in the senate and accomplish things that need to be done for our country. >> this has been a long, challenging few weeks for congress and for the country. it's my hope today we can put those most urgent issues behind us. the majority and i began a series of conversations about a way to get the government reopened and to prevent default. i'm confident we'll be able to do both of those things later today. >> now, what is later today mean? a final vote is actually expected this evening. and that's because in a surprise to some, ted cruz has announced he will not delay with another self-indulgent talk athon. it is expected to pass with supports from democrats. a deal happening right now with their rank in file members. the markets are reacting positively at this hour, even though at the same time our aaa rating has been put on notice. more on that in a minute.

here what the white house is saying. >> the president applaud leader reid and lead aer mcconnell and encourages congress to act swiftly. we are not putting odds on anything. we're simply applauding the leaders of senate for reaching the agreement that they've reached. >> luke russert is on capitol hill and kristen welker is outside the white house. i want to get right to you looking at last night's memo that set the stage for everything happening today. what you can see there is a note from the leader, basically say, important, if your boss has any concerns and plans to vote no, it's imperative that you let us know and contact the whip office. that's an unusual way to start organizing votes because it sounds defensive. explain that to us. >> reporter: well, ari, the problem is too many people called the office and said they

were going to be no quite easy. what you saw from the e-mail from your hill experience, that is showing a sign of weakness off the bat, saying, look, we do not know if we can get to the magical number of 218, because there's so much warring factions between the house gop conference. that ultimately sunk the house's ability to have any say in what this bipartisan deal would be eventually. that is something that's caused house speaker john boehner a plethora of problems in terms of saying he is? charge, where is the leadership et cetera. thomas massey, of kentucky, tweeted that he thinks the next fight over government funding the house republican conference lost leverage because they are not able to agree to anything that gets to 218. what's interesting about that yesterday, a lot of people think it was conservatives opposed to it and there were a lot of members who hated the idea of the member of their staffs losing important benefits for

health care. as opposed to where we go today, the senate should be wrapping up their business around dinner time, 8:00, 9:00 and it goes to the house of representatives, they want to vote on this tonight and sign and sealed and delivered on pennsylvania avenue. and they will actually go into reses at the conclusion meaning a lot of these guys will peace out and thank you for opening the government back up and red state areas will hear, why didn't you fight fighting the obama care fight in honor of ted cruz. let's be honest, the panda camera could be up and running tomorrow. does that make you smile? >> you put it in perspective and made me feel softy gooey inside. if the white house had a plan b, politico answered that question this morning. what is the mood there now that we're seeing some incremental

progress? >> well, ari, i can tell you there are some smiles here at the white house. the best way to describe the mood behind the scenes is measured optimism. you heard jay carney applaud this deal but he wouldn't take odds on whether or not it would pass, instead he called for quick passage in both chambers. one white house official tells me, like, they like this deal because it adheres to the principles that president obama wanted, reopening the government and increasing the debt limit and of course republicans really backtracked on their initial calls to do any major harm to obama care. the white house thinks that this is a good deal. but carney wouldn't go so far as to call it a win. there are no winners here. that is because you have hundreds and thousands of government workers furloughed. there has been a hit to the economy already. president obama, we haven't seen him in a couple of days, that is in part by design. he wanted to let this political

process play itself out and wanted pressure on republicans to build up. also, wanted to give house speaker john boehner some cover so he could sort of work with his own conference. political calculation at play there. so the white house sort of watching this all unfold. before everyone starts celebrating, i would remind you, this deal, if it does pass, is only for a couple of months. while groundhog day might be over right now, might be coming to an end, we might be right back where we started in a few months after the holidays having similar discussions. >> that is such an important point. we're going to go now to manu raju at politico. you've been all over these standoffs from early in the super committee sequester fight. on the one hand if the deal goes through as expected and we see a pull back from the concern in the markets and default,

