cruz shutdown. washington is a mess. the president is meeting with congressional leaders at the white house. it's been delayed. we've been hearing all day they wanted to walk into it with a deal in hand. this development suggests they are not there yet. the markets have been a mess, stocks are climbing on word of a deal steve cornacki is not impressed with all of this. nbc's peter alexander at the white house and luke russert on the hill. >> french? >> we expect reaction to come soon. tell us what's going on, peter. >> reporter: there's no indication according to white house aids that this meeting will take place later today. it may not happen until tomorrow. but that was indicated to us by white house aides as being an indication of good signs of progress taking place right now. the president had said earlier during one of his stops nearby at the food pantry he wanted to

see what real progress existed. it appears the best indication of progress is a statement the white house put out in delaying this meeting where they said they are allowing leaders in the senate to try to make the progress toward a deal reopening the government and extending the debt limit. you're going to get to luke in a second with the reporting we're getting from capitol hill. the white house made it very clear, the urgency of the situation, while there should be sincere concern this is getting delayed, the white house seems to indicate with progress in the works they are going to let it breathe for a little bit longer. >> luke, we're talking about letting it breathe for a little bit longer. the senate is trying to save this. doesn't seem it's working out well so far. >> reporter: this is between mcconnell and reid and there is inchings towards an agreement from what we've heard. what we can report this presumed agreement that has got washington and presumably the world economy in a tizy, would

extend government funding through january 15th and extend the debt limit until february 15th. happy valentine's day to all of our friends on wall street. essentially what you're seeing a punting of these issues that continue to grip capitol hill and continue this gridlock, but also part of this deal we presumably could see something to do with the president's health care law. there could be a two-year delay with the medical device tax, you could have something else. whatever this deal is, it's going to be temporary and also meant to encourage bipartisan negotiation between the house and the senate in order to figure out a long-term budget strategy and long-term deficit reduction strategy. this is a way out presumably but it is only a way out if house speaker john boehner is willing to put it on the floor. house republicans are going to be opposed to any deal that domestics out of the senate off

the bat because they don't think it has gone far enough in dealing with the president's health care law and they are very much not into setting the debt limit until they have to. this deal will not do either one of those things. the question becomes, what does john boehner do with the deal? does he try to amend it when it comes over, could be as late as tomorrow? but the thing that's difficult for the house gop. once this presumed deal, by no means signed and sealed and delivered, once it comes over, what do they do? i'll give you a history lesson, the fiscal cliff, mcmcconnell, joe biden, negotiated a deal at 4:00 in the morning on new year's day. it's a great way to spend new year's eve, outside mitch mcconnell's office, that deal was taken to the house gop conference where it was immediately rejected later that night they ended up putting it on the floor. and eric cantor and mccarthy did not but the fiscal cliff was averted. that situation, we could replay

that this october. >> thanks for the history lesson, i can think of a couple better ways to spend new year's, but that's your way. that's cool. let's turn to washington editor for the national review, writing about the divide within the republican party when it comes to the debt ceiling in particular, though we know it doesn't end there. frightening quote for me, out of the official chinese news agency saying it is perhaps a good time for the befudled world to start considering building a deamericanized world such alarming days when the destiny of others are in the hands of a hip critical nation have to be terminated. considering this world where america is the center of the economic universe is crazy, that's frightening to me and that's happening because we are threatening a debt ceiling default. isn't that a lone enough reason to say we've got to reconsider

what we're doing? >> we've seen developments today. when you see leader mcconnell and leader reid on the floor of the senate being quite agreeable and friendly with each other, that's a sign of progress if any. even though the white house meeting at 3:00 p.m. has been postponed, we are seeing a narrowing of the gap at least within the senate. and i think russert brought up good points about the problems any senate deal has in the house. right now the senate really seems to be moving towards a compromise and that's significant. >> robert, i was hoping you could talk to that difference between the house and the senate. what was the response over the weekend by the house to the senate proposal put forward by collins, does that give any insight as to whether boehner would take something to the floor that he didn't have majority support for his caucus. do you think we would see significant levels of support for a deal struck by reid and mcconnell? >> at this point it is somewhat fluid in the house. house members don't return to

