so when coverage really counts, count on nationwide insurance. because what's precious to you is precious to us. ♪ love, love is strange just another way we put members first. because we don't have shareholders. join the nation. ♪ baby... ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ thanks for disrupting your saturday afternoon. i'm karen finney and surf's up, mr. boehner, mr. cruz, mr. lee. ♪ >> the shutdown has been an unmitigated political disaster for the gop. >> you could have a democratic wave if the elections were this november. >> these are horrifying finger losing numbers for republicans. >> i don't know what this deal is. we're here to learn. >> on october 1st they rigged the rules of the house in order to keep the government shutdown.

>> talk to republican leadership? we went over their heads to the american people. >> ted cruz is a fraud. >> we must stop it. we cannot accept it. >> knuckleheads. >> the house needs to keep doing what it's been doing which is stranding strong. >> in this republican government shutdown hurting the children of america. >> certainly hurting us. we make no apologies. >> this is madness. >> you still haven't figured out what it's all about, have you? >> starting to feel like this ending. >> no deal as far as we're concerned. >> surprise! >> let me get one wave before you take me. >> thank you and god bless you. >> this hour, the president is in a meeting at the white house with senate democratic leadership to discuss the ongoing negotiations. the meeting which was just announced is latest development

in what's been a tumultuous 12th day of the government shutdown. things got a bit heated on the house floor with house democrats calling out the gop colleagues for changing the rules and preventing a vote to reopen the government. while the senate voted to lift the debt limit. for over a year, with no strings attached as expected the gop blocked it with just five days until we run out of money. but it's all about the action behind the scenes as negotiations between the white house, democrats and various gop factions continue. while the back and forth grinds on, it's also become increasingly clear that house and senate democrats don't agree with each other. which makes it a little bit harder for democrats to determine who's the gop dealmaker. one thing is clear. all sides are taking a hit in the polls as america's ire grows. and also starting to see makings of a huge sea change in the political landscape having part of the democratic wave election

2006, i actually didn't expect to see this kind of confluence of factors again for sometime. now, a number of public opinion polls show most of the anger and blame for the shutdown is aimed at the gop. in unpress departmented numbers even more so than the 1995 shutdown. it's raised a possibility that no one would have considered just two weeks ago. could we see a tidal wave of democratic support in the 2014 midterms? the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll shows backing for the tea party at an all-time low. meanwhile, president obama's approval rating has actually gone up. when asked what they want to happen in the midterm elections, 47% said they'd like to see democrats take control of congress and in 36 house districts surveyed by public policy polling for moveon.org,

29 democratic incumbents are vulnerable. democrats need 17 seats to win a yort in the house. more troubling of gop, seven of those fell behind after respondents were told that their representative had supported the shutdown. so, with republicans strategy or lack thereof creating an opening for the democratic party in 2014, could we see a wave election like the 2006 midterm? well, we're going straight to the man who knows. joining me now, congressman steve israel, democrat from new york and chairman of the democratic congressional campaign campaign. thank you so much, congressman, for joining us. >> thank you, karen. >> can we just start with sort of where we are? there was a lot of back and forth this morning but it seems like we have kind of ended up where we've been with no agreement on the house side and the republicans on the senate side essentially blocked the

clean cr version that harry reid was trying to pass. >> yeah. this is like a gop hamster wheel where the wheel only goes to the far, far right. i'm still hopeful this talks will continue and have an agreement but the fact of the matter is that earlier today the republican majority in the house of representatives shut down the session like they've shut down the federal government and sent us home and the federal government is shut down but planes took off for members of congress to go back to the districts which means that seniors continue to get hurt this weekend. they'll wake up unable to file social security claims and small businesses have uncertainty about whether we'll extend the debt ceiling and veterans are hurt. american people are hurt by this irresponsible and reckless partisan republican behavior and want us to get it resolved, reopen the government, pay the bills we incur and come to a solution. >> so, obviously, you know, nobody wants to talk about or think about the politics of

