Obama, lawmakers to take break from talks

President Obama and congressional leaders will not meet Friday to discuss negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit.

A Democrat familiar with the negotiations said the president will
speak on the matter publicly Friday, but there is no meeting planned
as leaders return to their caucuses.

{mosads}The group will probably meet over the weekend, the source said.

Obama is scheduled to host a press conference at 11 a.m. Friday, the White House announced shortly after the meeting ended.

After the theatrics between Obama and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) at Wednesday’s meeting, the meeting on Thursday was “cordial,” the source said.

A Republican aide familiar with the meeting concurred with that assessment, saying it was “composed and polite.”

Cantor stayed silent throughout the 80-minute gathering, a source said.

In Thursday’s meeting the group covered all the aspects of what would be included in a big deficit-reduction deal, and Obama told congressional leaders they should now go back to their
caucuses to talk about “what’s possible,” the Democratic source said.

Obama told negotiators: “I want to do the largest deal possible. A short-term solution is not something I will sign. It’s decision time. We need concrete plans to move this forward,” according to the Dem source.

Also during the meeting, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “warned the group that the world financial markets’ concerns are two-fold: the debt ceiling must be raised, and we must put in place a plan to deal with our deficit and debt,” the Republican source noted.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) used that warning “to reiterate his concern that nothing the administration is offering to this point will resolve our debt problem. He continued to press the White House to get serious about reducing spending in a meaningful way,” the source added.

—This story was last updated at 7:04 p.m.