the capitol until tonight. there's a vote at 6:00 p.m. eastern time. they are going to be talking to members about the path ahead and on tuesday morning, house republicans will have a closed door conference meeting in the basement of the capitol to decide their next step. but there's going to be a lot of pressure from the senate but also from the markets if this deal emerges today in the upper chamber. >> robert, you spend a lot of time perched near the conference. with this tea party caucus, 49 members, how many of them are going to oppose the vote on the deal no matter what it looks like and how many might actually come over to help boehner with something that obviously isn't going to give them everything they want? >> i think boehner right now, when you look at the number of house rpz, you're at 2-3-3. boehner has 100 or 150 who want this mess to end, on both the cr and debt limit.

put that in boehner's corner. he probably has a majority of the majority to pass whatever plan comes out. the political problem for boehner is there's a block of let's say 30 to 50 conservatives who have close ties to the conservative movement. if they sour on this deal out of the senate, that will rupture the silent majority and cause problems for the speaker. >> at the very least we're talking about spending, which is what this all is supposed to be about in the very beginning. but unfortunately for some tea party republicans it was about obama care. let's take a listen. >> republicans made a mistake, they picked a fight they had no strategy and no end game. they had no plan. that's what it is. it is a mistake. >> robert, you would think if republicans were so convinced that obama care was going to be a disaster, they would have been confident enough to wait a few weeks and let it play out and let the wheels come off the

obama care train. i don't need to tell you the folks, it's literally easier to blog about the chinese government in beijing than it is to sign up for these federal exchanges. this is all we would probably be talking about today is obama care and might even have a meaningful debate around delaying the individual mandate. and yet here we are lost all credibility, republicans have, to even talk about obama care. >> i think a lot of republicans when you speak to them in the house, they feel the party has become distracted and wish they were messaging better on october 1st when the affordable care act began to be implemented. there is a general consensus, they want to get beyond this mess. the problem for boehner, as much as there's a sense that republicans want to move on and start messaging better on the aca, at the same time, they are just not ready from a tactical perspective to concede to the senate. and they want something in return. boehner will have to make an argument tonight and tomorrow if a senate deal is the only thing

on the table, can they swallow it or accept it? >> can you give us a little bit -- as much as you can, insight into boehner's mindset. you mentioned he's worried about problems if the hard core tea partyiers reject strongly what the senate comes up with. what is it exactly he's worried about. is he going to get to a point where he says, we shut down the government to try to meet your commands and get this close to default. i have to keep this country together and this is the best we can get. >> amen. >> i think what's very important to speaker boehner, when you speak to his allies political perception matters. part of the strategy so it incrementally water down demand. he knows the amount of what conservatives can achieve is limited. he moved from full defund now this smaller discussion. now at the same time, if there's

a growing perception on the right that speaker boehner caved or getting rolled by the senate, that's going to hurt his ability to bring anything to the floor. if the right revolts, then speaker boehner is in a tough corner. that's really his situation. >> it's a little difficult though to talk about the right as one entity because it's really two entities and two factions working against each other. you have the hard right, far right and tea party guys who want to take this thing even further and we'll call it the moderate or establishment right that say this is not the right way, even though obama care does need to be changed substantively and they are fighting against each other and i don't how that resolves going into the future. >> it's a pressing problem for the party. one interesting person to watch this weekend and today is paul ryan, a budget committee chairman from wisconsin. he's been making an argument privately to members that the only way they are going to get big changes in conservative policy is to have a clean cr, clean debt limit or something

close to that then move forward to future fiscal talks. more of a grand bargain discussion later this year in 2014. conservatives are weary of this and want something now, whether a medical device tax repeal or implementation aspects. but ryan and boehner they are trying to bring conservatives to the center -- >> who is the guy from wisconsin? how do you spell the last name? want to make sure i get that down for the future. the world and wall street are watching what happens in d.c. very closely and it's embarrassing, the potential economic ripple effect around the globe and where it matters most, your own wallet. it's monday and it's october 14th. not anymore. what? my silverware isn't good enough for you? have -- have you seen it? yes, i have seen it, and it looks -- you gotta look better. ladies, breathe. cascade kitchen counselor here. it's not your silverware. it's likely your detergent. see, over time, cascade platinum's triple cleaning formula delivers brilliant shine

