[Fredricka Whitfield, Cnn:] Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me this Sunday. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. We just five days away now from another potential government shutdown if lawmakers cannot reach a deal to fund the U.S. government. And optimism that bipartisan negotiations revealed acceptable to both sides has given away too, now concern. Sources tell CNN partisan talks have reached a standstill and concern is growing that a deal won't be reached by the Friday deadline. White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney making it clear this morning that another painful shutdown could be looming.
[Chuck Todd, Msnbc Host, Meet The Press Daily:] So is it fair to say that whatever Congress hands him he will sign, he just may not be enthusiastic about it?
[Mick Mulvaney, Acting Chief Of Staff:] No, I don't think so.
[Todd:] You are not ready to go there. You cannot definitively we cannot definitively rule out a government shutdown by the end of this week?
[Mulvaney:] You absolutely cannot.
[Whitfield:] And despite the ticking clock, some lawmakers are holding out hope that a deal can come together.
[Rep. Liz Cheney , Wyoming:] I certainly hope we're not headed for another shutdown. I think the President has been clear and the Republicans in the House have certainly been clear that we absolutely got to secure the border. I'm hopeful that this committee will be able to come up with a proposal that we all can support, that the President can sign.
[Rep. Jon Tester , Bipartisan Conference Committee:] We are not in a point where we can announce a deal. Negotiations are still going on. There are good people on this committee. So I have confidence that hopefully, we will get something done pretty soon.
[Whitfield:] And as we wait to see how negotiations play out on Capitol Hill, another Democrat is jumping into the race for U.S. President. Soon Senator Amy Klobuchar will take to the stage in a very snowy subfreezing rally in Minneapolis to make her big announcement. It is just 14 degrees there now with a few flurries in the air. She will join the crowded group of Democrats hoping to beat President Trump in next year's election. We will bring her comments to you live as it happens. So let's get started with CNN's White House correspondent Boris Sanchez. So the President is getting ready to make a trip to the border tomorrow, but is that what's top of the line, the border, or is it the potential for another government shutdown?
[Boris Sanchez, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Both will certainly be part of the President's rally tomorrow in El Paso, Texas, Fred. Here we are yet, again, counting down the days to another potential government shutdown over the President's long promised border wall. Republicans and Democrats, we are hearing from sources are at yet another impasse, this time over a disagreement about the number of beds that Democrats are trying to limit that Republicans want in ICE detention centers. Republicans have balked at the figures that Democrats have offered up. Democrats, meantime, have argued that they have made concessions on other issues that Republicans wants such as funding for the President's border barrier. The acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was asked about what he thought the most likely outcome was. Here was his answer on a Sunday morning talk show.
[Todd:] Whatever he sure of, is he going to find the money somewhere else? Is that what we should we expect?
[Mulvaney:] I think that is fair. That is probably the most likely outcome. Again, you cannot take the shutdown off the table and you cannot take $5.7 billion off the table, but if you end up someplace in the middle, yes, then what you probably see as the President say, yes OK, and then I will go find the money somewhere else.
[Todd:] You have been looking for the money and the budget.
[Mulvaney:] I haven't.
[Todd:] There is this national emergency. Are the two the same thing or different? Do you find money without declaring a national emergency or do you need to declare the national emergency to use sums of money?
[Mulvaney:] The answer to the question is both. There is certain sums of money that are available to the President, to any President. And there is pots of money where presidents, all presidents have access to without a national emergency. And there are ones that he will not have access to without that declaration.
[Sanchez:] Meantime, Fred, President Trump has been busy on twitter, blasting Democrats suggesting that they are being held back by their congressional leadership, and that they have had a bad week because of his positive reviews for the state if the union address and because of the ongoing controversies surrounding the leadership in the state of in the commonwealth of Virginia, I should say. We have heard from sources as far as how Democrats want to move forward on this, that they would potentially present a bill in the House of Representatives that would fund the department of homeland security through September and other government agencies. No telling whether Republicans would actually take that up in the Senate, though, Fred.
