island. we are delighted to have both of you with us. >> glad to be here. >> welcome to "crossfire." we're going to start with you. well, you know, you kind of got us into this whole situation. you're the guy, you had this great plan, you're going to take obama care out. this plan seems to have come up short. now the conversation seems to have moved on, left you behind. paul ryan puts out this "wall street journal" op-ed, doesn't include oobama care. now we're going to lift the debt cele. would you support paul ryan moving forward to get this debt ceiling resolved without -- >> well, look, van, you're trying hard. i've got to give you credit for that. an awful lot of washington would like to change the subject. an awful lot of washington would like to stop focusing on obama care. but you know who hasn't stopped focusing on it? the american people. the reason the house of representatives has stood strong on obama cash is millions of

americans said this isn't woring, it's killing jobs, taking away people's health care, it is not working. and that's what we need to stay focused on. >> well, you were kind of a lone voice on that notice, almost delusional sounding, your entire party is now moving on. your entire party is saying the debt ceiling catastrophe that we are on the verge of doing needs to be resolved. you're on record saying you don't even want to deal with the debt ceiling collapse without making obama care a part of that. paul ryan said, let's deal with the debt ceiling. are you saying we could deal with that until we deal with the obama care obsession? >> the whole country understands we have way too much dead. it's got from roughly 10 trillion to nearly 17 trillion. larger than our whole economy. i think we need to do structural reforms to get our spending under control. at the same time you have to

fight one thing at a time. we're in the middle of an epic movement. millions have said they want relief from obama care, so washington -- listen, politicians have not been listening to the american people, but over 2 million americans signed a national petition at don'tfundit.com, because obama care is not working. >> the republicans in the how have put on the table a six-week extension, partially in response i suspect because of treasury secretary jack lew saying this would be a sdasr disaster. but from your standpoint, you were down at the white house today. could you vote for a clean -- to move the debt ceiling down the road? just to make sure we don't go to default?

that way we get off from the hostage negotiations. everybody i know knows between negotiating, and i understand why they want to -- hold the government shutdown, but i really think it's important that we do our level best to both take away the threat of the debt limit and reopen the government. then everything is on the table. of course it is, but we want to negotiate like americans do. it's a pretty fair amount of hostage-taking from the democratic side. >> those are parliamentary maneuvers in the back and forth.

this is different. this is hundreds of thousands of federal employees literally out of work right now. this is drop the world economy field -- this is negotiating hostages with a very real threat to shoot them, and very real damage to the country if we do. i think that that's an important difference in all of this. we've got to recognize, i think americans recognize there's a difference between negotiating and negotiating with hostages. sheldon, let me ask you a question. are there bipartisan areas we can agree -- the nat in the midst of this battle had a brief moment of bipartisan negotiation -- let me finish the question, where we unanimously passed the bill -- so why was it that you voted to fund the machine and women of the military?

>> i think while people are in service overseas and putting their lives on the line for our country, we owe them a special obligation. i don't think -- >> and i agree with you. >> i don't think doing that means that -- it doesn't change the underlying equation. the underlying equation is that you are insisting on not just good-faith negotiations, but negotiations with hostages. in your willingness to let the occasional hostage out while holding the other hostages, doesn't change that fundamental principle. i think that's fundamentally wrong and fundamentally un-american. >> shelton, the house has passed 14 bills to fund vital government priorities. all 14 of them are sitting on harry reid's desk. he won't allow the senate to vote. let me ask the question -- if you voted to fund the men and women in the active military, why are democrats blocking funding the v.a.? do our veterans not deserve the same treatment that the acti

active-military do? >> i'll concede that -- that this is a -- the active military was a good thing to pay for. >> but why not the veterans? >> no matter how many individual hostages we decide to let go, there will still be others. it doesn't change right now but then you still have other people who are getting the central services from government, and they all continue to suffer. there is no need to create an artificial crisis and to harm all these people in the country if you really want good-faith negotiations.

why is it hostage go e.? fund the v.a., yes or not. can't we say, listen, even if we disagree, we can come together and say our vets should be above politics. >> when you have held virtually the entire federal government hostage, when you say let's do a vote just to let the v.a. out -- >> there are 14 of thousands. >> to continue to hold all the other agencies that weren't in those bills hostage. it's still a hostage situation. >> this is the 18th time that the congress and the president have been at an impasse and we shut the government down. this is not like this is a brand-new suddenly discovered thing. we've done this 18 times. >> and it's been rotten every time. >> but often it's the only way the congress can get the president's attention. >> you have the president's attention. my gosh, he is extraordinarily

