0 msnbc.com richard wolffe, and also joining us is nbc capitol hill correspondent luke russert. luke, this feels like we're all sort of getting a peek inside an insane asylum. seems simple. john boehner could walk out, put a clean cr on the floor and it will pass. what is the likelihood he will simply do that? >> it's an interesting question, joy. as of right now, i would say unlikely today from where we stand. i will give you the three options boehner has now, the thinking. the house has a meeting at 2:00 p.m. today. they are going to discuss what their next move is going to be. here are the three options. number one, once the senate kills the house bill and sent back over here attach some other conservative goody that goes after the health care law. this case something similar to the bitter amendment, strip government pay-ins to employees on the hill for health care access and health care premium payments. if you do that, the thinking on the republican side is they can say, look, harry reid is trying to save his own health care ahead of that of the american people. so that's the one thing we can see. however, if you do that, you push more towards shutdown because of the timing and how everything works up here. number two, boehner could possibly have a two-or three-week continuing resolution, not all the way to december which would mix this into the debt limit which he could argue strengthens the gop hand, put it all on the debt limit, a place we have a stronger position. brace for shutdown, he lets the cruz caucus as i call it of his house republican caucus feel the effects, lose the pr and comes back and passes a temporary two or three weeks or do a clean one. from where we stand right now, it's unlikely boehner would go to the floor with a clean cr. they only need 17, 20 republicans. from my conversation with members and unofficial whip count, i believe they could get that. there's enough moderates, charlie dent, king, nunez from california who would be more than willing to move on this issue. but they adopt want to give up this fight quite yet. after the 2:00 p.m. meeting, i suspect we'll hear about something new related to the president's health care law they are going to send back over to the senate and put it back on harry reid again. playing hot potatoes. grand context, it's absolutely fascinating, yesterday, the day before this horrific shutdown on the horizon, not one meeting between boehner, reed, president obama. democrats are really, really, really not going to throw boehner a life raft this time saying you want to shut it down. it's the west wing episode, shut it down. go right ahead. they are playing hardball. >> richard wolffe, go ahead and make my day. that's what we're hearing from democrats is what luke is saying. the options, throw your staff under the bus. basically slash the staff's pay, throwing them in the exchanges. detonate it, put a nuclear bomb marrying these two together. or let a shutdown happen thinking the same republicans that didn't learn from our credit rating being downgraded will think after a few weeks of regular people feeling pain, oh, this isn't good. >> luke is a good reporter and all three options are real. what happens if all three happen. you send up ridiculous talking point. you're not opposing people anymore. you're opposing for talking point purposes. they do that and they have something that kicks it into the debt ceiling and on top of that they shut down the government. so all three could actually all happen. we're at this point where republicans -- this isn't, by the way, the tea party caucus. the tea party caucus is too small to do this. it's the fear of the tea party caucus. we don't even have a body -- the majority could get this through if they wanted. not just the moderates. they are so scared of their own shadow and shadow of the tea party they are going down this ridiculous path which shows honestly they don't have strategy. it's a bunch of short-term tactics that don't last 12 hours anymore. >> calls him the suicide caulk, not even tea party caucus. let me give you a quick bite of what he has to say. 80 house members. the suicide caucus members, we can show a map of where they live, suicide caucus members live in places where national election results seem like an anomaly. obama defeated romney 4 points nationally. 80 suicide districts obama lost by an average of 23 points. those 80 members represent an america where the population is getting whiter, there are few major cities, where obama lost the last election on a landslide and republican party more dominant and more popular. if you look physically where the suicide caucus members are, look at that map, these are the people in the south, great northwest, they are in red, red america where this actually seems rational. >> right. i think, you know, one great quote we heard from an anonymous republican staffer, by the way the anonymous republican staffer is the star of this. >> they stand to lose their health care under the bitter plan. >> they understand what they are doing is nuts, nuts for the country, nuts for the republican party, i assume they are drinking a lot this week. i would be if i were up there. one of these quotes house republicans are going to have to touch the stove a little longer to figure out they are going to get burned. these 80 people probably aren't going to feel burned but 280 people in the house republican caucus, a majority of whom wanted to use a strategy similar to the one john boehner originally had where you would have another symbolic vote to defund obama care, allow them to stay funded allow implementation to continue and only grandstand on the issue. i think that's where republicans are trying to end up here. the question is how many days of shutdown it will take to convince the republican caucus that this thing has been a destructive misadventure for the party. my guess is the shutdown will run a week. they will figure it out then pt republicans learned a lesson from 2011. remember we raised the debt ceiling in january. republicans in december were talking a game about more concessions, budget cuts. ultimately the january debt ceiling increase was essentially a clean increase. the only thing republicans got was that senate democrats had to pass a totally symbolic budget, which is really not much of a concession at all. i think house republicans are able to see reason on this stuff as they did in january. the question is how much government shutdown it will take. >> shng has changed since then. >> what's that? >> ted cruz. >> 2016 that changed it. >> you can see this again with the anonymous house staffer. they understand how ted cruz has changed the national dynamic for primaries. >> and hurt the party in terms of the image of the party being rational and sane. the other thing ted cruz doesn't answer to those people you're >> richard, isn't that the point? the real thing is not so much the rise of ted cruz but the rise of jim demint these outside funders can trump chamber of commerce, old wall street guys who used to be able to push them or muscle them around on capitol hill. they are responding to a stream of outside money that they are afraid could make them lose their jobs. >> we haven't seen the business community step up. the gop leadership is afraid of this caucus. having a fearful leadership is not actually leadership. the truth is when the white house is using the language of hostage takers. they have to understand gop leaders themselves are a hostage. hostage takers are hostages themselves and that's a lack of leadership all the way around. >> josh, the other issue is you're not seeing republicans fighting on the ground of we want more austerity or something to do with the budget. look at the list of demands when you move to the debt limit. talking about delay health care we'll weaken dodd/frank because of this. it's desperate gambit. republicans don't have a vote for debt limit increase with this laundry list attached to it. that's why house leadership floated the plan. they never actually put out a bill. they didn't think they could get to 218 even with this insane list of demands. >> this is insane. the only thing not in there and we'll see it again is deport president obama. that's not on the list yet and i guess we should be thankful. luke russert, thank you very much. midnight is not only the witching hour for government shutdown, marks a rollout for obama care. we'll preview crucial and busy october 1st when the white house's jennifer palmieri joins us next on "now." my customers can shop around-- see who does good work and compare costs. it doesn't usually work that way with health care. but with unitedhealthcare, i get information on quality rated doctors, treatment options and estimates for how much i'll pay. that helps me, and my guys, make better decisions. i don't like guesses with my business, and definitely not with our health. innovations that 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