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if we don't start making progress in the house and senate and republicans aren't willing to set aside their partisan concerns in order to do what's right for the country, we stand a good chance of defaulting. >> the president with that warning today before what was supposed to be a 3:00 p.m. meeting with democrat and republican leadership at the white house. but that meeting has now been delayed according to white house sources to allow senate leadership to hammer out a compromise. after a rocky start this morning the markets are taking them at their word in positive territory, though off highs for the day. keep in mind what's at stake, not just america's role at global financial leader but job creation, retirement savings and gas prices at home could be affected by default. here to talk about the

implications is our friend dan groves at the daily beast. markets all over the place, they've been up and down and plus even there's a deal, if there is, if there's not, who knows what the house will do at that point. and many people are off work worrying about what this might mean for them and their savings. talk to us about money and what they should be thinking about? >> i think part of the thing is if you are trying to trade based on what's going to happen and trying to invest in making a decision, the best answer is not to do anything. people -- some people have been hoping for markets to freak out thinking that will finally get people off the sidelines and maek a deal and wall street keeps refusing to do that. the reason is because everybody thinks once a deal is done and it has to be done in some fashion that stocks will go up and bonds will go up. there's no point if you have to buy it back 5% higher later. whether wall street understands

the nature of the dysfunction in d.c. is another question. what's been note worthy is the refusal of the markets to really freak out. >> you're going to freak out, dan, when you start to see, what jack lew and cbo say the treasury will have to pay out following october 17th because october 17th is an important deadline but not like everything will freak out on that day at midnight. the government has about $30 billion in cash, they get $7 billion a day revenue, they spend about $10 billion a day. on october 23rd, they have to pay out $12 billion in social security benefits. on october 31st they have to pay $6 billion in interest on the national debt. on november 1st, this is the huge one ke cannot live without, $67 billion in social security medicare, civilian and military pay and benefits. there's not some creative accounting they can do to get past this. if we go over, this will be a

gigantic problem. jamie dimon said, i don't even want to tell you what it will mean if we go over. >> we're in the realm of horror show trailers when financial people describe what will happen where we can't make the payment. i would argue that the bond payments, even though it's a small amount of money is more sequential. you would really see the action before the stock market because the reason you hold a bond is to get interest payment. if there's an inkling of a thought you might not get it, people will start selling. we saw some of that happen last week whenfy dellty dumped a bunch of bonds. if people start selling bonds, that causes a chain reaction and money market funds, that's where their cash is, if those seize up, we don't have much of a consumer economy. as much as social security and medicare payments and that would be really damaging and freak a lot of people out, the place to

look for is what happens to the interest payments. >> andfy dellty said they are not holding any short term treasuries whatsoever. i want to disagree a little on the investment advice and we don't do a lot of it here at the cycle. it seems if you are looking at injure investments or 401(k) and uncomfortable with this level of risk it's not a period for market timing but to remember there's a lot of risk in the stock market, particularly in you're holding a basket of big funds. if you're uncomfortable because you don't know what washington is going do, that's a good time to think about your broader risk allocation. the four month debt ceiling hike thoughts seem -- what do you think. >> i thought the advice here was to buy comcast stock. >> that's right. >> you can't go wrong. the stock market volatility actually hasn't been that bad and i think the greater danger

is actually in the bond market and the money market funds. when people say i'm concerned about rif they put their money in cash. when you put your money in cash it's in money market funds buying short term government bonds. if you think the answer is i don't want to sell stocks because they are risky there might be a bond default. the answer is then to not to put everything in an instrument that is totally dependent on government bonds. it's hard to track. in the end, despite what we do all day and what we see and watch and read on blogs and see on tv, we have to presume that in the end the debt ceiling will be raised whether it's with a clean debt increase or with something attached to it. it will be increased sfl or a dirty one. >> some length of time and we won't have to worry about it. >> what about the four month piece? >> four months is better than six weeks. last week we were talking six weeks. >> it's all relative i guess. >> if we agree to have this

