think be a terrible deal to undermine the house. >> will senate republicans sell out their house counterparts? our exclusive with senator rand paul. then -- >> i did have the opportunity to present the plan that many of us have been working on. >> democrats have rejected her compromise plan, but maine republican susan collins labors on. she joins us along with her senate colleague, minnesota democrat amy klobuchar. plus, our political panel on the republican brand, the president's legacy, and faith in government. how the shutdown and the debt ceiling debates may be rocking all three. this is "state of the union." good morning from washington. i'm candy crowley. we are 13 days into this partial government shutdown, and no signs of a deal. democrats met with the president last night and say they're united, they will not negotiate until congress ends the shutdown and lifts the debt ceiling. senior white house correspondent jim acosta is here. jim, take us inside last night's meeting. what was the purpose? >> reporter: well, the purpose was really, candy, to get democrats on the same page, and they have been very united through all of this. you have seen some of the fracturing inside the republican party. that has not really been the case with democrats, and the sense that we're getting today, as you know, senate majority leader harry reid and top senate democratic leaders were here at the white house, but that followed a very important meeting that occurred yesterday between senate majority leader harry reid and senate minority leader mitch mb konl. that's essentially the first time these two leaders have met over these negotiations to reopen the government and to raise the nation's debt ceiling. there is another meeting expected later today, although one is not damascheduled at at point. one new development, we're hearing from senate republican sources that senate majority leader harry reid is insisting on changes to the sequester as part of a larger deem to reopen the government and raise the nation's debt ceiling. republicans are balking at that at this point and that's not a good sign as to where the negotiations are headed, although, as you know, candy, perhaps senate majority leader reid is just taking a harder position at this point. >> sequester being the forced budget cuts. has the white house now farmed this out to the democratic leader in the senate? where do they go from here? >> reporter: i think where it goes from here, the global financial markets are going to start weighing in on what's happening here in washington later today. the stock market is open on the stock market is open on candy, whatever comes out of the senate, if something comes out of the senate, the key question is here, can house speaker john boehner get it nd at this point waiting to see what the white house and president obama have to say about these latest talks, but we do expect them to continue later today, candy. >> jim acosta at the white house, thank you. house republicans dropped out of negotiations with the president saturday leaving their members in the senate to try and cut a deal that will reop the 2k3w0 government and resolve the debt ceiling before the deadline next week. joining me now is republican senator rand paul who met with the president on friday along with a group of republicans. senator, thank you for being here. do you have a bottom line below which you will not go in accepting something that would end this standoff? >> well, you know, i think compromise is in the eyes of the beholder. i'm willing to compromise. we've offered 13 compromises this week to the open the government, and the docrats have rejected each a big pictur problem. we have the $17 trillion debt, we're borrowing more than $1 million every minute, so we do have to address that. i think the one thing i cannot accept and the one thing that i think is really not en a compromise at all is the democrats want to exceed the sequester caps, these things that we put into law to restrain spending already, and it's funny, they're all about obama care being the law of the land but so is the sequester. the sequester is the law of the land, and if we exceed that, it's a real big step in the wrong direction. >> just for our viewers, the sequester are forced budget cuts that unless there is some agreement on capitol hill about spending, they go into place, and the next round is expected to go into place in january. so now -- >> yeah, and to clarify -- >> go ahead. >> and to clarify what the sequester cuts are, they're a cut in the rate of increase in spending. over ten years even with the sequester, government will grow. it goes down for a year or two, but over ten years it grows. if we get rid of that, it's a terrible step in the wrong direction, but it's also a different position because the democrats were saying, oh, we want a clean cr, we want a spending bill with no riders. now they want a spending bill that increases spending and dramatically will increase the debt. it's a nonstarter. >> and is it a nonstarter do you think with the rest of the senate republicans? >> i can't imagine you're going to get senate republicans to vote for something that exceeds the sequester caps. i think it's a huge mistake for the country. the number one problem we face is our debt. we have to do something about our debt. >> let me read