White House Press Secretaries

The President is going to have to show leadership to really take on entitlement spending.

I have been very public about saying that anybody who wants to default this nation is making a big mistake.

I hope so. I think the Tea Party deserves it. I think they're the ones who have made this whole debate and this whole fact, now that we're actually trying to cut spending in Washington, reality.

The problem President Obama has with the country is, they don't want the blame. He's the leader. They want a solution.

If the Boehner plan fails in the House of Representatives tomorrow, it's going to be a political calamity for Republicans.

If it passes in the House tomorrow, I think it's going to be a political calamity for the Democrats because at that point the Democrats are going to have to realize that the only way the debt gets increased is with Democratic votes.

Members of the Tea Party came to Washington to educate Washington. They didn't come there so Washington could educate them on how things were going to get done.

What was interesting to me was the Tea Party freshman said that he can see some type of accommodation for a short-term solution so long as they know they're going to get the structural reforms at the end of the day.

The only way that the tax cuts for the upper income tier expires is if Barack Obama is willing to put on the table the individual mandate.

I think there's no alternative.

Here's why the president is not the political winner in this. If he was the political winner, then why is the generic Republican candidate beating him by eight points in the recent Gallup poll?

It's kicking the can down the road so a grand bargain gets negotiated again later.

I think you're going to get some type of intermediate agreement made that's going to be of some modest level of spending cuts.

Well, I don't think it was symbolic at all, Sanjay. In fact the only institution in Washington of the House, the Senate and White House that has actually done its job and done anything meaningful on spending or debt is the House of…

If he was the political winner, then why is the generic Republican candidate beating him by eight points in the recent Gallup poll? And why is the President's job approval dropping now in several polls, including Gallup, into the low 40…

The public is very frustrated with everybody in Washington who cannot come to an agreement on this.

An agreement has to be reached. It's just not American for us not to be able to pay our bills.

People were fed up with deficits, fed up with debt, fed up with spending, fed up with health care reform.

This is what the American people spoke out for in 2010. This is what elected such a tsunami of Republicans to office.

If President Obama has put Medicare and Social Security on the table, he's covered them with a tablecloth, because nobody can see what he's talking about.

Who is he and what does he stand for fundamentally? What are his un -- abiding, his unchanging principles?

His biggest problem is his flip-flops, when he changed positions on a couple key issues, and for Republicans, abortion and gay rights issues, from his position as governor to when he ran in 2008.

I think Sarah Palin has always had a twisted relationship with the press.

There's no crime in seeking publicity. There's nothing wrong with that if you're a public figure, and it comes with Sarah Palin.