President Barack Obama's team emerged on Sunday to defend his handling of revelations that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for scrutiny, as senior Republicans conceded they lacked evidence — so far — that the president directed the abuses.

Republicans appeared on the Sunday talk show circuit with hopes of sustaining their political momentum generated during this past week, one of the toughest weeks of Obama's presidency. A series of controversies — that the IRS had targeted conservative groups, new questions about the administration's response to last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, and news that the Department of Justice seized phone records of Associated Press journalists as part of an investigation regarding national security leaks — have forced the White House onto the defensive.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said the IRS controversy amounted to evidence of a "culture of intimidation" by the administration. But he and Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., admitted they lacked evidence that the targeting of conservatives was ordered by the White House.

"We don't have anything to say that the president knew about this," said Camp, who chairs the House committee looking into the IRS controversy, on NBC's "Meet the Press."

McConnell also could not point to evidence of presidential involvement in the IRS's scrutinizing of conservatives, though the Kentucky senator argued that a need for more information justified emerging investigations into the controversy.

"I don't think we know what the facts are," he said, appearing separately on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "The investigation has just begun, so I'm not going to reach a conclusion about what we may find."

Republicans have used the IRS controversy, along with the administration's other struggles as of late, to unify their party in Congress, and gain political traction against Obama. But their ability to sustain this momentum hinges on their ability to weave together these missteps into a more damning, overarching story about the administration.

But the White House has begun to push back. A top White House adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, emerged on Sunday to assert that the administration had handled the IRS fiasco properly.

 "There is no question that Republicans are trying to make political hay here," Pfeiffer said on "Meet the Press" of the IRS controversy.

Pfeiffer sought to undercut Republicans' criticism by asserting that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a top GOP critic of the administration who is in charge of White House oversight, was actually aware of an inspector general's investigation into the IRS abuses as early as last fall. To that end, Pfeiffer argued that even if the president were aware of the investigation of the IRS at an earlier point, it would have been inappropriate to become involved with or interfere with the inquiry.

Pfeiffer also sought to push back on Republican criticism of the administration's response to last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The White House aide argued that Republicans had essentially circulated "doctored" versions of emails — original copies of which the administration released this week — that they had known about for months in order to ding the administration. Pfeiffer said the ploy was a sign that Republicans were "getting desperate."

McConnell said he thought it was clear that the administration had "made up a tale" about Benghazi last fall, so close to the presidential election, because admitting to having presided over a terrorist attack would have been politically inconvenient for Obama.

"The talking points clearly were not accurate, and I think getting to the bottom of that is an important investigation," he said.

This story was originally published on Sun May 19, 2013 7:55 AM EDT

Continuing an uneasy standoff with Republicans on filibusters of President Barack Obama's nominees to the federal courts and to executive branch positions, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated Tuesday he isn't quite ready to pull the trigger on changing Senate rules to curb or abolish such filibusters.

A move by Reid to change Senate filibuster rules by a simple majority vote – sometimes called the “nuclear option” – would spark a major battle with Senate Republicans.

“I hope that's not necessary,” he said Tuesday when asked if he’ll move to change the Senate’s rules on filibustering nominations.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) speaks to the media on April 9, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Democrats in 2003 and 2004, when George W. Bush was president, and Republicans more recently have used the threat of a prolonged debate or filibuster to delay, and in some cases, block confirmation votes on judicial and executive branch nominees.

Three weeks ago, New York attorney Caitlin Halligan, Obama’s nominee to fill one of the vacancies on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, withdrew after the Senate fell nine votes short of the 60 needed to end debate and move to a final confirmation vote.

Reid’s comments came the day before the Senate Judiciary Committee conducts its confirmation hearing on another Obama nominee to the appeals court in Washington, Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan.

Commenting on the four vacancies on that court, Reid said Tuesday, “We haven’t had a new person on that court since 2006 or 2007. Some say it’s a court more important than the Supreme Court of the United States” – that’s because by statute it handles much of the litigation involving federal regulatory agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

“They’ve blocked new people coming on that court,” Reid said, referring to Senate Republicans. “We’re going to have this young man (Srinivasan). We hope that can be done very quickly. And then we expect in the next couple of weeks – I spoke to the White House this morning – three more nominations.”

