| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
President Trump's Shutdown Role
00:15:02
|
||
| To live and better connections from our tourist areas to the rest of the city. | ||
| So those are the things that are going to keep us busy for the next 12 months. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Mayor Bowser, you have been a great leader in organization, a wonderful host, a great friend to all of us. | |
| Let's show our gratitude to Mayor. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Mayor. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Mayor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And a look at the White House's Thursday morning. | |
| Any moment now, President Trump expected to hold his first cabinet meeting of the year. | ||
| It'll also be the first time we see him with Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam, as lawmakers and others continue to demand she step down after the fatal shootings of two civilians by ICE agents in Minnesota, while Congress works to find agreement on funding Homeland Security beyond tomorrow's appropriations deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown. | ||
| Again, expecting President Trump's cabinet meeting to begin shortly. | ||
| When it does, we'll have it live here on C-SPAN. | ||
| So we start this morning with Congress once again heading towards a partial shutdown over immigration concerns. | ||
| Now, we've heard that there has been some movement overnight towards a possible deal with the White House and Democrats. | ||
| Remember, Democrats are demanding substantial changes to the way that DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, operates. | ||
| Let's turn to this New York Times piece from overnight. | ||
| The headline here is, Trump and Schumer move toward possible deal to avert a shutdown. | ||
| The president and the top Senate Democrat were discussing an agreement to split up Homeland Security funding from a broader spending package and negotiate new limits on immigration agents. | ||
| If we go down just a little bit in the article, it says that under the emerging plan, according to two officials knowledgeable about it, the Senate would split off legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security from a six-bill package of spending measures needed to keep the military, health programs, and other federal agencies funded for the remainder of the fiscal year. | ||
| The Senate would pass those bills before a Friday midnight deadline, and Congress would also consider a short-term extension for Homeland Security operations, which would prevent an interruption of services by the Transportation Security Agency, Coast Guard, and federal emergency management agency. | ||
| FEMA, of course, you know, handles the snowstorms that are impacting a significant portion of the U.S. Joining us now to set the stage on what we can expect today from Congress is Siobhan Hughes, Wall Street Journal Congressional Reporter. | ||
| Siobhan, thank you so much for joining us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good to be here. | |
| All right. | ||
| So some movement overnight, but of course, that very big vote happening on that six-bill package that would fund several departments right now, including DHS, to avoid a partial shutdown that's happening today. | ||
| Lay out what folks can expect to see from Congress. | ||
| So that's an 1130 vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is, as the article puts it, a test vote, a procedural vote. | |
| You wouldn't need 60 votes in order to move on to the next step and actually get onto the bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's possible that you will see this vote collapse. | |
| You not get the 60 votes, but that should not be a sign of alarm. | ||
| The Senate can always kind of come back and through some Senate magic, a unanimous consent agreement, especially reach their deal and put that on the floor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But a lot of the terms are not there yet. | |
| And there are kind of two big things I would point out here. | ||
| Number one, the most important word in that story was President Trump. | ||
| It does seem like President Trump is involved here and he is going to be key. | ||
| And that relates to the next point, which this still has to get through the House. | ||
| So the bottom line is this is an encouraging sign for avoiding a shutdown, but the country and the Congress are not quite there yet. | ||
| Right. | ||
| There was some talk about, you know, there was not a lot of guidance from the White House on these democratic demands. | ||
| But I just want to go through these very quickly for our audience here, Siobhan. | ||
| What the Senate Democrats outlined last night as to what they want to see changes. | ||
| That means ending roving patrols from the DHS, tightening the rules on warrants, and require ICE to coordinate with local authorities, enforce accountability and uniform code of conduct, require agents to take their masks offs and wear body cameras and carry ID. | ||
| Can you talk a little bit about how the Democrats have come to these demands and changes to GHG? | ||
| Yeah, and so Democrats cast these as a very narrow set of demands. | ||
| They are not doing something like calling to abolish ICE or asking to take away the $75 billion that was granted to ICE in the reconciliation bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're trying to focus on things they think will actually make a difference. | |
| What they describe is the exact word in that article. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What they say are roving bands of agents coming to round up people they suspect of being there illegally. | |
| Some of it is very self-explanatory, the mandatory body cameras, that ICE agents not have masks, that they carry identification. | ||
| Where this gets a little trickier and where the ask is not quite specific yet and the deal is not quite done has to do with the issue of the requirement for warrants. | ||
| There does seem to be some support for requiring warrants to force your way into somebody's home. | ||
| It appears that the federal government has been relying on what they call administrative warrants, which is a concept that their legal officers came up with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But then even beyond that, the immigration law dating back to the 1950s does allow for warrantless arrests. | |
