this is "now." i'm joy reed in for alex wagner. day two and hour 36 of the government shutdown, and congress is maybe, possibly, a little bit closer to breaking its seam iemingly infinite dead. president obama invited congressional leaders to the white house today for a shutdown meeting. all are expected to arrive at the white house around 5:30 p.m. the white house also announced that president obama would cancel stops in malaysia and the philippines due to the shutdown. it's the third time the president has had to cancel a trip to asia due to domestic issues. and last night speaker boehner and house republicans tried to pass three emergency funding bills that would finance veterans programs, national park, and museums and federally finance services in washington, but they failed to get the required two-thirds majority. "the new york times" calling yesterday's spectacle in it the

lower chamber embarrassing. on the floor of the senate this morning, majority leader harry reid condemned the piecemeal approach being taken by republicans. >> it's time for my republican colleagues to do a gut check, madam president. republicans in the house have posed one can't pass idea after another. it's time for republicans to stop throwing one crazy idea after another at the wall in hopes that something will stick. nothing has stuck. there's been a sensible plan to reopen the government right in front of house republicans all along. clean, six-week resolution that opens the government today, and we passed it in the senate last week. >> so the house and the senate may be continuing debate today, but as the hours creep by, the only thing that seems to be progressing is denial over the affordable care act being the law of the land and over just who caused the shutdown in the first place. last night senator ted cruz was

adamant it was democrats who caused the shutdown. >> the house of representatives has offered compromises. it's compromised over and over and over again, sent over bills to the senate that fund the whole federal government but also mitigate the harms of obama care. right now it's one side that's refusing to compromise. that's harry reid and the democrats. >> see how that works? and cruz's republican colleagues in the senate voiced the same talking points. >> it's pretty clear to me, at least at this point, that neither the senate democratic majority nor the president of the united states have any interest whatsoever in entering into any discussions about how to resolve this impasse. >> it's become clear that president obama and harry reid wanted the government to shutdown. >> now, those republicans may be saying they want compromise, but in reality, the message they seem to be getting from key parts of their base is to double down on the shutdown until they get all of what they want. the gop only has something if it

now stands its ground and demands defunding obama care. just like in 1995, the gop must wait this out now that we are here. a quick shutdown will do nothing but embarrass them, as it should. the fight must be to either now keep government shutdown until the democrats blink or drive from office republicans who vote to fund obama care. ominous. joining me now is political reporter from the national journal alex wald. joining us from capitol hill is jeremy peters. so jeremy, give us an idea of where this goes from here. you do have what seems to be two inextractable positions. republicans are saying what compromise means is giving up key parts of the affordable care act. where do we go from here?

>> well, i think one of the first things to point out that's very important is how unified democrats are on this. usually you don't see the democratic party standing so firm. but they have that going for them in a way that no other conference in congress does. you vechb democrats breaking away in the house from nancy pelosi. but harry reid has been able to hold all of his members in the same line. in the house, of course, john boehner has people breaking off from him in increasing numbers every day. in the senate, it's the same story. as long as the democrats can remain firm, i think you're going to continue to see this volley of legislation coming back and forth from the house to the senate, where the house passes something that it says will help resolve this impasse and the senate just rejects it before, in some cases, the house has a chance to get its ducks in a row. so there's that element. but i do think that democrats realize there's a limit to how

much, how long they can say we won't negotiate because while they have been good at portraying the republicans as the unreasonable players in this fight, they can only refuse to talk for so long before they themselves start to look unreasonable. >> and you know, frank, isn't that part of the strategy that you're now seeing in this piecemeal approach, where essentially republicans are saying, let's take popular thing, the national parks, veterans services, and put those out individually so that we can then go back and message that it's democrats that are keeping these things being funded. >> what republicans are trying to make the public forget is they're litigating issues in one court that have been resolved in another court, and we're not supposed to be fighting over these things in this process. you're not supposed to have these arguments now. you had them all before. i think their strategy is if they can get the public to forget about that and just look at the individual things they're proposing and not the way they've changed the whole rules of when and how you negotiate, they think they can gain some ground in the court of public

