White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was unable to inform the press of what was going on in Congress with regards to the potential government shutdown. Carney told the room that he relied on reporters "to tell me more precisely what the thinking of the House Republican leadership is."
Below is a transcript of Carney's response:
Q: Given that there's no sign of any movement, Jay, isn't a shutdown inevitable this evening?
CARNEY: Well, the president said just now -- and I certainly agree with him -- that no, that he is not resigned to a shutdown, because there's an avenue open to the House after the Senate does what we expect, which is send back to the House a clean CR, that just continues funding the government at current levels -- it contains no concessions to the Democratic agenda or the president's agenda -- just continues funding the government at current levels for a number of weeks in order to allow for the negotiations the president is eager to engage in. That's the responsible thing to do. The irresponsible thing to do is to attach a bunch of political, ideological demands to this simple proposition to funding the government, not shutting it down, and you know, say you'll shut it down if you don't get what you want.
Q: But you're not detecting any signs of any movement?
CARNEY: Well, I -- you know, I used to walk the halls of Congress as a reporter and back then knew a lot more about minute-by- minute developments. In fact, I did that during the last government shut down here in '95 and up there in '96. But I leave it to your colleagues to tell me more precisely what the thinking of the House Republican leadership is.