>> th president pushes for real compromise. >> it is time for compromise for the american people time is short. >> and time is short, and speaker boehner has struck out. >> what is being done in the house is not compromise. >> zippity doo dah, zippity day, my, oh, my, what a wonderful day. >> the deadline is looming, and just four days left to raise the nation's debt limit and senate democrats pushing forward their plan to avoid default even as the house republicans plan to vote on their bill at some point presumably today. with chaos mounting and the clock ticking, the president reinserted himself in the debate today urging the american people to make their voices heard in the halls of congress. >> to all of the american people, keep it up. if you want to see a bipartisan

compromise, a bill that can pass both houses of congress and that i can sign, let your members of congress know. make a phone call. send an e-mail. tweet. keep the pressure on washington. we can get past this. >> and call they did. flooding the congressional phone lines to near capacity, reiterating the president's call for compromise, and indeed, speaker boehner is hard at work wrangling a deal, but the only problem is that he is bargaining with his own tea party republicans. yes, the speaker and his lieutenants are engaged in heroic efforts working to make it even more certain that the republican bill will fail in the senate. you want a balanced budget amendment? you got it. who cares if john mccain called it bizarre-o, and the lobbyists the group for growth calling it is a wagging the dog.

and chuck schumer called it ridiculous. >> requiring that each house of congress not only vote on, but pass a balanced budget amendment before any debt ceiling is raised will guarantee a default. >> senate majority leader harry reid says he is not waiting to push his plan, warning that time is running out to avoid a fiscal catastrophe. >> the last train is leaving the station. this is our last best chance to preserve the credit of our great nation. >> now, all eyes are on the senate and the republican leadership mitch mcconnell, but despite jammed phonelines and dropping markets, mitch mcconnell is saying it was the president who blocked the bipartisan bill. >> if he had decided not to blow up the bipartisan solution that

members of congress worked so hard on, we would be voting to end this crisis today. >> right over to capitol hill where chris van hollen, the ranking member of the budget committee joining us now. good afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon, martin. >> the clock is ticking, congressman, and what did you think of the farcical scenes of mr. boehner incapable of securing enough support for the plan, and do you think it is likely to pass today? >> well, martin, many weeks ago, speaker of the house john boehner called for an adult moment, and last night we saw them heading in the exact opposite direction. this is a time, as the president said, for responsible compromise, and instead of reaching out across the aisle, what he is doing is to catering to the far right tea party extreme of his own party, and went from a bill that is already, you know, uncompromising to one that is even worse. >> so are you calling him a child? >> well, i'm saying he was headed in the wrong direction by his own -- he has not met his own call for the adult moment at

this particular point in time. we hope we get to that point quickly. unfortunately, because house republicans refuse to come up with the sensible compromise, we are going to have to ask harry reid and mitch mcconnell to see what they can iron out. >> i wanted to ask you that, because hasn't speaker boehner's decision to amend the plan so that it now includes a balanced budget amendment utterly eviscerates any possibility that it will ever pass through the senate? >> well, that is right. as senator mccain indicated and others indicated, it is a non-starter. it is not going to happen. you know, we should point out that it is interesting to hear a lot of the tea party folks call for a constitutional balanced budget amendment. at the end of the day, that is passing the buck to the judiciary, because if congress can't do the job as it should, do they want federal judges deciding whether to raise taxes or cut medicare? we have got to get the job done. this is our responsibility. coming up with these cute things

that, you know, bells and whistles and conditions that are not going to pass and which is as i said would hand it over to the judicial, judiciary and the activist judges what they call the activist judges if it did is not going to get us anywhere. >> so we are watching the debate now in the the house, and is this purely about mr. boehner saving face and being able to say, look, we passed this in the house and now over to you? >> well, of course, it is. speaker of the house cannot have a bill this size go down on his watch. so what they did is when it was clearly not getting the votes necessary in the original form, they made these changes to it to cater to the tea party wing of the party, and as one of my colleagues said, you have the tail wagging the elephant here, and unfortunately leadership requires that we move in the opposite direction, and leadership means that you make the tough decisions and may have to take on parts of the caucus in order to hammer out a compromise for the good of the country, and what we are seeing in the house is taking us in the

