>>ade to black. you know what i love about the scene? it was your best dialogue writing. >> ha-ha. ha-ha. >> our beloved john spencer. and martin sheen. directed. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes and it's been an insane day in washington. just 48 hours before the country will reach it's debt ceiling, an uncertain future for how exactly this country will prevent a

first of its kind default. a deal offered by speaker john boehner to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling, one that was supposed to be voted on by the house tonight as i speak to you. that deal has now been nixed. republican leadership in the house appear to have no idea what to do next and there is no good reason to believe anyone knows what will happen next. the house measure that was to have been voted on would have funded the government through december 15, extended the debt limit to february 7 and ended employer contributions to health insurance for members of congress and its staff, the white house and its staff as well as cabinet members. in this case government contributions since the government is the employer. as that made its way to the house rules committee, heritage activists urged them to vote no. and shortly after a vote was

killed. just 24 hours after we thought we had a deal coming from the senate. >> here is another layer of gamesmanship to the drama playing out in washington. senator ted cruz in texas convened in a secret meeting last knight. cruz summoned 15 to 20 house republicans to the basement of this mexican restaurant. >> they were reportedly discussing how to respond to a potential budget deal in the senate. >> the 15 for 20 minutes are certainly members who don't look like they will support any measure like this. >> senator ted cruz gathered his deputies where monday night is enchilada night. >> i hope this is known as the tortilla coast accords. >> the secret talks centered on how to present an agreement

that's palatable to the senate. republican congressman tim holtz camp who was with ted cruz for enchilada night. said anybody who would vote for that would garantee --landestine meeting in the basement of for tiera coast, met to see what house speaker john boehner had planned. >> we know the morning meeting began with funeral parlor owner turned congressman steve sutherland of florida led his fellow republicans in singing "amazing grace. the vitter amendment which

amounts to a salary cut for lawmakers and their much less well compensated staff. he clarified there was in fact no plan. two days before a possible unprecedented default and the speaker has no idea what he's doing. democrats who fashioned the compromise were furious. >> as nancy pelosi pointed out, the speaker didn't even have the votes. >> they don't have the votes for what they have today. they have their own internal combustion. >> what looked yesterday like a solution today has been sabotaged by the house. and on top of that politico reporting that house leadership is still considering sending lawmakers home after a vote tonight. a bid to try to force the senate to accept the house's bill.

one senate republican aid placed the blame on a particular senator from texas ted cruz and his tortilla coast republicans are leading us to a default. susan collins to try to come up with a plan. meanwhile senator reid and senator mcconnell had reengaged in negotiations and are optimistic an agreement is within reach, according to reid's spokesman. senator, what is the state of play as far as you understand it. what communications must be given to senators about what's going to happen in the next 48 hours? >> you couldn't make this up. this has just gone from bizarre to ultrabizarre. you hear of that singing of "amazing grace" in the republican caucus, it sounds like something you do before you

all sit around and drink kool-aid. this has presented the senate to essentially try to be the adults who finish this deal off. reid and mcconnell are back talking today about essentially a straight forward reauthorization of continuing -- i guess that's as good as we are going to get. ultimately, though, it's going to depend once it passes the senate, which i think it will on john boehner making a choice between protecting himself and protecting the world economy. it's pretty clear now there's just no way, chris, that the house republicans can deliver votes for anything. this is ultimately going to have to be house democrats and a handful of moderates. >> i just want to make sure that people are tracking this. because there's been a lot of twists and turns. basically the house tried to come up with its own version today of some kind of face saving measure which in the end it was whittled down to one demand which was to screw over their staff, which was to make their staff pay more out of pocket for health insurance.

hundreds of thousands of people furloughed, all of the cascading misery from cancer trials to people on wic, to people on food stamps, all of that so they could give their staff a pay cut. now there is no demand and all there is is what you cook up in the senate and then what? >> well, that's the question. i mean, listen, we have never been arguing over whether there's a solution to this crisis that has the majority of votes in the senate and the majority of votes in the house. we have always known that a straight forward cr and likely a straight forward increase of the debt limit would get the majority votes in both places. we have always just been arguing over whether john boehner is willing to bring that to a vote in the house. this is about the psychology of one man and whether he is willing to put at risk his speakership by cobbling together a deal that will get the votes of democrats and a handful of republicans. and ultimately he's going to

