the plan has changed dramatically, i'm going to keep texting and talking to my sources. if you do see a major delay, if we get to 10:15, 10:30 and still nothing, that could be a suggestion there are still some last-minute things going on. but honestly the definitiveness that democrats came out of the meeting makes me feel like it's an tough thing at this point. >> that coupled with the whip count we were able to do it seems they were nowhere close to having the 60 votes they needed. krar thank you. much appreciated. msnbc is going to be live for it all tonight. so settle in, let the dog out now because you aren't going to want him-to-let him out in the next hour. we're expecting a vote on whether the government is going to shutdown at midnight.

what we just heard, it looks like there's no plan b if they don't get the vote and it looks like they're not going to get the vote. that does it for us tonight. now it's time for "last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening. lawrence. >> here's a rule of senate coverage. don't believe a senator that says there's no plan b. there is always a plan b in the senate. and if this clock ticks past 10:05, that means that's what mitch mcconnell is working on. he's working on a plan b. he always has one. but he's got, know, a mess on his hands tonight. so the thing that might be emgings a plan b is something that lindsey graham has suggested. remember he's been against any form of continuing resolution, doesn't want a continuing resolution, now he does. he says i'll go to a continuing resolution for february 8th. that takes them past the state of the union address. he says that gives them enough

time to do a serious job of negotiating. that's moving the date up a week and we'll see what that does. >> i think we're seeing that the democrats aren't buying it. the proof will be in the pudding when they get out and cast their votes. it looks like right now even with that on the table it's going to be a no vote. i do take your point about there being a plan b. we thought the vote would have started by now. as it pushes later and later that might mean there was negotiations, but right now it doesn't look good. >> what's always true of this shutdown situation is that neither side actually wants a shutdown. that's an unusual dynamic in the senate. usually there's a dynamic where one side wants one thing and the other side wants something else but they don't have a motivation to get them to some kind of solution. both sides really have a -- republicans have a much stronger

motivation and mitch mcconnell knows it than chuck schumer does. chuck schumer holds all the cards now. we'll see. this is going to be my most interesting hour of the year so far covering what happens here. >> stiff competition my friend. thank you, lawrence. good luck my friend. so we are approaching a shutdown, on the verge of a shutdown for one very simple reason, mexico did not pay for the wall. that is why we have a camera on the floor of the united states senate tonight. because mexico did not pay for the wall. the president of the united states says no wall, no deal. and that's where it stands tonight in the united states congress. joining us now ron cline, former chief of staff and also former chief counsel. he know it is senate very well as does adam gentleson. he's a former deputy chief of

staff. and maria trace kumar is with us. and i want to go to maria first. the possibility of the democrats agreeing to any form of going forward tonight without a solution for daca, how do you see that? >> a win for the american people. the protests of allies such as move on and forward u.s., welcome u.s. and the d.r.e.a.m.ers themselves is a testament to how the majority of american people recognize how daca wasstrategy and you have 1 million people loosing their status every day. and i think the democrats recognize if they do not take care of immigration reform it is going to haunt them come the november elections and that's why they're holding strong.

i think it's disappointing that graham is buckling all of a sudden. when folks say the president did not get the funding for the wall, that's not the case. that was part of the bipartisan that graham and durbin presented to the president just last thursday and the president was the one that decided to walk away from the deal. >> adam, lindsey graham saying tonight that he does not expect the graham durbin deal to ever become law. e we see some movement with lindsey graham on the possible dates of a cr. you've worked closer to mitch mcconnell than any of the rest of us. how do you read the situation tonight? >> i read it as a giant mess for mitch mcconnell that's entirely of his own manufacture. if the shutdown happens, it happens with a whimper not a bang. mitch mcconnell has had ample time to negotiate with democrats, reach a deal. he could put the graham/durbin deal on the floor right away, it would pass. this is entirely of his own

making, it's a mess, republicans will get blamed and i think he's going to regret it. >> you've been on the senate floor as the clock has been ticking down, how do you see i unfold tonight? >> they need a pn m, that's to deal with the moron president. the problem here is as wb as you said, president trump messed this up with the insis answer the there be funding for the wall. it's important to remember he shook hands with chuck schumer and nancy pelosi and agreed with diane feinstein said we needed a bill, he'd pass whatever. whenever there's a deal, this president can't get it done, can't deliver. that's why we're in the mess we're in tonight. >> i want to read some of lindsey graham's statement about this. it indicates he has an agreement

