Percent off the economy. They are more concerned about the october 17th debt ceiling deadline that is fast coming and president obama met with senior staff this weekend to discuss the potential shutdown, but unlike past shutdown showdowns, aides say this time theres no back room talks happening between the president and capitol hill. The president says he expects to hear from congressional leaders later today. Theres still time on the clock to keep the lights on in washington. What could the plan look like . We have special shutdown coverage set for today starting with Peter Alexander at the white house and mr. Luke russert on capitol hill. Peter, democrats have said that the president is looking at this as time to punch the bully in the nose. Is that the vibe youre getting . Reporter well, the vibe that they are communicating to u. Jay carney finishing up his press briefing, they say this is not about politics. Its about people not getting hurt, even though the white house and press secretary putting out a statement over the weekend that used the word republican six times. Obviously politics plays a significant role in this. In the conversations with advisers here at the white house, what they would probably tell you in the leanings today sort of indicate this growing willingness to negotiate over something more long term, that the priority is not to allow for as described this governing by crisis. Heres what the president said about his openness to the idea of sort of a longterm budget negotiation. The only way to do that is for everybody is sit down in good faith without threatening to harm women and veterans and children with a Government Shutdown. Theres a pretty straight forward solution to this. If you set aside the short term politics and you look at the long term here, what it simply requires is everybody to act responsibly and do whats right for the American People. That president , president obama there speaking a short time ago at the end of this conversation with netanyahu of israel who is also here today. Toure, the president said he is not all redesigned to the fact there will be a Government Shutdown. Her holding out hope in some way. There have no back channel conversations as you noted. The white house and president specifically indicating though there will be conversations between him and congressional leaders today and as jay carney said in the days ahead as well. Thanks, peter. Luke, im glad to hear optimistic words but the actions dont seem to convince any optimism. Game out the next nine or 8 57. What is going to happen to prevent a Government Shutdown . Reporter to toure, i just came from a conference and they, aides and members have said they are going to move forward on a plan tonight that would fund the government, however, it would also call for a one year delay of the individual mandate of the Health Care Law as well as cut subsidies to congressional staffers Health Care Benefits and those who work in the president ial administration Health Care Benefits. Harry reid said if these type of riders as they are known on capitol hill will go nowhere, so what youll see happen in the next few hours is the house is going to pass something which will be just like saturday and exercise a futility, purely symbolic, trying to get democrats on the record as not supporting delay of the individual mandate, not supporting cutting the Health Care Benefits of staffers on capitol hill that would be affected by the healthcare law and we march closer to a Government Shutdown at midnight. Its a fast set of developments and shows you to which agree the folks on the conservative gop conference are running this show. I spoke to some members going in today, charlie dent from pennsylvania says a clean, republican, a clean government funding bill would pass tonight if it went on the floor as did peter king of new york. Theres an idea floated around here to keep in mind this is all fluid, that Mitch Mcconnell is perhaps putting forward a oneweek government funding bill extension to come out of the senate. Theres hesitancy about from Senate Republicans we hear on that by putting the house colleagues on the record for that type of vote. Dave camp, chairman of the house ways and Means Committee told me thats something that they could possibly take a look at. From where we stand right now, toure, youll have a repeat of saturday night from the House Republican conference. They are going to put forward this bill they know will be shut down by harry reid. Then it goes back to the house and then john boehner has a decision to make. Does he shut down the government or put a bill that could get democratic support, which is the clean one and move forward, or is there some miracle hue deanny, something out of the Mitch Mcconnell hat, weve seen this in the fiscal cliff negotiations in 2010 that could avert the Government Shutdown at least for a week and we negotiate this further . Thats whats happening here. Nobody knows what exactly the path is going to be. I will tell you, toure, the fact theyll send the bill over to the senate again the way the place works with parliamentary procedure, its difficult to see now how we can avert a Government Shutdown with the amount of time its going to take to debate. Things could change. Someone the angels could sing and someone might be awakened and decide they dont want to go down this road anymore. Things are not looking good for the government to operate at 100 tomorrow morning. I love the excitement in you, luke, peter, thank you very much. Its going to be a long night for both of you. Msnbc, possibly on until 2 00 a. M. , get the popcorn ready. Lawrence odonnell live at 1 00 a. M. Tonight. Our special shutdown preview continues with the grios perry bacon. Happy