joining us now is ryan grimm. he's the washington bureau chief for the "huffington post" and he is the guy who got the leftist cabal quote today, for which i will be grateful forever. ryan, great to see you. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> the leftist cabal anonymous source who spoke to you in those terms about ted cruz, was that purely out of frustration, or is there an actual belief that there is an effort to do harm to the republican establishment and that's what senator cruz and these others shut down the government guys are doing? >> well, it's mostly a joke, but it has a certain amount of resonance among republican leadership aides, because they feel like he is a smart guy, and so it's obvious that what he is doing is destructive to the party. now, they don't want to go all the way and say well, therefore, he must be a liberal plant. i think it was mostly in jest that he was saying that. but they're asking themselves, what is going on here? what is this guy thinking? and then you think, wel

irin carmon, jamelle bouie and ryan grimm.t to have you all here as we've been gripped to our television sets and c-span over the last 21 hours. but irin, cruz is trying to delay a vote on a bill he demanded house republicans pass last week. so let's break down, we've got the optics, but break down the machinations behind the scene. what's really going on? >> everybody was upset with ted cruz when he said that defunding obama care and potentially shutting down the government on the alleged claim that you should be able to defund obama care that way, you know, it's not actually going to happen. and the moment that ted cruz said that that wasn't going to happen, the base got very angry at him. now he has reclaimed their hearts and imaginations by reading dr. seuss, by doing a darth vader voice. but the only thing that's really at stake here is ted cruisez's . obama care is the law of the land. this just provides a platform for him to show just how long he can bloviate. >> the daily beast says there's every reason to believe that

ryan grimm is reporting in the "huffington post." he said -- that cruise of course, and he has been getting a lot of criticism, cruise has indicated. prior to today he would not phil buster this thing. now he is saying he will. he said, cruise has led to public questioning from house republican as but his motives. and political acumen and joking speculation he may be part of a vast and devious liberal conspiracy to undermine conservatives. the leader of a secret group of leftists that are seeking control of the conservative movement, quipped one source. gene, a senior house republican leadership source. >> manchurian candidate. i love it. >> showing, how crazy cruise sound to us? >> exactly. steve schmidt is so right. this is total 70s interesting. his campaign for president. his campaign for prominence. to become one of the, one of the top three going into iowa. and with the help of the party, basically. and you know, too bad if they all have to jump off the cliff. maybe, maybe somewhere in the recesses of his mind he rationalizes w

with me now, robert costa and washington bureau chief ryan grimm. thanks for joining me. i want to start with you, robert. you've been on the hill all day. i'm wondering what the news is. if there's been any reaction from the white house. >> the white house has just dismissed what the republicans are doing. the mood on capitol hill is that the shutdown looms. harry reid came out and said it's dead on arrival and john boehner is trying to come up with a final game plan. >> how does he do that, ryan? because it does strike me that any time we think that speaker boehner has a game plan, you can't really count on it, because now it apparently depends on whether or not ted cruz approves. >> his game plans in the past have been to led chaos rein until the last second. and let democrats bail them out. there's still time for that to happen. they passed this today, if reid invokes cloture tomorrow, there's still time to get it -- to do away with the sillyness that the house put in there and send it back to the house one more time before the government shuts down. that puts it on b