| And that is what Democrats view as a really, really big part of the problem. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it's not exactly clear how they would like to change that. | |
| What are you hearing from Senate Republicans? | ||
| Obviously, Trump is going to loom large in these conversations. | ||
| And I think multiple senators want him to be in charge of making a deal with Democrats. | ||
| But in some ways, Senate Republicans have kind of ignored these Democratic demands. | ||
| What we have been hearing in the hallways from a lot of Republicans is that they too feel that what has happened in Minneapolis has simply gone too far. | ||
| And so you see somebody like John Houstead from Ohio, who's up for reelection, breaking with the president. | ||
| Tom Tillis of North Carolina, a retiring member, very loudly breaking with the president. | ||
| And so you're seeing the ground really shift under the president's feet and him losing members of his own party on this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that, I think, is what has opened up the possibility for a deal. | |
| Now, you mentioned, obviously, that the House would have to vote on this if there were changes made, if there was a deal made by the Democrats in the White House. | ||
| Does that feel likely that the House would come back and vote to keep the government open? | ||
| So this is really the big question, Mark. | ||
| My reporting shows that when this package made it through the House, the only reason it made it through was because the White House leaned hard on Republicans, particularly that conservative bloc in the House Freedom Caucus, to vote for the Department of Homeland Security bill, which they did not want to do because it already included certain restrictions on immigration authorities, $20 million, for example, for body cameras. | ||
| And they reluctantly went along with the president. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so what they would be asked to do essentially is to not only accept a deal they already didn't like, but to swallow even more changes. | |
| And my reporting is that unless President Trump gets involved and the White House sort of says, no, no, no, you must vote for this again, the country could be in for a little bit of shakiness in terms of a shutdown. | ||
| So let's say that the President doesn't get as involved as people think that he should be, or that he does get involved and yet a deal is not made by the Democrats. | ||
| Is there a plan B happening here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, there are always plan B's in the sense that there are a whole lot of options on the table, but right now this really is the plan B. | |
| The plan B is to fund five of the bills, do a continuing resolution for that sixth containing the Department of Homeland Security to buy some time to work out a deal. | ||
| That really is the backup plan. | ||
| So in your estimation, being on the hill walking those halls, does a government shutdown right now feel inevitable, or is there wiggle room here for both sides to come and stave off? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, at this point, it does seem like at least a short-term shutdown is inevitable. | |
| The Senate is supposed to be in tomorrow, and it looks like they would really like to try to reach a deal by tomorrow. | ||
| But of course, February 1st is coming this weekend, and it does not seem likely that the House is going to return by then. | ||
| The question really is, are we going to end up in a technical shutdown where it's on a weekend or just a few days, or if it is going to be something of a longer duration? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I do not see signs we are in for another record shutdown. | |
| I do not see signs that there are going to be people who miss paychecks. | ||
| There's very little appetite for that, but you can't totally rule that out yet. | ||
| Siobhan Hughes of the Wall Street Journal, Congressional Reporter, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
| And so we're sticking with the shutdown as it looks, like Siobhan said, potentially inevitable that there would be some short-term shutdown as Democrats want some changes on DHS funding. | ||
| Let's turn to your phone calls. | ||
| Mark from Oklahoma, a Democrat. | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I think that they need to restructure the immigration officers. | |
| And I think also that all the National Guard troops that take part in it, their troops should all have to wear body cams. | ||
| And what is hope that they had to have it up within 24 hours unedited so everybody could see what's happening? | ||
| And so are you supportive of Democrats basically threatening to shut down the government if those things don't happen? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm basically for that because I'm seeing a lot of money going into immigration now and seeing a lot of mistakes that I think we could use elsewhere in the government like Social Security, Medicaid or so, and if it's going to cost us a lot more later in lawsuits down the line and stuff and badwill around the world, is it really worth it? | |
| This is Mark from Oklahoma, a Democrat. | ||
| Michael from Pennsylvania, a Republican, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you for taking my call and thanks for C-SPAN. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Great. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| And I really do believe that all this is a false narrative which has been revved up by the media. | ||
| The media does not, they want to jump to conclusions about Trump, about the immigration, the problem that's going on there. | ||
| I think the ICE agents have a tough, a very tough job to do, and it is not made any easier by the government officials in places like Minneapolis and Michigan, where really what they're doing is protecting that huge scandal that's going on in Minnesota. | ||
| And that is in Minnesota and so many other places like California, Ohio. | ||
| It's really a lot more rampant than the Democratic Party wants to admit. | ||
| And I think they're covering up for that. | ||
| And the only ace, the only ace in the hole, the only card in the hole that they have to play is how bad this immigration thing is. | ||
| When it's obvious, and that latest footage that came from CNN, I mean, BBC shows that this fella was not a, Betty, Bertie is not really. | ||