important step. on the other, my question to you, why after all of this are we talking about a temporary three-month expiring piecemeal deal? >> reporter: that's the best they could do. one of the things that mitch mcconnell has been selling to his guys, we can fight this again come february 7th over the debt ceiling. that is the only way to get enough republicans on board. they were not going to go for a full year debt ceiling increase the way that the president and the senate democrats have been seeking. another thing that the republicans say that they could point to is a creation of this budget conference committee. try to hammer out a large scale budget agreement by december 13th. and as you know that type of agreement has been elusive on capitol hill for so many years. there's not much real reason for optimism at this point, that they can actually resolve those issues over revenues and

entitlements. if they don't get a deal on that, all it will do is em bolden the next fight which will be january 15th, over whether to keep the government open beyond that next day. >> quite a sad reality when the pons is this is the best we can do. we have been talking about the new normal, have turned into crs that we see now happening every few months. we should have our count down all the time because we'll be around the bend quickly. what is scary beyond us avoiding our goals of immigration and aging infrastructure is the meaningful impact this will have on our economic growth. compounded over time, manu, this is a normal we should never get used to. >> yeah, you've seen investors and markets being spooked about the default. even yesterday afternoon, senators leaving lunches were saying to me, i don't see how we get out of this mess.

it looks like we're going to default. these are -- this is the concern that's happening on capitol hill that has not been -- this whole budget process has essentially collapsed. they are sort of lurching from crisis to crisis. there's no possibility of dealing with some of the more significant issues before congress if they can't resolve some of these fiscal issues in the longer term. what that means for things like immigration, other very, very difficult issues, they could potentially torpedo those chances fw they are constantly trying to deal with these fiscal issues that come up month after month. yeah, even though it's a fix and reopens the government and averts default, it's giving people no real encouragement that other major policy measures could be accomplished up here. >> manu, ever see apocalypse now? >> no, it's apro pro bought

people talking about house republicans who are going crazy, who are acting like colonel curtz in apocalypse now. >> i don't see any method at all. >> is there any method to their madness is martin sheen asks there? >> i mean, the ted cruzes of the world will say this is a successful effort and that its focused attention on obama care and gotten the fight back over obama care. but most republicans that you talk to today say, look, it just wasn't worth it. we did not win this battle. we lost this battle. we should have made this fight over cutting spending, cutting

entitlements and changing the debad debate over spending. instead is got confused over obama care and does nothing to change obama care and all is done for republicans is led to what's been a politically disastrous episode for their party that even most of their members readily acknowledge. >> as we're coming down to the end game here, i think this is pretty clear that all of machinations was so that john boehner could have some type of cover, so he could go to the tea party, and say, i did everything i could do. what are you hearing from the tea party caucus today? are they satisfied with this result? are they happy with john boehner? what do they think how this all played out? >> i think everybody sort of sees the writing on the wall. this fight is over. you know, boehner has been criticized of course a lot by various factions in the party. you're hearing a lot of folks,

conservatives who are actually happy with the speaker for fighting, taking this as long as he could take it. you know, right now he's briefing his members so we'll see what the reaction is when they come out of this. i don't think any conservative is particularly thrilled by this deal. but they can at least say they tried and fought. and the speaker listened to them up until this point. and they can say, look, we can fight the next battle and they can point to the next battle coming up. so i think they feel like this is not over for them. but at the end of the day, the speaker listened to their strategy and took it as far as he could. >> and manu, quickly, do you have any sense of how many members of the republican house caucus will ultimately vote for this deal? >> it's hard too say right now. i think that we are expecting a majority, this to be carried by a majority of democrats. we'll see if the speaker is able to get more support in his conference.

but this is going to be like the hastert rule where the majority of the majority were to support a bill, it looks like it will be carried by a majority of democrats in the senate and probably a majority of democrats in the house afterward. >> the old dark joke in the middle east, if you are an arab israeli negotiator, you'll never be out of a job. and you are a gridlock government specialist there and you're never out of that job. i fear we'll talk to you months ahead about the same debate. >> clever. >> thanks, guys. >> up next, boehner's move, we'll take a closer look at the speaker's role in all of this as "the cycle" rolls on. [ male announcer ] this is claira. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for her, she's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with her all day to see how it goes. [ claira ] after the deliveries, i was okay. now the ciabatta is done and the pain is starting again. more pills? seriously? seriously. [ groans ] all these stops to take more pills can be a pain.

