President slams Republican dirty tricks, as well as Rep. Paul Ryan and his ridiculous budget in open mike "gaffe."

Audio courtesy of ABC News:



Transcript from Fox News:

"I remember at one point in the negotiations," Obama shared, with what he thought was a small audience, "One of Boehner's staff people pipes up and says, 'You don't understand Mr. President, you know, we've lost on you know, healthcare, we've lost on the EPA we've given that up, we've got to have something for our--to sell to our caucus.' And I said to them, I said let me tell you something - I spent a year and a half getting healthcare passed. I had to take that issue across the country and I paid significant political costs to get it done. The notion that I'm going to let you guys undo that in a 6 months spending bill, you want to repeal healthcare, go at it, we'll have that debate. But you won't be able to do that by nickel and dimming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?"

"When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, you know, he's just being America's accountant, and you know trying to be responsible," the president pondered with his allegedly private audience, "This is the same guy who voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my healthcare bill, but wasn't paid for."


You know I would not be at all surprised to learn that the President knew full well that his mike was on. And knowing that he still he said the above because he knew it would fire up his base, which it did, and piss off the Republicans, which no doubt it will, while still giving him the excuse of saying that he did not mean for that to be released to the media.  Which I bet, he actually did.

Thoughts?