And expectation is everybody has learned that theres no reason why we cant work on the issues at hand. So hopefully thats a lesson that will be internalized and not just by me but also by democrats and republicans not only the leaders but the rankandfile. Thanks very much, everybody. Mr. President , will this happen all over again in a few months . Well for the first time in 17 days the federal government is up and running this morning, a final congressional vote last night, capped an ugly drama on capitol hill where partisan politics drove the nations economy into the very brink. In the end lawmakers avoided defaulting on the federal debt but nevertheless theres plenty of damage to go around. 87 House Republicans joined democrats in supporting legislation to fund the government into early next year while raising the debt ceiling to cover whats already been spent. Not a single democrat opposed it. On the senate side 18 republicans opposed the bill among them ted cruz, mike lee, rand paul and marco rubio. For those Tea Party Senators and their conservative allies in the house its a stinging defeat. The Republican Party is left weakened by a political ploy that caused the u. S. Economy an estimated 24 billion. Good morning, everyone. Its over. Its tuesday, october 17th. Thursday. Why do i keep doing that. On tuesday i said thursday. With us on set were here in washington. New york times reporter jeremy peters. Msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the Republican National committee Michael Steele. Abc news political commentator, cokie rockets, columnist for Bloomberg View al hunt and in nashville john mecham. Good to have you all on board today. What a show today. We have so much going straight ahead. Yesterday my good friend Carl Bernstein was talking about the end of all time. I exaggerate a little, carl. But this is going to i said carl it will be over tomorrow. You said something to me because weve been around here a little while. We knew how this was going to end before it started. I always said, okay, right before the deadline, on the debt ceiling, they fold. We knew how it was going to end but that still doesnt mean that it should have happened. Real people were affected. Thats the part that nobody is really talking about. I mean real single moms who went through their savings in the last 17 days. A lot of people were affected by this while people on capitol hill made fools of themselves and thats really what they did. Al, we all apologies to the United States they are going to make fools of themselves in a couple of months. That was the question he was asked on the way out. You know i was thinking of it last night, its Michael Corion they are going to pull him back in. Im very pessimistic about a budget accord. Whats going to happen in january by the way let me speak as the crazy republican for a second. You play that role beautifully. I do. I want tactics to go along with crazy. Republicans arent going to support tax increases in january or bigger spending in january any more than they would have today. People that dont people that think this is, the crisis is solved its not. Its just averted. Were not changing when i looked at that vote it tells me that this is not going away in your party by any means. All the president ial hopefuls in the senate voted against it. Guys who are scared of primaries and pat roberts voted against it. This is an issue. I agree with what cokie said this is insanity. And this primary issue is really the issue right now. Weve talked about it before. But whats happened now is its become in the ether so you see members of congress, conservative republican woman from North Carolina her voting record was to the right of Michele Bachmann. She got crucified in her district with people say were going to primary you. Thats become what people shout out. Its interesting, cokie i cant remember this ever happening. I remember after the background checks went down 90 Approval Rating, 92 in north dakota and even in Southern States it was in the 80s. People said well have to wait until after the primary deadline passes to get something that people want. Now we have it with this as well. I dont think ive ever seen it like this. Its much stronger than its ever been. Thats why things could change before the house vote Speaker John Boehner was seen walking out of the meeting pumping his fist after being asked if he fought the good fight. He received a stand ovation from the Republican Caucus for his work throughout the shut down. Not everyone was enthusiastic about the outcome. Matt drudge tweeted Speaker Pelosi january 5, 2015. Several tore into the gop. That included jim demint, Freedom Works came out against the plan say they will punish members who voted yes for the deal. Earlier in the day when mitch mckeoconnell was doing the hard work ted cruz was across the hall holding an impromptu News Conference where he tried to frame yesterdays turn of events. We saw the house of representatives take a courage just stand listen to the American People. That was a remarkable victory to see the house engaging a profile in courage. So, jeremy, a lot of people saw ted cruz. What did you expect ted cruz to say. Nobody should have been surprised because this was his strategy. You know, ted doesnt care what the New York Times thinks but for the most part people have declared this a Democratic Victory. It was a Democratic Victory. But he basically had to go out and put on a brave face. He did. He said as he has said all along as the conservative groups that have been fueling this fight have said all along were winning. We won. Thats part of what i think contributed to an odd dynamic on capitol