For the First Time Since their prank call that led to the apparent suicide of Kate Middletons nurse, those radio hosts are speaking out. We didnt have any idea like Something Like this could possibly happen. We couldnt see this p haing. It was meant to be a prank call. The midwest covered in snow this morning. Some saw up to 17 inches of snow. You head out with your well dressed pet monkey. Suddenly you two are separated. Oh, my god, theres a monkey. The Green Bay Packers has won 7 of their last 8. Watch his right leg. Oh, that didnt look good. As soon as i get hit, i screamed, like a man, of course. All that matters. If anybody out there whos, quote, rich doesnt think their taxes go up, the drinks are on me. On cbs this morning. With all this twinkie talk, i about me. Youre not the only one who hasnt received attention. You havent heard anybody mention the hostess snowball. What the fudge . Captioning funded by cbs welcome to cbs this morning. There are 22 days left to the fiscal cliff deadline. There is no deal yet, but the two leading players are now talking face to face. And some republicans m congress are pushing their leaders to be a little bit more flexible. Major garrett is at the white house. Major, good morning. Reporter good morning, charlie and norah. The white house meeting yesterday between president obama and Speaker Boehner occurred after the president extended that invitation to boehner quite quietly on friday. After the meeting, both were described as hopeful. Even so, a followup meeting between white house staff and republican Congressional Staff on underlying details of a fiscal cliff deal apparently achieved little progress. The president met with boehner after huddling friday with House Minority leader nancy pelosi and telephoning Senate Majority leader harry reid. Both democrats wanted to make sure president obama will not freeze them out of fiscal cliff negotiations. Far from frozen, some set of republicans appear to be warming to higher tax rates on households earning more than 250,000. If and only if that leads to benefit cuts in Health Care Entitlements like medicare and medicaid. Give the president the 2 increase that hes talking about, the right increase on the top 2 , and all of a sudden, the shift goes back to entitlements. But House Republicans, the key to any fiscal cliff deals remains suspicious. The president wants the rates to go up, that doesnt solve the problem. We dont want to be back here in another year, in another ten years answering the same questions. Reporter the republican cochairman of the Deficit Reduction Commission said higher tax rates are inevitable. If anybody out there whos, quote, rich doesnt think their taxes go up, the drinks are on me. Ill cover it. Reporter mr. Obama and House Democrats are open to making wealthier taxpayers pay more in medicare taxes but are reluctant to raise, as republicans want, the eligibility for medicare. Where does a person turn if theyre 65 years of age and the medicare eligibility age is 67 . They have two years there where they may not have the best of health. They need to have accessible, Affordable Medical insurance during that period. Reporter the democratic cochairman of the democrat Deficit Reduction Commission remains optimistic. Theyve started to tango now. Any time youve got two guys tangoing, youve got a chance to get it done. Reporter within the hour, the president will leave the white house and head for detroit, where hell continue to press his case for keeping middle class tax rates where they are but raising it for middle income earners. That will continue to put pressure on House Republicans to achieve a fiscal cliff deal in the coming days. Speaker boehner has made it clear to the white house and his own republicans in the house he wants a deal no later than this saturday. Major garrett, thank you. In an interview on friday, i asked General Electric chairman and Ceo Jeff Immelt for his thoughts on the looming fiscal cliff and the impact it could have on the u. S. Economy. Id make a couple comments. Weve got to get this done now. Not there are people who write and go on news shows and say we can let it lapse two weeks. That is specifically not true. We need this to get resolved now. Not because because jim mcnerney will say it or jeff immelt will say it, but the millions who work for us, their lives are in flux. This is incredibly credible that we get it done now. We need revenue. Everybody knows we need revenue. I think the president is right in asking for more revenue and therefore not extending the bush tax cuts to those with more than 250,000. Bowlessimpson, theres not been one commission that says we can do this just on spending cuts. There has to be revenue. I think Speaker Boehner is the only guy that can lead us in that. That means youve got to take the republicans from the house of representatives and make the deal. And i trust that he could do it. Well have more of that conversation with jeff immelt, including more on the fiscal crisis facing the nation coming up in our next hour. First we turn now to former House Majority leader dick armey. He had his own budget battles with the white house in the 1990s. He recently served as chairman of the Tea Party GroupFreedom Works. Good morning, leader. Good morning. It seems that republicans, some senators are beginning to shift and say give the president his 2 tax increase on those households making more than 250,000, and then the focus can turn to entitlements. Are you in that group . Well, thats something they hope for, but theres an awful lot of us that remember time after time after time what we got from the democrats was give us the tax increases now. Well give you spending cuts later. Spending cuts never showed up. One of the things that, of course, we just met again