Obama: ‘Not at all’ resigned to government shutdown

With a partial government shutdown only hours away, President Barack Obama declared Monday he was “not at all resigned” to that outcome and said he would be speaking “today, tomorrow and the next day” with congressional leaders to avert it.

“But the only way to do that is for everybody to sit down in good faith without threatening to harm women and veterans and children with a government shutdown,” Obama said as he met in the Oval Office with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I am not at all resigned” to a shutdown, he said. “I suspect I will be speaking to the leaders today, tomorrow and the next day.”

“But there’s a pretty straightforward solution to this. If you set aside the short-term politics and you look at the long-term here, what it simply requires is everybody to act responsibly and do what’s right for the American people,” Obama said.