He complained that Republican senators were delaying too many nominations, through threats of filibusters and by other means.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that Democrats’ complaints about confirmation of judges was unwarranted since Republicans had allowed on Tuesday the confirmation of the tenth judicial nomination of Obama’s second term, and because about 75 percent of the vacancies in the judiciary do not yet have nominees.

According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, there are now 17 appeals court vacancies and six nominees pending for those spots. For the federal trial courts (district courts) there are 68 vacancies and 17 nominees pending for them.

Progressive groups and labor unions such as the Communications Workers of America have been urging Reid to curtail the filibuster.

The question now is whether Republicans will try to delay a confirmation vote on Srinivasan, once his nomination is reported out by the Judiciary Committee.

And if the GOP does filibuster Srinivasan’s nomination, then would that lead Reid to move to change the rules on filibusters?

Curt Levey, president of the conservative group The Committee for Justice, which is involved in judicial nominations battles, said, “Pending Srinivasan’s confirmation hearing, we tentatively oppose his confirmation for a couple of reasons. One, he has filed amicus briefs opposing voter ID laws and supporting racial preferences in admissions, two issues that are very much in the hands of the federal courts.”

And second, Levey said, Srinivasan was involved in an Obama administration deal with the city of St. Paul, Minn., in which the city dropped its appeal in a Fair Housing Act case in return for the administration declining to intervene in two False Claims Act suits against the city.

Harkening back to the Democratic filibusters of Bush’s judicial nominees, Levey said, “Recall that the four D.C. Circuit vacancies are partly the result of Democrats’ obstruction of tremendously qualified Bush nominees, including Miguel Estrada and Peter Keisler.”

The struggle over filibusters is also playing out in the case of Richard Cordray, Obama’s choice to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Until Obama agrees to changes in the CFPB structure to make it a multi-member board akin to other regulatory agencies, Republicans are blocking a confirmation vote on Cordray.

Obama gave Cordray a recess appointment last year to head the CFPB. But the appeals court in Washington held that Obama had acted unconstitutionally by giving a recess appointment to three members of the National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 4, 2012. Obama gave Corday his recess appointment on that same day, which, some Republicans say, puts Cordray’s appointment under a legal cloud.

Federal investigators have begun an investigation into the source of a audio recording of private strategy sessions earlier this year featuring Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election team plotting against a potential opponent, actress Ashley Judd.

McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton said Tuesday that the campaign is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's office in Louisville to uncover who recorded a Feb. 2 meeting in Kentucky – attended by McConnell himself -- which was published earlier today by the liberal magazine Mother Jones.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

McConnell's campaign has vehemently denied that anyone from its staff was responsible for the leak, and has begun to pursue a criminal investigation into the matter.

"Senator McConnell’s campaign is working with the FBI and has notified the local U.S. Attorney in Louisville, per FBI request, about these recordings," said McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton. "Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Sen. McConnell’s campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished will presumably be the subject of a criminal investigation."

In the tapes, McConnell and a handful of aides are heard discussing opposition research against would-be Democratic challengers next fall, most prominently Judd. While Judd eventually declined to challenge McConnell for re-election in 2014, the aides were heard on-tape discussing research into Judd's background, including her mental health history and religion.

The FBI confirmed that is has begun an inquiry into the recording through a spokeswoman on Tuesday.

"We are looking into the matter," Mary Trotman, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Louisville, told NBC News. She said FBI agents have already listened to the recording -- and are "following all the logical steps" to determine if it was made in violation of federal law.

Already, the McConnell campaign -- which has been early and aggressive in organizing the top Senate Republican's re-election effort -- has suggested that the recordings were part of a Democratic smear, although it has not provided any evidence to substantiate that allegation.

"We’ve always said the Left would stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Watergate-style tactics to bug campaign headquarters are above and beyond," said Benton.

Speaking Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill, McConnell insinuated that a liberal group in his home state -- ProgressKY, which launched an incendiary attack on McConnell's wife's ethnicity -- was to blame for a bugging.

