Transcripts For MSNBC Morning Joe 20131001

Without pay. Furloughed until congress can get its act together to fund the government. Ironically, its also the 123rd anniversary of yellowstone becoming a national park. Just one of the many places forced to close until further notice. At 1 16 a. M. , after the shutdown had taken effect, Speaker John Boehner held a press conference offering to take the resolution to conference. Thats an offer rejected by Senate Majority leader harry reid but what did not shutdown, the sign of obama care. Sign up for the Affordable Care act. Health exchanges still kick off today. Boy, the headlines reflect it all. Heres the New York Times talking about mirroring the shutdown. The wall street journal talks about washingtons grim standoff. The usa today talks about the shutdown showdown. The boston globe not my favorite but close. Big font. Huge font. Its about as big as rock dyes. You can read that. The Washington Post has down to the wire. The Financial Times and they are accurate here. Republicans fear voter backlash in the standoff. My favorite is the daily news. Kicked it. Old school, baby. House of turds. I think we end right there. All right. With us on set, we have msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle and senior political analyst Mark Halperin and in washington, associate editor of the Washington Post and msnbc political analyst, Eugene Robinson and columnist for the Washington Post and msnbc policy analyst ezra klein along with willie, joe and me. Happy shutdown day, boys. 12 49 a. M. The office of management and budget issued an alert to federal agencies to begin closing up shop. Yesterday the house passed a series of continuing resolutions delaying portions of obama care to try to fund the government. All of them swatted down by the senate. As we mentioned, senator harry reid refused the republican led house plan to reconcile their differences by going to conference committee. Something reid said they offered republicans months ago. We like to resolve issues, but we will not go to conference with a gun to our head. They want to go to conference on the cr. Madame president , that closes government. They want to close government. I dont understand that actually. Im critical of so many things republicans doing but going to conference doesnt close the government. It actually resolves the issue. It was offered. Earlier in the day the president phoned top leaders including harry reid, mitch mcconnell, nancy pelosi and john boehner. The call with boehner lasted just ten minutes and last night on the house floor, boehner did an impression of how it went. I didnt come here to shutdown the government. How do we give a break to all of the big businesses out there and yet stick our constituents with a bill that they dont want and a bill they cant afford . Thats what this fight is all about. I talked to the president earlier tonight. Im not going to negotiate. Im not going to negotiate. Were not going to do this. Well, i would say to the president , this is not about me. This is not about republicans here in congress. Its about fairness for the American People. Right. So they should do their job and president obama said he himself was unwilling to move. Hes been saying this. The Affordable Care act is moving forward. That funding is already in place. You cant shut it down. Keeping the peoples government open is not a concession to me. Keeping Vital Services running and hundreds of thousands of americans on the job is not something you give to the other side. Its our basic responsibility. You dont get to extract a ransom for doing your job. For doing what youre supposed to be doing any way or just because theres a law there that you dont like. Top democrats say republicans simply cannot read the writing on the wall. You dont have the votes because the people elected democrats as the majority in the senate and the president of the United States and they dont agree with you. And Newt Gingrich said when that was the case, you had to compromise. What compromise are we talking about . Were taking your number. Your number. And you will not take yes for an answer. How sad. What a shameful day this is in the history of the house of representatives. I tell you what . The new polling thats come out shows the depths of just how much americans dislike this countrys speakers. I dont get it. Congress Approval Rating is now polling at just 10 . What the heck . 53 of americans disapprove of the president s performance. Congressional republicans, democrats, and the president all get low marks for their handling of budget negotiations. Just 26 of americans approve of the way republicans are working in congress. Mark halperin, weve been through this before. Ive been through it for 15, 16, 17 years. Ive got to say though, ive never seen us at a standoff like this where theres less hope on either side. By the way, the president is looking pretty strong and secure there as we all know. Theyre just as worried as everybody else. They dont know how this is going to end. I spoke with a republican, we had matt salmon on yesterday. A good friend of mine. I have talked to a lot of republicans scratching their heads saying we dont know whats going on and how this ends. The widespread assumption is this ends because the most hard line has republicans cave as the poll numbers change and as the economic effects and human effects of the shutdown start to become better known. I think the problem is the only way you get a solution out of this is not at the grassroots and not in rank and file. It has to be the leaders. The president , harry reid, nancy pelosi, john boehner, these are deal makers. Under normal circumstances they could make a deal. History of the last five years plus leads the president is not dealing. Hes not. You have personalities who will not deal. They will not. And theyre going to have to but you saw it for the speaker of the house im not singling out john boehner because the attitude exists for all these leaders, to go on the floor and imitate the president like that, you wouldnt have seen that in years past. The white house attitude toward john boehner in public has been have to get over disdain. On both sides. Just disdainful. I have never seen anything like it in washington d. C. Republicans not talking to democrats. Members of congress not talking to the administration. You know, the president of the United States not reaching out to members of his own party on capitol hill. The only person that seems to me is talking is joe biden. The Vice President is talking but the Vice President has strangely been excluded from any negotiations this time around. This process is unlike two years ago when he was talking with mitch mcconnell. Hes not doing that now. The level of estrangement this time is beyond anyones belief and the house is virtually leaderless although the speaker of the house is known to be someone who makes a deal, who wants to make a deal. I dont know about you, gene, but just in talking to people, the level of isolation from reality that a small group of republicans seem to have and the death grip they have on John Boehners speakership is really striking. It is. I cant recall and i dont know that this has happened before. My favorite quote from that whole insanity last night of the house keeps throwing stuff up and the senate keeps swatting it back, it was congressman peter king who said the situation has somewhat been lost control of, which i thought was a wonderful twisted way of expressing what all of us think. Totally out of hand. Out of control. But meanwhile, happy obama care today, right . Exactly. The thing thats at the center of this whole dispute is up and operational and its marching ahead and i think maybe that message needs to get through. Thats the backdrop. Starting today the gates open to try to get about 7 Million People in the next six months signed up for Health Insurance that wouldnt previously be able to afford it or get it themselves. Quite frankly, republicans are nervous that it will work just fine for a lot of people. Ill sit back and listen to enough of this this onesidedne onesidedness. What republicans are afraid of is were going bankrupt as a nation and we know how this ends. There are ceos mika, listen. If this is a paid advertisement for obama care. Thats fine. Ill sit and eat my oatmeal. If i can finish my sentence you dont want to know what republicans think. They hate this law so much that would you like to know what theyre afraid of or just run over me and go to willie . I was going to go to willie. Go ahead. Tell me. Im interested. Do you really want to know . What are they afraid of . Theyre afraid of that when obama care becomes law its not that people are going to magically get insurance. What theyre afraid of is what weve heard from ceos who run the biggest corporations and that is that after a couple of years theyre going to drop all of their employees, theyre going to pay a couple thousand bucks for fines, and youre going to have millions and millions and millions of people flooding in to federal health care. That is going to happen. You talk to the top ceos. Theyll pay a couple thousand bucks. Theyll be free of the responsibility to take care of health care and we will have i do predict in the next ten years theres not going to be any private Health Insurance. Its all were going to have a federal government that completely runs everybodys Health Care System. Thats not how obama care works. Its not a Government Health care program. It works through private Health Insurance companies. Private forprofit Health Insurance companies. Those are the ones who participate in these exchanges. Its just not true. Healthcare. Gov. It is true, gene. You are going to have i can believe that were debating its not my intention to debate obama care this morning. I just sit here and im not going to hear people say the republicans are only doing this because they hate poor people and want them to sit out in bushes while everyone else is inside getting health care. Lets not hear that its federal Health Insurance. Its just not. By the way, i oppose this strategy. I think its a stupid strategy. The president won. Please, i dont want to confuse anybody. My point is that i have sat here you want to talk about isolation. We have the most isolated president the United States over the past 30, 40, 50 years. Talk to democratic senators. Dont talk to republicans to get that. This didnt just happen in a vacuum. The distrust didnt just happen in a vacuum. The isolation didnt just happen because theres some crazy right wing republicans that have taken over the conference. They have but thats not the only reason why this is happening right here and i will sit back now and you all can have your parade and blame it all on 12 or 13 people. Mike halperin . The percentage i was looking for the number but i cant find it offhand but the percentage of republicans that support obama care nationally is like 5 or something. People shouldnt mistake our analysis for saying its fine what republicans are doing what theyre doing right now regarding continuing resolution. The reality is that the Republican Party most of the people feel strongly about this in congress arent afraid its going to work. What theyre afraid is the system will be changed by obama care and that what works about health care will go bad. The problem with our system is there is employee based health care. Private sector employee based health care. Many people think thats a bad system and part of what obama care is going to do is keep employers stop employers as you said, from offering Health Insurance. Thats right now the backbone of our system. Were saying one broad thing here. That actually is a problem. One thing thats interesting about the scenario that joe puts out is in all of the republican plans what they do is they eliminate or dramatically change the deduction from employer based health care and you have similar dropping of health care into the individual market, moves to a tax credit, gets as it does in obama care purchased through private insurers. Thats not different between the two parties although i think the likelihood of employer dropping is a lot lower than joe does. One broad thing here is that it does seem a lot of the problems is republicans dont want to negotiate over these things. So you have this shutdown or debt ceiling negotiations and people are saying so democrats dont want to talk over shutdown but what they dont want to do is portray the shutdown as something republicans give them or not defaulting on debt, something republicans want to give them. Theyve been fairly clear and going back six months theyve been trying to negotiate over the budget and even over obama care but republicans need to be willing to give something up and not just keep funding the government and not just not shut it down. They have to be willing to come to the table and make a deal and that right now seems to be whats missing even now as they try to move to conference committee. What they never said last night was heres what were willing to give up. Heres the deal were willing to make with you beyond just not shutti inting down the governme. Obviously the world is watching. 