opinion. >> there's also this fixation on delaying the affordable care act. now that the exchanges are happening and you saw the sit sites going down because so many people want it, taking it away from them is going to be almost impossible. >> i do think that it's going to be very important, the journalism we see going forward. i think it's media malpractice if we see the disagreements characterized as partisan gridlock or standoff. people forget how much the democrats have already conceded on compromise. i do think the great irony is the day the government was shut down, the first time since 1995. the first major government program since medicare in its scale and scope is introduced. now, it's flawed. it's complicated. but there is a great fear on the part, i think, of the republicans, of all kinds, the

institutionalists, that this will become a fabric of people's lives. will they attribute it to government? maybe not. but there is an improvement there that cannot be denied. >> such an interesting contradiction in their message. they're saying obama care is such a train wreck, the public doesn't like it, it's going to be a burden an horror upon the public. they don't want it instituted because they're afraid once it's there -- >> that's because what essentially obama care is, is redistribution of wealth. it is good for a lot of americans who really, really need it. it's also not good for some other people right now whose wealth is being redistributed away. that's the core issue underneath all this. i think that helps explain why the republicans are genuine when they say many of the people who they are listening to are very upset about obama care. >> who are these people? >> well, certain kinds of business people who were not providing health care and don't want to. certain kinds of people who have better kinds of health care plans that were better for them

because they weren't the kind of people who were likely to get sick. those kind of people are essentially -- all of these programs are to some degree economic redistribution programs. that's the core fight. >> all the people you mentioned have members of their family living on either medicare or social security. there's a rank hypocrisy in this opposition. >> not only that, but if you talk about the opposition of business, the core irony is that the supposed representatives of business in the large term, things like the chamber of commerce, the sort of wall street lobby, they are arguing not to tie that question that peter just brought up to the continuing resolution. they are not supposed to be coupled together at this time. but that argument is falling on completely deaf ears but the ideological opposition to the affordable care act is so strong. >> that's right. you have all the biggest industry groups in the country saying, you know, don't shut down the government, don't worry about the debt ceiling, which is just around the corner, this is terrible for the markets, terrible for business, and, you know, the insurance companies are one of the largest winners from obama care. they're going to get 30 million

new customers. they're pretty happy with it. the chamber of commerce fought an aggressive war against obama care, but they lost. they're ready to move on. they don't want to have to keep dealing with these shutdowns and crisis economy. they want certainty moving forward. >> i want to bring jeremy back in. there seems to be one potential crack in the gop's sort of full-throated opposition and their insistence of tying the affordable care act to the cr you have a small number of purple state republicans who do seem to be breaking away. a map has been put out where they talk about the suicide caucus and they're in these 80 districts where barack obama lost by like 20-something points. we're looking at that map now. so those are the people that are hard core. but you do have a small number of republicans like jeff flake in arizona, nunez in california. you start to see a pattern. pennsylvania, new york, where peter king has probably been the most vocal. are there enough of those guys? we can't call them moderates at this point, but purple state republicans who might go south

on boehner and insist that they get a clean cr for their own political survival. >> well, the problem at this point is that there are not enough of them. whether or not that number continues to grow, i can't say. i think there's also a problem in that there is a small number of people on the very conservative side of the republican house caucus who are holding this up. remember, it only takes a small number of people to bring down a speaker. that's john boehner's concern right now. >> right, and the reason for that is a lot of this is not so much about policy. andrew sullivan had a great piece on the dish. he wrote that at the core this is not necessarily about the context of the policy. he writes this, the gop does not regard the president as merely wrong but as illegitimate. it's about nullifying this presidency. that's the reason you can't really get to negotiations. >> i think that's right. i mean, i think there's a

nullification here. it's not just about the policy. there's a symbolism. listen, mitchell mcconnell, who's disappeared, he and senator demint, who's head of the heritage foundation, they said at the outset of president obama's presidency is to break him and bring him down. i think in a broader way, what the hard core right in the republican party is railing against are the extraordinary demographic transformational politics of this country. they are so insular and hermetic right now, this republican party, due to money, alternative media, and gerrymandering that they're in these lily white districts and they're removed from a country that is changing dramatically. unless they wake up and think about how they embrace perhaps minority rights, immigration reform, or how they respond to the millennial generation, which does seek a more constructive government in their lives, they will be consigned to the dust bin of history. >> there's a really interesting parallel with the government shutdown of the '90s.

at that point, also, bill clinton was often see as illegitimate. the republican leaf was broken. newt gingrich was brought down. the whole leadership was brought down. it's much more likely this republican leadership is going to be brought down by this fight. we don't know how long it will take, but i think what you're see right now is great for chris christie and those republicans who -- because it's becoming clearer and clearer to anyone who has to win in a not completely red environment that the republican party is on the path to suicide. >> so chris christie and the role of bob dole. we're going to get more into this. we want to thank "new york times" jeremy peters. thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. after the break, one of three resolutions that house republicans tried to pass last night featured a proposal to keep the department of veterans affairings funded through the shutdown. but while the gop pays lip service to troops and veterans, during the fiscal standstill, its actions suggest something less than patriotic. we'll look at how we can really honor our vets next on "now."