"As you know, last month my wife's ethnicity was attacked by a left-wing group in Kentucky," McConnell said. "And then, apparently, they bugged my headquarters. So I think that pretty well sums up the way political left is operating in Kentucky." (A spokesman for McConnell later denied the senator was referring to ProgressKY specifically, but rather, speaking more generally.)

A spokesperson for Judd fired back at McConnell, asserting his research into her mental health history served as a reason to defeat him.

"This is yet another example of the politics of personal destruction that embody Mitch McConnell and are pervasive in Washington DC," said the spokesperson. "We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp than to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter. Every day it becomes clearer how much we need change in Washington from this kind of rhetoric and actions.”

In a phone interview with NBC News, Mother Jones' David Corn says he and his publication have "no comment" about any FBI investigation into how he obtained the recording of the McConnell campaign's strategy session on actress Ashley Judd. 

"This story speaks for itself," Corn said.

The magazine itself added in a statement:

We are still waiting for Sen. Mitch McConnell to comment on the substance of the story. Before posting this article, we contacted his Senate office and his campaign office—in particular, his campaign manager, Jesse Benton—and no one responded. As the story makes clear, we were recently provided the tape by a source who wished to remain anonymous. We were not involved in the making of the tape, but we published a story on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. It is our understanding that the tape was not the product of a Watergate-style bugging operation. We cannot comment beyond that.

While McConnell has won four additional terms since winning his first in 1984, the Kentucky Republican has been aggressively targeted for defeat by Democrats, who argue McConnell is not especially popular in his state, and is to blame for much of the procedural gridlock in the Senate.

NBC's Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro and Michael Isikoff contributed reporting.

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 9, 2013 10:44 AM EDT

So much for what would have been 2014’s most-watched Senate contest.

Actress Ashley Judd, a Democrat,  announced on Wednesday that she will not mount a challenge to take on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

Dario Cantatore / Getty Images file photo

Ashley Judd attends Ashley Judd in Conversation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime at the United Nations on March 14, 2012 in New York City.

“After serious and thorough contemplation, I realize that my responsibilities & energy at this time need to be focused on my family,” the actress tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.

Critics painted her as a Hollywood elite out of touch with the state’s citizens, although she also was known as a high-profile fan of the state’s famous Kentucky Wildcats basketball team.

“Regretfully, I am currently unable to consider a campaign for the Senate,” Judd wrote on Twitter. “I have spoken to so many Kentuckians over these last few months, who expressed their desire for a fighter for the people & new leader,” she wrote on Twitter.

“While that won't be me at this time, I will continue to work as hard as I can to ensure the needs of Kentucky families are met by returning this Senate seat to whom it rightfully belongs: the people & their needs, dreams, and great potential. Thanks for even considering me as that person & know how much I love our Commonwealth.”

Some Democrats were also concerned that a Judd run would hurt them statewide and that they would have a better chance with someone less high-profile. Democratic recruiting hopes now likely turn to Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. 

NBC's Mike O'Brien contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:23 PM EDT

After a lengthy stalemate over automatic budget cuts - capped by a closed-door White House meeting with bipartisan leaders that yielded no deal - the president will head to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue next week to meet with his political rivals in the Senate. 

President Barack Obama will meet with Senate Republicans at a Thursday luncheon on the Hill on March 14, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Wednesday. 

Obama has also requested a meeting with House Republicans, although the date has not yet been scheduled. 

"Senate Republicans welcome the president to the Capitol. And I appreciate he took my recommendation to hear from all of my members," McConnell said in a statement. 

McConnell added that Republicans plan to discuss government spending and the economy at the meeting. 

Recommended: Boehner Wants Budget Deals 'Out in the Open'

The rare lunch get-together comes after Obama spoke to a handful of Republican senators by phone to address legislation on spending, immigration and gun control. 

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

President Barack Obama meets with his Cabinet at the White House March 4, 2013. Obama and Congress remain locked in stalled budget negotiations as the effect of the sequestration begin to impact the U.S. economy.

The New York Times first reported Tuesday that a group of Republicans have been invited to dinner with Obama this evening, although the heavy snow falling in Washington, D.C. could delay the effort to thaw political relationships until a night with improved weather conditions. 