16 days now until we could default on our debt raising the debt ceiling, s p issued a statement saying this sort of political brinkmanship is the dominant reason the rating is no longer aaa. The debt was downgraded from aaaa to aa plus. We listened at the top of the hour to Speaker Boehner at the 11th hour. 1 00 in the morning said maybe we ought to go to conference and talk this out. My question is why did they realize at 1 00 in the morning they could go to conference and talk this out . Wait until the debt ceiling fight comes up. Theyll all march to the end of the cliff and then the night before theyre going to get calls from ceos and wall street leaders and theyre going to say you cant default on americas debt because its going to cause all of these economic consequences and theyll act like its the first time they ever heard it in their life. Then theyre going to start running around in circles and panicking. It will be too late if they wait that long. It will be too late. I heard something funny. I cant believe its been this long and i cant believe im the old guy now, you know, i was talking to my friends in the house caucus yesterday, guys, whats up . Whats up . You do understand im all for a Government Shutdown when you get something out of it. If you guys were talking about saving medicare for the next 30 years, i would be all in. I would chain myself to a rock. Let the vultures eat organs out of me. Whatever. I think thats a greek deal. I would do whatever it takes if we were talking about medicare or Social Security and keeping it solvent. Theres no end game here, is there . Whats the end game . Basically the response is the younger guys and women dont want to hear about what happened 17 years ago when the Republican Party destroyed its advantage and reelected bill clinton. They dont want to hear it. The old bulls are now fine. Have it. Were sick and tired of lecturing you guys and telling you all of the negative consequences of your insanity. Your insanity to do things like this without without any strategy to get out of it. Thats the thing, willie. This isnt about ideology for republicans. All of the republicans agree on obama care or at least 90 of them. This is about strategy. I made the football analogy too. I loved watching Barry Switzer and oklahoma sooners run three plays and run over teams and beat them 650. That was awesome. It worked. But i sure wouldnt do that against bill belichick, you know, next sunday. Its strategy and its a stupid strategy and theres no plan b. They didnt extract anything at the end of the day. They walked up to the shutdown. They got their shutdown and what are republicans who led this charge, what are they left with . What did they take away from it other than popularity back in their district . Popularity with special interest groups. What was the upside for them . Makes them feel super good to go up against the president. Paul ryan, absent. Eric cantor, largely absent. People that have an idea of what they want, what they could put on the table. The president same thing. We need big ideas on the table here. Things that are fought over are small. Republicans are going to cave. Theyre going to end up with nothing except political damage. You know, one of the most annoying aspects of this entire thing listening to the people involved is youre right. Its about strategy. Its not about ideology but about strategy. Its not about health care. Two of the most interesting numbe numbers, ezra, explain the mechanics of 5 and 50 with regard to health care. 5 and 50. By the way, ezra, im ticked off that you borrowed my title. Thats what people used to call me. So 5 and 50 is the fact that 5 of the patients in Health Care System account for fully 50 of the cost. You can go even lower. Its 1 in 25 . So you enter into a place where if you want to deal with Health Care Costs in the long run, you have to somehow explain what youre doing for the really sick. The really sick. These arent folks who just have cancer or something expensive, theyre not just sick but hard to help because often they are very poor and have other Mental Illnesses and theyre very tough to reach and they are afraid of the Health Care System. The groups that work with these people have a real job and they do amazing work. So we have this conversation in washington where we tend to talk about health care the way we and the people we know experience it and thats broadly healthy and then when you get sick it just kind of pays for stuff. Youre not going to really get Health Care Costs under control unless youre figuring out some way to really change delivery such that youre going to these people who have all of these other problems and are really hard to help in addition to being really sick and doing Something Big for them and there are parts of the Affordable Care act, not the parts we hear about but theyre there that take some steps in that direction but its not been the major focus of the wall and its not really anybodys major focus in washington because health tends to get pushed to the side in favor of Health Insurance and also by the way, in favor of abstract discussions about cost. One thing thats true about the Health Care System is that if we were paying what were paying now but getting much, much, much Better Health out of it and living 30 longer that might be worth it. We only talk about costs but value is a much better way to be thinking about these questions. All right. Coming up on morning joe, White House Press secretary jay carney will join us and republicans senator jeff flake and congressman tom cole. Later, our panel of experts moderator of meet the press, David Gregory, hardballs Chris Matthews and chuck todd and the top stories and political playbook. Willie talked to Chris Christie. Thats going to be interesting. Well show some of that. He explained what he would do in a situation if he was president obama. I bet he had some choice words. Youll want to hear that. Speaking of choice words, heres bill karins with a check on the forecast. I am the only one with positive news today. Beautiful weather up and down the east coast. One of the best starts to fall well ever have and it will feel like summer over the next couple days. You dont need jackets from dem denver to the east coast were mild and this afternoon very warm. People will drive home with air conditioners on. Temperature, 84 in chicago. 81 in d. C. 90 in dallas. Very warm for this time of year across the map. Now, as far as how long is this going to last . Its been one or two weeks. Today were in the 80s. Tomorrow will be the warmest day of the week. Nearly 85 degrees from hartford all of the way down to d. C. Thats about 15 to 20 degrees above where we should be in time of year. And washington, d. C. , look at this week ahead. 84, 83, friday into saturday, mid to upper 80s and even getting a little bit humid. A rather shockingly warm start to october for many of us without a lot of rain to come. Youre watching morning joe on this tuesday. Customer erin swenson ordered shoes from us online but they didnt fit. Customers not happy, im not happy. Sales go down, im not happy. Merch comes back, im not happy. Use ups. They make returns easy. Unhappy customer becomes happy customer. Then, repeat customer. Easy returns, im happy. Repeat customers, im happy. Sales go up, im happy. I ordered another pair. Im happy. both im happy. Im happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. Happy happy. I love logistics. They always have. They always will. Thats why you take charge of your future. Your retirement. Ameriprise advisors can help you like theyve helped millions of others. Listening, planning, working one on one. To help you retire your way. With confidence. Thats what Ameriprise Financial does. Thats what they can do with you. Ameriprise financial. More within reach. 28 past the hour. Time to look at the morning papers. Usa today, the new York City Police department is investigating an extreme case of road rage caught on camera. An suv driver hit a motorcycle that cut him off but takes off when another racer damages his suv. He runs over a biker breaking his leg. A mob of motorcycles then take chase and swarm the suv. The bikers attacked the man when he stopped at a red light. One driver takes off his helmet and smashes it through the window. They dragged him outside and assaulted him in front of his wife and child. Hes expected to be okay. No arrests have been made yet. What a mess. Where were the police . A scene out of fast and furious 8. Where are the police . They are chasing this guy and his family and his wife and kid up the west side highway. They beat him up and drag him out of the car. Where are we . Is there not a cop did nobody with a cell phone report this stuff . This was a chase up the west side highway. God. Where was the police . Nice sunday drive. Who is videotaping it and then not calling the police . I dont get it. Okay. Unbelievable. During an interview, pope francis talks about the state of the catholic church, its leaders and his mission as pope and spoke about missions of Pope John Paul ii and pope john xxiii. The vatican announced both men will become saints next year. And San Francisco chronicle, a step closer to allowing passengers to use Electronic Devices below an altitude of 10,000 feet. The decision now rests in the hands of the faa. If passed customers will be able to use electronics any time but some devices would still need to be switched to Airplane Mode during takeoff. This is fine so long as you just ban all talking on cell phones. Exactly. From the second you step into the airport to the second you leave. L. A. Times breaking bad is breaking records. Pulled 10. 3 million total viewers. A record high for the show. Thats more than a 50 jump from last weeks episode. The finale also set a record on twitter with more than 1. 2 million tweets during the broadcast. That was really, really intense. Unbelievable ending. Dont tell me. Great song at the very end. Baby blue by bad finger. Nobody around here watches it. I must have been talking about my Favorite Song from 68. Did you watch it, mike . I did. What an ending. Great ending. The only way it could have ended and a much better ending than the sopranos or ending to lost. People that have great series all of the way back to mash which was the worst of all time, the flying saucers taking hawkeye and honeycut up. Wait. No. That was the end of raiders of the lost ark. This was a great ending, mike, for breaking bad. Lets go to politico now. I have it dvrd having seen none of the previous episodes. Watch it backwards. All right. Lets go to politico. Joining us with the playbook, executive editor, jim, good morning. Brand new polls. 72 of those polled nearly three in one oppose shutting down the government to oppose the president S Health Care law. Only 17 of americans approve of the job republicans are doing in congress. Lowest score better. Democrats dont fare better. No real surprises in here. No real surprises. I want to meet the people that have a favorable impression of congress. Thats an optimistic bunch. A couple thoughts from the conversation you guys were having earlier. I actually think as bad as things are now, they get substantially worse over the next two years. Every incentive today is not an isolated event. This is the culmination of a decade of changes in politics and all those changes get worse. Basically every incentive right now in politics is working against anyone having power, any leader having power in washington. Rank and file, more powerful than ever. Almost every leader is weak. The National Parties are weak. The outside groups are getting stronger. The outside groups are getting smarter about intervening in primary processes to push candidates to the extremes. So what happened today and whats going to happen with default, its only going to get worse. Its not like people are going to rise up and punish republicans by getting rid of moderates, there are no moderates left. The backlash we talk about, none of the republicans will feel it in their district. Their district loves this stuff. They love that their members are taking on the president. They love the idea that government is shutdown. They dont like the government. I cant say that enough. They dont like the government. They hate obama care. They are fine with the political consequences of this. So i dont think theres going to be Lessons Learned and suddenly republicans are going to be humbled and compromise. No. Theyll dig in more and there will be a lot of money and a lot of support for them to do just that. You look at the polls and one we showed earlier that gives congress a 10 Approval Rating and you have to think again about the corrosive effect of all of this. People dont believe that the government in washington can get anything done. They dont believe that we need a government, by the way. As much as people think we dont need it at all. We need a government to do certain things. People have tuned it out. You go out on the street, joe talks about when hes exhausted by something that it makes his teeth hurt. Americas teeth hurt when they think about government and listen to the news about the shutdown. They dont believe anymore that they have a government that can do anything for them. People have lost hope. I think incidents like this make it give you good reason to lose hope in washington. Quite frankly, i know i sound cynical and depressed today. It wont get better. Its going to get worse. When you think about this moment for republicans, everything you need to know about politics is defined by health care. Theres a poetic justice that on the day you have the shutdown you have obama care exchanges beginning. All of these members are all children of the health care revolution. They all came into power because the tea party was born over a debate over health care and the size of government. All of these tea party freshmen were elected in large part as a backlash against obama care. So their whole political world has been captured and has been basically built around health care and opposition to health care. Thats not going anywhere. Now that the exchanges are up and running, theres going to be glitches. The president talked about that overnight. There will be glitches and they will be exaggerated whether they are real or not real and the debate will get tougher and tougher and it will be very confusing for people not just confusing about what congress is doing but confusing about whether health care is actually working and reforms are working or whether this stuff is being exaggerated. Its going to be a heck of an interesting time for the next couple of months. I was hosting a Forum Last Night on hunger in the state of new jersey. We talked about it as a national problem. Governor Chris Christie was there. I asked at the end of our discussion on hunger, i asked governor christie for his take on the shutdown and what he might do. Heres what he said. My approach would be as executive is to call in the leaders of the congress, the legislature, whatever youre dealing with and say that were not leaving this room until we fix this problem. Im the boss. Im in charge. Now, its easy for him to say sitting in the state house in new jersey but what about the president s role in these negotiations . We talked about this yesterday. You know, his point of view is ive already got the law passed. I already had it upheld. I won reelection. I passed this test. I dont owe congress anything on this. Should he have done more or was he right to sit back and stand firm . Heres the president s problem and the countrys problem. Almost every leader in american politics right now is weak. The president is probably at one of his weakest levels since being elected 5 1 2 years ago. John boehner could not be weaker as a speaker. Mitch mcconnell who is savvy at figuring out a compromise is weak because he has a tough reelection race in 2014 and hes m. I. A. Harry reid is weak because of the filibuster rules and because he doesnt have a big enough majority to do anything. All of these leaders are defined by weakness and then they are defined by resentment. They dont talk. They dont like each other. They loathe each other. The fact that you were talking earlier on the show about the speaker mocking the president on the house floor. That just captures their relationship. They are all mocking each other. Should the president have done more . Maybe but he would have had to have done more five years ago, four years ago, not in the last two or three weeks. The fact that none of these relationships exist make it impossible to get a deal and even if four leaders could get a deal, i dont think rank and file care. Look at john boehner. Five different plans. All rejected. Members dont give a hoot on what he has to say on these issues. Jim, thanks so much. Coming up, lets talk some baseball. Brighten things up a little bit. The rays and the rangers battle it out in winner take all for the final wild card spot. David price dealing last night. Plus, the saints prove theyre still one of the elite teams in football. Highlights from monday night against the dolphins next in sports. My customers can shop around see who does good work and compare costs. It doesnt usually work that way with health care. But with unitedhealthcare, i get information on quality rated doctors, Treatment Options and estimates for how much ill pay. That helps me, and my guys, make better decisions. I dont like guesses with my business, and definitely not with our health. Innovations that work for you. Thats health in numbers. Unitedhealthcare. [ babies crying ] surprise your house was built on an ancient burial ground. [ ghosts moaning ] surprise your car needs a new transmission. [ coyote howls ] how about no more surprises . Now you can get all the online Trading Tools you need without any surprise fees. