WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is meeting with BP executives for the first time -- a day after his speech to the nation on the calamitous oil spill from the company's well.
Obama will sit down today with CEO Tony Hayward and board Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg.
He says he'll tell the company officials to put a mountain of cash in escrow to pay for all the damage and cleanup. And Obama adds that fund will be under independent control.
The meeting comes as an AP-GfK poll published just before the president's speech showed more than half -- 52 percent -- of those responding disapprove of how he's handled the spill crisis. That's a big jump from a month earlier. And it's roughly the same disapproval level as George W. Bush had after Hurricane Katrina.
BP says it looks forward to the meeting today with President Barack Obama and shares his goal of shutting down the gushing Gulf oil well as quickly as possible.
In a statement released after Obama's Oval Office speech yesterday, BP said it also shares Obama's goal of cleaning up the oil and helping the affected people and environment.
The company says it looks forward to "a constructive discussion about how best to achieve these mutual goals."
Obama has accused BP of "recklessness."
For more news & multimedia on the Gulf oil disaster, visit our Oil Spill section.
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