with the white house on this. he says, in consultation with the leaders and the white house, i believe that a cr through february 8th is necessary in order to work toward our shared goals while providing sufficient urgency in these discussions. so maria that looks like lindsey graham believes he has a plan b that he has worked out with the white house and republican leadership. >> that's what lindsey graham thought on thursday when he went with durbin and basically was completely torpedoed by not only the president but also by kellyanne and miller. so i think the majority of americans can recognize when you try to negotiate with the president it's constantly a moving target. thats not the case. and le not forget folks can sit down at he and say that gives the government 20 days. that's 122 young students that lose out on daca every day. this is the president's undoing and the republican leadership

has to recognize they are impacting lives and families when they decide they are going to move down the goal post without a solution. that's not acceptable. >> adam, it sounds like with the move changing that date from february 16th to february 8th, they will get all of the republican votes. that will get lindsey graham, probably pull back in rand paul, who has said that he's a no. that would leave the democrats alone voting against this. with actually four democrats announcing that they are ready to vote for it, that's joe don li, high dy hide camp, doug jones and at that point they would need six more democrats to get to 60. how does that look? >> i don't think that looks good, but the other thing i would note is that to set up a vote on a bill that gets set up

at the last minute, like this would, you need the consent of all senators to set the vote up. the cr we're voting on tonight was -- the procedural motion to set up the vote started two days ago. so there has to be a high degree of cooperation across the board to get a vote before the government shut downs in two hours. >> that's a great point. in order for them to move to anything other than what they were on, they basically need unanimous consent to do that so they need an agreement with chuck schumer to do that. >> that's right. the vote they're about to take sounds like a vote on the house bill which does not fix the problem of the d.r.e.a.m.ers and doesn't really meet lindsey graham's test even. so they'ren a big mosh pit up there. the reason is we're seeing something we've never seen before. i worked at the senate a long time. i was in the white house in 1995

when we had the longest shutdown in american history. we never had a situation where one party controls the house, white house, and senate and can't keep the government open. there's no play book for that because that's something that's never happened before. >> the voters out there are watching something they feel they've seen before, but ron makes an important point weave never seen it before when there is one party in control of the house, senate and white house. >> that shows how leaderless the republican party is. the fact they can't get their own party in line to vote on resolutions that actually make sense speaks volumes. the fact that the president normally walks into these rooms and he's the level-headed person, the adult in the room and brings the parties together, says this is how we're going to play, this is what i'm going to say, the president has been

absent. and right now, the one we're hearing trying to do the negotiations is john kelly. john kelly is not a politician. he's a decorated military man, someone highly respected for what he knows. but i think he's over his skis. that's one of the reasons why mitch mcconnell said we will actually do a deal as long as the president tells us what he wants. they don't even know. that is inkrooed kreeezingly a e when you have people elected to these positions who doesn't understand government service. >> there's a good half dozen democrats who might be available to move to vote for this to get them up to 60. how did harry reed, when you were working for harry reed, how did he hold senators who were there on the margin of these kinds of votes? >> i think the thing is, the mark of a good leader is someone who knows what a senator needs

to get from a to b. i think the important thing is understanding the senator's 340 motivations, what's important to them -- >> adam, as you're speaking, i want the audience to notice there's chuck schumer on the senate floor talking to mitch mcconnell as mitch mcconnell is standing in front of mitch mcconnell's desk there. this is 12 minutes past the time when mitch mcconnell was supposed to walk out there and simply call for a vote. and instead of calling for a vote, he's talking to the democratic leader of the senate. >> if i could make one other point looking at the floor what i'm seeing is you don't see a lot of senators on the floor right now. if this was a vote that was about to happen, the floor, the well there in the front should be filled with senators. so i think there is sort of negotiations going on here. if this vote was about to happen you'd see a lot more senators on

the floor right now. >> what i'm hearing is on the democrat side, man chin is trying to pull in more democrats to vote for the bill and the democrats are scratching their head because they don't understand why except perhaps he wants credit for not shutting down the government. >> ron, when you've been down there on the floor in these kinds of moments, and this is leaders who've had nothing but tense times talking to each other, it's startling how quickly they can warm up to each other when the deal needs to get done. >> that's true, lawrence. but i think this is a different kind of case. i think it's going to be very hard to get a deal done here. the democrats have been promised a fix for the d.r.e.a.m.ers, the president goes on tv and says he wants a bill of love, wants to help the d.r.e.a.m.ers yet time and again they pull back from that, don't get it done. i think it's hard for senator schumer to cross that line and trust the president, to trust

mitch mcconnell one more time. >> we're going to go to the floor now. >> is there objection? without objection. >>he clerk will report the motion to invoke closure. >> closure motion we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 do hereby move to bring to a close, debate on the motion to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to hr 195 signed by 17 senators. >> the mandatory kaurm call has been waved. is it the debate to the senate amendment to hr 195 shall be brought to a close? the yays and nays are mandatory. >> mr. alexander, mr. by ras

