Obama asks monk to pray for fiscal cliff deal

>>> good morning, i'm richard lui in for chris jansing . the president is smack in the middle of his trip to asia, but still dealing with his problems here including the approaching fiscal cliff. he called in millionaires to help him with it including warren buffett and tim cook and jamie dimon . and he also asked the monastery for help. i want to bring in the " washington post " columnist dana, and a laugh with the president asking for prayers and has it come down to that, prayers?

>> well, i don't know, richard. you always hate to predict success in the town, because they have many ways of snatching a failure from the jaws of victory here, but it does seem that there is at least the contours of some sort of an agreement like if there is goodwill which is always a big if, that there is the ability to work this out or at least on a temporary basis by the end of the year. they are all making the right noises and certainly if we have got the guys in the safron robes on board, what can stop us.

>> the more the merrier. jackie, the president is reach ing out to the ceos here, and has he learned that you can't huddle in washington in a bubble anymore and there has to be outreach and that is why he met with the business leaders before, and labor leaders and he made that call yesterday that we were talking about, and you put that all together and anymore that he can do here?

>> well, the outside pressure does help and people are flooding the congressmen with calls and not going unnoticed. the biggest unknown variable here is what the republican conference is going to do and whether boehner can rally the guys to get them on board. that is the biggest question here, because no matter what they decide among the leaders, they have to get it past the house and the senate.

>> and you know, there is also compromise idea being floated around right now to keep the rates the same, but eliminate the deductions for the rich. nancy pelosi making her position on that very, very clear. take a listen to this.

>> is that something that is acceptable?

>> no.

>> nott all, no way?

>> no, the president made it very clear in his campaign that there is not enough, there are not enough resources -- what you just described as a formula and a blueprint for hammering our future.

>> you know, dana, if she is hardening her stance here as we watch the rhetoric, does it matter here, because nancy p pelosi, really, how big of a seat does she have at the table right now?

>> no. she is, and something of a highchair at this point. she is not particularly relevant to this debate. the president was nowhere near as inflexible as that in his news conference, and it is not as if this is all of the sudden some new republican proposal . this was the basis for the bowles/simpson report, and it is the likeliest way to get this thing done, and it is the likeliest path to compromise and the house democrats are not terribly relevant in this, but on the other hand, you do want to stake out some extreme position so it appears that you are making some concession when the ultimate deal is reached.

>> jackie, what is the risk for democrats here?

>> i mean, you don't want to -- they are going to have to put up a fight on some of the issues like some of the entitlement changes, because that is -- i mean, that is what their constituency cares about. you know, but there needs to be some coming to the center on this, and that said, i mean, when you look at the polling, if this goes down, it looks like republicans, and people are more inclined to blame republicans, because if democrats fall in line on this.

>> and standby, because if you want to cover the other big story that they are watching this morning, and the six days of violence in