croatians rule today. coming up on our t.v. these sorry we are close signs are still up we're now in the second day the federal government shutdown the latest from capitol hill as the shutdown debate drags on and with the government shutdown comes concerns but the bigger fight may be over the debt ceiling so who does the white house turn to for advice about j.p. morgan chase c.e.o. jamie dimon of wall street with all its reckless behavior should be advising the white house and the top leaders of the u.s. intelligence agencies are back in the hot seat on capitol hill senators more information about the n.s.a. surveillance and ways to limit its expansion more on today's hearing later in the show.

it's wednesday october second five pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sax and you're watching our team and we begin with day two of the u.s. government shutdown more than eight hundred thousand federal employees remain furloughed and countless services and government functions around the nation remain shuttered the national institutes of health is shutting down its cancer trials this week and indefinitely moving forward as the government remains shut down roughly two hundred patients in clooney thirty child civi thirty children cancer patients were to begin cancer trials this week now they won't also while state's food stamp programs are still up and running the federal program is non operational meaning the longer the shutdown continues impoverished families and children depending on food stamps will see their lifelines dry up there are questions also about the safety of food in the united states as

a bulk of food and drug administration inspectors are furloughed too and each day roughly eighty food facilities are. forgoing their necessary inspections all told we're looking at three hundred million dollars in lost economic activity in the united states for every day the government is shut down and economists forecasts that if the shutdown continues for two to three weeks it could drive down projected economic growth in this fourth quarter by a full point and a half so clearly pressure is building on lawmakers to come up with some sort of deal but right now they're pretty open about saying they have no clue how this budget impasse will resolve itself today senate majority leader harry reid had this message for republicans in the house you continue to insist on defunding obamacare it's time for my republican colleagues to do a gut check and then present. public in the house of poe's one cock a man can't pass id after another last few days they're obsessed with obamacare

well now they've gotten away they shut down the government majority leader reid and other congressional leadership will be summoned to the white house this evening for more negotiations now for the latest on how capitol hill is dealing with the shutdown we turn to our tease parian boring. it is day two of the government shutdown and the hill is still operating but not in full force a lot of engine says are close creating longer lines of the cafeteria is aren't open but more importantly a lot of congressional staff has been for a load so there's been plenty canceled meetings but another concern is who is reading constituent mail if a congressman has decided to for a low his employees more than likely these are your lower level staffers your staff assistants your legislative correspondents and these are the employees who would read constituent mail answer constituent phone calls and go through the e-mails and

then relay this information to the members of congress but if they're not here who was making sure constituent concerns are still being heard well i spoke with representative leonard lance and this is what he said his office is doing to address this issue and we have only a skeleton staff in our offices in new jersey and indeed only several people here in washington but we do have paid in turns here in washington so you're interns are still working they are and i give them a great deal of credit because they're usually in college and they have to balance their college schedules which working in our office so mr lance is lucky enough to have volunteers in turns her volunteering their time and continuing to volunteer their time through the government shutdown but whether or not a member of congress decides to for a low has stopped his staff that's up to each individual off it so some members may not follow anyone could follow all their employees so whether or not your

congressman is still hearing your concerns is going to depend on your district but the house is still open today they opened at ten am with a series of debates and they're voting on several piecemeal funding bills today that will attempt to reopen the government agency by agency department by department and i also asked mr lance if he thinks this approach of got a warrant. i have voted to reopen agencies piece by piece and certainly i think that we should protect our veterans and make sure the parks are open however i also want to see all aspects of the federal government to fully operational when the government had going to reopen and it's going to reopen all at once and do this piecemeal approach that they're trying to day and then the nation we just don't have right now in washington do you think perry and boring are to share this sort of dysfunction from capitol hill shouldn't be too surprising coming from an institution with all time low favor ability ratings in fact cockroaches are more

