the top. the president is the leader. he's got to get everybody in the room and he has to lead. if there's a shutdown, i think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the united states. he's the one who has to get people together. >> reporter: the president just fwe tweeted about this meeting with chuck schumer. he described that meeting as an excellent preliminary meeting with senator schumer. making progress, he said, a four-week extension would be best. we should just point out in the last several minutes a white house official came by our booth inside the white house and said that a short-term cr, a five-day cr, continuing resolution, is a, quote, nonstarter. so the white house is drawing a bit of a line in the sand at this point in that if they agree to something tonight, it is going to be a longer term continuing resolution. when they're just talking about