There is little time for the two sides to reach a deal. It's all on Reid and McConnell

It’s now the Harry and Mitch show.

After Senate Democratic leaders rejected a proposal Saturday by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to end the budget impasse, the burden to find a solution now falls squarely on Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — two shrewd tacticians who have a long, complicated and contentious personal and political history with each other.


Republican senators, eager for a way out of a shutdown fight that has roiled their party’s brand, reacted to the leadership discussions positively, believing that the two crafty dealmakers could concoct a proposal to reopen the government and avert the nation’s first-ever default as soon as next week.

Reid, however, was notably more dour.

When asked if he is confident he could reach a deal with McConnell, Reid told POLITICO: “No.”

( PHOTOS: Lawmakers arrive for budget showdown)

“I’m just doing my best, I’m not confident in anything in the way Republicans have acted,” the Nevada Democrat said.

McConnell, along with his close ally Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), quietly met with Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) early Saturday to find a way out of the first possible default in U.S. history when the Treasury Department begins to run out of money Oct. 17. While senators said it was a positive discussion, how the impasse is resolved from here remains a major question going forward.

“Very pleasant” was how Reid described the meeting.

“They had a good talk this morning,” said Schumer, who has had about a dozen Senate Republicans reach out to him in recent days pushing for a deal.

“We had a good meeting,” McConnell added.

( Also on POLITICO: House takes back seat after W.H. rejects budget plan)

McConnell is widely viewed as being in a disadvantage in the talks. The GOP leader wants a way out of the politically damaging crisis, and Reid is not willing to give a whole lot.

McConnell, sources said, is eager to lock in lower-funding numbers at next year’s $967-billion level after the automatic sequestration cuts take effect. That number is too low for Democrats, but sources familiar with the talks said they were willing to agree to a stop-gap spending bill until mid-January at the $986 billion level before the new round of sequestration cuts take effect. It’s unclear whether McConnell would go for that.

Moreover, Democrats want a long-term increase in the $16.7 trillion national debt ceiling — potentially through next year — something Republicans blocked in a 53-45 vote in the Senate on Saturday afternoon. They want something far longer than what Collins proposed, which was through the end of January.

It’s far from clear whether Republicans will get anything out of Obamacare, even though GOP demands to gut the controversial law was the chief disagreement that spurred the first government shutdown in 17 years. Potentially, Republicans may get a two-year delay of the 2.3 percent medical device tax in the law, given the levy’s unpopularity even among Democrats. Moreover, in recent days, Republicans have been asking for a requirement for income verification of Obamacare subsidies as part of a deal.

( Also on POLITICO: House floor tactics spill into acrimony)

But it remains to be seen whether Democrats will accept those Obamacare demands, especially since they have drawn a hard-line against any negotiations and instead called for a “clean” increase to the national debt ceiling and extension of government funding.

Reid said Saturday that the fight over the health care law is no longer the issue for the GOP in the shutdown fight. The issue, he said, was “to do anything they can do divert attention from the fools they’ve made of themselves on Obamacare.”

Reid said that he and McConnell would probably speak by phone before markets open Monday and during a rare Sunday session of the Senate.

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The 71-year-old McConnell, who joined the Senate in 1985, and 73-year-old Reid, who arrived in 1987, both have risen to power in the Senate as savvy inside players, one-time appropriators and former party whips. While both men have long professed to have a collegial relationship with one another, things have been rocky between the two of them for much of this year — with acrimonious battles over gutting the filibuster and McConnell’s frustration that Reid is quietly propping up his Democratic opponent in his reelection bid.

They didn’t talk for a while, and Friday’s meeting was the first time they had negotiated directly during the bitter shutdown fight.

In an interview last week, Reid said things were “no different” between him and McConnell these days.

“It’s not as if we go to dinner every week,” he said of McConnell.

But in a press conference Saturday afternoon, Reid sounded a bit more positive about his long-time colleague.

“Sen. McConnell and I have been in this body a long time, we’ve done things for a long time together,” Reid said. “I know him, he knows me. We don’t agree on everything, that’s as you know probably an understatement.

“But we were whips together, a long time ago we have fond memories of our days together when others could take the responsibility we now have to take,” Reid continued. “We did some good things together, we revamped government together as whips. This is what legislating is all about.”

While both dominate their home-state politics, each man is unpopular back home — something that McConnell will have to contend with as he tries to cut a deal with Reid and faces a tough reelection next year.

Last year, McConnell was the chief architect behind the fiscal cliff deal, after reaching a bitter impasse with Reid and instead reaching an eleventh-hour accord with Vice President Joe Biden. But McConnell came under fire from the right because the deal raised tax rates on wealthy Americans. And as he faces a primary challenger back home, ahead of a potentially tough Democratic opponent, many in Washington believe McConnell is hamstrung and unable to stick his neck out in the latest fiscal crisis engulfing the Capitol.

But McConnell has thoroughly rejected suggestions that his hands are tied, something he voiced at a private White House meeting with President Barack Obama and congressional leaders earlier this month, sources said.

Now, McConnell is in a prime spot to cut a deal. But if he reaches a deal with Reid, it almost certainly will fall short of the demands of conservatives in the House, opening him up to criticism from the right.

Nevertheless, Republican senators are eager for a way out of the mess — and have their faith invested in McConnell to figure out a way forward.

“In the end, Sen. McConnell and Sen. Reid have to come up with a recommendation for us about how to open the government, how to pay our bills by raising the debt limit and how to reduce the debt,” Alexander said. “We have to move forward. I think we have to do the best we can, send it to the House, and then they’ll do the best they can.”

“As long as people are still negotiating and still talking, that’s positive,” Collins told reporters, though she, like others, were frustrated at Reid’s rejection of her plan.

“We can’t wait for the House to save us, we have to find our own bipartisan path forward,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said McConnell briefed GOP senators on the status of his discussions with Reid, but he did not offer further details.

“Mitch and Harry are involved in negotiations and all of us want to support those,” Corker said following a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans. “The centerpiece is Reid and McConnell.”

Kevin Cirilli and John Bresnahan contributed to this report.