committee need clear signals from the white house about how they want to proceed. a lot of these members are saying, if the white house stays out of this, if you don't have trump tweeting about this, if you don't have meddling in the negotiations, they're confident they could come up with an agreement amongst themselves. but the white house, the 18th person who won't be in the room will be the thing to watch. >> really quickly here, what, if anything, can we glean from the makeup of this group of 17 about how these negotiations might go? >> reporter: they have serious adults on this committee. these are people with appropriations backgrounds. they are people who know this stuff. so if you're going to get a serious deal, you've got the right people in the room. you don't have a lot of firebreathers on either side. that's a hopeful sign i think. >> garrett hake at the capital for us, keep us posts. that meeting set to start two hours from now. nhow apple is explaining th