Page 9 - Debt Ceiling Default News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

He is willing to have a conversation. but -- so why hold the debt limit and the government hostage? i mean, this president has said he would sit down and talk. it's republicans who don't want to sit down and talk for conference committee on an actual budget. >> karen, i'm sure you're going to be amazed to know this. but i don't agree with your point there. and here's why. number one, the government, 83%, thereabouts, has never closed. it's still open. the government fundamentally is still functioning. number two, all of the talk that we hear from everybody about the consequences of the shutdow...

Mouth. i want you to make one clear point. i want him to respond and then you continue to make a point and he'll respond. >> i'm trying. >> i'm not putting words in your mouth, s.e. >> they predicted from the beginning that president obama would allow a government shutdown because internally, he understood rightly that it would be bad for republicans. he's right about that. it's been bad for republicans. >> false, once again false. >> where republicans have been right is that the president will not allow a debt ceiling default. so that's where i think people like paul ryan are trying to steer ...

By a debt ceiling default. i suspect that's not their motivation, though. i think they heard from some of the bondholders and the big hedge fund managers and the like, and wall street said don't do this. so they're not going to -- they're going to try not to do it. the problem is if you don't open up the government, we know that there are millions of people being hurt by the government shutdown. the whole american public is being hurt. it really needs to be coupled with opening up the government. if they'll open up the government, if they'll raise the debt ceiling, then we can talk and we can ...

>> that was tweeted. but no, i want to ask you some questions. i actually agree with president obama that the debt ceiling default would be catastrophic. and i think that we are facing that real catastrophe. i agree with him that even flirting with the default is dangerous, and for those reasons if i were him i would do everything i could to avoid it. i would negotiate with anyone. i'd get myself to a table and say, let's find something that we can agree on to avoid this. even to avoid flirting with it. why hasn't he done that? >> well, i think you can start with something that david just said...

>> is it not a legitimate tactic in american politics that you don't like a policy that has been ratified by the supreme court to say we are going to shut down the government and only allow the parts of the government we agree with to go forward. >> more that half of debt ceilings have had efforts to restrain spending attached to them. >> we haven't had a government shut down in 17 years. >> we have never had a debt ceiling default. go ahead. >> i have just come back from overseas and overseas people are completely gob smacked. they can't believe this. the financial times headline is united st...