Obama Won't Meet with Leaders on Sequester Deal Until Deadline Day
By: Spencer Williams
Updated: February 27, 2013
After weeks of argument over the sequester, bipartisan congressional leaders will meet with the president at the White House on Friday -- the same day that automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to go into effect.
President Barack Obama will meet with House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss the across-the-board budget reductions to federal agencies, aides told NBC News.
Republicans were quick to question why the White House would schedule the meeting only on the final day of the belabored back-and-forth over the cuts.
"If the President is serious about stopping the sequester, why did he schedule a meeting on Tuesday for Friday when the sequester hits at midnight on Thursday?" a Republican aide told NBC. "Either someone needs to buy the White House a calendar, or this is just a - belated - farce. They ought to at least pretend to try."
A White House official said that the Senate is voting Thursday on its plan to turn off the sequester, arguing that "the wheels are already in motion."
The aide added that Republicans are likely to filibuster that measure. It has little chance of passing through both chambers.
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