statement. after months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline. despite our inability to bridge the committee's significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation's fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve. we remain hopeful that congress can build on this committee's work and can find a way to tackle this issue in a way though works for the american people and our economy. keeping them honest, they remain hopeful that congress can build on their work and they say they're united in the belief that the fiscal crisis must be addressed, yet they didn't do the job they were asked to do. the statement goes on to say, we want to express our appreciation to every member of this committee, each of whom came into the process committed to achieving a solution that has eluded many groups before us. here we go again. politicians thanking one another, thanking each other for what? they didn't get the job done. as far as being committed to achieving a solution, well, it's deadline day and there is no solution. the fallback plan, if case you're curious, is a set of automatic cuts from the defense budget and elsewhere that would start in january of 2013. pressure is already building on capitol hill to stop that plan. in fact, earlier this evening, president obama said, no way. >> already, some in congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. my message to them is simple -- no. i will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts for domestic and defense spending. there will be no easy off ramps on this one. we need to keep the pressure up to compromise, not turn off the pressure. >> tough talk from president obama in the last couple of hours, but a lot of people are saying, look, we haven't heard much from him in the past few weeks on the super committee. instead, for months, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been vowing that failure is not an option. listen to this. >> let me say this about the joint committee. failure is not an option. >> we must live and breathe believing that failure is not an option. >> failure is not an option. failure is absolutely not an option. >> failure can't be an option. >> failure's not an option. >> failure is not an option. >> failure is not an option. >> failure should not be an option. >> my view is that failure is not an option. >> failure cannot be accepted. >> the american people need an outcome, they expect an outcome, they deserve an outcome. and i expect to get one. >> the american people expect an outcome and they deserve an outcome, as you just heard there. but keeping them honest, here we are tonight, no deal. complete and utter failure. and the markets noticed as well. the dow took a beating today when news spread about the panel's apparent failure and debt concerns abroad. at the closing bell blue chips had already fallen 250 points. back to that statement from the committee co-chairs, all that talk of months of hard work, you would think they would have spent the weekend in marathon negotiations trying to reach an agreement. but many were on the sunday talk show circuit yesterday blaming the other side for the failed talks. in fact, we know of no face-to-face meetings for the group itself over the weekend. a senior gop aide told cnn there was a conference call, yes, a conference call. that begs the question why didn't they attempt face-to-face negotiations when they claimed that failure was not an option. did congressional leaders push hard enough for a deal? a lot of people asking that question tonight. here to talk about the raw politics, ari fleischer, former press secretary for george w. bush, and democratic strategist paul begala. and also with us, cnn senior political analyst david gergen. you've all had busy days. david gergen, let me start with you. you wrote this dot-com op-ed that asked the question, headline, have they gone nuts in washington? what do you think? i mean, first of all, were you surprised at all by this? i mean, what do you think 's going on? >> very surprised. what we've seen in the past is we've often had contentious politics, deep philosophical differences between the parties. but at the 11th hour they've found a way to get somewhere close to the middle and signed a deal that got you partway there. this is one of the first times that i can remember when it's been utter failure. and occurring, sanjay, in the midst of an economic situation that's very fragile. as you mentioned, we have a real problem in europe right now. the euro could collapse over there. they're definitely heading towards some sort of recession that could rebound here. and that kind of volatility in the marketplace, damping consumer confidence, you could have a lot of things start to unwind here. people get hurt with loss of jobs. this is, to my way of thinking, a reckless, reckless irresponsible gamble on the part of congress. >> part of the reason, david, i ask, i'm going to ask paul this as well, a lot of people thought that there's just no way they're going to come to some sort of agreement out here. in fact, paul, people are saying that president obama wanted -- the only thing he wanted more than a deal was no deal so he could spend 2012 running against republicans in congress. is that a fair characterization? >> i just don't think so, no, sanjay. there's been a good deal of reporting, the president was pushing for a big deal, we know, back when this super committee was created. the president was pushing very, very hard not for the 1.2 trillion they couldn't meet today, but for the $4 or $5 trillion. so i have to say, the thing i'm frustrated about in this and some of the coverage is that the natural thing is to say a pox on both their houses. democrats don't want to cut spending, republicans don't want to raise