The Republican senators expected to attend the dinner at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington are: Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Dan Coats of Indiana, Ton Coburn of Oklahoma, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, John McCain of Arizona and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. 

The president last attended a Senate GOP luncheon on May 25, 2010.

NBC's Kelly O'Donnell contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 6, 2013 9:56 AM EST

After weeks of argument over the sequester, bipartisan congressional leaders will meet with the president at the White House on Friday -- the same day that automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to go into effect. 

President Barack Obama will meet with House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss the across-the-board budget reductions to federal agencies, aides told NBC News.

Republicans were quick to question why the White House would schedule the meeting only on the final day of the belabored back-and-forth over the cuts.

"If the President is serious about stopping the sequester, why did he schedule a meeting on Tuesday for Friday when the sequester hits at midnight on Thursday?" a Republican aide told NBC. "Either someone needs to buy the White House a calendar, or this is just a - belated - farce.  They ought to at least pretend to try."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Obama also spoke briefly with congressional leaders Wednesday when he attended the unveiling of a statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks at the Capitol. 

Asked why the longer White House meeting is not happening today, Carney told reporters that "the Senate is still yet to vote, hopefully will vote tomorrow, on a proposal that achieves the kind of postponement of the sequester deadline that would allow Congress to move forward on balanced deficit reduction in a sensible, no-drama fashion that would avoid these unnecessary impacts across the economy and the country." 

That measure has very little chance of passing both chambers.

Carney also disputed the assumption that the sequester goes into effect at midnight on Thursday night. By law, the president must execute the cuts on March 1st, meaning that they can be averted until 11:59 ET on Friday, he said. 

The sequester's origins -- and mechanisms to stop the self-executing cuts -- have been the subject of finger-pointing between both parties. The president has blamed Republicans for refusing a compromise that would include the closure of tax loopholes, while the GOP has blamed Senate Democrats for failing to propose a legislative fix.

McConnell described the meeting Friday as an opportunity to discuss spending reductions more broadly. 

"The meeting Friday is an opportunity for us to visit with the President about how we can all keep our commitment to reduce Washington spending," he said in a statement. "With a $16.6 trillion national debt, and a promise to the American people to address it, one thing is perfectly clear: we will cut Washington spending. We can either secure those reductions more intelligently, or we can do it the President's way with across-the board cuts. But one thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to."

NBC's Kristen Welker contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:06 AM EST

Actress and possible Senate candidate Ashley Judd joined Republicans Tuesday in condemning a progressive group’s racially charged attack on Sen. Mitch McConnell's wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

"This woman has the ear of @McConnellPress -- she's his #wife. May explain why your job moved to #China!," the group ProgressKY wrote on Twitter on Feb. 14.

The tweet links to a website that alleges Chao, who is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, disparaged American workers when she served as Labor Secretary under President George W. Bush. 

Judd, who is considering running against McConnell in next year's Senate contest, tweeted a veiled condemnation of the group.

"Whatever the intention, whatever the venue, whomever the person, attacks or comments on anyone's ethnicity are wrong & patently unacceptable," Judd wrote Tuesday afternoon.

The flap was first reported by WFPL public radio.

McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton called Chao's family "salt of the earth" immigrants who represent "shining examples of the American dream." 

"It is unconscionable that anyone would use blatant race-baiting for political gain," Benton said in a statement. "Progress Kentucky should be ashamed of themselves. We hope all Americans can agree that these disgusting tactics have no place in American politics."

The National Republican Senatorial Committee called on national Democrats to denounce ProgressKY.

"This disgusting attack and this organization must be condemned immediately by top Democrats across the board," spokesman Brad Dayspring said in a statement.

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 26, 2013 5:29 PM EST

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell dug in this morning by not backing off earlier statements that the GOP would use the United States debt limit as a bargaining chip to get the president and his party to agree to more spending cuts. 

Placing the blame squarely on President Obama’s shoulders, McConnell called it a "shame" that Republicans "have to use whatever leverage we have in Congress" to get the president at the negotiating table. He also declared the prospect of raising taxes, "over" and added that any new tax reform would have to be "revenue neutral."

