meeting, the financial committee's not meeting. and so, we are relegated to a group of people meeting in secret, plotting some sort of scheme that they think is best for america. but really, all of the senate needs to be engaged and the american people need to be engaged. >> shannon: if party leaders work out a deal, with republicans line up with the g.o.p., and will the democrats line up with harry reid and others? or do you think there will be resistance to something they weren't involved in. >> i think that they weren't involved will be the excuse. the leadership, by its definition, figuring out how to move this forward, as opposed to having the largest possible group and the lowest possible time. that's a recipe for doing nothing. that's exactly what has happened in the senate four years, according to the session's own definition of that. so when we talk about leadership, yeah, that would mean some people getting into a