debate in another four months, then so be it. that seems -- can't be forgotten here, regardless of what's happened during the shutdown the republicans still and verbalized this quite clearly the the only leverage they have in trying to get legislation they want is provoking some sort of crisis or setting up situations where the other party has to come to the table. so to think they are going to sign off on a year debt ceiling increase or just abolishing all together which would be the smartest thing for people to do -- >> amen. >> they are not going to do that. >> amen. >> i have an alternate proposal for republicans, they could win an election. >> boom. >> and pass whatever laws they want and repeal what they want to. >> good luck. >> just a thought. dan, i want your thoughts on here -- >> don't give him the secret sauce. >> we've been talking about catastrophic and really inconceivably kas strofic it would be if we breached the debt

ceiling but what kind of damage have we already done to ourselves by coming this close and shaking the world's confidence that we always will be the safe place, the country that always, always, always pays their bills. >> i don't think there will be that much damage because we're still -- the best house on a block where every other house is falling apart. part of it is relative. do you want to invest in bonds in europe where things aren't going so well. people in china really take all of these dollars in from their exports and don't have anything else to do with them because people aren't allowed to use dollars in the domestic economy. they end up in the central bank. the central bank do buy stocks but they are still buying bonds. >> wouldn't china be the main challenger there? they are moving to a more capitalistic society, wouldn't china be the main challenger to

us? >> if they wanted to let their currency circulate freely, maybe. but they keep such a lid on things that not a lot of people are clam orring for the currency. the fed introduced its new $100 bill last week and one of the things about it, two-thirds of the paper durntcy that exists is outside the u.s. this is what everybody uses and put it under their mattresses and banking account. because even with what is going on here and of course your typical person in malaysia or africa holding on to $100 bills is probably not reading politico and doesn't know who ted cruz is? >> really. >> they are watching "the cycle." >> that's a great point. there's a reason why governors often brag about their bond rating but it's great to have you here for putting it in perspective. >> any time. >> up next, get excited a deal on the debt ceiling. but is it a deal with the devil?

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nbc sports comment tater bob costas called the name an insert and slur. the delegate from the american also called for a change. >> i call upon the 32 football club owners of the national football league and nfl commissioner roger goodell to get rid of this derogatory word on racial slur redskin which currently describes the ug washington football franchise. >> george w. bush's heart problem was much more serious than we first thought. the national journal was first to break this story according to sources and the confidentant

was -- potentially was life threatening and he was very lucky the doctors caught it. >>. government shutdown can't keep lady liberty down. pulled some strings to rea open the iconic statue starting today. it is potentially a national park but officials felt they needed to act because they were losing $61,000 a day in tourism revenue. >> another icon, christopher columbus was celebrated outside of 30 rock today in the largest parade of its kind much more than 35,000 marchers and hundreds of bands and floats lined fifth avenue in new york. it was the 69th annual event. the marching band was not able to lead this celebration as planned. little known fact, columbus did not actually discover america, there were people living here. >> really?

interesting. >> going back to the first story in the news cycle. >> it's full cycle. i do want to tell you we've been reporting this hour the shutdown could come to an end very soon with a deal between the white house and republicans and the problem is and i want to get to this, it could be a deal with the devil. i say that as someone who doesn't even believe in the devil thee logically. here's my problem. this is preliminary. we're now hearing about a deal that would have january 15th reopen the government until then, have some negotiations at that time about sequester level spending cuts, et cetera. and then here's the big problem, a four-month increase for the debt ceiling. >> that's a good -- >> with everything we've been talking about and everything people have been going through, i find it abomb inable that anyone in washington would propose this or the democrats would even be considering this as a serious negotiating position. sometimes i wonder whether

