let's dig in now with molly ball, national political reporter for "atlantic" and also lynn sweet, washington bureau chief of "chicago sun-times." ladies, good afternoon. >> hello to you. >> molly, senator dick durbin saying right here on tuesday on "morning joe" that he could see $400 billion, at least $400 billion in entitlement cuts. is that going to be as hard of a sell to the left as raising rates will be to the right? >> in a word, yes. there are a lot of democratic groups right now really pushing for no changes to entitlements and no cuts to entitlements, medicare, social security and also medicaid is a big concern for a lot of unions, a lot of progressive groups who are really trying to push the democrats to hold their ground on this. however, the administration has signaled they could be open to some kinds of changes, potentially the kind of stuff that mitch mcconnell is talking about. i think what we're seeing is that the president's negotiating strategy sort of starting to have an effect. democrats saying we're not going to budge until we get specifics from you and the republicans

and molly ball, political reporter for "the atlantic." the republican proposal includes ryan's voucher program for medicare. we're not even a month away from the election and they are throwing up on the wall everything that was rejected. why are they doing this? >> well, i can tell you why they think they have a mandate. they are throwing insults at each other and that means they are engaging. they may be way apart in terms of the lessons learned. but house republicans have put in their initial offer here. and you know, the problem for house republicans is not only have they nod looked at the polls, maybe they are choosing their own before the election, but not only are they not looking at the same numbers, but they are trying to address a different problem. they think entitlements are the only thing that matters. that's the longer term issue. it isn't even dealing with the deficit problem that needs to be dealt with. as long as they are engaging, something is going to move here. >> molly, the priorities in these plans couldn't be more di

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molly ball, our guest here on the "full-court press" this friday. recently in "the atlantic," sorry, democrats four ways that progressives are about to have their hopes dashed. don't tell me we are going to have our hopes dashed. i don't want to hear it, but we will when we come back from this break here on the full court press. >> heard around the country and seen on current tv this is "the bill press show." ♪ ♪ >> that's hilarious! >> ...and the thinkers thinking. >> okay, so there's wiggle-room in the ten commandments is what you're telling me. >> she's joy behar. ... and current will let me say anything. >> only on current tv. [ piano plays ] troy polamalu's going deeper. ♪ ♪ and so is head & shoulders deep clean. [ male announcer ] with 7 benefits it goes deep to remove grease, gunk and flakes. deep. like me. [ male announcer ] head & shoulders deep clean for men. ♪ ♪ where you don't back down from a challenge. this is the age of knowing how to make things happen. so, why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra

molly ball and david goodfriend. molly, it was kind of remarkable to hear a member of congress say we're here, important times, trying to get a big thing done and he said this is the highlight of the day, nothing to do. >> well, yeah. i mean a lot of senators and congressmen are not privy to the inner workings of the negotiations. it's only happening between a very small number of people and sort of always been the case as the negotiations have gone on. first it was primarily between obama and boehner and now mcconnell and biden. but we are seeing some progress and i think the congressman should take comfort surely he will be let in to solicit the vote. >> david, what did you think of the president's comments? were they effective? what was the messaging and trying to get across and to whom? >> i was struck, t.j., mostly by the body language. not so much the contents of the remarks. he was confident, relaxed. this is a president that knows how to keep the cool under the pressure. the sub text seems to be there's hope h

let me bring in molly ball and washington post correspondent. dana, the president said he'd veto it. what's boehner's strategy here? wh where is he going with this? >> he has to negotiate within his own caucus and it is not at all clear that he had the votes here until he started to sweeten it as you were talking about earlier there. he basically needs to appease the hard right in his caucus and he -- this is why it is so unlikely and i think it's always been unlikely that you get anything resembling a deal until the last minute or past the last minute because these guys will not give in unless they absolutely have to. >> republicans seem like they're in a little bit of disarray right now. the conservative club for growth came out against plan b and this is on "the wall street journal" editorial page. by tuesday afternoon even mr. boehner seemed to be throwing up his hands. either way we get a tax increase without a tangible progression on the spending problem. >> is it why the republicans have this? >> this is a significant test of boehner's ab

. >> molly ball and david nakamura. thanks for joining me. >> good to be here. >> david so house speaker john boehner says there's no progress to report. the white house says republicans are to blame for dragging their feet. it seems at least publicly we're getting nowhere. is there anything bigger churning behind the scenes? >> alex, i wish i had good news for you. there's not much going on. certainly at the staff level there's still talks going on. the president did have an onization with john boehner. both sides publicly at least are blaming the others for delaying here. i think both sides are said we know what we want to do, which is for the white house raise rates on the rich. but what can they talk about behind the scenes when the republicans are saying we don't want to do that, on the flip side the white house is saying they don't want to do the republican idea of just capping loop holes at least right now. they want to do that next year with a broader tax reform debate. right now there's not a lot to talk about.