[Whitfield:] All right. Boris Sanchez, thank you so much from the white House. Keep us posted. All right. Let's talk more about this. Joining me right now, congressional reporter for the "Washington Post" Karoun Demirjian and national political reporter for the "Washington Examiner'Salena Zito. Good to see you both. All right. So Karoun, you first. What happened to all that optimism leading into the weekend?
[Karoun Demirjian, Cnn Political Analyst:] Well, leading into the weekend you really had people heading into the most intense part of the negotiations. And it seemed through the weekend like they might be hovering towards getting towards a deal that hovered around that $2 billion figure for the border. But it's interesting that the border wall itself is not really what is the main sticking point here and that it's this additional issue of the detention centers and their capacity that is really making these on the ground. I think it is timing, really, you know. There is a big difference between the Friday before the really crunch weekend and negotiations and they will coming out of it, knowing what the Senate schedule is and the procedural jujitsu that has to happen to get any bill across the floor, how little time there actually is. So I don't think anybody is saying, OK, strap and guaranteed government shutdown now, but it's more of a possibility than it was last week. And I know, I think everybody remembers the very recent history of how dramatic and difficult that last shutdown was. It didn't go well for anybody, especially not the President. So that's why you are not hearing people speak of it in tones that are embracing the idea, but it's back on the table as a possibility.
[Whitfield:] So Salena, detention centers, it's also down to wall funding, you know. The President has threatened this national emergency time and time again, but you heard Mick Mulvaney who says it's really not that simple. There is some money that is available nearly immediately and then some money that he would have to seek approval as a result of this declaration of national emergency. So, is there any way in which to detect where the priorities are for the President?
[Salena Zito, National Political Reporter, Washington Examiner:] Well, you know, I think he wants a win, but I also think both the President and the Senate in the House also do not want to go through this shutdown again. I don't think anybody benefited from it very well. Supporters might say, you know, the President might have loved it or supporters for the Democrats might have loved it, you know, for saying, you know, we are fighting. They are fighting for the things that we believe in. But at the end of the day it helped no one and it just sort of kept that idea that Washington doesn't work prominent in the minds of voters.
[Whitfield:] Right. Still at issue was funding for the wall. The President has said, you know, he wants that $5.7 billion, but is he indicating that he has, you know, that he is willing to budge on that?
[Zito:] Yes.
[Whitfield:] Yes? How?
[Zito:] Absolutely. I think so. So when you saw Mick Mulvaney, who is the acting chief of staff, as well as North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows, who is the chairman of the freedom caucus, very conservative wing of the Republican Party, both have said today on the Sunday shows, you know, he is going to get his money one way or the other. I feel like that "or the other" was that wiggle room. That I don't know if we know what that is. But it tells us that the potential for a shutdown doesn't happen. And that there's other ways that the President is exploring to get what he wants.
[Whitfield:] So Karoun, you know, Democrats have said, and particularly Nancy Pelosi has said, you know, there is no there is no money for, you know, the wall. She, you know, joked that maybe she just give $1, you know, in the past several reports suggesting that latest negotiations center around this $2 billion figure for border barriers. The President has in the past said he doesn't want to budge. Is this the occasion in which perhaps he might?