they've ever seen one episode of million dollar listing, just one episode where here's the sale price, $1 million. you don't come in and go, that seems fair. before we get into the fact that the tea party has been unethical, just negotiating, a million bucks, great, i'll take it. no, here's the thing, 800,000 and then negotiate to the middle. the counteroffer -- >> is that how it works? >> i have watched it. >> thanks for clarifying. >> i was just going to clarify, you think in four months we're not going to solve all of our problems and tea party republicans -- >> i appreciate the question, krystal, this is what they keep doing in the same way they can't rerepeal obama care. the proverbial foot is on the neck of the republican party. john mccain saying they only have blood relatives in their corner. this is the time to break the

supposed fever and the counteroffer should be something on the order of a debt ceiling increase until the next administration, another three years and might revisit it then, not four months. >> i'm thinking something i've been saying, the one thing i would be willing to negotiate over with the debt ceiling is getting rid of the debt ceiling because then you get actually out of this cycle of crises. the debt ceiling is stupid. why do we have it? we don't need it it doesn't make any sense. if you have to have some fig leaf, the mcconnell rule, to take the blame, quote, unquote for lifting the debt ceiling, do something like that. i think the american people would be well behind getting rid of the cycle of kris ease -- >> some of them. >> the senate has never been the issue here. here we're talking about a deal that could happen, this i think

will between mcconnell and reid and then it has to go through the house. we know these few members are never going to budge. what does boehner do? at what point does he break? if mcconnell says i have to leave you behind and do what's right for the country, that might be a turning point for boehner, or i've come this far for you guys but we've got to do the right thing for the country. what is the role for democrats? they are in a huge position of leverage. republicans are getting the blame, rightfully so. big push forward something harsh or give in. what is the right strategy for democrats leading into the mid-terms that give them this extra strength to win a few extra seats. >> i wouldn't look to mitch mcconnell to be our leader out of this when he's in a fairly difficult election in kentucky. you know, i need to see this debt limit thing pushed further than four months. i would settle for -- let's have

it be a year so we don't revisit this. the house republicans are not going to give this up very easily. this is their point of leverage. really in terms of politics of this thing, they don't have leverage, they are seeing whole numbers as low in the history of gallup, they have no leverage. >> don't give in on anything. >> why would democrats give an inch from this vantage point where you're talking sequestration levels of funding the ball is already in republican territory. any give in -- we're not guesting into a lefty territory but still in republican territory. >> here's why you can't give in even a small leaf, a fig leaf of a thing, because they will just continue to think they can get something by doing this. >> what is the right strategy, not only for the country but ultimately what's going to help them longer term? i don't know the answer personally. >> it's debate but we're threatening default and in a

free fall. the democrats have to actually show that they are willing to shut down the politics of dysfunction -- shutting down government doesn't get you what you want. >> republicans won't go for that. >> something about a republican you'll want to stay through the commercial break for. i have the answer to why ted cruz is -- why ted cruz is the way he is. and the answer is -- he was born that way. rising science will tell you how our political preferences are formed. [ laughter ]

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when it comes to funding. is there something deeper at work? that's something our next guest focused on. it is half genetic. holding a doctor at in evolution nar anthropology and author of "our political nature." i want to hear what you have to say but i'm a little skeptical and want to you use your research and tell me where i'm wrong. i feel like our political leanings are completely about nurture, where we grew up and who we grew up and look at the history of black people in our voting tendencies post lincoln, we were very republican for obvious reasons. then when fdr introduces the new deal, we change almost completely to become democrats and the democratic identification for black people has grown more and moreover time. certainly there was no genetic

change. there was just sort of change in politics and change in nurture and understanding how the parties would react to us. your ideas on how genetics rather than nurture factors into this this. >> thank you very much for having me tour'e, study after study shows that between 40 and 60% of the variation in our political attitudes comes from genetic differences between individuals but the rest does come from environment and history and culture. so to answer your other question, over time the different parties change and the sense of words changes but we shouldn't conflict that with ideologies. so different parties espouse different ideologies even though their names and their followers change over time. >> yeah. >> and you write about sort of three personality clusters. you talk about tribalism,