this, you know, in a crass way but looking at the numbers and sort of looking down the road, it does appear that there is a potential for a wave election and i look at a couple of different things. we have a full screen from our nbc poll. one of the things that struck me as very interesting is that the numbers for the tea party have actually been declining since about january, april of 2011 which is about the last time we were going through this. it is not just that the republican party is not doing well but the tea party within the republican party is sort of starting to become a drag and then as most of the polls have shown, you have the percentage of 31% say it's president obama. 53% blame republicans in congress. so it's pretty clear where people are laying the blame. but to me, one of the most interesting numbers along with all of that is the gallup poll last week which showed that the most important problem facing america today, voters said 33%

said dysfunctional government, 19% said the economy. given what we know about the importance of the economy and jobs, i found that astounding that this idea of dysfunction had rocketed to the top and, you know, that starts to sound like a mix for an argument that can be made in the course of a campaign when you are talking about a party that's very vulnerable brand. >> yeah. here's what's happening, karen. all across america, red and blue districts, purple districts, people across the political spectrum are understanding that these republican partisan antics are hurting them. hurting their pocketbooks. they're hurting the services that they expect government to provide for their tax dollars and in several areas in particular, those voters are realizing that there needs to be reasonable people in congress with good solutions and an end to this craziness. so, for example, independent

voters, we lost independent voters in 2010 in the house elections as you know. the most recent polling i saw has them shifting back to democrats. we lost seniors in 2010. they're shifting back to democrats. why? because they know that republicans, their came plan is to undermine medicare. negotiate an end to medicare. seniors are coming back. independents are coming back. they're coming back because they know that we offer reasonable people with common sense solutions for america's problems. >> you know, just one more question before i know let you go. i know that as chairman of the dccc you have been closely looking at the vulnerabilities in the districts and starting to do some ads. obviously, it's, you know, it's a year away. i will pull out all the same disclaimers because i have been on the other side and been there myself. >> yes, you have. >> like i say, it does strike me between the numbers that we are seeing which are staggering and

you get so low and hard to come back up and this feeling that people seem to have about dysfunction in government and sort of dysfunction around republicans in government, republican leadership, that starts to seem like, you know, the possibility for a wave if we have good candidates and a great turnout model when it comes to the 2014 elections. >> well, you just said it right. you know, vomits change for good or for bad. our job is to make sure that we have good candidates who are about solutions, cooperation, who have good, reasonable ideas for the country's problems, good campaigns, that they're communicating with their voters and building out a good campaign infrastructure. so we're providing our candidates with the mechanics and we're working with our candidates to build out those campaigns and be able to thrive in whatever environment exists in november of 2014. fact of the matter that environment right now because of

the shutdown is favoring us. people understand they're getting hurt by republican partisanship. they want a team in congress that's going to provide solutions. >> thank you, congressman steve israel. >> thank you, karen. joining me now, ej dijon and professior sam wang. thank you for joining me. >> good to be with you. >> ej, you heard me talking with the congressman, you know, this lessons of sort of 2005, 2006, i mean, obviously, it is hard to look in our crystal ball and see what's happening a year from now, but that being said, you know, one of the things we did in building that narrative about a culture of corruption, that was, you know, six months to a year in the making and driving that message, it starts -- we started to see that as an issue that was of concern to voters kind of fairly early out and part of what i was suggesting to the congressman. when you see so many people

suggesting that dysfunction is a high concern over the economy, that starts to sound like the potential to make an argument for a wave election. >> yeah. well, first, let me thank you for beginning the show with wipeout. i hadn't heard that song in years. it is appropriate and energizing kind of song. >> all right. >> you know, when you look at where the republicans are now, they know that these numbers are awful. they know that this strategy is failed. that's why they're trying desperately to get out of it. and that's why, by the way, that democrats unusually for democrats are golden gabeing prh in striking a deal to get out of it. i think on the basis of where we are today, steve israel's job became a much better job because we does have a shot. i do think there's a big difference looking forward to next year from 2006 because all during the year 2006, you had

iraq war grinding on and it wasn't going very well. and you had george bush in the white house. and on tv every day. and there was a real backlash in 2006 against both president bush and the iraq war. the other caution is a famous british political saying, week is a lifetime in politics. it is very interesting to see if the republican party realizing that getting this tied to the tea party is a huge political mistake, starts trying to disentangle itself and does the tea party let that happen? >> as a follow-up to that, it strikes me that the tea party to some degree can play the role you are talking about that bush and the iraq war did because it's the concept with bush and the war it was the constant reminder of incompetence and frustration and it strix me that the tea party within their party creating so much frustration

