0 the dinner meeting was held in a private basement room, the group was spotted by majority whip kevin mccarthy. let's stop there and remember kevin mccarthy's job as the republican whip in the house is to keep republican members in line, to keep them voting in the right way, the way that leadership wants him to vote. and at the most sensitive possible moment, last night at this tex-mex joint, the republican whip discovers ted cruz not even a member of the house reportedly -- right there in tortilla coast. that tortilla coast summit set the stage for what played out today in washington. because john boehner spent today desperately trying to craft a measure that could get all of those republicans who met with republican ted cruz last night on board. reports trickled out of the -- tinkering with to try to win over the right. over in the senate, both parties gave up talking for a while, gave up to see what boehner could put together. finally, middle of the afternoon, a house vote was scheduled for a republican authored bill to reopen the government and to lift the debt ceiling. costa, thanks for being here, robert. appreciate the time. so let's start with the reports we're all hearing about, you know, mcconnell and reid are back to talking again, imminent deal, do we have a basic sense of what the contours of that deal are going to be? >> senate republicans are hoping the house republicans could pass something tonight. but when that plan fell apart, now it goes back to the senate and all the republicans in senate are trying to do is protect sequestration, they know they're on the ropes and that's all they can possibly get. >> it's generally a deal that the democrats are happy about, given the circumstances. the question then is, a, are we confident that boehner will take this deal that comes out of the senate and actually put it on the floor for a vote in the house? are we confident that will happen? >> i'm not entirely confident of that? they say boehner has two options, he can accept what the senate brokers tomorrow morning. or heck try to float some kind of six-week extension of simply the debt limit. i think the leadership would like to embrace the senate deal. but as we saw today, the way things are so fragile in the house, boehner may just go for a debt limit extension. >> and do we have any sense of how democrats will respond to is that. >> as much as republicans want to get beyond this impass, as much as republicans are -- boehner starts trying to really tinker with the senate deal, it could be chaos on wednesday and thursday night. >> so it absolutely could. so you're talking about the two choices that boehner sort of sees himself having right now. this whole issue he's been talking about since he became speaker in 2011, he's auld got to worry about the coup, he's always got to be looking around weeks, all this dancing around that boehner has to do, that he still is doing really as we speak right now, is there any sense that we won't go through this all over again in january and early february? >> i think the closer we get to the midterms, there's going to be a reluctance to be another type of showdown. republicans especially in the house are very interested in the house in having a showdown. let's say it goes into early january of 2014, they want to have a fight on the delay of the individual mandate. obama care is the republican's message ahead of 2014. so don't look for them to relent in any way. >> we talked about the announcement from the jim demint, the announcement from heritage that said this is a key vote, if you're a republican in the house, you better be voting against this thing. can you talk about what affect that had on the most conservative members of the house. it's sort of these outside pressure groups or in the case of cruz as senator coming over and talking to them, what affect that's had on boehner's ability to lead and how that played out today? >> it's easy at first blush to shrug off what happened at tortilla coast meeting with house conservatives. but in the way the republican party functions right now in the house, these are critical events because the leadership has very limited ability, no earmarks to really whip votes, so these outside movement groups like heritage action and movement leaders like senator cruz has been really able to corral votes in the house. they have been, as you said in the introduction, whipping votes in the house. that's something we really have never seen in the american house. >> you know the factions of the republican membership in the house really well. we always hear about there's this really hardcore group of ted cruz republicans in the house and there's secondary layers of that, i guess. if the senate deal, the framework or which you're describing, goes to the floor, how many house republicans safely could vote for that? what kind of support do you think it would get? >> it's very fluid, because that block of 50 conservative hard liners they're going to resist it. the question is, does that larger group, i call them the silent majority, 100 to 140 house republicans who are sort of center right push back against the leadership? that could easily be the case. what does boehner do if his conference is not influenced by him but by that block of 50. >> there's so much sort of craziness in the air today, but the bottom line, do you expect that when this debt default deadline comes later this week, that we will ultimately be in the clear, we will not be having a debt default, are you confident that will at least be the outcome? >> i think speaker boehner from day one says he wants to avoid a default. he said that publicly and privately, can he bring something to the floor that does do that. i think he has difficulty bringing anything to the floor so we'll have to see. >> robert costa, we thank you very much for joining us tonight. t. only clear this inge in this bat system that the senate has not wavered in its position. fios having a big tire event? 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