JUDY WOODRUFF: In Washington
tonight, there is no sign of
an agreement on immigration
reform or on a government
spending deal to beat
a looming deadline.
Instead, much of the focus
remains on what President Trump
said and did at a White House
meeting last week.
Lisa Desjardins
begins our coverage.
SEN.
CHARLES GRASSLEY (R), Iowa: Do
you affirm that the testimony
you're about to give before
the committee...
LISA DESJARDINS: Under
oath, Homeland Security
Secretary Kirstjen
Nielsen again pushed back
at charges that the president
ever uttered a specific
profanity to describe Haiti and
African countries.
®MD+I®MD-IKIRSTJEN
NIELSEN, U.S. Secretary
of Homeland Security:
I didn't hear that word
used, no, sir.
LISA DESJARDINS: But she didn't
answer if he might have said
something similar, instead
saying there was strong
and impassioned language.
Democrat Dick Durbin, who
was also in last week's
meeting, pressed her.
SEN.
RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL),
Minority Whip: What was
that strong language?
®MD+I®MD-IKIRSTJEN
NIELSEN: Ah, let's see.
Strong language.
There was -- apologies, I
don't remember a specific word.
What I was struck with, frankly,
and I'm sure you were as well,
was just the general profanity
that was used in the
room by almost everyone.
DURBIN: Did you hear
me use profanity?
®MD+I®MD-IKIRSTJEN
NIELSEN: No, sir.
Neither did I.
LISA DESJARDINS: New Jersey
Democrat Cory Booker fired back,
questioning Nielsen's honesty.
SEN.
CORY BOOKER (D), New Jersey:
The commander in chief, in an
Oval Office meeting, referring
to people from African countries
and Haitians with the most
vile and vulgar language.
That language festers.
When ignorance and bigotry
is allied with power, it is a
dangerous force in the country.
Your silence and your
amnesia is complicity.
LISA DESJARDINS: President
Trump himself today was meeting
with the Kazakh president, but
was pressed on a different
detail from last week's meeting.
QUESTION: Mr. President, did
you say that you want more
people to come in from Norway?
Did you say that you wanted more
people to come in from Norway?
Is that true, Mr. President?
DONALD TRUMP, President of
the United States: I want them
to come in from everywhere.
Everywhere.
LISA DESJARDINS: This as
Congress and the White House try
to reassemble talks over DACA
recipients, people brought to
the U.S. illegally as children.
As part of that, North
Carolina Republican Thom Tillis
defended the president's push
for more border security.
SEN.
THOM TILLIS (R), North Carolina:
I, for one, think that we have
to have a balanced proposal,
a compromise that solves and
addresses the DACA problem in
a compassionate and sustainable
way.
But we also have to understand
we need to be compassionate
in terms of the threat to
our community and to
our homeland by not
securing the border.
And you can only do that when
people lower the temperatures
and recognize that securing
the border is an absolutely
appropriate request as we're
solving the DACA problem.
LISA DESJARDINS: And
this immigration battle
has direct connections
to the latest government
spending showdown.
Congress must pass another
funding bill by the end of the
week, or government will shut
down.
Issue one, the Senate,
where a spending bill
will likely need 60 votes,
meaning some Democratic
votes.
But Democrats say, first,
they need a deal on DACA
in the spending bill.
Issue two, the House.
Without any Democrats to
pass the spending bill there,
Republicans would have to get
the 218 votes need from
their members only.
And many Republicans have said
they don't want to vote for
any more short-term spending
bills.
Outside the hearing room, a
key character in all of this,
South Carolina Republican
Lindsey Graham,
spoke to reporters.
He insisted that the president
was on board a DACA deal last
Tuesday and at 10:00 a.m.
Thursday, but changed
two hours later.
SEN.
LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), South
Carolina: Yes, I think somebody
on his staff gave him really
bad advice from 10:00
to 12:00 on Thursday.
I think the president
I saw on Tuesday is the
guy I play golf with.
I actually like the guy.
He's actually funny.
I thought he commanded the room.
And the conversation at 10:00 on
Thursday was pretty consistent
with the guy I saw Tuesday.
Something happened
between 10:00 and 12:00.
And I like Secretary Nielsen.
She's a nice person.
And we will get to
the bottom of this.
But here is what's
going to matter.
How does it end?
How does it end?
Does it end with the
government shutting down?
We should all be kicked
out if that happens.
LISA DESJARDINS: Add
to the political storm,
rolling protests from
DACA recipients and
others erupted on Capitol Hill
today, with police and other
sources expecting those to
only grow.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And
Lisa joins me now.
Lisa, what a day.
You were up on the
Capitol all day.
So, where do things stand right
now in the Senate efforts to
work with the White House?
LISA DESJARDINS: All right.
So, Senator Dick Durbin told me
that he will unveil legislative
text of this kind of gang
of six bipartisan bill tomorrow.
Senator Graham, his partner in
those talks, told me he trying
to woo Republicans and that
he is open to try and toughen
it, maybe with some kind of
guarantees of how they could
deport felons, for example.
He's thinking about that.
Now, will this all
lead to a shutdown?
Will Democrats withhold
their votes in the Senate if
they don't get a DACA deal?
One senator, Sheldon Whitehouse,
told me if they think there
is progress, maybe then they
could support a funding
bill, but right now they
don't see that progress.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So you're
telling me, Lisa, what you're
picking up is that things seem
to be moving in a more
conservative direction
in all of this?
LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.
And I think that's because
of what the president
said last week and its
effect on the House.
The president's remarks were
essentially a boulder to a
very fragile compromise trying
to be built on the House side.
Now, instead of them talking
about this kind of Durbin-Graham
compromise, what I heard
from a House source today,
someone who is generally
pretty moderate, they said that
work is -- that deal
is not possible because
they said a DACA path to
citizenship is something
they won't accept.
That used to be middle ground.
So, if that, in fact, is
really where the lines have
changed, the two sides are very
far part.
Now, also, Marc Short from
the White House met with House
Republican number two, Kevin
McCarthy, today.
That's the White House
signaling, hey, we're
working with the House.
They're not reaching
out to the Senate.
So , we see that
divide right now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And on
the spending bill, you're
hearing House Republicans
thinking of adding
something to that?
LISA DESJARDINS: Right.
So, if the DACA impasse is too
great, and they have a real
problem there, how do they
pass a spending bill?
House Republicans tonight will
talk to their conference about
adding a six-year extension
of the CHIP, Children's
Health Insurance Program.
That's something
many people want.
And also, listen to this,
Judy, a five-year repeal
of the medical device tax.
That's something
that Republicans have
disliked for many years.
It was part of the
Affordable Care Act.
They may add that as a
sort of sweetener to pass
a short-term funding bill.
But can any of this work?
It's unclear.
Tonight, I think, Judy,
we're actually closer to
a government shutdown.
But it's Tuesday.
And I think that, honestly,
if you read how these things
work, really, it's Wednesday
and Thursday that
matter the most.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Things are
changing almost hourly.
LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, they are.
That's right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Lisa
Desjardins, thanks very much.
LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Also today,
the Trump administration
appealed a federal judge's
ruling that blocked
the president's decision
ending the DACA program.
It is also asking the
U.S. Supreme Court to
review the issue, even
before an appeals court
rules.
Tomorrow, I will talk with
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois
about this immigration debate
and about President
Trump's comments.