this morning on msnbc saturday a new day dawns in washington. with no solution yet to the debt ceiling standoff, the republican bill to raise the debt limit dies in the senate. >> stuck my neck out a mile. i put revenues on the table. a lot of people in this town can never say yes. >> now it's senator harry reid's turn. will his solution win bipartisan support? this is the deadline looms after a brutal week for the markets. the latest on the increased pressure from wall stret to produce an agreement before monday's opening bell. plus, the default fallout.

what if the nation loses its aaa credit rating. how would that affect the average american? we have some answers for you. good morning. i'm alex witt welcome to msnbc saturday. marathon negotiations are planned many the senate today. a working weekend. as the debt clock ticks closer to midnight, the senate will start its session at 1:00 p.m. eastern. it is scheduled to test vote 12 hours later at 1:00 a.m. early sound morning. meantime the house is meeting this afternoon. sit planning a vote to reject the senate bill before it has even been passed. with just three days to the default deadline, tensions on the hill are higher than ever. >> it is time for the administration and time for our colleagues across the aisle put something on the table. tell us where you are. >> the proposal that i put forward is a compromise. we changed it even more today. we would have changed it more as i indicated on the floor we had no one to negotiate with.

>> senator reid went up to senator mcconnell on the floor and said let's talk. let's work this out. nothing, nothing all day long. not a word. later at the end of the day a call from senator mcconnell who said i'm not going to negotiate with you. that's unfortunately. >> if the president hadn't decided to blow up the bipartisan solution that members of congress worked so hard to produce last weekend we'd be voting to end this crisis today. >> last night with "last word with lawrence o'donnell" the senate budget committee chairman democrat kent conrad of north dakota said that mitch mcconnell is refusing to negotiate with senator reid. >> the minority leader just told the majority leader that he will not negotiate with him. that is really quite extraordinary. republican leader mcconnell has told the majority leader reid that he will not negotiate with

him. he'll only negotiate with the president. i've been here 25 years, i have never heard anything like that. >> nbc's luke russert is for us on capitol hill. wow. good morning, luke. where do we stand now? >> wow, that is right. really is a crunch time, if you will, alex. both the chambers are in session today. the senate comes in around 1:00. we're expecting a very important about 1:00 cloture vote. we expect reid to negotiate with republicans throughout the day really needing to grab between eight to ten of them to figure out a way to raise the debt limit. while also cutting spending in ways that are acceptable to both sides. no raising of taxes and no cuts to entitlements. over in the house of representatives around 1:00 they will gavel in. it's expected today their will in fact even before it's passed

or whatever variation will vote down the reid bill that has been submitted to the senate. they should have no problem doing that. it's quite entertaining alex. last night the boehner bill passed out of the house of representatives, it was killed by the senate within two hours. this reid bill will be killed many the house of representatives before it's even passed out of the senate. it's crunch time now it's a a race against the clock. meaning if everything were to go perfectly. if harry reid were to compromise within the united states senate, the way procedure works in the u.s. senate it would be until about monday night until it could get out of there using all the hours of debate and with the rules they have in anyone tried to stop it. it could probably get to the house or monday or tuesday. that's up against the 11:59 p.m. tuesday deadline. a lot of folks after what happened this past week with speaker boehner having trouble getting his own plan out of the house with republicans, it would be a difficult vote in the house

that would have to be a team effort by steny hoyer, the dplik whip and the republican whip on trying to get any compromise solution in the senate to 216 votes. it's crunch time here on the hill. there's a lot of tension. >> okay. luke, we're going to go through more of the details with you all morning long. thanks for that recap. meantime joining me from washington, we have aaron mcpike, a reporter for real clear politics. >> good morning. >> i was listening to luke talking about dotting the is and crossings ts. do you see a quick resolution? >> there's going to be a resolution. a quick one needs to come together tomorrow, sunday, and monday and we don't know what's going to come of sfart reid's

bill and john boehner's going to do with the house. there's nothing yet that shows a compromise between the two sides. so it's possible that there may not be a resolution, but if there is it's going to be very quick. >> i just wonder how things get done when before bills are even presented officially into the senate and subsequently back to the they say, that's dead on arrival and they don't even talk to each other. >> it's an 11th hour decision that stair staring down disaster, which they are. and at the last minute have kind of a difficult fight and put something on the table and force their members to vote for it. how they can do it without yet talking it's really mind-boggling to see. >> absolutely. we heard the president yesterday