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a group of veterans drew lots of attention yesterday for their act of defiance against the government shutdown. the vets stormed the barricades of the world war ii memorial to pay their respects. they were cheered by onlookers and by some republican lawmakers who use the occasion to highlight the harmful effects of the shutdown. never mind the fact that it was the ideological rigidity of many of them that contributed to the monument closing in the first place. after tuesday's civil disobedience by veterans garnered headlines, several

senators used the incident to lob accusations at the president. in the past hour, ted cruz weighed in saying, quote, president obama is so set on imposing his destructive, far-left ideology that his government is literally barricading the world war ii veterans out of their memorial. today more veterans plan to show up at d.c. national monuments with rnc chairman reince urging republicans to show up to vamployees and compromised the integrity of the building. the report highlighted the fact that in 2009, 11,000 veterans waited more than a year for benefits. a figure which grew to a

jaw-dropping it 245,000 in 2012. and that backlog is expected to grow. political reports that because of the shutdown, the va may have to furlough as many as 20,000 claims processors. if it lasts more than two weeks, 3.6 million veterans may not receive disability claims or pension payments. a shutdown certainly doesn't help the va in its efforts to help the more than 62,000 veterans who are homeless on any given night. so, yes, of course veterans should be able to visit the world war ii monument, but that's just part of what happens when you shut down the government over an ideological crusade, a point nancy pelosi made on the floor last night. >> we have to think of the ramifications of our actions. when we shut down government, we can't say, oh, we're not respecting our veterans because they can't go to the world war ii memorial. that's what cutting down government is, shutting down much of what they fought for.

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and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. our commitment has never been stronger. the government may be shutting down, but eventually members of congress will have to reach an agreement over how to fund it, an agreement that's likely to include billions of dollars in indiscriminate spending cuts known as the sequester, which by the way, republicans should see as a victory. when the sequestration cuts went into place in march, the idea was that they would be so objectionable congress would negotiate a deal to replace them during the budget fight. even before republicans decided to hold the government hostage over the health care law, democrats agreed to fund the government at sequester levels. that was the budget compromise. over the past six month, little attention has been paid to the damaging effects of the sequester cuts, but make no

mistake the pain has been real. the sequester has meant 57,000 fewer poor children can participate in head start. in fremont, nebraska, for example, where 40 children are already on the waiting list, head start classrooms will have to cut 15 students and one teacher. the sequester has meant that up to 140,000 low-income families and individuals could lose their housing assistance, like a houston area school bus driver who can no longer afford to rent her apartment. the sequester has meant that meals on wheels programs have cut an average of 364 meals a week for senior citizens. it has forced the forest service to lose 500 firefighters, and it has led to 700 fewer scientific research grants. according to the cbo, if the sequester cuts were canceled, it could add between 300,000 and 1.6 million jobs. democratic congressman mike honda hold the huffington post today that neither party is

focused on sequestration because, quote, they have bigger things to fry. the game changed when republicans started to say, oh, let's defund obama care. the government shutdown may be temporary, but it looks like the see quester is here to stay. joining us now from washington is "huffington post" white house correspondent sam stein. sam, thanks for being here. >> of course. thanks for having me. >> i think it's very easy to paper over the sequester because the shutdown of the government is so much more dramatic, but the reality is democrats gave a lot when they agreed to this austerity level of funding. do democrats see it that way, that they've given enough and there is nothing more to negotiate with? >> oh, yeah. a lot of democrats see it that way. if they had their drothers, you wouldn't be funding the government at $988 billion a year. it would be closer to $1.095 trillion a year. i thought that your comment about veterans was very lumtive about what's going on right now in terms of the broader debate. the community in washington, the media, politicians, get very worked up when somewhat superficial but obviously