sew -- >> we are underway. this is the vote. >> this is the vote. it's a vote to cut off debate on essentially passing the house passed continuing resolution. i have very little doubt that the democrats will -- enough of them will hold together to defeat this. mitch mcconnell thinks he's going to make a political point by casting this vote he will lose. but there's little doubt in my mind, the american people will see through it, understand the reason we have a government shutdown in two hours is because president trump couldn't get it together, the republicans in congress couldn't get it together. this is their shutdown. >> adam, if we're trying to imagine what that last-minute conversation with chuck schumer was about between mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer, it seems it was probably about exactly what do we do after this vote? what's the procedure here

tonight after this vote? because mitch mcconnell called for this vote in the most mournful way i have ever seen a senate leader call for a vote. >> i think he knows this is not a good thing for him. i think you're right, they were negotiating what time the senate is going to adjourn tonight. the key is if after the vote senators leave the floor and go home. i think the reporters on the floor of the capitol will be able to tell us that then you know government is shutting down. that's looks like that's where we are headed. >> we had reports that the house is prepared to stay in this weekend. the house was going on recess for a week. democrats put out the word that democratic house members have to stay in town. republicans put out the word that republican house members have to stay in town. if there's anything that happens before midnight tonight that somehow gets a continuing ing

resolution going, they'll all be in town. >> they don't have business running monday, there are so many people effected by it. republicans don't want this hanging over their head, one thing voters remember is who failed to give them the checks they needed to make sure they could make ends meet. >> ron, one of the reasons the leader of the senate will call for a vote that he knows he is going to lose is that he has to prove to someone that this is a losing proposition. sometimes they're trying to prove to the house of representatives this is a losing proposition. in this instance there's no doubt the person they have to prove this is a losing proposition to is the president of the united states. >> so a big question is what the president's weekend's plan are. tomorrow happy anniversary, it's the one-year anniversary of donald trump becoming president. >> he's supposed to go to his resort in florida, and have a big bribery party where people

pay him $100,000 to have dinner with him. so it'll be interesting to see if he flies down there while they're getting ready to cut off various programs -- will trump get on the plane and fly to his party tomorrow. >> there was so much conversation today with whether or not schumer could hold strong for 24 hours so that tomorrow saturday morning the president wakes up and realizes he has to stay in town ife doesn't actually agree to having the -- whatever theemocrats want. so there's been a lot of buzz on capitol hill saying maybe the only thing the president wants to do is go to his party, and maybe that's a leverage they should be using. it's no joke. >> that's a serious factor in his life. we're joined now by a

congressional scholar and historian, norm you've seen many of these shutdown moments come but as we mentioned this is the first time we've seen it with a single part in control of the house, white house and senate. >> we can look back at the moment and see not just donald trump blowing up a negotiation that had a chance of doing something constructive but we can also look at the reality that republicans in the house and senate held off for months in reauthorizing the children's health insurance program to use it as a hostage. so we're not just looking at a party that couldn't get its act together to keep the shutdown from happening but used vile tactics to do it. we have to add that a shutdown has enormous human costs to it if it lasts any length of time. not just the government employees who rely on a paycheck

week to week won't get paid but may get reimbursed much later on. food stamps after several days the debit cards won't be reknewed. the national parks affect all the businesses around them. the human cost of this is tremendous, you can match not necessarily trump cut ago deal to go to mar-a-lago but holding out for a while that's going to have a real cost for human beings. >> one of the big incentives donald trump has for a deal here is that the i.r.s. will be hit hard by a government shut down. it's in the middle of the task of processing these new tax tables for the new tax structure enacted by the tax cuts, they can't do that, which means they cannot deliver the tax cuts in paychecks if their personnel

gets cut as it will be in a government shutdown. >> that's a huge liability for republicans. if you pass a major bill, passing it is one thing, implementation is another thing we saw that with obamacare, what happened with the website. so not being able to smoothly implement the bill that they're pinning their hopes on is a major liability for republicans. i want to add one other thing. i'm watching the body language on the senate floor and it's hard to get over the lack of urgency and lack of energy on the floor. in 2013 when the government shutdown, upo theast mine there were negotiations going , bills being sent back and forth between the house and senate. there's no negotiations. i'd love to know what happened at the white house with senator schumer when he met with president trump today. if there was a deal that president trump may have gone back on. this is a shutdown the republicans are sleep walking into with zero effort to try and

