or at least tell the president. house gop leaders will have that opportunity when they meet with him at the white house in the next hour. and it's about time, as the government shutdown drags into day ten and the debt ceiling looms just one week away. news broke this morning that speaker boehner will present the president in their meeting today a six-week no strings attached plan to raise the debt ceiling. >> it's time for these negotiations and this conversation to begin. i would hope that the president would look at this as an opportunity and a good faith effort on our part to move halfway to what he's demanded in order to have these conversations begin. >> that leadership would save us, albeit temporarily, from defaulting and it would satisfy the president's condition of not negotiating under such a risk. of course, it remains to be seen whether the speaker's idea will satisfy the rest of his party because, let's face it, there have been a lot of mixed messages, especially when it comes to ending the shutdown.

house budget chair paul ryan says he wants compromise on entitlement reform, but there's no mention of obama care. hmm, i wonder whether he's talked to speaker boehner. >> instead of making it easier for people to get health insurance, it's going to be a lot tougher. what a train wreck. how can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn't work? >> and then there's the very influential heritage action group, which wants the debt ceiling off the table and for the focus to be on obama care. okay, so i guess they talked to the speaker. and let's not neglect the always productive stop subsidizing abortion or we're going to shut this place down argument. yeah, good luck with that one. are you confused yet? so are we. luke russert, help me out here. what do republicans actually want? >> well, i'm still thrown off. i can't decide. >> tell us what you want, luke. >> is that scary? was it posh? was it ginger? was it sporty?

>> we don't know. just like we don't know what the next wave forward is going to be up here on capitol hill. what i can tell you is just before i came over, heritage action, that group you mentioned, said they would not score a vote on the six-week temporary debt limit funding bill that they want to move forward. so the boehner bill presumably could get the support of the gop conference if democrats say they don't want to go along and support it. however, going forward, boehner will have that meeting at the white house coming up with the rest of the gop leadership. they're going to see what the president's response is to this latest bill by the gop leadership. there's one issue within the bill, though, that's not getting a lot of attention. it says within the bill the treasury cannot use extraordinary powers to move the debt limit back past november 22nd. that could upset some folks in the executive branch. let's look at this in a broad sense. you could have the house vote tomorrow on a six-week extension of the debt limit. that would avert economic

catastrophe. the world's economy would survive, at least for six more weeks. the united states senate might not like that. but it would open the door for folks to go into a room and have these large-scale bipartisan negotiations that the gop said they want so badly. however, while this all happens, the government is still shut down. so everybody who's been affected by this shutdown will continue to be affected most likely in a negative way. so that is something where the house gop now believes they can use as leverage with the president, and they don't want to blend all thesing to. that's where you're seeing heritage action come through. they feel if they can get the debt limit off their plate, they can then refocus this on the health care law, and that can be part of wide-ranging discussions that could take us up to thanksgiving. is the government shut down at thanksgiving? possibility. probably not. but as far as business as usual going up here in washington, d.c., we won't likely see it. so a lot of moving parts. unclear as to how exactly it

will come to an end. what we do know know is it looks like there's a real drive in the gop house conference to not default on the united states debt and avert that catastrophe. when they'll reopen the government, we don't necessarily know the answer to that question. you're starting to see a deal come together, shall we say. >> all right, luke russert, our spice girls fan on the hill. thank you, as always. >> die hard fan. >> all right. let's turn now to our friend josh barro, who wrote a piece that caught my attention, the most irresponsible officials in washington, d.c. are the moderate republicans, who as you say have had the ability to reopen the government and break the extremist grip on the caucus' agenda but chose not too. i, too, have been frustrated with moderate republicans. help unwrap this. >> they've stayed quiet or not not voted in the ways they needed to. if you remember back to september 30th, you had this back and forth between the house and senate where the house kept

passing bills that made demands to keep the government open. the senate would send those bills back as a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open. around 9:00 p.m. or so, the house republicans vote on their last offer. you had peter king, who's a moderate republican from the new york area, saying that this is a bad idea and they should just pass a clean continuing resolution and he has 20 to 25 moderate republicans who will vote against the rule to bring leadership's new proposal to the floor. if they'd done that, that would have left house republicans with no offer to make to the senate and they might have had to pass a clean continuing resolution. instead, all who showed up was peter king and one other guy. everybody else voted yes. these moderates who say they want to reopen the government have been going along with leadership's shifting strategy, whatever that is day to day. it's not reopen the government. >> i don't know that all of the folks who have said they support a clean cr in the republican caucus, i don't know that they're all getting push back on this, but i know some of the republican virginia members of congress have been getting push back on fact that do you really