yesterday. Maybe theres reasons for john boehner to be hopeful that the president really going to sit down and work with him. I mean work with him. Rather than to tell him what i require, but the fact of the matter is john boehner has got the toughest job in town. Hes got a seriously divided majori majority sigh seriously divided ma zwrojority in the house, a s that they question whether they can do anything over there, and a president that says, once you give me what i want, ill talk to you. My point of view is, unless the president shows some real negotiating lets say vigor, commitment, what i would do, if i was john boehner, is i would take my version of what i think is the best policy for america to the floor, offer the democrats on behalf of the president a chance to offer a substitute. Take the vote. If the president has his overwhelming mandate from the american people, the 435 members of congress will recognize that map date in their districts, and hell win the vote. If he wins the vote, then he owns the results, and he can take it to the senate, which is controlled by his party within the law and live with the consequences. So, leader armey, i want to ask you, though, about how powerful the tea party is. Is the tea party holding back House Republicans and Speaker Boehner from agreeing to additional revenues, more than 1 trillion, raising those rates on the wealthiest americans . No, not at all. First of all, understand the tea party is not a political party. It is a group of people across the country that have a commitment to a set of principles. They believe Economic Growth is the first, most important need of this country, which means get the government to stand down, quit interfering, quit obstructing growth. Okay. In so many ways, not the least of which is the epa, and youve got a the lot of members of congress that agree with that. Leader, you are leading Freedom Works, an organization of tea party people. I want to ask you about that record because Freedom Works spent 40 million in the last election, and you had less than 1 in 4 of a winning record on the candidate you backed. Was it the organization, or is the tea party weakened . No, i dont think thats at all. We had a lot of candidates, quite frankly, that did dumb things out there. Once the candidate wins the primary, becomes the republican nominati nomination, the Republican Party has an obligation to that candidate. I dont think the Republican Party schooled their candidates very well or supported their candidates very well. We had at least two candidates that should have won, that frankly lost because they said some stupid things on the subject that their partys leaders should have schooled them to stay away from in the first place. Thank you. The latest off on the Tea Party Activists across the country i think is just alibi on the part of the Republican Party. Dick armey, leader, thank you so much. We appreciate it. And the colorado doctor kidnapped in afghanistan is safe this morning after a Daring RescueMission Carried out by a team of navy s. E. A. L. S. Dr. Dilip joseph was captured on wednesday by taliban forces. One american and seven taliban were killed in sunday morning raids. In a statement, president obama said the mission was characteristic of the extraordinary courage, skill, and patriotism that our troops show every day. Tragically, we lost one of our special operators in this effort. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family. Senior correspondent john miller, the former assistant director of the national intelligence, is with us. John, this was incredible when we got the news last night that one of our special operators had died and that an american had been rescued. What have you learned about this operation . This was a very interesting operation in that it was a very short turnaround. You usually see in these things is theres a kidnapping. Theres a move from one location to another. Weeks, sometimes months go by, and they carefully plan a rescue operation. In this one, opportunities presented itself. You had two hostages released. You had one of the people captured. You had a number of individuals who knew the location and the layout. So they put something together very quickly, and this is a navy s. E. A. L. Team. Theyve done this before. This is a dynamic entry, close quarter battle, and the key to these things is surprise, speed, and violence of action. You get in there before they know youre coming. Youre through the door before they know whats going on. Flash bang grenades, things like that, and rarely in these things can you get in and out without casualties . Usually the casualties are not on our side. I suspect well see more of these kinds of things as we move away from the kinds of battles that weve seen before because the head of special operations had said to me, talking about the obama the Osama Bin Laden raid we do these kinds of things every night. Thats right. When you look at the numbers, theyd done hundreds of those. They did a number of operations the night of the bin laden raid. They have these things down. Theres no such thing as no risk. When you lose an operator, its a reminder that even the best of the best of the best, youre going into a place where people are shooting at you. The upper midwest is digging out from the first major snowstorm in the season. Now it is heading east. Holly wagner from our station wcco is in minneapolis. Holly . Reporter winter is still a week and a half away, but you wouldnt know it by the looks of things around here. Minnesota bore the brunt of this nasty weather system with some spots getting 16 inches of snow. It was the single heaviest snowfall the state has seen in two years. The snow piled up across the midwest this weekend with blizzardlike conditions stretching from