0 71% of you say yes, 29% say i'm newt gingrich. join us again tomorrow. senator sheldon whitehouse and ted cruz will be in the "crossfire." welcome to our viewers. the showdown shutdown day 9. how long will this go on for and will we reach a deal before the deadline? i spoke with a democratic and a republican, we'll meet with him tomorrow. we begin with a powerful number. 26 died when the shutdown began. because of the shutdown, there is a terrible loss to the families they leave behind, the loss of benefits at the worst possible time. this country owes them a huge debt. the president made his inaugural address with charity for all, let us care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and for his orphan. they made a deal with a private charity to reimburse the families until the shutdown is over. as far as a deal to end the shutdown itself and avoid the looming debt deadline, both sides seem as far apart as possible. i want to bring in two on either sides of the aisle. democrat jim heinz of the fshl services committee. gentlemen, welcome to you. let me start with you, if we may, james lang. we've spoken a few times through this process. you two are standing next to each other which i guess is a vaguely encouraging sign, but is there any real sign of movement here, or has everything moved now to a debt ceiling debate which will be resolved around that deadline? >> i think it's more likely now we'll have some debt ceiling and some cr conversation. obviously we all wish this had been resolved a week ago or two weeks ago so we never actually walked into it. we'll probably say let's do some of this together, probably not long term, probably short term, to then continue to get things solved long term. i would like to get america back to work again. >> word is leaking out that president obama was putting on a vaguely conciliatory tone, saying, if it takes an extension, another six weeks to resolve the debt ceiling situation, we can alleviate some of the problems through that period, then that may be the way to go so the republicans can save face and we can get the government going again. is that your understanding of how it went? >> i think that's very accurate. i think the president showed some flexibility of the democratic caucus tonight, and he made the point he's made all along, which is he's not going to negotiate as long as one party is saying that they will bring down the global economy through a default on our debt by not paying our bills or that they will hold up a shutdown of the government. with all the horrible implication thaz that involves, but if we can get past that, he is completely open to a six-week discussion on how we move forward to the real issues of the day. how do we make this country long-term fiscally sustainable? he is more than willing to negotiate, but rightly so, and this would be true if it was a republican president as well, he's not willing to negotiate when one party brings a hand grenade and puts it on the table and says, here are our demands. meet those demands or this grenade goes off. >> tell us this, jim hines. you were with the president today. did he at any stage mention this app appalling situation involving the payments of the dead service men and women. it's not a secret. there was a pentagon briefing saying this is what was going to happen. how can the president feign ignorance on this and how can the families be treated this way? >> there is no feigned ignorance at all. it's a horrible situation bringing us to the realization we need to owe a debt of gratitude to the families bringing those abroad. but it's the head start families in my district who are choosing between keeping their job or looking after their children at home. the pain is massive around this, and the president knows that more than anyone else. he regularly writes to those who lost limbs or lost lives abroad, so he understands how very painful this situation is that we find ourselves in. >> collectively the republicans and democrats, by continuing this shutdown, have directly led to an appalling situation, one i think most americans find just completely indecent. the idea that you could lose your life on the battlefield fighting for your country and your loved ones who are left behind are deprived payments because of scrabbling in washington. it's heart-wrenching, isn't it? >> it's horrible when a life is lost either way. there is no debt we can repay for the freedom of people around the world. but as we walked through this process two weeks ago, the house passed unanimously a resolution to be able to make sure all our military is paid and that we continue to move forward on that. the senate took that up, passed unanimously and the president signed it. then for the next week, eric holder and the department of justice interpreted this one-page bill that said all civilians are connected to the military and all civilian contractors continue on as normal. it was very clean, and we had all this basis on this slowdown, we had all this debate. we still believe the original bill we passed two weeks ago took care of all the issues about this reimbursement to all these families, these payments to these families for the loss of a loved one, but we passed another bill today reinforcing again to say we felt like this was already taken care of two weeks ago. if somehow this was missed, let's make it clear again, this should be paid for. this is one of those many issues that as we're walking into this trying to lay the ground work to say we don't want a shutdown, but in case it occurs, this should not affect our military. they were the hardest hit during sequestration. they should not have to pay anything during the slowdown. >> the speaker of the house john boehner went to harry reid and said, i can get you a cr, a continuing resolution at the republican budget number, which is where we are today, so we can then negotiate a deal. and then the speaker went back to his republican conference and they said no to him. so we find ourselves in this world where the next step became, wait a minute. instead of just passing a clean cr, we need a repeal of obama care. oh, and bit way, if you want to raise the debt ceiling, we need the keystone pipeline removed, and had that promise to harry reid been fulfilled, we never would have gotten to this shutdown. what we're trying to do right now and what the president is trying to do is find a way for everybody to back down this tree that the speaker climbed up to and get back to a point where we restart the government, we take the debt ceiling off the table and we have that six, seven, eight, ten-week negotiation that allows us to deal with the instability of this country. >> you're going to be at the republican delegation. clearly the president has made it crystal clear repeatedly that any amendments to obama care are not on the table. he will not have this held as some metaphorical gun to his head. knowing that you know this before you head in tomorrow, what will the struggle be that