Good day, im Chris Jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. Congress is trying to crawl its way out of chaos, but a feeling of inevitability has taken hold on capitol hill as the Clock Barrels toward a Government Shutdown. Both chambers are trying to reach shortterm spending agreements, but will they find the votes . Millions of federal employees and contractors are bracing for impact if a showdown does happen, but how significant a toll could it take on our armed services, both at home and abroad. And tributes for a trailblazer, lawmakers emotional remembrances of california senator Dianne Feinstein who passed away at the age of 90. Very sad. May she rest in peace. Voting the last day. We will take a look back at the life and legacy of the democrat who served longer than any other woman in senate history, and with big shoes left to fill, what happens now to feinsteins seat . A complicated calculation over who could be her successor. But we begin with the 2024 campaign, already scrambled by one candidate whos facing 91 indictments and an incumbent president threatened with impeachment, well, it now has another challenge, an almost certain Government Shutdown. Nbc news reports joe bidens Campaign Strategy will take a hit by grinding his travels to a halt, and donald trump will have to own his risky move with supporting a shutdown, siding with that far right group of republicans who biden again targeted just yesterday. Theres an Extremist Movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy. The maga movement. Not every republican, not even a majority of republicans adhere to the maga extremist ideology. I know it because ive been able to work with republicans my whole career, but theres no question that Todays Republican Party is driven and intimidated by maga republican extremists. Their extreme agenda if carried out will fundamentally alter the institutions of democracy as we know it. Joining us now is ali vitali, brendan buck, an. Msnbc political analyst. And sarah feinburg, good to have all of you here. Ali, as early as this hour, i understand the house is expected to vote on a shortterm spending bill. Where do things stand right now . Reporter look, well see what happens. There you see the senate floor, of course. Were there in the interim waiting period on what theyre trying to work on for a Stopgap Funding Measure. On the house side, a bit of a surprise perhaps watching the rule pass for this Stopgap Funding Measure, but according to conversations that ive had in the hall, people like congressman matt gaetz and other hardliners who have been consistent thorns in the side of leadership said that they dont want to tank the rule. Their goal is to vote against the cr itself. This upcoming vote would allow them to do exactly that, and thats why one of the things that i just asked Speaker Mccarthy was what happens when that occurs. His response was, of course, to ignore the substance and instead pivot in a way that sort of allows us to see what his strategy might be here, what he said to me is that voting against a continuing resolution is a vote with, in mccarthys word, biden and the democrats. What could happen here is that even though mccarthy could face an embarrassing loss on the floor, it might be a move for him to show that hes just trying to exhaust all of the options within his conference before pivoting to potentially another more bipartisan strategy. That bipartisan strategy, as weve detailed and will continue to talk about, though, chris, has its own risks, which is that if mccarthy looks to the left and shuns the people who have been difficult with him within his conference, those same people could turn around and try to oust him from his job. All of that is pulled together in this shutdown drama, which increasingly seems like over the weekend thats exactly whats going to happen, the governments going to shut down. Would it surprise you at all, brendan, if in addition to the government shutting down, there was a move to get rid of Kevin Mccarthy . What do you see unfolding over the next 48, 72 hours . Yeah, as usual, ali is asking the important question. What happens after they vote on this continuing resolution, this Stopgap Measure . I think its clear at this point its not going to pass, and at that point Kevin Mccarthy has almost no cards to play. Meaning Government Shutdowns are never a good idea. You can never really maneuver your way out of into winning one, but he actually i dont know what his maneuvers can be at this point. Often in these situations, especially near a deadline, it almost becomes like a game of hot potato. You send something over to senate. They send Something Back to you, and you try to be the last one holding the bag there. If the house cant pass its first measure, i dont know what mccarthy can do. I dont know what sort of tools and tactics you use in a Government Shutdown to try to win. You basically sit there and message. I dont know that thats going to do him much good. It will be very interesting if hes willing to pivot to a bipartisan outcome. I think there was really good hope for that earlier in the week, a purely clean shortterm spending bill. When the senate added that ukraine language, i think it made it very difficult for mccarthy to swallow that. If he did bring up a bill like that that had ukraine money on it, absolutely. Somebody would probably be coming for him. There would be a motion to vacate. I think hes aware of that. I think he