you something that eric cantor, the majority leader in the house, had to say when the house sort of gave up negotiations with the president. he said, i know the president is trying to see which republican senator he can pick off in the senate. i hope that the senate republicans stand strong so we can speak with one voice. do you think at the end of the day senate republicans are more eager for some sort of resolution than house republicans are and will, indeed, sort of give up on some of the things the house republicans have been pushing for? >> you know, i'm not positive. i think every member of our republican caucus is concerned about the debt, we're concerned about giving him a blank check to borrow more, and i would say that goes through every member of the republican caucus has a real concern for what the debt is doing to our country. now, we're also concerned about the government being closed. none of us likes the government being closed. i didn't want to be here in the beginning, and have been advocating more talk on a weekly basis when we're not lurching from deadline to dleadline. i have been advocating a bipartisan lunch for over a year and a half on a regular basis where we talk about these problems, and so far we haven't had enough discussion. i think that's what led to this impasse. >> senator, let me play you a couple of quick bites from a variety -- some of them are your republican colleagues, one of them an international financier, talking about what would happen if next thursday i believe is deadline, if next thursday congress has failed to lift the debt ceiling. take a listen. >> we ha a real deadline with potentially cataclysmic consequences. >> failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause serious damage to the u.s. economy but also to the global economy. >> i know some people on wall street that are telling me tha the markets would react in a very, very negative fashion. >> senator paul, i know you said that you don't think the debt ceiling increase is that big of a deal. but the more you listen to people, the more you read what economists have to say, do you think it's worth the risk not to raise the debt ceiling? >> i think it's not a good idea to go through the debt ceiling deadline. i think we should go ahead and have an agreement in advance. that being said though, i think it's also irresponsible for the president, who when he was a senator actually voted not to raise the debt ceiling, it's irresponsible for him to scare people. the leader of the country should be soothing the markets and saying, we will always pay the interest on our debt, and we do have plenty of revenue. we bring in $250 billion a month, and we have $20 billion in intert payment. there's absolutely no reason ever to default, and a good leader would be saying we will never default. >> would a good senator be saying we will never default? >> absolutely. i'm trying to be that. we should never default. we should never miss a payment, but people have to realize that not raising the debt ceiling means you have to balance yu budget. it doesn't mean you default, and people are conflating these two, and they're not the same thing. >> so your best calculation, do you think there are enough republicans in the senate to join with democrats to pass an increase in the debt ceiling? what if it came down to the wire and the only thing available was a clean debt ceiling increase, nothing on it, just increase the debt ceiling? >> you know, i think at this point, you know, we had a vote on saturday, yesterday, and it was to just raise it without any restrictions, and we all voted solidly against rsing it without limit and without restrictions. that's what the democrats offered us yesterday. noimit over the next year or year and a half, we raise it as high as it goes, no limits. the american people don't want that. the vast majority of the people are afraid of what this huge growth in our deficit is going to do to us. and so, no, i think we have to restrain. and there are two problems, and they're both problems. it is a problem for the marketplace to see us go through a deadline. but in 2011 when we were downgraded, we were downgraded because of the burden of how big our debt was, not because of getting close to a deadline. the s&p said we not do enough to cut spending and not enough to act fiscally responsible. that's why we were downgraded. it could happen again if we don't wake up and do something to manag this debt. >> i want to play you a little bit of a conversation that you had with senator mitch mcconnell, the republican leader on the senate side, that was caught by cames, and then ask you a question on the other side. >> oh, candy, that was private. you wouldn't play a private conversation on tv, would you? >> no, but i sure wouldn't talk when i had a mike on, so let me play this for you. hang on. >> we keep saying we wanted to defund it, we fought for that, and now we're willing to compromise on this? i think -- i know we don't want to be here but we're going to win this i think. >> you still think you're going to win this and what does winning this look like? >> you know, the interesting thing about this conversation is i was on cnn about three minutes before that a i said the same thing on television. not exactly in the same words, but pretty close. we don't want to be