authority, and inequality. explain how much in your view of the research is innate and how much develops? we know humans and primates have a sense of fairness in studies. how much that comes from the innate place versus what they learn from being in society? >> as i mentioned, 40 to 60% of this variation in our political attitudes comes from genetic differences. as you pointed out, throughout the book i show how there are similar behavior in nonhuman primates and how this relates to our evolution nar history as a species. >> avi, one thing that's interesting and incredibly frustrating to observe in american politics, we've had this asymmetry in terms of dysfunction in washington. you have the extreme right represented through the tea

party but we also had a pretty far left movement in reaction to the economic collapse occupy wall street. they don't have any political representation. is there sort sort of evolution nar explanation for why the far right got involved in politics and the far left stayed outside of it? >> that is a very interesting question, krystal, from country to country the political spectrum has an essential underlying structure that remains the same and you can see this is true when you think of certain controversial issues like gay marriage, for example. invariably polarize spectrums everyone in the same way. despite these commonalties political spectrums are flexible in a number of ways. for one example, when people are exposed to economic stress, political spectrums have a tendency to expand. they do so in both directions. and people polarize in function

of their predispositions. so if people are a little bit leaning to the left, they'll go further. in the fallout of the 2008 global financial crisis here, and the far left we saw the emergence here in the united states of the occupy wall street movement, and at the same time, to the far right of the conventional republican party, we saw the tea party movement come about. now as you mentioned there is an asymmetry. the tea party movement was able to elect legislators to our lower house of congress and this is one of factors that's contributed to the extreme political polarization that we're dealing with right now. this could be just a historic historical -- or it's possible that there are different personality traits that are common on both of these

extremes. in particular, different attitudes towards authority could play into this. i think you've noticed it there was a strain of an arcism that ran through the tea party -- >> so they would be sort of opposed to getting involved in government because of that leaning. >> it's interesting. it seems like we're ignoring the fact that there is a broad middle that exists today in a recent survey, the nbc esquire survey, the argument we hear there is no middle ground between left and right. that's actually wrong. and in fact, i think it says, 51% of the ee lector at falls in the middle but i often feel alone. tour'e tells me i'm on a island that no one is in the middle of. do you think there is around 51 that find themselves in the middle? if that's the case, where the heck are these people and why do we find smaller groups on the

far ends with the narrative. >> how wrong is tour'e? >> tour'e is 100% correct. >> thank you, sir, you're coming back. >> i'm all alone, i guess. >> you're not alone. political spectrums form a natural bell shaped curve means most are in the middle. there's a whole other spectrum that runs through public opinion in addition to left/right attitudes, a spectrum of political co-herance, when you look at political elites and people with greater levels of interest or education, they tend to have more stable, more coherent political altitudes over time. >> it sounds like i'm better educated than tour'e? >> hopefully obama care with help me with that. up next, how to successful ask for and get what you want. i can think of some folks who can use that advice right now.

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come to my attention you want to be paid for this political playground thing you do for the web. >> yes, i do. >> why should i pay you to do that when any kid would love to be on tv? >> because the web is part of nbc's key to the strategy.

>> last week my daughter ella told me she wanted to start getting paid for doing our little political playground segment. i told her she would have to negotiate a contract with the executive producer and she marched in there and worked out a contract and asked for what she wanted, a 5-year-old was able to do something that a lot of adults, myself included and a lot of women i think often have trouble doing, which is asking for more money. our next guest has advice on how we can all be a little more like ella. kate white, the former editor in chief for kos month poll tan and author of "i shouldn't be telling you this." how to create the career that you deserve and it's out in paperback now. you say one of the top rules is to go big or go home. do women particularly have trouble asking for what they want in negotiation? >> they really do. studies show men are much better at it. i talked to a woman who runs a wall street firm last week and

said, all through her career, no woman has ever negotiated for more money from the entry level -- the starting salary that she was offered compared . and salary for job, you say, gosh, i'm thrilled to be off with a job, i love the idea of working here. i want to work for you and i have a lot i can bring. but i was hoping for this amount. they are almost always low-balling you because that's what they are trying to do so always negotiate for more. i think that's just critical. >> and you write that that works. and i think people get that. but what do you say to people who are afraid about the chance that it doesn't work? they ask, and they're told no.

