good evening. you are watching msnbc's live coverage of the debt ceiling debate. i'm chris jansing. what a day it has been. a rare sunday. so many meetings, negotiations, the latest of which just in the last hour senator reid left mitch mcconnell's office. said still some progress but still no deal. we are waiting for a senate to vote on a compromised debt ceiling package. of course, both parties have been up in arms about it. 8:30 tonight, a very critical phone call. less than half an hour from now, speaker boehner will have that conference call with all 240 members of his caucus. meantime, members of the congressional progressive caucus have scheduled an emergency meeting at 2:00 tomorrow afternoon. joining me now, chuck todd, and nbc's andrea mitchell, the host of "andrea mitchell reports" here on msnbc. so, chuck, this is an interesting and certainly iwould say, the most challenging task

john boehner has had as speaker of the house. he's going to have to try to sell to members of his caucus, especially tea party members -- well, let's remove the tea party members. some of the more conservative to moderate members who have concerns about this package. a deal that maybe they find even less palatable than the last one they voted on? >> well, yes. look, that's the bottom line. democrats were told to be prepared to find 90 to 100 votes. leaders pelosi and hoyer think they can get the 90 to 100 votes. do the math. subtract that from 216. that tells you approximately minimum what republicans need 120, 125. for speaker boehner's politics is he comfortable going with a bare majority of the majority and going with this and endorsing it. i think at 8:30. i'm told it's an informational phone call. but i'm not being told what kind of information. is he delivering information as in more details of the deal or is he informing them he's about

to endorse the deal? i think this could be that kind of information. if it is informing them, look. i know a lot of people aren't happy with this. not serve going to be supportive of this deal, but it's important to get this done. i am going to come out there and i'm going to endorse this and we're linking hands and we're doing this. then everything will move rapidly from the president coming out, from senator mcconnell, senator -- i mean you will see things move very quickly in trying to show that everybody is holding hands on this. then again if these informing them that, hey, he's listening more and it's delaying, then they may be waiting for the markets in the morning to react. >> what's your sense of this, andrea? >> my sense would be that at this stage, john boehner has to be delivering a message that he wants this to pass. they would not have come this far. chuck, i hope at least that i'm right about this, that they would not have gone all the way down this road and trying to get

by and from the senate republicans. obviously, from harry reid and from speaker pelosi and she's going to consult her caucus tomorrow without boehner at least notionally being on board. and signalling to his members, giving them the information as to what's in the package because they clearly need to know that. but then giving them some signals that he wants this to pass and for this crisis to be met. pelosi, of course, has the problem you were first outlining, chris, that the progressive caucus and the black caucus are going to be meeting at 2:00 this afternoon and they've already said that they're not going to support it, or at least the progressive caucus leader has said he's not going to support it. they've got a problem on their left. >> a sugar-coated satan sandwich is the way the head of the congressional black caucus put it. so, chuck, if indeed what the members of the -- on the republican side from john boehner is, look, here's what it is. this is good. we need to take it or this is the best we're going to get before we go into default so let's take it.

and you say things could move pretty fast. what's pretty fast? >> meaning, i think within minutes you would see the president come out, endorse this deal publicly, sort of try to give a sense of relief that everybody has been looking for from markets to the economy to just average americans who we keep hearing from on this. so i think that that's what i mean by all of this goes quickly to show that the leadership here has linked arms. that nobody is ecstatic about this deal. but they are linking arms and they are going to get it done. what's fascinating about this is that ten hours ago, and andrea had similar phone calls. ten hours ago, i had republicans tell me -- senate republicans tell me this thing is going to -- this is better than boehner could have expected a week ago. so there's no way they are going to have problems. any problems you are hearing about, that's going to be coming from the democrats. that's not the case right now. and so that's why you assume that speaker boehner will sit up

there and say, look. we made this pledge about a dollar for dollar and debt ceiling and spending reductions. that's what this deal was. that was the base line pledge that john boehner came up with even before he took the gavel. before the gavel was handed to him. when it came to this debt ceiling. that standard has been met here so you get the sense that at some point he's going to deliver that message. we know very late in the game last week, while he's been a soft seller most of the time in this stuff, he can draw a hard line when it's -- in this var late part of the game. >> how does nancy pelosi deliver on her side? if they need potentially 90 to 100 of the democratic votes and you have the kind of rhetoric we're hearing from the congressional black caucus, from the progressive caucus and they are not happy about this, what does she say to her folks? >> she is so good at vote counting. she and her leadership team are

