House Speaker John Boehner John BoehnerTrump brings his campaign tactics to the White House Lobbyists expect boom times under Trump Last Congress far from ‘do-nothing’ MORE (R-Ohio) asked President Obama to address a joint-session of Congress on Thursday, Sept. 8, when it wouldn't conflict with the Republican presidential debate. 
 
 Wednesday night, the White House accepted the Speaker's offer. 
 
 Citing logistical difficulties, Boehner John BoehnerTrump brings his campaign tactics to the White House Lobbyists expect boom times under Trump Last Congress far from ‘do-nothing’ MORE requested that Obama hold his jobs address, which Obama wants to deliver next Wednesday, one day later. 
 
 The Speaker's letter made no mention of the more obvious conflict: between the president's speech, and a Republican presidential debate scheduled on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. EDT. That debate is the first of the post-Labor Day political season, and the first one in which Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is set to participate. 
 
 The response by Boehner sets up an early showdown between Obama and the Congress just returning from its August recess. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 Boehner, in a letter responding to Obama's request, said the House wouldn't have enough time to prepare for a speech that evening."As your spokesperson today said, there are considerations about the Congressional calendar that must be made prior to scheduling such an extraordinary event," the Speaker wrote. 
 
 "With the significant amount of time — typically more than three hours — that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks." 
 
 
 
 Boehner noted that the House isn't scheduled to reconvene until 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday. 
 
 "As such, on behalf of the bipartisan leadership and membership of both the House and Senate, I respectfully invite you to address a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday, September 8, 2011 in the House Chamber, at a time that works best for your schedule," Boehner said. 
 
 
 
 Press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement Wednesday night that Obama had agreed to speak on Thursday Sept. 8 instead of Sept. 7, the day which the president originally requested. 
 
 More from The Hill: 
 
 ♦ Obama address to coincide with GOP debate 
 
 ♦ GOP debate will go on 
 
 ♦ Obama targets GOP for fall offensive 
 
 ♦ Solis: Obama has been focused on jobs 
 
 
 
 Boehner's move appeared to surprise the White House, which according to a senior administration official had cleared the Sept. 7 date and 8 p.m. time of the address with House Republicans before making the formal request. The official said Boehner's office was consulted about the letter before it was made public, and that "no objections/concerns were raised." 
 
 Boehner’s office flatly denied the White House assertion that the Wednesday date was cleared with the Speaker. A Boehner spokesman, Brendan Buck, accused the White House of ignoring “decades, if not centuries” of protocol on such events. 
 
 
 
 "No one in the Speaker's office — not the Speaker, not any staff — signed off on the date the White House announced today,” Buck said in a statement. “Unfortunately we weren’t even asked if that date worked for the House. Shortly before it arrived this morning, we were simply informed that a letter was coming. It’s unfortunate the White House ignored decades — if not centuries — of the protocol of working out a mutually agreeable date and time before making any public announcement.” 
 
 
 
 Meanwhile, the White House downplayed the scheduling conflict with the GOP debate as just that, an innocent coincidence. 
 
 Asked whether the speech was purposefully scheduled the same night as the Republican debate, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, “Of course not.” 
 
 “It is coincidental,” said Carney, who explained that a number of considerations were taken into account when Obama settled on Sept. 7. 
 
 “One debate of many that’s on one channel of many was not enough of a reason” to pick another date, Carney said. 
 
 He added that Obama had chosen to speak directly to Congress in hopes that members had been chastened and softened after hearing from angry constituents over the August break. 
 
 The Republican National Committee (RNC), however, accused the Obama administration of politicking by scheduling the speech simultaneously with the debate. 
 
 RNC Chairman Reince Priebus slammed Obama's request as "a thinly-veiled political ploy" in a statement. "While the White House claims it’s simply a ‘coincidence,’ the American people can see right through that excuse," Priebus said of the timing of the president's request. 
 
 "If the President were serious about putting ‘country before politics,’ as he said in his request to speak to Congress, he wouldn’t be caught in such a thinly-veiled political ploy. This is yet another reminder that the President is out of touch and out of ideas. The only job he seems to care about is his own.” 
 
 
 
 A speech on Thursday would compete with the opening night of the NFL season, traditionally a ratings winner. 
 
 
 
 This year's opener, televised on NBC, features the reigning Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers against the New Orleans Saints. More than 27 million viewers watched last year's NFL opener on NBC. By contrast, 32.1 million people -- on a total of 10 networks -- watched Obama's speech on healthcare to a joint session of Congress shortly after Labor Day in 2009. 
 
 
 
 In a letter to congressional leaders requesting the Sept. 7 slot, the president said he will urge Congress to put aside politics and focus on creating jobs during the speech. 
 
 “As I have traveled across our country this summer and spoken with our fellow Americans, I have heard a consistent message: Washington needs to put aside politics and start making decisions based on what is best for our country and not what is best for each of our parties in order to grow the economy and create jobs,” Obama wrote. “We must answer this call.” 
 
