the responsibility to do it i am happy to do it. but what we are not going to do is to continue to play games and string this along for another eight, nine months and then have to go through this

whole exercise again. that we are not going to do. >> can you assure the american people that they will get their social security checks on august 3? and if not, who is to blame? >> well, when it comes to all the checks, not just social security, veterans, people with disabilities, about 70 million checks are sent out each month, if we default then we are going to have to make adjustments. and i am already consulting with secretary geithner in terms of what the consequences would be. we should not even be in that kind of skenaryo. and if congress and in particular the house republicans are not willing to make sure that we avoid

default, then i think it is fair to say that they would have to take responsibility for whatever problems arise in those payments. because let me repeat. i am not interested in finger pointing and i am not interested in blame. but i just want the facts to speak for themselves. we have put forward a plan that is more generous to republican concerns than a bipartisan plan that was supported by a number of republican senators including at least one that is in republican leadership in the senate. now, i will leave it up to the american people to make a determination as to how fair that is. and if the leadership cannot come to an agreement in terms of how we move forward, then i think they will hold all of us accountable. but that shouldn't even be an option. that should not be an option.

i am getting letters from people who write me and say at the end of every month i have to skip meals. senior citizens on social security who are just hanging on by a thread. folks who have severe disabilities who are desperate every single month to try to figure out how they are going to make ends meet. but it is not just those folks. you have got business contractors who are providing services to the federal government. who have to wonder, are they going to be able to get paid. and what does that do in terms of their pay rolls? you have got just a huge number of people who in one way or another interact with the federal government. and even if you don't, even if you not a recipient of social security, even if you don't get veterans benefits or disabilities imagine what that does to the economy when suddenly 70 million checks are

put at risk. if you are a business out there, that is not going to be good for economic growth. and that is the number one concern of the american people. so we have got to get it done. it is not an option not to do it. >> is there a degree of confidence? >> i am confident simply because i cannot believe that congress would end up being that irresponsible that they would not send a package that avoids a self--inflicted wound to the economy at a time when things are so difficult. >> plip, can you explain why you were offering a deal that was more generous than the gang of six but you seem to be embracing on tuesday? >> because what had become apparent was that speaker banor had some difficulty in his caucus. they're a group of his caucus

that actually think default would be ok. and have said that they would not vote for increasing the debt ceiling under any circumstances. and so i understand how they get themselves stired up. and the sharp ideological lines that they have drawn. and ultimately my responsibility is to make sure that we avoid extraordinary difficulties to american people and american businesses. and so unfortunately when you are in these negotiations, you don't get 100% of what you want. you may not even get 60 or 70% of what you want. but i was willing to try to persuade democratic leadership as well as democratic members of congress that even a deal that is not as balanced as i think it should be is better

than no deal at all. and i was willing to persuade democrats that getting a handle on debt and deficit reduction is important to democrats just as much as it is important to republicans. and, frankly, a lot of democrats are persuade bid that. as i said in the last press conference if you are a progressive you should want to get our fiscal house in order because once we do it allows us to then have a serious conversation about the investments that we need to make like infrastructure, like rebuilding our roads and our bridges and airports, like investing more in college education, like making sure that we are focused on the kinds of research and technology that is going to help us win the future. it is a lot easier to do that when we have got our fiscal house in order and that was an argument that i was willing to go out and make to a lot of skeptical democrats as you saw yesterday.

but ultimately that is what we should expect from our leaders. if this is easy it would have already been done. and i think what a lot of is the american people are so disappointed by is this sense that all the talk about responsibility, all the talk about the next generation, all the talk about making sacrifices, that when it comes to actually doing something difficult, folks walk away. and the last point i will make here, i have gone out of my way to say that both parties have to make compromises. i think this whole episode has indicated the degree to which at least a democratic president has been willing to make some tough compromises. so when you guys go out there and write your stories this is not a situation where somehow this was the usual food fight between democrats and

republicans. a lot of democrats stepped up. in ways that were not advantageous politically. so we have shown ourselves willing to do the tough stuff. on an issue that republicans ran on. >> there seems to be an extraordinary breakdown of trust involved here. and i wonder if you could address what we are hearing from republicans is that there was a framework and a deal that was agreed with your chief of staff and the treasury secretary about a certain number of revenues that the republicans had agreed to that. and then after you brought that to your party and discussed the goal line was moved. is this an example of where the goal line has moved and that is what has led to this breakdown