unerring in their ability to count heads and to get loyalty. they've earned respect and loyalty from the troops. so i think she will be able to deliver. the other thing that she can point to and this hasn't been noted very much, chuck and chris, this day i don't think. but mitch mcconnell did say in his sunday interviews today that revenues can be part of what that super congressional committee comes up with. in terms of further cuts or further money down the road rather. so he's not completely ruling out the revenue side of what this special joint committee can do, which i thought was interesting. >> and is that a recognition potentially that they are looking at the polls, too, which say, chuck, the american people say they want this to come from both sides? they want revenue to be a part of this? >> not to be a pure cynic, but this morning i got the sense that republicans were frankly trying to sell democrats on this plan. and, you know, that's what's been if you want to just follow

this story hour by hour, you know, the early part of this day began with democrats feeling as if they got the short end of this. republicans feeling like they got a pretty good deal out of this and that mcconnell made the right call in deciding to negotiate directly back with the president and vice president. essentially going around reid. and now the day's ending with frantically republicans trying to sell this to themselves. and i have to say, when you look back now and see some of the things that were said by mitch mcconnell, some of the things said by other republicans, in many cases, i do think actually they were nervous this was going to be tougher to sell to their end and they actually rampd up their rhetoric on, hey, we won, we won, we won simply because they were trying to sell their own members. at first it looked like maybe they were spiking the football. i think they were trying to sell it to their own members. >> to give you a sense and, chuck, you have been covering this and andrea as well, of how

hard it is with the radical right. you have, i believe, it's more than 30 members of the house. 30 republicans who have said they can vote to lift the debt ceiling under no circumstances. under no circumstances whatsoever. they just are philosophically opposed to lifting the debt ceiling and apparently ignorant of what the consequences of their vote would be. so, you know, you are dealing with a -- it's not as if there is a moderate component to the republican caucus here which will now come into play. you are talking about the difference between very conservative members of the house and very, very, very conservative members. >> no there is a small group of moderates. this tuesday group, it's charlie den, joanne emerson. there's a group but it's only between 40 and 50. that's the thing. it is a smaller chunk of what it used to be. and then what you do is you add on as you guys have been saying, the institutionalists, right? that's going to provide the next 50 or 60. what i mean by the

institutionalists, the guys that have been around awhile that sort of understand that you aren't going to win every battle all the time and they are more likely to be there. we'll see. boehner tried to get the institutionalists on board before and they weren't there with him last time. >> here's the problem in the house, as i see it. it's harder to count heads in the house than in the senate because there are more members. so last week, for instance, the majority whip kevin mccarthy, he was off on some of his counts. and now the time pressures are even more severe in terms of rounding up those votes that they need. >> and to the point that what we all noticed, of course, on election night last year was that a lot of the more moderate republicans lost and a lot of the blue dog democrats lost. you basically lost the central core in both parties. and that's why you have had two more ideological wings now controlling all of the action. >> but to the point of how far they are willing to push it and how much they are willing to go

and, chuck, you brought this up. there's two possibilities here. one, everything moves very quickly tonight. the other is that john boehner waits and just answers questions and this becomes more of an informational call and the members have a chance to think about it and arguably have more influence from talk radio and conservative bloggers and all of that. >> yeah. >> but the markets tomorrow morning -- >> right. >> -- are they willing to risk and wait and see what's going to happen on wall street? >> look. i will be stunned. you know, the more you think about it. you just brought up something. i will be stunned if speaker boehner comes out and is essentially undecide on this deal tonight. because if he does that, the what happens tomorrow, what happens when everybody comes back to work in the republican activist community, whether it is on talk radio, whether it is in the blogosphere, i think that risk of taking a deal that they think they can find 125 to 140

republicans with and then suddenly panic hits among them, i don't think they can afford that at this point. so i will be stunned, frankly, at this point if speaker boehner isn't using this call to say, look, we're doing this deal. we're linking arms. we're going. if they don't, then we're going to miss the deadline and what's going to happen is you'll see it short term. there's been plans for everybody is -- knows how to get the short term through. the question is is it a week, a few days? nobody here wants to do it too long because the fear is if you extend it, even just a few days, you give more time for opponents to kill this. both whip operations in the house in one form or another have said the faster this deal is essentially put to a vote, the better. >> do you think -- i'm sorry, andrea. go ahead. >> i was just going to say, don't forget, if john boehner and his leadership circle are