support a clean cr when you don't support this. but going back to luke's reporting there, i can see how we could get to a debt ceiling extension. let's take a listen to what jay carney had to say about this. >> i think the president said the other day that if they were to send them a clean debt ceiling extension, no partisan strings attached, he would sign it. we don't know that's what we're going to get here. >> ted cruz has also said he's open to short-term debt ceiling extensions. so the white house obviously there leaving some room where they could support a short-term extension. i can see how that could be resolved, at least for now. is there anything that is going to bring the government shutdown piece of this to an end, or is this going to become sort of the new normal in the way the sequester has? >> i think it's not clear. it can't become the new normal in the way the sequester has because the government still works under sequestration. you've had spending cuts that might be unwise and that are causing problems in a lot of departments, but it's not a crisis in the way that the

government shutdown will become a crisis if it drags on for weeks and weeks and federal employees aren't getting paid and programs like the wic program that provides nutrition assistance to pregnant women, those things will start shutting down if we stay shutdown. we can't go on forever, but we could go on for several more weeks. i don't really see what the way out is. when you talk with republicans and democrats in washington, democrats seem convinced that the only out on the shutdown is republicans fold. they figure out sooner or later that this was a misadventure, that it's making them very unpopular and they have to give up. republicans feel like they can't do that because it will be too much of a loss of face and the conservative base will be too angry. so you have tea party conservatives who are completely out of touch with reality and think they're going to get a big win. you have more republicans in the boehner camp who realize that's a fantasy but still feel like they have to get something for shutting down the government. >> a sense of pride, yeah. >> ari, what do you got? >> you're in my seat, josh, but

you look better in it than i do. >> i appreciate that. >> any time. the big news today, of course, is this offer that's potentially being floated of the six-week extension of the debt ceiling. as usual, what sounds good to people in washington doesn't necessarily make sense in the rest of the country. from where i'm sitting, help me understand it, but this sounds like a terrible idea. number one, because it doesn't move us at all towards a long-term fiscal plan. number two, because it clearly normalizes the kind of blackmail that's going on. you could see that in the reporting already. number one, there are extra requirements here. luke russert just referring to them. for example, limiting how the treasury can manage a self-inflected default event. i don't know why we'd want to do that. number two, that we should go through the six weeks, kick the can down the road, and have more negotiations again with the specter of the debt ceiling

hanging over those negotiations. and my biggest concerns, speak to the normalization of radical behavior here. a short-term increase makes everyone around the country go, oh, i guess this is just how it works and you cry wolf enough and there's going to be less pressure. >> i actually disagree with that, ari. i don't think a short-term increase is great, but i think it's better than not having one. i think that's why the stock market is way up today. people are a lot less afraid we're about to have a crisis event. i think also think it signals republicans are actually unwilling to allow us to hit the debt ceiling. we saw a signal of this in january. republicans were saying that they were going to attach big demands to the debt ceiling increase, that they wanted another big round of spending cuts. then by january, what they actually passed was a debt ceiling increase that was effectively clean. the only thing that they got in return was that senate democrats agreed to pass a nonbinding budget that didn't even need to be reconciled with the house budget. i think we're seeing again that republicans like making threats around the debt ceiling, but they will get afraid when they get too close to it because they know they'll be blamed for an

economic calamity. not only are we getting an extension now, but i think it signals if we haven't got an deal by the end of november, republicans will feel no choice but to raise the debt limit again. it would be nice to have a functional government where we weren't sliding from crisis to crisis, but this is at least a positive signal that the crisis won't get to the worst possible scenario. >> i hope that they know that we're leading toward an economic calamity. now we have all these default deniers who are saying, no, no, no, it's not going to be a big deal, we can do that. but let me get you to talk about some of the or one of the key sort of underlying structural reasons why we are here. we've talked about jergerryman r gerrymandering. we haven't talked about money and how campaign finance has changed over the last few decades leading to the situation we're in now. first read had a bit about this the other day saying, the relationship between lawmakers and parties financially has led to the decentralization we're seeing where the far right of the party says, i don't need to listen to you. gone are the days of earmarks where a speaker could say, hey,

