• Say what you want about CBS’ Mark Knoller, but he gets stories. The dude may have a massive beard, but that beard is probably large enough to fit a high-quality tape recorder into. Which is why the White House correspondent was able to pretty much beat everyone else to a pretty killer Obama story this morning. (With audio!) See, Obama thought he was talking to donors. But he had an hot mic on that was accidentally pumping audio from the closed-door fundraiser into the press room, and Knoller caught it. Including the audio. While Obama said fairly harsh things about the White House IT department, like “We are like 30 years behind – we can’t get our phones to work,” the stuff he said about the budget situation and Paul Ryan had the strongest impact:

• On health care “I said (to Republicans), ‘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?'”
• On Planned Parenthood He reportedly told Boehner and his staff, regarding the controversial riders: “Put it in a separate bill. We’ll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don’t try to sneak this through.”
• On Paul Ryan “… the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill …” source

Posted by Ernie Smith • Permalink