 
 
 According to a Democratic leadership source, the House Democratic leadership was not consulted with respect to Speaker Boehner’s letter requesting a new date for the president’s address. 
 
 This story was first posted at 4:22 p.m. and last updated at 7:50 p.m. 
 
 -- Russell Berman and Sam Youngman contributed. ||||| President Obama acquiesced to a request from Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday to move the date of his proposed address to a joint session of Congress to Thursday Sept. 8, after Mr. Boehner all but rejected Mr. Obama’s request to speak next Wednesday. 
 
 Mr. Obama had asked to deliver a much anticipated speech outlining his proposals to boost employment and the economy on Sept. 7 — the same night as a scheduled Republican presidential debate, as it happens. 
 
 In a letter to Congressional leaders on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said it was his “intention to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the middle class and working Americans.” 
 
 Mr. Boehner responded with a letter saying that Sept. 7 was not so good for a presidential address before a joint session of Congress. Might he be able to reschedule to Sept. 8 instead? 
 
 “As the majority leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, Sept. 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening,” Mr. Boehner wrote. “With the significant amount of time, typically more than three hours, that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.” 
 
 That Mr. Obama was going to make his speech next week was expected. But it is remarkable that he would choose to do so in such an elevated setting as a joint session, and at the same time that Republican candidates for president will be laying out their own visions for how to get the country out of the economic doldrums. It is a challenging gesture from a president who appears set on laying out as stark a contrast as he can between where he would like to take the country and where the opposition would go. 
 
 “Our nation faces unprecedented economic challenges, and millions of hard-working Americans continue to look for jobs,” Mr. Obama said in his letter to Mr. Boehner and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. “As I have traveled across our country this summer and spoken with our fellow Americans, I have heard a consistent message: Washington needs to put aside politics and start making decisions based on what is best for our country and not what is best for each of our parties in order to grow the economy and create jobs,” Mr. Obama said. “We must answer this call.” 
 
 The Republican debate scheduled at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., would be the first since Gov. Rick Perry of Texas joined the race and promptly took a big lead in polls over former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. 
 
 Just before 3 p.m. Eastern, the sponsors of the debate said it would go on as planned on Sept. 7 — creating a lively opportunity for counter-programming. The sponsors did not specify a time for the debate, leaving open the possibility that it would take place after a presidential address. 
 
 “We are thrilled that we now have a terrific opportunity to hear from national leaders of both major parties about the most pressing domestic issues facing the country,” the sponsors said in a statement. 
 
 The Sept. 7 debate is sponsored by NBC News, Politico and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; it is to be televised by MSNBC, CNBC and the Spanish-language network Telemundo and streamed on the Internet by Politico. It is to be moderated by NBC’s Brian Williams and Politico’s John Harris. 
 
 John Harris, the editor-in-chief of Politico and one of the moderators of the debate, called the split-screen moment with Mr. Obama “a terrific turn of events” and said that “it raises the profile of the whole evening, and in some ways makes it the first general election debate of the 2012 cycle.” 
 
 The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said “of course not” when asked whether White House officials had chosen the time of Mr. Obama’s speech to interfere with the Republican debate. “One debate of many was not reason not to have a speech when we wanted to have it,” he said. 
 
 But Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, quickly took to Twitter to criticize the president’s timing: 
 
 .@BarackObama request to give jobs speech the same night as GOP Presidential debate is further proof this WH is all politics all the time Reince Priebus 
 
 ReincePriebus 
 
 Next Wednesday is actually the third date for the Republican debate. It originally was to take place on May 2, but it was pushed up to Sept. 14 after the Reagan Foundation said that too few candidates had agreed to attend. Then that date was scrapped in favor of Sept. 7 because some of the campaigns indicated that they preferred for it to take place a week earlier. 
 
 And another potential blip: next Thursday, Sept. 8, is the first night of the N.F.L. season. 
 
 Brian Stelter, Michael D. Shear and Sarah Wheaton contributed reporting for this post.
– This might not bode well for President Obama's chances of getting Republicans to go along with his jobs plan: The two sides can't even agree on when he should unveil it. In response to Obama's request to address a joint session of Congress on Sept. 7, John Boehner has asked him to postpone the speech one night, reports the Hill. Boehner noted in his letter that the House isn't scheduled to reconvene until 6:30 on the 7th, which would raise "logistical impediments" in getting the chamber ready for a speech 90 minutes later. He did not mention what everyone else has noted: that Obama's speech would conflict with a GOP presidential debate—Rick Perry's first one—at the same time. White House spokesman Jay Carney called the timing a "coincidence," but that didn't stop critics such as Rush Limbaugh from piling on, notes Mediaite. "This is intended to disrupt the Republican debate," he said on his show today. "It’s intended to make Obama look bigger than the Republicans." Another thing Boehner didn't mention: Postponing the speech by one night would pit the president against the NFL's opening night, notes the National Journal.