that they actually are a drag on the republican party. and they love the cameras, by the way. >> that's true. i think that your poll, one of the most dramatic findings in the nbc/"wall street journal" poll is going to 2010 to now, the tea party lost almost 40% of the people that said back then they like the tea party so i think they are a potential drag, especially in moderate districts where the republicans are vulnerable. but it's still not like having george w. bush in the white house 2006. >> that's true. if only. so sam, i want to talk to you about your analysis because you wrote some things this week that really i think got the conversation sparked. you know? ppp did not great polling and then there was a little bit of a backlash of people saying, well, let's look at the districts they went to. oh, well, there's gerrymandering and started to pile on, you know, other sort of theories why the numbers might not look as

good as they do. tell me why they're wrong. >> as a data guy, i run a research laboratory and there's data here to work with and the first thing to say is it's not just the nbc poll. nationally there's been a poll of six or seven points toward democrats over the last two weeks and that's really fast but what's interesting about the moveon data is that he surveyed 36 republican incumbents and what they found -- i think not noticed by them. when they write about it, they talk about the vulnerable incumbents, but the greatest vul n vuler inability is in districts gerrymandered. they were drawn to just barely give the republicans a majority and the slight is twice as large there. >> i want you to talk more about that. sort of the conventional wisdom of politics which, you know, always take that with a grain of salt, the gerrymandered districts are an impediment. you see it as a huge opportunity. >> well, the way i would put it

is this. in normal circumstances, gerrymanders are drawn to pack all of one party into a district like the democrats into districts or just enough republicans over the top. and so that's the way it usually works but when there's a large shift in opinion, what appears to be the case is these districts swung hard. won by 15, 20 points by republicans and now underwater and specifically the gerrymandered districts getting it. >> look at michigan 11th district representative kerry bentivolio. seven points ahead in 2012. ppp poll, 15 points behind to exactly to your point. not what you would conventional wisdom expect. >> that's right. michigan is a state where 5% more people voted for democrats candidates than republican candidates but the congressional delegation is 9-5 for republicans so if you think about that, it's by having just

enough republican votes in the nine districts and some of those votes are from people who are independent, at least in principle and what these data go to show is that basically, the swing against republicans has been especially hard. in that case, bentivolio i think the swing is something like 20 points and across the gerrymandered states, it's same. >> ej, the other thing that strikes me as the shutdown goes on is that there are a lot of federal workers that live not just in washington, d.c. and virginia, but in all different parts of this country, living in districts where they may have a representative who is supporting the shutdown while they're not able to work. >> i think that's very important. i think that, you know, ted cruz said the nbc poll was off because it showed too many federal workers and what the poll showed is how many people work for government but not only that all of the people whether they run a coffee shop or a tore

who depend on the incomes of people who work for the government. people should read mr. wang's excellent piece on gerrymandering, whatever your politics. when's interesting is the states he identified as the most gerrymandered including virginia, michigan and pennsylvania and virginia's case, very large number of public employees. federal employees. in michigan and pennsylvania, two fundamentally moderate and even really obama democratic states. so, those are the kinds of places where the way the republicans are behaving now really could potentially hurt them a lot next year as long as democrats turn out. >> right. >> that's a biggest problem democrats had in 2010. >> that's right. it will be all about turnout and having a good message and a good candidate and keeping the pressure on. that's for sure. thanks to ej and sam. >> thank you. >> thank you. next, debunking the gop myth

machine about the shutdown. believing it doesn't make it true, guys. that's coming up. >> speaker boehner has prevented us from having a vote in the house of representatives. he's prevented drak dm eed demo working the will. they rigged the rules of the house in order to keep the government shut down. i'm angela, and i didn't think i could quit smoking but chantix helped me do it. i told my doctor i think i'm... i'm ready. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. i knew that i could smoke for the first 7 days. i knew that i wasn't putting nicotine back into my body to try to quit. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems,

