coming out of the senate with ted kennedy, lindsey graham behind it, all kinds of people. lamar alexander behind it. and it didn t get to the house because the house refused to vote. it could happen the same way later in february. yeah, i mean, and look, the scope of this when you re talking about daca versus that comprehensive program five years ago, it is a narrower scope. again, you saw the patrolling on th polling on this the other day. 84% of the public this cuts across all political parties they want daca to be a permanent fix. the trouble that democrats were running into here was when you said what about priorities, do you want the government to stay open as the number one priority, or do you want this daca fix as the number one priority? on that one, keeping the government open outrated fixing daca by more than 20 points. so i think in this instance over the weekend, to the extent democrats were starting to feel some heat here politically, it was that. do they look like
republicans. you re going to need a fair number of republicans along with democrats. then you start getting into, okay, one of the philosophical differences between the parties when you start looking at this is a lot of there are republicans who have an issue with daca in general, but a lot of republicans say, look, at the end of the day we should do daca. but they view it as a concession. they view it as a significant concession, and they want something for it. i think the default democratic position is just do it. no strings attached. so i think the more republican votes you need for this, the more you re going to get into that concession area. i think we have those debates at home. anyway, andrea mitchell is traveling with the vice president in the middle east. she joins us now from the holy city, jerusalem. thank you so much, andrea. what do you make of this politics back at home here? it continues without you. reporter: well, the fact is it actually followed us here because
when you ll actually have a chance to get the dreamer act passed isn t the senate. without the president s help, it s agreed there will be no action in the house, which still operates under the hastert rule. you don t get anything to the floor unless a majority of the republican members in the house support it, which to me has nothing to do with the constitution, but it is how part of the republican leadership in the congress has behaved for years. so you really have a question here, is the senate content to get a daca bill, a dreamer bill passed through the senate sometime in early february, or content to actually have it enacted into law. so that is the tricky question. i want to go to one of the house leaders about that. congressman, do you think there s a chance the republican leaders are going to allow a dreamer bill, even if it s passed the senate in something like a majority vote, a super majority of 60 votes with a lot of republicans, would they let that come to a vote as you s
the budget. and health care and disaster aid and things like opioids and veterans and pensions and on immigration. my recent offer to the president was a generous one. i put his signature campaign issue on the table in exchange for daca, and still he turned away. president trump s unwillingness to compromise caused the trump shutdown and brought us to this moment. the facts are well known. now i wish to update the senate on where things stand after this weekend. since our meeting in the oval office on friday, the president and i have not spoken. and the white house refused to engage in negotiations over the weekend. the great deal-making president sat on the sidelines. despite and because of this frustration, i ve been having
sides. the democrats are going to stick to this fight. they re going to try to get a commitment from mcconnell, the republican leader. they give them a vote in the next couple weeks on daca. they want to get a commitment from him. can they trust him? can chuck schumer trust him? can enough democrats trust him that there will be a vote that they can move on with the government. i think that s the key question tonight. steve, will they get a commitment from mcconnell that s enough for them to stop the fight. yeah, and chris, obviously please stay with us throughout the vote, throughout the hour. let me set up for folks at home exactly what s about to play out on the senate floor and what we re looking for. on friday night, the vote to keep the government open that failed, that caused this shutdown, the number there was 51. there were 51 votes to open the government on friday night. they need 60. so they were nine short for passage on friday night. what we are going to be looking for in