Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Tuesday afternoon that a “clean” debt ceiling increase, as Democrats are demanding, would amount to “unconditional surrender” for Republicans.

“At times like this, the American people expect their leaders to sit down and have a conversation. I want that conversation to occur now,” he told reporters. “What the president said today was if there’s unconditional surrender by Republicans, he will sit down and talk to us. That’s not the way our government works.”

The Speaker refused to budge on the eighth day of the government shutdown on funding the government or averting default without preconditions.

“I didn’t come down here to shut down the government,” he said. “I certainly didn’t come here to default on the debt.”