birthday, brother. Thank you. Looks Like Washington loves you because their gift to you is a shutdown. Washington does not love me it seems like. Im going to be 2 00 a. M. For the coverage. Yeah, washington does not love me on my birthday. There you are. Perry, we have climate deniers, we have birth certificate deniers, birthers and now we have shutdown deniers, folks in d. C. On republican side of the aisle saying this is not going to be a big deal. Its fine, we can shut down for a couple of days or weeks, wont blame us, wont harm the country that much, it will be fine. Perhaps this is because only a third of the senate was in washington in 95 and 96 and only a fifth of the house was. Just because they dont actually remember or because they choose to not remember or because they were somewhat delusional. Lets go with the they dont remember and they dont know. You know ted cruz was not in congress obviously for the last shutdown nor the House Republican caucus. Thats the key difference here. John boehner is aware the last Government Shutdown was not helpful to republicans because he was in the house leadership at that point. But hes pretty much alone. Eric cantor and rand paul, ted cruz, you see a lot of members. Also, you remember, most House Republicans and most senators are in areas that are very heavily republican. The blow back will happen to the Party Overall but not to these individual members of congress. Perry, theres an argument being tossed around by comment ators that a Government Shutdown may actually be a good thing for the debt ceiling longer term and may knock some sense into conservatives, force them to realize they are out of moves at this point, allowing boehner to raise the debt ceiling a few weeks later with little drama. And molly ball wrote, i asked a staffer who works for a House Republican whether a Government Shutdown would be enough to change these members minds. He replied, no we like to suffer we like to beat ourselves and go back to the base and they give us another task to beat ourselves on and we forget how to beat ourselves the last time. Perry, im ooshlly an optimist, its hard to believe even a Government Shutdown will change the do dynamic on the hill . I agree with you. I do think down the line there are 85 republicans voted for the fiscal cliff agreement. 87 of them voted to reauthorize the violence against women act. Take those two votes. Theres a core group of republicans, i call them the governing caucus. If you put the cr to the floor, you would be 250 to 300 votes to pass this bill. There is majority support in the house. I do think at some point john boehner will consider putting the bill on the floor, letting it pass. The important thing you have to remember, i saw dick durbin and harry reid piling on john boehner. I understand that. But john boehner is the elected leader of the House Republicans. He cant each day of the week decide to violate their wishes. He has to try to get them to move toward a governing method. They cant continue to say the debt ceiling will never be raised unless huge bills like obama care are repealed. He has to get them there and thats the hope of the process. Right, hes moved pay lot already in response, obviously to what his base is doing. Take a listen to him here in march. Our goal here is to cut spending. Its not to shut down the government. I believe that trying to put obama care on this vehicle, risks shutting down the government. Thats not what our goal is. There you have it. Everyone saying should there be more phone calls, should the president call boehner more . Maybe john boehner for march should call john boehner this week an remind him this is a terrible idea, that he literally recently said was a terrible idea. If we know that is what he believes, if we dont think he was lying then, what will it take to get him to bring it to the floor . A lot of analysts believe if you do get a shutdown the way out will be to use your words, perry, will be some bipartisan vote with the governing caucus a few days after the disaster. Lets go back ari. In november, john boehner said, i quote, obama care is the law of the land. And were going to stop trying to have bills to fight it. Hes had to move so far to the right, to the right, to the right. Now youre at a place where i know the white house view this as they stand strong. If you notice the white house keeps saying they are not negotiating. Usually in politics you dont say im not going to negotiate. It makes you seem unreasonable. But their view is that you cannot keep rewarding bad behavior. They view the republicans are exhibiting bad behavior. I think we may need a longer shutdown. All of the polls show that the majority of the public will blame the republicans. The shutdown hasnt happened yet. Well soon have real data showing a, the exchanges have started and they cant stop obama care. They will accept the obvious that the president is not going to sign the defunding of a law called obama care. I think that is one reality thats going to be clear to House Republicans. Ted cruz can convince a lot of republicans that this bill defunding will happen. Youll have one real fact, the exchanges are starting and the president is not going to defund his own bill. I hope youre right about that. Perry, as youre pointing out, this isnt the first time weve gone up to the edge with one of these crises, up until today the markets have shrugged their shoultders assuming well also avert this one and staring down the barrel of another debt ceiling crisis. Are we going to see the Business Community putting more pressure on republicans, the folks writing them campaign checks . They havent fully engaged yet. They havent yet. I know the white house i talked with one of the advisers there, their big push is