important things happen, such as canceled white house tours. they say these students coming to washington should have the right to see the white house. they don't seem to care all that much when you have cuts to head starts, that are happening across the board because of sequestration levels. same thing with research grants. for instance, the nih cannot accept 200 clinical patients, including 30 children with cancer, because of the government shutdown. that's obviously tragic. but there's a broader issue at play here, which is that if we fund the government at the levels that everyone assumes we'll end up being funded at, the nih will be unable to fund hundreds of grants, which could produce massive breakthroughs in cancer treatments. we're sort of missing the forest for the trees in this conversation. the defunding obama care issue is just one part of it. it's a lot of other issues stemming from this government shutdown that are obscuring the bigger issues. >> you were talking about a dark age for science because we're not doing the research. you talk about republicans not necessary by willing sensitive to the human cost of the sequester let alone the

shutdown. what about on a more local level? take it to the states where you have in california 5,611 head start kids denied a spot. 4,410 in texas. 3,847 in new york. when you talk on the hill to republicans from places like texas and north dakota, put aside peter king, who's from new york, a blue state, do they have any concern that within their own districts that kind of pain will actually cost them politically? >> well, they absolutely have concern, but it's only when they're inside their own district. when we did this big research project on nih grants, science and medical research, universally, every congressman who met with an academic official or an nih official denied the cuts. when they come back to d.c. and the conversation turns to how do you replace those cuts, that's when it breaks down. so, yeah, it's a classic

washington paradigm. when you're outside of d.c., everyone is upset about what's happening because of the cuts they pursued when they were inside d.c. >> so why is it then that if people objectively understand that it's even hurting if their districts, why did those republicans like peter king not have any influence over this caucus or have any voice with boehner? >> well, think there's numbers and geography here that are important. the republican majority is pretty narrow. about 17 seats. so boehner needs basically all of them to overcome the democrats, who are also united on this. you have about 30 republicans who are the suicide caucus map you put up there. they're from safe republican seats. they're just going to keep going further and further to the right. they're bringing the entire caucus with them. so, yeah, they might personally not feel great about cutting, you know, cancer research in their districts, but on the other hand, they're going to turn around and go with the tea party on this because they're more worried about that than anything else. >> i was going to say, on a big level, it's about who has power and who doesn't in our country.

i mean, poor people do not have lobbyists sweltering or, you know, all over washington. i also think in many ways, it is the case that the media has lost sight of the concessions the democrats sadly made in 2011, both around sequestration and lopping $70 billion out of the budget, but that's because in many ways the democrats haven't managed to tell a story, that the real story in our country today is not about debt and deficits, it's about jobs and investment in a country that is now being disinvested in at the risk of the security of this country. >> isn't that the point, frank? essentially they've lost the battle over austerity, despite it's crushed the economy in the u.k. essentially, it's been conceded. >> we needed to make cuts in government spending. the sequester is a terrible way to do it. we'll be talking about the debt

ceiling. those things, the sequester, it's all the same story. it's broken government. it's no way to govern. you can't just make across the board spending cuts and leave yourself no flexibility to respond to situations. no one in the private sector would run a company that way. the fact we're running a government that way, that was a big clue right there that we have broken government and now we're seeing and even more floored manifestation of it. >> really quick exit question to you, sam. do we wind up with one big ominous negotiation that throws the debt limit, sequestration and cr all into one? is that your prediction? >> it's one possible outcome. you're starting to see more members mention that because the shutdown is happening, because there's very little sense of a resolution down the road. they might just tie everything together with the debt limit issue. but, you know, if you look at it, i don't see how the two sides get together on that issue, too, if the conditions are we're going to defund obama care and if the democrats are insisting on, you know, raising

spending levels. the two sides are very far apart. maybe a big deal is out there, but i'm not betting my money on it. >> all right. well, "the huffing post's" sam stein on that bleak note. >> sorry. >> all right. after the break, it wasn't too long ago some republican leaders were against using defunding health care reform as a ransom demand for keeping the government open. those days seem like a distant memory. we'll talk about where it went wrong next.

it's the shutdown that nobody, including republicans, claim they wanted. but 36 hours after the deadline to fund the government, here we are. so how did we get here? fueled by pressure and fundraising from grassroots conservative groups, tea party senators mike lee and ted cruz circulated a letter in july saying they would not vote for any bill to keep the government open that included funding for the nation's health care law.