in trust? >> we'll go through all the paper. we'll walk you there this process. what this came down to was that you've seen in a whole range of of bipartisan proposals and we had basically agreed within $10 billion we were within that range. so that wasn't the reason this thing broke down. we were consistent in saying that it was going to be

important for us to have at least enough revenue that we could protect current beneficiaries of social security, for example. or current beneficiaries of medicare. that we weren't slashing medicaid so sharply that states suddenly were going to have to throw people off the health care rolls. and we were consistent in that. so i am not suggesting that we had an agreement that was signed sealed and delivers. the parties were still apart as recently as yesterday. but when you look at the overall package, there is no changing of the goal post here. there has been a consistency on our part in saying we are willing to make the tough cuts and we are willing to take on the heat for those difficult cuts but that there has got to be some balance in the process. what i have said publicly is the same thing that i have said privately. and i have done that consistently throughout this process. now, with respect to this breakdown in trust, i think

that we have operated above board consist ptly. there haven't been any surprises. i think the challenge really has to do with the seeming inability particularly in the house of representatives to arrive at any kind of position that compromises any of their ideological preferences. none. and you have heard it. i am not making this up. i think there are a number of members of that caucus have been very clear about that. and -- >> but [inaudible] revenue. >> absolutely. but what you saw and again you will see this from the description of the deal. essentially, what they agreed to give on is to get back to a

baseline -- this starts getting technical but there were about $700 billion in revenue that were going to be available and what we have said is when you have got a ratio of $4 in cuts for every $1 in revenue that is pretty hard to stomach. and we think it's important to make sure that whatever additional revenue is in there covers the amount of money that is being taken out of entitlement programs. that is only fair. if i am saying to future recipients of social security or medicare that you are going to have to make some adjustments, it is important that we are also willing to make some adjustments when it comes to corporate jet owners or oil and gas producers. or people who are making millions or billions of dollars.

>> you've said that your bottom line has been the big deal. that's not going to happen. are you going to be willing to go back to just a raising the debt ceiling still? >> well, i think i have been consistently saying here in this press room and everywhere that it is very important for us to raise the debt ceiling. we don't have an option on that. so if that is the best that congress can do, then i will sign an extension of the debt ceiling that takes us through 2013. i don't think that's enough. i think we should do more. that is the bare minimum, that is the floor of what the american people expect us to do. so i would like to see us do more and when i meet with the leadership tomorrow, i am going

to say let's do more. but if they tell me that is the best they can do, then i will sign an extension that goes to 2013 and i will make the case to the american people that we have got to continue going out there and solving this problem. it's the right thing to do. and it's time to do it. we can't keep putting it off. >> suggested that speaker banor didn't return phone calls this afternoon. >> i'm less concerned about me having to wait for my phone call return than i am the message that i received when i actually got the phone call. i'm going oo >> the markets are closed right now. what assurances can you give people on wall street? are you going to be reaching out to people on wall street so when monday comes we don't see a reaction? >> i think it's very important that the leadership understands

that wall street will be opening on monday and we had better have some answers during the course of the next several days. >> what can you say to people who work on wall street who might find this a bit alarming? >> well, i think what you should say -- well, here's what i would say. i remain confident that we will get an extension of the debt limit and we will not default. i am confident of that. i am less confident at this point that people are willing to step up to the plate and actually deal with the underlying problem of debt and deficits. that requires tough choices. that is what we were sent here to do. i mean the debt ceiling, that is a formality. historically this has not even been an issue. it is an unpleasant vote but it has been a routine vote that congress does periodically. it was raised 18 times when ronald reagan was president.