taxes. that's not the truth. democrats had agreed to hundreds of billions in cuts and spending programs that they love. that's a hard thing for a democrat to do. republicans refused to raise a nickel in taxes even from the wealthiest people which is very popular, actually w the american people. it wasn't even a hard thing to do. republicans wouldn't do something easy, democrats willing to do something tough. the story is this fetish that republicans have developed about tax cuts in the last few years. and it is a fetish. it's a perversion. president reagan, whom david gergen served, he didn't want to but he raised taxes many times as president because he had to pay down deficits. that's what republicans have to get used to today and lose this fetish they have about taxes. >> david gergen served a lot of presidents, as you know, to be fair. and paul, let's be fair here, there's a lot of people very entrenched on both sides. compromise was not an adjective that springs to mind no matter how you characterize it. ari, some said republicans didn't want to make a deal now. they wanted to punt until 2013 when they're hoping to control the house and the white house when they wouldn't have to make any deal with democrats at all. what do you think of that? >> i've been a part of two of the last major budget agreements between congress and the white house. there have been three in recent times. one was george h.w. bush with a democratic congress, president bill clinton did it with a republican congress in 1997 and george w. bush had a budget agreement with a 50/50 senate in 2001. in all three of those instances, you had a coming together with congress and the president and the president in the room, the president's people in the room. what separated this failure, which is a very disappointing failure, from the previous successes, was the absolute lack of presidential involvement. that's where i am troubled processwise. where is president obama? why didn't he help and put his shoulder to the wheel as did his predecessors? there's a pathway to success and it always involves the president and the legislature. it's always messy, but when you take the president out of the equation, congress is almost always out to lunch, but what you have here is a president who just seems in over his head and is not trying to help because he's really focused just on protecting his brand and not forging the hard compromise that we know are necessary to get an agreement like this. >> you know, ari, some have said the republicans on the committee were reluctant to have president obama involved at all with the super committee, right? so it may have been some of that as opposed so, as you're saying, lack of leadership. >> no, i really don't think that's the case. i think they did as congress always does, congress always overextends what it thinks it can do on its own and it needs to get helped out by the executive. that's how our system is built. that's why there were three precedents, three modern era successes dealing with divided government. i just think we're in an era where, so long as barack obama is president, divided government will not work. it has worked in the past, and i just don't think it will. you either have to go back to re-elect president obama and give him the majorities that the democrats had in 2009 and 2010. and you'll get more of what happened in 2009 and 2010, which is a buildup of debt or elect a majority in the congress and then things will get done. >> david gergen, i was at the hospital part of the day today. a lot of people talking about this. and the refrain seemed to be, look, if you compromise, you lose support. you lose support among your constituents. there's a lot in the system that sort of sways these legislators way from compromise. i mean, do you agree with that? and if so, how do we get anything done? >> so what if they lose some support back home? they were elected to do a job. if they can't get the job done, they should lose office, not just support, they should lose office. in corporate america, if you're a ceo and you've got a leadership role and you fail in your job, you're out. i just think a lot of citizens have gotten to the point where they don't care if you're a republican or a democrat, if you can't get the job done, get somebody else in there who can protect the country. i think americans are more than fed up with this. i think the -- and let me just say two things. one paul begala was right about president reagan, he did raise taxes about 11 times, small increases, but he did it in order to get progress. that's what we need to see from republicans now. but ari has a point. we've had a passive president on these negotiations. he's been on the sidelines. frankly the issue now is, is he going to take the lead in the days ahead and do something and get these deficits down or is he going to sit on the sidelines and simply campaign from now till november 2012? that's his choice. >> of course, leave it to david gergen to arrive at some compromise between paul begala and ari fleischer. thanks all of you for joining us, and happy thanksgiving if we don't talk before then. >> thank you. >> have a good evening. be sure to tune in for the cnn national security debate tomorrow 8:00 p.m. i'm sure some of these issues will come up again. let us know what you think. we're on facebook and google plus. you can add us to your circles. also follow me on twitter @sanjaygupta. i'll be tweeting throughout the show tonight. deja vu in egypt. deadly protests on the streets of cairo. the cabinet offers to resign, but will they allow that? we're asking the questions and keeping them honest. and inside the mind of jared loughner. he's accused of wounding gabby giffords and killing others in that shooting in arizona earlier this year. tonight we have some startling new details reporting about his mental state that could prevent him from facing trial. first, though, let's check in with isha sesay. >> there's no fallout from the use of pepper spray against protesters at uc davis. the action taken against the police chief on campus. so i'm glad it's with fidelity. they offer me one-on-one guidance to help me choose my investments. not just with my savings plan here at work. they help me with all of my financial goals. looking good, irene. thanks to fidelity, i can stay on top of my financial future, huh? 