until final days when he can have the maximum impact. certainly republicans are going to make noise about that because they believe this deal should have been done a long time ago, earlier this year or last year when democrats were running control of congress and failed to get a budget done. that's really the reason why we're in the fix we are right now. but the white house pushback is essentially that, look, what's done is done and they don't think a president should be in the weeds throughout the entire process. you see them in the final hours late last night calling both sides to the oval office, this afternoon, again tonight, he's going to make sure he can do everything he can in the final hours to get this through, don. >> is the president worried, ed, if he's involved too deeply in the talks he might get more of the blame if there is a shutdown? >> reporter: you know, the president hasn't told me whether he's worried about that. his top aides certainly won't admit that pub lkly. they insist they're not looking at the politics. they want to get the best legislative deal. let's face facts.