opposite direction. >> congressman chris van hollen, thank you for joining us this afternoon. well, as president obama spurs americans to use the phonelines, we go back with the popular demand the loud mouth and silver fox. luke russert and mike viqueira. luke, i'd like to start with you. speaker boehner says he want to bring the bill back now, and maybe it can now pass, but wouldn't it be deader in the senate if that is possible? >> absolutely, martin. what speaker boehner had to do was for the third time in three days bring up a new republican debt limit in the house gop and this one moved the bill to the right. he absolutely catered to the tea party republicans, and how do i know this? i spoke to a few of them who said they went in and met with him yesterday, and floated this balanced budget amendment option aroundp 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. saying

it is the only way to get to 216 votes. so that is the situation, and that plan will go nowhere in the united states senate, and as you heard chris van hollen say, they don't want a judicial branch to dictate the budget, and not to mention before a debt ceiling can be raised in the second go around, they have to go to the states, and the possibility of trying to see a balanced budget amendment go through state legislatures, and that could be further contingent on the debt ceiling increase has a lot of folks on the democratic side thinking it is unreasonable. >> luke, at this time yesterday, you and i thought that they probably had somewhere around the 216. do you think that they have those votes now? >> absolutely. >> you are confident? >> yes, 110%, they will get 216 tonight. if john boehner cannot get 26 tonight, then his whole house gop conference is non-existent, and you would see some sort of insurrection there amongst somebody else. he has to get this done in order to keep the hand on the spe

speakership. >> and now over to mike viqueira, because the president's involvement in this white has waxed and waned. and he has been described as leading from behind. >> yes. >> you heard the speech earlier where he talked about the fact that as a nation, we face many things that we have no control over, and this is one that we do. are there not fair questions that can be asked of his involvement in this whole process. >> well, first of all n term al of the involvement, the high and low profile through the crisis and it has worn through a full-blown conference and one of his aides valerie jarrett, said that the president has had sleepless nights and so involved in it to the extent that he was up around the clock was the impression that was left. well, today, press secretary jay carney said he was in fact well rested, but what you saw the president today do was the stay above it all, and go back to his stance asking for bipartisanship, because he is

clearly making a virtue of necessity herings because bipartisanship is the only thing to happen with the demise of john boehner's plan and the strategy to jam the senate, and jam the president, and force them to sign the only viable thing that had passed either house of congress come tuesday night and that is the house plan. john boehner similarly regarded not just from the democrats b tow save face and the whole thing would crash and burn and he threw something in there the balanced budget amendment to get it out of the house of representatives, but in the process foresaking or casting aside any pretense of putting forward what could be regarded as a bipartisan bill, and that is a fairly thin read to begin with, so they could at least make the argument, so the issue is, is the white house dealing with mitch mcconnell as we go through the process of the next two days and the weekend and will mitch mcconnell trying to get the republican vote or allowing in in any case the white house or democrats to go to get the republican votes to get this thing out of of the senate and on the way?

>> well, mike, you will have the answers for us, because you as usual will be working over the weekend. >> you are absolutely correct. >> we will all be here, martin. we will all be here, buddy. >> and jim cramer of "mad money" fame tells us how mad wall street is about all of this. stay with us. ♪ dream on dream on dream on on. only one calcium supplement does that in one daily dose. new citracal slow release... continuously releases calcium plus d for the efficient absorption my body needs. citracal. plus the choice of every etf, 5-star research, and unmatched trading tools. there's price. there's value. don't confuse the two. e-trade. investing unleashed.