hearing from the chamber of commerce, the business roundtable, the "wall street journal" editorial, the traditional business community which is certainly has still has some impact in republican circles is telling them get this done. get this done now. >> the other thing is that they want to avoid not just default but a downgrade. and when they start talking about the credit ratings, one of the good things about this deal is that there's enough deficit reduction that it's likely that the ratings agencies will be convinced to avoid a downgrade from our traditional aaa rating. >> jonathan alter, chuck, thanks to you. andrea. in a minute we'll be checking in with cnbc asia to get a look at how the asian markets are reacting to the u.s. debt fight. we already saw earlier tonight when harry reid said there were sort of the outlines of a deal, the futures on wall street went up about 125 points. obviously, that's something we're watching very closely. we'll also have a lot more on the political battle and the fallout for the american people

and now we're just a little more than 15 minutes away. john boehner will be speaking to the republican members of the house. as we head into the break, let's hear a little bit of what nancy pelosi had to say just a short time ago. >> this bill has a long future, nine years, ten years, whatever it turns out to be. has ramifications even beyond that decade. so we'll all have to take a look, and we all may not be able to support it or none of us may be able to support it but we will wait and see and we're open to what comes down because, again, the stakes are very high here. for dentists, the choice is clear. fact is, more dental professionals brush with an oral-b toothbrush than any other brush. trust the brush more dentists and hygienists use, oral-b.

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17 minutes past the hour. and the default deadline is just two days away. now we are hearing that the senate looks like they have the votes that they need. at least you would see that from harry reid coming out and saying we're very, very close. it really is turning over the focus to the house side and that

phone call that's coming up from speaker john boehner at 8:30 eastern time. 13 minutes from now. 12 minutes from now to get his gauge of his party. let me bring in msnbc political analyst richard wolffe, author of "renegade: the making of a president. "so the fact john boehner waited throughout the day and we were waiting to see when this call was. the fact this call is being made, does it mean when he hangs up then they can engage or does the fact he's making the call mean he already has the gauge of where his members are and that he has the votes? >> well, i think the real sign that the fix is in is that everyone is being nice or at least being quiet, okay? so the fact that the rhetoric has been toned down. they're not calling each other names means they're pretty confident that they -- it's not about counting the votes, but there's always been enough of a coalition of the willing in the house to get this through. as long as john boehner was

prepared to take democratic votes with him. and you just heard nancy pelosi speaking there. she knows there's going to be democratic votes on this. she's not going to hold her caucus together and say no on this one. the president wants it. everyone wants to get it off the table. they've got to move it so the markets are reassured. and they'll live to fight another day because this is clearly just the start of this sad and sorry tale. >> it is a sad and sorry tale, at least by the, i guess by the assessment of the american people. if we step back if the deal happens in the next 24 hours or so, who wins? who loses? >> well, look, short term, the president has caved in on two important things that he signaled. one was that he wanted this to be a balanced approach. there had to be some element of revenues. now he drew a pretty arbitrary line. it was talking about tax breaks for -- on the corporate jets. the millionaires and billionaires. wasn't a substantial part of this whole deal. because he's punted off the

whole idea of the bush tax cuts to after his own re-election if that's what it is indeed, then, you know, there are progressives here who are going to say, what do we get out of this? he wanted to not have two deals done. he didn't want to be held hostage here. but in the end, his responsibility as he told one of his confidantes earlier this week was that he had to look after the american people. he had to avoid the downgrade. and if you are not prepared to run it that far, if you aren't prepared to go for partial shutdown or spook the markets, then you're going to blink. and the president blinked here because he wants to take this off the table and get back to what voters want to hear about which is jobs. >> well, let's talk about looking ahead to the whole issue of jobs. and we're looking at pretty big numbers here. we're talking about $3 trillion. enough, perhaps, for the markets to say, for moody's to say, for standard & poor's to say, okay,

that's a pretty significant number. but what's going to be the real impact on the american people, on state governments, on local governments. i am wondering as we look down the line to 2012, we keep looking at who did what in this deal. i'm not sure the american people are going to remember that when it comes time to go to the voting booth. but they are going to know where their lives are right at that moment and what will this -- what will this deal mean for that? >> well if you are looking at unemployment, they'll see unemployment rise. that's not just because people are projecting this. it's happening in my old country in the uk, where you have a conservative government that's gone in, cut budgets, cut jobs. it's proved that it's -- to the markets. the markets are very happy but unemployment has gone up and growth has slowed because in this case, public sector jobs have been holding up parts of

the job market. they may not be sustainable because they are using borrowed money to fund that. if you cut jobs you'll see lower consumer demand and lower demand for cars. the housing market isn't going to pick up. so you are still waiting for the private sector to ramp things up. and until they have the confidence, which is nothing to do with the budget of the government, the federal government or the state government, it's about confidence at the investor level, at the ceo level. until that picks up, all of this is arbitrary. >> let me ask you, and i want to bring jonathan alter into this. but how did we get here? i mean, obviously, the tea party members, these 87 new freshmen members in the house, others got elected on a platform of jobs, frankly. the american people wanted the focus to be on jobs. democrats and republicans have talked through all the debates that we've heard over the last couple of years about their number one priority being jobs. and yet here we are and the priority to the american people doesn't seem to be jobs because