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there's a reason people aren't exactly clammering to take over john boehner's position. it's because the foe is not democrats but republicans. he insists he should throw him a life raft. joining us now is francis wilkinson, francis, you have stated the best thing the president could have done would have been to offer an olive branch to the speaker, the small concessions will play well down the road when it matters again and that's a few weeks from now. you would think after all of these shen nan gans reaching out to boehner in any sort of way is the last thing most democrats want to do. they much rather let him dangle on the laundry line.

help us understand your thinking behind this strategy. >> there's a limit to what that can do. i wasn't proposing that as the end all strategy. you're not going to have a change in the political dynamics in washington until you get a change in the political dynamics in the republican party. we're going to get clues today and tomorrow whether that's possible. but we've seen speaker boehner spent the last three weeks sp pursuing a strategy he did not believe in in order to prove his bona fides to the hard right. that's a very difficult situation to rectify, because the hard right is not going anywhere. >> i'm told obama and senate dems dealing with boehner's psych co-analysis, trying to figure out what's making him tick. is it that boehner is weak or is it there's a landscape where nobody could do any better because we have earmark reform

which has taken away a key part and a group like heritage has more power over the members than the rnc and hyper partisanship that is historic and greater than we've ever seen. is this this landscape making the speaker's jobless powerful than ever or something wrong with this guy? >> you know, i don't discount a guy who's climbed up the ladder of leadership in the house of representatives twice and made it to speaker. yes, he's an incredibly weak speaker and there are structural reasons for that. in addition to the ones you named, you also have a quasio apocalyptic fashion in the tea party. >> what is driving and an mating the republican base and you're been citing work by democracy corps where they ask the

republican base how they felt about the direction of the country, where it's like scared, worried, concerned, jumped out and how they feel about president obama. and liar jumps right off the page. there's also lies and lie also quite large. so they are viewing country and viewing this president in a way that seems completely divorced from the way a lot of americans feel about the country. >> i think that results in what ron brownsteen in his column called a bottomless alienation. put yourself in their shoes for a minute. these are people who spent of the last four years warning the nation that obama was a tyrant, going to take away everyone's rights and obama care was going to be a disaster and he was a terrorist sympathizer and then the country reelects him. they are not just feeling alien ated from washington and from the democratic party and their president, they are feeling pretty alienated from the entire country. it's a cultural issue and

political issue. >> here's the thing, they can feel alienated they are not going to vote, from what we've been hearing and reporting today, for this solution. a lot of them didn't vote to raise the debt ceiling last time. 66 republicans voted against the hike. it shouldn't be news to wall street and investors that there is a caucus that doesn't care, right? but they are not essential to votes. what i find so amazing and if you can speak to, how long we can go on without having democracy function on the house floor, have these exercises and then the solution at the end is the very same thing that could have prevented this all in the beginning, which is let a majority vote on the house floor and let the alienated tea party vote. >> john boehner can't afford a partisan party. they have power because they are members of the house of representatives, he's straddling

two very difficult things here. and i'm not sure there's a way out and i also think that that suggests we may be revisiting this in a few weeks as you've also suggested. >> i can't even imagine he enjoys that job and it all comes down to him wanting to keep his speakership. thank you so much for joining us. the tough message one female senator had for john boehner in all of this. it's not about you. imagine that. we'll spin next. has it's ups and downs.

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problems continue with the website to sign up for those health care exchanges, more than two weeks after it was rolled out. one of the reasons is the fact the she'll volume of visitors is 15 million people so far. to reach the administration's goal of 7 million enrollments by march, an average of 39,000 need to sign up each day between now and then.