they need the Business Community to stop being falsely equivalent. They need them to stop saying, washington is broken and start saying the republicans are not doing the right thing. I dont think were seeing a lot of signs of that yet. The business is usually more focused on the debt ceiling than the shutdown. If we have a shutdown in the next few days, what are the big analysts and Independent Newspapers say, i dont think republicans i dont care what john mccain thinks, i think thats right. They are not looking for other senators for guidance, some mainstream republicans for guidance. They may look towards the Donor Community because they usually have a big role in the Republican Partys actions if big banks on wall street say were not going to give the party money anymore if it keeps doing these things, that could change. But thats not going to happen tomorrow. Thats going to be a while. A lot of Business Leaders pride themselves on being bipartisan and not partisan. Washington is broken but its because the tea party broke it. Thanks perry and ari. We have an asymmetrical problem, up next, what the shutdown could mean for you . Remember on the friday, about the phone call with irans president. Its been overshadowed but Israel Netanyahu and the secretary of state together again, that story coming later as we roll on. Its the last day of september. [ agent smith ] ive Found Software that intrigues me. It appears its an agent of good. [ agent smith ] ge software connects patients to nurses to the right machines while dramatically reducing waiting time. [ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. [ static warbles ] are you essential . We all think were essential at work. Toure im looking at you. Thats the question, 2 million government workers are asking themselves right now with a shutdown looming, 800,000 nonessential government workers will be furloughed. National security, fbi and mail delivery and faa and may delivery will continue. Among the nonessential are the 400 National Parks. Alex witt is in Lower Manhattan near one of the busiest National Parks, the statue of liberty. Reporter krystal, it comes to minds as this boat came in from the statue of liberty and liberty island, it is the National Park service boat. It shuttles the employees, a bunch of them got off today and i was thinking to myself, if youre scheduled to work tomorrow, unless youre a firefighter or involved in some sort of security for Lady Libertys island, youre not getting on the boat again tomorrow if the government shuts down and getting it across the harbor to work. This is also something that is affecting the tourism dollars here. We have tourists coming from all over the world. This is one of the crown jewels of 368 National Parks in the country. Certainly the top destination for tourism here in new york city. We talked to many families, one of whom was an australian family. They said, getting to see lady liberty takes a lot of planning. The timing isnt great. And we have traveled a long way. It has cost us a lot of money and what do you do . Theres nothing we can do about it. Were not impressed but what do you do . Reporter what do you do . You hope youre here on this beautiful gorgeous day. We have seen all of these cruises packed taking people over. I talked to so many of them today and most of them said they were grateful to be here and annoyed to have their plans they are lucky today, tomorrow maybe not so much. All right, alex witt, thanks so much for that report. I want to throw the shutdown into the spin cycle. I was looking over the list of things that would be shut down. You have fda inspections lessening and you have the wic program for mothers and children, nutritional supplements, no irs audits or osh sha inspections and what occurred to me a lot of these things would have a very damaging longterm impact. But how upset is the Republican Base going to be over no osha inspections. Im looking at this list, theres been a lot of talk about how once the government shuts down theres going to be this overwhelming pressure on the House Republicans and their base to finally come to the negotiating table. Im not sure that thats true. I dont see where the pressure is going to come from, especially when you have people like john culberson, he said, like 9 11, lets roll. They are not reluctantly going into this. They are gleeful about it. Toure was talking about an assem met tri at whose at fault. Youre talking about what the different parties here want government to look like. Right. Thats why the negotiating didnt work and the president took a long time i think by some peoples estimation to get there. But hes there now. Thats why they dont need to be on the phone all day. Its like if you want to send your kids to bedtime and you say, you dont go to bed on time you can stay up all night. If thats a consequence, it doesnt work. You know, you have kids. No, it doesnt work. There was one cosby show where they led rudy stay up all night she was tired. She was tired. She learned something. Rudy huxtabl was always ahead of the tea party because they are not tired and learning. What they want in the grover a government so small enough you can put it down the bath tub. The important point i dont want to lose here, that is wrong on policy grounds because it is expensive to shut down the government in this way. The studies are out there it would be over a billion dollars a week as a cost. The thing youre doing that you hit government with makes government even more expensive. Thats absolutely right. Theres no pressure coming from their constituents because they hate obama care and government. Thats the tea party these sis. They are confused obama care is going to be negativively impacted which it wont be. I dont want to