>> well, first of all, i think a lot of women are afraid that offer is going to be yanked away. and that's not going to happen. sometimes people are a little irritated. i know as a boss, i was, when someone negotiated for more, but you get over it. so the important thing is to realize, nothing bad is going to happen if you do ask. and you just have to open it up. and now if they tell you no, if they say, look, this is the best we can offer, we're really giving you our best offer, then i think if there is still room to negotiate for some things. maybe you get an extra week's vacation for the ability to work at home one day or perks. because there are plenty of those. but if you don't ask, you may not know they'll give you tuition reimbursement or a management training course. so you really have to do the asking. >> well, and you mentioned using what you call bitch envy for women to your advantage. and when i think of that term, here is crystal and i trying to seize each other up as women -- luckily, we get along wonderfully and don't deal with that in the office. but tell us what you mean by

this and how you can do that sort of thing without coming across rude. >> well, with that i really mean sometimes we get so annoyed with a co-worker, we'll think she is such a bitch, always brown-nosing the boss or she's tooting her own horn too much. but really i think what's going on is deep down we realize we should be doing more of what they're doing. so it's envy at work. >> really the opposite of the envious. >> i think maybe there is still a sense where women feel like there is a limited number of spots for them in the organization. >> right. and i think you have to accept the fact that the pie is bigger, be supportive of your colleagues but also put yourself out there, raise your hand for opportunities. don't be so worried about what other people think. >> absolutely. >> guys don't worry about that, do they? >> especially ari. >> kate white, thank you so much for the advice. and make sure, folks, that ella keeps getting paid, because someone has to put food on the table, after all, but going over

to facebook. up next, this year's lincoln. remember how that worked out. said with love. ♪ we can get together be fearless! [ female announcer ] volume without fear of clumps. covergirl clump crusher. big green brush, curved to crush. 200% more volume. zero clumps. clump crusher from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl.

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one of the best movies of the year is also one of the most horrifying, unsettling, and unrelenting. "12 years of slave" tells the true story of a free black man in 1841 new york, a violinist, father, drug chained and sold into slavery, launching his 12 years in hell. it's crucial to the story that he's not born a slave, but

captured, which makes him seem out of place and yet he's forced to pretend to be less than he actually is in order to save his life. >> tell me again. >> washington. >> who is your master? >> freeman. >> was he a learned man? >> i suppose so. >> i learn you to read? >> a word here or there. but i no understanding of the written text. >> don't trouble yourself with it. same as the rest, master brought you here to work. that's all. anymore will earn you 100 lashes. >> the full horror of slavery as we move through his time on various plantations amid slaves who want to kill themselves and others who have accepted their place in hell. he sees lynchings and whippings and so much cotton picking i was reminded why i would rather die of a headache than pick a speck of cotton out of a bottle. we see all sorts oh of coping mechanisms as well as the mind-set of the white man around

him from the cruel overseer to another who admits the damage slavery is doing to him. no man of conscience can take another lash day in and day out without shredding his own self. we see the white women perpetuating this and northrop's unending grit, determination to hold on to his humanity. >> you tell me all is lost. i don't know who i am. that's the way to survive? well, i don't want to survive. i want to live. >> solomon's fish out of water predicament cast the slave as an every man and highlights the powerlessness of any black person in those days, and calls up the duboisian double consciousness, the sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, measuring one's soul through the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

dubois saying we know who we are and we know how the world views us and how those things are in violent contradiction and our sanity is incumbent on recognizing the two. solomon is in a world that views him as a slave and calls him a different name while he knows he's not but he's likely to get killed so he must be quiet and hide his intelligence. so he's forced to reconcile the way the world sees him and how he sees himself which is central to being a black-american. this film is bleak and sever i couldn't say and somber. this puts you in the point of view of a slave who should not be a slave, but, of course, none of them should have been slaves. this, i dare say, is slavery's schindler's list and as that film gained power from being a true story, so does this one. this film, directed by the phenomenal, steve mcqueen, michael fast bender, michael women yams from "the wire" and brad pitt, this film could win the oscar