but some of the republicans in new york and new jersey like representative peter king has said we re not going to hold a grudge. we re still going to support the people of texas despite the fact that all those texas republicans voted against our relief bill. i d just like to point out this is a critical issue. we re talking about $3.3 billion that fema has in its federal disaster relief funding. we re talking about how hurricane sandy needed $50 billion, and katrina got over $100 billion in relief. sheila jackson lee, the democrat from houston, has asked for $150 billion. they re going to have to talk about significant money. we re hearing from wall street estimates of tens of billions of dollars in destruction from this 500-year flooding. so i think it s not realistic for the president to think he s going to be able to tack on whatever else he wants. hurricane funding is going to go through. senator mitch mcconnell said there s no way we re not going to raise the debt ceiling.
welcome back to ask the state of the union. i m dana bash. president trump and the first lady spent saturday visiting victims in areas hit hardest by hurricane harvey. trump tweeting late saturday night, just got back to the white house from the great states of texas and louisiana where things are going well. such cooperation and coordination. joining me now is the republican governor of texas, greg abbott. governor, thank you so much for joining me. want to ask by looking back in time to hurricane sandy. after this hit in the northeast, in 2012, the federal government spent $56 billion on relief efforts. on friday, the trump administration asked congress for $7.85 billion in initial hurricane funding relief. given the devastation caused by this storm, will $7 billion be
discussion about how to have discussions about the country s problems, i think democrats will not get in the way at all, will actually be part of that solution. but democrats have never been the problem with hurricane funding. that has been a challenge for republicans like ted cruz and john cornyn in the past. michael, you can t under estimate how much power texas republicans have when it comes to congress and the senate. very flushl. sure. it s a huge delegation. i also think that in terms of more partisan issues not hurricane relief but the transition we saw with the president and the administration starting to try and work to attract the support of senate democrats, that s a huge step forward. these pointless, stupid counterproductive fights with senate republicans with those in his own party weren t advancing his agenda, weren t advancing our shared goal of conservative reform, getting the economy moving again, getting tax reform, getting something done on infrastructure. but t
the man who holds donald trump s legislate of fate in his hand? i don t know if it s the most surprising because we re constantly saying what he does is surprising but i think it is the most consequential. right after charlottesville and the president launching the attacks, what did you see? you started to see leaking from pim around mitch mcconnell questioning whether this presidency can even survive. you are absolutely right that many of these republicans saw donald trump potentially as a vehicle to get their agenda through. even though this hurricane funding is going to temporarily bring people together, it s going to push all of these fights off to the rest of this your and get things down will be
they ll probably have to do that in mid-september sometime. they don t have a budget as you pointed out for fiscal year 18, which starts on october 1st. and i think what they re going to have to do is look the president in the eyeball and say, now, wait a minute. you said you would not accept a spending bill that didn t fund the wall. does that mean if we send you a spending bill, you will veto it despite the fact that the federal government s money and help is absolutely essential to the recovery to those people who were victims of hurricane harvey. and that s going to be an interesting question for the president about 30 days from now to have to consider. and, ron, in the past, hurricane funding has taken sometimes several months for congress to act on. it didn t used to be that way, but starting around 2005, there were some republicans led by mike pence in the house of representatives who started to say, look, if you re going to do