ask american citizens who are concerned to phone, to email, to tweet their elected officials. how much influence do you think that might have at this point? >> it's funny that those phone calls and emails and tweets have been very effective in past legislation fights. many the health care bill, for example, that helped sway some members. back when they were discussing the bank bailouts, the tax deal at the end of december. at this point it's something different. you have a big group of new freshman republican members in the house. they are not budging. they're not listening to just about anybody. it's -- they're going on what they believe is a mandate with this big tea party election in 2010 and they haven't really budged. you're seeing business leaders on wall street saying do something, do anything. this group of freshman

republicans aren't really budging. will it have been an impact heez emails and phone calls, who knows. it may mean that house republican leaders have to shift away from what these small group of freshman republicans want. we'll see if it has an impact or not. there's not a whole lot of time left. >> indeed. thank you so much. we will be talking with nbc's chuck todd in a few minutes. the first tropical system of the year has fizzled out. tropical storm don has weakened into a tropical depression. the storm made landfall along corpus christie. it brought little relief to the record breaking heat in the lone star state. here's with your saturday forecast bill karins. good saturday morning to you, bill. >> all the hype going into last night is what would don do in texas? don did nothing. don was a dud. look at the radar, it's hard to figure out where the storm would be. there's barely any showers or

stormed associated with the system. texas was hoping for a big drenching. think of texas as a hot pizza offense. we threw a napkin in it. this storm dissipated faster than any storm i've seen before. it evaporated over the top of brownsville. the fs the big red blob moving on shore. as soon as it got to the coast and dry land in texas, poof, all of a sudden don was gone. it looks like scattered showers and storms in texas during the day. this wasn't the answer we were hoping for. not a lot of wet weather on the map. there are some showers and storms in northern m mo. your forecast for today rain likely, more or less in mexico not in texas. hot weather for dallas one again. warm and sunny in the northeast.

sunday forecast we should see a lot of thunderstorms in the mid-atlantic and the monsoonal showers and storms will continue in the four corners region. a lit of disappointment in texas. it didn't come true. hopefully we'll get another weak tropical system later in the season. >> keep it right here. we will have a live report from corpus christie, texas, coming up. meantime, the search for a missing new hampshire girl, whab haven't police issued an amber alert? back to court, the battle over dna evidence heats up in amanda knox' appeal in italy. what happens if are is a downgrade of u.s. credit? would it be as bd as a farnl crisis. we're going to have more with we're going to have more with chuck todd from washington. #

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president obama is offering hope this morning the debt crisis might roved before the economy takes a major hit. >> the parties are not that far apart here. we're in rough agreement on how much spending we need to cut to reduce our dedeficit and we agree on a process to tackle tax reform and entitlement reform. there are plenty of ways out of this mess, but there's very little time. >> i'm joined now live by chuck todd host on msnbc's the daily rundown and our chief white house correspondent. one busy guy these days. >> good morning, alex. >> what is the hold up here?

>> it's a couple of sticking points, but it's a big one. it's the issue of the second vote on the debt limit. do you use the debt ceiling again as a trigger on congress if they don't act when it comes to the second round of deficit reduction that's in this reid bill also a version of it in the boehner bill. this issue of having this tax reform committee, this entitlement reform committee. is the debt ceiling the trigger or do you find something else? they use this word trigger it truly is putting the gun to the head of lawmakers to try to get action. obviously the president's preference is not to have the debt ceiling used again. instead use the threat of automatic across the board cuts to pots of money like transportation, education and defense.

that's what harry ahead is trying to find. that kind of trigger that will i tract 15 or 20 republicans and even potentially mitch mcconnell in order to go forward. >> another big difference between the house and the senate is the balanced budget amendment that's in there. is that seen as a nod to the tea partiers? >>st the not just a nod. it is sort of religion for some members of the tea party in this drew said a get a balanced budget aelt in the united states constitution. i have heard there is chatter that harry reid would promise a vote aba clean balanced budget amendment. the first one that was proposed by republicans had a supermajority would be needed in order to ever raise taxes. so instead a clean one which got one vote short in the 90s.

meaning just an up or down vote on taxes. no provisions or taxes, harry reid is dangling the idea maybe he would amend his bill to promise that kind of vote on the balanced budget amendment in se the next 90 to 120 days. and that might satisfy some republicans. again, there's two paths here alex. he's going to get his 60 votes. there's enough republicans exhausted from this on the senate side. the question is does he just get barely enough and then we see this drama play out in the house and it is one vote at a time, or the they strike the kind of deal sometime today to attract, 25 republicans, 30 republicans, they send a strong bipartisan message and it makes it that much harder for anybody in the house, any credible member of house to vote against it.

