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A lot of maybes. >> that's a lot of washington right there. thank you very much. in other news an alleged terror plot by a home grown terrorist stopped. according to authorities a 23-year-old ohio man traveled to syria to train with extremists last year then returned to america to kill u.s. soldiers. this ties into the danger that seems ever present in the middle east where two key u.s. allies are struggling to keep terrorist forces at bay. we have every angle of the story covered. let's start with cnn's atika shubert. >> this is the first time an american citizen has actually been charged n...

Leader mitch mcconnell tells him what to do we're going to wait until we do this trafficking bill. >> they're going to pay a price though. if they're not paying a price, it's not going to happen. look at the aumf the authorization of use of military force. the world is falling apart. that's not an exaggeration. they're not debating it, but there's no real penalty so why act? >> let's listen to what the white house had to say to grassley. let's play that sound. >> i have to prove that i'm not running for president if i go beyond the consideration of this to be an active candidate trying to brea...

Good morning. it's monday, december 31st, and welcome to "morning joe." this morning, washington is just hours away from a self-imposed doomsday scenario, a deadline that was meant to force lawmakers to cut a deal to confront the nation's debt. in other words, this cliff-hanger has been two years in the making. >> i've said before that i felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. i think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers. unless the hostage gets harmed. then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. in this case, the hostage w...

>> exactly. >> the thing is -- and i wanted to address this to jeffrey sachs. i think it's fascinating, jeffrey, and we've talked about this for years now, that washington just is incapable of doing the things required to take care of long-term debt. they want to reinflate the bubble. in this case, whatever -- whatever deal is struck is going to be woefully insufficient. we need entitlement cuts. we need defense cuts. we need to reform taxes. they've walked away from entitlement cuts. and the social security adjustments. we're now hearing they're going to walk away from defense cuts after this...

Decisions. >> i want to hear from the president again and who he blames for this. first, harry reid, though, made it clear that issue was not up for discussion. >> i was really gratified to hear republicans had taken their demand for social security benefit cuts off the table. the truth is they should have never been on the table to begin with. >> so here's the politics of it now. coming up, president obama also hinted in that interview that republicans were to blame for the current fiscal cliff standoff. take a listen. >> congress has not been able to get this stuff done, not because democrat...