here, we don't want to be in a shutdown, and it is a failure of conversation to be in a shdown. and what i mean by winning this is not that i think it's a political battle, but that i think it is untenable for the president to say he won't negotiate, and he still repeated that when we were in the white house the other day, he is talking to us, with ihich i thi negotiation, but he is also saying i will not pay for a raising of the debt ceiling. i have to get this without any conditions, which is sort of him saying unconditional surrender which is not negotiation. so really in 2011 we added the sequester. that was a good thing. we need to add more controls and restraint to government spending, and this is precisely the time to do it. he's unlikely to negotiate when he doesn't have a deadline. >> i want to show our viewers a recent nbc news/"wall street journal" poll which asked people if they had a positive opinion of the democratic party. 39% said yes. republican party, 24%. tea party, 21%. lowest favorables for the tea party and the republican party ever in nbc/"wall street journal" polling. do you think as many have now started talking about -- i grant you, a lot of them are democrats -- that there has been some irreparable harm done to the republican party? people talking about how this is the beginning of the end of the republican party as we know it. >> i think our demise is a little bit overstated. i would say that both parties are going to catch a lot of blame on this. this is not -- >> do you agree republicans are taking a lot? >> well, i think both are, and i think democratsho think this is a parlor game, who think this is fun -- here is what the democrats think. they think we'll send a bunch of government workers out there to close off the roadside viewing of mt. rushmore because that will be funny, you know, so i think it isn't funny, and i think that democrats and republicans are going to catch blame. so i don't want to be here. i don't see this as winning or losing. this is a lose/lose situation. we need to open up government, and it does reqre a conversation, but the president is the one saying he won't negotiate, and now it's senate democrats saying we don't -- we used to want a clean cr but we think you're squirming, so now we want to raise spending and break the budget caps. so i think we're seeing that the senateemocrats are getting greedy about this whole thing. >> do you see youelf at any point in the future being anything other than politically a member of the republican party? >> you're implying a third party or some other party? >> or if you wanted to become a democrat, there's lots of sort of parties out there. just wondering if you see yourself being anything other than a republican? >> no. i have always been a republican, and i'm one of those people who actually is a real lover of the history of the republican party from the days of abolition through the days of civil rights. republican party has a really rich history. in our state, i'm really proud of the fact that the ones who overturned jim crow in kentucky were republicans fighting agnst an entirely unified democrat party. so i am proud to be a republican, can't imagineeing anything else. >> last question, you can yes or no this if you want. a lot of people have referred to senar ted cruz as the de facto head of the republican party. do you agree? >> i think that he's done a good job drawing attention to obama care and that obama care is something that is going to be damaging to people and for that i think he's done a great service in bringing attention to i think something that's really going to be bad for a lot of americans. >> but you don't necessarily see him as the de facto head of the republican party. >> well, you got 46 of us, and we all have a little bit of ego, so i think most of us kind of think, oh, we're one of the leaders. we have official leaders. we have official leadership, but i don't think any of us are ready to say, my fellow senator, he's my leader and i follow him off the edge of the cliff. there is no one leader other than our official leadership that we have. >> that's why we love the senate. senator rand paul, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. ahead, compromise falls short. >> susie collins is one of my favorite senators, democrat or republican. i appreciate her efforts, as always, to find a consensus, but the plan that she suggested that i have seen in writing is not going to go anyplace at this stage. >> susan collins and amy klobuchar are next. geoff: i'm t kind of guyho doesn't like being sold to. the last thing i want is to feel like someone is giving me a sales pitch, especially when it comes to my investments. you want a broker you can trust. a lot of guys at the other firms seemed more focused on selling than their clients. 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. that your mouth is under attack, from food particles and bacteria. try fixodent. it helps create a food sea defense for a clean mouth and kills bacteria for fresh breath. ♪ fixodent, and forget it. it might just be the week of the woman. 