ronald reagan said default is not an option. that it would be hugely damaging to the prestige of the united states. and we shouldn't even consider it. so that is the easy part. we should have done that six months ago. the hard part is actually dealing with the underlying debt and deficits. and doing it in a way that is fair. that is all the american people are looking for, some fairness. i can't tell you how many letters and e-mails i get including from republican voters who say, look, we know that neither party is blameless when it comes to how this developed. there's been a lot of blame to spread around. but we sure hope you don't just balance the budget on the backs of seniors. we sure hope that we are not slashing our commitment to making sure kids can go to

college. we sure hope that we are not suddenly throwing a bunch of poor kids off the medicaid roll so they can't get basic preventative service that is keep them out of the emergency room. that is all they are looking for is some fairness. now, what you are going to hear i suspect is, well, if you -- if the senate is prepared to pass the cap cut and balance bill, the republican plan, then somehow we can solve this problem. that is serious debt reduction. it turns out actually that the plan that speaker boehner and i were talking about was compromise in terms of deficit reduction. the difference was that we didn't put all the burden on the people who are least able to protect themselves who don't have lobbyists in this town who don't have lawyers working on thed to for them.

working stiffs out there, ordinary folks who are struggling every day and they know they are getting a raw deal. and they are mad at everybody about it. they are mad at democrats and they are mad at republicans because they know somehow no matter how hard they work they don't seem to be able to keep up. and what they are looking for is somebody who is willing to look out for them. that is all they are looking for. and for us not to be keeping those folks in mind every single day when we are up here, for us to be more worried about what some talk radio show host says or what some columnist says or what pledge we signed back when we were trying to run or worrying about having a primary fight, for us to be

thinking in those terms instead of thinking about those folks is inexcusable. i mean, the american people are just desperate for folks who are willing to put aside politics just for a minute and try to get some stuff done. so when nora or somebody else asked why was i willing to go along with the deal that wasn't optimal for my perspective, it was because even if i didn't think the deal was perfect at least it would show that this place is serious. that we are willing to take on our responsibilities even when it is tough. that we are willing to step up even when the folks who helped get us elected may disagree. and at some point i think if you want to be a leader then

you have got to lead. thank you very much. >> speaker of the house john boehner met with reporters in the house to explain why he decided to end the ongoing debt and deficit reduction talks with president obama and instead focus on working out a compromise with the senate leadership. this is 10 minutes. >> good evening. i want to be entirely clear. no one wants to default on the full faith and credit of the united states government. and i am convinced that we will not. starting tonight, i will be working with colleagues here in

the capitol, both the house and the senate, to find a responsible path forward. and i have confidence in the bipartisan leaders of the congress that can come together and to ensure that we have an agreement that will allow the country to avoid default and meets the principles that we have outlined. spending cuts that must be greater than the increase in the debt limit. and, no tax increases. the discussions we have had with the white house have broken down for two reasons. first, they insisted on raising taxes. we had an agreement on a revenue number. a revenue number that we thought we could reach based on a flatter tax code with lower rates and a broader base that would produce more economic growth, more employees, and more taxpayers.

and, a tax system that was more efficient in collecting the taxes that were due the federal government. now, let me just say that the white house moved the goal post. there was an agreement on some additional revenues until yesterday when the president demanded $400 billion more which was going to be nothing more than a tax increase on the american people. and i can tell you that leader canter and i were very disappointed in this call for higher revenue. but secondly, they refused to get serious about cutting spending and making the tough choices that are facing our country on entitlement reform. so that is the bottom line. i take the same oath of office as the president of the united states. i have got the same responsibilities as the president of the united states. and i think that is for both of

us to do what is in the best interest of our country and i can tell you that it is not in the best interest of our country to raise taxes during this difficult economy and it is not in the best interest of our country to ignore the serious spending challenges that we face. now, i want to say this is a serious debate. and it is a debate about jobs and it is a debate about our economy, and frankly it is also a big debate about the future of our country. until recently the president was demanding that the congress increase the debt limit with no strings attached. as a matter of fact, the treasury secretary sent me a letter two days after we were sworn in in january demanding that we give him a clean increase in the debt limit. i immediately responded and told the treasury secretary that the american people would not tolerate a clean increase in the debt ceiling unless there were serious spending

cuts attached and real reforms to the way we spend the american people's money. i went to new york city in may gave a speech to the new york economic club where i outlined the challenges we were facing and i made it clear that we would not increase the debt limit without cuts that exceeded that increase in the debt limit, that there would be no new taxes, and that there would be serious spending reforms put in place. it is time to get serious and i am confident that the bipartisan leaders here in the congress can act. the won't get serious. we will. >> your own aides say that the package of cuts on the table was worth about $3 trillion. how can you say that the white house wasn't serious about spending cuts? that's more than you were asking for. >> we have put plan after plan on the table. the house passed its budget. we had our plan out there.