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so thanks. from the mcgregors, extra curricular activities help provide a sense of identity and a path to success. joining the soccer team. getting help with math. going to prom. i want to learn to swim. it's hard to feel normal, when you can't do the normal things. to help, sleep train is collecting donations for the extra activities that, for most kids, are a normal part of growing up. not everyone can be a foster parent... but anyone can help a foster child. nearly three-week government shutdown produced any number of sound bites and hash tags. here's the thing. the facts are the facts. now, as someone who used to write talking points, let's

break down the spin and using the facts. first, a quick refresher. the affordable care act enacted by congress and upheld by the supreme court and as we read earlier this week, the crisis over the affordable care act was months in the making. all along, the gop strategy was to take hostages in order to get what they want because they department have the votes to stop it when the law passed or in 2012 during the election or even in the supreme court. but congressional republicans insist on telling a very different story. >> it is indefensible that president obama and harry reid forced a government shutdown. >> this administration chosen needlessly to furlough workers. >> the house republicans have acted responsibly and reasonably. >> this isn't some damn game! >> you know what, mr. boehner? you're right. it's not a game. but here's the fact. you tier one who changed the rules to benefit your side. on the eve of the government

shutdown, just as the country was waiting to see if the house could pass a clean bill to fund the government, boehner and house leadership made a small but hugely consequential range to the rules. under normal circumstances if the house and senate are gridlocked any motion from any member to end that gridlock should be allowed to proceed. for example, i don't know, a vote on the senate cr. got that? any member of congress is allowed to bring a vote to the floor when there's an impasse. but instead of leaving the rules as they were, boehner and house leadership quietly made an underhanded change. it is a fact they added language dictating that any motion may be offered only by the majority leader or his designee. unless eric cantor wanted the senate spending bill, the clean cr we have been talking about, to come to the floor, it wasn't going to happen.

now, this morning on the house floor, democrats decided to call out the gop on this unprecedented move. >> i renew my motion that under the regular standing rules of the house clause 4 rule 22 that the house take up the senate amendments and open the government now. >> under section 2 of house resolution that motion may be offered only by the majority leader or his designee. >> mr. speaker, why were the rules rigged -- >> the gentleman will suspend. the house -- the chair will now entertain -- >> dmok has been suspended. >> the congressman will suspend. [ applause ] >> right? there it is. with me now, democratic strategist and vice president at the center for american progress daniella gibbs and sir yis xm talk show host joe madison. thank you both for being with me. >> thank you. >> thank you, karen. >> you have seen the back and forth that went on this morning and basically in the same place

where we were. i thought it was important that we, like i said, use the facts. the false narrative that's out there that both sides are to blame. that's just bunk. so, starting with the fact that democrats, daniella already compromised and people forget that the senate cr is already a huge compromise where potus -- the president worked with the congress on the budget control act of 2011. >> yeah. that's exactly right and a point i have been making a lot this week sometimes. rather angrily on twitter. you may have noticed. but yes. absolutely. the senate bill is a huge compromise. it is a compromise of where the president's budget was. it's a compromise of where the senate budget was and lower than paul ryan's crazy budget was. >> right. >> so for republicans to say that democrats are not compromising or negotiating, they need to go to the dictionary and look it up because they don't moe what

they're talking about. >> there's a difference between compromise and compitulation. when the president did compromise, it was at the dislike of the progressive wing of the democratic party. we were all over him that he just department hold strong and this -- it cost him. i think he learned his lesson from that. now, what we have to do based on what you just showed us, it may cause people's eyes to glaze over these congressional rules and the way they're explained but come monday morning, i'm going to be as my grandfather used to say, and it's an old country term an i mentioned it to the president one time, put it where the goats can get it. in other words -- >> right. >> you know? >> that's how we're trying to put it out there. >> that's right. i think even the tea party goats

are going to get this one. >> i mean, it's -- you're right in terms of procedure. i mean, simply stated, they changed the rules just for this piece of legislation by the way. >> that's right. to keep the government shutdown. >> so i will say this loud and proud. when we say that it is john boehner's fault, it is john boehner's fault. that is a fact that john boehner could stop this right now if he wanted to. >> absolutely. you know, i think, you know, joe is right. the republicans are hoping that all of our eyes glaze over and we don't notice that they're pulling the last-minute tricks. you know, the fault has to be laid at the feet of john boehner and nobody else. >> i want to -- even fellow goppers are starting to acknowledge that it's not their fault. let me play something for you and then, joe, i want your reaction. >> we're giving our base the false interpretation that somehow by not funding the government to get rid of obama

