0 good afternoon. i'm wolf blitzer reporting from washington. the debt ceiling deadline now just 59 hours away, the shutdown entering its third week. and this means it is crunch time, just two hours from now, president obama and vice president joe biden will meet with the congressional leadership at the white house. attention has shifted to harry reid and the minority leader mitch mcconnell. they have just wrapped up a meeting within the past half hour. reid saying they're getting closer and closer to a deal. minutes ago, president obama said there is some progress on the senate side. we should get the videotape of the president. he's been outside of the white house, any minute now, we're going to bring you his comments as soon as they come in. stand by for that. meanwhile, republican senator bob corker of tennessee says the reid-mcconnell talks under way right now are where a deal is most likely to come from. >> i think at the end of the day, the culmination needs to be something between mcconnell and reid. and i think that all of the side talks that have occurred have helped create an environment for that to happen. so you know, i think -- i know mitch and harry are talking and i think we're about to get to a place where you know, again, we can move something hopefully off the senate floor that's widely bipartisan. i think it's going to take that to having something move productively on the house side. >> let's get the latest where things stand right now. dana bash is at capitol hill. dana, give us the latest read we're getting on the reid-mcconnell talks. they just wrapped up a little while ago. what are you hearing? >> i'm in the capitol on the third floor and just came from the second floor where the leaders have their offices. some of the democrat who have been meeting in a bipartisan way to try to find a deal were coming out of harry reid's office and got a briefing on his discussions with mitch mcconnell and they sounded very optimistic. i'm talking about senator amy klobuchar of west virginia, heidi heitkamp of north dakota all saying they feel things are moving in the right direction. heidi heitkamp even saying this is moving at warp speed, she said minute to minute. but the read they got based on the conversation that harry reid and mitch mcconnell had according to them was pretty optimistic. earlier, harry reid had walked out of mitch mcconnell's office and swarmed by reporters including myself. and he also sounded like it's possible that they could be working closer to a deal. he said that maybe they could even get something together by the time the leaders go to the white house, which will be a 3:00 meeting with president obama and the four top leaders. these democratic senators who we just spoke to moments ago said that doesn't sound like it's possible but perhaps this white house meeting could be the place where they finalize things and work things out. things are happening very rapidly. now, the obvious question is, what are they discussing? my understanding from democratic sources is that harry reid went into the meeting with mitch mcconnell offering broadly to fund the government till close to the end of the year, mid-december, and to extend the debt ceiling for maybe pab six to nine months. we don't know what happened when mitch mcconnell came back to him. that is the key. republicans are trying very hard to get something from this. and just raising the debt ceiling pretty long-term, six to nine months and funding the government through the end of the year from their perspective politically doesn't get them very much. we'll see if there's any give on reid's part. he has been one of the real big drivers of this no negotiation stance. the president has been saying it but harry reid by all accounts has been really driving this saying we've got to break the fever of republicans trying to use these crisis points to cut spending. we'll see where things stand after these discussions, particularly the high stakes discussions going on right now between these twos key players, mitch mcconnell and harry reid. >> the assumption, dana, i take it is if they can get some legislation passed through the senate and then send it over to the house of representatives, it would put enormous pressure on the speaker john boehner to simply let the already is nsena approved legislation come up for yea or nay and presumably would have the votes needed and to accepted it to the president for his signature. that's the theory, right? >> that is the theory. and that is part of the reason why the hope among senators even republican senators you heard an ordinary bob corker say this, you ran the sound bite a few minutes ago saying that's why they hope they get a big bipartisan vote in the senate, it will make it easier for baner to bring up the vote that would get bipartisan support. whether that will happen will depend on what mcconnell will be able to extract from harry reid if anything in terms of whether republicans will be able to say we got this. i'm getting waived off of obama care that in this initial deal that they would agree to anything even repealing or delaying that medical device tax that helps pay for obama care. i just was talking to a democratic source who said we're really digging our heels in on this. but they may go to the white house and the president might say we'll give on that. so we'll see. >> we'll see, indeed. let's go to the white house right now. bianna keel ser over there. the day started without anything on the president's public schedule. he's now been out meeting at martha's table, an important