popular than this congress but is this really another instance where both parties are to blame for the american people overwhelmingly say no a critic poll released this week shows that the american people oppose the republican strategy of shutting down the government to defund or delay obamacare by a margin of seventy two to twenty two percent the same poll shows seventy four percent of americans disapproving of the job republicans in congress are doing that's the highest disapproval score ever when it comes to democrats sixty percent of americans disapprove of the job they're doing so while there might be dysfunctional mung both democrats and republicans this latest fiasco seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of speaker john boehner and the house republicans and is there any chance that these antics on capitol hill could have significant changes to the political landscape across america well earlier i spoke with a man who isn't a fan of either party former independent minnesota governor jesse ventura the

author of the new book they killed our president and i first asked him what his take is on the shutdown. well i think it's despicable that they would shut the government down over something that's already been put to law there's health care in my belief is this is obamacare perfect i don't know but i believe this i believe in a country as great as ours that anyone who is sick should have the right to go to a doctor it's that simple and if we weren't involved in all these wars throughout the world we'd have more than enough money for that yet they will shut the government down they will jeopardize our national security and the shutdown all because they don't like the fact that they're trying to give everyone health care yet our elected officials the same would we democrats and republican congressmen and senators they get four choices of health care that they want and isn't that government run health care they're hypocrites there's been

a lot of criticism leveled at the mainstream media for trying to be too balanced here in saying both parties are to blame for the shutdown and that really what's happening is that republicans in congress are engaging in unprecedented extremist tactics to defund obamacare do you see one side more to blame than the other in this. i see the republicans more to blame because it already passed obama already stood on it for reelection and the people reelected him now having said that though i still dislike both parties and urged people in light of this shutdown vote i'm all out of office the only thing is don't vote in democrats and republicans when you replace them let's clean house this is an opportunity for america to truly stand up and clean our own house sada these democrats and republicans that allegedly want to run our country if you were president ventura at the time and you were dealing with this sort of congressional dysfunction air how would you handle it well it's difficult i faced that when i was governor of

minnesota because i was independent and i had a republican controlled house and a democratic controlled senate. and the way it worked for me for three years whichever side i sided with prevailed until my last year that's when they teamed up they overruled my budget they brought their own budget in i vetoed it twice and they banded together and overrode my veto twice and you know what that showed it showed i'm the most powerful man in the united states because who else could get the democrats and republicans in bed together to oppose you well i mean it is kind of doing that with his leaks of bringing republicans and democrats together on that issue let me tell you this if i were the president of the united states i would pardon bradley manning and i would immediately now this of course going back to the budget this is the latest in a series of budget fights and self-inflicted economic wounds brought about by this congress the least popular congress ever you've long been an advocate for third

parties for breaking up the two party system how much more dysfunction in washington will it take before people start looking for alternatives i hope this was the final straw or the straw that breaks the camel's back but i do not support a third party movement anymore i support the abolishment of all political parties and i have good allies john adams thomas jefferson and george washington in fact i made the statement that if i ran for president i would give the people the opportunity to vote for their first president who belongs to no political party since george washington isn't that remarkable we could at we could elect a president that doesn't belong to either of these games because i refer to them as gangs or washington famously remarked that these parties should be outlawed as sure as you're talking about do you think that here we are you know two hundred plus years since that warning and we're seeing this dysfunction that that is an offshoot

of this sort of two party system that's taken all of it completely as our forefathers warned us of theirs but we're not listening that's the problem with this country the apathy. we need to have a gauge citizens we need vigilant citizens that's what they wanted for this country to keep our republic the democracy that they created we've all been sitting on our hands we all haven't been active maybe this will get people up in active again to take their government back you know we forget one major thing vay work for us we don't work for them and we've lost sight of that in two weeks there's going to be this whole debate is going to repeat again with this debt limit fight what do you make of this concept of a debt limit to begin with and the fact that it's now being used as congress to try and get other things pass should there even be a debt limit and should the president just raise it on his own at this point i'm not sure i'm at but i'd like to just address the debt the democrats and republicans