may survive that. It would be a historic moment on the floor for him. You can just hear the American Voters right now saying what a mess, but do you see any scenario where the democrats could step in here . They could essentially save the day. One of the criticisms that weve heard, what seems to be a very conscious strategy by the white house, which is for President Biden to stay out of it. Look, no administration wants a Government Shutdown. It is a total time suck. Its a total disaster for americans, for all kinds of programs, for projects that have momentum. No president wants that. At the same time, President Biden i think is saying i cant negotiate with these really right wing folks in the republican party. Thats mccarthys job. Its a difficult job. Its probably the hardest job other than being the president right now. But you know, thats on mccarthy, and i think the reality is like other Government Shutdowns weve seen in recent years, the republicans are going to force us to shut down. The countrys going to have economic impacts, job impacts, its going to be bad for everyone. And eventually theyre going to find the votes in a bipartisan way to bring us back. But it could be five days from now, ten days from now, three weeks from now. It could you know, it could last quite a while. I had someone, a member of congress, brendan, on the show yesterday who said weeks. I mean the American People look at this and say why are we here . Why its not like its a surprise what the schedule is, what the calendar says. And then you have donald trump stepping in and saying, you know, go for it. Go for the shutdown. How does anybody how does anybody walk away from this, brendan, anything but damaged . Nobody does. Maybe the only person who can benefit here is joe biden if he can find some way to capitalize on it. Obviously donald trump rooting for a shutdown i think is not wise longterm politics, but i think its also important to appreciate that the last Government Shutdown we had in 2018, it was one of if not the longest shutdown in government history was only a partial shutdown. I think the politics may be quite different this time around. Last time in 2018 we had already funded the military. We funded veterans, we funded congress itself. At least half the government was already funded, so a lot of the pain points that you typically see in a shutdown didnt exist last time, the one that donald trump was there for. So this could be much more painful for republicans this time around when youre furloughing the military, when the people at Veterans Affairs department cant go to work, things like that can get much more painful much more quickly. I think people need to appreciate that, but it could go for a long time. This ultimately doesnt feel like its about the substance. Its about Interconference Politics and Kevin Mccarthys dysfunctional relationship with the far right. If hes right and as someone who has lived it, brendan is usually right about things like this, if those pain points come fast and theyre piling up, does that change the equation or maybe not . Look, i think the reality is previous Government Shutdowns have often been based around an issue, right . We disagree about obamacare, were going to shut down the government until we get our way. In this one its pure republican politics on the republican side. And i dont think matt gaetz can even argue that this is policy for him. You know, he voted for crs under president trump, and so this is hes not hes sticking to his politics, hes not sticking to policy. And look, i was Chief Of Staff at a federal agency in 2013. We were shut down for weeks. It takes months to recover. You dont just hit the ground running three weeks later when the government starts up again. Can we talk just about what that means, if youre working for the government and youve already gotten a notification, by the way, that says get ready for this, what does that do to just the functionality, even before it happens and then as you say, afterwards, and these are human beings, people. Theyre hardworking americans. Theyre hardworking american, theyre patriots. Look, a lot of them are used to it is the sad fact. Theyre getting that notification, theyre planning am i going to be at home, how long am i going to be off . Ive saved some money for a rainy day. They know they will probably get paid back later when the government reopens, but the followon effects are massive, and its important to talk about. You shut the government down now for five days, for two weeks, for three weeks. Lets be really clear. Airline travel is going to be a disaster this summer. Do not tell me this. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Were not going to bounce back on airwriting. Once momentum e is there, its there. If you send everybody home for a month, when they come bake their priorities have changed. The paperwork is restarted. Youve missed deadlines. I remember being Chief Of Staff and six months after the Government Shutdown saying if i have one more person say it was the Government Shutdown six months ago that led me to miss this deadline, im going to go crazy. And finally said but its true. It is absolutely true. It just costs thousands of manhours, and youre right. These are human beings. These are folks that are going to have to plan to not get a paycheck for a while, not just folks in washington like, lets keep in mind, donald trump was just in michigan. Theres more than 30,000 federal workers