President Obama is scheduled to deliver remarks from the White House briefing room at 1:30PM ET in support of his proposed payroll tax cut extension. Here's a live feed from MSNBC and I'll be posting updates throughout his comments:

Obviously, things are running behind schedule.

Question by Savannah Guthrie—if Republicans are saying that these tax cuts must be paid for, how can they make the case that future tax cuts (i.e., Bush tax cuts) do not need to be paid for. Of course, the answer is that Republicans don't bother themselves with intellectual consistency on "details" like that. They'll come up with some baloney argument, and pretend they believe it.

CNN just took their second commercial break since the scheduled start of the remarks. Presumably things will start within the next couple of hours. /snark

The notes are on the podium...we've got to be getting close.

And the two-minute warning has been sounded. So I guess we're only 30 minutes behind schedule.

Two-minute warning has apparently been canceled. Things will be delayed a bit longer.

According to MSNBC, after the two-minute warning was sounded, someone came out and removed his notes from the podium, and said the start of the remarks would be pushed back a bit longer.

I'll bump this post whenever, if ever, the president emerges.

President Obama has just started and—ha, ha, ha, ha—he 'coincidentally' began at exactly the same moment as Newt Gingrich began remarks that would have otherwise been covered live.

Obama starting out with a basic explanation of "how we got here," including slamming Republicans—by name—for opposing extending the payroll tax cut in order to protect the super-wealthy from a small tax increase.

Obama notes the irony of Republicans demanding to pay for these tax cuts...but saying tax cuts for the wealthy don't have to be paid for. Nonetheless, he says he's willing to pay for the payroll tax cuts in a responsible way—in other words, with additional revenue from the super wealthy. But he says he will not pay for it by cutting spending or altering the debt limit agreement.

Obama also says that failing to renew unemployment benefits would cause tremendous harm to the economy—it's not just the right thing to do for the people who get the benefits, it's the right thing for the economy as a whole.

"We cannot play games with unemployment insurance when we still have an unemployment rate that is way too high. ... This isn't jut a political fight, independent economists ... agree that if we don't extend the payroll tax cut and we don't extend unemployment insurance, it will hurt the economy. ... It will hurt all of us, and it will be a self-inflicted wound." He concludes his remarks by telling Congress to oppose tax hikes on the American public. And after about six or seven minutes at the podium, he leaves the briefing room.

A.B. Stoddard on MSNBC is making a good point—Republicans have known for the entire year that unemployment insurance and payroll tax cuts were going to expire—yet they are continuing to push things to the deadline.

This is something that even after a deal gets done—which I suspect it will be—Democrats need to hammer Republicans for. Literally every single thing this year has been a knockout, drawdown fight with Republicans. They absolutely refuse to cooperate, let alone compromise. It's incredibly destructive. And Republicans should be called out for it.