been in charge of our country now for one hundred fifty years and look at the debt we've incurred with them in charge if that was their home finances they'd be straight bag people living on the street wouldn't day they are. they have done it and when are the people going to wake up to that fact that democrats and republicans are responsible you notice how i lump them together because that's where they belong. where you were blood to cannes and democrats i think is the way you referred to them before they absolutely were blood democrats that was my last book previous to this one on the j.f.k. murder it was called no more gangs in government and that's what i stand for the abolishment of political parties and we could do it one simple way why did they put a political party on the ballot just put the maimane that's done for a reason it makes it still the electorate electorate doesn't have to educate themselves if you're liberal you go in and look for democrat if you're conservative

you go in and look for the word republican you don't even have to know who the candidates are let's skip out parties off the ballot and just put the candidates names down then the people have to educate themselves of what is john smith stand for such a governor one last question here you you start in the movie predator with arnold shorts a nigger and carl weathers that movie famously produced two governors what is it about the movie that produced such a gubernatorial success and why wasn't karl weathers able to capitalize on that well because karl probably doesn't want to get into politics i didn't think he had any inclination to do so i don't know but i always remember this i was governor before arnold and i want to real election not a recall election where you go out i was jesse ventura former governor of minnesota and author of the book they killed our president thank you thank you so how long might this shutdown last tuesday republican budget chairman and former vice presidential candidate paul ryan hinted that house republicans are willing to push

this fight all the way to the debt ceiling deadline in a few weeks they have a good deal of it is coming in the two weeks and those trees. have. always involved in the differences we think that's the forcing mechanism just like political at that president obama signs for all of the old system or all of the it's a nice set of orderings and anybody dreaming all of those bodies came together because of debt limits that's what we think will be the forcing actually to bring these two parties together now while a budget shutdown is having significant economic impacts now if failure to raise the debt ceiling in a few weeks could be catastrophic to the entire world's economy to avert this economic meltdown the white house is enlisting some advice from an unusual source today bank executives including jamie dimon from j.p. morgan chase met with president obama to discuss the debt limit artie's liz wall has more on what bankers like jamie diamond may offer in this looming debt limit

showdown. but the government shutdown underway the clock is ticking to the next big deadline and i told her seventeenth the u.s. will hit the debt ceiling putting the country at risk of defaulting on its debt president obama is scheduled to meet with bank executives over the debt ceiling among them jamie diamond the c.e.o. of j.p. morgan president obama has talented mr diamond for his financial expertise j.p. morgan is one of the best managed banks there is jamie diamond the head of it is one of the smartest bankers we know this is the best or one of the best. you could have a isn't a stroll isn't as profitable making those same bets and we might have had to strip . all the meeting with president obama and mr diamond comes as the bank finds itself in hot water the desk department is now investigating j.p. morgan for allegedly misrepresenting toxic home loans it sold according to the wall

street journal the bank is offering the government three billion dollars to settle regulators are reportedly looking for a levin billion dollars it would be the largest fine in u.s. banking history this is the first legal south to for j.p. morgan on their dime and he had to go to the hill to defend the london whale the billions of dollars of trading losses the banks suffered after a very risky head that did not pay off but lawmakers seem to be forgiving. your obviously now and rightfully so i think is me one of the most you know one of the best c.e.o.'s in the country for financial institutions but let's not forget that j.p. morgan was among the banks that benefited from the taxpayer bailout in two thousand and eight as head of the bank i mean oversaw the transfer of twenty five billion dollars from the u.s. treasury department being in relatively good shape compared to other bags diamond

said he didn't really need the money but took it anyway because the treasury. terry told him tale either way j.p. morgan is among the banks that many still call too big to fail. well after the taxpayer bailout some lawmakers are worried that we have learned nothing from the recent past. you like to go to the question about too big to fail. we haven't gotten rid of the and so now we have a double problem and that is that the big banks big at the time that they were bailed out the first time have gotten bigger. despite the legal battles and the criticism there are plenty of people backing diamond hailing have as a banking hero his supporters believe he is one of the special fear that smart enough to manage a big bank even with all of these losses the company continues to churn out. billions of dollars in earnings and hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that

