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00:00You guys are famous in that White House. Back in 2012 for I have a little parlor games ranking of the moments of using gallows humor as to rank the lowest moments of the darkest moments of the Obama administration. Where does this moment right now rank on that low moments for you. For you guys. Well I don't have even a specific ranking but it's it's it's pretty high on the list. I'll be honest about that. OK. It's not a tie. He got down. Top five I'd put it in the top 10 for sure. Better better or worse than when the BP oil spill. It is better than BP oil spill. Better than the 2010 midterm. Probably it is worse that. Yeah. It's pretty high up there. I'll be honest Dan you told me moments before we went on air they didn't take a logic class on Georgetown but I want to run you through a logic train a chain here so you hope I don't find out I needed that from my a great night. You'll be fine. You say you ghetto. Here goes. Do you agree that Washington was gridlocked before with array on Capitol Hill and your White House right there was gridlock right . Correct. The president in his press Congress now is being optimistic about breaking the gridlock when the new Congress comes back. Does that doesn't that mean logically that it is better for the president's agenda to have Mitch McConnell as leader than Harry Reid. No it does not mean that what it means is that after the election Senator McConnell offered some hope that he wanted to work with us and we'll see where that goes. I would say that we are hopeful but realistic about the larger political dynamics in the Republican Party that are present prevent and compromise today. Would you agree. You're going to get big things done right you're optimistic you'll get big things done we're hopeful or hopeful that the opportunity is there but you wouldn't know if you weren't getting big things done with Harry Reid. So doesn't it make sense that this is good for you to say that you think this is good for you to get big things done. Now let let me let me be very clear it is we would be given much better place with the Democrats in charge of the Senate and for our agenda for the country we fought very hard for that we have tried to have you had you had that for the last couple of years we were and we were in 2012 we were hopeful things would get done after the election. So Speaker Boehner Senator McConnell said many of the same things that they said they've said since then. And we didn't end up with action if you took what they what Speaker Boehner said in November of 2012 as gospel then immigration reform in 2010. That didn't happen . No no not at all like you do you ask the president what you do in 2010 and 2012. What I think is the one lesson we know is that is we're in win with these Republicans is we've got to wait till they get it they get in they they're in there with our caucus we hear what Paul the Tea Party caucus has what's it going to mean in the Senate. When Ted Cruz and Rand Paul start running for president trying to push things one way or the other . But what we're gonna do is look for every opportunity to work with them to try to get something done if we can do that we know it's gonna be hard it's going to take a lot of effort on our part it's gonna require some change in behavior on their part as well and if we get something then that would be great. That's what's good for the country as the president said we've got two years. Let's take every opportunity we can to try to try to move the ball forward either through Congress or on our own. OK so Dan a year and a half ago at the White House Correspondents Dinner the president mocked the idea of having a drink with Mitch McConnell. Yesterday he offered to have a bourbon with Mitch McConnell but admitted that he had no idea what Mitch McConnell's drink of choice was 24 hours later. I know you guys have a whole team of researchers. Does the president now know what Mitch not making Mitch McConnell's drink Guy Johnson is. I think it is a safe assumption that bourbon will be the drink of choice of any politician from Kentucky. But I'm talking about the cocktail of the particular cocktail that Mitch McConnell favorite band based cockney. Do you not know do you not know that. I. I did. I do not know the answer that question got going to help you out here all right. Just because this is something you guys should have figured out in the last 24 hours it's a Manhattan. OK get him out and take them out of Manhattan and you'll get that will be the key to getting a lot of work done. OK. Tell the president that to say I have to say if I had known a Manhattan was the CAC choice of the Senator McConnell that might have but I suspect that that might have been something the DSE could have used in an ad than the Republicans one of the things they keep saying now is there's too much federal regulation on businesses in America. Does the President agree with that. And if so give me one or two he thinks are too onerous on business he'd like to change. Well I mean we have had a process in place for a long time to go and look for specific regulations that week that we call the regulatory look back. I'm sure there's probably a better name if it hadn't come out of OMB but we've got Frank Luntz asked absolutely no doubt. Go through go through the books to see what we can find and take off. So you know there's been a number of also he agrees with that. We have already jumped in there too many federal regulations on business. Right. He agrees that there are. He agrees that there is there are some regulations that may not make sense and we should get rid of right now. Just giving you doesn't make one. Just give me one I'll give it out. I'll give you one that we have done already don't one going forward one going forward because you say you agree. You're saying you agree with the Republicans on a very high priority for them too much regulation on business. You have this ongoing process. What's one that you'd like to work with Republicans on because you agree that's a bad regulation . I don't know if this is gonna become part of a negotiation with Republicans. I'm certainly not going to do that here with you now but we have gone through the books we have taken some off and we'll look for more. And if Republicans have ideas of the regulations that they want to they want to reform they should bring them forward with their well we're not going to do is go back to the world where Wall Street write its own rules polluters can do whatever they want and corporations can do anything they want at all. PS that doesn't make sense but if there are specific things that don't make sense we will absolutely talk. So you have to deal you have a specific list you're gonna bring to the table. So you're saying you know what I'm saying is that we have a process to look for regulations . We ask our Cabinet to go through fine ones there. They bring them they bring them back to our office of Management Budget . But if Republicans have suggestions they should certainly bring in if we if they make sense to us we'll work with them on that . OK. I'm a little obsessed with the press coverage yesterday so I'm asking the question about that at the end of the press Congress the president suggests that he let John Boehner win that one time they played golf together before. Can you confirm the president actually take that golf game when he played with Boehner. No. Well he and Dana were on the same side in that golf game. I think that I think the president was being a little tongue in cheek. Boehner is an excellent golfer. Yeah . Who's right and who's got a lot of people here who still are here to get the president. Boehner I believe Boehner does . Who's who's more likely to John Boehner is that Boehner is an excellent golfer who's more likely to take a moment at who's more likely to a him. I don't think I think not. I think I was not part of the foursome. Do you want to know me either. I was going to say neither of them to be honest about it. I guess it's more you don't know about it. All right Dan you are known as Mr. Optimism. So sketch this out over the next two months through through New Year's with this lame duck session sketch out your most optimistic portrait of what will happen for the country regarding the congressional action and the president's behavior. Sure. Well let me say a couple of specific things . One I think is if we can get the funding we need to deal with Ebola both in Africa and here at home it's very important to get done. We need to make progress on an authorization for use of military force against ISIL. That would be progress. We have a lot of nominations that are backed up and we want to try to get through those in the Senate working with Senator Reid. And then we also I think can begin building the foundations to try to get something gets done next year and Republicans come in the meeting the president's having with the leadership tomorrow is the start of that .

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