16-year-old malala met with the president to promote her campaign for global education. she survived a pointblank shooting by the taliban on her way home from school last year. president obama nominated janet yellin to be the first female head of the federal reserve, and chr lagarde warned the u.s. to get their fiscal house in order. susan collins and amy klobuchar are here to tell us how they plan to save us from all this madness in washington. even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. that's why liberty mutual insurance offers accident forgiveness if you qualify, and new car replacement standard with our auto policies. so call liberty mutual today. and if you switch, you could save up to $423. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? joining me now, senator susan collins, the senior senator and republican from maine, and senator amy klobuchar, democrat from minnesota. thank you both for joining us. let me first ask you the question about mood, temperament, it seemed awfully tense to be on capitol hill yesterday and before then. i want to add something to this. it's the latest "wall street journal"/nbc news poll and the question was, would you vote to defeat and replace every member of congress, including your representative, if you could? 60% said yeah, i would. we'dhrow the whole -- there's a lot of pressure and a lot of tension. >> there is, and there's a lot of justifiable anger at congress and at the president for failing to solve these problems, but i do want to say that despite what people may read, there are a lot of constructive discussions going on behind the scenes. in my office yesterday, there were two different meetings with 12 senato, 6 democrats, including amy, and 6 republicans, to try to work a way out of this impasse. >> and then we look up on tv and senator reid is saying, no, the collins' plan is dead, there's nothing in it. >> i was very surprised when senator reid said that. i don't know why he said it. i don't think it was very constructive, but the fact is we have a responsibility to govern, and we're continuing to talk, and i'm still hopeful that at least we sparked a dialogue that did not exist before we put out a plan, and i think that i made a real contribution that way and that elements of the plan that senator murkowski and senator ayotte and i have put forth will end up in the final compromise. >> senator klobuchar, why did senator reid just reject the collins-plus, which you have been working on or talking about in her office? why did he just reject it out of hand? >> i see this plan as a positive framework going forward, and we need that right now. i think you see the fact that senator reid, senator mcconnell are now talking, and we've gotten to a stage where some of the demands that we've heard from house republicans to put ideological things on the budget and shut the government down if they didn't defund obama care, if they didn't get something on on birth control, that's behind us now, and i think the plan in the works that we're doing is positive. i think what senator reid meant is that he wasn't going to accept every little detail of it, but i think he knows that there are some positive things in that plan that are very good. for instance, we are talking about opening the government again and doing it in a smart time frame. we're talking about not having a default on our debt and being actually able to pay our bills again. we're talking about doing something in the long term on the budget, something this country has cried out for, a balanced approach is what i would like to see with some spending cuts but also revenue and doing some smart things. i think that's what we need to do as a country, and i see this with a lot of women leading the way, positive, and i think the fact these guys are now negotiating are positive for the country. >> we're now hearing that democrats want to break the forced budget cuts in the absence of any kind of budget deal. >> well, that's problematic, but what i think we could do and the reason that i have included a provision that requires a budget conference, a long overdue budget conference, is there could be a substitution of some of the mandatory spending cuts such as the farm bill, which saves $23 billion over ten years, for some of the cuts in defense and biomedical research that are very troubling to me personally. >> have you spoken, either one of you, spoken to senator reid since he rejected this compromise proposal? >> well, i have talked to a number of people in our leadership, and i think you will see today as negotiations continue, elements of this proposal which i think is really important, and i wanted to add what susan said here. when we have a situation where we have a farm bill that had strong bipartisan support in the senate, that brings the debt down, we have a number of bills, immigration bill brings the debt down by $160 billion in ten years, there are some important work we need to do in the senate. we need to open up the government, make sure we're paying our bills and then we can go on to do this important work. >> one of the things that interested me in what senator reid said yesterday, i hope in america and around the globe people are reassured that i sat down with senator mcconnell, the republican leader, today because we haven't sat down on this before. we are 13 days into a government shutdown, we are four or five days away from busting through the debt ceiling. and the two main leaders in the united states senate have not sat down to discuss this yet. how can the american people see