concerned about the harm that the shutdown is causing to people across this country right now. he's extraordinarily concerned about the threat to our currency and credit. >> not enough to negotiate. >> negotiate or negotiate with hostages? there's an important distinction. >> we've done this 17 other times. >> let's move on. i think we've heard this before and understand where you goo is are coming from. there's some stuff that's new developments. one is you talk about what's popular, not popular. >> one thing that's up popular is the republican party under your leadership we now have polls data that the republican party is as less popular in the history of the party. i wonder -- we're all friends here. we had can talk. do you feel like you owe your party an apology? listen, people believed in you, that you would somehow defund obama care, believe the strategy

of shutdown might have -- they followed you into a ditch. now obviously there's no chance it will be defunded and we're on the brink of a horrific default. do you think that in the reflection of your own heart, you might say, you know what? i'm a new kid, i think i owe you an apology. >> van, i know you desperately want to change the topic from obama care. it is striking that -- hold on, let mess answer your question. >> but the default, destruction of the world's economic? >> democrats in this town do not want to discuss obama care. why? because it isn't working. we saw the president's approval ratings are at 30%. "wall street journal" poll just came out, and democrats have the lowest support among the middle class in 40 years of polls. why if? and it's for two reasons. number one, because house republicans are working to fund vital government priorities. they passed 14 bills to do it

and president obama and the democrats refuse to negotiate. number two, it is because house republicans are listening to the millennium onof americans losing their jobs, who are being pushed into part-time work, facing skyrocketing health care -- >> do you agree with this analysis? >> the notion that obama care is a failure is a product of right-wing histrionics. i went into our insurance exchange in rhode island. there was a family at the front desk. they had been in earlier to get waited on and get served. they were so happy with the way they were treated, that they were not coming back. they brought in two big tubs of dunkin' donuts coffee and stacks of doughnuts for everybody. the report from christy ferguson quhos running is people are hugging their embroilees when they find out the options. the idea that cms, a pretty

anecdotal story, cms has adjusted the long-term costs for medicare and medicaid down by $1.2 trillion from 2010 estimates to 2013. you've got to believe obama care has something to do with the huge savings. the republican party decided that obama care was going to be a failure early on before obama care was even decided. it was a political choice to pull all support for anything this president wanted to do. now they have to live with it, so they have to maintain the story line, but senator cruz, i don't see it at home, i don't believe it. i think if you know anybody who had a child, say, with a preexisting condition who was trapped in their job for the rest of their lives, because they could never move, because no other insurer would ever cover for them, or the child that wentb yond the cap and the parents had to sell their house in order to pay for the continued cancer treatment, because they had blown through the cap. those are situations that needed

attention s obama care has fixed them. >> let me respond to that with two things. number one, it's interesting parent you found a family in rhode island that went in and got in. >> 1300. >> it was current will i reported there were 580 in rhode island. in iowa it was reported five in the entire state. enrollment -- let me make a second point. you said criticism of obama care is right-wing hisry onics. i'm curious if you think it was right-wing histrionics when james hoffa said that obama care is destroying the health care of millions of hard-working men and women in this country? >> i have heard that mr. hoffa said that you are using that quote as inappropriate and out of context. >> okay. >> well, then hold on. the nice thing about "crossfire", we can have some back-and-forth. we're going to come intoic to these in a minute.

keep it out. we have to take a break. i do want to suggest something surprising that i think probably senator whitehouse will not sgra el with. i think the president should be sending thank-you cards to all the republicans, including senator cruz. i'll explain why, next. ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪

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welcome back. we're following tonight's breaks news. let's go to dana bash. >> reporter: newt, we are learning that the discussion that went on at the white house did surround the whole idea of resoap the government. in fact the house appropriationings chairman hal rogers told some reporters here that the president would like the shutdown stopped and we republicans agreed to try to find the conditions to have a funding bill to end the shutdown. so the republicans went in to tack about the debt limit, but the of the got the ball rolling. we are told they're going to have discussions here on capitol hill, over at the white house probably through the night to find that magic deal. independents the without apparently just issued a statement saying that the president's meeting was as follows -- after a discussion,

no specific determination was made. the president's goals remains that we pay the bills, reopen the government and get back to the business of growing the economy. this is a big deal. >> it could be. having been through several of these, we'll find out. as you know, we have tonight both senator whitehouse of rhode island, and senator cruz of texas, but the point i was going to make, which i think is close to what ted was saying earlier -- if we were not in the middle of a budget shutdown, the number of stories you would have on the front page about the collapse of obama care in most states would be unending. i think in a sense obama care has been helped, though polling data indicates not by much -- it's been clouded.

