Obama: 'No Easy Out' for Wall Street

Hours after the Dow plunged nearly 400 points on news of his administration's plan to overhaul the banking system, President Obama said Wall Street is apparently looking for "an easy out," ABC News reports. Problem is, one doesn't exist, he tells Nightline in an interview scheduled to air tonight. "The fact of the matter is, is that we are in not just an ordinary recession—we are in a perfect storm of financial problems."

Treasury chief Geithner took heat because his plan lacked specifics, but Obama said it's nearly impossible to say how much it will cost taxpayers. "I can't say the ballpark figure," said the president. "What happens is going to depend on how the markets respond over the long term, not today or the next day but a month from now or two months from now—how effective we are in actually cleaning out some of these bad assets out of these banks." (More President Obama stories.)