that as anything other than a huge failure of leadership? >> well, certainly they're talking now, and they are the leaders, and that is positive. but i think also that the president should have brought the leaders to the white house far earlier than he did, and that's why many of us have tried to step into the breach and put together a plan and offer it to the leaders as a starting point because real harm is being done. as this shutdown goes on, the consequences go far beyond the unfortunate furlough of thousands of federal workers. it affects the private sector. it affects our economy. it affects america's place in the world. >> and yet senator klobuchar, these are two grown men in the senate. they don't need the president to force them to meet. i just think from the outside looking in, people are going, wait, in the senate they haven't even talked about this? >> well, i think, first of all, many people have been talking about this in the senate. when you look at the history of the senate the last few years despite their disagreements, the senate has been a place we've gotten things done. i mentioned the farm bill and immigration bill. it was the senate that averted the fiscal cliff at the end of the year. it was the senate that passed a transportation bill that had so much asupport across the country. i think no matter when they met or that they're talking, it's fact it's in the senate where there is a group of bipartisan work that's been going on, people that have been working together for so long, i think that's a positive. i'd like to echo what susan has said, we have situations now where a plane manufacturer in duluth, minnesota, can't get their inventory out of a warehouse to be able to try to sell it overseas where they do exports all the time because the transportation department shut down and they can't get approval. we have fisher en off alaska who are going to lose their market on crab to russia. we have to get this government open again. >> and i want to ask you quickly about that. congressman mark sanford said, wait a second, the house has already passed a bill that will pay back pay to the furloughed workers. the president said he would sign it. i can't imagine the democrat-controlled senate saying no to that. and he decided to just bring back his furloughed workers saying they're getting paid, there's no sense in them sitting at home, bring back them back. why not just do that? >> we should and that's what i did in my office after that bill passed the house. i had furloughed most of my staff, but if they're going to be paid, they should be at work. >> transportation people should be at work. if they're going to get paid -- >> i think part -- >> -- is nonsensical. >> i think part of it is the constitutional interpretation of what it means when there's a shutdown. right now we have a shutdown going on. we need to end it, we need to put people back to work, and we need to also pay our bills. >> did you bring your staff back? >> i have about two-thirds of my staff that's out right now on shutdown. i think they're going to be back because i think we're going to get this done. >> that was my last question. do you think that this will be resolved before we hit the magic date apparently of october 17th when we crash up against the debt ceiling? is it going to be done by then? >> i do think it's going to be done and i think it's going to be done in part because of the kind of work that's getting done where some people said we have to work for the people of america. we're not just going to play these games. we're not going to just speak in metaphors. we're actually going to put a framework out and move forward and that's what we're doing in the senate. >> i agree. this is about our responsibility to govern, and it's taken far too long. we never should be in this situation, but i do believe we're going to see a resolution this week. >> you two may have single handedly calmed the markets tomorrow morning when they open. >> i hope so. >> fingers crossed and all of that because you're right, the people that aren't going to get back pay are all those workers that are affected by a government shutdown but don't work for the federal government. >> exactly, the little stores that are right next to the parks, all of the people that are just trying to get by and make it in this country, and we're not doing the job for them, and that's why we got to get this done. >> and that's not right. >> are there ongoing meetings about collins-plus, and who -- how many people have you gathered in your office? >> well, we had 12 people meet yesterday, but just last night i had two more democrats and a republican contact me to offer suggestions and say they wanted to be a part of our group. so i think that's very positive. we're going to keep working, offering our suggestions to the leadership on both sides of the aisle in an attempt to be constructive and bring this impasse to an end. surely we owe that to the american people. >> senator collins, senator klobuchar, thank you for joining us. next up, ted cruz makes a plea to conservative voters before a meeting with president obama. >> if i'm never seen again, please send a search and rescue team. >> there might be some republicans who would like to see the junior senator from texas disappear. our political panel on the republican brand, next. ordered shoes from us online but they didn't fit. customer's not happy, i'm not happy. sales go down, i'm not happy. merch comes back, i'm not happy. use ups. they make returns easy. unhappy customer becomes happy customer. then, repeat customer. easy returns, i'm happy. repeat customers, i'm happy. sales go up, i'm happy. i ordered another pair. i'm happy. 