>> i wonder how you can put senator reid and senator mcconnell in the same sentence. the economic leaders were saying mcconnell is not going to negotiate. that he will only negotiate with the president. do you see a difference this morning? i think last night some of this is posturing. i have to say i am surprised at the heated political rhetoric. john boehner ruined his bill when it became polarized. do democrats want to be caught in the same trap using their rhetoric? i was surprised for instance that the president made the decision to tap his campaign arm to try to increase pressure. again, this -- these last 72 hours should be the time that everybody's trying to calm the political waters not create this political pressure and this political posturing from the outside so that everybody can

get comfortable with making a deal at this point. so i am surprised that we're seeing the heated rhetoric this late many the game. august 3rd, have at it. let's just cut it radio ugt now. cut this deal. they could be very close. go back to your battle stations and live another day. >> they always take things right to the end. >> it's the rhetoric part that i'm surprised about. >> thank you very much, chuck todd. good luck getting through this. you can watch chuck weekdays at 9:00 eastern. you can stay up to date with the latest analysis from the nbc political unit online. we invite you to watch "meet the press" tomorrow. the guest will be david plouf. this morning it's obvious that congress is still deadlocked over an increase in the debt ceiling. the dow dropped 97 points on

friday as the stock traders thoughed their anxiety. tim's running out there. good evening. >> thanks for having me. >> can you categorize how unhappy the markets are. >> they're not freaking out, but they're not happy either. if you looked at what happened in the stock market, it was the worst week for the stock market in a year. they're not pleased, but not panicking either. >> explain the august 10th date. there are those washington insiders as well as economic analysts who say as much as we talk about august 2nd, it's really august 10th that's the day we're worrying about. >> exactly. so trbry has stuck with the august 2nd date. that was their initial predicted date when they would not be able to send bills out. it turns out that date is

probably a little bit closer to the 10th because of higher than expected receipts. but they're going to have a couple big social security payments and interest payments due. it's not spirely clear exactly when treasury is going to exhaust its reserves. >> i hat putting that out there. >> it's not wiggle room you want to use. >> from there traders out there that think there are odds on default and what are they? i think that traders don't necessarily believe we'll get to the point of default. i think it's a very small class that predick that. increasingly people are saying this is going to be some sort of market panic before they fix this. there might be a batch of checks that don't go out.

i think if you asked people a week ago, they thought this was going to get resolved, i don't think people are so sure. >> fingers crossed. thank you so much. tropical storm don lost much of its punch overnight. the storm's been downgraded to a tropical depression and is expected to drop one to two inches of rain on the drought stricken area. jim cantore is life for us. how does it look out there? >> reporter: if you came to the beach this weekend, you're loving it right now. if you're participating in the big fishing tournament you're loving it as will. if you're a cotton farmer you're loving it. we had 80,000 acres that needed to be harvested. they got 60,000 harvested. another 20 on the vines. if you've ever taken a cotton ball under a faucet, it's awful.

that was the big concern. beautiful sunrise beginning to shape up here. we're going to have my camera man play with the ie rice and looking at these thunderstorms. let's look at the rainfall toe talls only .2 in corpus christie the closest town. not even an inch of rain. this thing came ashore and just came poof because of the drought being so large and all that dry air pulled into the system itted it to weaken rapidly. the only thing we hope for today is that tropical moisture that's come on in behind the storm with that added sour fas moisture there's a chance of getting spotty rainfall. it brings up the heat index. it's awful to be outside. it feels worse than it has for

many, many months across texas. >> wow. you're always calm, cool and collected. thank you. >> new pictures where a bomb exploded in oslo, norway. the area is still considered a crime scene. damage is still evident. 77 people most teenagers were killed in oslo on and a nearby killed in oslo on and a nearby island. and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. the doctor leaned over and said to me, "you just beat the widow-maker." i was put on an aspirin, and it's part of my regimen now.