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you are looking live at the house floor as members prepare for a vote later today on speaker boehner's debt bill. the stunning events playing out in the house could mean big losses on wall street and beyond as this debt ceiling battle pushes down to the wire. for the very latest on today's trading session i'm delighted to welcome back jim cramer host of

msnbc's "mad money" and jim, can i begin with the staggering news that apple company is holding more money than the government with over $76 billion and the government with $73 billion and maybe we should ask steve jobs for a handout. >> i did a piece on "mad money" last week which the thought was that the idea that maybe we should have iusa, and in other words, if apple were to put some of the skills together with the government, we would end up with a incredibly powerful government to take over china as opposed the china take us over and astounding the world with the best products. apple is an amazing company and it is not necessarily a reflection of the united states, because every company is jealous oapple, too. >> well, we have had seriously further indication of the recession not lifting anything like we thought with growth revised down for the first quarter from 1.9% to just 0.4%. what are the implication of that

finding? >> well, i think that it says, martin, that recession is almost in the cards if we don't get a deal of some magnitude. >> you really believe that we could have another recession as a direct result of this failure to reach a deal on the debt ceiling? >> absolutely. and believe me, if you have listened to the commentary, that is a new position i have had. it has to do not just with the gdp, but i speak to dozens of companies every single week, and there has been a real cessation of business and a kind of business of the country has stopped. and a lot of the people are just waiting to see what these guys do. i don't think they seem to understand that i have listened to every single one of the politicians when they come on air and they are all of the same, and listen, don't worry about it, we will get a deal and saying it for weeks, and that is obviously not true now and maybe we get a deal and maybe we don't. they told us never worry about the fact that the treasury would default, and now we are coming up with whether the soldiers get the money or social security will get the money?

so a lot of of the assurances are false, and that has turned main street business on its head. >> given all that has happened, jim, do you believe it is only really a matter of time before the aaa credit rating is downgraded principally because of what is happening in congress? >> well, look, the s&p is under the gun and the standard & poor's, under the gun from the previous era where they have misjudged a lot of the mortgage bonds and they won't come out and say, we misjudged them and they are now more vigilant, but they are, and that are saying if you don't give us $4 trillion in cuts we will downgrade or could likely downgrade and they are waffling over what they are saying to trigger a downgrade, and certainly, if you got a weak deal with only a trillion in savings that is a recipe for downgrade and the recipes go higher. >> and how do you fancy going through this again in six months, jim? >> well, look, this is a nightmare and if you don't care about 401(k)s and i.r.a.s and we had congressmen on "squawk on

the street" and the usual rhetoric and it is like anarchy, well, we want to tear it down to repair it. i am shocked about the rhetoric versus what business is saying, please, shut up and do your job so we can do ours, but right now business is saying in the country, we are frozen, because they are frozen. so, yes, i think that if we have to do this thing again, we are just not going to have a chance to get out of the soft patch to go to the hard patch and not get as far as the eye can see. >> you speak passionately, and tell me if you can, what would you say to both houses of congress today if you had a chance? >> i would say that your constituents want more than anything else in the world to have a deal, because they are all in. they have 401(k)s and iras and have to pay for the kids to go to school and they want a deal. find a deal. they don't want a nonsense about how if we don't get this done with, you know, with no tax increases, they don't want to hear that and they don't want rhetoric about how we have to have the 400,000 paying more,

but what they want to know is they are losing money every single day. we forgot that everybody is in in this country, and they all own stocks and when are the politicians going to understand that we are a investor class nation. >> and increasingly get a deal is your message, jim cramer. you can see much more on his program on cnbc, "mad money" that airs at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. each day. as we see this unravel, i can't help but watching the unraveling of the troops, but the ben affleck screenplay "the town" didn't come real. so maybe they would think better off of this bank robber movie, because this one may more accurately dra lly dramatize th handling of the crisis. >> this is a stickup. everybody freeze. everybody down and the ground.

[ chickens clucking ] >> which is it, young fellow, freeze or get down on the ground. i mean, to say freeze, i can't rightly drop, and if i'm going to drop i will be in motion. >> shut up! >> okay, then. >> john boehner is played by the great john goodman. and for the chaos in washington follow the latest on twitter at @bashirlive on twitter or follow me on facebook. and the next boehner compromise. stay with us. ♪ whoa. right? get out. i know! who knew? i mean. exactly! really. that's what i mean. [ mom ] what? shut the front door. right?

