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Had huge estates but maybe were $4 million instead of $5 million would pay less in taxes he thought was crazy, but they did give -- democrats did give and pretty significantly, right? >> exactly. and, you know, i think representative van hollen is really smart about this stuff, and he's right. i mean, you're talking about -- the policy that the democrats wanted, i can go into the parameters if you want, but think of it this way. it would have affected the top 0.3% of wealthy estates, not 3%, 0.3%. now they're switching to a policy that's going to affect maybe the top 0.2%. you're really talkin...

In his press conference and this was genuinely important, he said after this deal, even once republicans have voted to increase taxes by about $600 billion over the next decade, if they want to undo the sequester or do further cuts to medicare or social security, those -- that will all have to be part of, as he put it, a balanced package including revenues. he's saying even after this deal, the next deal, which we all expect to happen again because this is a pretty small deal, will have to include revenues as well. this gets to the key thing in these negotiations which is republicans are telli...

We were talking about winners and losers before the break, in all of this everybody is a loser. this shouldn't have been that hard, there should be better spending cuts made in a smarter fashion. at the moment we will have a fairly modest amount of deficit reduction. maybe even none at all. mixed with a fairly bad economic impact from the fiscal cliff. kicking some of the sequester down the road would be a good idea but it's the same disagreements keeping us from doing that that has kept us from getting a bigger deal. >> where we are right now and what we know about this, sam, is it clear whet...

What a lot of republicans have told me. they're happy to go through this on the tax rates if they get anything above $250,000, they think that's a win because they believe they can have the same type of fights over spending, same type of fights as one told me a few days ago, bring the president to his knees in a few months. so this is not that big of a concession for them off the bat. it's extraordinary when you think about it in the context of ten years but in terms of moving forward, they really see it's helping their negotiating leverage which is a fascinating, fascinating development. >> t...

For coming up with the sequestration idea to begin with. they've spent months blaming him. what you saw mitch mcconnell do on the senate floor, fascinating, chris, on the surface. he came out after the president gave that upbeat, cheery, he was joking with all the attendees there in the white house complex about being close to a deal, but really sticking it to republicans in some not so subtle ways that angered a lot of people, including john mccain, but including a lot of people behind the scenes. but mitch mcconnell didn't take the floor and rise to that bait. he said, look, mr. president, y...