Good Tuesday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

Stay tuned after the show for a message from the National Retail Federation.

And I'm Anna Palmer. We're on day 25 of the government shutdown. The White House sent a bunch of

moderate House Democrats' invitations to meet with the president yesterday, as Heather Kagle and Jake first reported late Monday afternoon.

The idea is twofold. The White House is trying to show activity and is trying to look reasonable

by hosting negotiation meetings. In a practical sense, they are also working over rank and file

Democrats to try and build pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to negotiate.

We're in uncharted waters here since this is by far the

longest shutdown ever. It's also the most intractable negotiation we've ever seen. So it stands to

reason the White House is trying to do something, anything, to unlock the negotiations.

We are skeptical this will work, at least immediately, because the House is not the Senate.

Any deal will have to be a

Pelosi-Schumer Trump production. Getting a few moderates to moan will grab cable headlines,

but it won't change the fact that most House Democrats remain firmly opposed to Trump and his wall,

and Pelosi understands that better than anyone. We do get the sense, though, that both sides

are getting sick of

the shutdown. Of course, most White House aides want an off-ramp because the president is getting the

line's share of the blame for the federal funding gap. But House Democratic aides are beginning to get

a bit concerned that it will be tough to maintain their position as more people miss paychecks

and more of the government grinds to a halt.

At the moment, President Donald Trump is firm on both building a barrier and on the $5 billion

he wants for it. He says he's negotiating, but at the moment, he's not. If he came down publicly

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