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Were not gonna give up what we love. And when the pounds still come off. Well be like, whoa wow wow weight watchers. Because it works. Join for free. Offer ends october 19th. All right. Lets get happier around here. Talking baseball. Postseason. What does hockey season start . The best lineup of teams i can remember. It got interesting. Pirates in there. Reds. The pirates. The reds. The dodgers. The red sox. The tigers. A lot of tiny markets. A lot of classic baseball. Its going to be a fun postseason and it kind of started last night. This is the final game technically of baseballs regular season. Rays rangers in texas. One game playoff to get into the wild card. Winner takes all. Loser goes home. Third inning, Evan Longoria goes the other way and smacks one right center. Tworun home run. David price dealing. Threw a complete game holding rangers to only two runs and the rays beat texas in texas 52. Now tampa moves on and faces cleveland in the a. L. Wild card game on wednesday night. Winner of that game plays the red sox on friday. Right, barnicle . How amazing will that series be. Mlb wants to see that. And tigers and as will play in the national league. Tonight it starts. The wild card in the national league. Pirates have come back and havent been to the playoffs in 20 years. Theyll play the cincinnati reds. The winner of that game goes to st. Louis and other matchup a braves and dodgers. What a matchup. Braves and dodgers. Dont you have to root for the pirates . I like the cincinnati reds. I do but you have to root for pirates. Dolphins and saints undefeated. Dolphins a surprise team. Opening drive. Taken in for the score. New orleans takes an early lead. Never looks back and drew brees threw for four touchdowns. Dolphins handed the first loss of the season. Saints have won their last nine monday night games. They look like they are back. Do you have any stories about john daley . Whatever happened to him . Back in the news. A sighting behind a pizzeria in nashville. Thats where i thought i would find him. Whoa yeah the guy sees john daley. He says probably had a few beers in him. John, would you hit a tee shot out of my mouth. You know who that was . That was the drummer. Great instagram stuff. Drove the green on that one. Hitting hitting a tee shot out of a guys mouth. Wow. Coming up next, mikas must read opinion pages. Well be right back. I save time, money,st, and i avoid frustration. Youll find reviews on home repair to healthcare, written by people just like you. Find out why more than two million members count on angies list. Angies list reviews you can trust. At. You could be a victim of fraud. Most people dont even know it. Fraud could mean lower credit scores, higher loan rates. And maybe not getting the car you want. Its a problem waiting to happen. Check your score, check your report, at experian. Com americas number one provider of online credit reports and scores. Dont take chances. Go to experian. Com. If yand youre talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about trying or adding a biologic. This is humira, adalimumab. This is humira working to help relieve my pain. This is humira helping me through the twists and turns. This is humira helping to protect my joints from further damage. Doctors have been prescribing humira for over ten years. Humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. For many adults, humira is proven to help relieve pain and stop further joint damage. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, have happened. Blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening Heart Failure have occurred. Before starting humira , your doctor should test you for tb. Ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. Tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. You should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. Ask your doctor if humira can work for you. This is humira at work. Live look over washington. Lets do a must read that we can get in here. We have a clock. Its very important. Heres the difference between cnn and msnbc. We have an old analog clock. Very flat. Two dimensional. Theyre going to have a 3d hologr hologram. The Tea Party Revolt against reality. If you can judge people by the quality of their enemies, one quality shared by many opponents of the tea party is there conservatism. Like many ideological factions, Tea Party Activists display a special intensity in fighting the near enemy. Other elements on the right that dont share their tactics. President obama may be their ultimate foe but conservative pragmatists are their rivals. The problem for republicans as democrats found in the 1970s and 80s is factions are seldom deterred by defeat. Every loss is taken as proof of insufficient purity. Conservatives now face the ideological temptation inviting an unpleasant political reality by refusing to inhabit political reality. Gene robinson, it is a battle for purity and strangely enough so much of it just has to do with dumb tactics. If we get slaughtered, that means were truer to the cause than if we actually figure out how to win. And thats ridiculous. The essence of the legislative process is supposed to be give and take and you reach an agreement. Very rarely the pure version on either side. So if you insist on purity, which many republicans do now, you end up, i guess, in this ridiculous situation where the government has been shut down for no reason to no effect except to lower the popularity into single digits. Lowering the popularity as members of congress but maybe certain members are getting exactly what they want out of this. That might be right. In the long run, i mean, do they not want to become the majority again . That ultimately is the point of minority is to become the majority. I do think that one thing that does end up happening here is there can just be an honest and very, very misguided but honest disagreement about tactics. A lot of republicans do believe that they are in better shape having this fight and believe obama care is an unpopular law and shutting down the government in favor of it if it wont be popular, democrats will fold and theyll get something out of that. I dont think its something where what they see coming is a great win for the Republican Party but i do think that one of the reasons factions operate as they do and as michael wrote is that they end up inhabiting a political reality of their own in which they talk to each other and reading their own polls and listening to their own constituents and believe that to be the voice of the people. I thought this was demonstrated to great effect during ted cruzs filibuster where the theme was make d. C. Listen even as he did something that by every poll was unpopular among the American People. He wasnt listening. What he was hearing was from the tea party. He felt he acted as authentic voice of the people because his poll of the people is narrow. Wow. Okay. Im going to try this again but i just hope someones head doesnt explode. Are you suggesting my head exploded when you said all republicans are evil . Oh no. My head is laminated. You kind of said this was Mark Halperin. You said this was all about republicans not wanting people to get health care. No, i didnt. What i was trying to say actually was wont it pose a problem for the republicans if a lot of people start signing up . Hows that . Not if it works but if it starts to it could work. Americans love entitlement programs. Tea Party Members love entitlement programs. My favorite poll from a couple years ago just showing the hypocrisy of some of these purists that one around with dont fret on me flags saying we dont want the federal government involved in health care. 71 of selfdescribed tea Party Members say they dont want any reforms top medicare. The Largest Program and the program that will do more to destroy the United States solvency over the next 30 to 40 years than any other program. Were saying the same thing, see . Were not even close to saying the same thing. I think we might agree on the ramifications if a lot of people sign up. It could be tough listen. Again, americans love entitlement programs. I think there is a chance that obama care gets rolled out and a lot of americans like it. They love entitlement. They dont have to pay for. Before obama care our Health System was complicated, too expensive and in danger of bankrupting the country. And its the same now but the president passed it. Its been upheld. Republicans need constructive ideas. If they dont like this plan, they have to accept the reality. Of f. Thats the biggest problem for the Republican Party. You were probably in preschool but in 1994 when we ran against democrats, health care was at the center of the issue and you know what . We had four, five republican plans. We had a moderate plan. Conservatives had their own plan that came out of heritage. Democrats had a conservative democratic plan, a more Progressive Democratic plan. I havent seen the republicans rally around an alternative Health Care Plan and thats why this debate is being held in the void. Its true. One of the ironeies is they too the plan out of heritage and had individual mandate and got put into place by mitt romney and after democrats took it and republicans had to decide to oppose it, they didnt have a new plan to go to that had been their plan for a number of years. It was what the clear policy thinkers in the party wanted to do. Ezra, thank you very much. Still ahead, arizona senator jeff flake and oklahoma congressman tom cole will join us. More morning joe we have Chris Matthews coming up. David gregory. Well be back. Know who you are. You can part a crowd, without saying a word. If you have yet to master the quiet sneeze. You stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts. Well muddlers, muddle no more. Try zyrtec®. It gives you powerful allergy relief. And zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour one on the first day you take it. Claritin® doesnt start working until hour three. Zyrtec®. Love the air. Okay, who helps you focus on your recovery . Yo, yo, yo. Aflac. Wow. [ under his breath ] that was horrible. Pays you cash when youre sick or hurt . [ japanese accent ] aflac. Love it. [ under his breath ] hate it. Helps you focus on getting back to normal . [ as a Southern Belle ] aflac. [ as a cowboy ] aflac. [ sassily ] aflac. Uh huh. [ under his breath ] i am so fired. Youre on in 5, duck. [ male announcer ] when youre sick or hurt, aflac pays you cash. Find out more at aflac. Com. Coming up, hardballs Chris Matthews will join us also David Gregory and chuck todd. Were back with much more morning joe. Lyrics take on me. take me home. ill be gone. in a day or. man twooooooooooooooooo is that me, was i singing . Vo not paying for scheduled maintenance feels pretty good. Nocharge scheduled maintenance now on every new volkswagen. Thats the power of german engineering woman everyone in the nicu all the nurses wanted to watch him when he was there 118 days. Everything that you thought was important to you changes in light of having a child that needs you every moment. I wouldnt trade him for the world. Who matters most to you says the most about you. At massmutual were owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. If youre caring for a child with special needs, our innovative special care Program Offers strategies that can help. Look how beautiful. Im going to go out to the statue of liberty today. Take the ferry over. Im just going to hug it. I love this country. Going to take the kids. Were all very excited. Go to the statue of liberty. And then well go to jfk. Youre going to come with me . We have the camper. Well go to yellowstone. Old faithful. This is the best of america. It really is. That will be empty. Welcome back to morning joe. Turn it around. Mark halperin is with us along with Eugene Robinson in washington and joining us from washington, the moderator of meet the press, David Gregory and nbc news chief White House Correspondent and host of the daily rundown chuck todd. I think the front page of the style section sums it up perfectly. Ugh. Seriously. Chuck todd, whats the latest . Well, youre going to have it at 9 30 this morning it harry reid officially refusing the House Republican idea of going to conference on a budget deal for 75 days of government funding. And now at this point, i think the question is how does boehner blink . Hes going to have to blink. There are plenty of republicans that are not happy about this situation. Not happy with this strategy. This has been a strategy thats been driven by conservatives. I can tell you firsthand this idea of going to conference, joe, i first heard about it from a group of conservatives, house conservatives, last night about 5 00. It was not something leadership was talking about. About five hours later it ended up being the next idea as the republicans kept throwing out different ideas or boehner kept throwing out different ideas for reid to simply reject them. You know, i dont know if they have any other end game here that im unaware of. I assume at some point theyre going to blink. They have to. Theres no other way to go. Is harry reid going to say no to everything . Thats where we are. Joe, im sorry. I think the republicans dont have high ground on this because theyre trying to extract concessions over a temporary funding bill. If this were about funding the government for a year, i think that there are charges that harry reid wont negotiate would have residence. This doesnt have residence because they are trying to extract major concessions for six weeks of government. You know, youve been saying youre all for a Government Shutdown if it does something. What does this do . I think it hurts. I think once again it hurts the republican brand not on the house side but i talked to republicans, senate committee, that are really concerned because they felt like they could win arkansas in 2014. They felt like they could win some other red states and they thought they might be able to pick up the United States senate. The longer this ticks on, the more concerned they are and more concerned republican money people are that well maintain the house because its in such a way that allowed mitt romney to win more congressional districts than barack obama but we fear the farther out it goes, the worse it gets. This is bad news for the party and the party brand. David gregory, its not just me saying this or Chris Christie saying this or scott walker saying this rhinos. All of them. Rhinos. The most conservative People Associated with the Republican Party, classic conservative, were all against this. I found out something remarkable this weekend. There are a lot of people in the house that are horrified by this strategy too. Its like they see this coming. They dont want it to happen but they cant help themselves. Get ready for the debt ceiling. They are doing it any way. I dont understand. Theres no leadership. Theres no leadership there. Well, and thats what is striking, right . The way out of this is actually pretty simple. And that is that you try to appeal to democrats to say, look, ill put a clean cr there. Ill need democratic support and away we go. Now, the speaker would lose leverage on the debt ceiling fight if he wants to have that fight but i have spoken to tea party republicans, had one on meet the press on sunday who said he doesnt want to mess around with the debt ceiling. He wants to have the fight here because he thinks this is a better place comparatively relatively speaking to have this fight. My question is there a participation trophy for republicans who participate in this. At the end of it were back to square one. You get nothing for the exercise. The clean cr passes to fund the government for the rest of the year. To your point, joe, i have talked to republican senators who say you cant blame harry reid. He did something to avoid the shutdown. He passed a spending bill that would fund the government. You cant say that democrats have not done anything. This is about a process, the president and democrats, and i think a lot certainly a lot of republicans think its an illegitimate process to win a policy game. Mika, as we were saying last week, this comes at a terrible time for republicans because our poll numbers are better now than they have been since 2011. Barack obama, when you go policy by policy, he sunk in the low 40s on foreign policy. Hes in the 30s. The republican brand was creeping back up. Higher than its been since early 2011. And now you look at the polls coming out now and the very thing that scott walker, tom coburn, myself, george will have been warning about, its starting to happen. Its not just affecting the president of the United States. Brand new polls out from quinnipiac this morning, 72 of americans oppose shutting down the government to stop the president S Health Care law. Only 17 of americans approve of the job republicans are doing in congress. Thats the gops lowest score ever. A record low score and its going to keep going down. Democrats dont fare much better. Only 32 approve of the job theyre doing and according to a cnn poll, congress Approval Rating is at 10 . All get low marks for their handling of the budget negotiations. Republicans are the worst. Just 26 approve of republicans in congress and when it comes to excitement over the president s signature Health Care Plan, no group is particularly enthusiastic. In an nbc kaiser poll, 44 of democrats are enthusiastic compared to 18 of independents and 5 of republicans. Mark halperin for people just getting up looking for the most Significant Development of the morning if they stayed up late watching the house and senate and since the show went on the air, its that quinnipiac poll. The white house is very excited about it because thats the exact result that they need, they think, to change this. Thats what they believe the hope is. Polls that show disapproval of the rway republicans are handlig this and disappointment over a shutdown. They dont see leadership from john boehner. They think what might drive this is poll numbers saying this is a losing hand. This just started. We never know where budget showdowns end up. You never know the twists and turns that they will take. I just dont see a positive ending for a Republican Party that has no end game. I dont see it either. What drives people crazy and when im outside of washington, i was in iowa last week talking to people, what drives people crazy is were not even talking about a budget. Were talking about funding the government on a continuing resolution for six weeks. Gene, i was shocked by this. Do you know how many appropriation bills the senate has passed this year . Zero. The senate has passed zero appropriation bills. The house has passed four appropriation bills. By the way, thats harry reids senate. Thats John Boehners house. And congress more dysfunctional than its ever been. An article out this morning, its at a breaking point, gene. Its ridiculous. It is at a breaking point. Just the most fundamental basic thing, pass a budget. Nobody will love it. Pass a budget that you can live with because we need one and they cant do it. David gregory . Heres what i think is significant. I think what mark said about the polling and of course the white house is buoyed by that. Their strategy has been and this hasnt been too hard to isolate the republicans particularly in the house. To back them into a corner and keep them there. And thats whats been happening. Look at whats happened over the last couple of days. An attempt senator cruz on meet the press to relentlessly blame harry reid for not doing what would look to be a reasonable thing. We have a standoff. The American People know that over health care. Why arent the democrats compromising on this . Why arent they negotiating on this . Why dont they just go to conference . That assumes that the process itself is considered to be legitimate. Democrats dont consider it to be legitimate. The president doesnt think its legitimate. And even if you give some of the republicans their due, these are house members elected last year as well based on repealing obama care, defunding obama care, so they do have a constituency but i think whats key to look at is have they actually moved the needle over the last week, week and a half, with these arguments to force democrats . There was an attempt to have a discussion. The president phoned top leaders including harry reid, mitch mcconnell, nancy pelosi and john boehner. The call with Speaker Boehner lasted just ten minutes and last night on the house floor, boehner did an impression on how it went. I didnt come here to shut down the government. How do we give a break to all of the big businesses out there and yet stick our constituents with a bill that they dont want and a bill they cant afford . Thats what this fight is all about. I talked to the president earlier tonight. Im not going to negotiate. Im not going to negotiate. Were not going to do this. Well, i would say to the president , this is not about me. This is not about republicans here in congress. Its about fairness for the American People. So, chuck, we have now reached the point where the speaker of the house is on the floor of the house of representatives mimicking a phone call that he had last evening with the president of the United States. We have as mark indicated a few moments ago, people waking up to hear phrases like clean cr. Nobody i know on the outside of this bubble that we exist in knows what a clean cr means. We have a group of ideological purists in the Republican Party on the house of representatives who seem to have captured their own leadership and are dragging them around by a rope and all of these ideological purists are almost guaranteed to be reelected because of the way the districts are drawn and we have a country that is in slow motion just collapsing in terms of any faith in government. I realize this is very negative. I know its very cynical. But who gets along well enough with anyone else to get something, anything going up there . Who . Well, the problem isnt leadership. The problem is, you know, so for instance one of the complaints you hear from republicans, while the president wont negotiate. Who is he supposed to negotiate with . John boehner, if hes not going to move a bill, hes not he seems to be violating the majority of the majority. You talk to a lot of people watching capitol hill last night, and there were a majority of republicans that would have just simply passed a threeweek, fourweek budget funding bill. This is not he went down that this is a new rule i guess. Well call it the ted cruz rule or the tea party rule or the boehner rule which is dont go to the floor unless you have all of the votes in one party to get what you want. But, you know, if boehner were the person to deliver votes, i think the white house would be negotiating. If boehner were the person to deliver votes, harry reid could negotiate. The fact is hes not. There was a joke around the white house that said, okay, well call up and start negotiating. I guess well call up ted cruz. He controls more house votes than john boehner. Is John Boehners biggest problem that he has a group of republicans who he cannot control in his own caucus who dont know the difference between the word defeat a piece of legislation or destroy a presidency . Whats the objective . This is where those sympathetic to boehner will say he tried education strategy with this group. But if you put up a sign that says a road is a dead end, if you look down the street and see the brick wall that shows you the road is a dead end, ive done this analogy before, with this group and this is why they did what they did last night, boehner apologists will say you have to get into the car and drive into the brick wall so they see thats a dead end. Okay. Now that the car is on fire, now that you cant drive the car, now that the wall is still up, okay. I get it. Now well get it. That is sort of how this seems to work for some people. I have to tell you again talking to older republicans, the more experienced republicans, and bob costas hearing the same thing, you know, they are just sitting back going were sick and tired of lecturing these guys about whats going to happen if they put their hand on a stove. At some point, you just got to say, okay, put your hand on the stove. Afterwards, dont come crying to me because it got burned. Joe, theres members too, younger members, older members, that ive talked to who say to leadership, dont waste our time. Either talk to these tea party guys beforehand and figure out what theyre going to do but dont get everybody onboard and have them derail the process in the end. That frustration is everywhere. We have to go now. We havent gone really to just how deep its going and how fractious its going. Moderates were thinking about derailing the bill. Michele bachmann and other tea Party Members voted against the procedural rule. They didnt think it went far enough. There was an attempt at conference that was rejected. Splintering could continue. Chuck todd, thank you. Well see you at 9 00 a. M. On the daily rundown. Eugene, thank you as well. Still ahead, hes been against the shutdown accusing his fellow republicans are not playing with a full deck. Republican congressman tom cole joins us next. Also, Chris Matthews joins the table here in new york. I think hes got something with him that were going to want to see. Something big. Youll want to see it. Well be right back with more morning joe. Hey lady noooo no [ tires screech ] nooo nooo nooo hey lady, thats diesel i know. Were not gonna give up what we love. And when the pounds still come off. Well be like, whoa wow wow weight watchers. Because it works. Join for free. Offer ends october 19th. The Affordable Care act is moving forward. That funding is already in place. You cant shut it down. Keeping the peoples government open is not a concession to me. Keeping Vital Services running and hundreds of thousands of americans on the job is not something you give to the other side. Its our basic responsibility. You dont get to extract a ransom for doing your job. For doing what youre supposed to be doing any way or just because theres a law there that you dont like. All right. 