the house passed the cut cap and balance. never once did the president ever come to the table with a plan. it was always -- we were always pushing. and when you get into knees negotiations, sometimes it is good to back away from the tree and take a look at the forest. and yesterday afternoon after the president demanded more revenue in this package, i came back against away from the tree to take a look at the forest. i spent most of the morning and afternoon consulting with my fellow leaders, members of our conference and others about the way to go forward. and i have i just want to tell you what i said several weeks ago dealing with the white house is like dealing with a bowl of jello-o. i am not going to get into the partisan sniping that we heard earlier. but i can tell you that there was every effort in the world

to avoid the real cuts that we need make in order to preserve the fiscal integrity of our country and frankly the real cuts that need to be made to preserve our entitlement programs chr important programs to tens of millions of americans. >> you're frustrated with the white house. but how can you see that you can forge an agreement here just exclusively with people in the house and in the senate without having some buy-in with the white house? >> i think that we can work together here on capitol hill to forge an agreement and i am hopeful that the president will work with us on that agreement. >> president obama said that you did not return his phone call. does this permanently damage your relationship with the president? >> the president and i have gotten to know each other pretty well over the course of the last six months and i can tell you that in all of our conversations they were respectful, they were firm,

there was frustrations on both sides. but i don't believe that our relationship is permanently damaged. >> the president has invited you to the white house tomorrow morning. are you going to go? >> yes, ma'am. >> do you trust the president? you can't come to any sort of agreement. you say he backed away from an offer he made. do you trust him? >> i do trust him as a negotiator. but you have to understand that every step of this process was difficult. there's a reason why we have two political parties. there's a reason why the president and i come from different political parties. the president believes in the size of government, in more taxes from the american people. every weekend when i am not stuck here in washington, d.c. i am out somewhere in america and i am around my district and i run into people, small business people, who don't

understand why they pay the taxes they pay, don't understand all the regulations that are coming out of washington compeeding their ability to grow their business and to hire more people. and when you boil all of this down yes we have got to save the fiscal future of our country but we have got to get our economy going again and we have got to give people confidence in our economy and the way to do that is to have real spending can you tell us now. >> what's the differences in revenue that is it sounds like you and the white house is up to about $400 billion up to ten years, about $40 billion a year which considering the context of the $3.7 trillion federal budget is not that much. the stakes are so high, how could the talks have broken down over this number? >> the extra $400 billion would have had to come from increasing taxes on the very people that we expect to invest in our economy and to create jobs. >> the president suggested that you walked away from this because you couldn't control

your own caucus. there are people, there are republicans. we had heard republicans who say that default isn't something they're concerned about and don't want to see a debt ceiling raised under any circumstances. is there any truth that you were pressured to walk away from something that you might otherwise have not? >> absolutely not. i gave president's proposal serious conversation. but let's understand something. there was an agreement with the white house at $8 o 00 billion in revenue. it's the president who walked away from his agreement and demanded more money at the last minute. that is -- and the only way to get that extra revenue was to raise taxes. >> at this point what is the likelihood of doing a short-term debt limit increase? >> the president and vi never discussed a short-term increase in the debt limit. i am not really interested in a short-term increase in the debt

limit. i believe that we have two challenges. that we have to increase the debt limit and we have to deal with our deficit and our debt. and the soon we are do that, the better off our country will be. >> we began today with three possible options cut cap balance, the big deal, and mcconnell-reid. cut-cap balance hass failed. the big deal has collapsed. >> i will be working with the bipartisan congressional leaders with the path forward and i am confident that congress can act next week and not jeopardize the full faith and credit of the united states government.

>> next, live your calls and comments on "washington journal." then a discussion on the implications and legal challenges to redistricting. after that, a senate hearing on the yellow stone river oil spill. >> it takes a behind-the-stacks look says broadcasting and cable. the "l.a. times" calls it required viewing. the original documenting the library of congress behind the scenes of the world's largest library. sunday knight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> this morning, politico congressional reporter has the latest on the ongoing debt talks. then former congressional budget office director talks about his recent study which suggests tha