David Gergen

The president did seem to offer hope to Edward Snowden that he would be granted amnesty.

I think he wants to go back to the President Obama, as candidate Obama.

He called 2014 a breakthrough year.

John Kerry and Barack Obama have both given -- speeches signaling that they're going to move towards a thaw in relations.

This Congress is not going to lift the embargo. That's absolutely right. There are steps the Obama administration has already taken to ease some travel restrictions and they can take steps, and I think they've signaled their plan to take…

Nothing good came out of it. A lot came out of it. It caused damage to an awful lot of people, it's dampened the economy, it's going to cost us some jobs, it's embarrassed us in front of the world.

Beneath the rhetoric, which remains hot, we had two concessions now. The president has made a concession by saying he's willing to take a short-term extension of the debt ceiling in order to let negotiations get started.

The vast majority of people who really understand this issue are warning seriously do not allow this country to go into default. It could have very, very calamitous consequences and throw a lot of people out of work.

I think if the Republicans would promise President Obama we will not -- we will give you a clean debt resolution. We will not try to dismantle healthcare in exchange.

The news is Americans are starting to demand negotiations on both sides. The new poll out tonight has 60 percent of Democrats -- and 60 percent of Republicans saying the House Republicans ought to compromise.

I think this tonight probably set things back. It makes it very, very unlikely we'll have any kind of settlement within the next several days.

I thought President Obama might do that very thing. I thought he might call the leaders to the White House today and lock them in a room like Lyndon Johnson used to do, but it became very apparent that he's not interested in a settlement…

The idea that a group of congressmen who represent less than 10 percent of the House of Representatives could drive this train, I think it strikes makes most Americans as nuts.

There may be enough votes if you join up with Nancy Pelosi's votes, you could get it done.

I think that maybe John Boehner and the president, president taking the lead. I think he has the opportunity to negotiate as he said he's willing to over the shutdown questions, fiscal issues relating to shutdown.

There's going to be extreme skepticism about this. And there's the president's going to be under heavy pressure not to drop any sanctions before he's got a hard deal.

Mitch McConnell does not want to shut down the government if he can possibly help it.

Ted Cruz, through this effort, I think has made himself more of a hero among Tea Party types.

I do think that President Obama has got his own, you know, pressure back home. And that's going to be -- he's going to be under enormous pressure from both parties and from experts not to make concessions early.

The larger picture is that the Obama administration actually deserved credit along with the Bush administration in bringing these sanctions to bear. And that's what's bringing President Rouhani to the table.

I think it made the U.S. look a little clumsy in its diplomacy. And I think it was a little embarrassing when the leader of the most powerful nation on earth was willing to meet and somebody else has basically snubbed him.

Presidents need to be sort of very firm in their gut what they are about to do especially when they are going to pull the trigger.

It's extraordinarily muddled. The Middle East is a very, very complex place.

If we pull back now maybe it's the right thing. But are we not getting hurt strategically? A lot of countries will look at us and say, you know, those guys don't quite know what they're doing there.

Most recent poll came out today, shows support for intervention is 51 percent against, 36 percent for, the lowest support for intervention than anything gallop has polled in over 20 years.