have to make a decision tomorrow, he's going to have to make a decision as to whether he's going to abandon the tea party or whether he's going to collapse the global economy. we are going to be able to get a deal in the senate. >> if ted cruz and mike toomey for instance want to throw up road blocks, we're dealing on a short calendar here, we don't have much time and things do not move quickly in the senate. can they grind the process out? can they slow you down? can they filibuster, for instance? >> that's a great question. we are at a point in the process where we need unanimous consent to the process. we need all 100 senators to agree to an expedited time frame. if we start a bill being presented on the floor -- ted cruz and mike lee have to make a decision like speaker boehner has to make that they're finally going to put their ideology back in their suitcase and allow a vote to happen. i think ted cruz stopped the process of moving forward in an expeditious manner and dealt

with the consequences to the economy, that likely would be taking it even too far for him. >> we will find out tomorrow in the next chapter of this bizarre and terrifying unfolding drama. senator chris murphy. thank you so much. joining us now senator john tester, democrat from montana and senator one of the things i have seen play out in these two weeks is that there was a strategic assumption on the part of republicans that if they could hold the line, they would force democrats in the house and more likely in the senate from red states, from states that mitt romney won to come over to their side, to look to compromise, to look to do things to obama care, to delay it, to muck with it in certain ways. that didn't happen, you're one of those people, you're a

democrat that represents one of the states that mitt romney won, what are your thoughts? >> i just came through a very difficult race in 2012 and i can tell you that obama care was not the biggest issue in that race by any stretch of the imagination. so i'm not sure that they went out and assessed the landscape as careful as they should have. secondly, i think what we have seen particularly today is just a continuation of a totally dysfunctional house, that's being led by some hard right wing folks that really don't care about the economy of this country. in fact would sell the economy out if it meant political gain for them. and i think that's very unfortunate, very irresponsible and i think this kind of political grand standing has to stop, the speaker needs to show some leadership qualities. we need to get the debt limit increased, we need to get the government running again and move this ship down the road so

we can start paying our bills with an economy that's vibrant, not one that's being depressed. >> how has this been playing in montana? >> it hasn't been playing well, i'll tell you that. the republicans in the house have gotten beat up pretty bad by the actions that they have taken over the last three weeks. and quite frankly, rightfully so. so it hasn't been playing well at all. people are sick of the political gamesmanship. >> if the house had passed this bill tonight which collapsed which had this one demand, this vitter amendment this idea that you wouldn't let the federal government pay any employee contribution for members of the house or their staff, would you have voted that down in the senate? >> there's no way i'm going to vote for that. the bottom line is that the person that's answering phones in my office that's making $30,000 a year needs that benefit or they would be in trouble. all those folks over there in the house of representatives who don't want to have that benefit, giving that benefit up when this debate's over with.

>> they don't have to vote on it, i'm sure they could just refuse that as part of your compensation? >> if they don't want it, they can refuse it and if that's what they feel needs to be done, they can do that. and in the meantime, hopefully the senate can get together as adults to move this economy forward because it's obvious that the house's main goal through this whole process was to sink the economy. joining me now congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz, a wakeup call to solving our nation's problems, which is a strange title on a day like today. okay, what happens -- first of all, were you amazed by what happened in the house? i mean john boehner, the speaker cannot get 218 votes for anything. he cannot cobble together 218 votes for anything. if i -- it's a wonder the man is even speaker. >> well, you know, what is clear now and there was -- i was

reserving judgment up until this point. when they pulled the rules committee down tonight and then sent out a notice that we're not going to have votes tonight at all, it's very clear that the hardcore tea party republicans that are controlling and have a strangle hold on john boehner and their agenda don't have a firm grasp of reality. they have become unhinged. and i don't say that lightly, chris. i mean -- >> what do you mean by that? because i feel like people use that term all the time in politics and i'm always wary of it. it's a way of saying that the people don't believe like us are crazy. >> i'm not saying they're crazy, i'm saying they're ignorant. they don't have a firm grasp on reality. like the climate deniers that insist that the -- that the temperatures are not warming, we have a hardcore republicans who insist that we are -- that

default doesn't matter, and that, you know, it's not going to affect the economy very much and in fact one colleague of mine from florida ted yoho actually said that default would bring stability to the markets. so that's the mentality that we're dealing with here. so i'm glad at least that we have an opportunity to restart these negotiations in the senate, republicans and democrats coming together. and hopefully, they can send us something as quickly as possible -- >> that doesn't change -- this is the pressure gamut. the pressure gambit has been used to pass sandy aid and what it requires is violating the house rule, just bringing something to a vote. john boehner could have done that with a continuing resolution that passed the senate that started the whole shutdown. >> i agree with chris murphy, unfortunately, john boehner consistently has shown that he cares more about holding on to