24 past the hour. Joining us now from capitol hill, republican congressman from oklahoma representative tom cole. Tom, great to have you here. How are you doing there . How are you holding up . Doing great. Just living the dream. What dream is that . A nightmare on elm street. You know, its hard for us to understand because when i talked to my buddies in the Republican Party on the hill like you, they are sitting there, going, were running into a brick wall. I dont think he understands either, tom, do you . Whats going on . The speaker is trying to fresh. He a succession of offers on the table. The one last night is something democrats ought to be able to accept. No special treatment for politicians which they are getting right now and probably getting illegally. We should end that. Second, if well let off big business and big labor, lets not mandate that individual americans participate in this for one year. Instead, were going to force individual americans to do something were not asking big organizations to do. Thats wrong when the program is clearly not ready for prime time. Is there a vehicle to do that . What the speaker asked for last night is lets go to conference. Thats the right thing to do. Sit down and try to resolve this. We may not get exactly what we want. Im certain we wouldnt. Its indefensible to give Congress Something that the average american in an exchange simply cant get. Why in the world should members of congress get that . Explain within the conference now what are divisions . I understand you have differences with the president that you laid out. What are differences within the Republican Party in the house right now . They are probably on both ends. There are some people that simply say, look, we need the whole law repealed or changed. Thats not going to happen with a Democratic Senate and democratic president. And there are some people then on the left that say, look, lets just roll over here. I think the appropriate thing is what the speaker is advocating. Lets go to conference. Lets sit down with democrats and see if theyre willing to negotiate on anything at all. This is now merging into the debt ceiling fight frankly. Cr is only part of it. Perhaps we can get shortterm cr and then have a much larger deal that would give us budget stability which is where i think we ought to go. Didnt the democrats offer opportunity for Conference Many times and it was rejected . Whats different now . Backs against the wall . That was a conference on the budget where they were playing games. This is an effort to resolve this particular dilemma and move into a larger negotiation. Congressman, you just said that its a merger with the debt ceiling deal and that you would like to collapse the two and get a concrete, larger more specific package but what hope would there be that that larger, more specific package even talking about it wouldnt engender the same dissension within your own ranks as we see happening today . Look, i think if we get to a larger deal there will be dissension on both sides. Im one of the ones that actually believe theres elements in the president s budget that could form the basis for a compromise. The president is for change cpi. So am i. The president is for means testing for medicare in his budget. So am i. The president is for a lot of cuts in medicare savings to be fair. I think those are things we could probably agree on. I think they provide the money allowing you to raise the debt ceiling and look at easing sequester which i think both sides agree is a very blunt instrument. The president would be against gutting the law. How long do you see this lasting . You know, ending it sooner rather than later is better in my view. Ive never been for shutting down the government. Its a big mistake. Its a mistake not just because of politics but quite honestly at the end of the day its not who gets the blame but who gets hurt and a lot of americans that want to be at work that should be at work arent at work this morning and millions of others beyond that that require Government Services or needs will not get services they deserve. The quicker you end that situation, the better off you are. Congressman tom cole, thank you very, very much. Good luck. Here with us now, host of msnbcs hardball is out today with the new book tip and the gipper when politics worked. What a perfect day for this to come out on a day that washington is as broken as it has been in your adult lifetime and my adult lifetime. I love the book. I love the quote that you got from tip oneils son saying the only thing that reagan and tip hated more than each others ideology was dead locke in washington. This was a time when politicians new how to make a fist. Nobody fought harder. They knew how to fight and one guy was a real liberal who wasnt a phony liberal playing to interest groups. That was tip. Reagan was the one that created the movement. They could find a way to solve Social Security. They were able to cut a huge deal on tax reform. And they would say things afterwards like tip would say its amazing what you can get done when you get together. He thought it was amazing. Today i think the look at that picture right there. The republicans this time are caught in the middle of this. Ted cruz is brilliant. The president met his match in this guy. He set this thing up months ago with no budget agreement. Therefore no appropriations. Therefore the government would be completely exposed this morning at midnight last night to shutdown. He knows what hes doing. Its about obamas baby. You cant cut the baby in half. They keep saying please negotiate your baby. Lets get back to happier times and talk about what made tip oneill and Ronald Reagan so different. Tip didnt naturally get along with president s. He and jimmy carter were at odds a good bit. What was it about Ronald Reagan and tip oneill that made it work . Two things that really changed. Respect for the voter. When tip saw reagan win a big one in 80, youll get your day in court. For filibusters. No games. Everything that reagan campaigned on, youll get a clean vote in the house by august of the first year. Remember honeymoons . They dont expect anymore. Jim baker, no matter what you think of him i love jim baker. Let me say i love jim baker. Jim baker was the best chief of staff in history. Best chief of staff. No doubt. He would do things like first of all he was a pro. He sat reagan down and said youll call every member of the house on both sides and work every democrat and go to the gym dinner. Shows up with guys that did the rubdowns in house gym and dinner they have together. He shows up at that with reagan and bush and they work the guys. I knew that day which way the wind was blowing because every democrat wanted their picture taken with reagan in the gym dinner. He would call tip up and say can i come by and tell you whats going on . They would meet back in the autograph room and sit with him and tell him everything that was going on. Total respect for the other guys office. Respect for deadlines. They had a few fights over what shutdowns. You know what . They resolved them quickly because the government had to go on. Youve got historical document there. Tell us about it. Arent you nice. Today because of subpoenas in the last 20 to 30 years, nobody kept a journal. Look at this. An old ledger. Every day i get up and every night i went to bed i wrote what happened between tip and reagan and fights that went on. I used a lot of this reagan did the same thing. He had more of a job than i did. Ronald reagan kept a fantastic diary. He would come out of a meeting with tip at the st. Patricks day party, and he would say things to himself like tip is a real pal. He can like you and try to knock your head off. Things like he could be charming and wonderful and turn into a piranha. The negotiation that were talking about now and ability to negotiate is a grownup thing. You know what else is a grownup thing . I can always tell the politicians that arent going to make it especially on the president ial level when they read an article and they take it personally and thats the end. They are just done with you and so enraged. Theyll never forgive you. Theyll never forgive you and i just sit back and laugh and go, theyre not going to make it. Ronald reagan and tip oneill had a deal. At 6 00, it ends. When i first met reagan, my office was 209. Were friends at 6 00 no matter what happened before 6 00. The best thing is reagan said that to me personally first time i met him. Mr. President , welcome to the room where we plot against you. Just to break the ice. Not after 6 00. Speaker says were friends after 6 00. He said it to me. The most wonderful story is when reagan was shot and it was worse than anybody thought. White house was smart to keep it low key. He lost half of his blood internally. The bullet was here. Jim baker brought tip in to be the first guy to meet him. He kneeled down next to his gurney. He held hands and they recited the 23rd psalm together. Youre tired now. He was shocked at the moment. And the other great moment was when tip led a bipartisan delegation over to meet gorbachev for the first time. When they met in geneva, tip called up those guys and said dont cause trouble with the Freeze Movement and they were patriotic together when it came to the time you had to be patriotic and they were human beings together. I think thats different than today. Can you imagine that happening today . I cant imagine president obama this is a nonpartisan statement sending john boehner to moscow to help set up his relationship with putin. Its unimaginable. The today show played it as a completely straight story that morning. Thats what changed. Context. It was normal 30 years ago for the opposition to be loyal and accepted as such and now today its all war. Its all war. This is an incredible book. Its truly a great book. It captures a spirit in a period of time as the subtitle tells you, when politics actually worked in this country. Both men i cant speak for the president. I didnt know reagan obviously. I knew tip oneill as chris new tip oneill and it seemed to me they were both given a gift. They were both born without a resentment gene in them. Tip actually liked people. I could see as tom cole was speaking just a few moments ago, i could see tip oneill with his arm around tom cole. I could see the two of them becoming fast friends. Members of opposite parties, fast friends, with one objective, make government work for the people that we represent. Thats gone. My favorite story that didnt have to do with these two guys but the times. They had a good fight on the floor. I love thursday night because everyone gave final speech. Everybody got mad and there would be a vote and then everybody would go home. One night after one of those great fights, two guys fighting with each other on the floor. Republican guy with red face and democratic guy with red face. The crowd is emptying out. He walks across the floor. Says hello to the other guy and says what are you doing this weekend and say hello to your wife for me. And walked out. If James Madison saw that, he would say thats what we wanted. Thats the goal. They knew each others family. They went to the wall politically. They were not out selling out people. They knew at the end they needed to keep the government going because government is all we have. Selfgovernment is all we have. Were not a better country exce than anybody else except for our system. People would be offended saying how can they fight that way and then go over and ask how the family was . As if thats somehow took away from what they passionately believed. Again, we have to underline the fact that tip oneill and Ronald Reagan were friends after 6 00. They worked together. But each despised the others politics. Each believed not their humanity. Each believed the others politics were bad for america. Most people outside dont understand that ability to really, really believe. Really fight for it but at the end say this guy is doing what im doing. You know what . One of my favorite moments was back in 95 after i first got there. When i was out of congress, before i got to congress, people who are a conservative you put horns on them. I walked over and i talked to ron and shook his hand and said hi. And you know what he said to me . He immediately put his arm around me, you know what i cant understand . Why is it that guys are like you who would have been on our side back in the 60s are now the conservatives and we had this great conversation and at the end we were laughing, telling jokes, i walked away going i disagree with him 99 of the time. But that guy loves america. Do you want to hear a story about how they negotiated . Ronald reagan would negotiate to a point. This is a little gross, mika. She can handle it. Reagan is in a room and we want you to give up your baby which was reagans tax cuts. He wouldnt give them up like obama wont do with health care. He says, jim wright offered spending guts and he said but you give up your tax cut which you ran on as your whole life and reagan said, look, buddy, this is in a back room, i can crap a pineapple. I cant crap a cactus. This is how they talked in the back room. This is reagan talking to tip oneill. Mental picture. But they could negotiate. The key is again, when you become friends with someone and its not personal, you figure out how far you can push them and you push them right up to the limit. They push you right up to the limit and somehow in divided government you get things done and tip and the gipper, congratulations. Thank you, buddy. Youre going to keep that in mind. Shes stuck on the cactus. So is reagan. This is so timely. The book is tip and the gipper when politics worked. Well see you on hardball at 7 00 on msnbc. Its really great. Coming up, the only people that love the Government Shutdown more than the tea party, latenight comics. What jon stewart and Stephen Colbert had to say about it when morning joe comes right back. Maestro of project management. Baron of the buildout. You need a permit. To be this awesome. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. You can even take a fullsize or above, and still pay the midsize price. aaron purrrfect. vo meeeow, business pro. Meeeow. Go national. Go like a pro. Save your coffee from the artificial stuff. Switch to truvia. Great tasting, zerocalorie sweetness. From the stevia leaf. From nature, for sweetness™ you know who you are. You can part a crowd, without saying a word. If you have yet to master the quiet sneeze. You stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts. Well muddlers, muddle no more. Try zyrtec®. It gives you powerful allergy relief. And zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour one on the first day you take it. Claritin® doesnt start working until hour three. Zyrtec®. Love the air. This is not a game of chicken. This is when someone is driving to work and theres a car coming directly at them in their lane. Thats not a game of chicken. Thats an [ bleep ] causing a headon collision. Let me see if i can put this in another way for House Republicans. You get nothing you lose good day, sir. [ applause ] you know republicans will heed this advice because hes a Small Business owner. Tonight ill be covering the end of government in a must see television event, the finale of breaking gov. A hell of a ride, folks. What a dramatic arc. It started out as a character in the 1770s but in 237 seasons its transformed into a ego tift cal selfdestructive maniac. Im dying to know whats going down tonight. What will happen to mr. White . Mr. White . Mr. White . Mr. Offwhite and pinkman . My goodness. Coming up next, weve always wanted someone who could explain the Affordable Care act simply. Simply. Our next guest says he can boil it down to two sentences. Well put him to the test coming up next. [ female announcer ] made just a little sweeter. Because all these whole grains arent healthy unless you actually eat them multigrain cheerios. Also available in delicious peanut butter. Healthy never tasted so sweet. See, i knew testosterone could affect sex drive, but not energy or even my mood. Thats when i talked with my doctor. He gave me some blood tests. Showed it was low t. Thats it. It was a number. [ male announcer ] today, men with low t have androgel 1. 62 testosterone gel. The 1 prescribed topical testosterone replacement therapy increases testosterone when used daily. Women and children should avoid contact with application sites. 