0 might happen, wendell. what about the president? what is his role in all of this? >> reporter: the president is criticized for not leading the negotiations and accused by the republicans for refusing to negotiate. president has been meeting with congressional democrats to try to hold them together. he met with them here at the white house late yesterday. his efforts in the house fell apart. he told wabc that past efforts to negotiate directly with speaker boehner haven't worked out too well. >> him negotiating with me isn't necessarily good for the extreme faction in his caucus. it weakens him. so there have been repeated situations where we have agreements. then he goes back and turns out he can't control his caucus. >> reporter: once we get past this current crisis the president is likely going to have to negotiate with boehner to avoid doing all of this all over again early next year, jenna. jenna: not too far away. some of those timelines in the supposed, quote, unquote, deal. we shall see, wdell. thank you so much. more as it comes. jon: could be back at it again in mid-january. now since the last time we saw you here on "happening now" a lot has happened on capitol hill. here's just a sampling of some of the back and forth. >> trying to find a way forward in a bipartisan way that would continue to provide fairness to the american people under obamacare. there are a lot of opinions about what direction to go. there have been no decisions about what exactly we will do. >> extremist republicans in the house of representatives are attempting to torpedo the senate's bipartisan progress with a bill that can't pass the senate. can't pass the senate and won't pass the senate. >> if there is any hope here that they don't have the votes. so why are they doing this to the american people? sabotageing a good faith bipartisan effort, coming out of the senate. wasting the public's time. >> i again urge my democratic colleagues, we know you have the upper hand. isn't it time that we helped to find a way out of this which is what the american people want rather than who won and who lost? the only people that are losing right now are the people of this country. >> for speaker boehner, for example, him negotiating with me isn't necessarily good for the extreme faction in his caucus. it weakens him. so there have been repeated situations where we have agreements. then he goes back and it turns out that he can't control his caucus. >> they stalled because of this deliberate effort in the house, started by the tea party caucus and once again, speaker boehner has allowed that part of his caucus to run the show. >> no votes for tonight. we'll see you. >> here are some of the details as we understand them, from the senate bill, put forward by a minority leader mitch mcconnell as well as majority leader harry reid. it would allow the continuing resolution through january 15. anything agreed on, so, we'll see how this one goes. jenna: let's go straight to capitol hill now. standing by, senator angus king. he is a independent from main. senator, first of all nice to have you back on the program. been a while since we chatted. >> jenna, nice to be with you. jenna: tell me a little bit about this deal? what do you know about it? what can you tell our viewers? >> it was just outlined. that's all i know. what i've been hearing in the last hour they're close, they're close, they're close and now apparently in the last few minutes people actually said they have the language and that the details will be emerging. but essentially the good news is that we're going to get through this shutdown default situation. the bad news is it is only for two or three months this is as my father used to say, a hell of a way to run a railroad. certainly not much of a way to run a government either and i hope eventually we can get off this crisis to crisis way of governing. jenna: i'm sure a lot of our viewers share that sentiment as well. i want to talk about bigger issues in just a moment but i'm curious about the timeline. have you been made aware of any votes coming up the next few hours? how do you see this playing out so we don't pass into the danger zone where we're on the verge of defaulting? and how confident are you that this deal will actually pass through the house? >> well, i'm reasonably confident. i think it has been clear for a month now if speaker boehner brought something like this to the floor of the house, it would pass with enough democratic and republican votes. he has been holding to the so-called hastert rule where he has to have a majority of his caucus before even brings a bill to the floor. i don't think he will be able to maintain that today. what i'm hearing is that the house is going to move something. it will be over to the senate and it could move very fast. now the other big question mark is whether senator cruz and mike lee and some of the other folks that have been working this hard from their point of view are going to try to filibuster, slow things down, object. so the question is can we take care of this in a day or so, even by tonight or is it going to drag out into the weekend because of a rear guard action by those who don't want to see a settlement occur? it is going to occur. i think now it is just a question of whether it is going to be in the next 24 hours or the next 72 hours. jenna: a lot of what ifs. we'll leave those until we learn a little bit more from those members and get more of a timeline. senator, we talked the day after you were elected into office and one of the things you said to me, you said unless we start talking to each other, finding common ground, it is public and people that end up suffering and i hope to nudge the senate in the right direction. you're new to all of this. how bad is it? is it fixable with the members that are currently in office, or do some real changes have to be made? >> well, it is pretty bad. in some ways it is worse than i expected although we have been able to do some things on a bipartisan basis the student loan compromise in the senate. the immigration bill, we're pretty solidly bipartisan. there are little bills passing here and there. but when you get to this budget stuff you're talking about the core values of the two parties and it is very hard to resolve but, what worries me, jenna, is, and i heard the interview with the republican congressman before and he was right, that the way you change laws and make policy in this country is by winning elections. and what bothers me is this, using the debt ceiling or the funding of the government as a weapon to get something that you want that you couldn't get because you don't have enough seats in the senate or you don't have the presidency. so i would like to get back to democracy with a small d, following the constitution, and abide by the rules as they have been established and not go through this constant hostage-taking situation to get something in that process that you couldn't get through the normal process. jenna: we heard the term hostage-taking from democrats. you're independent but you do caucus with the democrats. you also have a meeting with folks like senator collins who came forward with an idea, bipartisan effort, to try to fix this a few days ago. how do you feel about how the democrats have treated the republicans in this, in this 16 days? do you think both side are guilty of, disrespect, of not elevating the conversation, or do you agree with how the democrats have handled it? >> well i think there has been some pretty hot rhetoric that i don't think contributes to a solution. i've met john boehner. i don't think he is a bad guy. i think he is doing a very difficult job as well as he can. he is in a very tough situation over there. so, yeah, i think we could be a little calmer on both side about what is going on. i used the word, hostage, because i don't know how else to characterize it when somebody says we're not going to let the government run and we're going to flirt with the default of the full, faith and credit unless we get what we want and if you will recall this all started out with an effort to defun and fundamentally repeal the affordable care act. that didn't work. the votes weren't there to do it. so it shifted to other kind of things but, whoever is playing that game i think it's a bad, it's a bad way to go because it, again, if you want to make policy, the thing you have to do is win elections. jenna: senator king, great to talk to you. i know you said you were going to try to bond with some other former governors in the senate. see if you can coalesce a group of bipartisanship. come and talk to us about your efforts there. >> that started happening and three members of the bipartisan group with susan collins and joe manchin were former governors. i like to think we have something to bring to this process because we understand about compromise and we understand about getting things done. jenna: that is what you said about governors. they had that experience. there you go. senator king, great to see you. look forward to have you back. >> thanks, jenna. jon: compromise, that is a tough word to find on capitol hill these days, all over on washington. don't want to put it on the members of the house and senate. we'll take you back live to washington momentarily. there is word of a deal, at least among two leaders in the senate. but we heard this before. will the house go along, will it be enough to end this gridlock, on capitol hill.