republicans. we just went through a government shutdown of your creation. who is going to be held accountable for that? well, joining me now is one of those democrats you just heard, from the number two democrat in the united states senate. it s dick durbin of illinois. senator durbin, welcome back to meet the press. it s good to be here. i know you guys are hopefully going to go solve this problem after the show is over, but let me ask you this. why why draw the line in the sand now? it seems like to the average american you guys are fighting over how long the window of negotiation on immigration should be. one month or five days. two weeks or three weeks. do you see how to the average american they are not quite sure why this is the line in the sand versus say a month from now? let me tell you the average american feels frustration that we haven t solved the problem and many problems that we face here in washington, but let s put it in context, chuck. you understand the r
larger changes to the immigration law in the daca negotiations? the president made it clear on the january 9th meeting, he agreed with us there should be two phases. let s deal with the problem which he created on september 5th by eliminating daca, deadline march 5th. just a few weeks away. let s sol that have problem now and not all the problems of immigration. and, yes, we did include a provision related to family reunification which breaks my heart. we have said only applying to this population. that s right. they say it should apply entire immigration system. you re going do have senator cotton wants to reduce legal immigration into the united states. i m not one of those people. my mother was an immigrant to this country and i m very proud to be serving in the senate under those circumstances, but what it comes down to is this. lindsey graham and i accepted the president s challenge, produced the bill he asked for. gave it to him 48 hours later, and the infamous white
the empathy in my party? people, the number one important thing in america when somebody is asking for a presidential candidate s support is, do you care about does he care about me? how do we tell 50 million people that we care about them when there is not a single word of empathy about the fate of these million people? can i say the trump base in my view would be very happy with a daca deal and an immigration wallen forcement thing. they d be happy, but it s more than they d be happy. the middle would be happy, centrists would be impressed. that s the way to play politics. it s odd. sometimes i think the president misunderstands his own base, doesn t really understand what it will like, what it will accept. may i say also, i do not think stephanie, that this shutdown would be happening if democrats in the u.s. senate did not feel that their own base was angry, restive, holding their feet to the fire.
reservists whose training was cancelled this weekend, who have to pay their get here and their travel costs back home so the president is engaged in finding out what are the impacts of this. he s on the find trying to find a resolution to it and he had members over to the white house a week ago in a bipartisan bicameral fashion to get past this impasse. part of the issue seems to be that people come away from these meetings not sure what president trump stands for. let me here s mitch mcconnell just i think three days ago on the issue of daca and immigration. looking for something that president trump supports, and he s not yet indicated what measure he s willing to sign. as soon as we figure out what he is for, then i would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels. chuck schumer used jell-o. that s another way of saying jell-o, is it not?
authorize lots of money that never happens so we need to clarify that but we see progress. on our side they said they want the 690,000 daca population expanded. senator durbin made the case saying many people did not register and they should not be held harmful. we ve been willing to expand that population and there s progress happening here which leads us to, chuck, why are we shutting down the government? i guess then the graham/durbin say they put this offer out here and chuck schumer saying, why not say, okay, seems like we have the parameters for a deal. democrats are willing. you guys are arguing over whether you ll appropriate it or not but it seems as if chuck schumer what he thought he had an agreement of that the president changed his mind a few hours later. i guess the question i have for you is, who is in charge of the president s position on immigration? because what look at lindsey graham. he calls them tuesday trump versus thursday trump. what s the difference here