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after several advances, the bear backed away and the woman had scratches. this was is scene on a highway in san diego, california, on friday. a car came tearing down an embankment. it crashed upside down on to the freeway. emergency crews responded. one person was trapped inside, but they were conscious and breathing. no word on whether they suffered any injuries. the fight over dna in the amanda knox appeal. an expert is taking the stand today. we have a live report from italy coming up. . more on the debt ceiling crisis what could happen in a deal does not happen? ♪

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president said both sides are not that far apart and he demandsed compromise. >> any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. it must have the support of both parties that were sent here to represent the american people. not just one faction of one party. the time for putting party first is over. the time for compromise on behalf of the american people is now. >> joining me now is mike. there's been a lot of sleepless hours behind you. >> it was a week of high political drama and policy drama for that matter. the drama over the debt conned into the day yesterday. the posturing did as well. congress is set to work into the week. those back room negotiations are continuing at a furious pace. there could be a solution inskiegt. -- insiekt. it is a temporary triumph.

when it was finally at hand a defiant speaker john boehner lashed out on the house floor. >> i stuck my neck out a mile to try to get an agreement with the president of the united states and i put rev mus on the table. >> after weeks of fruitless talks with the white house, boehner attacked mr. obama and democrats while demanding that they help find a way to avoid default. >> it is title for our colleagues to tell us how to end this crisis. >> boehner added a balanced budget amendment to his package of spending cuts. harry reid submitted his own plan. >> the plan is to work off our bill. it's time for us to be adults. that's what the american people want. it's time to get together and compromise. it's what the american people want and that's what we need to do. >> as the drama played out

president obama pushed lawmakers to find a solution. >> there are plenty of ways out of this mess, but we are almost out of time. >> he urged voters to turn up the heat on republicans zblochl make a phone call, tweet. >> his office gave out the twitter sites. for the second time in a week ka capital phone lines were jammed. >> compromise is not a bad word. so it's time for us to act together and we hold our arms out to my republican colleagues. >> at this point you saw harry reid the democratic leader calling for compromise. the "washington post," the democrats behind closed doors, the key now senate republicans can they get enough of them. they need eight. perhaps more to get this thing passed. the first crucial vote comes tonight. get this in the wee hours 1:00

a.m. on sunday. however this thing works out, it's going to go to right to the limit when you add in all the procedure until tuesday at the earliest. >> that 1:00 a.m. vote will give us some thought tomorrow morning. the stock market just had its worst week of the year. many americans are wondsering if their bank accounts are in for any similar hits. >> guerining. >> question, if the deal is not passed by tuesday, how long could it be until americans would feel the impact? could things change as quickly as overnight? >> i think we'll see ran impact on wall street almost immediately if we get to monday morning without some real progress on a deal some kind of consensus measure turnover weekend. the stock market could react negatively. we saw a gradual pull back all

week. we had a stair step decline all week. investors said i'm going to take a little risk off here and sit back and watch what happens in washington thch is yazy. if there is progress, we could see a rally. the stock market has sole off a little bit. >> u.s. default could mean the nation loses its aaa credit rating. what exactly what does that mean in terms of affecting the average american in paying more. how would a aa rating translate to more money out of our pockets? >> what it means is that interest rates on u.s. treasuries will go up almost immediately. that means because everything else in the financial system is pegged off of the u.s. treasury. u.s. debt is viewed as about the safest mvgsment in the global economy. if you buy a u.s. treasury that's as safe as it gets. if the ratings agencies say

that's less safe that be we thought it was, interest rates have to go up there, everything else in the financial system is pegged off the treasuries, interest rates start to go up on everything else. if you want a car loan, a mortgage, a student loan, any kind of credit that you want to get as a consumer you're going to have a little bit more difficulty getting it and pay more for it. that means companies will be able to sell less product. auto companies will sell fewer cars. we'll see a general economic impact throughout the system. that's bad for everybody. we've got $49 billion worth of social security payments scheduled to go out on wednesday. the president says if this isn't done by tuesday those checks stand to be delayed. do we not have $49 billion in