cause such havoc to all americans? >> we're actually hopeful this is the final negotiating time. the president wanted the 250-person house to come over and meet with him. that's more like a lecture time or q and a session than a negotiation. so we're going to bring over 17 people to negotiate with the president. at moment it started, we said let's just conference, let's work this out the way that every house and senate and president has worked this out since the 1700s. now, when you get to an impasse, you sign negotiators between the two, those negotiators meet, they work out the difference, they bring it back to the house and senate and we pass that. the senate has been unable and unwilling to do that. the president said over and over he won't negotiate. which is odd to us. newt gingrich and bill clinton talked every single day during that shutdown period. when tip o'neil closed the government on ronald reagan, they talked every single day. we want to be able to sit down and negotiate this. >> you'll be doing that tomorrow and hopefully we'll talk to you again after you speak to the president. it would be fascinating. i want to turn to john boehner's predecessor as spokesman for speaker of the house. you were in john boehner's shoes for a very long time. what do you make of what's going on? has he misplayed his hand here? >> i'm not going to criticize john boehner. everybody has gotten themselves into a situation. the problem is, if you're going to -- there is a fight not in policy but in philosophy. one party says, look, the government is too big. we need to pare down the size of government. the debt is too big. $17 trillion is going to land on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren, and another side says, we need to take care of people, we need bigger government and we need to have education and health care and all these things. so there is a difference in philosophy here. and we're seeing this grand battle. now, to try to find a solution to a problem, and i can go back. i was speaker for eight years. i was speaker during clinton's time and i was speaker during george w. bush's time. but if you're going to resolve a problem, you set something on the table, your counterparty sets something on the table and then you negotiate, you bargain. right now the republicans have set something on the table that nobody said, well, we're not going to have a gun stuck to our head, we're not going to negotiate anything. the only way that you find to resolve is for both parties to come forward, lay some things on the table, and what the negotiation might end up might not have anything to do with health care at all. it might be some of these other issues that are doable. so i think that's what has to happen, and it's not happening right now. >> right, but let me ask you, in all the eight years that you were the speaker, were you ever in a position where you even contemplated forcing a government shutdown because you didn't agree with an established law? >> well, look, we never had to do that, but we had our -- >> would you consider doing that? >> well, it depends on what the law was, and it depends on what kind of support you had from your party. >> hypothetically, let's say it was a health care law like obama care that had been brought in by a president, it had the mandate of a reelection and, indeed, by the supreme court and by voting congress. in those circumstances, could you imagine using that, trying to defund that or make it somehow not happen as a stick to shut down the government. i didn't think knowing my history of you, you would have done it. >> you just made the argument. there was a health care battle. the hillary clinton health care, if you call it. it passed through the senate, it passed through ways and means in the house but couldn't pass through energy and commerce. because we went regular order. and we were able to put something on the table we thought was better than the hillary care, and we brought democra democratsover over to vote on side and they couldn't get it through. so we did have those philosophical battles. but they went on regular order. the problem with the fiscal side today, if you don't have your budget done by the 15th of march and reconcile by the 15th of april and then take the months of june and july to do the appropriations process, then in september fine-tune it. and by the first of october, you have your budget done. you don't want to jam it up to the end, because you jam it up to the end, you get in a box and you don't know where the hole to get out of is. let me tell you a quick story. i was -- 1999, my first full year as speaker, we had a balanced budget agreement. it means the bills passed out of the house, bills passed out of the senate, and the senate was 1%. our budget was just a little over -- i'm sorry, under $1 trillion. so we were over about 1%. our agreement said we had to be on target. so i couldn't get ahold of the president. the president in september went to africa, and jack lew at that time was the o and b director, so i'm trying to get ahold of jack lew and i said, look, we need to sit down. the president and the i and whoever else is involved in this, we need to sit down and come to an agreement. we don't want to be stuck here in august with no government open because we don't have the agreement. he said, well, the president is in africa, we can't get ahold of him. finally i kept banging him and he said, you know, the president is going to be in turkey at 10:00 tomorrow morning. if you go through the white house switchboard, we can get the president and he'll be in the back of a limousine. 10:00 in the morning in anchor, turkey was actually 2:00 in the morning in washington, d.c. here i am in washington, d.c., the president is in turkey. we're 10,000 miles apart. i get the president on the phone. mr. president, i understand you had a great trip to africa. yeah, what can i do for you? i said, we have the budget coming up and we need to get this thing reconciled. he said, well, what do you think we ought to do? i said, i think we ought to do a 1% across the board cut. that will get us down to our target. he said, well, that 1%, that's pretty high, you know. i said, what do you think, mr. president? he said, maybe a .25%. i said, no, fine. so we negotiated, but we did, we came out of .86. the point is we sat together even 10,000 miles apart and came together and found a solution. >> well, it's a very good point and i wish this was going on now between the current president and the current speaker. it sounds like basic common sense to me. i also commend you, by the way, on the second best bill clinton impression i've heard in the last month. fascinating talking to you. no one knows more about what the situation is like than you, so thank you for that advice. i hope the two leaders were watching. thank you very much. next, giving is all for the troops. how montel williams is helping with benefits in the shutdown. 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