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[ gunfire ] >> gunfire today in tahrir square. rubber but bullets as far as we can tell, and tear gas. "the new york times" reports a representative of the ruling military council spoke in the square today saying the council respected the people's right to demonstrations. he insist that security forces had not entered the square. take a look there for yourself. keeping them honest, it looks like they're already on the ground already. now, we've seen what it looks like to be in military vehicles in the middle of the clashes, when asked about reports of gunfire from security sources, they said that the victims were "thugs, not peaceful demonstrators." you can watch this video for yourself. once again in egypt, protesters are being beaten, dragged through the streets. this victim is a thug in the eyes of the military. we've got the victim who probably sees it a little differently. we've found this on youtube, like the man hit by the batons, that we don't know what happened to him either. on its facebook page egypt's military said it's extremely sorry for what these events have led to. it calls for all political coalitions and the youth to work together to contain the events that have negatively affected the country's security and safety. we'll see if that happens in the days and weeks to come. what's clear tonight is something else. the celebrations we saw in the streets of cairo back in february, they're a distant memory. back then the military celebrated with the people. now they're fighting one another and there are some deadly consequences. joining us to talk about this from cairo, senior cnn correspondent ben wedeman and egyptian protester khalid abdalla. he was the lead actor in the movie "kite runner" if you recognize him. and anne-marie slaughter at the u.s. state department. ben, first of all, we saw some just frightening video, tough to watch. what is the latest on the situation there tonight? >> well, we still have the thousands of people in tahrir square and clashes still ongoing on the main road leading to the interior ministry. and i think it's important to keep in mind that really a lot of the anger is focused on the interior ministry. it's the symbol for many egyptians of the kind of police brutality they revolted against on the 25th of january, and they're revolting against yet again today. and it's important to keep in mind, sanjay that this is not the first time that the military and the security forces have been unleashed upon the population since mubarak was overthrown back in october. 26 people, most of them coptic christians, just in the streets below us here were killed in -- when the military drove in some instances armored personnel carriers over unarmed demonstrators. so this really is just boiling over of anger and frustration at the military, at the security forces. >> so many people, ben, have been focused on the story and again since february. with egypt's parliamentary elections starting on monday, why is this happening now? does this show a lack of faith in the elections, a lack of faith that the military will hand over the power to the elected government? >> well, i think it's really just mistrust of the military leaders. in fact, it's starting to -- one is starting to forget that there are elections in a week, given the way this has exploded. and the way it has. really it represents a certain level incompetence by the authorities here because these demonstrations were sparked when the security forces were called in to tahrir square to clear away just about 200 people, demonstrators, relatives of those who were injured or killed during the revolution. and they tried to clear them away with a level of brutality that shocked many egyptians. and when word spread around cairo that this crackdown had begun, people flocked to the -- sort of as we're saying deja vu, the same thing all over again. >> a lot of people to be surprised to watching video that seems similar to so many months ago. khalid abdalla, you've been visiting some of the morgues -- khalid, are you still with us? we may have lost khalid there. >> yes, i am. >> okay, khalid, i think you're back with us. on the phone there on skype it looks like. you've been visiting some of the morgues in cairo, i understand? we just watched some of the video of these people being beaten pretty mercilessly. what are you seeing in the morgues and the hospitals over there as well? >> i mean, the images in the morgue were pretty horrendous, really. i mean, as well, i think, officials are trying to -- they're sort of playing a game to make it more difficult for the families of people who have died to identify bodies there by slowing the official numbers of people recognized. it was pretty horrible. >> you're out there as a protester. is it frightening for you? i mean, does the violence scare you? i think we may have lost him again. difficult, as you might imagine, to establish these connections. anne marie, the brookings institute released a poll today that shows the majority of egyptians believe their current military rulers are undermining or reversing the political treat opens gained with the overthrow of mubarak. i remember at the time that the m