defendants fault. it includes $1.735 billion for 55 miles of fencing, not wall, plus another $1.7 billion in new funding for border security. in exchange, democrats dropped a demand to restrict the number of beds for immigrants at detention centers. both parties are spinning the deal as a victory, but again, no one is definitively ruling a shutdown out because the president remains as he always does, a wild card. trump had originally asked for $5.7 billion for a concrete wall he said would span more than 200 miles. this deal falls way short of that. and some of the president s most avid supporters don t want him to sign it. in a tweet this morning, freedom caucus chair mark meadows suggested that trump had no choice but to take executive action. and there was this message from the president s informal adviser. by the way on this new so-called compromise, $ 1.3
mark meadows, freedom caucus chair and member of the house oversight committee, it is great to have you with us. thank you very much for being here. great to be back with you. martha: you listened to that invitation and you heard what kamala harris said about probably eliminating private insurance. your thoughts? obviously, at least at the senator was being honest. i could remember a president that was saying, if you like your health care, keep it. she is at least saying that you can t keep it, so i am sure that 140 plus million people went oh, my gosh, we are going to allow for a government takeover of health care? i can t think of any of us that want our health care decisions made by our government. and when you go into the dmv, do we want the government being our friend auch and for how we get our health care? i don t think so, and it is an
everyone sings along with hey jude. it s not a sad song. katie: mine is the spice girls. better than all of yours. after the shutdown, the lowdown on why the president did open up the government. maybe he was looking at this. planes not flying, airport lines building. safety fears rising. that all ended yesterday, or did it? we will ask the president of the national air traffic controllers association, who is not so sure. after all, this could happen all over again in three weeks. and much of the mainstream media says the president didn t just blink, he caved. freedom caucus chair mark meadows says it s more like he set a trap.
our allies, that introduces a risk. who will take over? what is the iranian activity. we re giving them a chance to have regional influence there. we don t need to be doing that in that particular region in syria. neil: thanks, commander. i hope you have a safe and happy christmas. thank you. you have a merry christmas as well. neil: commander kirk lippold. we know the vice president is meeting with speaker paul ryan, also the freedom caucus chair, mark meadows, jim jordan, some of the key conservative leaders in the house of representatives. they re doing everything they can from earlier before when the vice president was leaving his chat with chuck schumer in the senate. apparently there is no go here so far for even a continuing resolution to keep the government going beyond midnight tonight when at least a quarter of it will shut down. not all of it, a quarter of it.
white house shakeup is in the works. chief of staff john kelly will soon be out. the big question right now is who is in? can they find a candidate? the front-runner for the gig giving it a hard pass this weekend. we begin with abby phillip at the white house. a lot of names, abby, circulated, but it doesn t appear a lot of these people are interested in the job. that right. we re hearing more from people who are taking their names off the list than people who are raising their hand to join this administration going into its third year. president trump got a bit of a surprise this weekend when his top contender took his name out of consideration, saying he didn t want to take the job for a two-year commitment, which the president wanted. now he s back to the drawing board. we re hearing the names of three people who are being bandied about here in the west wing. one of them is republican congressman from north carolina, mark meadows. an ally of the president, freedom caucus chair, an