White House 'cliff' meeting ends with silence from participants

All four congressional leaders have now left the WH without making any statement. Majority Leader Reid looked downtrodden.
' @markknoller via web After meeting with President Obama for one hour, Republican and Democratic congressional leaders have departed the White House'and none of them stopped to tell reporters about any progress that may have resulted from the meeting.

It seems many Washington observers are interpreting their silence is a reason to believe no deal was reached, but on the other hand many in Washington also believed that we were on the brink of a deal at the beginning of last week'so I'm not sure their collective judgment is worth all that much.

After returning to the Capitol Building, House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi did say the meeting had been constructive and that she was now waiting to see what House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would come back with. McConnell, for his part, wouldn't answer questions and Speaker Boehner left the meeting without returning to his office. (Must have been beer-thirty.)

1:59 PM PT: The GOP huddle around @mitchmcconnell on Senate floor minutes after returning from WH fiscal cliff meeting http://t.co/...
— @KellyO via Twitter for BlackBerry®

2:08 PM PT: Actually seems to me that silence after the meeting means that nobody is trying to score a political hit on anyone else. Doesn't mean a deal is imminent, but unless we see some fireworks from one of the participants, I'd take it as a sign that they are trying to see if they can rustle together the votes to get something passed. What exactly that might be, I have no idea. But if talks truly collapsed, I'd expect to see jockeying very soon.

2:10 PM PT: President Obama will address the "cliff" talks at 5:45 PM ET. We'll post a live video feed and update throughout.

2:15 PM PT: Just in: Reid says long meeting in the White House was "very constructive" "we hope it will bear fruit" "next 24 hrs will be v instructive"
— @edhenryTV via web 2:17 PM PT: FLASH: House Democratic Leader Pelosi says Senate leaders will try to craft fiscal cliff deal; no details - aide
— @ReutersPolitics via TweetDeck

2:18 PM PT: Hahaha:

Pro tip: I love the guy, but senator reid usually looks downcast
— @jamespmanley via Twitter for BlackBerry®