>> here's something that's surprising some politicos today, president obama says his first step after the debt ceiling is done and the government is reopened will be to return the focus to immigration reform. he said that during an interview with the local univision affiliate in l.a., adding the senate has already done its job on the matter and the boehner led house is holding up the legislation. ari, where have i heard that before? >> i don't know. do you know what a wednesday in mid-october is good for? the perfect day for a senate election in new jersey. >> of course. >> never happened before but we have one, newark mayor corpsy booker is facing offer against david lonergan. booker is expected to win but the race has considerably tightened in recent weeks. what's becoming the salute seen around the woshrld, a picte of the army ranger hurt in an attack in afghanistan. he's being awarded the purple heart in the hospital. his commander thought he was

unconscious until he started to raise his hand in a salute. he sent this picture along with a letr to his wife telling her grown men openly wept inside that room. >> i'm a proud wife of an armmy ranger and he is a badass and he is strong. he is the ee petmy of what a man and american and soldier is. >> how is that for perspective? now the spin we saw come from the senate republicans was crafted in part not by mitch mcconnell or usual powers that be. it was three female senators, including one who rode a tea party wave into washington. >> we put together a bipartisan group. i think it's significant that it's led by women. but even more significant is the fact that it's six rpz and six democrats and we've come to an agreement.

>> amen to that. >> i also want to note the houston chon cal is out today with buyer's remorse. here's the chronicle, and now they are regretting it saying we wish we had still had kay bailey hutchison there before him. she was extraordinarily understanding of the importance of reaching across the aisle when necessary, which teddy c. is definitely not. >> pretty strong words there. >> we see this sort of message that women in congress will be helpful is born out by the political science, not a stereo type. the political science has shown women are more effective at reaching compromise. women tend to be interested in finding common ground. so the world will be a little better place if you were in congress krystal. >> i'm glad things worked out to be here with you fine people. >> that's nice of you. >> especially on this day, being in washington doesn't sound all that great. it's true. they've done studies that have

found women are better at building a consensus and approach decision-making differently. another thing i thought was interesting in the same democrat corps focus testing where they looked into the republican base and divided it into four different segments, the segment that has been destroying our country the most, the tea party segment is the segment that had the least women in it. even at that level of the base, we see that men are the ones who are disproportionately pushing the extreme policies that we see in washington and one last note, i think the comparison between speaker john boehner and nancy pelosi holds up favorably for the ladies. >> i do wonder in being the minority in congress makes it easier to ban together. there's an unspoken strength that the women can bring forward together and imagine how much could get done if women were the majority in congress? we know how difficult it is.

it's getting easier but still challenges we need to face. >> we should point out, most people know the numbers butt's 18% of our congress is women. still we have a very long way to go. >> long way to go. murkowski called out boehner by name. this was an important moment. they said this is not about the speakership and winning the next election, it's about doing the right thing for your country. >> i think we're going to go to breaking news. we have members of the house republican conference, looks like they might speak or at least have come out of the meeting which is why we wanted to go right to it to take a look. and they are dodging the press. you're seeing live footage of what happens when the press is dodged. we wanted to show whether they would stop to speak which sometimes they have been doing. i don't think we can overinterpret the silence because we have votes ideally scheduled coming out of the senate. >> ari is not going to over

interpret something? breaking news on "the cycle". >> breaking news in the house to breaking club house news. >> that's right. you think about that. >> i was just pointing out that women really should have a strong role in congress. that's more important than these gop members walking by without being able to say anything. >> i had the privilege of working for one member of congress, maria cantwell and organized by senator mill kul xi on as regular basis. since it was so male dominated, most of the women members, whatever their age, were newer members in the senate, especially when i was working a decade ago. that's another dynamic that is interesting here. you have people who are newer. we know from the tea party, new could mean very hard core and partisan. but new can also mean not as connected to some of the strict tours that bind both of these

institutions particularly in the senate. they have said we've got to change the filibuster because we need democracy. >> the pushback to this conversation, what about michelle bachmann? far to the right and extreme if we had more michele bachmann it would not be helpful. certainly true. what we're talking about here is not every single woman. we're talking about in general, overall, when you have more women in the room at the decision-making table, the process works better. there is more consensus building and they found also in corporations that incorporating more women at the highest levels leads to more profitability. >> it's good for business and government too. >> that's exactly what the gop is missing. the next question becomes, where does the gop go from here? how do they move on from this movement of such weakness? i think it's in their best interest to focus on women and let the republican women lead the day. >> this war on women for three decades now, they need to deal

with the gender gap. we need more female presidents. >> that's an interesting thought. >> i think that's coming. >> spin on that another time. >> something to consider before you get too excited about today's big breakthrough. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] eenie. meenie. miney. go. ♪ ♪