hill yesterday. Here you have the first Government Shutdown in almost 20 years. And theres a vote to end it. It was almost like anticlimax because we knew exactly how this was going to end a month ago. Everybody knew and everybody was warning im not sure everybody knew. Im not sure the tea parttea p knew. I give this lit any that drive people crazy because i talk about myself like Charles Krauthammer and scott coburn we said this is how its going to end. Part of that, mika, is the fact that i was talking to one senator yesterday who said you guys with the shutdown have shut down postTraumatic Stress disorder. I said we do but guess what . We also know when the next bullet is coming and we saw this one coming. So now, Michael Steele by the way, can i say i think thats the difference between those that charged the hill yesterday and those of us who were concerned. The big difference is in ideology. Just one group charged that hill before. So the concern is the money that was wasted, the consternation this created, our Credit Rating you dont know when you come so close to a default whether or not it will be impacted. Theres some ramifications to still be seen, Michael Steele, and does that make this different . No one can remember seeing anything like this before. And weve got to stop governing by crisis. We do. Unfortunately thats what were setting ourselves up to do come december january. Well be back in this exact same circle doing what we do, analyzing and talking about it. Theres a certain poison out there in the public. A lot of folks to cokies opening point felt this deeply. There are moms and dads out there who really struggled over a two week period as most of us dont like admit. We largely live paycheck to paycheck in this country and when you have a moment where that paycheck is taken away even for a brief period, 17 days it has a profound impact. On real people. I think that carries through to joes broader point about the parties position here. Instead of bringing people through crisis were creating it for them. Instead of leading them to an idea of what a Republican Leadership really looks like and how that will make a difference were showing them the under belly. This may this will surprise quite a few people but al hunt, i want for a moment stand in defense of ted cruz in this idea that somehow this is all ted cruzs fault. You know what . If a democratic ted cruz had tried this on tip oneill he would have been squashed like a little bug. If somebody did this to nancy pelosi would have been pounded. It took 72 freshman to do this to newt gingrich. Theres a void here of Republican Leadership in the house that didnt stand up and take charge and take control. I dont disagree with you. Philgr graham was a democrat. Last night im watching cnn at 7 00 at night by accident. Im trying to get to the red sox game. I want to see how newt is doing on crossfire. Hes doing pretty well actually. Crossfire is coming to in an end and im waiting for newt to say and then its ted cruz on the floor and cnn carries him for seven minutes. This is remarkable. A freshman senator is the leader of the Republican Party. Times have changed. Gingrich had control of that caucus as you know in 1995 and 1996 because he was their leader. Theres no such thing as leaders with that tea party caucus. I spoke your colleague yesterday before the vote yesterday. Listen, i just think these people dont worry about leadership among other things leadership doesnt have some of the perks that tip oneill and others had back then and the senate never had i was at breakfast with leon panetta this week and everybody said earmarks, lets get rid of earmarks. But leon panetta made a point 1996 when i got that clinton budget i gave away six bridges. Thats not a bad tradeoff. I think joes point is very valid when a vacuum is created in politics like knigit will be filled. When you go into this battle without a clear battle plan, a strategy of what this is going to look like and how we come out on the other end someone will fill that void and ted cruz filled that void. Thats because nobody stood up, mika, on the republican side on the house and said thats a horrible idea. We tried that in 1995. We got killed and reelected bill clinton. Its a horrible idea. But the Republican Congress got reelected in 1996. The majority leader didnt. The leadership should have stood up early on and said thats great for the freshman republican thinks that in the senate. Thats cute. We tried picketts charge and it ended badly. I feel its time for a reference to the 1800s. We need to go back to the 1800s. Lets go back to 1750. John mecham what happened in 1887. John mecham, tell us about what happened ned and your take on it. Any precedent . I was going to bring up hippocites. Cokie was about too. If you have a crisis its supposed to reach a decision. Thats the original meaning of the term. You had a crisis, you were sick and you either died or didnt die. Were rolling into a political coma again. To my mind the great question is what lessons did both sides or three sides, the white house, you have the one part of the Republican Party and then the tea party what lessons did they take away from the last 17, 18 days. It seems to me its very unclear. Is the president taking away the lesson that he stands tough somewhat aloof that create as void. Boehnerites figure well if we hang on long enough we can muddle through this. Have the tea partiers learned theres a sugar high to these stands they take yes we say they lost and the New York Times say they lost but they dont care because they are not functioning in the same political universe. To me thats the great question. What did those