his power than he does about making sure that we don't jeopardize our economy. we're getting perilously close. put us on a watch list now for a downgrade of our credit rating. we're getting perilously close to default. and that we know is going to have a massive impact on our economy. and it jeopardizes our future. it's going to be very hard if it happens for us to recover from quickly. it doesn't have to be this way. >> the bill that comes out of the senate is essentially -- it ends the government shutdown, it lifts the debt ceiling there,'s a few minor things around the edges about obama care, but not very much. that goes to the house. what happens? does john boehner bring that up? and if he does bring it up, do democrats vote for that and does it pass? >> we have got to see what the final deal looks like, but essentially we're expecting something that we can vote for that comes from the senate that is a john boehner product. and john boehner has to decide

whether or not he wants to let the full house vote and try to pass it with 218 votes of the whole house or whether he wants to cling to his speakership and insist on it being 217 votes from his members, driven by tea party extremists who think -- who have literally separated themselves from reality. >> people should beware of the math here. if john boehner wants to pass something with just republican votes, he's only about 18 votes he can lose, and there's 80 people that signed the letter to defund obama care. so if nancy pelosi says i'm not giving you any democratic votes and john boehner only has to pass it with republicans, he basically has to bring it to the floor and get democrats to bail him out. >> he can't do it without us. but that's best for the country. the best thing for this country to get us to continue to move forward and kick our recovery into even higher gear is for us to pass a bill that reopens the

government, allows to us pay our bills and do that in a bipartisan way. >> yes, the recovery would be aided by the embodied politics of america stopping stabbing itself. congresswoman debbie wasserman suls, thank you very much. >> we hear all the time about global warming, but actually we have had a flat line of warming for the last eight years. the idea of human induced global climate change is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community, it is a hoax, there is no scientific consensus. >> that was republican paul brown of georgia. to be the next person we profiled in our latest installment of these are the people that are running the country. that's ahead.

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tonight right after the show at 9:00 p.m. eastern, i will be

taking over the twitter account for 30 minutes. if you haven't already go ahead and follow us with all in @twitter. it was actually a lot of fun. join me at 9:00 p.m. eastern at all in. ♪ [ male announcer ] no success is overnight. ♪ it's about working harder... ♪ and smarter. ♪ it's the culmination of a million decisions... it's where you see yourself going... and how you choose to get there. the 2013 gs. our boldest response ever. there's no going back. ♪

we don't have time for stuff like laundry. we're too busy having fun. we get everything perfectly clean by tossing one of these in the wash. and that's it. i wanted to do that. oh, come on. eh, that's my favorite part. really? that's our tide. what's yours? lord, deliver us from governing by crisis. empowering us to be responsible stewards of your bounty. using judicious compromise for the mutual progress of all. >> amidst the current chaos and political dysfunction, we're all holding out hope that somebody will deliver us from catastrophe, we won't blow through the debt ceiling and

we -- have us all roaming the streets like zombies. as we pray or hope from deliverance from other utter disaster, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that a tremendous amount of damage has already been done. it's government in its lurch from crisis to crisis once more has inflicted pain on ordinary people that will endure long after this particular crisis is over. the nation is losing $160 million per day. 800,000 people were put on furlough. national parks and monuments were closed, food safety and nuclear inspections have been suspended and the shutdown could cost the u.s. economy 1/5 of its growth. the uncertainty of this fight comes at a real cost. remember the last time we did this in 2011, it led to the first downgrade to the u.s.

government credit rating, the stock market plunged and it's happening again. just today, fitch signaled it may downgrade our credit rating over the debt ceiling impasse. according to one study our propensity for crisis has cost the nation 900,000 jobs. we cannot afford to throw away almost a million jobs, wages are stagnant and the recovery is still five years later not working for working people. and yet our government is making things worse. we are already in default in a very crucial way. default is when you break a promise to pay people what you owe them. and america promised federal employees to pay them for their work and we are not doing that. we promise to meet the reliable corner stone of the america financial system and we are are failing at that.