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obama, and cnn crossfire host newt gingrich who knows a thing or two about shutdowns. thank you all for joining me. so we are beginning to see there's something fundamental going on in the electorate, that this has brought the republican party down to its worst numbers in history in terms of approval, and it's just the beginning of the end. >> nuts. this is childish. it's silly. you're about to have chris christie win an election in new jersey by probably more than 20 percentage points. it is 390 days to the next election, and to suggest -- go back and look at thatcher in 1983. you go back and look at reagan in 1982-'83, this is a middle of a bloody fight. this is a serious principled fight, nobody in this city wants to grant the house republicans any dignity, but the fact is they're fighting over very profound principles, and when it's over and when the dust settles, the country is going to assess, and then they will see that obama care is a disaster. >> in fact, anita, i think when we get into next year, here is where the balance of the election lies. either you get a whole bunch of stories about how wonderfully the president's affordable care act is working, that this person now has health insurance for the first time, or you are going to have a whole bunch of people going i am now paying six times more for moore insurance than i ever did before and therein lies the election, that this will be a distant memory by the time we roll around to september. >> sandy, thank you for having me on this morning. i fundamentally disagree with that. i think that the affordable care act, obama care, will be part of what people are looking at next year, but they're going to be looking at a broader issue, which is the economy, are we growing jobs, and the leadership involved with what we need to do to move to the future. i think that the republicans right now are -- and i agree with speaker gingrich. obviously, the party is not dead, but it is doing itself some extraordinary damage in a year that started off for them with them moving forward on immigration reform, trying to broaden their tent, and by the end of the year if they say, okay, what did we accomplish, they have have imparted some very negative attitudes. you have to believe there are people saying bring back mitt romney and his 47% tape because that's better than what's going on now. and the reality is they're hardening some very negative impressions that exist. it's going to be hard to turn that around. >> governor, i remember distinctly coming out and covering you when you were governor because you were a new kind of democrat. you were a dlc democrat, and the dlc was a group of moderate democrats, bill clinton being probably the most successful one, who got together after the '60s when the democratic party was pulled many felt way to the 4re left and could not win national elections. should there be a formation of that sort of group or do you disagree that republicans are on -- >> i think it's just going to find the middle ground. you just had a couple people on that are looking for that middle ground, and they're found in the house, they're found in the senate. i think there's 20-some members of the house right now who have said that, gee, we would vote for a clean cr, no strings attached, but not a single one of them was invited to go with boehner to the white house. this actually right now, this big fight, everybody in america needs to understand this, this is a fight for who is going to be the next speaker of the house, and we've got about a half or maybe more of republicans in the house who are saying we don't want boehner anymore. so it spilled over and now we have a government shutdown but we're still paying our employees. we are questioning whether we're going to pay our debts. this is a big mistake for the republican party. look, the democrats have made mistakes before, and if the republicans would have just sat back and said, see, we told you obama care wasn't going to work, they might have won this battle. >> speaker, newt, do you agree that speaker boehner took these things to the point they are because he wanted to stay speak summer. >> first of all, every speaker does what they have to do to be speaker, otherwise they're not speaker. it's kind of a silly formula. but notice what's going on. boehner goes down and says, i'll give you six weeks of a clean debt ceiling. president pricochtly says no. harry reid tries to redouble the bet and now i actually want you to roll back the sequester. at some point you have to understand this is a profound fight over the size of the federal government, the size of the federal deficit, and whether or not washington is going to run the whole country incompetently as it has with the health.gov. amazon and google, the u.s. government can't figure out how to put up a site you can go to? this is a sign of how fundamentally incompetent the bureaucracy is. >> some of the states have