care and we don't have the votes to do that. >> this was a strategy doomed to failure. we did shut the government down. >> if i had to cast blame anywhere, i would say senator cruz and those that insisted upon this tactic that we knew was not going to succeed. >> okay. i'm sorry. we all knew it wasn't going to succeed and a plan long in the making and we needed to change the rules to make sure to get what we wanted in the end, joe, this is madness. >> well, and wait a minute. after -- i'm sorry, i have lost count. 47. correct me. 48. >> yeah. >> i mean, i've -- after you've had -- and now you're just realizing we're not going to get it. when's really made them understand it's not going to happen is that now that people who can get online or if they can't get online at least they call the navigators of the affordable care act, they're now seeing this is not as bad as they kept telling us it would be and they never anticipated that even in red states and states

that wouldn't participate and cooperate with the affordable care act, they can now do it through the federal government and people are finding out, oh, i can pay less premiums for what i'm paying even on the job. >> right. >> and they're liking it. that's why they now know it's not there. it's not going to work. >> that's exactly right. as we know, it was ted cruz himself, the one national thing he said is you give people the sweetener. they'll like it. people like health care. >> sucker. >> thanks to you both. >> any time. >> thank you. all right. coming up, if you think there's already too much big money in politics, get ready for more. >> congressman, one quick question, though. why is the house gym still open? why is that essential? >> you got me there. i've never been in it in my entire life. so -- >> i guess you're not -- need a spoon, dear? not anymore.

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help protect your natural teeth. so it's shutdown day 12. parks are closed and the panda cam is still down. you know, all this week we have wanted to know how the shutdown is affecting you. thea says my mom is a federal worker who isn't getting paid and i'm a student who should be applying for college but don't have the money. anna maria said, just not snap reduction letter. thank you for taking food out of my kid's mouths. how christian of them to starve the poor. we wanted the know how you felt. send us a video message with don't shut me down and tweet us or find us on facebook and we want to hear your stories and going to try to actually show some of the best ones that we get. when we continue, will the supreme court open the door to

more and more political corruption in america? is that even possible? that's coming up. >> now it's like we have the gun to our head and we have to figure out why. hold on. keep your head there. >> because, bill, it's a great american tradition to -- for congress to put the gun to an opposing president's head. you know it. >> stop. stop. [ male announcer ] a doctor running late for a medical convention loses his computer, exposing thousands of patient records to identity theft. data breaches can happen that easily. we don't believe you should be a victim of someone else's mistake. we're lifelock. we constantly monitor the web so if any of your personal information is misused, we're on it. ♪ ow. [ male announcer ] call 1-800-lifelock or go to lifelock.com today.

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i have continued to believe that citizens united contributed to some of the problems we're having in washington right now. you know, you have some ideological extremist who has a big bankroll and they can entirely skew our politics. >> now, this week speaker boehner embodied that citizens united skewing as it became

increasingly clear who's really pulling the strings. here's speaker boehner on abc last sunday. >> we are not going to pass a clean debt limit increase. >> under no circumstances? >> i told the president, the's no way to pass when the votes are not in the house to pass a clean debt limit. >> hmm. but then on wednesday the ceo of heritage action one of the chief architects of the defund obama care strategy told reporters, quote, i think that we would give the speaker some flexibility on a short term debt limit increase to keep the focus where it should be which is about obama care. cue puppet boehner. >> what we want to do is offer the president today the ability to move temporary increase in the debt ceiling. >> hmm. we already knew senator cruz is the driving force in the gop house strategy working in lock step with the heritage foundation and the tea party. i mean, after all they control the purse strings of course the purse strings wouldn't be nearly as powerful if it wasn't for the

2010 citizens united supreme court decision saying money speaks opening the floodgates for outside groups. through what we now know as superpacs. in the 2012 election cycle alone, superpacs spent over half a billion dollars. and this week, as we saw the big money influencers pull their strings on the gop, the supreme court heard what many are calling the sequel to citizens united and it's even worse than the original. thanks to this man. sean mccutchen, an alabama republican who wants to get rid of limits to the total amount an individual can spend on candidates and parties in a given election cycle. right now, that limit is just over $123,000. if he gets his way, that number could dwrump to as much as $3.5 million. because after all, what's another $3.5 million to the pile, right, justice scalia.