we promised the citizens that we could keep the doors open and we're not doing that. economic growth increases the tax base and reduces the deficit which is what the republican party says it wants from all this, and yet the gop continues to manufacture crises that hurt growth in undeniable and measurable ways. it makes you wonder what they're actually trying to accomplish. joining me now is leslie o'leary, even if we are bailed out, let's take the best-case scenario, john boehner falls on his sword, this thing was for no reason, for naught. this could have been done three week ago. >> you kind of laid it out there and the headline numbers sound really wonky, but they should scare you. and they should scare anyone that you had very black talking about governing in crisis, this idea of lurching from crisis to crisis, so this economic firm,

macroeconomic advisers, they're highly respected, you nailed it 900,000 jobs lost and we think about the unemployment rate of 7.3%. it would be 6.7% if this wasn't going on. >> and that's not a small thing, that's three months of job growth. >> quite spectacular job growth compared to what we have seen. 6.7 unemployment is not good, but it's better than where we have been in a really long time. >> we are impacting growth and one of the things that we have seen in this recovery is growth that is not what we would want it to be, particularly in a period of recovery, generally the rule has been the deeper the trough, the sharper the spike up out of it. kind of the rocket out of it when you hit recovery and we have not seen that. >> we have not seen that, economists coming back and forth

between a v-shaped recovery, versus a u-shaped recovery. they ran a bunch of scenarios and figured out that it would essentially average out to taking about 1 percentage point off of u.s. growth over that three-year period of time. that can sound really nerdy, but when you think about how our economy is growing, it's only growing at about 2.1% since 2009, so this is a big deal. that's a really big deal. >> third of growth. >> it's actually 12%. >> it compounds, right? >> yes, it compounds and it can sound very confusing, but it makes a very, very big difference on a macroeconomic level and it makes a very big difference if you're trying to get a job. >> you were saying today you were actually, i have been following your feed, and you were saying today i'm actually starting to get worried that we're going to blow through the debt ceiling.

why? >> i'm worried for a couple of reasons. i am worried because i follow financial markets, i talk to people on wall street and there is a very large disconnect between wall street and washington. and traders that i have talked to in the financial services industry have broke it down in a -- we don't think they would be so dumb, that would be insane, they can't really let that happen. they were also saying that about the shutdown. >> right. >> reaching the debt celling is a much, much bigger deal. >> right. >> the other thing that's going on here, and that concerns me more is not so much the equity markets. the stock market is what people watch, it's the noisy, clangy headline. but it's the debt market. so fidelity where lots and lots of people have their retirement accounts, it's the big u.s. money market manager. they have been started getting rid of short-term government

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tonight in your special segment, these are the people who run the country. we'll introduce you to a congressman from georgia who says he didn't know if president obama is a citizen for a christian. he did know that president obama

is a socialist. first i want to show you the three awesomest things on the internet. we begin tonight in boston, not slugger david ortiz whose game-time tying grand slam against the detroit tigers is already stuff of red sox legend. the real icon emerging in the wake of outfielder torii hunter's unbelievable attempt to catch the ball is a celebrated bullpen cop. also known as the physical manifestation of what all the red sox were feeling. steve corrigan began seems to fit any situation, whether it be novelty music situations and now people are posing.

here's all an executive producer dennis who corriganing in his office. if you remember where you've seen elizabeth berkeley before and you want to pretend that you have never seen show girls, you might recognize her as the person who's responsible for the world's most famous caffeine pill addiction. >> i'm so excited. i'm so excited. i'm so scared. >> an impressive bout of self mockery, berkeley restorected the old jar of pep pills for her routine. >> they're jive pills. i need them to jive. i'm so excited. i'm so excited. >> that's like we're were all saved by that bell. kudos to berkley for being a great sport.

and speaking of passes, here's the third awesomest thing on the internet today, if you have ever been threatened by a giant fire monster. >> unfortunately this only works as a fantasy. try his hand at amateur wizardry in central park. >> you shall not pass. don't pass. i'm the guardian of the sacred flame. you shall not pass. all right, he can pass. >> you shall not pass. come on, stop passing. stop. not only are you passing, but you're doing it exceptionally slowly. >> real life gandolf shouldn't