divert it. >> let's dip back in to hear the vote. >> cornyn, kra po, cruz, daines, donnelly, insi, fisher, gardner, heller, kennedy, mansion, m murkows murkowski, perdue, roberts, rounds, rubio, tillis and young. mr. warner. senators voting in the negative. baldwin, blumenthal, booker, brown, cantwell, casey, durbin, feinstein, graham, harris,

hasson, heinrich, cane, king, leahey, menendez, murphy, murray, paul, peters, reed, sanders, shots, schumer, shaheen, smith, stab now, van hol lin, warner, warren, whitehouse and widen. mr. lee, no. mr. jones, aye. mr. tesser, no. mr. gill grabrand, no. >> we heard that senator lindsey graham did vote no. at least one republican vote no. we also just heard senator jon tester vote no. a democrat of montana who was one of the senators the republicans thought they were going to be able to get. this vote is clearly going against the republicans.

>> to hear lindsey graham voting no as we just did, jon tester voting no immediately after that call of the roll, at this point it doesn't look like there's a possibility for the republicans in this vote. >> no. i think thenlyhance mitch mcconnell has is slim to none and slim left town. you heard bob casey vote no. i only heard four democrats voting yes and with most of the democratic votes in. i think that basically it's clear this is going down to defeat. looks like there's going to be a shutdown. i agree with adam, there's no sign there's some last minute save coming here and the republicans have managed to shut

the government down even though they control all three branchs of the government. >> clearly on the count we have now, rand paul also voting know and mike lee voting no. the four democrats who said in advance they were going to vote yes, have voted yes but no other democrats moved to yes. so this is now officially hopeless for the republicans with three republicans voting against it so far, graham, rand pal paul, mike lee. adam, what happens next? >> if three republicans are voting no and four democrats yes, this is barely going to clear 50 votes. so it won't meet the 60 vote threshold it shows that mitch mcconnell wasn't close. he couldn't get his whole republican conference to vote yes on this thing. i just underscore my point about the lack of effort. mitch mcconnell didn't try to avert the shutdown, this is on

what you see in this vote is the white house and repubcans will not be able to claim that it was just the democrats who voted against this. >> exactly right. i think the fact that lindsey graham -- i'm curious of what happened to lindsey graham literally at the top of the hour when we started your show and now. because he sent out a press release saying he was going to vote in the affirmative for the c.r. so something must have happened that schumer was able to communicate in the last conversation with the president. so i would love to have been a fly on that wall and what switched his vote back to the no column. >> just the fact point on that is that he was willing to vote for a c.r. that had a different date. he was never willing to vote for this one. >> that's fair. that's right. >> and they were not able to switch it out to the different date. and adam explained to us the

prohibitions they had to trying to pull that off. but there was, maria theresa, huge pressure on the republicans to vote for this so that the republicans in the white house could claim that only democrats stood in the way of keeping the government open and that claim evaporated in this roll call vote. >> so the republicans wanted -- the republicans and the white house wanted to save face by what you described. what happens going to be interesting, though, is in the last couple months, lindsey graham has been able to get close to president trump trying to make sure she has some sort of line to the president directly and what is that going to mean aftertonight? the fact he crossed the white house, is not voting with the president will be how it impacts the rest of the legislation, immigration reform, is the president going to realize he has to concede some of the issues he didn't want to in order to ensure he has a shot of winning congress in 2018 for himself.

>> i want to go back to the mood we're seeing on the senate floor be there. you've spent so many hours sitting on that floor during these votes as has adam. there's not a whiff of tension in the room, a whiff of suspense. this is as routine looking a vote as it gets. the only difference is a normal vote in the middle of the day, everyone casts their votes and get out of there. they have nothing else to do after the vote. so you're seeing the clubhouse gather in complete and utter relaxation and resignation about what's happening. none of them believe there's a bis of suspension. >> this isn't legislating. they are casting a vote to cast a vote. i think it's a little bit of political gamesmanship. that is mitch mcconnell is trying to show that it's the democrats' fault for the government shutting down.

that's undone by the fact that three republicans are voting against him and the fact that at the core, we talked about the dates and the dates of the c.r., i want to g bac to the core point here, and that'sor months president trump has promised that he would do something to provide a path of legalization for the d.r.e.a.m.ers, they're 800,000 human beings at stake in this wrangling over dates and so on. i think the democrats are right to stand up and say we're not going to take the iou anymore, we'll fix it next week, next month. there are people put in limbo every day, and eventually in march the program ends. so the democrats are insisting, you promised you'd do something about it, you made the mess, you have to do something about it. i'm glad to see them standing up and doing something frmg when this vote is completed it looks like we'll be roughly 90 minutes