how do you criticize that. i think a lot of their earnings in revenue we've seen come from really should be doing that they didn't come on. at the end of the day that is his job to make money and the numbers show that he's doing an excellent job with that question is at whose expense and washington our team and for more on wall street's influence in the white house and what role it may play in this upcoming debt limit fight i was joined earlier by barb naylor the financial policy advocate a public citizen and i first asked him if he finds it odd at all that president obama is avoiding a global economic crisis yet he's seeking advice from those who are partly responsible for the last global economic crisis well i read carol's alice in wonderland so it makes. perfect sense that one week jamie diamond meets with with eric holder our attorney general which i find very nice because apparently pretty much every day j.p.

morgan is revealed to have violated some rule massively. and you know they eric holder doesn't seem to want to speak to victims but he does have the time to speak to a person apparently responsible for this four trillion dollar unmanageable obviously unmanageable empire and then the next week he comes and offers his wisdom to the leader of the free world and what's weird is i actually probably agree with what jamie that the advice that jamie diamond proffered to our president today and that is boyish runs contrary to what the far right flank of house republicans in congress are pushing it seems like what do you make of this disconnect with with the far right kind of saying no to these people who they seem to be so cozy with in previous well now that i've begun to. read more tea party things some of the pixels are beginning to form a little bit more with more crystalline structure they are they're not all the same they're all the same and they hate obamacare home do they hate obamacare in fact i

was trying to get them to talk more about larry summers and why they would not want him the architect of the stimulus but couldn't they just all want to talk about obamacare some of them actually have fact based opinions not many but some of them and yes there is i would say integrity to their train of thought now i also think that some of them do not have fact based opinions and are ready to burn down the house to make a point that the kitchen needs repainting. and i think that we're seeing the last i saw fourteen republicans have pledged to vote for a clean resolution continuing resolution so we're three three people away and maybe it's changed even the last couple hours three people have a way of bringing eight hundred thousand workers back. i doubt that anybody will be from the tea party given how this debate over the government shutdown is going here and we now shut down the government and whatever debate leading up to it has failed

and we know there was no agreement made how concerned are you now with two weeks to go to the delegate fight and republicans making these same demands and do you think wall street at some point can intercede on the side of reason to pay for any prevented again jamie diamond and lloyd blankfein control what i would call rational money or have influence over rational money but go to iowa the i would district that you know king king representative king i think that he is not a divider that people that he believes he needs to win the support of art aren't the wall street connected type i don't know what who they are but they are they listen to hate radio and that's where they they are but their bias is formed by just slander if you will. so i think the influence that wall street has is over rational. republicans and rational democrats

who know that they want to get wall street campaign money and so they have to do made as instructed voting which they almost did on tuesday they're going to the taxpayer bailout or taxpayer back gambling it's called h.r. ninety two but you know who stop them the tea party they said excuse me with the whole world watching you want us to pass a bill guaranteeing f.d.i.c insurance for gambling i think we in the tea party don't want that so another queasy place i am i'm actually agreeing with the tea party thank you very much for stopping this absurd taxpayer bill and much as i disagree with you on obamacare at the center of this debate is debt republicans are focused on debt in a lot of democrats are focused on debt how is wall street's culture and financialization fueling our growing debt in the united states are not just talking about bailouts but just their general business practices day to day well you raise packed in your question is many tomes of economic research so i know in limited

time let me just try this wall street is agnostic about what you and i might call bad how much debt whether there's a balanced budget wall street simply profits by predicting the direction of something and if the direction is what we would call bad they'll make money if there's action is what we call good they'll make money they don't care about deficits other than to the extent that we can't make a payment because they have contracts that depend on that treasuries are still going to be good and a lot of the profits depend on that and not to mention i guess when market downturns investors know how to make a lot of bush as well as smart ones to cardinal or financial policy advocate a public citizen thank you so much. the government shutdown debate has really exposed the deep divisions between democrats and republicans in congress on the other hand the recent revelations about the n.s.a. spying activities are actually bringing both parties together. in the house and in the senate bipartisan legislation is moving forward to end the n.s.a.'s mass data