but fearing a repeat of 1995 when they were rightly blamed for shutting down the government, republican leaders in the house openly dismissed the plan. here is member of the republican leadership tom cole on now this summer. >> shutting down the government is a suicidal political tactic. eventually it will be reopened, but the president will not have capitulated, and you will have discredited yourself. along the way, you would have hurt the american people. >> but it turns out the gop leadership wasn't prepared to contend with the radicalism of a core group within the house republican conference. fearing a revolt within his party, speaker john bay boehner has refused to vote on a bill that doesn't defund or delay the affordable care act. he's allowed more than 40 votes on futile bills stripping funding for the law. but the roots of dysfunction go even deeper. over the past 30 years, the republican party has grown increasingly detached from the ideological center. starting in 1980, republicans

began a rightward lunch that's produced one of the most ideological rigid parties in history. as the bipartisan political scientists write in their 2012 book "it's even worse than it looks," the republican party has become an insurgent outliar er person politics, dismissive the legitimacy of its political opposition. so peter, isn't this the problem here? it's not the policy, it's the party. it's the republican party and their base. >> yeah, and the problem the republican party has is that tea partiers who are now the activist base of the republican party don't care very much about the fortunes of the republican party. the polling is actually quite fascinating. if you ask tea partier where they fall, they put as much distance between themselves and republicans as they believe there are between the republicans and democrats. this is why cruz and mike lee

and these guys were able to cause such chaos. they don't have to care about whether this is good for the republican party because their supporters don't care about whether this is good for the republican party. that's why the democrats have a structural advantage. even though liberal democrats are frustrated with obama, they still want obama and the democratic party to succeed. the republican base, the tea party base of the republican party doesn't care about the fortunes of its own party. >> that's why they're so perfectly aligned with the rush limbaug limbaug limbaughs, who also doesn't care if president party succeeds. disappointment with their own leadership is what drives the base. >> i think there's an institutional breakdown of the republican party. there's a ferocious war inside it. there was a break down of both parties. you have outside money. you have the coke brothers. you have freedom works. you have the heritage action fund. fear mongering and instilling fear in these republicans and not just like the 40 hard core,

it expands to a broader framework. finally, not only detached from reality and ideology it seems to me, but the republican party is increasingly detached from the cultural and demographic shifts in this country. where that goes could lead to more desperation as it confronts that reality. >> and resentful of the post '64 america, which they feel benefits everybody. >> you're talking about those four magic syllables, gerrymander. we look at the extreme right republicans in the house and say, how can they not be looking at national opinion polls? they don't have to care about national opinion polls. i'd like to see polling in their districts. it is a rare lawmaker who will vote in a way that is going to get himself or herself not re-elected. >> but to be fair, frank, they're not back in their districts that much. secondly, they may be listening more to the coke brothers and the power of money than their

constituents. the power of money fueled the gerrymandering process. i think the 2010 election in many ways was more important for the republicans, certainly these tea partiers, than the 2012 congressional elections. after 2010 on the census basis, they redistricted. >> the other factor we haven't mentioned is social media. i think as we saw with ted cruz quoting tweets on the senate floor, you can come to believe that your position is much more thoroughly supported than it is because you've got easily 1,000 tweets to support it. those thousand tweets aren't necessarily representative. >> again, in your district, barack obama lost in a landslide, so everyone you're talking, to the people in your district, agree with you. >> yeah, and i think it's fundamentally important we keep in mind the two parties are not the same here. just an example that we were talking about sequestration, the progressive caucus, which is the best analog to the tea party caucus on the left, they were making a lot of noise this summer about standing up against the sequestration, not wanting to vote for anything sequestration. you haven't heard any of that because they don't want to shut

down the government. they're reasonable. they want to govern. they're going to fall in line when they need to. i don't think the answer is they should move further to the left and draw a harder line. the tea party guys need to understand this is how government works. >> i think there's something to what karina said. there is the money. the big money comes from unions on the left. on the right, look at ted cruz. it's club for growth action, it's heritage action, it's the senate conservatives fund, it's jim demint money. they don't even have to listen to the traditional sort of business money that normally brings them to heel. >> look at the state of north carolina. a good state. half my family live there is. look what art coke has done. it's gone hard line and extremist, which may backfire. the woman running for governor is doing better. or is she running for senate? forgive me. but it's backfiring because some check on the republican party. even the extremist governors have to govern from the ground. >> because they have to win the whole state. >> the problem, too, peter is the reaction to that within these states is to just make it