away from a government shutdown, what might happen in the 90 minutes? >> i don't think nib anything much is going to happen except there should be scrambling in the white house. a shutdown is an extremely difficult and arj wous task. you have to figure out who the nonessential employees and who the essentials are. which ones can't go to their offices, which ones have to. this is complicated. and we have an administration that is the least competent in history, i think. certainly in modernhistory. at level position with obama noted you have a top officials designated to deal with this. they don't have it in this white house. you have a huge book and they haven't looked at it. so we may see more chaos because the preparation leading up to

the shutdown is not likely to have been done in the kind of fashion we saw when it happened under president obama, when it happened under president reagan, when it happened under president clinton. >> what is it going to mean for the d.r.e.a.m.ers out there hoping for -- to be able to understand their future through daca when they see this vote in the united states senate tonight that's really on the democratic side a vote to protect them? >> you were reading my mind. i have to say, my brain right now is going through all the d.r.e.a.m.ers i know that have been sacrificing, calling members of congress, came out of the shadows. they are a testament of what happens when you work the levers of power even when you don't have a vote. one of our partner organizations brought in over 200 d.r.e.a.m.ers yesterday knocking on doors, talking to members of congress, this is the result of their efforts. i could not be prouder of these

young people. they put their life at risks so they can continue contributing to the american dream. this is not just a win for them but for their parents and everyone who has sacrificsacrif. i couldn't be prouder of them zblp twitt. >> twitter is going to be filled with suggestions of who nonessential personnel could be, including kellyanne conway who said the 60 vote in the senate is provided for in the constitution. we're going to laugh about this because, of course, it's not in the constitution. that is so typical of the incompetence that norm was talking about -- >> i'm sorry, lawrence, aclu is going to send her one of the pocket constitution for her to read. >> we're going to send her

instead the rules of the senate. >> so kellyanne knows it was invented in 1917. a few years after the constitution. >> to norm's point and kellyanne conway emphasizing it today, this is the most incompetent set of leaders we've had in the executive branch to date. >> who is essential is as incompetent as this. it's hard to tell who's in charge over there. for the sake of everybody out there who depends on government functions, i hope that they do find a way to make things operate at a somewhat reasonable level. however, it's hard to put much faith in their ability to have that happen given their overall level of incompincompeten. if you thought the lead up was bad, wait until it happens.

>> the best information we have at this moment on the count from our control room is 48 yes, 47 no at this point with the clock still open apparently on this vote. this may end up being shy of the 50. >> you know, lawrence, it will be shy of the 50 or maybe just a little bit over the 50, right at the 50. but nowhere near the resounding even near victory for mitch mcconnell. i want to go back to what norm was saying. i worked in the white house in 1995 when we had the longest government shutdown. it is complicated to do it and not mess things up even worse. the person usually in charge on of this process is the head of omb. we have a part time head of omb because the head of omb is busy trying to undo the consumer protection bureau. that usually falls to the deppy, but with we don't have a deputy

head of omb. we have hundreds of senior levels that trump hasn't filled, tried to fill. the key people are doing part time jobs or no jobs at all. the number of things that are going to go wrong here over the next few days is going to be a tragedy. >> i was struck today that we were on the threshold of a government shutdown and it was noted cruz's fault. that was really i thought -- that was worthy of breaking news in and of itself. if we all recall when ted cruz was pushing the government toward a shutdown, he was the most hated man in the united states senate by both sides, including his own party. and here we have us headed for a shutdown because president trump could not get mexico to pay for the wall and yet this republican party in the senate is still overwhelmingly attached and adoring president trump. >> and it's also worth mentioning that president trump

had tweeted some time ago we need a good shutdown. so it's not as if he has been working night and day to tlie and keep the government going, an essential function of his own. and it was amazing after that blowup in the last week that so few of his people in congress criticized him in even the slightest way. lindsey graham has stood out dramatically on that front and even some of the others who you might think would be upset about this and who may suffer in their states back home are silent about it. ted cruz has pretty much disappeared from public view. >> joining us now is nia tandem. hiary clinton came in second in the electoral college but she's a former senator, this is the kind of thing that when

former senators become president they are usually pretty adept at steering their way out of, unless they're faced with an opposition party in both the house and the senate. here you have a president who has his own party in the house and senate and he has managed to get it to the brink of a shutdown. >> i think what's central here is there are reports now from the caucus meeting democrats had in the senate just over the last hour, i think what's central here is people think they have an agreement with donald trump and he's -- basically walks away from it. there are reports schumer thought he had a global agreement with trump and then talked to his most conservative aides or right wing of the party and then basically walked away. i think what's happening in the caucus. >> let me interrupt you for a second. do you mean in schumer's meeting today with the president. >>yes. >> he came out of that meeting

