George Mitchell: “The Republicans of the Congress specifically, who have made the tax pledge, and the president who is trying to get them…”

I think he has a responsibility, not just to the president, obviously he has to the members of his caucus, but everyone has a higher responsibility to the country, to the constitution.

I think both sides are calculating their gains and losses and I think fairly soon the time will come when they will coincide in deciding that it's in their interest to end this round of the conflict.

I think it's unfair and unwise. Think for a moment of what Senator McConnell did. He persuaded 96 percent of the Republicans in the Senate to vote for a bill that had the support of only 17 percent of the American people.

It is feasible. We tried that. I tried very hard in behalf of President Obama to get the Arab states to take steps in the direction of normalization, based on the Arab peace initiative, proposed initially by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.