0 from one of those senators, republican senators, who is in the room standing by to speak with us, give us some details on what happened. also, right now we're waiting for today's white house briefing. it's expected to begin momentarily. we'll get the obama administration's latest take on the search for a way out of this stalemate. we'll have live coverage. jay carney, the press secretary, getting ready to be questioned by reporters. also right now, conservatives are rallying here in washington. anyone who thinks they have for gotten about obama care needs to think again. we're going there for a live report. welcome to our viewers. i'm wolf blitzer reporting from washington. will it be deal or no deal? that's the big question on this. day 11 of the partial government shutdown. this could be a crucial day in the fiscal stalemate. senate republicans, they came to the white house about an hour and a half or so ago. earlier in the day for talks with the president. as of right now they're getting ready to leave the white house, we're told. let's hope that's a good sign, talks yesterday with house republicans were described as, quote, good and useful. it was the first in at least some progress in this continuing stalemate. jim acosta is over at the white house. dana bash is here with me in the d.c. studio. jim, let's start with you right now. i guess the meeting has just wrapped up. these senators, we were expecting them maybe to come to the stake out over in the driveway outside the west wing of the white house. so far they haven't shown up, right? >> that's right. i want to point something out. if you look over my right shoulder you can see where some small buses have pulled up actually to the front of the -- front entrance to the north lawn of the white house, wolf. that large portico is where the buses are parked just outside. we're expecting to see where the republican senators come out of the white house shortly. that is where they went in about nointd minutes agop p this is a different set-up. i don't want to get too bogged down in describing this, than what we saw yesterday when house republicans were going into that portico just behind the west wing. this set-up today that the white house has put together along with republican senators for this meeting is a little bit different and i'm only pointing it out, wolf, because it seems as if there may be -- perhaps i'm reading too much into this. maybe a calculated effort here to keep the senators away from the press, away from reporters. we're going to do our best to wave them over and see if they will come talk to us. it's not the same as yesterday when we were coming they would come right to the position right outside the west wing as is often the case with a loftd these congressional meetings with the president. we're hoping to get an indication as to what the republican senators heard, what they had to say. we know they have their own ideas of what is different from what house republicans are proposing in terms of ending the government shutdown and raising the debt ceiling. the white house press secretary jay carney is going to get his briefing going within the hour. wolf, to give you a sense of what we know so far right now, basically we are where we have been for the last 12 hours or so. there is progress in the fact that they are just talking but no breakthroughs have been reported yet. no breakthroughs have been relayed us to by white house officials although i talked to a democratic source who is familiar with that meeting last night between the president and house republicans and, as you know, wolf, the president, as he was expected to do, made a very hard pitch to republicans for reopening the government. my sense is, wolf, he's made that same pitch to senator republicans in the last hour and half. >> i'm sure he did. stand by for a moment. dana bash is here with me in our studio. dana, there's some new information coming in on what house republicans may be blimping. >> that's right. and the headline is, it's not what the president wants, which is immediately to open the government. i should tell you this comes by way of congressional producer walsh has been doing some excellent reporting. she's saying that the offer that house republicans sent would ek tend the vote ceiling and vote oi on it first, about six weeks, and after that, the house would sit down and start to figure out ways for them to come together to reopen the government. that's pretty much what republicans were planning on doing before they met with the white house yesterday, before they met with the president, i should say. they don't seem to have moved at all beyond the fact that they're actually exchanging ideas. so this plan, this idea is in the white house's hands. we don't know what they're doing to say. if they're going to come back with a counter proposal. we're trying to figure that out. peter who is a member of the house republican leadership told deidre and others, let's do a temporary debt ceiling. then let's concentrate on the continuing resolution. we're also told that the vote on extending the debt ceiling could come as soon as today, even if they're going back and forth and starting to talk about reopening the government. they could start the ball rolling on the debt ceil for lots of reasons. primarily because we're talking about next week. >> let's say the house of representatives today has a clean bill to extend the debt ceil for six weeks, until november 22nd, and it passes overwhelmingly. it goes to the senate. is it conceivable that harry reid would not allow that to come up for an up or down vote in the senate? >> he has been holding his cards close to the vest. lots of reasons. mostly because things are fluid. he doesn't know where things are going to be with the broader talks. it is conceivable he could hold it while -- in order to force the hand of negotiators to reopen the government. he has said, in fact, you know, many people think he's been a big driver of this whole negotiation strategy. he could slow walk it a little bit. the other issue, by the way, is that you're probably going to need 60 votes on anything and it's unclear if this would have 60 votes or, more importantly, if the bill to reopen the government would have 60 votes. the other thinking right now is that perhaps if the senate got a debt ceiling extension, then they could try to add a bill to reopen the government. unclear of what that would look like. as we've been talking about, reporting, gloria and others, susan collins, on how to work out a bill that they could try to attach there. >> do we have any indications from white house officials, jim, how they might react if the house representatives does vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling for six weeks, but strikt l strictly dealing with the debt ceiling issue? >> wolf, the president has said and i think jay carney has said repeatedly now the