Shutdown Caucus News Today

What he says in private conversations. He thinks this is an unfair attack against his presidency. But that these probes have expanded, mushroomed to different veins, different associates of him. There hasnt been any wrongdoing proven, of course, so far, but its kind of gotten hotter and hotter over the past few months and that frustrated the president. He also gets frustrated when these senators are trying to take some of his autonomy away. He wanted to determine the bill on russian sanctions an...

That you see happening within the republican party, this civil war of of the hearts and minds of the republican party is the republican party donald trump? or is the republican party speaker ryan? right? and right now its -- when you look at the core base of the republican party its kind of hard to argue that speaker ryan and mitch mcconnell are winning. >> so congressman, if you were still of an incumbent at the tail end of the summer recess preparing to go back to washington and i told you you...

Of the republican party is the republican party donald trump? or is the republican party speaker ryan? right? and right now its -- when you look at the core base of the republican party its kind of hard to argue that speaker ryan and mitch mcconnell are winning. >> so congressman, if you were still of an incumbent at the tail end of the summer recess preparing to go back to washington and i told you you cant run on gorsuch and you certainly cant go home and brag to the folks that you led to at l...

Speaker ryan? right? and right now its -- when you look at the core base of the republican party its kind of hard to argue that speaker ryan and mitch mcconnell are winning. >> so congressman, if you were still of an incumbent at the tail end of the summer recess preparing to go back to washington and i told you you cant run on gorsuch and you certainly cant go home and brag to the folks that you led to at least a government shutdown. what are you going to run on? >> well, so thats why theyre go...

Retirement over precisely these kinds of showdowns. >> even while losing! conservatives are going to lose this fight. >> right. >> conservatives are going to lose this. >> but your point is so important. theyre going lose it because of the math in congress, where youre going to get essentially democrats and some portion of the republican caucus to pass something out of that house. the question is, the president can team up with the house freedom caucus to essentially scotch it and force a shutdo...

This fight. >> right. >> conservatives are going to lose this. >> but your point is so important. theyre going lose it because of the math in congress, where youre going to get essentially democrats and some portion of the republican caucus to pass something out of that house. the question is, the president can team up with the house freedom caucus to essentially scotch it and force a shutdown himself. >> in the house, you have the tuesday group and a few moderates. i call it within the republic...

The clean bill. i just have to assume this is not the last time well see john boehner spending weeks and weeks pretending to the extremists that something other than the impossible is possible. >> hes done this before with the shutdown caucus. they did it on the debt ceiling about three years ago. they did it on obamacare when they did shut down the government for 17 days and they did it on homeland security. it was bizarre on homeland security, because 535 members of congress were in favor of f...

Pretending to the extremists that something other than the impossible is possible. >> hes done this before with the shutdown caucus. they did it on the debt ceiling about three years ago. they did it on obamacare when they did shut down the government for 17 days, and they did it on homeland security. it was bizarre on homeland security, because 535 members of congress were in favor of funding. we werent arguing about the budget. but we had this group that had the provisions that the speaker was...

So these are very isolated districts. if you look at the demographics within those districts, theyre trending very different from the rest of america. in that sense they are safe, noncompetitive districts. and that means that theyre not under the sway of the leadership. again, if you think about the 80 or so republicans that are members of this kind of shutdown caucus behind what were going through right now. >> yeah. >> they represent only a third of the republican caucus and less than 20% of t...

Something that is good for not just our party but for this country. >> oh, reince, ive used that talking that point myself. joining me now is christina. thank you for being with me today. >> nice to join you. >> robert, you had a piece and you went behind the scenes looking at this shutdown debate among republicans in congress and on the one hand the leadership is acknowledging that its a losing strategy but at the same time they are having to thread the political needle. heres something you wro...