Good evening, everyone. Im Erin Burnett Outfront tonight, where in the world is president obama . Its been 11 days since he met with congressional leaders on the fiscal cliff. And with impending doom as a lot of people describe it, just 35 days away, key lawmakers say the president hasnt worked hard enough with them to broker a deal. Rather than sitting down with lawmakers of both parties and working out an agreement, hes back on the campaign trail presumably with the same old talking points that were all quite familiar with. Well, now, as far as Top Democrats are concerned, things havent been going so well since that november 16th kumbaya meeting at the white house. We had a meeting, it went very well. The problem was that was before thanksgiving after the election. And since that time, theres been little progress with the republicans, which is a disappointment to me. Well, the market didnt exactly like what they heard there either. The dow lost nearly 90 points today. Much of it in reaction to harry reids dismal statement. I got an email with it all in caps, the market is coming in on these headlines from harry reid. This matters, every word they say matters and White House Press secretary jay carney was on the defense today. He pointed out as he had done yesterday that the president spoke on the phone with Senate Majority leader harry reid and john boehner over the weekend. And besides carney says, the president has to talk directly to the American People. It is vitally important that ordinary americans actively engage in this debate because the outcome of these negotiations and the hopeful product of these negotiations are the product that we hope emerges from these negotiations will profoundly affect their lives. So is the president , the missing ingredient to really nailing down a fiscal cliff deal . Could he end the drama right now if he stayed put in washington and held a series of facetoface meetings with reid, mcconnell, boehner, and pelosi instead of his planned meetings this week with Small Business owners, Business Leaders and middle class americans, not to mention a trip scheduled for friday to pennsylvania. A state he won by five points in the election, to sell American Voters on a tax plan he has very loudly and clearly said hes already sold them on. Mark warner is a member of the senates bipartisan gang of eight. Theyve been working to develop a deficit reduction plan. Let me just ask you how you feel right now. 11 days since the president s met with congressional leaders facetoface, do you think there needs to be more meetings like that right now . Well, i think the president is doing the right thing. Hes got to make the case to congress and the American People. Not only of the dire consequences if we go over the cliff, but actually the tremendous upside. And one of the things we dont focus on enough, if we get a real deal, the amount of private capital that will come off the sidelines, invest in this country, we look pretty darn good compared to the faltering economy in europe, the slowdown in china. You know, this could actually be the biggest job generator of anything thats been talked about recently. One thing im confused by and maybe concerned by also, though, is something that you know well. That the outlines of a deal are pretty clear. There are different options, there are choices, there are tweaks around the edge, but the outlines of the deal are there. And two weeks ago, everyone was saying, erskine bowles, says theyre going to get it done. Were hearing people like harry reid say really not so fast. Should we be worried . I mean, if you guys know what the parameters are and cant get it done that youre not going to get to the finish line again . Well, i sure hope not. It would be extraordinarily bad for every american family, bad for american business. And unlike the challenges we faced in 2008 when we had that downturn and the fed and others used, you know, basically unprecedented tools, we dont have a lot of bullets left in the proverbial gun at this point. I want to ask you a couple of specifics on the tax side of things, especially because youre a former businessman. You have been incredibly successful and you come from a state, a wealthy state. I spoke with senator dick durbin two weeks ago, and we were talking about a compromise, if there was a way to raise the money from the wealthy that the president wants to get from raising tax rates on people or households making over 250,000, whether there was another way to do it. Heres another clip of that. Did an analysis saying you could cap deductions at 35,000 and have the estate tax go back to where it was and you get 1. 3 trillion. You cap deductions at 25,000 and youve got 1. 3 trillion. Im simply making the point, theres a lot of ways to get there that dont involve raising tax rates, is that a compromise youd ever consider . Erin, youre exactly right. But i think what the president s trying to say is lets protect working families. Those making less than 250,000 a year, no tax increase for them. We can do it either through the rates or through the deductions in the code, youve given a good illustration. And what do you think about that senator warren. Durbin making it clear hes theres a lot of different ways to get there. Would you consider that . Ways to raise money from the wealthy without raising rates . There are ways to get there. But i think a lot of this goes back to where you start the whole discussion from. You know, those of us who have worked on this for a long time, the Simpson Bowles plan, which has gained a lot of attention, even our gang of six efforts, which we think improved upon the plan. We started with the rates going back up, you use that baseline and then you work down. You can then use some of these tax reform ideas to bring the rates back down, but you basically, we need, you know, on a ten year basis, more than 1 trillion of net new revenue as we think about some of the additional cuts were going to have to make and some of the reforms to the entitlement programs. I agree with