nothing is finally agreed to. >> and one of the issues off the table, president trump saying that the debate over funding the border wall will wait until later this year. how significant was that? >> guest: so from the democrat standpoint, it was a major breakthrough. it's probably worth stepping back a little bit. two weeks ago democrats said, hey, we need to see cost-sharing payments. obamacare cost-sharing payments, money for that needs to be included in this bill. that was sort of a new demand. it had been percolating a little bit, there's actually litigation that house republicans filed on this issue. it's been hanging out there for years, but democrats suddenly said we need that money proactively put into the spending bill. that was a new offer there. you could look at the wall as sort of the white house's retaliation or response to that saying, okay, fine, if you're going to ask for your obamacare payment, we're going to ask for the wall. the white house had actually for a very long time not been pushing the wall, then suddenly last week said, actually, the wall is an important ingredient. we need to see money for that. they've now backed off of that. the next thing to watch for is whether democrats back off that obamacare insistence. we've seen today already a little bit of that with several lawmakers including senator chuck schumer, the top democrat in the senate, refusing to draw a line and saying they wouldn't accept a bill without that cost-sharing money in there. and i believe that zen think hoyer, the number two ranking democrat in the house, has said something different, they aren't drawing those lines. where two weeks ago schumer and nancy pelosi were drawing that line. that leaves us with a bunch, of, still the cost payment-sharing issue hasn't been finalized the way the wall apparently has, but it's one of those issues that looks like we're getting to a resolution. still the other issue's happening out there. >> host: and with regard to the negotiations, who's at the table? who are the key people that you're watching? >> well, so it appears to be one of the things that schumer said is, basically, they wanted to get the president out of the negotiations. he said that president trump and his team weren't particularly helpful in particular with offering the wall demand late last week. so now that trump is out, it's essentially the top members, the top republican and top democrat on the appropriations committees in both the house and senate are the ones who are most involved in writing the deal. but, obviously, the leadership is as well. >> host: clearly, the funding of the wall issue is a big development. there had been talk of lawmakers trying to punt, delay it for another week. the house returning today, the senate yesterday, a little bit more time to negotiate the details. how likely is that now? >> guest: yeah, i don't rule that out especially given that we're tuesday, and you sort of judge by the verbiage that the leaders are using, and earlier today they were saying we hope to have a deal in the next few days. and, of course, without a deal in the next few days, we hit the deadline. so if they're still talking negotiating over the next couple or few days, then i'd say that it's maybe -- i don't know that i'd say it's likely, but i wouldn't rule out by any chance the fact that we'd have to do short-term continuing resolutions to bridge us to a longer-term deal. and there's, of course, plenty of precedent for that. back throughout the fights that the republican house had with president obama over the last five, six years, that happened fairly regularly that they would sort of narrow in on the issues, and they'd get close to a deal but not reach a final agreement. or more importantly, not be able to brief all their members. the leaders might have reached an agreement, but they needed to present it to their members, so they would pass a short-term bill to bridge that gap of time until they could get a vote on the bigger deal. >> host: and do you have a sense, is either party prepared the own a government shutdown? >> guest: so this is the big issue here, and this is part of reason why president trump likely had to back down from that insistence on wall. first of all, that he hadn't done a very good job of selling the details of that to capitol hill. you add republicans, a lot of democrats and some republicans saying the president never justified that proposal. so given that he wasn't even able to sell that, the wall was never going to get in. >> host: it's probably worth pointing out that we are here today in large part because of a pre-election agreement between democrats and republicans for a short-term c.r., so provide sommer perspective. what happened back in the fall and what we're seeing this week. >> guest: well, so the deadline for getting the annual set of spending bills done is september 30th. the federal fiscal year runs october 1st through september 30th, and so they were supposed to have traditionally supposed to be 12 different spending bills done. i actually can't remember the last time that we've had all 12 of them done. usually there's maybe one or two done by that deadline, and then they pass a continuing resolution to bridge until they can actually get things done. as of last september, they passed a continuing resolution to get them to december, waiting for the end of the election and the outcome of the election, and they figured they would come back around christmas time and finish out the fiscal year 2017 bills. after president trump, then president-elect trump won the election, his administration or incoming administration said we want a say in what's happening since republicans will have complete control over the entire process, it would be better if you all punted until the new year and give us a chance to get involved. which is why we're already nearly seven months through the 12-month fiscal year, and we're still working on stopgap funding. so that's why we ended up where we are. the other thing you asked a minute ago about the blame for the shutdown, and it's important to sort of, if you trace back where we've been for the last five or six years, democrats are convinced at this point that no matter what happens if there's a shutdown, whatever the democrats' role in it, it is republicans who will take the blame for a shutdown because republicans took most of the blame or all of the blame for the 2013 shutdown. republicans have really hurt themselves over the last few years by being unable to get enough of an agreement among their own troops to be able to pass spending bills and needing democrats to sign onto these bills giving democrats an awful lot of leverage. democrats, even though they are the minority here in both chambers and don't have the white house, their sole power of obstruction is really through the senate and the ability to use a filibuster to deny passage of bills, still are able to lever range that in a way i've never seen before. it's incredible how much power they have in the minority there, and it's all because republicans went through the 2013 shutdown and then sort of offered a couple of different chances where we looked like we were on the brink of a shutdown over immigration and obamacare in the past. republicans are over a barrel here. >> host: and bottom line, once they get through these negotiations, the next round of budget talks will begin almost immediately, so based on what you're hearing, what do you think will happen this week? what's your best estimate? >> guest: oh, gosh, you know, i guess i sort of think we probably do end up with a couple of short-term bills to get us into next week. you know, what the details of the short-term bills are and more importantly the details of those big bills, we'll have to wait and see. there are a lot of things, a lot of issues that are still undecided based on what the leaders are telling us. you often times get to the point, and you have one or two sticking points. if democrats are backing off the cost-sharing payments and trump has backed off the wall, those are the two big things happening out this. -- hanging out there. you'd think that would have cleared the path, but that hasn't happened. >> host: steven dynan joining us on capitol hill. thank you for your time. >> guest: my pleasure. >> tonight on c-span2, a women's conference in berlin with german chancellor angela merkel and ivanka trump. the senate foreign relations committee looks at libya's ongoing civil war and a ceremony at the capitol to commemorate victims of the holocaust. ♪ >> c-span's "washington journal." live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, new york democratic congressman tom swayze, vice chair of the problem solvers caucus, discusses the up. >> coming budget -- upcoming budget deadline and tax reform. then republican congressman tim murphy talks about federal mental health and substance abuse policies. and bradford fitch, congressional management foundation president and ceo on health care options for members of congress. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" live at seven a.m. eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. >> ivanka trump joined german chancellor angela merkel and other women leaders at a conference in bear-in to talk about women's -- in berlin to talk about women's argument be in the economy and female