as far as the house of representatives is concern they are gone. they are at dinner. they are waiting back to to see what the senate will do on what could be the night that there finally is a break through. kristen, what are we hearing from the white house? reporter: one senior white house official tells me that the president and just about everyone here is working around the lock 24/7 was the term that was used. president obama has been in close contact with congressional leaders throughout the day. we know he spoke with senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. he met with harry reid and nancy pelosi. he s putting pressure on behind-the-scenes. you heard luke talk about the fact that democrats would like to to see a deal that extends through 2012. well the president has said he won t sign anything less. in fact he wants to to see a deal that goes through the 2012 election up to 2013. individuals tell me they want to to see major progress by sunday. here s why. there are two reasons
just what we needed another sub plot. the reid-mcconnell battle. harry reid does not like hearing that mitch mcconnell is doing an end run around his reid s leadership vice president biden. so in general, i expect we ll hear a maneuver from harry reid to make his effort to find a compromise the more important one. and if he doesn t think he has the votes, it could be delaying the vote we re anticipating at 1:00 a.m., it could be some alteration in the plan or in the bill itself. i m not sure. but to put his plan back at center stage and not this kind of side negotiation between mcconnell and biden. michael, right now, though, what are the options that senator reid has? especially if he doesn t have the votes needed to get there at 1:00 a.m.. well, i agree with gene, of course.
this issue called unanimous consent. ken strickland likes to say the u.s. senate has the power to say the sunrises in the west with unanimous consent. and so, there is a way to get around clocks, speed things up if they absolutely have to. and they are up against it. but right now, two tracks to follow are whether the white house led by biden in this case and mcconnell strike something or harry reid picks it off one republican at a time and gets it through at 1:00 this morning. who are the people that reid would be focusing his attention on? reporter: we ve seen four that are fairly public in that they didn t sign that letter. two republican senators from maine, you have scott brown from massachusetts who is up for re-election in a very blue state that president obama is going to be at the top of the ticket on. lisa murkowski who had her own run ins with the tea party. she didn t sign the letter.
with the president than harry reid. harry reid is determined to put his bill with a bunch of amendments with it, working behind the scenes, particularly the gang of six guys and the chairman of that gang of six who had their own deal on deficit reductions. he s again doing a lot of back channeling. republican by republican. there s two tracks. biden-mcconnell could strike something and get it going. or harry reid goes it alone, picks off these republicans and gets his 60. i don t think he has it yet. let s not rule it out. i know the mcconnell people are trying to say harry reid doesn t have the votes. they have been working this all day long. when we look at this, especially for casual observers that will remember the biden talks that fell apart and now we re hearing more about the activity with vice president biden being actively involved with mcconnell, if you were going to say the chances of them coming up with something crafted
together as opposed to what reid has already done what are those chances? reporter: there s a good chance they do come up with some agreement. i just don t if it will happen before midnight tonight. we talked about the clock. the clock does matter here. if they can file legislation by midnight tonight, reid would pull his version of this, and shift control a, highlight it, delete it, put it back in, plug in this new legislation they could vote 1:00 a.m. monday morning. get it out of the senate pretty quickly, give up some of their debate time and get it to the house by monday night. if it doesn t happen that way and reid goes ahead and let s say reid does inch along, gets his 60 votes and they keep going but still debating behind the scene, because it may not be clear it can get through the house, even a mode phillips idowu version, so you still have those talks. then maybe they figure out a way to do someone said they have