president would sign a short-term debt ceiling increase. that was contingent on what was in the legislation itself. if it's a clean debt ceiling increase he's going to sign it. i think the critical component in all of this, wolfe, is how close we drift towards october 17th. if we're drofting towards october 17th and we don't have a break true, we don't have a deal, and he gets handed a deal that only raises the nation's debt ceiling he is going to do that even if it does not include a bill that opens up the government. i think that is the best rewrite now of where the white house stands right now and that is a read i got from a democratic official who was familiar with that meeting last night. that the debt ceiling, yes, something the president would sign. this is a surprise that came out of this meeting last night, wolf, as to how hard the president is trying to push here. i think it gives us a sense at this point the president feels and the white house believes and i think democrats up on capitol hill believe that they have a very strong upper hand here, they've seen some ofs these poll numbers that have come out that are very bad for republicans. they know they can squeeze just a little bit harder to see how much they can extract. what dana said about that deal from house republicans, i just don't know if that's going to fly at this point and what susan collins was proposinpropoe presidents has said he's not going to touch obama care when it comes to reopening the government and raising the nation's debt ceiling. my sense is that and we're hearing that rob neighbors, dennis, people inside the white house who are working on this deal, you know, they're going to be driving as hard a bargain as they can for this president at this point. >> one thing that jim is saying a exactly right. the pressure on republicans in the house and especially the senate to end this government shutdown is growing exponentially. that new "wall street journal"/nbc poll last night hit the republican caucus like a ton of bricks. it shows the public, vast majority think this is the republican's fault. so if, in fact, the houses does decide let's just do this debt ceiling and start to work on a deal to reopen the government this weekend, they understand, republican source are telling us, that they're going to need to do that very fast. maybe even as soon as getting a deal this weekend. so we could see something move almost as quickly as the president would want. >> we'll see what happens because the next few hours will be decisive potentially if there's going to be a deal today or tomorrow or sunday, we're going to hear in the course of today could be very, very significant. dana, thanks very much. i know you're not going to be going very far. you're going up to the hill, right? >> yes. >> jim accoosta will remain at e white house for us. thanks to you. investors are following up on yesterday's huge surge on wall street even as they wait to see what happens today in washington. take a look at these latest numbers. right now the dow up more than 100 points. 110 points, to be specific. 15,235. investors still prospects of a deal. take a look at live pictures from the house. today's white house press briefing with jay carney scheduled to ginny moment now. we're going to hear what the white house has to say about the just concluded meeting the president had with the senate republicans. all senate republicans were inside the white house. we're going to hear from that. we'll also speak to one of those republican senators who is inside the meeting. he will be here with us. that's coming up this hour as well. also, we'll have a live report from what's called the values voters summit. republican senator ted cruz got a rousing welcome. he also got some heckling. 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>> well, wolf, i got to tell you certainly the act viss, the grass roots activists that are here across town from capitol hill are not necessarily in favor of this grand bargaining or at least some kind of bargaining on obama care. they want to see obama care defunded. they embraced ted cruz' speech. they, in fact, took that and they used it as energy in really this movement against the whole health care system. in fact, wolf, this is what a piece of literature that we are seeing right now being passed around this conference right there where you see a little bit of a match between the mix of policy and politics. i got to tell you what though, wolf, if there was anybody out this point who has really done well and has done well with this audience was ted cruz even when he was heckled. let's take a listen. >> it seems that president obama's paid political operat e operatives are out in force today. i'm curious, is anybody left at the organizer for america headquart headquarters? i'm actually glad that the president's whole political staff is here instead of doing miss chief in the country. >> and here you have ted cruz literally just one hour before he went to the white house for the meeting with president obama. now, those were not ofa organizing for america workers. they were illegal immigration protesters. they had planted themselves in the audience. wolf, how many politicians can stand on stage, can take that kind of heckling and use it as energy, use it as fuel to ensight the audience and that's exactly what ted cruz did, wolf. >> very good speaker indeed. paul ryan, he's going to be i addressing this conference as well. his op-ed in the "wall street journal" outlining the initiative toss des to deal wit debt ceiling, no mention of all of obama care in that article. what do we expect to hear today? >> we certainly expect him to talk about the negotiations of standing by your values. but we won't see paul ryan here, as you said, in fact, a family research council spokesman told me that paul ryan was very clear for the past couple of weeks that if there was a government shutdown that in fact he would not be able to come here. they worked out a deal. they will do a five-minute have. remember, paul ryan is known within the party of being the big thinker, as being somebody who understands the budget whp while he might talk about issues, social conservative issues or mention them, in paul ryan's really, his go-to is being able to balance the budget and to talking about policier shus that a lot of people can't do. i think that's what we'll hear from him today. >> clearly emerging as a major player in this effort to get the government back operating fully and extend the nation's debt ceiling. he played a significant role we're told in the meeting that the house republican leadership had yesterday with president obama over at the white house. mark, we'll stay in close touch with you. thank you. meanwhile, new polls show republicans taking the biggest hit right now over the fiscal stalemate here in washington. our chief political analyst is standing by to join us next.