short-term plan gets harvey funding faster and delays fights over the budget and debt. we essentially came to a deal and i think the deal will be very good. think of the deal is tough to swallow for the conservatives in the house freedom caucus. certainly not the best optio option. typical washington, d.c., kick the can down the road. not just republicans in the house who have issues, senator ben sasse says the pelosi-schumer-trump deal is bad. when reports surfaced that the leadership would help deliver votes in exchange for a short debt limit height, senator orrin hatch lashed out. it s total b.s. shows that democrats are not serious legislators. emergency agency spending money responding to harvey. they seemed pleased with any deal to keep funds coming. it s important that as we
debt ceiling onto this bill in a bipartisan effort to eliminate two problems that the congress has to confront. there is some reluctance among republicans to add the debt ceiling into this harvey aid pr pa package, particularly with conservative republicans who would like a separate conversation. they are prepared here in washington to debate this through the weekend. both house speaker paul ryan and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell made it clear they want a bill on the president s desk by saturday. already, chuck schumer, the senate minority leader and the minority leader on the house side, nancy pelosi want to add the debt ceiling to the conversation. that s where we could get into a political fight here. a political fight is something that leaders in washington promised was not going to happen when it came to aid to harvey. paul ryan calling the suggestion from schumer and
unless they tie it to an increase in the debt ceiling. joe, this is important. when we talk about the debt ceiling, at least from what i can remember, the idea of tieing the debt ceiling and getting the debt ceiling tied to any kind of harvey funding, that seemed to have started sunday with the treasury secretary saying this is what we need to do because i can t pay the bills and i can t push out this money unless we ra raise the debt ceiling. is the president not signing on to that strategy? it s not clear, frankly. i do know that from the very beginning, when they were talking about the numbers, the money they wanted to send to harvey, it was understood and people here in the administration were sending the message that they thought congress would get the idea that the debt ceiling had to be increased, even though there were conservatives, particularly over on the house side, who were opposed to tieing these two
sarah huckabee sanders. david: thanks, that s all the time we have today. we thank you for watching. make sure you follow us on social media at fncspecialists on twitter and facebook. remember, 5:00 will never be the same. special report is next. bret: this is a fox news alert. good evening. i am bret baier in washington. we are keeping our eye on the eye of the storm, hurricane irma tearing up puerto rico right now as it rips through the caribbean. parts of florida, already being attacked rated. president trump strikes a deal with democrats on harvey funding, the debt limit, government funding. to deal democrats are touting. right now the president is returning to washington after rallying his base in north dakota over tax reform. first up, a storm already called the strongest atlantic ocean hurricane ever recorded. correspondent phil keating is in miami-dade county. people getting ready and getting out. good evening, phil.
games with these funding. i remember back in the mid 2000s when this would come up with supplemental funding for iraq. it came up after sandy. this is the way the game is played. it doesn t make it right. it doesn t make it right. look, this is the one time when the president needs democratic votes. he can t get a clean debt ceiling passed without democratic votes right now. let me say this, when it comes to victims of a hurricane, you don t want to appear to be playing games and tieing something into it that does not have to be tied into it. we found out as you know, chris, with hurricane sandy, even though there were things tied into it that weren t hurricane related, republicans got clobbered for balking on the funding. in my opinion, the best politics is the best policy. that s just to pass a funding bill for harvey in a separate debt ceiling bill. i would not recommend a three-month bill. you are just going to create you are kicking it to december and then you will be righ