progress and reopen the government if nancy pelosi is not in washington? that is their justification essentially behind this and you can see that in the president's letter, though. this is very clearly retaliation as well. >> uh-hum. manu, what do you make of her point there from the white house saying we are day 27 of this shutdown and, you know, the last person who should be leaving washington is the chief negotiator on the democratic side, speaker pelosi, what kind of reaction are you getting? >> reporter: the one thing is there are no negotiations that are even happening at this point. the last time there was a face-to-face meeting between the president and nancy pelosi and others was when the president left that meeting abruptly and, according to the democrats, he pounded his hand on the table, stormed off because he was concerned that the speaker would not agree to his border wall or agree to fund that border wall even after the government was reopened. the president stormed off. they have virtually not spoken