we're going to put a bridge in your district and go along with this on this other thing that might be hard for you. gone are the days when the rnc is the biggest financial source of your life. heritage and club for growth are bigger financial sources for a lot of these representatives. that is a very dangerous trend, isn't it, for the gop and a big reason why the far right is saying, i don't need to listen to the leadership and they're leading the establishment. >> i think it is a dangerous trend for republicans. i think there's an irony here where liberals have been so upset about the citizens united decision and all the money it's injected into politics. i think the main outcome is it has caused the republican party to tear itself apart because of the way the new money dynamics are influencing the party. but i think the other reason you're seeing that is that business interests that have traditionally been associated with the republican party, they're unhappy about what republicans are doing right now. but they're not really willing to line up against them for it. >> they're not stepping up to the plate. >> they're speaking out. >> they're speaking out, but i'm wondering at what point does the

democratic party become the party of the northeastern business establishment? for 160 years as the republican party has gone through changes, it's always been the party of wealthy northeastern -- >> if that's not a wake-up call to republicans, i don't know what is. >> i don't want to go further down the rabbit hole to find out what else lies ahead in a post citizens united world and what other changes will come out of that. that sounds frightening. >> i think what's happening right now is very frightening. i think republicans should be frightened too, not just for the country, but for the future of their own party. they think they're protected by this electoral map in the house. if they lost the national popular vote in the house by, say, six points, they would lose the majority. i think that's possible. >> it's incredibly problematic. this lack of authority is a real problem. josh barro, great to have you. you're welcome at the grown-ups table any time. >> i'll told you to that. next up, mr. president f you're watching in the white house, you might want top listen to this. an expert says he's got more cards to play than people may

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as you just heard, republicans are pushing a new plan that will not end the shutdown but does push the debt ceiling off another six weeks. we stare in the face of extended deadlock and have a shutdown expert to explain the mechanics for us. charles is a law professor at the university of baltimore school of law. he was also a legal adviser to the house of representatives before the 1995 shutdown and specializes in disputes of

congressional separation of powers. professor, thank you so much for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> so one of the things that we've heard from the right wing, particularly from right wing media, is that the president is intentionally making the shutdown painful just to prove some political point. but this is all governed by precedent in the anti-deficiency act, correct? >> we have a history from attorney general opinions in 1980, the 1995 shutdown, so there is precedent, at least for what's gone on in the shutdown so far. but the situation is starting to change. our precedent goes only so far as the 1995 shutdown when it went to 21 days. now, that was bad, but the focus in the guidance at that time and what we've inherited as the

precedent was on the day of the shutdown start, which for us would have been october 1st. shutting everything down that isn't needed that day on an emergency basis. now that we are having our shutdown, which may last a while, and i know you said in the segment before me, you noted it could become the new normal. people don't see any way to get out of it unless the republicans sort of change their position. so as it gets longer, i think that we define the risks and dangers that have to be dealt with as the long-term ones, and the many functions of the federal government that deal with longer term problems, things like the chemical safety board that tries to see whether disasters can be prevented, the health and human services

scientists who look for cancer drugs. these problems which begin to chafe much more as we go past 21 days. >> all the while, so many people are hurting. talk to us about this unexpected card that the obama administration can play as this continues to drag on. what are some of the steps they can take to help ease the pain? >> well, the mechanics are that the office of management and budget issues government-wide bulletins. we're operating from the ones that did back in 2011, which are not like our situation. besides the dangers from health risks that need to be coped with, there are veterans claims where veterans who are disabled, and that's not just veterans from any particular war, that covers all the way from world war ii up to those who are coming back from afghanistan.

their disability claims are not being touched. women, infant, and children food supplementation is soon going to run out. i might say, which people wouldn't consider an emergency, but they sure understand the irs has shut down refunds. the irs is only processing returns that put money into the pressure ri. it's not paying out refunds. there are people who take checks in anticipation of these refunds. not just a few but many. they are going to be hurting. >> that's very problematic. sir, let's look ahead to where this might end up. they say there's a very consistent voter response when you have divided government. almost always the legislatures get blamed and the executives do not. is that your understanding of how these things it play out electorally in the long run?

