Israeli President Shimon Peres Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom
BALDWIN: When JPMorgan CEO headed to Capitol Hill today, he was armed with an apology for his Wall Street firm losing $2 billion and, also, a warning - some, perhaps, could see it as a threat. He warned the Senate banking committee that Congress needs to act soon to avoid a, quote, "fiscal cliff." Here, he was.</s>JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: The one thing to keep in mind with the fiscal cliff is it may not wait until December 31st. Markets and businesses may start taking action before that that create a slowdown in the economy, which would be a bad thing.</s>BALDWIN: Erin Burnett, host of "Erin Burnett OutFront," good to see you. How are we to take that? Translate that for me. Is it a threat? Is it a warning?</s>ERIN BURNETT, HOST, "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT": It's sort of a little bit of both, Brooke. Part of what he's saying is, look, with all of these deadlines happening at the end of the year, for companies with payroll taxes, there's all kinds of things, not knowing what tax rates are, you have to go ahead and program things in in advance. And, obviously, if you don't know what it's going to be or if the Bush tax rates are going to go up at the end of the year, that gets programmed in. What it means is companies will be hesitant to hire. They won't know what the rules are going to be. So, in part, it's just a warning, but he's also threatening and basically saying, please, do your job so that doesn't happen. I have to say, Brooke, that was classical Jamie Dimon-style, though. He is there to talk about one thing and he turns the tables and starts lecturing Congress about something else when he was the guy who supposed to be lectured.</s>BALDWIN: I noticed that. He's saying look over here, look over here. Even though I'm supposed to be talking about this specifically, but I guess when he's talking about Wall Street businesses, what specifically does he want from Washington?</s>BURNETT: What Jamie has said repeatedly that he wants is a sort of a grand bargain. And I've interviewed him a lot over the years. Jamie Dimon is someone who for much of his life had leaned Democratic. People had talked about him being a treasury secretary under President Obama. It's unclear given what's happened on financial reform and Dimon's pushback on that, whether that's still the case, but what I think he's really looking for like a Simpson-Bowles kind of a deal, a grand bargain sort of a deal where they know the rules and feel like the situation's being dealt with. The downgrade that happened to the debt of the U.S. is a really big issue on Wall Street and really can roil markets and that's what most all of Wall Street wants to avoid happening again.</s>BALDWIN: Gosh, Simpson-Bowles, what was that, two Januaries ago? That didn't fully come through.</s>BURNETT: Right. Everyone keeping saying, do it, do it, right? But they can't actually get the votes together. So I think he's in the group that says, please, that's the thing that needs to get done.</s>BALDWIN: What about the term he used, fiscal cliff? What is the feeling overall on Wall Street? Do they agree?</s>BURNETT: They absolutely agree. As you know, it's not just the Bush tax cuts. It's the extension of unemployment benefits that goes away. It's the need to raise the debt ceiling at the end of the year. It's the payroll tax cut that will go away. All of these things are going to happen at the end of the year. They refer to it as a cliff, Brooke, because it's a sense that if all of these things happen at once, people's tax rates go up, that could really send the economy back into a recession, really send us plunging off that cliff. Ben Bernanke was using the word just the other day, so that's what they're talking about and want to avoid. Of course, the great irony is to avoid it at this point to extend the tax cuts means more spending.</s>BALDWIN: Well, I know you're going to be all of this. You have interviewed Jamie Dimon many times in the past. We'll look forward to you at 7:00, "Erin Burnett OutFront." Erin, thank you.</s>BURNETT: All right, thanks, Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: And the pressure on President Obama to free convicted Israeli spy, Jonathan Pollard, is mounting. Will the White House grant him clemency? Wolf Blitzer is in "The Situation Room" with some guests ready to weigh in. Hey, Wolf.</s>WOLF BLITZER, HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": We're going to have a full discussion on this very, very sensitive subject. The Israeli president, Shimon Peres, is getting ready to go to the White House. He's receiving the highest civilian from the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But at the same time, he has already said he will ask President Obama to provide clemency to Jonathan Pollard, the former civilian Naval intelligence analyst who's serving a life sentence for spying for Israel. Other presidents have been asked similar requests from Israeli leaders, including President Bill Clinton. They've always rejected it. He's been in jail now for about 25 years, Jonathan Pollard, so we've assembled a panel to assess what's going on in "The Situation Room." One congressman, Eliot Engel, Democrat of New York, has teamed up with conservative Republican Chris Smith of New Jersey. They're circulating a letter to the president, saying go ahead and release pollard, 25 years is enough. We've got Eliot Engel in "The Situation Room," Joseph E. DiGenova, the former U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. who was the chief prosecutor of Jonathan Pollard, and Bill Harlow, formerly of the CIA. He worked with George Tenet at the CIA when Tenet told Bill Clinton, if you release Pollard, I will resign in protest. So we're going to discuss what's going on. It will be a good thorough discussion on a very sensitive subject right now that will come up at the White House in the next few hours.</s>BALDWIN: Wolf, we'll look forward to it. We'll see you in five minutes. Thank you. Day three here in the trial of the man many blame for damaging the name, the reputation of Penn State. Hear what allegedly happened to one victim, an alleged victim, after he rejected Sandusky's advances. We're live outside the courthouse.