Michael Barbaro

Tyler, how does the White House, your beat, how does it talk about its strategy during this shutdown of essentially weaponizing the shutdown to, in theory, hurt Democrats?

I have to imagine that when you're laying off 4,000 people from a bunch of agencies, and I think one of them was Homeland Security, there's absolutely no way you can contain the negative impacts to one party.

Is there a sense in the White House that that can last if, for example, air traffic controllers...

don't get paid, stop showing up at work, and suddenly air traffic is a nightmare across the country.

Or when healthcare premiums are going up at the end of this year, which is what Democrats are banking on happening, and it's why they shut the government down, because the president and Republicans won't work with them to...

reestablish those subsidies?

Is that their thinking?

Or do they recognize that the politics could shift from 50-50 back to something much more damaging for the president?

But do you remember, Tyler, and I bet you do, and Katie and Tony, feel free to weigh in on this, there was a brief moment about five or six days into the shutdown where the president, I believe in the Oval Office, looks at the cameras and says...

I think we should probably negotiate with the Democrats to come up with some good solution.

And by good solution, I mean we should be talking to them about health care.

And it was like, oh, the president recognizes that the health care situation in the country is potentially bad for him, bad for his party.

He wants to do a deal.

And then it never happened again.

As if, like, someone had said to him, that's a very bad idea.

OK, well, when we come back, I want to, Katie, ask you what this all looks like from the Hill, from Congress, and whether you think Tyler's right that Congress is driving the agenda in this shutdown or whether it's really the president.

So we'll be right back.

Katie, right before the break, and Tyler, please tell me if I'm correctly channeling you, you suggested that congressional Republicans, to a degree, are dictating how long will the shutdown go on and under what terms will it end, even as Trump, it seems, is very much dictating who experiences the pain of the shutdown.

Again, Tyler, correct me if I'm wrong.

I want to understand, then,