>> exactly. i'm studying the 1995 shutdown, not coming up with surprises, but if you look closely, it was the end of the gingrich congress as far as pushing through radical legislation. president clinton came out of what had been a discouraging low-level support from the public before it and went up to getting public support. >> hey, professor, good to be with you. the shutdown is a bummer for a lot of people. as a shutdown expert, i suppose this is like christmas for you, at least intellectually. what i want to ask you is a little broader, beyond the anti-deficiency act. people don't know this. this is krystal's -- one of her favorite federal laws. >> true story. no, it's not. >> she loves that part of the federal code. but beyond all of that, how we manage shutdowns, talk to us about the legitimacy of a shutdown or other threats in the

context of inner branch relations. some scholars, some law professors have argued that at a certain point, this kind of threat, while not technically unconstitutional under precedent, is extra constitutional. tell us about that. >> absolutely. the executive and legislative branches need at least a minimal level of cooperation. look at what it was -- at how president obama could not perform his constitutional functions of engaging in diplomacy, and he couldn't go to this very important asian conference and was forfeiting the spotlight to the chinese who are building their empire, so to speak. i would say that there's a specific ground here for the president to exercise more power, specifically more in the debt limit than a shutdown situation, and that is that the

14th amendment, section four, says that the public credit shall not be questioned. so if we reach the point that poses, he would have larger powers to handle emergency situations of calling in money owed to the government and stopping the paying out of money to contractors. >> let's hope we don't get to that point. thanks for helping us make sense of all of this. >> thank you. and up next, a turn to somewhat more uplifting matters. the nobel committee picks a peace prize winner tomorrow. should dennis rodman get it? we'll make sense of all that or try to anyway, when we spin next. ♪ [ male announcer ] may your lights always be green. [ tires screech ] ♪

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back now in the news cycle with a prominent pilots union

warning of possible terror dry runs. an internal memo from the union representing u.s. airways pilots and obtained by a local florida television station refers specifically to an incident last month on a flight from d.c. to orlando during which four men of middle eastern decescent createa commotion in the cabin. a new book about lance armstrong reportedly features a bomb shell revelation from his ex-wife sheryl crow. according to "the new york daily news," armstrong openly doped in front of her and told her it was simply part of the sport. she was among the teammates who testified against him during the investigation. >> also, it's been announced that canadian writer alice monroe has won the nobel prize for literature. she's 82 years old and a master of the short story. tomorrow we'll learn who will receive this year's nobel peace

prize. many think that award will go to malala, the 16-year-old pakistani activist who survived an assassination attempt by the taliban and became a beloved global icon. >> i started thinking about that. i used to think the taliban would come and just kill me. but then i said, if he comes, what would you do? you must not treat others that much with cruelty and that much harshly. you must fight others but through peace and through dialogue and through education. then i said, i'll tell him how important education is and that i even want education for your children as well. i'll tell him, that's what i want to tell you, now do what you want. >> so lovely. she would be the youngest recipient by far. some also think the award could go to the gynecologist who's led the fight against rape in congo. he's also survived assassination

and continued to speak out. other nominees, vladimir putin, ed snowden, and chelsea manning. so clearly deserving the peace prize is in the eye of the beholder, which makes me wonder, who do we think would be a worthy recipient? who do we think should never get the prize? that's certainly spin worthy. the nobel prize committee always has a chance to make a statement. i hope this time they make a statement about what's going on in russia and look to the human rights, civil rights, and gay rights abuses there. maybe give something to the incarcerated women who are paying with their lives, these young woman who have been fighting against repression in russia. there's all sorts of coalitions of freedom fighters. ahead of this idea that there's no other country in the world that can stand up to them on these things. the nobel committee could make a huge statement in favor of rights for those sort of people.

if we could possibly block dennis rodman from ever getting a nobel prize, the guy is going to north korea -- >> i think that's pretty safe. >> hanging out with this repressive dictator coming back to say, hey, he's a nice guy. he's just like us. that's fake diplomacy. that's comforting the despottic and the most horrific people on the planet. speaking of people who have no chance of getting a nobel peace prize, ari, what you got? >> what's that called, a toss? >> a little bit. >> i call it a jab. >> save that for floyd mayweather, abby. look, i think i agree with toure about russia and the importance of some of the disdense there.