that's the question that i get a lot when i'm out is when are they going to start really doing something about jobs? how did we get here? >> is that for me or for john? >> i'll let you start. >> we got here because the financial markets collapsed in 2008 and because basically every big company now is trying to keep its own line of credit. they are being bankers to themselves. they are still not confident that the financial dynamics of this economy will be there in case of need. so they are sitting on their cash. they don't want to hire people. they don't want to take on the risk of hiring people in case they have to lose them again in six months time. so that was going to be the main drivers of job creation. there isn't anyone on the democratic side who seriously thinks that the public sector is going to get rid of 9% unemployment. it's a stop-gap measure. but what do we need for that to happen is for the private sector to say, yes, we think this is going to grow and i don't want to be on the wrong side of

growth because i miss out. >> are we going to have that conversation? >> we're going to have a lot more conversation about this all fall. and that's one of the problems for president obama. he wants to pivot to jobs, but because of the structure of this deal with these triggers and so forth, we're going to have a big conversation this fall about tax reform, about entitlement reform, which is something that makes the democratic party very nervous because they want to run a campaign on medicare and on the fact that by approving the ryan plan, every republican voted to privatize medicare. so nancy pelosi would like to have a clean vote in 2012. a referendum for the whole country on medicare. but because of the structure of this deal, they are going to have to be talking about entitlement reforms the president will have to agree to some entitlement reforms to prevent the trigger from going off and having even worse cuts in medicare and more immediate cuts. so he's not going to be able to

shift the conversation where everybody in the democratic party wants it to be on jobs. and that's a real problem with this deal. the other big problem for the president is a trillion dollars in cuts as richard noted, that's real bad for the economy. you know, the last thing you do in bad economic times is cut spending. we've lost sight of this. economists have agreed on this for generations. that you don't cut spending in the middle of a bad economic time. that happened in 1937 when franklin roosevelt before the depression was over, they went with an austerity program. what happened? unemployment went from -- it had gone down to 12% and went back up to 20%. admittedly, things were worse then, chris, but the point is, when you cut government spending, bad things happen to unemployment. and this is something that hasn't gotten enough comment.

>> all right, jonathan alter, richard wolffe, always good to see you. thank you, my friend. five minutes away, four minutes. speaker boehner if he's punktual will be on the phone with 240 members of his caucus. we'll bring you the latest on what to expect from that call and we'll follow it throughout the evening. see when there might actually be a vote on what looks to be a deal on this trying to avoid default on the debt ceiling. ter. in most homes, it gets all the action. bring it. in this lab demo, one sheet of bounty leaves this surface as clean as 2 sheets of the bargain brand. ♪ why use more when you can use less? ♪ super durable. super absorbent. super clean. bounty. the one-sheet clean picker-upper. is now honey nut cheerios! yup, america's favorite.

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another fast-moving developments. we are hearing we should expect to hear from the president. now we know that right now, a minute from now, john boehner is going to be talking to his 240 members and shortly thereafter, we will hear from the president. kristen welker is in the briefing room. >> we expect president obama to come out here in the briefing room and give some remarks at 8:40. so just about ten minutes from now. we're not getting guidance as to exactly what he's going to say, but i can tell you there's an air of optimism here at the white house and i can tell you

the president likely wouldn't come out unless he did have a major announcement. having said that, we are waiting for speaker boehner to talk to his conference, see if they can get behind this deal that harry reid has already said he supports and that his conference will likely support. so a bit of a waiting game here at the white house. president obama expected to come out in just about ten minutes and deliver remarks. we expect there to be an announcement since he is coming out and given the situation right now. but we don't know exactly what he's going to say. >> kristen welker, stand by. let me go to luke russert who is on the hill. obviously, we've been talking about this call that john boehner is supposed to be making right now. the fact the president is coming out ten minutes from now, what does it tell us about that phone call? >> this is just speculation, but i think chris is absolutely right when she's using the word optimism and there's sense of hope there at the white house. it would seem rather odd to me