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that's why i stopped working at my old brokerage and became a financial consultant with charles schwab. avo: what kind of financial consultant are you looking for? talk to us today. welcome back. a deal to avoid default is a responsible step this week, you need more than a calculator, you need a calendar. the proposed deal expires in three months. let's put that in perspective, you woebts know if carrie is out of the mental ward by the time they post tour a deal. that's a homeland reference. the last time a spending plan for the whole year actually passed was in 2009. recently congress has broken down and relied on short-term

funding, cr x we're always hearing of. it's an inefficient way to fund the nation and the process costs extra. our next guest has seen this up close and personal, how ugly the budgetary process can be. he served as an aide on the super committee which was the last time congress tried to hash out a long term budget. thanks for being here. >> glad to be with you guys. >> let's start with the evolution, travis, how do we go from annual budgets to piecemeal crs and what does it look like on the inside when you're negotiating? >> it's important to have historical perspective here. crs are used often thytimes to the regular appropriations work done in the fiscal year. that can be because of natural disasters. that can be because of terrorism attacks like 9/11 in those cases

it is appropriate to use a cr or supplemental appropriations bill, a special appropriations bill to cover issues. what we've seen recently is much different. this is a failure on the part of the appropriations process, the house and senate, to come together around bills to fund, you know, regular government spending and these are politically driven issues. >> we know the key to balancing our budget is economic growth. you look at both sides there has never been a deeper divide in terms of how our government grows or how our economy grows rather moving forward, which is why we haven't passed a budget in over three years. instead as matt miller points out in the "washington post," we face a debilitating carnival of fiscal cliffs and debt ceiling showdowns that repeat every quarter or year or 18 months indefinitively. i want to ask what's most concerning in your mind about this never-ending carnival if

this is what we keep doing? >> that's a really good question. it's something that's fundamental to the debate ongoing the last few years. democrats and republicans understand the importance of economic growth and bringing our fiscal house in order. cbo has put out a statistic that if gdp growth over the next ten years were just below one tenth of one percent, that would add $300 billion to the deficit over ten years. that is an amount that is double what the budgetary impact would be of the cpi proposal that would reflect inflation adjustments and other government programs. so there are very deeply held views about how best to bring about that economic growth that is so important. and those fundamental divides are major i am pedmentes to progress forward between the two parties. >> it's so much more fun to

stick it to the seniors, economic growth, come on. >> a lot of people are saying that the republicans have no strategy, but in the last book, it's even worse than it looks, say there actually is a better strategy going on here. that republicans want to make government look and function poorly so as too bolster their argument that government should be small, perhaps enough to drown in the bathtub. do you think that's actual a at play here? >> i think there are some that have very strong views about small government and very minimalistic role of government in our economy and in every normal average american's lives, but we've got a large entit entitlement pressures coming down the pipeline. the longer we play out the game, the republicans play out the game on these things, the more these issues become acute. i don't -- i wouldn't say based on my experience that there is a

concerted effort or strategy here on part of the republicans to try to string government as part of the effort but it's part of the motivation and i think they are again strongly held views on the role of government as part of this debate. >> travis, as i think a lot of americans are relieved this current today's crisis is at least being pushed off for a few months, we're talking again about some kind of grand bargain which always seems to be on republican terms of deficit reduction rather than the focus on job creation you're talking about, not to mention they can't agree on anything to do with this anyway. i'm wondering, we've seen now a couple of times where john boehner has at the very last minute gone to democratic caucus and said help me pass this thing through the house even though i don't have majority support from my caucus, which is what's going to happen this time with this deal. do you think it's possible that we could get to a place where he would skip the hostage taking