lyudmila is one. as we know, putin has carried on many of the same anti-human rights and anti-democratic impulses. malala, of course mentioned in a "washington post" article about each of the names i'm citing and has done amazing work. also, beyond fighting the taliban is one of these individuals who in the spirit of prize has made a lot of people think around the world and is sort of international in that respect. the last name i saw was hu jia, a dissident in china who worked as an a.i.d.s. activist, not in the way we often think about it in the west, but also pointing out how a.i.d.s. was being spread by transfusions and being covered up by the government there, one of many scandals and problems in a society that doesn't have a lot of free press or democratic oversight. was also in jail until 2011. those are some of the names i was reading about. >> so many incredible people in this world when you look at

folks that could make it on this list. pope francis continues to amaze me. he's a figure at a time when we're most divided in our own nation where violence and unease around the world, he's a calming figure. he's a peaceful figure. he represents humility, never divisive, never judging. he has this unique ability to make every person, no matter their circumstance, feel important, feel accepted. when i think about of the opposite of that, of the pope, i think of kanye west, who thinks of himself as the modern day jesus. i know he probably thinks he deserves this prize, but he promotes the opposite of peace in my mind, always causing fights on twitter, punching paparazzi. he's responsible for splitting up the kardashian family. >> whoa, whoa. we don't know that. >> and this guy wears kilts. he should be banned from any list. >> i think we're safe there. on that godly note, i don't know that this individual necessarily deserves the nobel peace prize,

but someone who has brought some comfort and peace to my soul in these troubled times in america is senate chaplain barry black. he's been doing an incredible job offering prayers to members of the senate. let's listen to what he had to say yesterday. >> -- in whose presence our souls take delight, to whom in affliction we call. forgive us for continuing to sew to the wind even when hearing the sounds of the approaching whirlwind. lord, when our federal shutdown delays payments of death benefits to the families of children dying on faraway

battlefields, it's time for our lawmakers to say enough is enough. cover our shame with the robe of your righteousness. forgive us, reform us, and make us whole. we pray in your merciful name, amen. >> amen, indeed. good choices all around. up next, the part of the ted cruz shutdown that sparked the most outrage, how we are treating our troops and their families and death benefits is just one part of it. straight ahead, pulitzer prize winning journalist brings us an intimate portrait of life after war. ♪

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private first class cody patterson returned home on

wednesday to his final welcome. a dignified transfer at dover air force base. a pfc, patterson is one of the 26 troops killed since the shutdown began. their families denied military death benefits because the government deems nonessential, a story that has sparked outrage a across the country. this afternoon, the senate passed a house bill to reinstate the survivors' benefits. the longer the shutdown lasts, veterans disability benefits and pension remain in jeopardy. how's that for a thank you? helping families of the fallen transition back to civilian life is the focus of a new book "thank you for your service." it's the work of pulitzer prize winning journalist david finkel, who joins us now. for this book, you embed with members of the same battalion back home, including a widow who calls the death benefit blood

money on her bad day and oops money on good days. does this speak to a larger problem within society, this lack of appreciation for our troops? >> well, i think the phrases she uses, blood money and oops money, sums up a lot of feelings toward what these payments can mean in a very intimate way for the folk ws who are getting the money. these folks not getting their money temporarily, it's part of a much larger issue, which has to do with the care a lot of mentally wounded vets are getting at this point. the numbers are astonishing. we've had 12 years of war. there's some half million mentally wounded vets from these conflicts. there was one study that said the pentagon spent $1 billion last year on mental health treatment, a number expected to go up. i know about you, but for me, the numbers are to astonishing

and big they begin blurring together. what i thought i would do since i knew these troops from my time with them in baghdad, i would write a follow-up about what's happened since they got home and the efforts underneath all the numbers to try to recover from what's happened to them. >> david, i think you've done a great thing here in a book that gives us more understanding of our troops and veterans and their families in their own voices. let me read one of them from your work. a veteran named adam who has a $36,000 job now, two-thirds of what he earned, and his wife notes that maybe a ptsd program, which he needs, would help, but, quote, it would mean seven weeks of no work and no pay. that's two missed house payments, car payments, electricity, gas, phone, groceries. she reminds him they have no savings. she imagines the graduation speech from that program. congratulations for conquering ptsd, and now you are "f'd."