the president , lets go ahead and bring the rates back up, but then like Simpson Bowles, we can use a tax reform effort, whether it is capping tax expenditures or actually going through in a more thorough way which might be flattening the actual tax code and eliminating some of the expenditures that may no longer be necessary. As you say semantics, this is a semantics conversation, right . Because Simpson Bowles says im going to cut the overall rate. So rates actually went down. They did, but where they started was where you start the baseline. What you build into your base. Where that additional basically 1 trillion swing is, which is not only the rates, but also allowing Capital Gains and dividends to go back up slightly, to go ahead and go back to the old rules around estate tax. When we talk about rates, thats also code for a series of changes that were part of the socalled bush tax cuts that would take us back to the clinton era. We can still bring them down and Simpson Bowles demonstrated that. But where we started the discussion was in effect, with some of that money in the bank. And as someone who has looked at this every which way, and weve got to make entitlement changes, i think we need to start with that socalled old baseline to get the deal done. So start at 39. 6 and you might move it down . You might go back up, move it down Simpson Bowles has showed you can move it down. I dont think you can move it down to the high 20s. But you can move it down below 35 , but it will require real tradeoffs on reductions that americans have valued. Your fellow virginian democrat tim kaine, he took issue with something the president said. He said he thought that taxes should go up not for families making over 250,000 or individuals at 200,000, but families over 500,000. The president said he would veto an idea like that. Its a specific idea coming from one of your virginia democrats. What do you think . Well, i give tim a lot of credit for going through a campaign, putting everything on the table. But lets remember, even if we let the rates go back up for everybody above 250,000, including the Capital Gains and dividends, that gets you about 1 trillion in additional revenue. The president has said what we need and i believe hes actually on the low side about 1. 5 trillion, 1. 6 trillion. Where are you going to get that differential . Were not going to get to energy, immigration, education, you name whatever of a topic that is important until we can get our Balance Sheet right. Thank you very much, senator warner, as always. Thank you, erin. Outfront next, explosive news out of florida, greer claims his party passed do his accusations add up . Plus, the u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. Susan rice, went to her critics today, tried to ease tensions. She said, look, the talking points i used after the libya consulate attack were wrong. But tonight, republicans say theyve got more questions. And a big win for the leader of north korea. Kim jongun, isnt he sexy . [ male announcer ] this december, remember you can stay in and like something. Or you can get out there and actually like something. The lexus december to remember sales event is on. This is the pursuit of perfection. [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. This season, discover aleve. All day pain relief with just two pills. Bp has paid overthe people of bp twentythreeitment to the gulf. Billion dollars this season, discover aleve. To help those affected and to cover cleanup costs. Today, the beaches and gulf are open, and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. And bps also committed to america. We support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. Were working to fuel america for generations to come. Our commitment has never been stronger. A new way to save on your prescriptions. Its the aarp medicarerx saver plus plan from unitedhealthcare. With this plan, you can get copays as low as a dollar through a preferred Network Pharmacy like walgreens where youll find 8,000 convenient locations. Best of all, this plan has the lowest part d premium in the United States only 15 a month. Open enrollment ends december 7th. So call today or visit your local walgreens. Our second story outfront, explosive accusations in florida. In a scathing article, the states former republican chairman greer claims they passed a law that was designed to squelch turnout and give the election to mitt romney. It made it harder for voters who moved to actually cast ballots. The Republican Party of florida has responded and tell outfront, i want to quote them here, jim greers quotes are false and details keep changing. Great to have both of you. Roland, let me start with you. These accusations come from jim greer, former boss of the party. He is accused of stealing money from the party. Accusations come from Charlie Crist who abandoned the party to run as an independent. All that context is important. Are these claims credible, though . For two years ive been blasting these efforts in florida as outright Voter Suppression and it is no shock to me that youre actually hearing this. It goes beyond just shortening early voting days. Remember, they got rid of voting on sunday. Now, in a country where you want more people voting, why would you take away a day when people would say, hey, no need to go to the polls tuesday, i can actually vote on that particular sunday. I dont know why we vote on a tuesday other side those churches that were voting in mass, as well. We saw this in ohio, pennsylvania, and texas, and i said pointblank, on cnn. Com i wrote a piece. The republicans helped turnout because they ticked off a lot of black voters, hispanic voters, Senior Citizens by trying to suppress the vote. It was an idiotic thing to do and they paid the price for it. I just wanted to play what now is an infamous sound bite from the majority leader of the Pennsylvania State congress. This was a direct voter i. D. Law, and heres what he had to say. Voter i. D. , which is going to allow governor romney to win the