and manufactured crisis and just go right to the idea of there is a bipartisan governing coalition in the house that for example, could pass immigration reform in short order? is there any hope that we will see john boehner sort of redefine his speakership and just forget about the tea partyiers and people that are never going to come along and partner with nancy pelosi to have a productive term? >> that's a good question. i think we're quite aways around that type of rereality -- >> that was what i was afraid you were going to say. >> there are a number of other priorities, although the cr and debt limit, have been the most recent examples. we'll see what happens with the votes tonight. we have failed to make progress on very important issues, immigration, tax reform, as ari spoke earlier, the

appropriations process has broken down. >> not to mention foreign policy. >> foreign policy as well. i'm an optimist and i think there is always opportunity for the republicans to come out of this -- they are going to be looking their wounds and doubled down on losing strategy that had no end game. so they are really going to have to recalibrate their strategy going forward and hopefully that involves a -- you know, an interest in some more bipartisan engagement here. we really haven't seen it to date. >> the recalibration goes to the point you raised that we could save as much from social security if we just didn't have the long-term cost of wrangling. that was a great contrast. thanks for breaking it down. >> for debt ceiling deniers, ella explains what the debt ceiling really is by comparing to yes, your pizza bill, you heard that right and we have it all in kindergarten terms.

check out the video on facebook. here's a preview. >> it needs to fix this -- this is one of the things that barack obama has to fix, but he can get help but only if he makes the right choice. >> abby, your job is in danger. >> it really is. >> also, you've got to do this. you've got to come and see a brand-new website for thecycle.com. we want to know what you think, if you find anything wrong, tell us in the community section. 50 years after his death rocked the world, we have new look at evidence in the assassination of president john f. kennedy. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals:

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tylenol cold® helps relieve even your worst cold and flu symptoms, so you can carry on with your day. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol cold®. >> how many gunshots did you hear? two? four? or simply the noise of a police motorcycle. those are questions still haunting americans for the past 50 years since jfk was assassinated in dallas. the majority of americans say there are too many questions to know for sure if lee harvey os ward acted alone or part of a conspiracy. a police scan recorded audio as the motorcade rode past the book deposit tri but now a new

examination disproves the warren commission and house led committee on assassination. conspiracy anyone? larry led the reexamination for his new book and pbs documentary, "the kennedy half century." they have note disproven the idea of a second shooter but say no way this tape proves it. also university of virginia politics center where i happened to go to school, i don't know if i ever told you this story. when i was running for congress in virginia, and your website is up there, i got an e-mail asking me if i was a real candidate or had been made up by you as part of your website. so anyway, it's an honor to have you here with us today. >> thank you krystal. one of us owes royalties to the other one. i don't know -- probably i owed. you were born before my crystal

ball was developed. >> it's a mutually beneficial relationship here. let's dig into your book. what are the new findings you have about the day of the assassination? >> you summarized it quite well. we're very critical of the warren commission in the book. the warren commission made some terrible mistakes along the way. had they done their job better and taken the time necessary to do it right, then i don't think we would have been condemned as a nation to 50 years of constant questioning and really cynicism generated by that commission report. but, i was even more critical in the end of the house select committee on assassinations from the 1970s, which reinvestigated the warren report. they concluded that president kennedy was probably the victim of a conspiracy. now, they use techniques they have available at the time but we have much more advanced audio techniques and hired the best firms in the world to answer

this. people will have no question once they read the official report we put together that shows clearly that the police recording that the committee used to quote, prove the conspiracy, turns out not to have recorded any gunshots the policeman through whose microphone the shots were supposedly recorded wasn't even in dealy plaza. he was two-and-a-half miles away. so the entire committee conclusion is bogus. >> professor, let's talk about jfk's fairly extraordinary life after death. he has been sort of romanticized as this sort of liberal hero, political hero. both reagan and clinton sort of wrapped themselves in his legacy. do you as a person who researched his life and political career, do you think he has been overromanticized or sort of post more tunnel jfk square with the person who was living? >> some of it squares. the rhetoric squares. the accomplishments of the administration were significant,