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tick tock goes to clock as the house weighs in to look at another version of the boehner bill and another version that

harry reid has no trouble passing this time. >> it should be fairly easy to get the votes now, because they have given away more than they had before. >> and democratic senator chris coons joins us for the first time on our show. good afternoon, sir. >> thank you, martin, for the chance to be on. >> can you explain to me why the newly constituted boehner bill has the balanced budget amendment which is more likely to crash and burn when and if it lands in the senate? >> i can only hazard a guess. >> please hazard one. >> well, after the several hour-long wait over here last night as speaker boehner struggled to get the votes he needed solely from his own caucus, he concluded that he had to go back to the drawing board and make a simple choice, and either make the bill more conservative to shore up his own position, and secure the speakership and play more to his tea party caucus thus dooming the bill from having serious

hope of passage here in the senate or begin to work more closely with democrats on a balanced bipartisan proposal to contribute to solving america's impending default crisis, and clearly leader reid chose the former. >> indeed. the president said today that as a nation, we face many crises that are not our own making, but this one is, and he is right, but isn't he also a party to the crisis? it has been in discussions for six months, and we are down the four days? >> well, yes. one of the things that i find hardest, martin, about washington is how things only seem to move up against a deadline and with an inflated or elevated sense of crisis. this one though has gotten so close to the end that i think that it genuinely deserves t ss term. we have had months where we could have had serious bipartisan discussions building on the simpson/bowles commission, and working on the gang of six to craft a

bipartisan proposal with thoughtful legislation, but instead, it is hammered out in the last day. >> and what has stopped that from happening, and what has been the impedimentt of discussions in the last six months? >> well, martin, dynamics between both houses and parties and we saw it sharply in the house last night as the speaker of the house was unable to get a fairly conservative proposal through his own party. there are dynamics within both parties and both houses that pull in the opposite direction that say, no, we don't need to make any concessions on spending or revenue and in the particular current debate, the real intransigence of the republicans on any revenue in the final deal has held us up for weeks. leader reid's proposal, the one we expect to take up in the senate has no revenue and only spending cuts and domestic discretionary spending cuts, a it is still my hope that we will

consider a stronger and bigger bipartisan effort to have everything on the table, and pentagon spending and entitlement spending, and broader tax rates to improve federal revenue and discretionary cuts instead of the bigger project, we are doing just what we can to get past tuesday. >> senator chris coons, and what a refreshing sight to have a man speaking critically of both of his parties and the opposition. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, martin. >> next, the president in a lose-lose situation. has this week terribly damaged his chances for re-election? stay with us. ♪ [ male announcer ] this is coach parker... whose non-stop day starts with back pain...

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way to go, coach. somewhere in america, a city comes to life. it moves effortlessly, breathes easily. it flows with clean water. it makes its skyline greener and its population healthier. all to become the kind of city people want to live and work in. somewhere in america, we've already answered some of the nation's toughest questions. and the over sixty thousand people of siemens are ready to do it again. siemens. answers. the president's approval rating amid the debt ceiling debacle is receiving a significant blow and this could shake up the race of 2012 for the president.

take a look at the pew research numbers. in three months the president's approval rating has dipped from 46% to a mere 31%. gop presidential candidates are taking note and chiming in. with mitt romney tweeting, it is a historic failure of leadership. and michele bachmann saying shame on president obama for casting the american people aside. and joining us from atlanta thegrio.com contributing editor goldie taylor. you have seen the recent polls and the president's numbers are awful, and any way that he is going to come out of this unscathed? >> i think that it is going to be tough for any of the players involved to come out unscathed including people like congresswoman michele bachmann and so, i think that, you know, as the months go on, and this campaign of 2011 has not gotten under way in any earnest way, but when people compare what this president's record happens to be and what the gop field

brings to bear, the president should come out just fine. they are going to have to come up with a much stronger candidate than any of those they have in the field today. >> indeed. we talked about michele bachmann on another occasion, but in the case of the president, he is accused of being lethargic in the leadership. and do you accept that is a problem for him? he is afterall the president. >> i don't quite accept that, but what i do accept is that we have 40 freshmen in essence holding 300 million hostage today, and this is as if they have them strapped to the hood of the car and barreling over a cliff and they don't belief this economy will topple, and interest rates will shore, and bond market will crash and they don't believe that, you know, the kind of calamity that could come to us by not getting a downgrade in this nation's credit rating is important. i think that the president has been strong about that. how he comes out of it, and how he talks about it to the american people, and the message