more difficult to unseat them. they just vote themselves in for life by making voter i.d. laws. >> i had a fascinating conversation with a politician from oklahoma. he said, it's not like when i came up. you don't go to see the people anymore. you spend so much time raising money through television. kentucky needs the affordable care act more than anybody else, and it has rand paul and mitch mcconnell. being a politician today doesn't take you door to door in poor areas like it used to. you spend your time on the phone getting money from rich people to put ads on the air. >> case in point, ted cruz's home state. highly uninsured, highly poor, highly resistant to anything coming from the federal government that could help people. all right. thank you very much for that. coming up, republicans continue to litigate obama care. a funny thing happened. the affordable care act went into effect and the world didn't end. we'll look at the law of the land and the great american rollout next. check it out... over 20 million drivers are insured with geico.

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even in these convoluted times, it's hard to ignore the irony of the opening day of enrollment in the nation's new health care exchanges occurring on the same day as a government shutdown caused by the gop's continued unwillingness to accept the legitimacy of the law that created those exchanges in the first place. the exchanges launched to heavy traffic as 4.7 million americans and counting have logged on to healthcare.gov to check out the new plans. it resulted in delays and technical glitches, a point acknowledged by the president yesterday. >> like every new law, every new product rollout, there are going to be some glitches in the sign-up process along the way that we will fix. the reason is because more than 1 million people visited healthcare.gov before 7:00 in the morning. to put that in context, there were five times more users in the marketplace this morning

than have ever been on medicare.gov at one time. >> the administration's goal is to sign up as many as 7 million americans in the next six months. many of whom are uninsured or live one medical bill away from bankruptcy. almost as a start, the gop has used the law as a pinata, calling the law obama care, and proving that animosity toward the policy was rooted at animosity toward this president. despite the fact the exchanges only opened yesterday, republicans wrote the law off long ago, ranting against its 2,000-plus pages a if its complexity itself was a sign of its deficiency. for the rest of the country, determining whether the law is a success or a failure will take time. it actually has to kick in for people to know if they like it. and if history shows us anything, some of america's great social welfare programs were initially met with deep resistance. at its inception, medicare, which now covers 50 million people, or one in six americans, was denounced as socialism and

an assault on freedom in america by this guy. >> one of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. one of these days you and i are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in america when men were free. >> that, of course, was before president reagan went on to shore up the program in a deal with democratic house speaker tip o'neil. a 1966 "new york times" story wondered, will there be lines of old folks at hospital doors with no rooms to put them? too few doctors and nurses and technicians to care for them? the hyperventilation, it turned out, was just hype. instead, millions of americans were lifted out of poverty. 56% of the elderly had hospital insurance before medicare. 97% of the elderly had it afterwards. if most people agree that our old health care system was not working, the opening day of the exchanges marked the first day when the country will be offered

an alternative. and alex, you know, as if a website never crashed because a lot of people used it. that was sort of what was ann annoyianno annoying about the coverage of the opening of the health care law yesterday. people focused on the glitches rather than the volume of people trying to use the site. >> yeah, when "the new york times" site goes down, does that mean "the new york times" ceasinceases to exist at a news? >> absolutely not. we're still there for you. >> so i think the rumors of its demise of greatly exaggerated 24 hours into the exchange. but i'm not incredibly optimistic it'll just turn around and redeem. you had such strong opposition to it in the beginning. >> okay. we're going to come back and talk about this more after the break. nearly 30 years ago, police in philadelphia ended a long standoff in a deadly ball of fire. now a new documentary is reviving the rise and tragic fall of the black liberation group move. my customers can shop around--