at least from watching this drama unfold over the last four months for the president to go out and speak during john boehner's conference call if it wasn't for some sort of positive development. most likely than not from what i've heard from aides around capitol hill is that it came down to how much would there be in defense cuts? john boehner has negotiated with the president about the issue of defense cuts. through the beginning, mitch mcconnell -- harry reid on the senate floor. i'll go to him. >> his remarkable for a number of reasons. not only because of what it does, because of what it prevents. a first ever default on the full faith and credit of the united states. sometimes it seems our two sides disagree on almost everything. but in the end, reasonable people were able to agree on this. the united states could not take the chance of defaulting on our debt, risking the united states financial collapse and worldwide

depression. america and the world have been watching our democracy expectantly. and my message to the world tonight is that this nation and this congress are moving forward and we're moving forward together. reaching a long-term accord that would give our economy the certainty it needs was not easy. but our work is not done. leaders from both parties and both chambers will present this agreement to our caucuses tomorrow. senate democrats will meet at 11:00 a.m. to pass this settlement, we'll need the support of democrats and republicans in both the house and the senate. there is no way either party in either chamber can do this alone. as president lyndon johnson said, and i quote, there are no problems we cannot solve together and very few that we can solve by ourselves. democrats and republicans have rarely needed to come together more than today. i know this agreement won't make every republican happy. it certainly won't make every democrat happy either. but both parties gave more ground than they wanted to and

neither side got as much as it had hoped. but that is the essence of compromise of consensus building, and the american people demanded compromise this week, and they got it. >> madam president? >> the republican leader. >> this is an important moment for our country. i appreciate the majority leader's comments and i want to say a few words to our colleagues who have been so patient over the past several days. and whose ideas and encouragement have been so helpful in getting us to this point. first of all, let me reiterate that before any agreement is reached, republicans will meet to discuss the framework that the white house and congressional leaders and both parties think would meet our stated efforts to cut spending more than the president's requested debt ceiling increase, prevent a national default and protect the economy from tax increases. and to that end, i'd like to say to my republican colleagues that will be holding a conference meeting in the morning to discuss the framework and to

give everyone a chance to weigh in. but at this point, i think i can say with a high degree of confidence that there is now a framework to review that will ensure significant cuts in washington spending. and we can assure the american people tonight the united states of america will not, for the first time in our history, default on its obligations. >> clerk will call the roll. >> and so there you have it from both harry reid, the democratic leader and the republican leader, mitch mcconnell. the united states will not default, but, in fact, they have a deal and tomorrow they will bring their caucuses together. chuck is at the white house for us and, chuck, we're expecting to hear from the president in about five or six minutes from now, and i expect we'll hear a very similar message from him. >> that's right. look. we have the head of every part

of the players here. harry reid, mitch mcconnell, speaker boehner and the president all agreeing and endorsing this deal. doesn't mean it's going to be assured passage in the house. let's remember this is still going to be a tough road, a tough sell. from what i understand in talking to vote counters in the house, any -- they would love to see the u.s. senate vote 75, 80 members. but the bigger the margin it is for this deal, the easier it will be to get some of those fence sitters and we've been calling them institutionalists if you will. the older members in particular in both parties. the veteran members. that they will realize the message being sent by the senate that they will own this and so now -- now we're in a race against the clock. you heard harry reid. vote will end up being tomorrow. the question we don't know is did the white house have to give in on anything as far as this defense cut issue was concerned? we don't doe know that yet. i think we will hear those

details over the next few minutes. >> for the people who have not been following this, every little detail throughout the night, but we have been talking over the last several days about these triggers that will happen when we move into the second part of this. and that's what we're talking about in terms of this concern about the defense, right? >> well, that's right. and that's what's been amazing about this that we've been held up for the last few hours on this issue. and it's on this so-called trigger which if congress does its job and the super committee that's been set up to find the additional $1.8 trillion in cuts does its job, you don't need to quote pull the trigger. and so that's why this debate here at the end, the point of it is you want a strong enough, motivating tool. the sharp sword above their heads as chuck schumer called it this morning. a good way of describing what a trigger is here. if you don't have it holding it above their heads. democrats have plenty holding above their heads. it involves medicare and

spending cuts to things they care about. if there wasn't going to be tax increases on the table as the trigger for republicans. had to be something like this. and watching this play out over the last few hours it clearly is a motivating trigger. >> chuck todd, i know you have to sit down. the president is going to be coming out in a couple of minutes. andrea mitchell of "andrea mitchell reports" is here. what have you been able to find out? >> i think basically, the outlines of the agreement and we'll get the further details as we hear them in the next few minutes. but the outlines of the agreement are in place. perhaps there will be a change in the amount of defense cuts and exactly how this is going to be worked by this super committee of congress. but the outlines of the deal, i believe, are as we first heard them earlier today. and as they've been reported all day. and this is just a matter of trying to get john boehner and nancy pelosi and their caucuses happy with this because the real challenge here is as you've all been reporting, is going to be in the house.

