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Anchored by Jake Tapper, The Lead airs at 4 p.m. ET on CNN.
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national lead
Negotiating the shutdown
It's been a week and a half since Congress failed to reach any kind of agreement to avoid a government shutdown.
Both sides believe they have staked out the moral high ground, and have argued that it's the other side that is unreasonable.
Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Florida, joins CNN's special show, "Shutdown Showdown."
national lead
GOP congressman on negotiations: I don't think it's positive to take anything off the table
Elected officials held meetings late into Thursday night, trying to hammer out a deal to temporarily increase the Treasury Department’s authority to borrow money to pay the nation's debt obligations. If lawmakers fail to raise the debt limit within a week, the government will not be able to pay all of its bills.
A group of House Republicans met with President Barack Obama earlier in the evening, making an offer to raise the debt ceiling for six weeks, in exchange for further negotiations. Obama didn't immediately say yes to the GOP offer, but he didn't say no either. The White House called it "a good meeting."
But how do the two sides get around the elephant in the room, which is the defunding of the Affordable Care Act, and talks of reopening the government?
Asked if defunding Obamacare is now off the table, tea party-backed Republican Congressman Steve Southerland, of Florida, said nothing should be left out of current negotiations.
"I don't think that it's positive to take anything off the table," said Southerland, who attended the meeting at the White House.
The president probably thinks it's positive to take defunding his signature piece of legislation off the bargaining table.
"You have to have an attitude of respect," said Southerland. "Today I think we had that. And we would not commit to anything outside that working group that's working right now as we speak."
For more of our interview with Congressman Steve Southerland, watch the video above.
pop lead
Kimmel and Kanye clear the air
It's a sad day in our nation when members of Congress and the White House could learn a thing or two from Kanye West and a comedian.
West and Jimmy Kimmel decided to squash their short-lived but quite entertaining feud last night on Kimmel's show.
It all started when Kimmel did a spoof of a Kanye West interview on BBC radio a few weeks back, one in which the musician was characteristically boastful and oddly resentful.
Kimmel used child actors to reenact the interview and apparently, Kanye West isn't a fan of having his own mini-me. He immediately took to Twitter and lashed out at the talk show host.
Last night, West attempted to explain why he got so worked up.
money lead
Economist: Even with a debt ceiling deal, a prolonged shutdown will inflict 'real damage'
A proposed short-term deal to raise the debt ceiling is in the works, and if it passes, it would allow the U.S. to continue paying its debt obligations through November 22.
But what happens on Wall Street if a new deal cannot be reached by the end of next month?
"It will be tough sledding for the market," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. "There will be a lot of ups and downs in the market over the next few days, few weeks until they nail this down concretely."
If the government remains shut down, as seems to be the current Republican plan in the House, that may affect how investors react to even a short term debt ceiling deal.
FULL POST
politics lead
Analysis: A possible way to re-open the government
A deal to temporarily lift the debt ceiling is in the works. If it comes through, it would enable the U.S. to continue paying its debt obligations through the end of November.
But what about that pesky issue of passing a continuing resolution to fund, and thus reopen the U.S. government?
"The way out of this is yes, there is some sort of fig leaf of concessions at some point that's mixed in with continuing resolutions that get passed with a mix of Democratic and Republican folks," said CNN political commentator and columnist for The New York Times Ross Douthat.
"The issue here is that Boehner clearly feels like he can't go all the way down that path yet without basically having his party in the House fall apart around him," said Douthat.
"We're already hearing Senate Republicans talking about attaching spending measures that would reopen the government to this debt ceiling lifting bill which we haven't seen yet," said chief Washington correspondent for Yahoo! News Olivier Knox.
"But you're talking about a situation in which the House could vote on its own pure version of this legislation, (it) goes to the Senate, Senate Republicans attach measures reopening the government, it goes back to the House. Now Speaker Boehner's hands are essentially clean, and he can go back and say look, we're up against the White House and both parties in the Senate," said Knox.
"He doesn't have 218 votes for anything over the last week or so. He's going to need Democratic votes, and so hopefully Democratic votes with Senate Republicans will help resolve this," said president for the Center for American Progress Neera Tanden.
For more of our political roundtable, watch the video above.
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