my conversation with kamala harris in the spin room after the debate. do you feel you ve toppled the front runner. i don t know, i ll leave that to the pundits, i don t know. does this open new doors for you in this campaign? i don t know. i mean, i will tell you that it s my it has been my work since we entered the campaign to work very hard to earn the votes and support of every person in our country. and i m going to continue to do that. there is nothing that s going to be given to any one of us. we re going to have to earn the support. joe, he s at a turning point. there s another debate a month from now. he may well have that reservoir support and money coming in. at some point these questions about age, about whether he can pivot as quickly as he needs to.
nbc news political reporter joins me live from washington. the headline was special report, stuck between the tea party and a hard place. how does boehner handle this situation? reporter: it s kind of a bit of what we heard before the last budget debate a couple months ago, in the continuing resolution. but the difference now is that boehner had a reservoir support from the tea party folks, a lot of enthusiasm because activists helped republicans take over the house maybe there could be something they could get done. we saw the congressional budget office put out numbers that didn t exactly amount to the $38.5 billion that republicans said that were cut out of the budget, and a lot of tea party activists became more skeptical. now boehner going out saying that the debt limit is going to have to be increased which is probably reality but tough medicine to have to give to folks who are, you know, a strong base of the party and could have consequences for 2012, if these tea party acti