Obama to Host White House Shutdown Summit

With Congress apparently not even trying to negotiate an end to the government shutdown, President Obama has invited John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell to a White House meeting this afternoon, the New York Times reports. But from the sound of it, Obama doesn't have a solution up his sleeve; he'll simply use the meeting to try to persuade Republicans to drop their demands. "The president will urge the House to pass the clean CR to reopen the government, and call on Congress to act to raise the debt ceiling," a White House official says.

It wasn't Obama's only high-profile meeting today. Earlier, he met with CEOs from the country's 19 biggest financial firms, including Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon, to discuss the debt ceiling. The AP sees the meeting as a sign that business leaders are on the outs with their frequent allies in the Tea Party, because the shutdown is bad for business. "We're here to talk about what we're expert in," Blankfein said, "which is what the economy requires and what's helpful for growth." (More Barack Obama stories.)