| The video when Alex Freddy, the person who BBC assumes to be Alex Breddy, kicked the federal agent's car. | ||
| Are you talking about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Yeah, thank you. | ||
| He is a legitimate. | ||
| Well, let me ask you, Michael, let me ask you. | ||
| So you would not be supportive of the White House making a deal with Democrats to take out the DHS funding of that six-bill package that's expected to hit the floor today so that they can negotiate further changes on DHS, like things like masks or wearing your ID or having warrants when they go to enforce the immigration laws. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I would not. | |
| I think they're making, I think Trump has made the right step in putting Tom Homan back in charge. | ||
| He has worked under Democratic and Republican administrations and has a lot of respect. | ||
| Obama gave him the Medal of Honor, I believe, for his work at the border. | ||
| And he's continuing to do that. | ||
| And I think he will do it in a fair way. | ||
| I don't think that body cams for everybody is necessarily a good idea. | ||
| You can take things out of context. | ||
| You can gin up a lot of antipathy towards the border agents, which has already been done. | ||
| They complain about him wearing masks and things like that. | ||
| And, well, the protesters wore masks for a long time. | ||
| And what people seem to forget is that there has been a lot of doxing of these ICE agents who are there doing a job. | ||
| And that's always been their job. | ||
| And their job is changing, not because of how they're doing things, but how the local officials are trying to protect their turf in Democratic states, which is protecting their votes, protecting their voter fraud, protecting a lot of the scandals that are going on, and protecting crime in the cities. | ||
| And that's really what's happening. | ||
| I really don't think a lot of, I think so much of this is false narratives ginned up by the media. | ||
| Sandra from Brooklyn, New York, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I've listened to the gentleman speaking. | ||
| Sometime ignorance is really bliss. | ||
| Look, the Republicans are doing everything that they can do to make people's lives miserable. | ||
|
Republicans Making Lives Miserable
00:03:54
|
||
|
unidentified
|
And this thing with the border, it needs, I'm sorry, the thing with ICE, they need to go. | |
| They really need to go. | ||
| When they turn around and can gas a family and a six-month-old baby has to be put in the hospital and they don't even come to the aid of the people that they gassed, it's the people on the streets that was helping them. | ||
| When they can turn around and murder two civilians and nobody knows who did it except for Noam and the White House because the public don't know. | ||
| They don't know. | ||
| You've got mass people running around. | ||
| You don't know what affiliation they are. | ||
| So no. | ||
| I say that the Democrats hold firm. | ||
| Don't give in. | ||
| Don't give in. | ||
| How many other people have to die before people turn around and realize something is wrong? | ||
| When people call them Gestapos, that's exactly what they mind you of. | ||
| When I looked and I saw all that gas in the streets, orange, green, white, you couldn't even see. | ||
| What kind of chemicals are they using that down the road these people won't wind up being sick? | ||
| Well, Sandra, let me ask you, because according to this New York Times article, what is being negotiated right now by the White House and Democrats would be that they would split DHS off from that six-bill package that needs to pass by February 1st. | ||
| But they would also pass a short-term extension for Homeland Security options, which would prevent interruption of services for the TSA, Coast Guard, and FEMA while a bill is being drafted between lawmakers and the White House on spending. | ||
| But to Siobhan's point earlier in the day, it's a narrow set of options. | ||
| They're not asking to peel back any of that $75 billion that was provided to them in the bill that passed last year. | ||
| So would you be supportive of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I would be supportive of that if this was any other person in the White House. | |
| But they make deals with you, and this is the problem. | ||
| They make deals with you, and somehow they manage to screw you. | ||
| They did it with Schumer. | ||
| They worked out a deal with him and turned around and profit that deal. | ||
| So, I mean, again, it would have to be in specific writing so that they could not undermine what is being done. | ||
| That would be the only way. | ||
| That would be the only way I would agree to that. | ||
| They would have to have them sign something almost in blood to make sure that they couldn't turn around and change it. | ||
| Because everything that comes out of their mouth is a lie. | ||
| Brad from Texas, a Republican. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, everybody. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I see everything goes back to blame of the Democratic Party flooding our country with illegals. | |
| They didn't need to do that. | ||
| They lied for four years. | ||
| Now they want to protect their new voter base, and they're paying people to get on the streets and act like a fool. | ||
| This could all end with a simple law that says you put your hands on a federal agent, you have a federal charge on you. | ||
| It's so simple. | ||
| But the Democrats are fighting like hell. | ||
| They always will. | ||
| They're the party of Satan, and they want to bring down a Christian nation. | ||
| Ronald from New York, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
Why ICE Agents Wear Masks
00:00:56
|
||
|
unidentified
|
In regard to the ICE agents wearing masks, I want to emphasize that these people don't really want to have to wear masks. | |
| If we lived in a civilized society where people's privacy was respected, masks would be totally unnecessary because there wouldn't be any people from the other side trying to get personal private information On where ICE agents lived, | ||
| on their families, so they could be threatened or hurt or killed just by people who don't approve of ICE agents. | ||
| That's the only reason, unfortunately, that it has become necessary for the ICE agents to wear masks. | ||