where was my friend and the republicans objecting to that? reporter: democrats immediately saw the political benefit in playing up a gop senator blocking legislation helping hard-hit americans. the department of transportation s press release carefully defailed for reporters examples of popular projects halted because of buenning, and the vice president jumped in, too. it will mean that state and local governments won t get paid for projects they ve already done. it means furloughing 2,000 people this week alone. reporter: democrats in the senate do have some legislative tools to work around senator buenning, it could take a couple days, but democratic sources say they have no plans to use them right now, at least not yet, wolf. a spokesman for harry reid told me point-blank this is emergency spending that from their perspective does not need to be paid for. jim manly also said what do they have against the poor in this country? they go for tax cuts for the
hard-pressed to support, why not this one? they can t support this bill because it hurts all their people. the states they re there are not very wealthy states. the people are middle class and working poor, for the most part. and this bill is robin hood in reverse. we ve seen it before. i ve been there before. i ve seen this trickle-down garbage. the only thing that trickles down is misery. the deficits go way up. we ve seen it so many times. and my colleagues, be they moderate or liberal or conservative democrats, they get it. you know, you can t you have to learn from history. and we know what will happen. this is a horrible bill that helps the people at the top who don t really need help. and hurts the people in the middle who are desperate for help. and the working poor, who are also desperate for help. jim, there s this very funny thing happening now where the
today from chuck schumer and nancy pelosi of not going in response to that tweet was the right one? oh, absolutely. and i don t think it was a strategy. it was just the right thing to do. you think it was an organic response to what the president said? i really do. look, if i invited you over for dinner and just before you came i tweeted out and said, chris hayes is coming over for dinner, think he s a serial killer. you might decide that would be mean. and unfounded i should say on the record. it s a joke. the point i m making is the things that they say why don t you read what they said? they want open borders, they re soft on crime, they want to raise taxes, then he says come in? the whole thing is absurd. here s the problem. and jim knows this so well. in the united states senate, you have to work together. mitch mcconnell won t even allow a conversation to take place
right one? oh, absolutely. and i don t think it was a strategy. it was just the right thing to do. you think it was an organic response to what the president said? i really do. look, if i invited you over for dinner and just before you came i tweeted out and said, chris hayes is coming over for dinner, think he s a serial killer. you might decide that would be mean. and unfounded i should say on the record. it s a joke. the point i m making is the things that they say why don t you read what they said? they want open borders, they re soft on crime, they want to raise taxes, then he says come in? the whole thing is absurd. here s the problem. and jim knows this so well. in the united states senate, you have to work together. mitch mcconnell won t even allow a conversation to take place with chuck schumer to negotiate a bill. and then they are called up to
if the republicans can t pass this tax bill, then we ll pay dearly for this. we have the presidency, the house, the senate. and i think high time we got together. president trump today went to capitol hill to meet with republican senators later expressing optimism the votes will be there to pass the bill. we had a good day today. we had a phenomenal meeting with the republican senators. we had it was very special, that meeting. in many respects i wish you could have been inside that room. it was very, very special. the camaraderie. somewhat of a lovefest. they want to see it happen. they want to see it happen, not only for the republican party, i think much more importantly, they want to see it happen for the country. i m joined by barbara boxer, former senator from california, and jim manly, long-time spokesperson for senator harry reid. mcconnell says he can t recall a time he was invited to the white house and didn t do it, although