president s dealmaking skills, but first, our kaitlan collins at the white house with the very latest. so, 31 days into this, still no deal. what are you learning? reporter: well, we re essentially where we were when we started this 31 days ago. now, as you noted, mitch mcconnell is expected to introduce the president s proposal tomorrow. that could set us up for potentially a thursday vote. but not one democrat has voiced support for the president s proposal, and a senior democratic aide tells our hill team that this is essentially a nonstarter. they don t think it s going to be able to get 60 votes to pass, even if the white house hoping they can convince some democrats to come over to their side. now, the white house knows there s very much a possibility that it won t go anywhere, but then, at least, they feel they ll have the optics on their side. they have made it look like they are at least trying to move the negotiations forward and it s the democrats who are refusing to come
no democrats have publicly voiced support for the president s proposals, so far, there s only been criticism from democratic leaders including senator chuck schumer. they re hoping they can get some support, at least persuade them to come over to their side of this, even though right now a senior democratic aide is predicting to our hill team that they will not be able to get the 60 votes to pass that. however, the white house believes that by putting this forward, they will be able to ratchet up the pressure on democrats and put them on defense. president trump making an unannounced visit to the martin luther king jr. memorial in washington today. it s a great day. a beautiful day. thank you for being here. reporter: but declining during his two-minute-long trip to answer any questions on the longest government shutdown in history. come and talk about the shutdown at all? now 31 days old with 800,000 federal workers bracing to miss their second paycheck. hopes to end the stalemate
end this shutdown. lawmakers have been invited and accepted the invitation to in to the white house tomorrow around 11:30 for round two after yesterday s round and round in su circles. no word on the shutown as it stretches into day 14 tomorrow. that dubious milestone of two weeks in a matter of 24 hours. at this point, it s a new congress, new political reality for the president, and it is a real question mark as to whether or not this government will reopen after this partial shutdown any time before the weekend. have we nailed down if any lawmakers are going to be at the white house tomorrow to continue negotiations? pardon me for checking my phone and e-mails. i think we saw a note from our hill team and i m just trying to scroll to find that now. i think we ll see nancy pelosi at the white house tomorrow. so she ll definitely be here. that will be the first time the president will come face to face with speaker pelosi, right, rather than speaker designate pelosi. she ll have h
a member of congress. meadows is a current member of congress. so that s interesting. there are a lot of presidents that think that s interesting. what s your take on this? it surprised me of steve mnuchin telling other people he pretty much just works four days a week and as treasury secretary one thing. i m sure the chief of staff has stuff to do on fridays. yep. reporter: not such a bad gig by comparison, right. look? some of the men on the list, all men, some didn t want to be seen looking as if they wanted the job and others of them really didn t want the job at all. i think we can now move mark meadows, the republican congressman from north carolina, from that second category to the first because even as he was signaling through sources speaking to us that he didn t had no interest in the position he just in the last hour or so released a statement that our hill team got and it says the following. serving as chief of staff would be an honor. the president has a long list
coming on. thank you. we have news for you just in. mitch mcconnell has been reelected majority leader by his republican colleagues. no surprise there. but now it is confirmed from our hill team which means for at least the next couple year, mitch mcconnell is the one leading the gop. chuck schumer will be leading the democrats in the senate. so status quo there for now. any minute we re expecting a court ruling in georgia that will either give a little bit of resolution to that heated governor s race or keep the count going. we ll give you the latest on that and also what is happening in florida with new reports of malfunctioning machines involved in the recount. and out west the number of fires burning in california, going up. and the number of people they have killed, growing higher. at least 50 people are dead as officials find more bodies in burned out homes. in southern california, the new sierra fire broke out overnight. and the progress is looking slow