believing me had an agreement with the president? >> yes. . senator blumenthal just spoke out saying chuck schumer thought he had a broad agreement with president trump and then that evapora evaporated. i think you see mitch mcconnell himself says he doesn't really know where the president is. and what's really happening here is that you have a white house incapae governing, which makes it impossible for the congress to do its job. basically republicans have a simple path here. there is a majority. it is a daca and chip deal. a leader has to decide that's what they want to do going forward. but mitch mcconnell can't seem to do that deal without donald trump. that's why we are where we are because donald trump is incapable of making a decision. >> i'm sure we'll be hearing through leaks or directly through senator schumer what he

believes was agreed to with the president today in that mete meeting but what we have seen is that the real hard line of staff opponents in the white house are stephen miller, which everyone has been focussing on, but also john kelly, john kelly turns out to be a very hard line opponent who basically arranged for an ambush of senator graham and durbin when they went up to the white house last week. >> right. just to step back here. the president created a mess with daca last september. he said he wanted congress to fix it and then sabotaged every effort to fix it which is why we are where we are. the democrats are saying if you want our votes for a bill, you need to negotiate with us. i think the truth is donald trump is a bully and democrats are done with being bullied. i applaud them for that because you're not going to get resolution with a bully by

caving with him time after time. >> do we have any sense of how unified the democrats were in that meeting when they had only four defections and those were four people who already announced they were going to vote with the republicans on this. it's not unusual for those meetings among democrats to have a lot more difference of opinion than just four democrats. >> what i've heard is that the caucus was pretty unified and pretty strong. i think the reason they are is because they recognize that democrats have made good faith efforts. schumer made a good faith effort today to come to a resolution with trump himself and he was incapable of making a deal. if you think about this week, we started off the week with a lot more democrats on the fence. they really pulled together to hold the line. i think they recognize if you want to solve these problems -- these are problems the american

people see as core issues, c.h.i.p. daca, 90% of americans think we should have a resolution of daca that protects d.r.e.a.m.ers. these are positions with 75, 80% of americans are on one side and really hard right is on the other. and democrats think they have a strong hand because they do. they're trying to solve these problems and the president is n incapable of making these decisions. >> tha y for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> i wanto go back to the pal. this vote is obviously being held open. it's extended beyond the normal vote clock. i haven't been able to follow exactly what's going on on the floor. what's your reading of why they're keeping this vote open? >> probably -- i'm speculating. if they close the vote everybody is going to go home. so there may be some order of business they need people to stick around for. something they need to pass by

unanimous consent. it could be something as simple as deciding what time to adjourn tonight and come back in the morning. there may be a last minute deal, but it doesn't look like that from what i can tell. at this point with no prospect of any further action tonight, as soon as this vote closes, senators are probably going to head for the exits and go home. there's sort of some housekeeping business they may need people to stick around for. that's my guess, but who knows right now. we're 90 minutes from a shutdown, anything could happen. >> ron, i'm not sure if they're working on any individual or individuals to try to flip a vote to try to get this into something that looks a little better for republicans, but usually the vote clock is kept open because there's a vote or two that they're working on. >> it's certainly possible they're trying to flip those three republicans who voted with the democrats back over.

it's possible there's someone on their way to vote. i think it's also possible they're trying to figure out the plan of action for tomorrow. i want to go back to how everyone blamed ted cruz for the shutdown in 2013, one person didn't. donald trump didn't. he said when the government shuts down it's the fault of the preside president. that was in 2013. so that clip of donald trump playing, that clip is going to come back to haunt him tomorrow morning as it should. in this case in particular it is his fault we are in this mess. >> go ahead, norm. >> there's one other element we haven't been talking about. this has been a dispute over c.h.i.p. and daca and the immigration issue. we haven't talked about the problem republicans have had

getting majority on the spending issues. this was only going to be three weeks. we've been punting since the first of october without any kind of spending deal. you have many house republicans who don't want any spending increases for defense or the domestic programs. those are deals that would not work with the senate. you have paul ryan who's been unwilling to give up the freedom caucus and go for democrats to get votes. so even if they had done this tonight it would have been till february. so they're going to have great difficulty getting past the the differences between conservative and radicals on how much government should be spending. >> the scene you look for on the floor in these situations is senator mcconnell or one of his whips working hard on some senator to flip pip don't see that happening. on the republican votes that voted no, there were four at

this point, lindsey graham, rand paul, mike lee and jeff flake. and there were five democrats who voted for this, joe donnelly, high dy hide camp, i don't have the total vote as it stands as of this moment and that's because i haven't been able to hear the roll calls as we've been sitting here from this coverage desk. so it's basically a trade there, four republicans for five democrats. that doesn't really move the republicans to where they have to go. >> no. i mean, they're -- they're ten votes away from the 60 they need to pass this. that's a million miles in senate terms. i want to add one thing to trump rooting for the shutdown. this is mitch mcconnell's second