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america is going to be destroyed, you say, by obama care? america, this united states of america is going to be destroyed if this law is fully implemented? is that what i hear you say? >> it's going to destroy our economy and it's going to push us into a total economic collapse of america and that's exactly what i mean by it's going to destroy america. >> raising the specter of obama care turning america into some kind of waist land. these are the people running the country, and we take a very close look at the small number

of men and women who shut down the government. to think the democratic party couldn't find a single person to run against him in last year's election. >> congressman paul brown won a special election in 2007. he won re-election in 2008, 2010 and again in november. now he wants to be georgia's next senator. his credentials? he's a doctor, he was a lobbyist for the safari club international, a group that advocates for hunters and he brags about being the first member of congress to call the president a socialist. he sits on the house science and space committee. he told the audience his take on the history of the human race. >> i have come to understood that all that stuff i was taught about evolution and embryology is lies straight from the pit of held.

i believe the earth is only about 9,000 years old. i believe it was created in six days as we know it. that's what the bible says. >> with statements like that from a man who went to med school, there's no wonder that when brown was re-elected last fall, charles darwin received almost 4,000 write-in votes. brown was on the house floor in 2010, drawing some interesting historical analogies. >> if obama care passing, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is going to be as worthless as the confederate dollar after the war between the states. the great war of yankee aggression. >> of course there's no such thing as a free insurance card. and as for that last part -- >> as worthless as the confederate dollar after the war between the states, the great war of yankee aggression. >> that's more commonly referred

to as the civil war. calling it the great war of yankee aggression on the floor of the house is not that different from waving a confederate flag outside the white house. in a letter circulated this summer demanding that john boehner used a threat of a government shutdown in support a bill to defund obama care, signed on the dotted line, and that's how congressman paul brown, georgia's tenth district became one of the people who is running the country. >> on week three of the government shutdown, are you feeling frustrated and confused, exasperated and wondering what was this all for again? we got a peek today of what will give you clarity and make you insane. that's next.

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and now 15 day government shutdown, the risk of default is all for what, exactly? the republican ransom note went from defunding obama care to something of counter intuitive demands. today briefly, the house republican leadership showed their hand.

they floated the idea of a new ransom. a pay cut for congressional staff. we mentioned this at the top. this has been an ongoing obsession of the gop since the shutdown of the government. this is the vitter amendment that would disallow government staff to contribute anything to their health care. this would essentially be a pay cut. they would now have to pay out of pocket for insurance their employer, aka the government, had previously been providing. the same way that millions of americans are receiving employer funded health care. and a giving up -- raise revenue for the bill from a variety of sectors of the health care market who are going to benefit from 30 million new people joining the insurance pool. and one of them was the medical device industry which is now going to have a lot more customers. in exchange for these new customers, the law imposes 2.3% tax in the medical devices they sell, raises $30 billion over the next ten years.

the medical device companies oh, boy do they hate this. the lobbying was $55 million from just december of 2011, do december of 2012. the industry has been speaking out of both sides of its mouth telling washington this tax is going to kill us, while telling investors that the affordable health care act is great for us because they're bringing millions more people into this health care market. these people are going to use goods and services. we're going to give you $10 more in businesses and take $1 in taxes. it's nothing but political pandering. number three, this might be my favorite, income verification by the irs. this was one of the republican proposals floated this morning. and it would mean anyone who wants to purchase health insurance on the exchanges and apply for a subsidy they're qualified for the government. would first have to go through a verification process by the irs. right now the way income verified is through spot checking. the threat of an audit hopefully keeps you honest.

instead of that, every single person to go through this onerous process of income verification through the irs empowering an entity that conservatives have just spent the last nine months calling an arm of tirrany. >> the constitution is designed to constrain the government. >> the tea party is alive and well and we're going to write the obituary for big government. >> and now with the implementation of obama care in hand and knowing that this is the irs, the internal revenue service that will be the enforcing mechanism for this new entitlement program of obama care. >> first of all the best thing to do with the irs is to abolish it and send all of our irs agents into the board room. >> it's an acknowledgement of too much power of the federal government, when the federal government has too much power in our individual lives it's an invitation to being abused.

>> no one will escape this boney, death like grip of the irs. >> anybody want to fire some irs agents? >> why don't we start with the 16,000 irs agents that are going to implement obama care? >> i think we ought to abolish the irs and instead move to a simple flat tax. >> that's the political party this morning was floating the idea of increasing the intrusiveness of the irs into people's income. now we know the ransom note was paired back even further. all of this pain and misery and cost and drama, the whole thing just so we can get a health pay cut for our staffs. joining me now is former senator blanch lincoln, former governor of arkansas, is the principal of lincoln policies saying that lobbyists on behalf of and the just launched no more about washingtonpost.com.

tim carney, i will begin with a little bit of rare praise for the tea party caucus in the house of representatives who i have been beating up on throughout the shutdown, which i find -- however, john boehner wanted this medical device tax repeal and the house conservative caucus balked at it and i think they balked at it in part because you have been railing against it in your columns as essentially a giveaway. i want to hear in you, what the dynamics were from that, i want to hear from you former senator lincoln, right after you thought it went down right after this break. the son picks up the chec? [thinking] i'm still working. he's retired. i hope he's saving. i hope he saved enough. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us.

