Obama: Wall Street ‘Should Be Concerned’

President Obama warned that financial markets that they should be concerned about the current budget impasse, heightening concerns that the crisis will go on for weeks and extend to a debate over raising the federal government’s borrowing limit.

“I think this time is different,” President Obama told CNBC’s John Harwood in an exclusive interview. “I think they should be concerned.” The president said he was “exasperated” with negotiations in which he’d already “bent over backwards,” and said he won’t open budget talks until a “clean” government-funding bill is passed and the debt limit has been raised.

The federal government is projected to hit its borrowing limit on October 17. Hardwood noted Wall Street has been “calm” since Tuesday’s shutdown and regarded the debate as mostly “Washington posturing.”