McConnell catches ‘shutdown fever’

>>> the country. have you heard about it? it's called shutdown fever. and mitch mcconnell just caught it.

>> would you rule out a government shutdown to achieve your goals?

>> what i think we ought to do is encourage the president to actually be president. address the single biggest --

>> i understand you. my question is would you rule a government shutdown .

>> i know what your question is, what i'm saying is i haven't given up on the president stepping up to plate.

>> not ruling out a government shutdown . but it's not just him. congressman matt salmon has it, too.

>> i was here during the government shutdown in 1995 . it was a divided government . we had democrat president of the united states . we had a republican congress . i believe that that government shutdown actually gave us the impetus as we went toward to push toward some real serious compromise.

>> do you think that's a good idea?

>> yes, i do. i think it's about time. oh, yeah, it's about time. no time like the present to completely destroy the economy. but this fever is spreading. paul ryan caught the book. senator ted cruz has it. holding the economy hostage to demand bungt cuts? a shutdown would mean americans would lose jobs, lose social security checks, veterans would lose benefits, medicare patients would be left waiting. joining me now is nia malika henderson and michelle cotter. thank you both for being here tonight.

>> republicans are threatening to destroy the economy. is there anyway out of this?

>> mitch mcconnell doesn't seem to be completely on board.

>> but he wouldn't say no, either.

>> you're right. he wouldn't rule it out completely or rule for his other people and say this is a real, real viable option. you know, i think what we see is a republican party that doesn't quite know what it's going to do in terms of bargaining around the debt ceiling limit. they've got a situation where th they're obviously talking about cuts. but one of the problems is people don't really wants cuts. and, also, i think the other reality is if you look at what's happened so far, i think we've cut out quite a bit. revenue that's come in so far, actually, i think it's been a third or fourth of that. so thal eve got a real challenge going forward in terms of what are we going to speak with.

>> michelle , as long as it's out there where you have some just overtly saying shutdown is good, i'll do shutdown. don't we need the leadership like mcconnell to say unequivocally, we're not talking about a shutdown nou. it's not a good thing. even nut gingrich, the architect of the shutdown in the '90s says it's not good. it makes one wonder are the others speaking in a set or tone that they can use as an option and that that would be disastrous for this country and the economy.

>> i think if the cliff negotiations taught us anything, you can't listen to the hardline luster this early in the game. if you'll look at how close we came with the last stand off, everybody takes their hardlined positions. mcconnell is not going to go out there on the lamb and shut down these hard liners at this point. he's going to want to go in there with a strong of position as he can, making as big of threats with his con frerns. &kind of push back against obama. at this stage of the game, he's not going to make a strong stand.

>> now, nia merks alquia and former speaker was on "face the nation. and she said she would use the 14th amendment to avoid a shut down. listen to h.

>> if i were president, i would use the 14th amendment that says --

>> you would just go ahead and do it.

>> okay. right.

>> what do you think the american public has been supportive of the president so far. what do you think they would do is the president just said i'm going to use the 14th amendment . and 57% say the pthd got more than what he wanted.

>> you know, i'm not sure how the public will react. he's not going to ha lewisuate at all over this. he's probably going to have to move. as things go forward, oh, he does think that he's going to use this 14th amendment . i think um have lots 06 democrats and fro greszives and liberals safing they should invoke that 14 amendment laws.

>>> i think they're worried about the optics. again, a lot of blustering and brink ship going on already. any one of the things at stake, the entire world economy . and i don't think republicans, if they're looking back at what happened in '95, '96, it was good for clinton that they shut the government down. it wasn't good for republicans at all. it very much set up a situation where bob dole was hurt in his campaign. if they want to help president obama in terms of approval ratings, don't shut the government down.

>> michelle , the republicans are now saying their taxes are off the table.

>> we've resolved the tax issue now. it's over. it's behind us. we were able to get permanent tax relief for 99% of american taxpayers.

>> your reaction to that? is it off the table?

>> of course it's not off the table. what mcconnell is betting on is that americans are going to forget all of those cuts in spending the last time we did this and thought oh, okay, the republicans are give on taxes this time. you've got to have all of these things on the table if they have any hope. everything will have to be on the table. it is interesting. they seem to have a problem with that mat mat kal issue all of the time.

>>> nia and michelle , thank you both for your time tonight.

>>> still ahead, paul ryan votes to let sandy victims suffer without relief money. but he wasn't always so cold. we have a hi pock ra si alert coming. plus, secretary of state hillary clinton back to work together but we're still walting for the apology e polg at the claims he'll question or he'll miss,even for them, ilgts's really lame. you're watching "politics nation" right