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Today is the day americans can start signing up for the obama Care Insurance exchanges. Senior editor for the new republic Jonathan Cohen says c can sum it up in two sentences and pat is here with us. Well get with you in just two sentences. Well get to you. Jonathan, were challenging you. Talk to me. Explain it to us in two sentences. Sure. Okay. So number one, its going to make sure that almost all americans can get a decent Health Insurance policy regardless of income or preexisting medical condition. And its going to start to change the way we pay for medical care so we get better care without paying quite so much money for it. Thats two sentences. A couple dependent clauses. Pretty good. I like it. Pat, youre in the business. You guys are setting up exchanges in all 67 counties in the state of florida today. Hows it going to work . To be clear, the federal government is setting up the exchange but were offering in 67 counties. What weve done, joe, is weve gotten ahead of this curve. We understand that health care is going to be much more retail, and we built Retail Centers all around our state. These centers do sell business, but what they also do is we will resolve a claim for a customer, face to face if they walk in. We have nurses there who do health risk assessments. All because of the Affordable Care act, right . We did this starting ahead of the Affordable Care act. We started our centers in 2006 so we were ahead of this curve. Our belief was that health care would become much more retail over time, and so it really dovetails with whats happening with the Affordable Care act. Lets look ahead, john atan, to what could go wrong. People can go online, get paperwork to sign up, but walgreens and drugstores and different arias, what could go wrong . What are the glitches that are potentially roadblocks here . I think the most obvious glitch that everyones going to talk about are technology glitches. Supposedly at 8 00 a. M. This morning the websites, the marketplaces that the federal government is running for some states like florida goes online. Some of the states websites have gone online already. Ill be pleasantly surprised if they all work. When my kids went to go play sin city, i think it was weeks before it was working, and this is more complicated than sin city. But remember buying insurance right now is incredibly complicated and messy and you have to wait months to find out and theres six months for people to open enroll. If it takes a few weeks for glitches to work out, thats okay. Actual paperwork doesnt take too much. We haveve seen by the way, Mike Barnicle, weve seen the layout of the signup. Healthcare. Gov. If you go through it and have somebody take you through it, if it works, if the glitches arent there, they have streamlined it in a way that federal agencies are rarely streamlined. Planned ahead. I looked at the website last night. Its fairly simple. Pat, youre one of 34 states that dont have their own exchange. Whats the upside or downside of not having your own exchange . Well, we actually did lobby for building an exchange in the state of florida. The fact of the matter is the federal government is supplying the exchange for florida. I think that puts a little bit of distance to our consumers, but what weve done is really focused on the consumer as a retail customer. We looked at massachusetts, and we know that people go on the exchange and they dont finalize their decision while theyre on the exchange. They want to talk to somebody, which is why we built these Retail Centers. Were already seeing thousands of people come into our centers, asking questions. I think the biggest need here is education. And so weve scheduled 3,000 seminars across our state to educate people. Regardless of where you are politically, the issue is we want people to be informed. We want them to know what their choices are. Theres a 24hour line as well. Jonathan and pat, thank you so much. Thank you, guys. Good luck today. Up next, White House Press secretary jay carney will join us. I hope he doesnt yell at me this time. Well see. He seemed happy about things. Had a lot of caffeine. Well, no. I think okay. Yes. Sure. Republican senator jeff flake as well. Morning joe. So ally bank really has no hidden fees on savings accounts . No hidden fees. Its just that im worried about you know hidden things. Ok, whys that . Well uhhh. Hey daddy, whats your job . Daddys a uhh florist. Are you really a florist . Dad, why are there shovels in the trunk . Theres no shovels in my trunk. I see shovels. You dont see no shovels. Just am. Well, its true. At ally there are no hidden fees. Not one. Thats nice. No hidden fees, no worries. Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. Humans. Even when we cross our ts and dot our is, we still run into problems. Namely, other humans. Which is why at Liberty Mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. See what else comes standard at libertymutual. Com. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . I dbefore i dosearch any projects on my home. I love my contractor, and i am so thankful to angies list for bringing us together. Find out why more than two million members count on angies list. Angies list reviews you can trust. Up next, the latest on the first Government Shutdown since 1995 and president obamas phone call to Speaker Boehner that didnt seem to help matters. Also, the story behind this shocking video that is going viral this morning. A mob of motorcycle riders attacking a man in front of his wife and young child. Well tell you what caused it all and the question on everyones mind this morning where were the police . Customer erin swenson ordered shoes from us online but they didnt fit. Customers not happy, im not happy. 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And you know what the giants did say after that game . If you dont give us 25 more points by midnight on monday we will shut down the [ bleep ] nfl. They didnt say that wouldnt it be nice with if the United States congress aspired to the maturity and problem solving tenacity of football players. Good morning. Its 8 00 on the east coast, 5 00 a. M. On the west coast as you take a live look at capitol hill. And that might make you want to go back to sleep. Back on set, Mike Barnicle and mike hall person and in washington, Eugene Washington and ezra kline. The headlines reflect it all. They do. Heres the New York Times talking about nearing the shutdown. The wall street journal talks about washingtons grim standoff. The usa today talks about the shutdown showdown. The boston globe, not my favorite, but close. Big font. Its a good one. Huge font. About as big as that works for me. The Washington Post has down to the wire. The Financial Times, and they are accurate, here republicans fear voter backlash in the standoff. My favorites the daily news. The daily news has kicked it old school, baby. Yeah. House of turds. Happy shutdown, boys. 12 49 a. M. The office of management and budget issued an alert to federal agencies to begin closing up shop. Yesterday the house passed a series of continuing resolutions delaying portions of obamacare to try and fund the government. All of them swatted down by the senate. As we mentioned, senator harry reid has refused the republicanled house plan to reconcile their differences by going to conference committee, something reid says they offered republicans months ago. We like to resolve issues, but we will not go to conference with a gun to our head. If they want to go to conference on the c. R. , madam president , that closes government. They want to close government. This is all a subterfuge. I dont understand that, actually. Im critical of so many things republicans are doing, but going to conference doesnt close the government. It actually resolves the issue. It was offered. Earlier in the day, the president and top leaders including harry reid, mitch mcconnell, nancy pelosi and john boehner, the call with boehner lasted just ten minutes. And last night on the house floor boehner did an impression of how it went. I didnt come here to shut down the government. I want to give a break to all the big businesses out there, and yet stick our constituents with a bill that they dont want and a bill they cant afford. Thats what this fights all about. I talked to the president earlier tonight. Im not going to negotiate. Im not going to negotiate. Were not going to do this. Well, i would say to the president this is not about me. And its not about republicans here in congress. Its about fairness for the American People. Right. So they should do their job and president obama said he himself was unwilling to move. Hes been saying this. The Affordable Care act is moving forward. That funding is already in place. You cant shut it down. Keeping the peoples government open is not a concession to m v and hundreds of thousands of americans on the job is not something you give to the other side. Its our basic responsibility. You dont get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what youre supposed to be doing anyway, or just because theres a law there that you dont like. Top democrats say republicans simply cannot read the writing on the wall. And you have the votes because the people elected democrats as the majority in the senate and the president of the United States. And they dont agree with you. And Newt Gingrich said when that was the case you had to compromise. And what compromise are we talking about . Were taking your number. Your number. And you will not take yes for an answer. How sad. What a shameful day this is in the history of the house of representatives. Boy, ill tell you what, mika, the new polling thats come out shows the depths of just how much americans dislike this country really . Why . I dont get it. Congress Approval Rating now polling, according to cnn, at just 10 . What the heck . 53 of americans disapprove of the president s performance. Cession c congressional republicans, democrats, and the president all get low marks for the handling of budget negotiations. Just 26 of americans approve of the way republicans are working in congress. Mark halperin, weve been through this before. Ive been through it for 15, 16, 17 years. Ive got to say, though, ive never seen a standoff like this where theres less hope on either side. And by the way, the president s looking pretty strong and secure there. As we all know, theyre just as worried as everybody else. They dont know how this is going to end. The same with the house. We had matt sammon on yesterday, a good friend of mine. I talked to a lot of republicans scratching their heads saying we dont know whats going on, we dont know where this ends. The widespread assumption is it ends, and this is the assumption of the white house and a lot of republicans, is that it ends because the most hard line House Republicans kaich as the poll numbers change and as the economic effects and the human effects of the shutdown start to become better known. I think the problem is the only way you get a solution out of this is not at the grassroots and not in the rank and file. Its got to be the leaders. The the president , harry reid, nancy pelosi, john boehner, these are deal makers. Under normal circumstances they could make a deal. The history of the last five years plus leads us but the president s not dealing. Hes not. What im saying is hes got a personality that he will not deal, he will not, and theyre going to have to. But you saw it i mean, for the speaker of the house and im not singling out john boehner because i think this attitude exists with all these leaders. For him to go on the floor and imitate the president like that, you would not have seen that in years past. And, again, i think the white houses attitude toward john boehner in public has been comparable. Disdainful. Got to get over the history of disdain. They have to. On both sides. Yeah. Just disdainful. Ive never, Mike Barnicle, seen anything like it in washington, d. C. Republicans not talking to democrats. Members of congress not talking to the administration. You know, the president of the United States not reaching out to members of his own party on capitol hill. The only person that seems to me is talking is joe biden. The Vice President is talking, but the Vice President has strangely been exclulded from any negotiations this time around. Unlike two years ago when he was talking with mitch mcconnell, hes not doing that now. I mean, the level of estrangement this time is beyond anyones belief. And the house is virtually leaderless, although the speaker of the house is known to be someone who makes a deal, who wants to make a deal. And yet its virtually not there because of a handful of republicans. Gene, i dont know about you, but just in talking to people, the level of isolation from reality, the small group of republicans seem to have and the death grip they seem to have on John Boehners speakership is really striking. It is. And i cant recall an antecedent. I dont know this has happened before. My favorite quote from that whole insanity last night of, you know, where the house keeps throwing stuff up and the senate keeps swatting it back, and it was congressman peter king who said the situation has somewhat been lost control of, which i thought that was a wonderfully twisted way of expressing what all of us think. Its totally out of hand, out of control. Mark halperin. Well, look, the percentage i was looking for the number and i cant find it off hand, but the percentage of republican who is support obamacare nationally is like 5 or something. So the country is deeply divided over it. Again, people shouldnt mistake our analysis of the republicans think about the law with saying that its fine for republicans to do what theyre doing right now regarding the continuing resolution. The reality is that the Republican Party, most of p people feel strongly about this in congress, arent afraid its going to work. What theyre afraid is that the systems going to be changed by obamacare, that what works about health care is going to go bad. The problem with our system, one of the big problems is theres employeebased health care, right . Private sector, employeebased health care. A lot of people think thats a bad system and think part of what obamacare is going to do is stop employers, as you said, from offering Health Insurance. Thats right now the backbone of our system. I mean, if were saying one broad thing here is that actually is a problem in all the republican plans. What they do is they eliminate or dramatically change the deduction from that based health care and then you have a similar kind of dropping of health care into the individual market, moves on to some kind of tax credit, gets, as it does in obamacare, purchased through private insurance. I think the likelihood of employer dropping is a lot lower. But one broad thing here is that it does seem that a lot of the problem is republicans dont actually want to negotiate over these things. So you have this shutdown or deficit in negotiation, and people are saying, okay so, democrats dont want to talk over the shutdown. What they dont want to do is portray the shutdown as something republicans give them or not defaulting on the debt, something republicans want to give them. Theyve been fairly clear. Going back six months theyve been trying to appoint budget conferees with republicans that they will negotiate over the budget and obamacare, but republicans need to be willing to give something up, not just keep funding the government, not just not shut shutt it down. They need to be able to come to the table and make a deal. That right now seems to be whats missing even as they try to move to a conference committ committee. What they never said last night was heres what were willing to give up, heres the deal were willing to make with you beyond just not shutting down the government. Obviously the world is watching. 