done a little better actually than the federal website has done. i want to play you quickly in reference to the gop brand, which we do know in polls has at least taken a current hit, and something i asked senator ted cruz last week. >> do you think you have hurt the republican party brand? >> not remotely. >> is this man being unfairly targeted by colleagues as well as by democrats? and do you think the tea party or those who ascribe to tea party values has an outsized influence right now in the republican party? >> ted cruz is a very aggressive articulator of a hardline position that probably 20% or 25% of the country agrees with. he's in some ways much like bore of idaho was. he's a dramatic dissenter from the washington establishment. that also means, by the way, because of his personality, he's really infuriating defenders of the washington establishment. i don't think ted minds that a bit. >> i'm going to let you answer that question in a minute so stand by. i do promise. but i also want to talk about president obama who this week in his saturday radio address may have captured a little bit about how everyone feels just now. >> i know you're frustrated by what you see in your nation's capital right now, but because it's easy to get lost in or give up on the political back and forth, i want you to remember, this is not normal. >> you'd be surprised what passes for normal these days. we'll be back in a minute. if you're living with moderate to severe crohn's disease, and it feels like your life revolves around your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira adalimumab. humira has been proven to work for adults who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief, and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other 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brand new belongings from nationwide insurance and we'll replace stolen or destroyed items with brand-new versions. we put members first. join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ that your mouth is under attack, from food particles and bacteria. try fixodent. it helps create a food seal defense for a clean mouth and kills bacteria for fresh breath. ♪ fixodent, and forget it. ñnthat's why they deserve... aer anbrake dance. get 50% off new brake pads and shoes. this just in to cnn. we're monitoring a protest outside the white house right now. we want to bring in our senior white house correspondent jim acosta who has a bit of a bird's-eye view. what are you seeing, jim? >> reporter: i went outside the white house gates to sort of get in the middle of this protest and see what was going on. essentially what we saw happen here is, as you know, candy, there were some veterans and tea party protesters who were down at the monuments at the world war ii memorial, outside the vietnam memorial this morning protesting the fact of the national park service and the u.s. park police have erected barricades around those monments to keep people out during the shutdown. we saw these protesters lining up in front of the white house by the dozen. there were a couple of hundred at one point and they were dumping those barricades in front of the gates, in front of the white house, on the north lawn of the white house, and at one point there was some pushing and shoving between u.s. park police and those protesters, but since all of that started happening, park police started moving those barricades -- actually putting them back together to move the protesters back and now the protesters are starting to wrap things up and they're talking about heading over to the capitol next. so a few tense moments at the white house, but things seem to be calming down, candy. >> looks like all a part of the to and fro about who is responsible for the shutdown and who picked what things to shut down. >> reporter: exactly. >> jim acosta, thanks very much. >> reporter: you bet. >> we will be back with brian schweitzer, anita dunn, and newt gingrich in a moment. my mantra? always go the extra mile. to treat my low testosterone, i did my research. my doctor and i went with axiron, the only underarm low t treatment. axiron can restore t levels to normal in about 2 weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 or men with prostate or breast cancer. women, especially those who are or who may become pregnant and children should avoid contact where axiron is applied as unexpected signs of puberty in children or changes in body hair or increased acne in women may occur. report these symptoms to your doctor. tell your doctor about all medical conditions and medications. serious side effects could include increased risk of prostate cancer; worsening prostate symptoms; decreased sperm count; ankle, feet or body swelling; enlarged or painful breasts; problems breathing while sleeping; and blood clots in the legs. common side effects include skin redness or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and increase in psa. ask your doctor about the only underarm low t treatment, axiron. i'm back with brian schweitzer, anita dunn, and newt gingrich. we've talked about how the republicans have taken a huge hit, be it temporary or longer, but nobody is scot-free here. my question to you about the president, whose popularity has also dropped, is do you think as a part of his legacy he wants to be the first