>> i think chris that what's going on right now is the leadership in both parties in the senate and soon the president will be essentially arguing if you vote yes, you can tell your constituents and the american people that you voted to prevent a default. and that can be a powerful political argument when you go home if you are a member of congress to say, hey, i voted to prevent a default. and that's what they want the takeaway to be. >> luke russert, are you there? >> yes. >> i saw you in my monitor. i wasn't sure we had a connection with you. but what do we know about this call? did it happen? is it over? >> no, it's not over. a lot of these members, chris, are not in washington. i was told that ones who lived east of texas actually many of them went home to their districts. so all three leaders i believe are supposed to speak on the call and garner the information from it. but what we asserted tonight that if you have mcconnell going to the floor, reid going to the floor, the president coming out, obviously, there is some sort of agreement on this deal.

but this military spending issue is one that became quite significant towards crunch time. chuck spoke about what the disagreements were over those possible triggers. i'm told john boehner was deputized in the sense of negotiating all the defense spending on this bill. yesterday buck mckeon who went out and had a press conference saying that all the military cuts in the reid plan were horrendous. it would shrink the military, stood up with former veterans of the house gop. this, obviously, became a very personal issue to speaker boehner that dragged this all the way into the night. obviously. deal was made. we don't know what exactly is in it. but i think that's going to be quite interesting to see whether or not john boehner really took, as you guys were talking about, the knife over his head or whatever the chuck schumer quote was. in terms of selling this in the house, you -- jonathan alter

mentioned constituents want to say i've led default. a lot of folks and you talk to them off the house floor, they say i vote for my district. i vote for my state. i don't care about washington. i don't care necessarily with the whole country is doing. i want to go back and be honest to my constituents. can these guys in the house of representatives, as it's currently made up, believe themselves to be honest to their constituents and support this package? that's the question, and anyone who says they know that right now is lying because last week when it was trying to get republican members on board it took john boehner three times. he had to change the bill three times. nancy pelosi is known for getting her votes. if she has to get 95 votes, she'll get there. the mayor of baltimore's daughter, she knows how to get that done. here's president obama. >> good evening. there are still some very important votes to be taken by

members of congress, but i want to announce that the leaders of both parties in both chambers have reached an agreement that will reduce the deficit and avoid default. the default that would have had a devastating effect on our economy. the first part of this agreement will cut about $1 trillion in spending over the next ten years. cuts that both parties had agreed to early on in this process. the result would be the lowest level of annual domestic spending since dwight eisenhower was president. but at a level that still allows us to make job creating investments in things like education and research. we also made sure these cuts wouldn't happen so abruptly that they'd be a drag on a fragile economy. i've said that the ultimate solution to our deficit solution must be balance. despite what some republicans have argued, i believe that we have to ask the wealthiest americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share by giving up tax breaks and special deductions.

despite what some in my own party have argued. i believe that we need to reach some modest adjustments to programs like medicare to ensure they are still around for future generations. that's why the second part of this agreement is so important. it establishes a bipartisan committee of congress to report back by november with a proposal to further reduce the deficit which will then be put before the entire congress for an up or down vote. in this stage, everything will be on the table. to hold us all accountable for making these reforms, tough cuts that both parties would find objectionable would automatically go into effect if we don't act. and over the next few months, i'll continue to make a detailed case to these lawmakers about why i believe a balanced approach is necessary to finish the job. now is this the deal i would have preferred? no. i believe that we could have

made the tough choices required on entitlement reform and tax reform right now rather than through a special congressional committee process. but this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need and gives each party a strong incentive to get a balanced plan done before the end of the year. most importantly it will allow us to avoid default and end the crisis that washington imposed on the rest of america. it ensures also that we will not face this same kind of crisis again in six months or eight months or 12 months. and it will begin to lift the cloud of debt and the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over our economy. now this process has been messy. it's taken far too long. i've been concerned about the impact that it has had on business confidence and consumer confidence and the economy as a

whole over the last month. nevertheless, ultimately, the leaders of both parties have found their way toward compromise. and i want to thank them for that. most of all, i want to thank the american people. it's been your voices, your letters, your e-mails, your tweets, your phone calls that have compelled washington to act in the final days. and the american people's voice is a very powerful thing. we're not done yet. i want to urge members of both parties to do the right thing and support this deal with your votes over the next few days. it will allow us to avoid default. it will allow us to pay our bills. it will allow us to start reducing our deficit in a responsible way. and it will allow us to turn to the very important business of doing everything we can to create jobs, boost wages and grow this economy faster than it's currently growing. that's what the american people sent us here to do. and that's what we should be devoting all of our time to