although it was a very limited presidency. just a little over two-and-a-half years. having said that, there is no question the tragedy of the assassination, which just overwhelmed the country -- you all are so young. but talk to your parents and grandparents who lived through it, and they'll tell you that it traumatized the country. it created guilt in the country as a whole about the kennedy assassination, which guaranteed the kennedy legacy would continue and the kennedy agenda would be adopted during the johnson administration. so it's a mixture. and what we found in the kennedy half century, because we investigated each of his nine successors, is that every successor, democratic and republican president alike, used john f. kennedy to achieve the new president's agenda. he was a very useful tool in their tool kit. >> well, and jack and bobby's relation was very much good cop/bad cop where bobby obviously had to do a lot of the dirty work. he was known as this ruthless

operator where he would ask for a gray and gave no quarter. he did what he had to do to protect his brother. there was one moment where he almost punched a state legislator in the face, had to be pulled back. but the dynamic today with president obama is very different, where he doesn't have this bad cop type of figure around him. i'm curious what you think it would be like today if we had a jack and bobby handling the crisis. >> you know, that's a great question. let me turn it around in another way. you want to understand the dich differences between politics in the early '60s and politics where we are in the 21st century? do you think president obama could get away with appointing a brother if he had one as attorney general? >> right? >> it really is incredible when you think about it. >> he does have a brother as attorney general. >> wow. >> all right, larry savato, thanks very much. >> for the final act --

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calm down, doctor! now is not the time for fear. that comes later. as congress sputters toward a short term deal on the debt ceiling, many wonder how we got here. it makes more sense if you look at it through the prism of the villains in christopher nolan's batman trilogy. john boehner began this fight by claiming high-minded principles like balancing the budget. think of boehner as bane, full of promises about serving the people. >> we come here not as

conquerers, but as liberators, to return control of this city to the people. >> the oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity. and we give it back to you. the people. >> sounds good. but we quickly learn bane doesn't care about the people. his cover is plotting against the city he pretends to serve. he wants destruction with no survivors. >> what's the next step of your master plan? >> crashing this plane, with no survivors. >> and here's the other thing about bane. this isn't even his idea. he's a mercenary working for the league of shadows and the league is a secret society that says it will restore balance and civilization by bringing down first-world deck adance, pushing gotham into a depression. >> over the ages, our weapons have grown more sophisticated.

with gotham, we tried a new one, economics. >> yes, the economy can be exploited as a threat. that drove this standoff even after there was literally no dispute about the budget. here's why. democrats introduced budgets at over $1 trillion. the gop countered at $980 billion or so. one side compromise, the democrats just accepted the gop's numbers. that wasn't enough, though, for the more dangerous elements of the tea party, which is why they evoke one final villain. i'm talking about an enemy who confounded gotham because he had no practical goals, just anarchy, key for the battles ahead as washington was slow to appreciate how irresponsible the tea party caucus can be, batman didn't understand this foe. >> respect perhaps this is a man you don't understand. >> some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. they can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. some men just want to watch the world burn.

>> that's a big distinction. this was a villain who didn't threaten chaos to get what he wanted. chaos was what he wanted. think of those republicans who demanded the budget cuts to avoid a shutdown, and when they got them, they shut down america anyway. or think of the tea party congressman who darkly promised a looming tsunami because he refuses to raise the debt ceiling for any reason. when this short term deal expires, we will hear more about negotiation. but these people you can't negotiate with. they don't believe in it. they just exploit your rationality for their destructive goals. alfred was right. they want to watch the world burn. and when it comes to the economy, that means your money, their money, doesn't really matter. >> all you care about is money. this town deserves a better class of criminal. and i'm going to give it to them. it's not about money. it's about sending a message. everything burns. >> everything burns. that is our