Reporters about why he decided not to attend the meeting at the white house with President Trump will also hear from the Senate Democratic whip dick durbin. Sen. Schumer good afternoon, i am proud to be joined by my colleagues here this afternoon. With just three and a half short weeks to go before christmas, that to do list in washington is long and complicated. Deal toto reach increase in defense spending as well as programs which the middle class relies on for jobs. We need to write an appropriations bill, and we need to extend funding for Community Health standards. Chi and protect dreamers. In order to get all of this done in the next few short weeks, all parties need to engage in good faith negotiations to reach an agreement. That is what we hoped would happen at todays white house meeting. Unfortunately, the president had other ideas. Twe this morning, the president et made sure that todays meeting was nothing but a photo op. These issues are far too serious for these kind of games. Mr. President it is time to stop , tweeting and start leading. There are serious questions that must be answered and many things that must be done. Democrats and republicans on the hill have come together on government funding for. Funding before. In april, speaker ryan leader , mcconnell, leader pelosi and i worked together from the dust to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. The four of us have worked together before, and we the democrats are ready to do it again. If President Trump doesnt want to get involved in this and President Trump says hes not interested in cutting a deal , then we suggest that speaker ryan, leader mcconnell, leader pelosi and i sit down and we can come up with a good deal on her own. That is what was done before and that is what can be done again. As i said, there are serious issues in front of us we dont , have time to waste and games to play. We need to find the military, we need to protect millions of american pensions, find Scientific Research and Student Loans but we need to rebuild in texas, florida, puerto rico, the Virgin Islands and california and we need to protect the dreamers. If the president reverses course and decides he wants to be a constructive force working with both sides to forge a bipartisan deal, we are happy to meet with him anytime, anywhere, any place. But as long as he remains a Destructive Force it will be a , waste of everyones time to continue working with someone who clearly has no interest in coming to an agreement. We hope the president in order to avoid this calamity will change his mind and the president and our republican friends run the house and senate. They have a responsibility, a responsibility not to let the government run out of funds. We are willing to work with them but they have to do it in a bipartisan way. Senator durbin. Sen. Durbin thanks, chuck. Weet that the president release this morning concerned me in one particular expect. Particular effect. Theres only one immigration bill pending before this congress that is pending. Senator cornyn just addressed it. Its one we all know very well. It is the presence decision on september 52 eliminate daca bill pending before this perfection 780,000 young people who came forward, paid the filing fee, got their background checks, and passed them. President trump announced september 5 that as of march fifth next year, the protection would and. With the end of that protection it means disastrous consequences for thousands and thousands of these young people. He called on congress to ask and senator cornyn said it is our responsibly to act. How did the president describe this challenge this morning in tweet . He said the democrats were coming in in favor of Illegal Immigrants flooding into our country unchecked. Illegal immigrants flooding into our country unchecked. The dream act requires that if you are eligible you have to , have been in the United States for four years. Were not talking about people flooding into the United States , we are talking about those who have lived their lives in the United States being given the , chance to earn their way to legal status and citizenship. That is what the challenges before us. The challenge is before us. We need a president who will work with us to solve the problem which he created on september 25th when he abolished daca. We need a president who has said so many times that he is respectful of the talents these young people bring to america. We need a president who doesnt use this divisive rhetoric and we can sit down and make this on a bipartisan basis, im convinced of it. Senator graham has cosponsored the dream act with me, there are three other republicans answers, and it can be done. But we have to stop the divisive rhetoric and stop the training tweeting stop the tweeting and sit down and meet , our responsibility before the end of this year. It can be done, not with these points. Sen. Schumer we will take questions. Reporter you are not going to stop the president from tweeting so does this mean that going , forward youre not planning to sit down with him . Sen. Schumer all he has to do is say he is serious and wants to undergo a real negotiation and we will sit down with him. But there is an alternative when the president stays out of it we seem to do much better, for the 4 leaders. And we are happy to sit down with them, that is how we did it the last time the government funding expired in 2017. The president doesnt indicate he is serious and we will not sit down for a photo op. This is serious stuff. Reporter do you think the democrats might have overplayed their hand on this . Republicans said wait a minute, we have a chance to do what we want. They could have done this without our votes. In this case, they need 60 votes. So on this issue, unlike the tax issue, bipartisanship is hard. It is not only the right thing to do, but it is required. That means serious, mature, negotiations with the president which the president has shown this morning that he is not serious, or ready, and we hope you changes his mind. Reporter you cut deals with the he give outfore, and said, i talked to chuck and nancy and we got it all worked out and why do you not trust him now and how much of this is the relative in your own party . Reppo schumer no politics in our own party. The a full agreement to go forward and get this done. This is about the president not sen. Schumer being serious and this is about the president we would like to sit down this episode with the Republican Leadership as we did six months ago and we got this done without the president being involved. Reporter when it comes to daca . Sen. Schumer there are some issues are important to us, the defense spending, the Childrens Health initiative, disaster many, as well of course as dreamers. There are a whole bunch of issues out there that are very important to us and we believe there are some things they want , and there are some things that we want. If you are serious we can negotiate a very good timely deal and we can do it now we dont have to delay. The staff were making great progress, the for the president stepped in. We were very close on the number of issues. Reporter [indiscernible] sen. Schumer look, you cannot sabotage the entire system and then say you will do it a small little fix on top of the sabotage. Marie alexander was never designed to be in a situation where there was a direct bomb thrown into the aca. It was made to improve the aca. Butit is great as they did with the individual mandate. It doesnt make sense. . What is the timetable the government runs out of money and the president and our republican colleagues, we are waiting for them to come to us and we will work with them, but they have to be serious, real, and understand there are two sides to a negotiation and the president does not seem to understand that. I hope we can avoid a shutdown. Thatlican colleagues know the shutdown will fall on their back and the people know they are running the show. We need to make a bipartisan agreement. There are things that they want and things we want and we want to compromise. Says, it is my way or no way. That is not going to work. Thank you. A senate panel approved legislation to make changes to the tax code and open the Arctic National wildlife refuge to expanded oil and gas drilling. The 521page combined