he has to us when this is over, that is what is going to count. but when we are in the thick of it and the american people are watching the sauce saj making everyday then everyone including the president stands to take a hit. >> goldie taylor, thank you very much indeed. we hope that we will come back to you later in the broadcast as the debt talks continue. president obama declares that the time of putting party first is over. but tell that to the house republicans as they ready a vote on a revised budget bill that pulls even further right demanding a balanced budget amendment for further increases in the debt ceiling, and senate democrats say it is doomed and would mean a certain default on the debt. let's get more now with democratic senate leader john kerry. >> good afternoon, martin. >> you are clear that harry reid's plan is the only way out, and yet the gop keeps twisting

arms and going through the convulsions to get the bill through the house, and so what is next in this dysfunctional debac debacle? >> well, when you say dysfunctional debacle, i hope you are clear that there are people here who are functioning at full gear, and bipartisan capacity to be able to deal with this. this is not a failure of congress as a whole. it is a civil war within the republican party. and you have the house of representatives and not the senate who are insisting on not e negotiating and i heard the prior segment about the president, and no person could have changed the minds of the people who decided not to have their minds changed and not to negotiate and that is what is going on here, martin. and let me finish one point. and -- >> sure. >> and speaker boehner is

negotiating not with the democrats, but within his own party to basically hold on to the leadership and satisfy that fringe. that is not going the work over here. what we are concerned about is that it is substantively wrong and leave the politics aside if all you have is a short term, a short term extension within a month, you will be back here in the debate and the uncertainty of the marketplace will be extraordinary. the republicans are the ones who have said, give businesses certain certainty, but they are now the ones providing the uncertainty. we are prepared to put a bipartisan compromised, fully sort of embracing set of concessions on the table in order to address the needs of the country. that's the adult thing to do and the responsible thing to do, and i believe that harry reid's plan will be the only game in town. >> but given the deadlock that you so eloquently describe, would you support the president

using the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling on his own? >> i will support the president doing what is necessary to prevent this united states of america from defaulting for the first time and to prevent us from having a downgradef of our credit which will be a tax increase for all americans who have a loan. and people need to hear that really clearly. the republicans in the house seem to be prepared to threaten the possibility of our credit rating to be taken from the aaa and downgraded for the first time in american history. the implications off that for greece, italy, spain, ireland, europe, for our investments, for their investments in us, and for our standing in the world is extraordinary. you know the chinese are looking at us right now and they are just gleeful and incredulous at the way in which one of the

great competitors is imploding on itself, because a group of absolutists and extremists don't understand the implication of what they are doing, and prepared to hold the entire economy hostage and it is unprecedented of anything i have seen in all of the time i have been in public life, and i think it is damaging and dangerous and reckless and irresponsible. >> you will know, sir, that those 87 freshmen that you refer namelessly to would say they are absolutely committed to the pledges they were given, and elected to do and only doing what they promised to do? >> well, the way to do what they have set out to do frankly, they ought to know when they have had something of a victory and take it home and celebrate it. because, they there are unprecedented cuts and we are going to be on a track which all of us share. i mean, they are acting as if they think they are the only ones who understand that america has a debt problem.

you know, we balanced budget back in the 1990s. so of us have been here and done this before and we actually know how to do this without wrecking america and we know how to do this without putting america's future job creation and leadership at risk, because in the 1990s we balanced the budget, created 23 million new jobs and we set ourselves on a surplus road. if we had stayed on it, stayed on it without george bush's interruption, there would have been a debt of america paid off for the first time since andrew jackson. they have forgotten history, if they ever knew it. they are forgetting that we did this at a time and created the greatest wealth in american history, and we didn't savage those things that are going to produce the jobs of the future in america. what i'm afraid they are doing today is coming in with such an amount of zeal and absolutism, they are going to eat america's seed corn with some of the cuts. the cuts are so severe at a time

where our economy is already fragile that what they are going to do is to actually hurt our ability to grow out of this deficit problem. i voted for the balanced budget. i understand how we need to get there. i also was one of the first three co-sponsors of the graham/rudman/holings deficit reductions in the 1980s with president rigan. i do know what i am talking about. there is a way to get there, but there is a responsible, shared sacrifice, thoughtful way to get there and not this reckless, irresponsible, my way or highway approach. >> senator john kerry, we are all hoping that your view on that will prevail. >> we will beliei believe we wi >> and there will be a resolution. >> thank you. and for a look at capitol hill, look at brian williams special "taking the hill, inside congress" sunday at 7:00 p.m.,