accomplishing in the months ahead. thank you very much, everybody. the president of the united states saying that the leaders of both chambers and both houses have agreed to a deal to avoid the first ever default in the history of the united states. we heard just moments before from harry reid and mitch mcconnell saying essentially the same things. and we're getting the first real outline of what we know what this deal is. cut a trillion dollars over ten years, but he also said this also has to have a provision to ask the wealthiest americans to provide part of this. some modest adjustments as he put them to what would be considered some sacred things like medicare. and something that they would prefer to avoid. and this is that super committee we've been talking about for the last couple of days that come november will have to start making some of these tough choices. joining me for reaction is luke

russert, jonathan alter and ron wolffe. >> it looks like the deal is on track and it would be surprising at this point if it still got derailed. the key thing looking forward is to this super congress or this committee that will make some of the really tough choices. and the question is whether the simpson-bowles template, the gang of six template for those of you scoring at home will be sort of the rough contours of this. and you will see then some revenue increases. to make the republicans swallow the revenue increases this fall, that's what all the argument has been about in the last couple of days. to have a trigger that is frightening enough for republicans that they will, this time, agree to make some

concessions to the democrats. >> of course, before we get to that point, luke russert, as we were talking just before the president came out, there is this messy little business of votes in the senate and the house. and it is unlikely, i think that we'd have the president come out if they didn't feel pretty confident they could get the votes. but what are these next 12 to 24 hours likely to look like? >> oh, they're going to be very intense. specifically for speaker john boehner and the house majority whip kevin mccarthy of california. i was just informed from a source that speaker boehner informed the members on the conference call that he had spoken to president obama a little bit before that press conference and actually said that they had agreed to a framework. i have before me the power point presentation that john boehner's currently giving to his members. and the titles are very much, if you would -- as you expect, very pro-republican. the first one saying two-step approach to hold president obama accountable. emerging framework has three

main features. implements spending caps, advances the caves balanced budget amendment, framework accomplishes this without tax hikes, which would destroy jobs while preventing a job-killing national default. so that's how boehner is selling it right now as we speak to the house republican congress. a job-killing national default saying, look, obviously, we don't like everything in this, but we hold the president accountable. we get more cuts than we -- we get all the cuts we wanted and there's no tax hikes to prevent the job-killing default. the question though is, as we were talking about earlier, republican conference has about 240 members. of those 240 members, 170 of them belong to a group called the republican study committee which is the conservative ideologically pure right-wing part of the house republican conference. a lot of those guys are going to say no to this deal, presumably. so from there, speaker boehner has to get out of that 240 at least a path to 120. from tea party backed guys we've

spoken to earlier today. one of them said the speaker is going to have his hands full. it's going to be very tight on this vote. this is going to be a defining moment in john boehner's speakership because he needs to deliver those 120 votes. there's confidence down around capitol hill that despite the fact the progressives don't like this, despite the fact a lot of rank and file members of the democrat and republican party think obama went too far to the right. there's faith in nancy pelosi. she got the votes. people think she can come up with 95. does boehner get to 120? a job-killing default, that is the new term coming from boehner to his conference. will they buy it? we'll not know that for some time. we'll gauge reaction, obviously, afterwards. but there's a lot of strength within those newly 87 elected members. half of them have never held elected office before.

they came to washington saying they were not going to play by the rules. boehner has to try and convince those guys, along with his -- chuck calls them the old institutionalist. hey, i need some of you to come on board with me here. we've got to get to 120. if this goes down in the house, chris it will be like t.a.r.p., and nobody wants to see that. so this is on the shoulders now of the man from reading, ohio, john boehner. can he deliver 120? >> it does sound like as luke goes over some of his power point presentation of john boehner that he's giving them the talking points. he's giving them what they can take home and say, here's what we got. we won. >> well, they got a lot. there's no question about it. and, look. the president tried to put on a brave face saying he always wanted something like this super committee and what that committee may well come up with. kind of balanced approach. remember his first fiscal responsibility commission, that was the simpson/bowles thing.