>> i don't think $3.5 million is a heck of a lot of money spread throughout the country. >> i'm no politician could be bought for just $3.5 million. heb's no. let's bring in spencer overton, an associate professor at george washington law school and witnessed the words of scalia in person on tuesday and lisa graves is with the center for media and democracy. thanks to you both for being here. >> thanks. >> thank you for having us on. >> i want to start with you, spencer. we heard ted cruz yesterday talking about that this is about listening to the american people and it's because the people are energized but this feels more like a quid pro quo than a we're listening to the people. >> it is a problem caused in part citizens united opened the door with regard to superpacs and it can get worse. if the court strikes down the limits in this particular case,

a politician could collect a contribution of up to $3 million. and that invites corruption. >> you know, and i want to just underscore, i mean, as noted, we saw the story earlier this week about, you know, the coke brothers and sort of a whole host of groups that have been planning this strategy for a very long time, lisa. and i know you've been tracking, you know, the impact of money and politics and politics for a very long time. i found it sort of interesting that, you know, on the one hand i feel like the cokes part of creating this monster if you will of the tea party and then this week they kind of had to pull back because they realized they were sort of out of control. >> well, coke industries issued a letter saying it didn't endorse this effort to tie obama care or the aca to the budget but the budget is what we learned this last month was that coke affiliated groups basically injected a quarter of a billion dollars, $250 million, into the

election last year through dark money groups. we could trace that money coming from this coke affiliated freedom partners which is legally separate from coke industries and staffed by coke operatives. we can see how many campaign ads run last year, millions and millions of dollars of ads run basically against the affordable care act and so they want to have it both ways. they want to basically say that coke industries is not involved and technically true an the coke brothers have put huge sums into the elections and why senators like sanders, representative deutsche and others called to deal with the infusion of cash from huge moneyed interests and why people like greg colvin and others called for reforms the reform the constitution to get the dark money out of the elections. >> i think we're going in the opposite direction. i want to talk a little bit

about the case that was heard this week. but starting with, i just want to read something from the conservative action project in terms of the origins of the shutdown. the conservative action program gave grounds to the conspiracy of 210 through advocacy and claim large responsibility for the fact that obama has been deprived more than any modern american president of appointing judges to his choice to the federal bench. now, that was written in the nation. what strikes me in that, spencer, is we're talking about the influence of money and politics. saying that this group largely funded by cokes and the heritage foundation and others, i mean, that was their agenda. right? very clearly to jam up the president on pretty much every issue which is not exactly the way that the democratic system is supposed to work. >> that's right. it is important to understand what citizens united did to make that possible.

basically, a wealthy person could give $3 million to an outside group like a superpac or corporation and then spend an unlimited sum on races. right in what's different in this case is if the court strikes down these limits, and individual will be able to give $3 million, a politician can ask for that $3 million and then the politicians can divy this up between their party committee, the state committees, federal committees and all of the candidates across the country who are running for u.s. house and u.s. senate. so, it's a real problem and there's an opportunity for cash for favors and asking for that $3 million contribution. >> right. you were in the courtroom this week for the arguments. i mean, i can believe but i cannot believe justice scalia so flippant about the impact of $3.5 million. we know that could make a difference. >> right. he basically said, hey, $3.5 million isn't any worse than all

of this superpac money but it's like he created the problem in terms of citizens united which led to superpacs and now saying, oh, $3.5 million isn't any worse in terms of a contribution. a friend said it is kind of like the person who kills their parents and then says, have sympathy upon me because i'm an orphan. >> you know, before i let you go, i want to make sure we break it down for people. so, what we're talking about in the instance of this supreme court case would be more money flowing from not just the groups, lisa, you talk about, but also, as individuals, both to other groups that fund other groups and to individuals who -- in campaigns, right? just puts more money everywhere in the system. >> it definitely would lead to more money in the system and most americans know that the system is broken because there's so much money in the system. most people don't agree with senator mcconnell before the supreme court arguing that there

should be no limits on the amount of money spent directly to candidates or these outside groups. that's the mitt romney plan. it's a disastrous plan for the democracy and why we need to address the dark money wizardry in my opinion people like the coke brothers facilitate. >> and new ways all the time to actually keep darker and hide, you know, who they are affiliated with. spencer and lisa, thank you so much. >> thanks. >> thank you. when we come back, did you know there's an app for drunk dialing congress? that and other items you may have missed this week are coming up. [ male announcer ] playing in the nfl is tough.

