save many lives and stop drugs from pouring into our country. maria: meanwhile, the president tweeting to speaker pelosi regarding her call to delay the state of the union: until the government is reopen, nancy, i am still thinking about the state of the union speech. there are so many options including doing it as per your written offer made during the shutdown, security is no problem in my written acceptance. while a contract is a contract, i ll get back to you soon. joining me right now, republican senator from north dakota senator john hoeven is with us this morning in washington sitting on the senate appropriations committee as well as the senate intercontinental ballistic missile coalition. he s also the former governor of north dakota. sir, good to have you on the program, senator, thank you so much for joining us. good to be with you, maria. maria: your reaction to the president s plan announced yesterday. yeah, it s a good proposal, and we re going to put it on the floor t
but we ve got to have border security which includes funding for the wall, and that s something they have voted for before. that is just common sense part of national security, border security. maria: okay. so let me ask you what the justification would be in terms of not providing the money for border security given that all of these things have already been thicks that they ve things that they voted on and, frankly, there s already a border wall in nancy pelosi s state, which we re going to talk about with congresswoman debbie dingell right after we discuss this. so tell me your thinking in terms of what your colleagues will push back on. well, that s it. this is just basic common sense. first, it s just part of national security. second, they ve voted for it before. we have existing border wall, border fence, whatever you want to call it. they ve democrats have funded it for previous presidents including president obama. there s no reason to turn this down, particularly now wh
but we ve got to have border security which includes funding for the wall, and that s something they have voted for before. that is just common sense part of national security, border security. maria: okay. so let me ask you what the justification would be in terms of not providing the money for border security given that all of these things have already been thicks that they ve things that they voted on and, frankly, there s already a border wall in nancy pelosi s state, which we re going to talk about with congresswoman debbie dingell right after we discuss this. so tell me your thinking in terms of what your colleagues will push back on. well, that s it. this is just basic common sense. first, it s just part of national security. second, they ve voted for it before. we have existing border wall, border fence, whatever you want to call it. they ve democrats have funded it for previous presidents including president obama. there s no reason to turn this down, particularly now wh
priorities that democrats have said they very much want to get done. maria: yeah. speaking of security, you introduced this week a bipartisan resolution supporting the modernization and maintenance of the country s intercontinental ballistic missile fleet, icbm fleet. tell us about it. right. it follows the administration s missile defense review. it s parking lot of defending our country part of defending our country, making sure as our adversaries increase their capabilities that we can defeat them. we always have to have the technological edge so that we cannot only defend our country, but keep our troops safe when they re out there defending us. we need to make sure that they have superiority in terms of technology and weapon systems. maria: and the other nuclear countries true shah, china, iran, north korea are they pursuing advancements in their weaponry? exactly right, and that s why we have to stay ahead of them. both in our icbm and our abm, antiballistic or missile
basically, just become citizens in the u.s.? not legally, obviously, but just assimilate into the population? would that happen? first of all, nobody is saying we don t need border security. maria: no, no, congresswoman, i m specifically asking you about the border in nancy pelosi s state. they re not even filling all the positions to keep that border safe finish. maria: should that wall be torn down? no, i don t, i haven t been to visit the site. i don t know all the specifics of it maria: well, let me give you some specifics. let me give you all right, go ahead. maria: border apprehensions just from that wall just in the month of november, 2018, and in california there were 7,764 apprehensions. nearly 7,800 border ap apprehensions in california alone. last year total apprehensions for the month of november, nearly 52,000. i guess that tells you that wall