President Barack Obama delivered surprise remarks on the sequester Friday morning, once again slamming Republicans for the across-the-board budget cuts that are scheduled to take effect at midnight.

Sequester "is happening because of a choice that Republicans made," Obama said, adding that the GOP's unwillingness to prevent the sequester indicates that the party is "out of step" with the rest of the country.

"We just need Congress to catch up with their own party and country with this," Obama said. "If they did so, we could make a lot of progress. I do know that there are Republicans in Congress who privately, at least, say that they would rather close tax loopholes than let these cuts go through. I know that there are Democrats who would rather do entitlement reform than let these cuts go through."

"There is a caucus of common sense up on Capitol Hill," Obama "It's a silent group right now, and we want to make sure that their voices start getting heard."

The Obama administration has spent the past 10 days warning Americans about the disastrous consequences of the budget cuts, which will affect both military and non-defense government spending. Now that the cuts are virtually guaranteed to happen, however, the President hedged his doomsday rhetoric, telling reporters that "not everyone will feel the cuts right away."

"The pain, though, will be real,” Obama said. “All of this will cause a ripple effect throughout our economy.”

But, he added later, "this is not going be the apocalypse...it's just dumb."

The President's surprise remarks followed his eleventh-hour meeting with Congressional leaders to discuss the sequester. But with Congress adjourned for a three-day weekend recess, there was little chance that the talks would result in a solution.

In a readout of the meeting, a spokesperson for House Speaker John Boehner reitereated that Republicans would not accept any new revenues as part of a sequester deal.

"I am not a dictator, I'm the President," Obama told reporters Friday. "Ultimately, if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say, we need to go to catch a plane, I can't have Secret Service block the doorway."

"I can't do a Jedi mind-meld" to force Congress to agree to a deal, he added.