state of pennsylvania, done. All right. Obviously a sound bite, im sure he probably regrets saying, but that was what he thought. Do you admit there are bad ap e apples in the party . As with in any party, youre going to have fraud, youre going to have people that, you know, are bad apples, like you said. But youve got to admit, these allegations that came up saying that, you know, that we suppressed, you know, votes, are coming from an exgovernor who was a republican switched over, independent, is going to run as a democrat against rick scott who implemented this law. And youve got a guy who is a convicted felon stealing money thats basically going to say anything. There was nobody that said in any meeting and said were trying to suppress minorities and blacks from voting. They did this to save money for the states, for florida. Not buying it one second. Because you look at what took place in florida and other states, they cant even explain. Because the first thing was, well, i heard save money. Then i heard, well, it also was a lot of people who worked the polls, opportunity to take a rest, in terms of voting on weekends and on sundays. It all made no sense whatsoever. And so it was a targeted effort that was replicated in many other states across the country because they were following the lead of florida. And it backfired on election night, even after we called election for president obama, there were people standing in the rain in florida who were saying im not leaving this line, hold the line because were going to make sure our vote was cast. Im telling yo uh, erin, the Obama Campaign was worried about voter turnout. A lot of people were so ticked off because of Voter Suppression, that pushed them over the edge. Do you not remember when a. C. O. R. N. Registered voters with all this fraud. They were caught. They were caught, but this is going to save states money, not only that, florida is going to save them money, thats why rick scott did this. You said its called hr1335. You said voter fraud. The guy from pennsylvania, when they had the lawsuit in court, they filed documents, the attorney general said we have no evidence of voter fraud. Even if we have the voter i. D. , it would not even stop the potential voter fraud. So they claimed voter fraud, but they dont have any evidence of it. And the a. C. O. R. N. Piece, they were caught by the existing system. So if they were caught, how can they say voter fraud . Does noelle have a point its saving money . Heres the deal, i totally get we talk about saving money. But if theres one thing we should be paying for is to have more citizens out there actually voting, especially in the president ial election when its every four years. Part of the problem here is you have all of these different state rules as opposed to a federal standard when it comes to these various elections. Well, florida was doing, they can try all they want to, but that was clear effort to suppress the vote and it backfired. Romney didnt even win the state. Its easy to pin this on the gop because the gop has a reputation of being like that were not were a country club. Were like an elitist Organization Im basing it upon the facts. Heres the deal. Go ahead and say that the gop, that the florida gop, thats their mission. Its not. And its easy to pin that on us when thats what youre saying. I have asked republicans across the country give me one example of trying to expand the right to vote or access to the ballot across the country. I have yet to hear them give me one example. 50 states. Saving money, what does that have to do with suppressing black voters or minority voters . Saving money, thats for everyone. But you talk about an election where you want more people voting, then you can say we know its every four years, you set money aside. What about the Third Party Voting . When you go to a mall or somewhere thats not a specific polling place to register and it takes now now with rick scott, what the governor did, it takes 48 hours. Its before you could sit on these papers for a very long time and that particular law caused and rock the vote and that also was an effort, again, to that was very biased. Wow. Rock the vote is bied, ar they biased . Okay, just checking. Im sure this conversation will continue when you all leave the set. Thanks to both. Baseball players like arod make more money than they should. Oh, wait, it said hundreds of millions of dollars. Whether they know it or not, they have one man to thank for those incredibly fat paychecks. And the woman at the center of the petraeus sex scandal, Paula Broadwell her name has become synonymous with sex, lies, and spies. What she plans to do with her newfound notoriety. With a deadline. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. You can even take a fullsize or above, and still pay the midsize price. This is awesome. [ male announcer ] yes, it is, business pro. Yes, it is. Go national. Go like a pro. Part of a whole new line of tablets from dell. Its changing the conversation. I have a cold. I took dayquil, but i still have a runny nose. [ male announcer ] truth is, dayquil doesnt work on runny noses. What . [ male announcer ] it doesnt have an antihistamine. Really . [ male announcer ] really. Alkaseltzer plus cold and cough fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a fast acting antihistamine to relieve your runny nose. [ sighs ] thank you [ male announcer ] youre welcome. Thats the cold truth [ male announcer ] alkaseltzer plus. Oh what a relief it is [ male announcer ] to learn more about the cold truth and save 1 visit alkaseltzer on facebook. But dont just listen to me. Listen to these happy progressive customers. I plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. With snapshot, i knew what i could save before i switched to progressive. The better i drive, the more i save. I wish our company had something this cool. Youre not filming this, are you . Aw camera shy. Snapshot from progressive. Testdrive snapshot before you switch. Visit progressive. Com today. Our third st