On the roundtable, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich chided his Republican colleagues for using the debt ceiling as a political leverage, saying that two other issues, the pending sequestration cuts and the continuing resolution to fund the government, were "much better fights than the debt ceiling."

Gingrich continued, "The debt ceiling guarantees a crisis. It guarantees that the markets will cave in on the Republicans. And the Republicans in the end will give up."

There was also reports this morning that President Obama intends to nominate former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) to become Secretary of Defense this week. Constitutionally, the president’s cabinet picks must be confirmed by the Senate and the two Senators on Meet the Press this morning, Mitch McConnell and Angus King (I-ME) said they will wait until Hagel's confirmation hearings before deciding how to vote. 

McConnell added that Hagel will "be treated fairly" by the GOP but raised the prospect of pressing the former senator on his stance toward Israel.

You can watch the entire program on our website including an interview with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, who headed the president's fiscal commission, on why they think leaders in Washington missed a "magic moment" with the fiscal cliff deal.

Be sure to check out David’s breakdown of what federal finances would look like if they were brought down to family size.

We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that Republicans will not support more revenue-raising measures in future fights over the nation's deficit, saying that President Barack Obama should lead on addressing spending cuts alone.

"That's over," McConnell said on NBC's Meet the Press when asked about possible new streams of revenue through taxes or tax code reforms.

"We've resolved this issue," McConnell said. "We don't have this problem because we tax too little, we have it because we spend way, way too much. So we've settled the tax issue and now we have to address the single biggest threat to America's future, and that's our excessive spending."

McConnell helped broker an eleventh-hour deal to avert the fiscal cliff last week, a bill that included the expiration of Bush-era tax rates for some of the wealthiest Americans. On Sunday, McConnell defended that deal, opposed by many House Republicans despite an overwhelming bipartisan deal in the Senate.

"Look, this was not a tax increase," he said of the fiscal cliff agreement. "It was not the kind of complete deal we'd like because we want to cut spending but we did stabilize taxes. The tax issue's behind us." 

McConnell did not answer repeated questions about whether or not he would use the threat of a government shutdown to force Democrats' hand on spending cuts.

"I know what your question is," he told host David Gregory. "What I'm telling you is I have not given up on the president stepping up to the plate and tackling the biggest issue confronting the country.

Updated at 2:15 a.m. ET -- An agreement in principle to avert broad tax increases and spending cuts passed in the Senate early Tuesday morning, with an overwhelming vote of 89-8.

The House of Representatives is expected to vote before Wednesday.

The interim New Year's Eve tax deal negotiated by Biden and Senate Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky would raise income taxes on single earners with annual incomes above $400,000 and married couples with incomes above $450,000.

It also blocks spending cuts for two months, extends unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, prevents a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients and prevents a spike in milk prices.

As of mid-afternoon Monday, the sticking point involved the "sequester," the cuts to spending – about $100 billion to start in 2013 -- that were mandated by the Budget Control Act which President Barack Obama signed into law last year. Republicans have signaled they might let the sequester take effect unless it was offset by other spending cuts; the GOP has also said it might accept a delay, but only for a few months.

The Obama administration, however, was pushing for a longer delay in implementing the sequester. Otherwise, the president said, replacing those automatic cuts must be "balanced" — shorthand for a combination of new taxes and other spending cuts.

Obama tried to push talks over the finish line earlier in the afternoon with a statement from the White House.

"Today, it appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year's tax hike is within sight," the president said at the White House on Monday. "But it's not done."

In the absence of a broader agreement to resolve the sequester, McConnell appeared in the Senate floor to request a vote only on the tax element of the fiscal cliff.

"Let's pass the tax relief portion now," he said. "Let's take what's been agreed to and keep moving."

But it's not clear that Democrats, who were led in negotiations by Vice President Joe Biden, would agree to de-link the tax debate from other fights over the sequester and extending expiring unemployment benefits past Dec. 31.

House Republicans were careful to note that it was still possible for them to add votes late on New Year's Eve. But they also argued that there was no Senate-passed legislation on which they could schedule a vote, making the prospect of avoiding the cliff all the less likely.

