Obama: 'I Would Rather be Talking About Stuff That Everyone Welcomes, Like New Programs or the NFL Season Getting Resolved'

President Obama at Monday's press conference on debt ceiling talks: "This is not something that, you know, I am making up. This is not something that Tim Geithner is making up. We -- we're not out here trying to use this as a means of doing all these really tough political things. I'd -- I'd rather be talking about stuff that, you know, everybody welcomes, like new programs or, you know, the NFL season getting resolved."

Obama Slams Rank-and-File Republicans for 'Irresponsible' Positions

Published July 11, 2011 | FoxNews.com

President Obama criticized rank-and-file Republicans for allegedly hamstringing House Speaker John Boehner during deficit-reduction negotiations, claiming those members have complicated the talks by taking "irresponsible" positions.

"I think he'd like to do something," Obama said of Boehner, calling him "very sincere." "But his politics in his caucus are very difficult. That's the problem with a political process where folks are rewarded for saying irresponsible things."

He said a "my way or the highway" approach will not produce a deal. "I don't see a path to a deal if they don't budge. Period," Obama said.

The president, holding a press conference Monday ahead of a meeting in the afternoon with bipartisan lawmakers, criticized both parties for taking "maximalist" positions. He called out Democrats for resisting entitlement cuts and Republican for resisting tax increases.

"If each side wants 100 percent of what its ideological predispositions are, then we can't get anything done," he said.

But he took particular aim at Republicans after they called for a scaled-down deficit-reduction deal over the weekend. After a head-spinning few days, Obama made clear he still wants a "serious" deal to prove to Americans that "this town can actually do something once in a while."

"Now is the time to deal with these issues," Obama said. "If not now, when?"

He also urged lawmakers not to settle for a "stopgap solution" on the debt ceiling.

"We don't manage our affairs in three-month increments," Obama said. "We're going to resolve this, and we're going to resolve this for a reasonable period of time. And we're going to resolve it in a serious way."

The meeting Monday afternoon is the third White House summit since last week.

The unsteady talks have taken several turns in recent days. After the White House built up hopes after Thursday's meeting about the possibility of a "grand bargain" dealing with everything from discretionary spending to entitlements to tax reform, Boehner on Saturday urged all sides to lower their sights and focus on a deficit-reduction package worth far less.

Republicans claimed Democrats would not back off their call for tax hikes and would not get serious about entitlements. Democrats, though, said they were in favor of a big deal all along and claimed Republicans were backing out only because they didn't want tax hikes.

The upcoming meeting, which follows a sit-down Sunday evening, is expected to focus on the terms for a deal outlined in now-defunct talks led by Vice President Biden. Those talks centered on a potential package that would achieve at least $2 trillion in deficit-reduction over the next decade -- in exchange for a vote in Congress to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.