shutdown on his wife. he was leader in 2013 when the government shutdown and here we are shutdowning again. you have trump rooting for a shutdown, mcconnell having overseen two shutdowns now at this point. this is what republicans do. they govern by crisis, let everything happen to the last minute, set up sick choice like the idea we have to choose to giving healthcare to 9 million kids and saving 700,000 children for deportation. so this is the result when it happens. >> i'm told by the control room the total count is 50-48. and that indicates there's one vote that has not yet been cast possibly at this point. >> correct. i don't think senator mccain is going to vote. so we expect 99 votes. it sounds like there's one person still missing. even if that one person is a

yes, vote, at 51 they're just barely over sea level, a million miles from the 60 votes they need. they're go not going to get there by this path of allowing stephen miller and tom cotton to be in charge of all the policy in the united states. if that's where it stand it is shutdown is going to go on for a long time. >> i think one of the things we're seeing, unlike the 2013 shutdown where mitch mcconnell was animated, he was trying to make a deal, he was frustrated and angry. in this he's almost stepping back and saying i'm going to let you see so you can better understand there's an art to making a deal, governance and you have to recognize that it's not going to be the steve miller agenda, it has to be something that passes the senate and you have to have cooperation by both parties. that's a different place that mitch mcconnell is not used to doing. he's used to being in the weeds.

instead he's almost absolving himself. it's fascinating to watch his strategy on this one. >> i'm told by the control room, mitch mcconnell seems to be taking his place at the mode yuyu podium, that it's mitch mcconnell who has not yet voted. what do you make of that. >> he's going to do probably a motion to reconsider, which is the leader can vote -- he'll probably vote no and what it does is -- he'll vote against the closure motion. it gives him the option to bring the bill back up, basically at a time of his choosing without having to go through the process of filing closure, which is a clunky process that takes about three days to set up a vote. so mcconnell is probably giving himself the option to recall the this vote. i think what he's likely to do is call the vote again, probably tomorrow morning, make democrats revote. this is something he's done in the past.

at that point -- what you might seem the him to do stont refile closure again. he may set up the same vote after that, he may make democrats take the same vote. what we found in the past is that entrenches people in oppositi opposition. it's never worked for him in the past. i think the significance of the 10 vote difference is it raises the question of how do you get out of this. with five democrats voting for this bill that's about as many as you can expect to get on a bill like this. it raises the question how are republicans going to get out of this. they're a million miles away from a deal that would avert the shutdown and it's likely to really drug and alcohol dr really drag on. >> the maneuver he just described is something leaders have to do frequently and they

see strange voting records, voting against their party on certain things. the other thing that's striking about this, it's very clear that mcconnell has not figured out what happens next and that's why this vote clock has been kept open. >> that's right, lawrence, lawr. and i think mitch mcconnell is betting wrongly but betting the democrats will wear this vote. and he wants them to vote over and over again so he thinks this will look like the democrats fault. i want to go back to that shutdown. in the early part his approval rating went down. it was bad for the president. he won in the end because newt gingrich was such an idiot. if democrats play their cards right, if they strong with the

d.r.e.a.m.ers and stand tough, the republicans are are going to wear the republicans on the hill, the republicans in the white house. that's where this politics is headed. >> and we've never had a president before who has ever said we need a good shutdown which this president has said. >> he doesn't understand what the government does and the full breadth of services, and that's why i think he's so flippant about it. either that or he simply doesn't care. he wants to make sure he's the president of the rich, and he wants to make sure he has access to that. and he's surrounded unfortunately by people who would say the government is working just fine because their aim is to drown out the government. so that is competing a keeping neighb narrative i recognize. it's particularly hard for them to say that they're going to hold the senate because the american people are not going to

forget this and because the president gloated and said we need a good shutdown. the fact he simply doesn't care is not only alarming but it lacks empathy, it lacks leadership and the adults in the room right now to shake him up. >> the losing side always likes to end up around 56, 57, something like that so they can claim an overwhelming majority was in favor of this. but you're not going to have that tonight. >> certainly not. and getting over 50 was something they wanted to do to at least say if it hasn't been for the filibuster, they wouldn't have been able to make this happen. we're focusing tonight on the senate as it should be. but look ahead and the more

