David Axelrod: President Obama Ready to Extend Across-the-Board Tax Cuts

President Barack Obama may be ready to throw in the towel, backing what he hasn't before -- a temporary continuation of across-the-board tax cuts, even for the wealthiest taxpayers.

Top Obama aide David Axelrod told the Huffington Post that the president's capitulation probably is the only way middle-class taxpayers will be able to keep their tax cuts. It's just the political reality in the face of the president's congressional losses last week, he said.

"We have to deal with the world as we find it," Axelrod told the Post during an interview in his White House office. "The world of what it takes to get this done."

During the Post interview, Axelrod was careful to emphasize Obama's resolve to keep his treasured new health-care law right where it is. The president, he said, will point-blank veto any repeal of it, though he is willing to "work with people" who "have constructive ideas about how to strengthen" it.