those are her words. >> well, i spent a year with the army infantry battalion during the surge. during this, adam was regarded as one of the very best soldiers. he was on his third deployment. he had been in combat for about 1,000 days. the day i met him was the day he was leaving. it was mid tour. the fact is he had cracked open from so many things that had happened to him in so many days of war. he went home. i went with him to the helicopter and watched him leave. this is a guy who had performed so well and yet left the war with the feeling of shame. the new book starts two years later with adam and his wife at home in kansas trying to recover. she's become someone who's writing in her diary, i feel like my heart is about to explode. adam is just trying to stay alive at that point. then the book follows them

forward into what they hope will be a treatment program, but you're right. when you point out for him to get treatment, it puts so much in jeopardy. it's not necessarily an easy thing for a guy to pick up and go into a treatment program for four weeks, seven weeks, or in his case four months. >> sometimes the effects last a lot longer than that. ptsd is something that affects so many of these guys. you write about how it's hard for them to share with their significant other how they feel, the nightmares they might be having, military divorce at 3.5%. i mean, a lot of these marriages aren't surviving. >> well, it can't be a surprise to anyone that these rough and tough guys come home mentally wounded and have a difficult time acknowledging it to themselves much less asking for help. so many guys would say to me it would be easier if they could look in a mirror and see some physical manifestation of what they have been through, a missing eye, a missing arm, a missing leg, something to

certify that the damage was real, rather than interior, which let's face it, a lot of guys have a hard time saying exist. >> david finkel, thank you for putting this all in perspective. with two brothers in the military, it really hits home. thank you for joining us. stick with us. we'll be right back. 4(p/wlñkñ0k that's why there's charmin ultra strong. i'll take that. go get 'em, buddy! it cleans so well and you can use up to four times less than the leading bargain brand. [ female announcer ] charmin ultra strong has a duraclean texture that's soft and more durable to help your kids get clean while still using less. and it's four times stronger than the leading bargain brand. wow, you cleaned up a lot! you did too, pal! [ laughs ] [ female announcer ] used by more plumbers than any other brand, charmin is now clog-free or it's free. one more time, just for themselves. before the last grandchild. before the first grandchild. smile. before katie, debbie, kevin and brad...

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>> let's dance. ♪ >> boom! >> hit the ball! >> what have you got? ♪ >> andre agassi used to be a brash, and then agassi fell out of the top 100 and everybody thought his tennis career was over, but he changed his conditioning, left his wife, moved on, and went on to the most successful part of his career. ted cruz could learn how to upgrade his life from andre agassi and other inspirational folks like governor martin o'ma o'ma o'malley and others interviewed by our next guest for her book "upgrade," welcome rhonna florida. all right. what lessons could ted cruz learn from what you studied perhaps working with others,

compromising, assessing risks realistical realistically? what would you say? >> andre agassi said it best. success and failure are almost always about factors outside your control, but the most important thing is to love the work, love the process, and disconnect your ego from the results. i think he needs to check his ego at the door and focus on getting things done. >> sounds like there's a few people in washington who could take that advice. another person you interviewed was someone i had the opportunity to interview, tony shea, ceo of zappos, who's revitalizing downtown las vegas. what were some of the keys to his success? he's sort of an unlikely tech entrepreneur. he's been phenomenally successful. >> he's amazing. we actually work with him in downtown las vegas on an economic development plan. his culture of delivering happiness has fundamentally transformed service organizations. so instead of being the fancy boss with the big corner office, he chooses to sit in a small cubicle in close proximity to

all his colleagues. also, small little things. he doesn't use the word employee. everyone is an associate or a team member. it's those cultural differences that have a huge effect on an organization. >> speaking of, talk to us about meetings. you have mentioned how they can at times be a waste of time. you can swerve from the conversation, and it really can be pointless for many people in the room. sometimes it can be helpful. that never happens here on "the cycle" in any of our meetings. >> never, ever, ever. hey, ari, what's happening? how you doing? >> why am i on screen for bad meeti ining behavior? >> someone's a little defensive. but what suggestions do you have for more productive meetings? >> here's what i have to say first and foremost. meetings kill productivity. so we spend about 62 hours a month in meetings. surveys with senior executives say 50% of that time is wasted. that's 31 hours a month wasted in lost productivity.

a lot of senior managers are now starting to say, well, maybe i should do standing meetings to get them going and moving along faster or maybe i should ban meetings one day a week to get employees really working. so i think if you're going to have a i think if you're going have a meeting, keep it below 60 minutes. anything above 60 minutes is a complete utter waste of time and then you have to have the meeting after the meeting to cuss discuss the meeting. >> can i ask a leading question? >> go ahead, ari. >> does that mean if you have a colleague who is sort of a disrupter in the meeting and helps bring out its absurdity that's that's positive for the efficiency of the entire group and company? >> the answer is no. no. >> don't take the bait. >> it doesn't help. >> he does not shorten anything, he will have you know. >> speaking of time, one of the things that you talk about is protecting your time, which is something i'm terrible about. i can't say no to no to anyone about anything. >> andre agassi said that too.

