brendan will attest to this or speak to this. the rules of their conference is very different than the rules of the democratic caucus, which puts their speaker in a very weak position. >> brendan, boehner and ryan both had the possibility of, for example, carrying out comprehensive immigration negotiations that were going on in the house. they couldn't because of those elements in their caucus that simply wouldn't have let that happen. >> that's right. there's a group in the conference who always believes if you just fight harder, you can get something more conservative. what ends up happening is, they marginalize themselves. we have to write them off. there's never anything they can be for. policies end up moving to the left. that's what happened with the debt limit agreement. that's what happened with most spending bills. time and time again, whether