collection on american citizens and provide more transparency to the top secret foreign intelligence surveillance court in the face of this push to rein in the n.s.a. the top intelligence officials in the united states testified at a senate hearing today director of national intelligence james clapper and keith alexander the director of the n.s.a. have been a regular fixtures on capitol hill getting grilled by members who were only informed about the intelligence community's activities thanks to edward snowden's leaks today alexander admitted to once testing whether the n.s.a. could track american cell phone locations but he went on to deny an article published in the new york times on saturday that said the agency was creating social graphs of american citizens detailing who they associate with now not all lawmakers are convinced that the n.s.a. needs considerable reform senator dianne feinstein the chairwoman of the senate intelligence committee valid today to protect the n.s.a.

i so regret what is happening i will do everything i can to prevent this program from being canceled out there's going to be a bill in my committee to do it there's a bill in this committee to do it it is legal we are looking at increased transparency we are looking to make some changes in but we are not looking to destroy it to destroy is to make this nation more vulnerable republicans and democrats may agree on curtailing the n.s.a.'s powers but there are deep divisions within both parties between leadership like senator dianne feinstein and rank and file members like senator ron wyden or congressman justin amash and exactly what n.s.a. reform looks like if it ever happens depends on who wins this debate between leadership and the rest of congress. then federal workers aren't the only folks paying close attention to what's happening in congress this week so too are many iraqis that's

because that midnight on tuesday not only did the government shut down but so too did a special visa program that allows iraq ease who worked with the american military during the war to emigrate to the united states that program was created in two thousand and seven but has been bogged down to do to can secure it concerns it was designed to dole out twenty five thousand visas over five years but less than half of those have actually been issued and so far this year the state department is only granted four hundred fifty four visas just before the expiration of the program on monday night the senate voted to extend it senators john mccain and jeanne shaheen released a statement saying these brave iraqis risked their lives to protect americans and many of them are now living under constant threat of retribution the united states has a moral obligation to stand with those iraqis who stood with us we cannot we will not abandon our iraqi partners it's now up to the house of representatives to hold

a vote extending the program. moving on a two thousand and eight law intended to prevent aid and military assistance to nations that employed child soldiers is again being scaled back by the white house the end of last week the white house issued a memo noting that it is in the national interest of the united states to waive the application of the prohibition of the child soldiers prevention act with respect to chad south sudan and yemen the white house also partially waived prohibitions on military assistance to the democratic republic of the congo and somalia now under this directive chad south sudan and yemen will be allowed to receive military assistance from the united states while somalia and the democratic republic of the congo will still face some restrictions when it comes to that assistance all of these nations are on the list of ten countries determined by the u.s. state department to use child soldiers this is actually the fourth year in

a row that president obama has lifted some restrictions contained in the five year old law aimed at preventing child soldiers some of these countries especially yemen and somalia are instrumental in the u.s. global war on terror and the white house is concerned that cutting off military aid to them may jeopardize their counter terror efforts. and finally we know there's been a few late nights on capitol hill as members try to strike a deal to reopen the government and those long hours appear to be driving members to drink. several capitol hill reporters have described the smell of booze wafting off the house floor as members come and go but this drinking binge may not be exclusive to this shutdown debate congressman alan grayson recently told salon drinking on the job by republican house members has quote been a problem all year long he added it's a fact we all have to live with and it's making them violent and abusive towards

america some have wondered what is driving republicans to risk their own political future on this issue two words liquid courage and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america and check out our website r t v dot com slash usa you can follow me on twitter at sam sachs we'll see you right back here at eight pm thanks for watching . dramas that can't be ignored to. stories there is a few in those. places changing the world right now. to take your those days leaves. from around the globe.

look. don't get me. the old. technology innovations on the developments around russia. the future covered. hello and welcome. to consider. is the united states an exceptional country the indispensable nation.