16 days now until we could potentially default on our debt. Raising the debt ceiling, the s p issued a Statement Last night saying, this sort of political brinksmanship is the dominant reason the rating is no longer aaa. Downgraded the u. S. Governments debt in 2011 from aaa to aaplus. Joe, we listened to at the top of the hour Speaker Boehner, at the 11th hour, 1 00 in the morning, saying, you know what, maybe we ought to go to conference and talk this out. My question is why did they just realize at 1 00 in the morning they could go to conference and talk this out . Wait till the debt ceiling fight comes up. Theyll all noorch the edge of the cliff and the night before theyll get calls from ceos and wall street leaders and theyre going to say, you cant default on americas debt because its going to cause all these economic consequences, and theyre going to act like its the first time they ever heard it in their life. Coming up on morning joe, will president obama come to the table to end the shutdown . Well talk to White House Press secretary jay carney and one republican whos been against obamacare but against a shutdown. Arizona senator jeff flake joins us. Also ahead, the faa is backing new rules on planes that could make your flight a bit more noisy. Well tell you what they are next. Also, a nightmare on the westside highway in new york city. A new york city biker gang chases down a driver after he accidentally clips one of the riders. [ male announcer ] the new twin turbo xts from cadillac. 410 available horses. Room for four. Twice the fun. Man [ laughs ] those look like baby steps now. But they were some pretty good moves. And the best move of all . Having the right partner at my side. Its so much better that way. [ male announcer ] have the right partner at your side. Consider an aarp Medicare Supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthCare Insurance company. Go long. Time now to take a look at the morning papers. Usa today, the new York City Police department is investigating the extreme case of road rage caught on camera. An suv driver hits a motorcycle who apparently cut him off. The driver stops but takes off when another racer starts to damage his suv. He runs over a biker, breaking his leg. A mob of motorcycles then take chase and swarm the suv. The bikers attack the man when he stops at a red light. One driver takes off his helmet and smashes it through the window. They dragged him outside and assaulted him in front of his wife and child. Hes expected to be okay. No arrests have been made yet. What a mess. Where were the police . Ive got a scene out of fast and furious 8. Where are the police . Theyre chasing this guy and his family, his wife and kid . Its incredible. Up the westside highway . Yeah. They beat him up and drag him out of the car. Where are we . Not a cop, nobody, like weather a cell phone report this stuff . This was a chase up the west side highway. God. Awful. Where was the police . Whos videotaping it and then not calling the police . I dont get it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Its unbelievable, mika. Yeah. All right, during an interview with pope francis, talking about the state of the catholic church, its leaders and his mission as pope. He called to, quote, include those who are now excluded and preach peace and said the papacy was too vatican centric. Pope francis also spoke about the missions of Pope John Paul ii and pope john xxiii. The vatican Just Announced both men will become sanlts next year. And the San Francisco chronicle, a federal regulations moving a step closer to allowing passengers to use Electronic Devices below an altitude of 10,000 feet. The decision now rests in the hands of the faa. Some devices will need to be switched to Airplane Mode during takeoff. I think, you know, this is fine as long as you just ban all talking on cell phones. Exactly. From the second you step into the airport to the second you leave. Breaking bad is breaking records. The Series Finale with a record high viewers for the show. Thats more than a 50 jump from last weeks last episode. The finale set a record on twitter with more than 1. 2 million tweets during the broadcast. I mean, that was really, really intense. Was it . Unbelieve. Great song at the very end, baby blue. Of course nobody around here watches it. I do. I might as well be talking act my favorite Lawrence Welk episode. A one and a two and a three. Did you watch it, mike . I did. A much better ending than the sopranos ending or the ending to lost. Oh, yeah. These people that have great series and you can go all the way back to m. A. S. H. Which is the absolute worst of all time, the flying saucers taking hawkeye and honeycutt out. No, that was the end of raiders of the lost ark, the fwournt. This was a great ending for breaking bad. All the loose ends were tied up. Everything. They did it right. Everything was in the trunk of the car. Lets go to politico now willie geist . I had it dvrd, by the way, having seen none of the previous episodes, just going to watch the finale. No way. All right. Lets go to politico. Joining us now to look at the playbook, executive editor jim vandehei. Good morning, willie. A brandnew kol pols a couple minutes ago from quinnipiac. 72 of those polled nearly three in one opposed shut do you think the government to pose the president S Health Care law. Only 17 of americans approve of the job republicans are doing in congress. Thats the lowest score ever. Democrats dont fare much better. Only 32 approve of the job. Only meet these people who have a favorable impression of congress. A couple thoughts from the conversation you guys were having earlier. I actually think as bad as things are now they get substantially worse over the next two years. Every incentive today is not an isolated event. This is the culmination of a decade of changes in politics. All those changes get worse. Basically every incentive right now in politics is working against anyone having power, any leader having power in washington. Rank and file, more powerful than ever. Almost every leader is weak. The National Parties are weak. The outside groups are getting stronger. The outside groups are getting smarter about intervening and primary processes to push candidates to the extremes. And so what happened today, whats going to happen with default, its only going to get worse. Its not like people are going to rise up and punish republicans by getting rid of moderates. Theres no moderates left. All of the backlash that we talk about, none of these republicans are going to feel it in their district. Their district loves this stuff. They love that their members are taking on the president. They love the idea that government is shut down. They dont like the government. I cant say that enough. They dont like the government. They hate obamacare. Theyre fine with the political consequences of this. I dont think there are going to be Lessons Learned and suddenly republicans are going to be humbled and theyre going to compromise. Theyll dig in more and there will be a lot of money and support fer them to do just that. Coming up next, White House Press secretary jay carney joins was the president s response to the Government Shutdown. All of a sudden republican senator jay flake will be here to explain why he thinks the shutdown will help obamacare and not hurt it. vo you are a business pro. Maestro of project management. Baron of the buildout. You need a permit. To be this awesome. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. You can even take a fullsize or above, and still pay the midsize price. aaron purrrfect. vo meeeow, business pro. Meeeow. Go national. Go like a pro. Bob will retire when hes 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. But hes not. Hes an architect with two kids and a mortgage. Luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. And with some planning and effort, hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Even during the president s speech today you could almost sense that a shutdown was going to happen. Congress needs to keep our government open. It needs to pay our bills on time. And never, ever threaten the full faith and credit of the United States of america. And times running out. My hope and expectation is that in the 11th hour once again that congress will choose to do the right thing and that the house of representatives in particular will choose the right thing. Terrible. 28 past the hour. Joining us now from washington, chief economics correspondent for the wall street journal, john hillsonrep. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. I know its not unusual to have a Government Shutdown, but whats unaushl about this one . Whats unusual is that its running up to a debt ceiling in a couple week, and thats really where, you know, if youre worried about the kui and how this is going to affect the economy, thats the big issue, around october 17th, october 24th actually is when push really comes to shove. I think everything before then is theatrics. A few days toa shutdown isnt going to wreck the economy. What are the ramifications . Weve been talking about political ones. Are there any . If. If you look back at 1996, the government did shut down for three weeks. Employment slowed down for a couple months, Economic Growth slowed down, but then it popped right up afterwards. If they go through a shutdown for a few weeks and then get it resolved, i think there will be a relief rally in the markets after that and the economy will, you know, pick up again later in the year. Really, this debt ceiling increase is really the big show, and, you know, weve got three weeks of theatrics that are basically everybodys positioning for that. Mike barnicle . Jon, i dont want you to do a letterman top ten list here, but on the debt ceiling, what about the top three tremendously destructive things that could happen if they failed to, you know, meet the debt ceiling deadline, eve bin if theyre a day late or two days late . Ill give you one. The one really bad e cent is if the government doesnt pay off bonds, treasury bonds, because Interest Rates go up for everybody. Its not just the governments borrowing costs but mortgage costs, auto loans, and they dont just go up once and come back down. They go up and stay up because creditors and a lot of our creditors overseas start questioning whether the government is going to be good on its bills. You know, the treasury has said october 17 sth the dropdead date. Its actually a week later. There isnt a Government Bond payment until october 24th. And we could get through that. You know, really we start looking towards november 1st. But that is the big thats the big event. Thats the super bowl of this. If they miss a bond payment, then weve got a major problem on your hands. All right. Lets bring in now from capitol hill republican senator from arizona senator jay flake. Senator, good to have you on the show. Thanks for having me on. So how does this end . I dont know. I cant believe that lit go for very long, so i hope that today or tomorrow that we can open it back up. What do you make of your colleagues in the house who arent budging at all . Well, we all share the same goal, certainly to rein in spending, and no republican voted for obamacare before. But its no secret that i havent agreed with the tactic or the strategy here. I just dont think that we should have used this vehicle. Whats wrong with the strategy . Why dont you agree with it . Well, for one, if youre going to take a stand on something, the other side has to fear a shutdown, and in this case i think the democrats knew that if there were to be a shutdown that it would be republican who is take the blame. And so youre threatening to do something that the other side isnt very fearful of. But its not like your colleagues in the house didnt know that. So what are they up to . What are they trying to accomplish here . Like i said, i share the goal that they have. I just dont share the strategy, and i think they do want to get rid of obamacare. I think we all do. But just isnt the right strategy in my view. Senator Mark Halperin here. In 2017 will obamacare be the law of the land . And if you think it will be, do you haven obligation to help your constituents learn how to use the system and become enrolled in the system . I think it will look a lot different than it does today if its around at all. I dont think the structure is sound at all. I have a bill that would delay it for a year. I just think that ought to be separate from the discussions were having on Government Shutdown. I think within a couple of months the administration will be fine to delay it for a year, politically and otherwise, because i dont think its ready for prime time. I just dont think that this is the vehicle. But do you want to help your stilts learn how to use it, enroll in the system, and get arizonans to get health care through obamacare . Well, it is the law of the land. I think there will be tremendous problems with it. Like i said, i just dont think the structure is there to allow people to get better and cheaper health care. So i hope that we can replace it with something better. Nobodys defending the system we have now, but this is not the answer in my view. But it is the law of the land. I think we have to remember that, and the notion that we were going to get the democrats to agree to delay it or repeal it on the c. R. I think just wasnt the right strategy. It goes into effect today. Right. There are people who can go online right now or go pick