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we're back, still with me former senator blanch lincoln, tim carney, ezra klein.

you and the tea party killed the medical tax bill, explain? >> i thought you pointed out that the medical device industry were lobbying for and benefiting from obama care while became care claimed to be battling the special interests. to get the democrats to sub size you and then you get the republicans to kill your tax hikes. the democrats say the tax is bad, but we're sick of just doing what k street tells us. so the conservatives within the republican caucus killed that. >> this morning i will note that it wasn't exactly so clear cut the medical device industry were lobbying for affordable care act. they were lobbying for the act and against the act at the same time. it was a hedge all the way around. blanch, what was your take on this whole thing in terms of the way the medical device tax issue was floated in as a solution and then snatched away, did that surprise you? >> no, nothing surprises us right now. i mean there's no adults in the

room. but first of all, it's great to be with you three gentlemen. but where the device tax comes , i mean, there was a compromise to be had there. even the white house. but compromise is a bad word. people here, particularly people that hate government, don't want to come out with a solution. you know? they're hating government. >> the compromise, the thing i found so striking about this is that we were having this grand ideological fight that was basically going to have nothing to do with anything that american people actually care about, which is the medical device tax, whether it's good or bad policy, no one in this country is in the streets about the medical device tax except people in the medical device industry. >> shutting down the government and defaulting on our debt basically throwing our credit rating down the tubes does nothing for creating jobs or growing the economy which is where we need to be focused. and these people need to be focused on that.

we still have somewhat of a fragile economy and we have to get about the business of putting it back on track and this does nothing. >> ezra, were you surprised about the end of the medical device tax repeal? >> as you said, tim and others are doing a good job of mobilizing against it. the people aren't getting anything. this began as a sort of anti-obama care attack. and the fundamental problem, the reason this has always been so hard to solve is that at this point you're seeing a war that's not really over policy anymore. it's over kind of negotiating principle of whether or not you can extort concessions in order to keep the government and go to the debt ceiling. it's part of the reason this thing wasn't going to go anywhere anyway. is that senate democrats weren't going to help. house democratwere going to oppose so they couldn't go to

them for votes. the one thing i will say when they do eventually get through this and go to a budget conference, i will be surprised if the medical device tax survives. it was more killed because people didn't want to give up the principal of not negotiating here. >> that's right. >> and that point applies on both sides. republicans want to make sure that they leave with something so it's not a shutdown about nothing. obama's trying to break the tea party and trying to break boehner. the issue is about more trying to smash the republican party than about substantive objectives to what was in these deals. >> it's not trying to smash the republican party. obama would like to deal with compromise that would make them more popular in a lot of ways, it was trying to smash a lot of the tactics, they had begun pioneering or really using aggressively in recent years which were these hostage

showdowns to get policy concessions. if they were not doing this they would be in much better shape and nobody would be accusing them of trying to break them. >> would you put this this historical perspective as to when you were serving. there's debate about the unprecedented nature of this. we have had shutdowns before, do you see this as unprecedented? >> it's certainly a culmination of where we have been going. ezra's absolutely right, it has become winning the battle and losing the war. all they care about is the immediate battle and if it doesn't bring them the kind of glorification they want, it just goes overboard. i went through the '95 shutdown, but people realize particularly the republicans what kind of damage it was doing to them as well as to the process and that

it was backfiring because clinton was actually getting much more of the win aspect of things than they were. >> tim, if it comes down tomorrow, it's looking like the senate is going to craft something and pass it, that's going to be a largely clean continuing resolution. if it comes over and passes the house, and what the heck do conservatives go and tell their people about -- what do they tell the american people? forget their base, what do they tell the american people this whole thing was for? >> i think the idea is that right now the house republicans are hoping they can get a debt limit hike but not a cr so they can get the government going. if the shutdown ends, they have to go home and say, we tried what we could but we couldn't beat reid and obama. so the real question is are there going to be primaries, is there going to be a coup of boehner?