6:00 central sunday. coming up this historic day, a look at the capitol. stay with us. well-being. we're all striving for it. purina cat chow helps you nurture it in your cat with a full family of excellent nutrition and helpful resources. purina cat chow. share a better life.

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i'm brian sullivan with your cnbc market wrap and it is tough day in what has beenpb a tough week for wall street as all eyes on wall street are on washington and what was a lousy gross domestic print. the dow is down and so is the s&p and so is nasdaq. boeing and cisco and some of the other technology names are up,

and others like merck are down. and gdpp is worse than in the second quarter which is worse than wall street estimates, and what is worse is that the first quarter was revised down to 0.4% growth which is not enough to grow jobs or the economy so all in all given everything that has gone on not the worst of days, but not a great day. with the cnbc market wrap, i'm brian sullivan. back to you, martin. >> thank you. i wish you would stick around to join us for a conversation as we keep an eye on the market, and bring in luke russert at capitol hill and welcome cnbc political analyst karen finny in washington joining us. and brian, what is the long-term damage in simple terms if washington does not pull this deal together by monday? >> one is the dissolution of consumer confidence. this is 75% of the consumer economy is spending.

we have been interviewing americans and they are nervous and watching d.c. and the outcome and they are not spending. if they slow down, the whole economy slows down, and there is also a concern about the interest rates. if we get a credit rating downgrade, it is likely that some suggest that interest rates across all of the different levels of the bond market will go up which means if you have a variable rate mortgage or a mortgage or equity line that is something that, you know, turns every time the feds or the interest rates make a move, you will be essentially paying higher interest rates and some people call it a tax, and if we obviously start to see the consumers pull back, that hurts the corporate profits which means that the third part of the dominos go down which is the stock market. >> and karen, thank you for bearing with us this afternoon, because i know you have been waiting to come in and we have had a couple of senators who have joined us, but house switchboards have been slammed with e-mails and voters are

concerned about this debt crisis and congressional web sites are crash, and these are people who don't want to lose their social security, but they are worried about the interest rates that brian was referring to, so does that mean that washington is not listening to these people? >> well, i think that absolutely. i mean, look, the mandate, if you want to call it that, that the republicans got in 2010 was about creating jobs, and it was not as they have been saying about creating a default crisis. i think that what has been happening and it is interesting to watch not only what has been happening with the switchboards but also ratings in terms of the people are getting to tune in that is what is at stake is not just social security, but the very things that we are talking about, and if you are someone and your 401(k) is just coming back, you are scared about what could potentially happen, and it is also people have a frustration and feeling of we sent you there to get something done, and essentially what is happening is that people are just not able to get anything done, and in addition to consumer confidence, people are

losing confidence in the government's ability to get something done, and that is a really, i think frustrating place for people to be in a tough economy. >> and senator john kerry was placing the entire blame of that on the 87 freshmen republicans and called them extremists on this broadcast. do you share that view? >> i do actually. i think that, look, here is the reality, martin, john boehner could have gotten a deal some time ago if he were willing to show the courage that we saw nancy pelosi do in the health care debate which is to do a deal with the democrats. if you know you won't get the deal with the republicans, then go ahead to cut the best deal that you can knowing that it might cost you your speakership, but at the same time, if this is what it takes on to hold on to your speakership, i mean, luke could say better than me, but he is weakened at this point. >> indeed, i would finish with you, luke. how weak is the speaker after all of this? >> well, the third boehner debt

limit bill in three days, martin, and showed with the no vote that speaker john boehner does not have hold of the to h get this to 216 you need have a balanced budget amendment. the fact the established gop leaders could not bring the newly elected members onboard way plan they essentially framed if you vote against this you're voting for barack obama, it didn't matter. >> indeed. >> and especially a plan that every single democrat in congress is against. so it's the apong theos is of a republican plan, if you will. quite striking he wasn't able to do that. look, as much as we're saying speaker boehner is down, the parameters have still been defined by the gop and that's what president obama is playing with. this blocking minority in the

