Good morning, everybody. Please have a seat. I figured that I’d give Jay one more taste of freedom -- (laughter) -- before we lock him in a room...

And that’s what we’ve done with this year’s budget. When I took office, I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term. Our...

Now, some of the savings will come through less waste and more efficiency. To take just one example, we’ll give -- we'll save billions of dollars...

We also know that cutting annual domestic spending alone won’t be enough to meet our long-term fiscal challenges. That’s what the bipartisan fiscal...

All of these steps are going to be difficult. And that’s why all of them will require Democrats, independents, and Republicans to work together....

So with that, let me take a few questions. And I'm going to start off with Ben Feller of AP.

On the budget, what my budget does is to put forward some tough choices, some significant spending cuts, so that by the middle of this decade our annual...

Well, we're going to be in discussions over the next several months. I mean this is going to be a negotiation process. And the key thing that I think...

That’s okay. Well, first of all, on Iran, we were clear then and we are clear now that what has been true in Egypt should be true in Iran, which...

That’s a bad sign there, Chip. (Laughter.)

Well, here’s -- let me be clear on what I'm saying, because I'm not suggesting that we don’t have to do more. We still have all this accumulated...

The notion that it has been shelved I think is incorrect. It still provides a framework for a conversation.

Part of the challenge here is that...

But there will --

Chuck, there was this -- this was the same criticism people had right after the midterm election. If you had polled the press room and the conventional...

Well, I continue to believe I’m right. (Laughter.) So we’re going to try again. I think what’s different is everybody says now that they're...

Well, what is absolutely true is that it’s going to be difficult to achieve serious corporate tax reform if the formula is, lower our tax rates and...

I’ll take the last question first. I don’t have to make calls for Rahm Emanuel. He seems to be doing just fine on his own. And he’s been very...

I -- look, I definitely feel folks’ pain.

Somebody is doing a book about the 10 letters that I get every day, and they came by to talk to me...

My goal is to work with the Republicans, both on the continuing resolution -- and for those who are watching that don’t know Washingtonese, the CR...

Well, I’m not going to discuss the specific exchanges that we’ve had. But we’ve been very firm about this being an important priority.

Ed...

Well, first of all, without revisiting all the events over the last three weeks, I think history will end up recording that at every juncture in the...

I think it offers an opportunity as well as a challenge. I think the opportunity is that when you have the kinds of people who were in Tahrir Square,...

Well, actually, if you look at that budget, there’s a whole bunch of stuff in there for job creation. I think some folks noted, for example, our...

Well, I think it just depends on what exactly you’re talking about. And I think that there should be a full, open debate with the American people:...

Oh, don’t give up. (Laughter.)

I should have written all this down, Jackie. (Laughter.) I’m running out of room here in my brain.

Well, let me just speak to this generally. It’s true that this is my third budget. The first two budgets were in the midst of the worst recession...