now there is this aggressive push to court republicans, the president working the phones, there's that lunch that you just talked about, and then last night the big dinner where a lot of those senators who attended were optimistic about working towards finding compromise here in washington, and the president himself according to a senior administration official felt that there were a good exchange of ideas. it was a dinner date with republicans and president obama picked up the tab, blocks from the white house at the swanky jefferson hotel, food and fiscal challenges in an effort to find compromise less than a week after across-the-board cuts kicked in. >> reporter: how did the meeting go? >> just fine. >> reporter: 12 republican senators invited by the president broke bread for more than two hours. >> reporter: what was the tone like? >> very positive, encouraging, candid, focused on how do we come together. compromise is necessary and it's possible. the issue is how do we get