they wanted it to force a vote. they wanted congress to set it up and approve it and have an up or down vote in congress on its findings. but all of these approaches have failed and the grand bargain he was trying to negotiate with john boehner failed. why does this white house think that whatever the super committee is going to come up with will work when the triggers, we don't actually know the precise details of them, but those triggers don't imply or at least according to the reporting we've seen, that much pain for republicans. it doesn't include the threat of tax increases which they'd want to avoid. it's just more kinds of spending cuts and there are many members even of the tea party. people like alan west from florida who would say, yes, there should be some defense cuts in there. we've got to see what the details are on this one. but the idea this committee will succeed where everyone else has failed in recent years is a bit of a stretch. >> and without jumping the gun on this, jonathan alter, you heard the president say that what we just saw was messy and

took far too long. are we just going to see more mess and more delay if we're talking about this super committee? >> probably. and you're going to see an awful lot of talk about entitlements, basic tax reform. things other than jobs. and the president just said he wants to now talk about jobs. he said he wants to spend all of our time talking about jobs. that's not going to happen. >> but you know what? shira toeplitz from roll call joins us as well. this is not an insignificant part of what the president had to say. every member of congress i've talked to just about over the last couple of days, they are all on the talking points about jobs. we need to be talking about jobs. you know if we can have like one second to sit back and say, hey, maybe the long national nightmare is over. maybe this is actually going to get done. maybe we are going to avoid default. what are the chances that we could actually start talking about jobs?

>> i think today the chances are very small. the upsetting thing about this is if you are a politician, what's happening is nothing is -- the american voter is going to look in a couple of months down the read and the best case scenario is their life isn't going to be much better but it's not going to be a whole lot worse either because we avoided default. the economy is still very much staggering. it's not a good situation right now. if they want to push jobs, it's a completely separate agenda. john boehner called this a not job-killing default. it doesn't kill any jobs but it doesn't necessarily create them either. >> on the other hand, there is something interesting that i thought the president had to say. i saw you nodding as we were listening to barack obama. he thanked the american people as he thinks eventually they put the pressure on and got this deal done, in spite of the fact there are more than a few people who would argue that at least on the far right, the members of the tea party don't necessarily care frankly if they get

re-elected. they think they are there on a mission. they there are to do a job. and they are going to do it even if it means they don't get re-elected. do you buy that? >> if this deal goes through, and it looks like it will, but we can't say for sure it will be a modest victory for the forces of compromise and centrism. now they haven't had a lot of victories in this country lately. but the whole idea of compromise in the last few weeks was on the line, and the president last week in his primetime address went to the country and said do you favor compromise? because, remember, after the 2010 election, john boehner went on "60 minutes" and he wouldn't even use the word compromise. he was so spooked by the whole concept of it. so the good news for the president, i would argue for the country, is that through tweets and other means, the american people have spoken and they have said they want our system to work the way the founders envisioned it, which is

compromise. >> and i understand we are getting some excerpts now, even more details, and i think, luke, you've probably had a chance to look a little more through what you are hearing off the john boehner call. what can you tell us? >> i think the most interesting thing just readings the excerpts provided to nbc news is the first line, the press has been filled with reports all day about an agreement. there's no agreement until we've talked to you. there is a framework in place that would cut spending by a allergic amount than we raise the debt limit and cap spending to limit the growth of government. it would do so without any job-killing tax hikes and also guarantee the american people the vote they have been denied in both chambers on a balanced budget amendment. while creating, i think, some new incentives for past opponents of the bba to approve it. that is a straight give to the tea party-backed freshmen republicans who have been so much behind a balanced budget amendment saying 49 states have it. that's how families operate. it needs to be put forward. it was the sweetener that

allowed them to support the last boehner debt limit extension bill this past week on friday -- or thursday/friday. so by putting that there and getting it in this agreement with democrats, boehner is hoping that some of those folks will come on board. but just from reading these things from boehner, it really seems that he's making a conscious effort to say, look. we have won. we have gotten more than we could have ever hoped to a degree. we're changing washington. we are doing what you were sent here to do. and if anything, and there's a lot of truth in the sense that democrats have had to play out this debate -- debt debate on a republican playing field. and that is all done to -- that is regards because of what happened with the tea party freshmen being a blocking minority. and boehner is trying to put that message in their heads saying you've done a heck of a lot. understand what you have doneton

this institution. the question still remains, chris, from reading these excerpts, do they buy it? do they think, you know what? this is a great deal. we're going to follow this speaker. he's done a lot for us. or, no, no, this is business as usual. this is a back door agreement between the leaders. my constituents at home would think i'm dishonest and can't approve it. i just had a democratic aide say he needs 130. that's the number boehner has to get up to? >> luke russert, you're going to stay with us. we're going to continue our coverage, including, we will replay for you the president's remarks, which happened just about 20 minutes ago. four minutes in which he suggests that they do, indeed have a deal. now the votes are going to take place tomorrow. you are watching msnbc. . it was clearly too late for me to do anything as my mercedes collision system automatically kicked in. the next thing i know, the mercedes stopped itself. ♪ watching what mercedes has done in bringing together these sensors in a car

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