up the paperwork and fill it out and make choices and get cheaper health care. Are you saying thats not going to work . Yeah. I dont think it will. I dont think that in the end youll have people with cheaper health care. I think that it may be cheaper for some people, but that just means a massive government subsidy on the other side that we can ill afford. So, no, i just dont think the structure is there to make it work. Youve got to control costs somehow, and theres nothing in the law that actually controls cost. Brian shakman . Is jon still with us . Jon, are you there . Still here, yeah. I just want to throw one quick question. I dont want to backtrack off the Government Shutdown, but i dont know if youll be on the show before the 17th or the 24th. What does the impact of all the bond buying by our own government do us and our obligations since were probably the biggest owner of our debt and moving backward here . Right. So the Federal Reserve has been buying a lot of Government Bonds, but, you know, foreign governments are big buyers of u. S. Bonds, Insurance Companies are big buyers. The fed is taking a part of the market but not the whole thing. Theres nothing the fed can do to prevent a crisis if the government doesnt make good on its bonds. Like i said, Everything Else before then i think is kind of maneuvering in a sideshow so that moment, and i think thats when the hard decisions get made. All right. Senator flake, before you go, what would be the best path at this point as the reality is, as it stands right now for the republicans . How would you like to see this resolve itself . Well, i think one thing that has not been focused on is this disagreement that we have, the clean c. R. Really goes beyond the budget cams that weve set. And that concerns me. So id like to see a longterm c. R. Based on the bca level. And when we lift the debt limit, that ought to be based on the bca for a year. But i dont think we ought to have this showdown over the debt limit either. I think we ought to set it at the bca level for another year. All right. Senator jay flake, thank you very much. Clean cr, longterm cr. Were learning all these terms now. Joining us now from the white house, we have White House White house White House Press secretary jay carney. Do you have a clean cr, jay . Wed sure like to sign one, mika. Good morning to you. Yeah, well how is it going . And how do you think this is going to resolve itself at this point . The government is now officially shut down. Well, it is, and thats of course not good for the economy, not good for the middle class. And the longer it goes on, the more impacts there will be. I think that listening to the program before i came on, you guys hit on the real bigger threat here, which is that this strategy the republicans and the house have employed, one faction of one party of one house of one branch of government that seems to be driving this republican train, their strategy seems to be to do what theyve done for the funding of government to the issue of whether or not the United States of america will pay its bills. And as you were talking about on october 17th, the Treasury Department runs out of these extraordinary measures to keep borrowing and, you know, we would default. And the consequences of that are unnobl unknowable, but they are catastrophic without question. What we see happening with this republican strategy is a willingness to threaten the very foundation of the worlds greatest economic power, the economy that basically stabil e stabilizes the entire world, economic system, and that is a very risky proposition. So Brian Shactman is going to get to you on that point in just a moment. But first senator flake was saying that obamacare is not going to work. People can start signing up today. Is it going to work or are there going to be tons of glisms and problems and ultimately will it not be paid for . First of all, there will of course be some glitches. There always are in the introductions of these kinds of programs. There were with the Prescription Drug benefit that passed under president busch. There were with the rollout of medicare and Social Security. But what is absolutely true is that in all 50 states of the country today, americans who have not been able to get access to affordable Health Insurance can enroll and look at their options, see for themselves the average of 50 plans they can choose from, and make the right choice for their family and their finances. And instead of depending on the emergency room, they will be able to enroll and purchase insurance thats affordable and have that kind of security that theyve never had before. And i think that what youre seeing, mika, with this kind of republican obsession with trying to do away with obamacare or the Affordable Care act through these extraordinary means is that they worry that once these ben felts become part of the lives of the American People, they will not be able to repeal obamacare. And i think theyre right. But look, senator flake was i think admirable in saying he opposes it and he has a bill to delay it, but he believes that it should not be used as a strategy to shut down the government or default. And if he and those who want to try to make changes to the Affordable Care act can do so through the normal legislative process, but they should not hold the economy and the middle class hostage while they do it. Brian. I do want to get to the debt ceiling issue because theyre separate issues but everyones coupling them together. As weve talked about for the last few minutes and for a long while, it is perhaps the most important issue of all of them. How does whats going on now impact that issue and that debate . Well, its essentially like seeing a preview to or the trailer to a movie. At least thats our fear. Because republicans have all along through this process, those who are driving the train here, have said that they will employ this strategy when it comes to their responsibility to pay our bills on time and raise the debt ceiling, employ the same strategy theyve employed when it comes to funding the government. That strategy has led to the government shutting down. If they pursue it again and threaten to default on our obligations, if they dont get what they want on obamacare, essentially try to change the results of last novembers election or default on the economy, you know, we are in a very serious situation. So this is i think its important that viewers understand these are distinct, but theyre linked and the House Republican caucus conference, especially the Tea Party Caucus within it, is pursuing the very same strategy in both cases. Its highly irresponsible and reckless. Mark halperin. Take you back to the Affordable Care act, one of the president s motivations in passing it was to help control what were outofcontrol Health Care Costs. As you know, a lot of republicans in congress, even some democrats and a lot of the American People are skeptical that this law will control Health Care Costs for individuals as well as in the macro economy. How would you explain to people today and sort of assure them that its going to control, how will it work that Health Care Costs will be lower and not greater . Well, for a couple of reasons. They should believe it because weve already seen in the last three years since the Affordable Care act was passed into law and the president signed it, the growth of Health Care Costs in this country has slowed dramatically. If you go back four or five years ago and look at how businesses and the government projected the growth in Health Care Costs into the future, that curve was dramatically steeper than it has turned out to be. And it is certainly linked in part to the passage of the Affordable Care act. So obamacare is already having a poz tism pasitive impact on hea costs. Lit continue to have that positive impact as we introduce more people into the Health Care System, theres more competition, and this competition and the rationality behind it drives down costs. And thats why you see, as we look at the premiums that have been established in these states, you see the competition has driven prices down for when it comes to plans that are going to be available to individuals who heretofore have not been able to afford them. Look, i think the proof is in the reduction in the growth in Health Care Costs already and in the promise of that reduction continuing, because we have to do something here. One of the things joes not on the show right now or at least in this exchange, but, you know, joe was part of the shutdowns under the Clinton Administration when he was in congress. And setting aside whether that was good or bad policy for republicans in the house, at least they were consistent in what they were trying to achieve. They were focused on deficit reduction. And that was their numberone priority. And that was related to government spending. The republicans today are focused on a piece of legislation they dont like because the president signed it and its a signature legislation, and, in fact, if they got what they wanted it would increase the deficit, would make our debt worse. Jay . Yeah. I think joe i tied him to the steps there so he cant be a part of this, but i think hed agree with you that theyre going to have a shutdown, make it for something. And you know, weve sort of lost we dont hear the republicans anymore talking about, you know, what was supposed to be their priority. Instead theyre talking about the Affordable Care act and trying to, you know, use their opposition to that to shut us down and default on our debt. White House Press Secretary jay carney, thank you very much. We will stay in touch. Keep us posted. Thank you so much. Jon hilsenrath, stay with us. Up next, the s p issues another warning to the u. S. , but is it just an empty threat . 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As your life changes, fidelity is there for your personal economy, helping you readjust along the way, refocus as careers change and kids head off to college, and revisit your investments as retirement gets closer. Wherever you are today, fidelitys guidance can help you finetune your personal economy. Start today with a free oneonone review of your retirement plan. Joining us now from cnbc global headquarters, michelle crusoe cabrera. The wall street journals Jon Hilsenrath is still with us as well. What are the headlines . So were talking about still the Government Shutdown and the exchanges opening today as a result of health care reform. The marks are not nearly as nervous as originally thought. We did see a selloff yesterday but a little more sanguine approach this morning. I think if it doesnt last very long, which is the assessment of a lot of folks, then the Government Shutdown doesnt necessarily have a big impact. Theres a lot of skepticism that it has any kind of huge impact at all, down 128 points yesterday, 10 points for the s p as well. Ive been listening with interest to what you guys have been talking about the last 15 or 20 minutes. There is a Strong School of thought out there there that says if he we hit the debt ceiling thatitis not armageddon, that we dont see skyrocketing Interest Rates. They keep saying default on our debt. We heard jay carney say that. The chances of that happening are next to zero because you can prioritize your payments. Defaulting on debt means the u. S. Government would mott not make an Interest Payment on a u. S. Treasury. Highly unlikely. The other thing is if you pay that rate, if it were eve on the happen, that is not default. And for investors to suddenly sell u. S. Treasuries because theres going to be a threeday payment late, highly unlikely. Not many other choices in the world. Jon, is that true . The conventional wisdom is you miss a payment, you default, our Credit Rating gets downgraded. Being late on a payment im not saying youre wrong. Its not a default. If you lost your house after not paying your mortgage for three days but you suddenly paid it, theyd say thats a default. I mean is that what youre talking about . You lost your house after paying late three days . I just want jons take on that. I agree with michelle this word default gets used very loosely in washington. If a government is late, for instance, on Social Security payments, thats not a default and people use that term all the time. I think if they miss an Interest Payment on bonlds, you know, that becomes an event that is a big problem in financial markets, but its also important to say that doesnt happen on october 17. Theres some bill payments come do you agree on october 24th. We could probably get past them. Then that gets you until october 31st, november 1st. You know, thats when things start getting tight. So we have a whole month before any of that happens. But, john, if you run a pension fund and you have pulled a certain amount of very liquid assets, are you going to sell your treasury portfolio, which is probably large, because the payment is a couple days late . What else you would you buy instead . Its always the buyer and seller on the margin. Right . Right. So the pension fund probably wont. But the hedge fund is trying to position himself for this [ inaudible ]. And that could point an upward pressure on Interest Rates. I agree with you that i dont think we get that far we dont. Because i think there will be so much pressure on people in washington to act by then that something will happen. The other point that i want to make about all this is that viscerally we look at these events and, you know, it looks really bad on the surface, and, you know, it feels like these are terrible events that are happening. But if you go back over the last 20, 30 years to continuing resolution crises, Government Shutdowns, this is actually when action happens in washington. These are forcing mechanisms. You know, the government shut down in 9596, then passed legislation and returned budget surpluses. The last few years, you know, weve actually had improvements on spending. All right, guys. Thank you, michelle. Thank you so much. Bringing it. Next time tell us how you really feel. I love it. Fear mongering. Jay carney has been fear mongering on your network. Thank you so much. Listening to all this talk, mika, very complex when i hear them talk about Hedge Fund Traders and how they trade on the margins and, you know, the complexities of bond trading. Im listening to it and you know what im thinking about. What are you thinking . The sky sure was pretty this weekend. Blue and nice. No clouds. I like flowers and daffodils. Ice cream cones. Yeah. Ice cream cones. Kind of complex. Well be right back. 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Mika eats the icing off the top of doughnuts. Thats before. Lets give the after. The after