three elements learn from this because otherwise were going to be talking about this in 12 weeks. Speaking from experience, cokie, the tea partiers learned what we learned in 95 to 96. The big question is did they learn it . The question i asked every single one of them on the hill yesterday. What did you learn from this. A lot of them were at a loss to explain. They cant answer the most basic question will this happen again. They couldnt answer the end game from the beginning. The rest of us knew the end but they didnt know the end. Look, heres what how could they not have known. They had no experience. There are books on capitol hill. There are people you know, i heard, cokie, i heard a couple of them say we dont want to hear from those guys. It reminded me of george w. Bush who didnt want to hear from colin powell as to why he was opposed to the second iraq war. The whole world is teenagers. Teenagers wont learn from their parents and same sort of idea. Who wants to listen to those folks. A lot of them are too old to be an old fogey. The Republican Senate, the republicans have a very good chance of taking the senate of which Mitch Mcconnell is looking at. He wants to be majority leader not minority leader. The Republican Party took it in the teeth. Our abc poll out this week, the disapproval of how they handled it 74 having gone up 11 points in the course of the shutdown. The president stayed absolutely even. The democrats were at about 60, again not having 60 disapprove, 61. Not having changed the needle on them. The republicans, the disapproval just kept going up. How does that work for them when you look at an election. One thing, the question of Lessons Learned is a lot of these members dont have to learn any lesson because the districts they come from are so gerrymandered when they go home they are told they did a great job. That applies to a lot of people running for senate as well because they tell the republican primary voters those people cant win statewide in those states. Some can. Ken cuccinellis position who ran a very conservative primary race. Those quotes were outside of the mainstream. But then he comes to the general election and fighting we talk about an end game. An end game matters. If you care about legislative politics you need an end game. They have an infrastructure that doesnt. They have a club for growth. They are of erick erickson, rush limbaugh. If you went to an Evangelical Church up in the panhandle or a picnic in des moines i bet people there instead of saying are we chasing will be saying go get them the next time. Thats the problem right now. So, instead of attaching bombs to ourselves and blowing up their own Party Republicans could have been capitalizing on the glitch of the roll out on obama care. A Consulting Firm estimates 36,000 people actually enrolled out of the 9. 5 million visitors to healthercare. Gov. Thats less than 1 . The analysis also found that traffic to the Health Care Website dropped 88 during the first two weeks. Seriously john meacham what in if world is wrong. About how it wasnt just republicans who were the big losers in this, it was government itself. You look at this sort of roll out and it reinforces the republicans message. You know, polls are never static. These polls are going move to. Continued focus on this roll out, if its this messy, it damages, i think, the political viability of it, moving forward totally. Yes the Republican Party screwed this up. But right now nobody is coming out of this looking great. My favorite poll in recent months, theres a gallup poll out that says the American People no longer trust the American People. I wish i was making this up. Nobody trusts anybody. So, you know, barnacle is on the executer, trolling and screwing up the health care thing. You have that issue. The other thing that i think is different than 20 years ago or 18 years ago is elections tended to matter, seemed to matter more then. In clinton wins in 92, generational shift. We have 1994, the reaction to the seeming liberal over joe, your class and speaker gingrich get a chance, get a National Chance to make a stand in 95. In 96 we had an election. Clinton won. And that mattered. 94 mattered. 96 mattered. It has not been one year since barack obama was reelected as president of the United States. Dont worry about mandate how about relevance. I think its a remarkable thing. Its cyclical. What do you all think about the fact we go to the country and these elections dont seem to resonate much past the election date. John, what would you say to the republicans yesterday were saying exactly this is what madison wanted, he wanted a divided government, he wanted checks on an imperial president. I think thats absolutely right. Madison wanted a system where no extremist element could triumph over any other. Thats absolutely right. The other thing we know and madison is a war time president knew this is that Political Leadership matters and you have to be able to build a majority to move a country from point a to point b. Can i really bring up one other thing really quickly here just at the end of this entire segment about the fact that you were talking about the ebb and flow of american politics. Think about the fact in 2008, really you have to start with george w. Bush in 2004, 2005, 2006 through 2008, 2009, 2010. I wrote a book about 2004 and again in 2009. The most explosive growth of federal government in the history of this country. The largest debt ever. The largest deficits ever. That was over six, seven years under a republican and then for a year and a half under a democrat it ends with this Health Care Plan that the president had to get with only democra