pivotal figure could well be speaker ryan. at some point we know there are 56, 57 more votes in the senate for a bipartisan agreement, even much more along the lines of what lindsey graham, jeff flake and dick durbin had come up with. and if that happens, after a shutdown for a period of time, the question is whether paul ryan is going to have the ability or the guts to do what he would need to do to end this shutdown, which is to get more democrats ask give up a lot of those republicans. that's something the speaker sees as what killed his predecessor john boehner. but that may be the key. >> i want to bring in catherine, one of the founders of the women's march alliance. and it has been exactly one year since you assembled the

resistance in that march, that historic march in the united states and around the world. what is it like for you tonight on the eve of that anniversary to be watching this kind of resistance to the president unfold on the senate floor? >> not surprising. thank you for taking time for womens rights with an hour to government shutdown. we appreciate it. it's necessary. we're going to bring adrenaline. we're going to change the government. >> you've gone from a march to a giant march of women candidates who are entering the field this year. and that seems to have been in large part sparked by the march. >> it has been. women are coming out to say, you know what, not only do i have a voice, i need representation. and if i'm not going to get it by the current government, i'm going to run myself. and it's just incredibly beautiful. we're not going to see a shutdown once we get women on that board. >> i want to go back to adam.

and adam, this is becoming more and more extraordinary by the minute. every minute this vote stays open it becomes stranger. this really now is in the territory i have never seen before. >> yeah, and it makes you wonder. you know, look, this might be a situation where, you know, having walked up the abyss and stared into it -- i'm sorry, i keep being distracted by the floor, but the body language here is critical. so i'm trying to read it and respond. but having walked up to the abyss and looked into it, people might be having second thoughts. the problem is i don't know what plan b is. >> we are watching mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer walk off the senate floor together. they just did that in the upper left corner of your screen. that is the beginnings of a deal discussion in the making. and the vote has been left open on the floor while the two leaders leave the floor.

adam, go ahead. >> so the upper left corner would be the republican cloakroom. and that's probably where they went to have a private conversation. so i think that means that there is something afoot. again, it comes back to the point, though, what is the plan b? the only thing we've heard raised today is senator graham's clean cr, which doesn't have much of anything attached to it, but it would keep the lights on for a little bit longer. in order to put that vote up for ovote on the floor, you would need unanimous consent. and all of them would have to agree to hold that vote immediately. because setting up a vote takes three days in the senate at least. and then for it to become law, it would have to immediately go over to the house and be passed there. so the senate can't unilaterally

make a law, and the president would have to sign it. the fact that people are talking means there might be some progress. >> ron klain, this is literally a move i have never seen on the senate floor before. we've been in this kind of situation before, but they call the vote and they don't keep the clock running on the vote. the vote clock is sometimes 15 minutes, 20 minutes. when it goes a couple minutes over it's only because of some senators racing to get there. i've never seen the vote clock open in this tiype of situation where they're literally going to have a conversation between the republican leader and democratic leader before they announce this vote. it's either going to be 51-49 or 50-49. and here's the leader keeping the clock open, going into the

back room. this is something we haven't seen. >> you know, lawrence, thing on thing -- and it's a speculation of course -- the only thing i can predict is not really related to this vote, but they're trying to come up with a game plan how to solve this tomorrow. that means there would still be a government shutdown tonight. i think it's almost inconceivable that could be averted at this stage in the game. but there might be a theory how to quickly get something moving tomorrow, and they want to get that resolved before they announce a vote count and the senators head to the exits. but there's almost no prospect at some point in time we're not going to technically have a government shutdown. and i do think the prospects of a longer shutdown are higher than the prospects of a shorter shutdown. >> he's open to a short idea of something that takes them into

monday, possibly tuesday. is that the discussion in the back room right now? >> democrats are not going to agree to a three-week extension now. if they do, they're going to lose an awful lot of their own supporters including the d.r.e.a.m.ers if you just keep pushing that. if you do it for a few days hoping that you can reach some kind of a deal that will be more long lasting, then you're going to see democrats go along with it. i can't imagine much of anything else at this point. and i can't also imagine that making its way through before midnight. so at least for a brief period, no matter what, we're going to have a shutdown. >> adam, to that point, if they were going to come out of that room with a 24-hour or a two to three-day cr, they could pull that off before midnight, couldn't they? >> the senate could pass it.

you'd have to have wonderful cooperation. i wonder whatever room they're on the phone, because in order to have a shutdown -- they could walk out of there in the next ten seconds and get it passed through the house, but the senate would have to have it pass and get it to the president. i would keep emphasizing it would take extreme cooperation on this point. >> and that is going to have to be the "last word" on this extraordinary hour of united states senate coverage. we'll see how much cooperation emerges from that cloakroom. thank tuesday our panel. that is tonight's "last word." msnbc's breaking news coverage of this vote