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some of the news items you may have missed this week. first, now i'm not encouraging everyone to head to the bar although i have heard at the bars in d.c. have been full, it's saturday. the skies are darkening. if you do, be responsible and be safe. but please whatever you do, don't then call someone, maybe a break-up and share your thoughts and feelings. no, no. if you're in high spirits, i have a better idea. you can call your congressman. sure, have a loaded conversation and take out all of your frustrations on members of our nongoverning congress instead and have no fear. there is now a website to help you. drunk dial congress.org makes a slurred call to your representative just a click away. have a drink, enter your phone number and vent away. maybe after a few of those, ted cruz would make more sense. i guess the question, though, is, how many of those would he need to come to his senses? all right. next, while congress hasn't made

the best of the shutdown some clever businesses are trying to make this a little easier on all those furloughed workers like in washington offering a raw deal discount on oysters. a dollar for anyone with a government i.d. or how about free knitting classes? fiber space in alexandria is offering just that. and then there's this one that really tickled our fancy. are you a federal employee that has been deemed nonessential? do you have a little too much time on your hands and nothing to do? is the recent government shutdown to blame? well, one michigan company is offering up a cure of its own. free vibrators for furloughed federal workers. they'll send up to 200 per day. and since the government isn't around to put those labels on, remember that the dangers of drinking while operating heavy machine machinery. rumor has it that the bars in washington are full during the shutdown. a group of chinese researchers

released a study saying that sprite, yes, sprite is the cure for hangover. now, a group of chicago graduate students challenged that saying it's pedialyte. this afternoon on a more serious note, the first female speaker of the house and kournt minority leader nancy pelosi was inducted into the national women's hall of fame in ceneca falls, new york. now, what hall of fame do you think john boehner would wind up in? tweet us and let us know what you think. and that's your fyi. we'll be right back with the latest from the white house. mo. that's why we designed the all-new nissan versa note, with more technology, to get you into, and out of, tight spots. and more space so that you always have your favorite stuff. and, just for good measure, an incredibly efficient 40 mpg highway. so that when you're doing more, you're spending less. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more.

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right now at the white house, senate democratic leaders have been meeting in the oval office with president obama. we're hearing that that meeting may finally be wrapping up. nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker

joining us now. >> reporter: thank you for having me. >> there was a meeting. there was a back and forth. have we made any progress? what's the deal? >> reporter: well, look. i think there's been a little bit of progress. i think the tone changed here in washington. i think senate democratic leaders came to the white house to update president obama on the development that is occurred throughout the day, just to recap briefly, the house put forward a plan, the president rejected that. moderate republican susan collins put a plan farorward. democrats rejected that. so now democratic leaders harry reid, mitch mcconnell, are trying to hammer something out so i think that harry reid was here with other leaders trying to update president obama. bottom line is they want the government back open. they want the debt ceiling increased and of course that deadline comes this thursday. so a lot of pressure on them to get something done. >> seems like the key thing, very quickly, has been what is a deal that the house tea partiers will accept? there's plenty of others who can

agree and not so sure that they have to sign off on whatever -- because that's the only way we move forward. >> reporter: exactly. it's a great point. i think the thing to watch is that medical device tax. the white house seems to be less dug in on that. that could be the point of compromise. >> all right. we'll keep an eye on it. that does it for me. thanks so much for joining us. please don't forget to share your thoughts and find us at facebook and tweet us. we'll see you right back here tomorrow at 4:00. clients trade and invest their own way. with scottrade's smart text, i can quickly understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) ranked highest in investor satisfaction with self-directed services by j.d. power and associates. le le store and essentially they

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