Democratic and Republican sources in the House told NBC News that a final vote on any deal would now most likely wait until afternoon on New Year's Day, or even on Jan. 2.

Though Congress could still conceivably act after New Year's to preserve existing tax rates — thereby limiting any lasting effect on consumers — their inability to reach an agreement until the very last minute could still threaten to rattle the economy and markets.

The House did act late Sunday, though, to clear the way for emergency consideration of Senate legislation if leaders are able to reach an agreement. The House Rules Committee convened with the purpose of dispensing with a rule instilled by Republicans in the early days of 2011 to require that legislation be posted online for a full 72 hours before a vote in the House. GOP leaders had sought that rule to showcase their own transparency, and in reaction to actions by the previous Democratic majority to quickly pass legislation during the health care reform battles of 2010.

Republicans' move to sidestep their own rule underscores the urgency of fiscal cliff talks in the final hours of 2012. There were few ironclad assurances, though, that any Senate agreement would necessarily win the support of the House.

The lurching nature of legislating has been characteristic of the Congress during the last two years, and that's a phenomenon that may well continue into the next Congress, when Democrats will continue to retain control of the Senate, and Republicans will hold a slightly slimmer grasp on the House.

Updated 3:10 p.m. — Senate Democrats said talks toward resolving the so-called fiscal cliff before the end-of-year deadline had hit a "major setback" on Sunday afternoon due to a standoff over proposed changes to Social Security. 

Democrats said that Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Ky., are insisting that a deal to resolve the fiscal cliff include what is known as "chained CPI" -- a change in how Social Security benefits are calculated to increase over time. 

Just before a self-imposed deadline at which Senate leaders were set to brief their respective caucuses about a prospective deal, negotiations toward a scaled-back agreement to avoid the onset of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts on Jan. 1 appeared on the verge of breakdown.

Related:Obama: GOP's insistence on halting tax hikes for the wealthy is stopping fiscal cliff deal

McConnell said that he had even reached out to Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator who's helped hammer out previous deals, in hopes of jump-starting the talks. 

"He and the vice president, I wish them well," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. 

"In the meantime, I will try to come up with something," Reid added of Republicans' latest proposal, "but at this stage I don’t have a counter-offer to make."

Obama had offered chained CPI — which would essentially reduce the rate of growth in Social Security benefits over time — as part of a broader "grand bargain" he had previously proposed to Republicans. The GOP rejected that proposal, and moved from there onto House Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B," an ultimately unsuccessful effort. 

In his interview earlier today on NBC's "Meet the Press," the president pointed to his offer on chained CPI as evidence of his willingness to compromise in pursuit of a broad fiscal deal. 

"One of the proposals we made was something called Chain CPI, which sounds real technical but basically makes an adjustment in terms of how inflation is calculated on Social Security," Obama said. "Highly unpopular among Democrats. Not something supported by AARP. But in pursuit of strengthening Social Security for the long-term I'm willing to make those decisions."

A Senate Democratic aide said that Democrats had thought such a proposal was off the table, though, as part of the talks toward parried-down agreement. 

"It’s basically a poison pill," the aide said of Republicans' demand for chained CPI.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., expressed bewilderment at the breakdown, suggesting that there were more than enough votes for a compromise measure that didn't include chained CPI.

"I don't know what caused this but there's a critical mass of 80 senators who would vote to fix the [alternative minimum tax], the doc fix, extend unemployment insurance, protect everybody 500 thousand and below from a tax increase," he told reporters at the Capitol. "There's 80 senators who will do that without CPI."

McConnell, who spoke briefly on the Senate floor around 2 p.m., struck an ever-so-slightly sunnier note.

"There is no single issue that remains an impossible sticking point," the top Senate Republican said.  "I want everyone to know I'm willing to get this done. But I need a dance partner."

Senators are set to huddle with members of their respective parties this afternoon amid votes to discuss the latest as it relates to the fiscal cliff.

As House members return to town this evening for votes this evening, they'll also caucus with fellow party members to discuss what, if any, way forward there is on the fiscal cliff.

NBC's Frank Thorp contributed reporting.