president to preside over a default? is that enough to bring him to the table? >> no, it's not. and i don't think he's going to come to the table. look, we've asked about ted cruz and where he's taken the party. look, if you throw a skunk in the chicken coop, everybody knows you have to get the skunk out before he kills the chicken and eats the eggs but everybody gets smell on them. it's spilling over to the president and dnts and whemocrat the country is see something dysfuncti dysfunction. there's going to be people in the middle on the democratic side and republican side that breaks this loose and brokers it. look, we have got to have the speaker of the house speak to the majority of the senate. this is the legislative body. they ought to be working this thing out, not rushing over to the president and saying solve our problem. he's there with the pen at the end, but the legislative branch has to solve this. >> really? you don't think that that's something the president would like to avoid? the president is, in fact, in charge. >> well, candy, the president is in charge of the executive branch of the government. i think the constitution has been pretty clear who has the spending power here. and let me just -- you promised me a chance to say something about ted cruz. i want to say that. he's an extraordinarily smart person who should not be underestimated, and to the extent he is the face of the republican party going into 2014, he will excite an important part of their base, and he will excite an important part of the democratic base. i think he's a critical political figure moving forward, so, you know, we'll all -- >> don't underestimate. >> don't underestimate him. the president's basic position is he is happy to talk, and he is talking, and he is talking and talking, but he's not going to negotiate in order to get congress to do its job, which is to behave as responsible legislators and keep this country from going into a default. >> but as we all know, there have been negotiations before about these very same issues. >> well, i would say that, but i don't think that anybody before was ever really willing to put this country into default. and the absence of leadership that governor schweitzer is talking about, is really the danger. it's not on the part of the white house, it's on the part of congress. >> the president? >> you just heard the party line outlined eloquently. i think this president is engaged in another audacious strategy just as obama care was audacio audacious, just as running for president was audacious, and the way they did the stimulus was audacious. his strategy is to strip the house republicans of the ability to force him to negotiate. i think it's a deliberate strategy. he's executing it very willfully. i think he has in harry reid somebody who is even more aggressive than he is, and the test the next week is going to be simple -- do the house republicans stand firm and say, you have to negotiate, as, by the way, on the debt ceiling we have for 60 years since eisenhower, and we have had 18 shutdowns since 1976. none of this is new, but this president has decided he wants to be legislator in chief, not just commander in chief, and this is a big deal historically. >> let me -- i want to put a quick poll up there. it's the right direction/wrong direction poll which so many politicians look at going into an election. asked whether the country is going in the right direction, 14% of americans said it's going to the right direction. 78% said it's going -- it's on the wrong track. >> you want to meet those 14%. >> yes, you do, because i think this speaks a mistrust of the federal government, and while i understand that republicans, you know, think that's healthy, you have to somehow believe in your government. isn't that also one of the by-products of this mess? >> we distrust the federal government and we ought to. we have a government shutdown but we're still paying the people. that's the cost of running government. secondly, if you really want to cut the cost of government, you have to get it from social security, health care, medicare, medicate, and get it from defense. when people talk about i'm going to shut this down, those are rounding errors. if you want to talk about the cost of running government, talk about the real things. >> i got to leave it there. i'm sorry. write me your responses. thank you. what does the political standoff mean for corporate america? goldman sachs ceo lloyd blankfein on the economy and globalization next. ♪ (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. make my mark i wawith pride.ork. create moments of value. build character through quality. and earn the right to be called a classic. the lands' end no iron dress shirt. starting at 49 dollars. humans. even when we cross our "ts" and dot our "i's", we still run into problems. that's why liberty mutual insurance offers accident forgiveness with our auto policies. if you qualify, your rates won't go up due to your first accident. because making mistakes is only human, and so are we. we also offer new car replacement, so if you total your new car, we'll give you the money for a new one. call liberty mutual insurance at... and ask us all about our auto features, like guaranteed repairs, where if you get into an 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