house, elections have consequences. they true thily have in this. >> thanks for joining us. meeting that took place in washington has gone largely unreported. in a remarkable show's eck cue menable unity, he met with catholic leaders seeking to seek the national debt he should be mindful of hurting the poor. one in attendance, the reference jim wallace, president and ceo of a group that campaigns for social justice on the basis of biblical principles and he joins us this afternoon. hello, sir. >> hello, martin. >> the writer says in the epistles if anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how account love of god be in that person? can i ask you this, how come so many of these politicians in washington claim to be devout

christians and yet are determined to slash, cut, remove, the very programs that help the poor and seek to fight poverty? >> well, i love the commentator that starts with scripture. thank you very much. my wife is an anglican minister? your church of england. this is the issue. the deem is moving,al the ball is moving. we're saying for democrats and republicans there have to be principle, moral guidance here. we said in the meeting with the president, he quoted matthew chapter 25. e he said, the sacrifice cannot be borne by what he called the least of these. that's why we there. we're saying the principle of protecting the poorest and most vulnerable is our major concern here. so whatever deal is made tomorrow, the next day, monday, we're saying, that principle from john, from matthew, has to

be upheld, and if we say we're people of faith, and many of them do, they're ignoring what the scripture says. they're ignoring what jesus says here. he says, as you've done to the least of these you've done to me. i think -- >> yet so many of these politicians seem to think it's blessed to be poor and that the poor should be the ones who carry, and the middle class, most of the burden, because the top rated earners, well, there's just a widespread view that there should be no increases in taxes on them. >> let me just make a very clear statement here, to destroy the core safety net, which protects the most vulnerable, in favor of tax loopholes for corporations is simply not a moral choice. that is contrary to the scriptures. >> so that's immoral? an immoral position to take, in your view? >> it's an immoral choice, yes, and i want to ask members of congress and the senate who are people are faith to defend that on the basis of their faith. and they really can't do that. you know, i want to ask, is

every item of military spending, every line item, more important thanes 10.4 malaria vet nets they're about to cut that protect kids from dying from malaria. they won't stand up and say i won't cut it. it's time to look at military spendingance, i won't call defense spending. it's a military interest group, like the corporation. so, martin, i would say this. you just say the world's watching. all eyes are on washington. true, the markets are watching. the democrats, republicans are watching, to see who's up, who's down, who's the speaker next time, who wins the election. we're saying, god is watching this, too. god is watching this debate, and what god is looking for is how we're treating the poorest and most vulnerable. >> reverend jim wallace, i wish we had more time. thank you so much for joining

us, and we'll be right back. and. take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪

it's time now to "clear the air." it's a we've been discussing throughout the hour, this is a remarkable moment in the political history of this remarkable nation. so allow plea to quote the words of one esteemed politician. it is a solemn moment for the american democracy. for with primacy of power is also joined an accountability f. those words we not spoken on the floor of the senate today nor did they come from president obama. but they were delivered at college in missouri in 1946 by winston churchill after this country equipment and enabled the allies to win the second world war. true today, because whoever wins the debt ceiling debacle will be accountable for the future, and that's the problem. nobody wants to be accountable. this week's near record fall in stocks, increasing likelihood america's credit rating will be

downgraded. nobody wants to be accountable for these yet virtually every economist in the country has been warning congress to come to an agreement and reach a settlement for the good of the nation, yet here we are just four days from the first default in american history, and still the matter is not resolved. some of our current crop of politicians clearly enjoy the power that office brings. they like the bright lights of washington, the cameras always ready to capture their latest outburst. they love popping into the speaker's office for beer and pizza. but accountability? what's that? this week has been a shameful example of what happens when politicians enjoy power but white house any sense of being accountable. and if this nation goes default on tuesday, if america's credit rating is downgraded, if stocks continue to slide, then make no mistake about who's responsible. this has nothing to do with the american people and everything to do with america