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this is not about him or me, about scoring points for one side or the other, name calling like the villain of villains. it's about doing the right thing for the american people. >> that was senate majority leader harry reid on capitol him moments ago telling reporters he spoke with speaker john boehner on the phone about the government shutdown. reid, boehner, nancy pelosi, and mitch mcconnell are all expected to meet with president obama at the white house around 5:30 p.m. today. okay. moving now to the gripping documentary "let the fire burn," which chronicles the battle between philadelphia police and the black liberation group move in it resulted in the deaths of 11 people, including 5 children. 12 years in the making, the film tells a tragic tale of how paranoia and racism can turn deadly. >> three dozen philadelphia policemen surrounded the building after a move member was

spotted on the roof wearing a hooded mask and carrying a shotgun. >> we intend to seize control of the house. we'll do it by any means necessary. >> every one of us knew that someone was going to die. >> and joining us now is the director of "let the fire burn." jason, thank you for being here. why did you make this film? >> thank you for having me. i remember this incident from when i was a kid. i was growing up in philadelphia. it stuck with me, i think, partly because it was so tragic and so traumatic for the whole city, but partly because i was a similar age to the age of the children, five children died in the house. it was just that moment, i think, you know, every generation or every individual has a moment where, you know, that shell of childhood is kind of cracked. i think for -- you know, i teach college age kids. for a whole generation it was 9/11. my parents generation remembers where they were when jfk was shot. for me at that time in philadelphia, it was that thing that woke me up. the first event from the outside world that pierced that childhood shell.

i remembered it, and i carried it with me. >> for people who don't understand the story, just give us briefly what it was about. >> it's a complicated thing. move was sort of an urban radical group. they defied a lot of definitions. if you tell them that they're a black group or a race-based group, they would say, no, we're not that. if you said they're a cult, they would say, no, we're not that. it's hard to pin them down. they were existing in philadelphia for almost 15 years. for most of that time, there was a growing conflict with the philadelphia police. there was a first incident in 1978, and it came to conflict, came to gunshots, and a cop was killed. subsequently, nine members of the group were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. when you get to round two in the '80s, they've relocated to a different neighborhood, a neighborhood that's more working class, less understanding of their lifestyle. >> not welcoming of them. they didn't want that there. >> absolutely. but moreover, the group was

trying to advocate on behalf of the people that had been imprisoned. their method of advocating was to rile the neighborhood, disturb the neighborhood. they wanted the cases reopened. they knew the government wouldn't listen to them, but if they made the neighbors upset enough, maybe the government would listen to them and things really spiralled out of control. >> and what's sort of fascinating is the parallel between this and waco, where the government went in and demanded that the people come out. they didn't come out. you wind up really what seemed like an incredible escalation of violence on part of authorities in philadelphia. >> yeah, you know, i think the parallel to waco is valid, but there's a lot of differences too. you have an urban group redominantly black versus a rural group. and you're in the middle of the city. three blocks are destroyed. 61 people lose their homes. that's another dimension. then the other thing is, i think most americans when you say waco have an instant reference to what you're talking about whereas most americans you say move, they don't.

it was philadelphia. it wasn't, you know, out in a rural area. philadelphia is philadelphia. it's where the declaration of independence was signed. city of brotherly love. yet it doesn't seem to be part of our american history. it's a big enough story -- waco is part of our american history, not just texas history. >> it's interesting because you talk about this confluence of poverty, this disassociation, race, it's sort of all tied together. in this case, we're not talking about the south, right, as we were in the 1950s. we're talking about an urban city in the north. >> those who traveled through parts of illinois at certain years, there was a lot of racism in the north. i'm interested in -- we sit here at this time of government shutdown, and the film is interesting because it brings into play very vividly government abuses, whether it's the overincarceration of people or police brutality, government overreach, you saw that obviously in move in philadelphia, but waco. i'm wondering if the film

reflects through the ar kooifl footage you use. >> well, you know, i think it's -- it's definitely to compare. the federal government is different than a city government, right. i think there were a lot of things that -- people often asked me, could this happen again? i say i don't think an urban police department in the united states, that this could happen again in that way. but i think if you look at it more broadly and you ask sort of where does this type of human violence still occur, where children are sacrificed, where are people uttered to the degree where violence comes in. that's sort of where i hope the film initiates. it's not a film where you can do something about it now. you can't go out and say, i'm going to recycle or whatever. i'm going to do something. you have to look at the world more critically and ask, well, where is this going? broadly. where is this still going on? >> the film is "let the fire burn." it opens today in new york city.

it will open nationwide later this month. jason, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you to our panel. that is all for now. see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern. "andrea mitchell reports" is next with continuing coverage of the government shutdown. what if we could keep enough plastic waste to cover mt. rainier out of landfills each year? by using one less trash bag each month, we can. and glad forceflex bags stretch until they're full.* so you can take them out less often.

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