the dakotas to wisconsin and minnesota. Wind and snow made for a lethal combination on the roadways, whether traveling by bike or car. Across minnesota, officials reported more than 950 spinouts and nearly 600 car accidents. At least one of them fatal. It took a whole crew to free this truck from the snow pile in minneapolis sunday. At a snow covered minneapolis st. Paul airport, around 150 flights were cancelled. Though at least one runway managed to stay open. Snow fell on the state at a rate of one inch per hour. The twin cities got 10 inches. Thats nearly half of what the area saw all of last season. Still that didnt stop diehard football fans from tailgating ahead of the minnesota vikingschicago bears game. Couldnt be better. This is minnesota weather. This is what we want. Reporter two years ago minnesotas famed metrodome buckled under the weight of the snow. This year officials didnt take any chances, cranking up the heat as a precaution. The storm did spare some parts of the midwest. Iowa only got a trace of the white stuff. But it was enough to end the states snowless streak, which lasted for 278 days. The snow stops here, but rain from the system will soon start in the northeast and southeast. Forecasters dont even expect the highs to get out of the teens today in minnesota. Add in windchill, and it feels well below zero. For cbs this morning, holly wagner, minneapolis, minnesota. Now a tragedy in the world of latin music. Fans are mourning one of their greatest stars who was on the verge of crossing over to a wider audience. Singer Jenni Riveras plane crashed in northern mexico sunday morning. All seven people on board were killed. Bill whitaker is in linwood, california, where riveras fans held a vigil last night. Bill, good morning. Reporter if you dont know the name of mexicanamerican singer jenni rivera, chances are you soon would have. She had just signed with a Major Talent Agency here in the states and was tapped to star in her own sitcom. Behind it all was a voice that mixed power, drama, and grace beautifully. To her fans, 23yearold jenni rivera was more than a singer, she was known as la braun senora, the grande dame of music. Jenni rivera was bold and brash. She was a very commanding woman with a commanding voice. Reporter that voice was silenced early sunday morning soon after this concert in monterrey, mexico, rivera and six others boarded a small plane. This photo is thought to be the final image we have of the singer before the aircraft went down on its way. There were no survivors. The plane is totalled. Nobody inside survived. The bodies are unrecognizable. Reporter rivera was born in southern california. Fans gathered last night at a local plaza in los angeles to pay tribute to a singer who worked hard to make her dreams come true. Whatever culture you were from, she inspired you as a woman. Reporter part of what endeared rivera to her fans was her outspoken honesty. She starred in a highly rated bilingual reality show that showcased her easy sense of humor. No more grandbabies. Mom, no. Its the first stage. No way. She had just signed a deal actually to do a comedy with abc. So she was really poised for mainstream success. Reporter well never know if jenni rivera would have added an emmy to her billboard awards and her latin grammy nominations. Now all that lives on is her music. Riveras death is being compared to that of singer selena back in 1995, but rivera was perhaps better known than selena was at the time of her death. Selena was just in her mid20s. Riveras fans have been following and loving her for decades. Norah, charlie . Bill whitaker, thanks. There is growing concern for the health of Nelson Mandela. South africas government says the former president had a good nights rest in the hospital, but officials arent saying why hes there, and that has many people worried. Mark phillips is in pretoria, south africa. Mark, good morning. Reporter good morning, charlie and norah. In the absence of any specific detail on Nelson Mandelas condition, hes been in the hospital for two days now. Inevitably the speculation rises and so does the concern. The last, more or less, public appearance of Nelson Mandela was on his 94th birthday last july. When we saw him with his family at a birthday lunch in his home village of kunu in the rural eastern cape province. At that time, he seemed physically robust but mentally distant from what was going on around him. When news emerged that mandela had been moved to a Military Hospital in pretoria, the worrying began again. We nid him around. We need his wisdom. Reporter but there was reassuring news from the government minister who saw mandela today. He is doing very, very well. Hes undergoing a series of tests to determine what is going on in his body. Reporter mandela has been retired from politics for more than a decade but and its going to be a nice day weather wise. Were seeing a lot of clear skies to start you off with. Heres a live look at the southway over san jose. Temperatures mainly in the 60s. A couple low 60s as well. Some 40s in some of the inland spots like santa rosa. Satellite radar shows High Pressure over the area. We arer going to remain dry over we are going to remain dry over the next couple of days and a chance of rain by wednesday. Announcer this National Announcer this National Weather report sponsored by big lots if you want big savings, then you want big lots do you have any hot wheels . Yes. Barbies . The fallout from the royal phone prank continues in london. Now the deejays behind the hoax are speaking out for the first time. Im so devastated for them. Im really feeling for them. And move over, jersey shore. Theres a new reality show on mtv thats causing quite a controversy and has the people of West Virginia fighting mad. If it was