President Obama took a shot at warring — and wealthy — football players and team owners on Thursday, telling them that “for an industry that’s making $9 billion a year,’’ they ought to be able to figure out how to divvy up the money and avoid a lockout.

“You’ve got owners, most of whom are worth close to a billion dollars; you’ve got players who are making millions of dollars,’’ Mr. Obama said, in response to a question from a reporter about whether he would intervene to avert a lockout. The National Football League’s collective bargaining agreement expires at midnight Thursday.

“My working assumption,’’ the president went on, “at a time when people are having to cut back, compromise and worry about making the mortgage and, you know, paying for their kid’s college education, is, is that the two parties should be able to work it out without the president of the United States intervening.’’

Mr. Obama spoke during a brief White House appearance with President Felipe Calderon of Mexico.

“I’m a big football fan,’’ he said, “but I also think that for an industry that’s making $9 billion a year in revenue, they can figure out how to divide it up in a sensible way and be true to their fans, who are the ones who obviously allow for all the money that they’re making. So my expectation and hope is, is that they will resolve it without me intervening, because it turns out I’ve got a lot of other stuff to do.’’

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WASHINGTON — President Obama once again passed up the opportunity to publicly call for President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to resign, but said that Egypt will not go back to the country it used to be before the democracy protests started.

In an interview with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, Mr. Obama said that only Mr. Mubarak knows what he wants to do, but added that the Egyptian people want free and fair elections and a representative government.

He said the United States can’t force anything on Mr. Mubarak, but said that “what we can do is we can say, the time is now for you to start making change in that country.”

The interview with the conservative commentator was taped just before Mr. Obama was to host a Super Bowl party at the White House, in which the American Idol judge Jennifer Lopez and her husband, the the Salsa crooner Marc Anthony were scheduled to attend. Mr. Obama told Mr. O’Reilly that while he would welcome and “schmooze” with his guests before the game, once it started he would be watching the antics on the field as the Green Bay Packers take on the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The president – who had batted down one challenge after another from the conservative commentator without seeming to get annoyed – only visibly appeared a little ticked off when Mr. O’Reilly challenged him on whether he really watched football games.

“Bill, I know football, man,” Mr. Obama said, getting steely-eyed. “I schmooze with everybody when they come in,” he said of his celebrity guests coming to watch the game. But once the game starts, he said, “I don’t want them chitting and chatting.”

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