group that provides food for hungry people here in washington. we're going to get the videotape of what he just said momentarily and at 3:00 p.m., he's going to have the meeting with the republican and democratic leadership of the house and senate. the last time around, as you well remember, brianna, that scenario unfolded. there was a deal in the senate, it went to the house. boehner let it come up for a vote. it passed, that fiscal cliff was avoided. the only difference the last type was biden was directly involved with mitch mcconnell. this time harry reid is involved with mitch mcconnell. what do we anticipate happening during the course of today. >> was we speak, president obama has been out making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with youngsters at this food pantry in d.c. to try to highlight some of the effects of the shutdown and to show many of the volunteers at this pantry are furloughed workers, folks who have not been working and using their time for a good cause. i think he's trying to kind of maybe some folks don't always have a ton of sympathy for government workers but he's certainly trying to show some there, as well. he will took this opportunity to really i think ratchet up a little bit of pressure on the house of representatives. he said there is some progress on the senate side. he said, but he also called the government shutdown completely unnecessary. he acknowledged, as well that there are certainly differences. and he said we stand a good chance, this is not a quote but just sort of broad strokes when he said we stand a good chance of defaulting if there isn't a compromise with republicans. he's trying to kind of outline the stakes here and when he has this meeting this afternoon with the senate and house republican and democratic leaders either it's to kind of push along what's going on in the senate or it is certainly tosh highlight some of the progress or maybe he'll do a little bit of both. it's such a moving target at this point. but we're hearing from the president himself he feels like there is some progress in the senate. >> you think there's any chance the president would do what he said repeatedly he wouldn't do, but at least allow some symbolic element of obama care to be included in this deal if you will, for example, delaying that tax on medical devices for two years, which is what senator collins and a whole bunch of other democrats and republicans are recommending? >> reporter: right now, wolf, even privately, white house officials, while they say they're open to this idea of the medical devices tax, you know, perhaps in a vacuum, they don't like the dynamic of it being in their feeling sort of held hostage here. so it's not that they're not amenable to discussing that. you have a lot of democrats who don't even like that tax but they don't like that it is a bargaining chip in this atmosphere. so at least at this very moment, it appears that no, that's not likely. but you know and i know that there's a big difference between monday and between wednesday when we're looking at that the october 1th deadline. things can change very quickly. what three days before a potential default can be a nonstarter, you know, staring down the barrel of a default sometimes that can change. but at this point, the white house insists they don't want to negotiate on that when it's really being sort of held hostage to the idea of a debt ceiling. that's how they see it. in a way it's sort of like extracting ran some and they don't want to negotiate that way. >> we'll stand by to get the videotape of the president's comments on this government shutdown momentarily. beanna, thanks very much. later this hour, i'll also speak with two members of congress, representative scott ridgell of virginia, republican who sayset would vote for a clean budget bill to get the government going again and senator amy klobuchar of minnesota. she's a democrat, heavily involved in these behind the scenes negotiations with democrats and republicans. while all this talking is going on in washington, the voices of the people are growing louder and louder to end the shoutdown. ♪ by the dawn's early light ♪ what so proudly we hail >> was that the scene at the world war ii memorial over the weekend in washington. high profile tea party supporters such as sarah palin, ted cruz joined veterans as they rallied against president obama and democrats for their role the ongoing stalemate. >> why did the federal government spend money to erect barricades to keep people out of mt. vernon? why did the federal government spend money top erect barricades to keep people out of mount rushmore? look, our veterans should be above politics. enough games. >> i call upon all of you to wage a second american nonviolent revolutioning to use civil disobedience anton demand that this president leave town to get out. to put the koran down to get off his knees and come up with his hands up. >> wow. pretty outrageous statement right there. we're going to have more on that part of the story coming up this hour. as you can see, the memorial has become a symbol in the bitter fight between republicans and democrats over the shutdown when the white house press secretary was asked last week who was at fault for the closure of the world war ii memorial, jay carney said it's the republicans. investors meanwhile are weighing in again today on what they think of the debt ceiling talks here in washington. i'll tell you what happened when wall street opened for business today. that's next. 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