>> senator whitehouse said that the teamsters' letter was -- >> that's not what i said. that's what mr. hoffa said. >> i understand what mr. hoffa really wants is an extension for unions. so i have the entire letter. i -- >> he's the author and he told you it was context. i will leave it at that. >> let me read the sentence i read. on behalf of the millions we represent, we can no longer stand silent in the face of the elements of the affordable care act that will destroy the very health and well-being of our members, along with millions of other hard-working americans. for the viewers that are watching this, i'm going to suggest to you that james hoffa, a liberal democrat, who has supported the election of president obama and harry reid and nancy pelosi, who said in writing that obama care is destroying the 40-hour work

weeks. >> elements of it. >> i'm quoting from another portion, that it is destroying the foundation that is the backappoint of the american middle class -- >> actually i googled it myself, and actually it was talking here's the thing that i think we have to be clear about. yes, a brand new program, a brand new website that got more hits than twitter got in its first 24 months in a week have had some problems. if you look at california, i think 30,000 people have been able to enroll. new york, 40,000 people have been able to enroll. medicare d, that rollout was bumpy. nobody is complaining about that. romneycare, everybody loves it. my question, yeah, you're demagoguing the problems. when this is a standard part of our country.

insurance company can no longer dump people or deny people, are you requesting to acknowledge. what are you going to tell people when insurance company, for years now, insurance company have been denying people for years. dumping people for years. obama care is trying to do something about it. what are you doing about it? >> the focus should be on the millions of americans who are hurting because of obama care and the millions beal pushed into part time work, working 29 hours a week. the people, the 110,000 retirees who received a letter saying they're losing their health insurance because of obama care. the 15,000 ups employees who received a letter saying that they were losing their spousal coverage, their husbands and wives were losing their coverage. and let me discuss what success should be. i don't know if this deal that was reported on will be a deal or not. let me suggest what the test for success should be. success should be meaningful relief for the millions of americans who are hurting

because of obama care. my test for success will be, does it then single mom who is forced to work 29 hours a week and is struggling? if it does, it is a good outcome. >> let's talk about single moms. in your state, sir, in your state 25% of the people in your state have no health insurance at all. and there are single mothers right now who have cancer, who have preexisting conditions and they cannot get any help from anywhere except through obama care. if it were up to you, those single moms would be staying up at night with no hope and no help for them or their children. you have yet to put on the table. you are now blaming everything that's wrong in america on obama care. that is demagoguery, sir. >> we can have that discussion all day long. and it is an important discussion. obama care is big and it will make an important difference and we should be having continued discussions about it. what we should not be doing is shutting down the government of

the united states, threatening the credit of the united states in order to improve a bargaining position and basically, force the united states into a hold hostage situation. that isn't helpful. that isn't productive. the boxed canyon. when we solve that, as soon as the government is back operating, as soon as the debt limit is not threatened by extremism and we can not have that shadow fall over our economy, we'll negotiate on everything. >> let me respond to both of those. first of all what you said is simply not true. i am a big support he of health care reform. i think we need to allow interstate competition, a national marketplace, to lower cost expanded availability and to make health care personal and portable and affordable. i am a huge pro opponent of that

and have been talking about it a long, long time. do you think the senate should vote on the 14 bills the house has passed to pass vital priorities like the v.a., our parks. >> no. you don't think we should even vote on them. >> i don't. you can waist time voting on them and every vote you leave is a vet for every agency shut down. i haven't interrupted you. to deny the service that's the american people down on from all those other agencies. i say to the veterans, and i say to people served by e.p.a. and people who have saved stock portfolios because of the securities and exchange commission. and people with fire protection, i say to all of them, open the government up and let's negotiate like americans do. and let's not negotiate by harming other people and saying

that unless you have it your way, you're going to keep hurt go these innocents. putting an end that to. i think we have good news on that. >> we are going to keep you here. we have a least one more question for our guests and we'll be right back. don't go anywhere.

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liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? rep. rokita: obamacare hurts this country much more than any government shutdown. vo: reckless. rep. blackburn: people are probably going to realize... they can live with a lot less government. vo: destructive. rep. bachmann: this is about the happiest i've seen members in a long time. vo: the government shutdown is hurting veterans, seniors, and our kids. now tea party republicans are threatening... an economic shutdown. refusing to pay our nation's bills. endangering american jobs. tell them to stand up to the tea party. enough already!

we're back for the final minutes with our guest. there is a brand new poll out today that reflects the gradual

penetration of obama care's challenges. and it indicates that when asked, should government mandate buying insurance, it is 28% yes. 68% no. do you think there may be some reason to at least revisit and rethink some of this? >> i think revisiting and let'sing this in the ordinary procedures is always a sensible thing to do. we have to get away from the hostage dramas and we have to get back to regular order. when we do, any of those topics can be raised. i would point out one thing. i would bet you any amount of money if you said, we have to get everybody into the system in order to be able to solve the preexisting condition problem, so the families aren't chucked out on their own when they hit their limits or have a preexisting condition, those numbers would change a lot. that was the balance of obama care. we can always relitigate it but don't forget the families tt