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Time for congress. look at them rushing to leave last week, bolting for the exits. get me out of here. august recess time in congress used to mean vacation, right? time off from politics. now it means congress rushes home not to vacation, but to the screaming town halls. orchestrated for maximum confrontational youtube ability. this newly shoutty political august can be fun as far as politics goes as long as you're not the one being screamed at. if you're not just a back bencher, if you're in the congressional leadership, you actually have more to deal with right now than just the crazy town h...

Politics goes as long as you're not the one being screamed at. if you're not just a back bencher, if you're in the congressional leadership, you actually have more to deal with right now than just the crazy town hall think. recess for the leadership means traveling all over the country to raise money for the most vulnerable members of your caucus. so it's often the new members of your congress. the new congress critters, right? from the marginal districts. members you maybe don't even know. who you now have to spend the whole day with raising money so they can try to keep their seats. it's got...

Democratic strategist emmy tisch sussmann and republican strategist john feehery. good morning. >> good morning. >> politico said republican party leaders described some of these conservatives as, quote, a tiny rump of ham-fisted pols with a knack for stumbling onto cable news. there's almost invariably a back-bencher in the house of representatives who is only too eager to take the win out of a conservative comeback with incendiary comments that seizes national attention. do you agree with that assessment and if so, what can party leaders do to stop it? >> republicans should have a pretty sim...

Above $1 million, will they ever go along with anything that includes revenues? unless -- >> get some spending cuts. >> but will the president now -- now the president's hand is so strong, will he give them deep spending cuts? >> the president has to be the grown-up in the relationship here. you can -- as a back bencher, i can tell you, you can throw a lot of rhetorical bombs, but when you're the president of the united states and you've got to answer to the markets and you've got all the top business leaders coming to the white house going, please, do whatever. and the president's, like, i'm ...

Members of the house of representatives. that is the unfortunate political reality for the president of the united states. if i'm a back bencher, i can be as reckless and irresponsible as i want so long as i know i'm going to get re-elected two years from now. the president of the united states does not have that luxury that he may have had in the state senate in illinois. and he understands that. and it's extraordinarily frustrating. >> well, look, to me the critical moment, sometime probably in the next week is when the president and boehner get a deal, how that plays out afterwards. again, ...