nancy pelosi has to deal with the far left elements of her caucus. she has to deal with far left lobbyist groups who want nothing less than total war with donald trump and square that with the almost three dozen conservative members of her caucus that won in conservative districts. the president's playing basketball on her half of the court right now. so you are going to see a lot of stress and a lat of hand wringing -- lot of hand wringing on the democrat side of capitol hill. arthel: john, there are some who are saying listen the president should reopen the government first, then entice the democrats back to the negotiating table because, you know, as this all plays out, you have 800,000 federal workers, plus their families, who are working without pay or no pay. so you know, is this really the way to handle this at this point? i mean, it's day 29 of the longest government shutdown ever. >> the president doesn't really have a choice here. were he to do so, the democrats would refuse to negotiate just as they have in the past.