reserve? >> i've been looking under the mattresses in washington. i just checked yesterday, treasury's account balance what they've got is just north of $70 billion in cash as of the most recent report. a lot of financial wizards are trying to figure out when the united states runs out of cash. it's difficult to predict. it depends on tax revenue coming in each day. but they will blow through that $70 billion at some point that's what's left in the coffers. they've got a couple big payments coming up. they've got to roll over some u.s. debt earlier in the week. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. the latest now from libya where nato warplanes bombed and disabled libyan television transmitters in tripoli overnight. a spokesman says the they were

dispatched from stopping gadhafi to intimidate libyan people. federal prosecutors charged the 21-year-old private with possessing an illegal firearm during his hearing on friday. he was defiant in court refusing to stand for the judge and shouted out the name of the man accused in the 2009 deadly shooting rampage at that same army base. court documents reveal investigators found two clox, ammunition and a handgun in his backpack. amanda knox is back in court in italy. today is expected to be the last day of testimony. at the center of the hearing is the dna evidence used to convict the american of murdering her british roommate in 2007.

what is the issue with the dna evidence? >> it was really something extraordinary came out of this. the judge appointed an independent panel of forensic experts primarily during the first trial the defense had their experts, the prosecution had their experts and they were opposed about what the dna meant. and in fact knox and her former boyfriend weren't convicted on the basis of the dna. the judge decided to reopen the case in this aspect on. it was a shocking return. they came back with 149-page report. basically saying that the police bungled the dna gathering of evidence. there were 53 violations of intern international protocols regarding forensic evidence and perhaps most damaging to the prosecutor's case is they actually said that the alleged murder weapon, a knife retrieved from knox's boyfriend apartment contained no dna on the blade that belonged to have victim. that was one of the points of

the prosecution saying we've got this very important piece of evidence. that's now been discounted. also another piece of evidence this tied her former boyfriend into the kroo was a bloody bra clasp. experts are saying there's no dna there. this case is wide open now. >> an extraordinary turn of events. thank you very much. it was a tropical storm that offered so much hope for much needed water, but what did that storm deliver? a live report coming up.

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today the senate will convene at 1:00 eastern to consider a debt ceiling bill by majority leader harry reid. house republicans may hold a symbolic vote on reid's plan to show it cannot pass. last night the senate rejected boehner's bill. we'll have much more coverage coming up. mean tile, the lone star

state's experiencing one of the worst draughts since recordkeeping ban 116 years ago. and despite the promise or wishful thinking of rain this weekend, drop skal depression don did little the ease the drought conditions in texas. with us now janet who's live for us in houston. with a good morning, can you tell us how bad the drought is there, although not at this moment? >> great day for the drought story in the mill of a downpour. i have not seen it rain like this since 2010. the timing isn't great, this is certainly a welcome sight for everybody in houston. the rest of the state is green with envy. we're in a very serious drought. the past nine months have been the driesest on record in this state. it's bad when people in the state are cheering on the tropical storm. it did nothing to alleviate the drought here. agriculture is taking a hit.

$4 billion in agriculture lotszs. farmers are setting their cattle early because there's not any grass on the ground to feed them. we've seen that deer are abandoning their does because they're too dehydrated to nurse them. when we see a little bit of rain like this, we're very hopeful. it would take 17 inches of rain right now many the state of texas just to get us back to normal. we'll take all of this we can get. it's not going to be enough. fortunately we have a hurricane season which will hope ply bring us a little more moisture in this region. >> it's a picture perfect morning in corpus christie with jim. a lot of folks down there would love to see that. how long's this rain supposed to last? >> i don't know. it's been going on for about an hour. it can rain as dahl as far as people here are concerned. it will help cool things off. we're expecting temperatures over 100.

97 with a heat index over 100. it just provides much needed relief for the lawns, bushes and animals in the wild. >> thank you for the wet live shot. we appreciate that. well could al qaeda be on the brink of collapse? a new report in "the washington post" says u.s. counterterrorism officials are incleese creasingly convinced that the killing of osama bin laden in may along with seven years of cia drone strikes have pushed al qaeda to its breaking point. meanwhile a new book is shedding light on the cia's secret war against al qaeda and one of the worst intelligence debacles in the history of the organization. joining me live is the author, "the washington post" national secure reporter. a good friend to us here. good morning. >> i want to ask you about al qaeda being on the brink of collapse? >> if you were hubtsing for bear, you'd say that the bear is wounded and cornered.

