Good Monday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing. Stay tuned after the show for a message from Walmart.

And I'm Anna Palmer. We're in day 17 of the shutdown. The one positive element our sources took out of yesterday's meeting at the White House is that this government funding stalemate needs to get much worse before it gets solved. And that is what began happening yesterday.

Democrats were put off when at the beginning of the meeting, the White House did not

have the budgetary information ready that they had asked for.

Democrats complained that it took 45 minutes for the administration to come up with it.

Meanwhile, Republicans say that Vice President Mike Pence simply asked for

OMB to dig up more information because Democrats were asking for it. They had to produce information

in one day. The White House sent a letter to the Hill detailing what it wants as part of his

government funding bill. The Trump administration is asking for $5.7 billion for a steel barrier,

doubling down on a position that Democrats

have rejected countless times. Something else that stuck out, the administration is looking for

$798 million more dollars for detention beds. Democrats have been trying to slash the bed funding number

for years. House Democrats are going to spend time this week passing individual appropriation bills

in an attempt to reopen government. Republicans have said they don't intend to reopen government

in a piecemeal fashion. It bears repeating. This is a bit of a phony fight, and it is mostly a

political problem at the moment. America has a physical barrier in places, and Congress has funded

a physical barrier for years.

If you put Republicans and Democrats on truth serum, and we took a step outside the political vortex we're in,

lawmakers would concede that there are places that a wall-like structure is needed,

and other places where technology would suffice.

The wall has become a symbol for both parties. There is no White House

meeting scheduled at the moment. By the end of the day, this will be the second longest

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