Sen. King On Shutdown Talks: "Like Five-Year-Olds Playing Soccer"

WBUR's Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with Independent U.S. Senator Angus King on the latest developments in Washington over the government shutdown and debt ceiling limbo. He was part of a group of Democratic and Independent senators that powwowed over the weekend with one of the Senate's lead Republican negotiators.

Excerpts:

"Have you ever seen five-year-olds play soccer? That's sort of where we are now. I don't even have words to describe it. It's just chaos."

"It's really important, I think, that people understand that this is a faction of a faction. I mean, it's a piece of the Republican party that the speaker is trying to mollify that I don't think they're ever going to be mollified...It's just getting more and more poisonous."

"Any responsible person knows that we shouldn't even be flirting with this debt limit thing. But, boy, is it frustrating to have to work so hard to do things that are obvious and should have been done in 15 minutes: pay the country's bills and run the government. I mean, how much more basic is it than that? Instead, we're in this absolutely bizarre and very dangerous situation. I'm, frankly, stunned that we're still playing these games at this late hour."

Angus King, senator from Maine.