in michigan. Whatever he got in michigan, hes about to lose, right . So as we approach, ali vitali, shutdown sunday, what will you be watching for between now and then . Reporter any sign of a plan to make that not the case, chris, and i know that that sounds trivial or like im locking this, but i think that there just has really been so Many Disparate threads here that weve been following of Republican Leadership and republican members trying to throw something at the wall that could potentially stick, but the reality is i know that we talked about for people like matt gaetz that this is politics or this is policy, i would actually argue that its both and also something else, which is personal. He is not someone who is a fan of Speaker Mccarthy. Hes never voted for Speaker Mccarthy to be speaker, even in those 15 rounds until he was he was against him, and then he just wasnt for him. He was able to vote present in that instance. Gaetz has never been someone that would come to the aid of the speaker. We know that the personal thread of this is really palpable. For gaetz there is a different permission structure. Its possible that when we goes home and takes this home to his voteers and his base, and they say they like that he was holding the line on Government Funding and on conservative principles, which is what hes marking this at as. Theres also the personal reality on the hill that there is no love lost between matt gaetz and Kevin Mccarthy, and that is one of the key things here. Its like someone not liking their work colleagues, only in this instance, theyre shutting down the government over it, and its really hard to negotiate with someone whos basically saying i will never vote for the thing that will allow us to avoid the Government Shutdown, which in this case with about two days to go, 34 hours according to our screen, the only way to avoid it really is to pass a Stopgap Funding Measure and buy themselves a little more time, whether its 30 days, 45 days, whatever, this is something that needs more time to be finished. They have to actually work through all of these other appropriations bills, and they just dont have the time to do that. So either they decide that theyre going to buy themselves more time and theyre only convincing a handful of people to do that, but most of those people that need to be convinced have already said they will never vote for a Stopgap Measure, and i dont know how you negotiate against nothing. Yeah, and a lot of common sense americans are probably asking the question. Okay, if you dont like each other, just avoid each other in the cloak room. Thats never the way it goes on capitol hill. Ali vitali, thank you, brendan and sara youre sticking around. And a little later on, we are going to dive into the impact of the impending shutdown on the military both at home and abroad with admiral james stavridis. And fears over how it could impact air travel, all of that and much more on Chris Jansing reports. But up next, remembering california senator Dianne Feinstein, the tributes pouring in and the legacy of the longest serving woman in the history of the senate. Were back in 60 seconds, youre watching Chris Jansing reports only on msnbc. , youre watching Chris Jansing reports only on msnbc. This is Spring Semester at over 13,000 us school districts, which have become top targets for Ransomware Attacks. But theres never been a reported Ransomware Attack on a chromebook. Which is why thousands of schools like the fairfieldsuisun Unified School District switched to google tools for education. So they can focus on teaching and 22,000 students can focus on learning, knowing that their data is secure. all toooo youuuuu sean ki wish for the amazing new iphone 15 pro jason sean do you mean this one the one with titanium . sean no way i can trade this busted up thing for one. jason maybe stealing wishes from the birthday boy is not your best plan switch to verizon and trade in any iphone and get the new iphone 15 pro on them. sean what . jason yup, and on an Amazing Network sean and i dont have to ruin anymore Birthday Parties jason yeah, that ship has sailed. Lets go get you the iphone. Here we go, come on hon. vo trade in any iphone in any condition for a new iphone 15 pro on us. Only on verizon. The flags at the u. S. Capitol have been lowered today as the nation mourns the loss of californias Trail Blazing Senior senator, Dianne Feinstein. The upper chambers longest serving female member. Her death at the age of 90 leaves a legacy of more than 60 years of Public Service including as an early voice for gun control. This morning nancy pelosi paid tribute to her longtime friend and home state colleague calling her, quote, a pillar of Public Service and writing, Her Indomitable Indefatigable leadership made a magnificent difference for our National Security and personal safety, the health of our people and our planet and the strength of our democracy. With Feinsteins Senate desk draped in black this was Senate Majority leader chuck schumer. The sign of a leader is someone who dedicates the whole of their spirit for a cause greater than themselves. The sign of a hero is someone who fights for others, who endures for others no matter the cost, no matter the odds, and the sign of a friend is someone who stands by your side to fight the good fight on the good days and on the bad. Dianne feinstein was all of this and more, a friend, a hero for so many, a leader who changed the nation s