OFFLINE

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) told reporters outside the House chamber that Wednesday afternoon’s meeting at the White House ended with President Obama “abruptly walking out” of the room. Cantor expressed a growing frustration over the rapidly dwindling spending cuts believed to have been agreed to in the Biden negotiations, having gone from about $2 trillion in savings to less than $1.4 trillion over the course of several days. Cantor said this was likely the result of significant disagreement between congressional Democrats and the president.

The Majority Leader recounted that toward the end of the discussions President Obama instructed negotiators to “get in the mode” because a final decision would have to be made by Friday. Cantor said he told the president that the two sides remain so far apart at this point that he doubted they could get to $2.5 trillion in cuts (to match the debt increase requested by the administration, enough to get through the 2012 election) given the time available. President Obama has said he will not sign any increase to the debt ceiling less than that amount, and Cantor had previously insisted that the House would vote no more than one time to increase the debt limit. Cantor said he was willing to abandon his position in order to allow some kind of short-term measure to increase the debt limit and reassure credit markets while negotiations continue, and asked the president if he would be willing to consider this option.

At this point, Cantor explained, the president became “very agitated” and said he had “sat here long enough,” that “Ronald Reagan wouldn’t sit here like this” and “something’s got to give.” Obama then told Republicans they either needed to compromise on their insistence on a dollar for dollar ratio of spending cuts to debt increase or agree to a “grand bargain” including massive tax increases. Before walking out of the room, Cantor said, the president told him: “Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m going to the American people with this.” He then “shoved back” and said “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Democrats offered a different characterization of the meeting and that exchange, though House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told The Hill that the “gravity of the challenge” that confronts negotiators “was weighing certainly on the president.”

In a brief interview, Pelosi said she had never see a president more gracious than Obama, who she described as trying to end a meeting he had hosted.

“He stayed for two and a half hours and listened to what members had to say. It was his meeting and the meeting had come to an end,” she said.

“The president could not have been more gracious. I have never seen a president spend so much time with the leadership of Congress day in and day out, respectful of their concerns,” Pelosi added.

Hoyer echoed Pelosi in say Obama had tried to be flexible, but said there was “great difficulty” in trying to find a compromise.

“We had a pretty fulsome discussion on the specifics that the White House was prepared to agree to, or at least that they thought were options that were viable,” Hoyer said in an interview shortly following the meeting at the White House.

any way you want to slice it, i think the arrogance of obama is hurting this process more than is helping it. for the past week, he would come out to the camera's one day, portraying himself as the great father figure, and the only adult in the room, and the next he comes out with his tough guy routine lambasting and belittling the republicans, as if naughty children.

now, regardless of what the circumstances were in the room, this sort of reaction is clearly not the way to successfully negotiate anything. basically, from all accounts, he had heard enough of what the republicans had to say, and was tired of listening. i dunno, this just really smacks of cockiness and inexperience. if you want to portray yourself as the adult in the room, then you have to act like it, and losing your patience isn't the way you act like an adult. if nothing else, he should have said we'll pick back up with this tomorrow, eric.

remember how conceited obama was in that meeting with republicans over obamacare? remember that whole "well i won, john!" remark he made, or something to that effect.

for months people were criticizing obama for not getting involved in the debt negotiations himself (he was too busy running all over the place fundraising), but hell, i think we were better off without him. this just isn't how you bring two sides together.