The White House said today President Obama is “not at all” embarrassed by comments he made over an open mic in a meeting with private donors.
At a fundraiser in Chicago last night, Obama dished on private conversations he had with GOP leaders surrounding the budget. The press pool has already left the room, but the speech was accidentally piped back to the White House and recorded by CBS News and ABC News.
Obama was blunt and far from the calm, cool and collected guy we have come to know as the commander in chief:
I remember at one point in the negotiations one of Boehner’s staff people pipes up and says, ‘You don’t understand Mr. President, we’ve lost on you know, on health care, we’ve lost on the EPA, we’ve given that up, we’ve got to have something to sell to our caucus.’I said to them, let me tell you something: ‘I spent a year and a half getting health care passed. I had to take that issue across the country and I paid significant political costs to get it done. The notion that I’m going to let you guys undo that in a 6 month spending bill?’ I said, ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?’”
White House spokesman Jay Carney also shrugged off the comments, saying they are consistent with his previous messages in public.
Obama signed the controversial 2011 budget bill into law today.