that's when it's most dangerous. they've lost top leaders including the top leader. the ones that are left are under pressure to do something quickly and spectacular. we know they're still getting money. there are stories this week that iranians are helping them funnel cash from the irish world into their coffers. they're against the ropes, but they're not beaten. >> your book review say it's a page turner. now wright about a man behind the suicide blast in afghanistan that killed seven kooi officers and contractors. happened in december of 2009. tell us about his role in both the cia and al qaeda. >> what's remarkable about this man from the cia's side nobody had seen him. he was recruited by another agencies the jordanians and sent to pakistan. what was really a mission with

little expectations, he wasn't a trained spy. but there was a hope that because he was a doctor because of his medical conditions he could get into the tribal areas. it helped us on drone strikes. started to get us very close to thinking we could take out senior al qaeda leaders. his information was really good. >> very quickly, you just said nobody had ever seen him, is that how he was able to infiltrate that base? >> when you have a good agent you go to all kind measures to protect his identity. they didn't want anybody to see him. everything was focused on trying to get in man into a cia base before anybody could see him. he had three layers of security without being searched until he was within the presence of a cia officer and then he blew up a 30 pound bomb on his chest. >> a stunning defeat for the cia. >> the book is stunning.

good luck with the book. thanks for joining us. >> gone without a trace, the investigation into the disappearance of a 9-year-old new hampshire girl expands beyond the borders of her state and country. what [ male announcer ] things seem better with travelocity's best price guarantee. our girl's an architect.

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a live look now at capitol hill before the weekend sexes. today the senate is expected to hold a test vote on a debt bill put forth by majority leader harry reid. we'll have more on the stabbedoffs coming up at the top of the hour. meantime, search teams in new hampshire are covering a heavily wooded area about a mile or so on the canadian border for any signs of a missing 11-year-old girl. so far there's no trace of sell evena cass. she was last seen monday night at her home in stewarts town. joining me live criminal profiler pat brown, author of "the profiler, "life hunting serial killers and psychopaths." good morning. >> good morning, alex. >> all these attempts to find

selena, and they have yet to issue an amber alert. why not? >> the amber alert is usually given out which weather there's some real indication that she's been kidnapped and they have perhaps a description of a car. at this point they don't have that. they don't know that she's been kidnapped or if she walked away. they don't know if something happened to her at the home. i think they are really not going that direction at the moment. >> there's not a lot of information out there. the best i know is she was last seen working on her computer monday night, and then, poof, she's gone. what does that tell you? >> well, the last -- it was reported she was seen working on her computer, and that's a report from the family, so we don't know -- actually know how accurate that is. there are some reports she had put out some gts messages on facebook, but we don't even know that she was the one who put those messages out on facebook. anybody can sit down at a computer and do that. i think that what the police are doing is keeping all their opings open. they're looking at the family. they're looking other people in that house that she lives in. there are other apartments in there and other neighbors, and they're looking at the

possibility maybe somebody onlean hured her out. they a number of directs to go. >> what's kind of interesting -- it seems rather unusual -- police while looking there have already put police tape around the house. that doesn't usually happen at this point. >> no, it doesn't, which means to me they are considering that there might be some kind of involvement right at that location. obviously, they don't have any evidence, as i said that, she was kidnapped by some strangers, to so, therefore, the house is of no significance. i think it's a good thing they're taking that into account because we've seen so many times that they look one direction, and later on, oh, darn, we should have taped that house off and looked at it. >> let's hope by the time we speak to you later this morning there's more evidence out there. thank you very much, pat brown. >> thanks, alex. we're approaching the top of the hour in today's top stories, including the latest from capitol hill including the fight over the debt limit. what will it take to achieve a compromise? also ahead, there's another royal wedding that is all the buzz in great britain. we're going to take a look at the hooplah surrounding today's nuptials.

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back to square one. the senate kills a house debt deal. can both sides find common ground on a new plan before time runs out? how bad could it get after tuesday? what can voters do to make a difference? and what this debt ceiling fight has done to america's emage overseas some some are claiming it as a game of chicken that could lead to the he wanted of an empire. good morning. i'll i'm alex wit. welcome to msnbc saturday. congress has set itself up for a day of infighting today as the debt deadline draws dangerously close. the senate will start its session at 1:00 p.m. eastern. it is planning to debate a debt bill for at least 12 hours before holding