protecting and guarding your time fiercely is a trait of highly successful people. and time is one t one resource we can't buy, trade or barter or ever get back. they call it a time famine. it's the u.s. epidemic going on. we're all too rushed, and the goal in time should be time affluence. so to get rich in time because it brings valuable wealth and well-being to your overall happiness. >> you feel bad. you don't want to say no. krystal is the nicest person i know. >> don't be so nice. i'll work on it. >> for a lot of americans, failure is the worst possible thing. but it's really not. it's goes to success and failure can be the source of success. so don't let that be a pitfall. keep going. >> absolutely. embracing failure is part of th.

so here we are as our little count-up bug will show you. well into the second week of a government shutdown and 17 days away from hitting the debt ceiling. go us! americans around the country are feeling the pain. military death benefits have already been cut. millions of paychecks withheld. scientific research has come to a halt, sick people turned away, and centers of tourism around national parks have emptied out. given all that, presumably at the very least shutting down the government must translate into political suicide for at least one of the parties, right? well, we've certainly seen approval ratings drop for both parties, especially the republicans, who are now down to 28%. the lowest rating for either party since gallup started asking the question 20 years ago. but if you think these low

numbers matter a whole lot to many lawmakers in the house, you would be mistaken. >> in 2010, republican state legislatures across the nation redrew congressional districts to make them a lock for the gop. and in some cases, just to send a message to the democrats. because that is the beauty, that's the beauty of gerrymandering. instead of the voters getting to pick their leaders, leaders get to pick their voters. >> when you look at the competitive nature of various congressional districts, it has only gotten easier for most radical republicans to win another term. have you ever wondered why so many districts today look like a flying giraffe, or in the case of state district in upstate new york, abraham lincoln riding a vacuum? well, that's because of the g word, gerrymandering. see, every ten years, districts are adjusted so they are roughly the same size. and that sounds fair, right? >> nope.

>> incumbent politicians have hijacked this process. they pad districts with their voters and avoid competitive races. and since republicans swept state houses in 2010, the gop has been in control of those 27 states. in the 2012 house election, democrats won nearly a million and a half more votes than republicans. but these uncompetitive districts help the gop maintain control of the house. and that's exactly why we have massive differences between who wins and who is in charge. just look at the republican prospects in the 2014 mid terms. 205 of those seats are considered safe in the house. to maintain the majority, the republicans only need to win 13 competitive races. and it means most republicans in the house are in campaign mode right now. not for the general election, but for the primaries. their election may be a full year away, but their only competitive race is sooner. primary deadlines for states like kentucky, texas and west virginia are only four months away. and what do many of those conservative primary voters expect from their leaders?

no backing down, no blinking, and never, even if it means shutting down the government, never surrender. 10 what do we do about it? especially when both political parties have gerrymandered to get an edge? well, we could learn from blue and red states like california, arizona, and montana that set up nonpartisan independent redistricting commissions to create new rules of the road. see, that would take the power away from incumbents and give it back to us, the people. we have seven years until the next census. so it's not enough to be mad at congress today. we have to change the rules in the years ahead. and speaking of other states, i have a confession of my own. since it's all the rage in the gop, i wanted to get in on the action. you think ari is in seattle on assignment? but little do you know i've gerrymandered him right out of town. no nonpartisan independent redistricting commission in new york. at least not yet. so i will see you in 2014, buddy. >> yeah. >> okay. that does it for "the cycle." now to someone who would stare down jerry mannedering and come

out on top. joy reid is in today for martin bashir. >> good afternoon. i'm joy reid in for martin bashir. it's thursday, october 10th, and house speaker john boehner is on his way to the white house to meet president obama face-to-face. ♪ >> no one gets everything they want. and frankly, i agree with that. >> keep in mind the democrats have already compromised a lot. >> we've been trying to have conversations. >> there are people who are being impacted as you said every day. >> what we want to do is to offer the president today the ability to move. >> if the speaker of the house, john boehner, would simply allow a vote on the floor, it would get reopened. >> it's time for leadership. it's for though o for conversation to begin. >> you can't negotiate on anything under the threat if you don't get your way 100% you shut down the government. >> i don't want to put anything on the table. i don't want to take anything off the table. >> what i'm saying is keep the

government open and see if we can get anything done. >> if and and butts were big bucks every