something we feel strongly about. mr. president, lay out your -- >> this is how deadlocked it is. they can't agree who should go first. that's at stake here. >> michael is talking about some sort of political science version of the way a negotiation should take place. >> no. >> what happened in the last election is that republicans ran on this position where they were beating the hell out of democrats for cutting medicare. i mean ryan -- with the ryan/romney ads were downright hypocritical and the president has greater political strength coming out of this and he's got his own plan and he's been specific on his own terms and i think when geithner sits around uttering the same talking point over and over again about tell us what you're talking about, i think it's a fair thing to do. i think the president has a political strength right now to force the republicans to offer their own very unpopular -- >> we'll see. that's what's going to get played out over the next few weeks. >> it's chicken. >> he has more leverage. doesn't have all the leverage. >> he sass some.