[Demirjian:] Well, like Salena was referencing, he can budge if he thinks he has other money elsewhere, and that's what Mick Mulvaney seems to be saying, more than a hint really, this morning, almost saying that's what he was going to do. That in that situation, it behooves the President to take the deal as long he can take the deal and meet in some phase. $2 billion is more than the $1.6 billion that people are discussing several weeks ago. It is less than what he wanted but it would be something that Senate Republicans could agree to. And that really seems like it is going to be the main sticking point. Can the people in Congress, the Republicans and the Democrats actually decide to agree to something? They would never agree, Senate Republicans would never agree to a zero dollars for the wall figure. But if they can agree to something that seems reasonable in between the numbers that were out there in the table for, OK, you can get through a Congress. The question before was always, will the President sign it? Now it seems the answer that question is, yes, OK, as long as it's relatively reasonable, he will sign it. But that doesn't mean he is not going to make this emergency declaration or find other money. And then it becomes a new stage of this potential crisis. And I know this is prognosticating past where we are, but if we look at that point, then the question is, OK, where is he taking that money? Because he can maintain support within the Republican Party if he takes it from places that Republicans don't consider sackrasacing. As long as he starts as soon as he starts looking rather as certain military construction projects or certain forms of disaster relief, he is going to get pushback within his own party. So if we get through this week, with not the $5.7 billion figure for the wall, but without a government shutdown, that's the next thing that is coming that is going to really cause a lot of internal tension as well as interparty tensions as we see it every stage of the game.
[Whitfield:] Right. And then, Salena, adding to the hypotheticals is what if? I mean, he and his advisers have to be thinking about so what if another government shutdown? I mean, the polling after that showed that majority of Americans felt that the President was to blame, not the Democrats for that shutdown. The President doesn't like, you know, approval ratings in that kind of class, you know, taking a dip. So what is the answer to the "what if" that he and his advisers are thinking about? If there is another government shutdown, you know, at what cost? Why would that be a win for him?
[Zito:] I don't think personally it would be a win for him. Here is what I'm looking for. I'm looking to see what he says at the border wall or at the border tomorrow with the rally that he is holding. I suspect that more of what we are talking about right now that we don't have the answer to, he may reveal there. And he may reveal that he is willing to compromise, he may reveal that he isn't willing to compromise.
[Whitfield:] There was no sharing of a willingness at the state of the union. That could have been an opportunity. Why would all the eggs be in one basket at the border? He would announce those kinds of details.
[Zito:] It's a rally and he loves rallies.
[Whitfield:] But a rally audience wouldn't want to hear that. Would they, compromise from him?
[Zito:] No. I think actually, you might be underestimating the American people a little bit. They are willing to compromise. People are very, you know, if you look at the polling data on the DACA kids and border funding, people are much more willing to have a compromise on the situation, because basically people have to compromise every day in their life. Every time you pull out from a parking lot, you are compromising if you can get in and get out. And so, I think people are, I think, we over estimate or maybe underestimating people's willingness to compromise on issues. So I think tomorrow actually is going to be really telling I think it is tomorrow, right.
[Whitfield:] Yes.
[Zito:] The rally is tomorrow yes. I think that we will have more information after that moment.
[Whitfield:] All right. Karoun, do you want to punctuate that?
[Demirjian:] Well, I was just going to say, if we are coming out of the weekend with some sort of a deal, tomorrow would have been the point, of course, we would have seen how the President is going to spin it for his own base, which has been extremely critical of any sort deal- making or budgeting from the line. Now, if he's going to be able to take that conciliatory position, he is going to have to do some pretty depth maneuvering to be able to sell what is not a done deal but his own willingness to compromise from a position point that is still has negotiating position potentially from the party. It is more difficult for the President at this point. And as we know at rallies, he tends to feed off the crowd. So if the crowd is cheering for the tougher lines, we may see him laughs to a more stringent position again bout border security that lines up more with money for the wall and potentially there is still that open question of where there will be a reach of his declarations? Will he see something else that then complicates this negotiation process even more since it's now not where they hoped it would be?
[Whitfield:] Right. All right, Karoun Demirjian, Salena Zito, thanks to both. Appreciate it.
[Demirjian:] Thank you.
[Zito:] Thank you.
[Whitfield:] All right. Still ahead, defiance and denial. Virginia's top two leaders both facing scandals, refusing to resign. This as we are getting a clear picture of how Virginia voters feel about their embattled leaders. And we are also standing by to hear from Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. Yes, look at those snow flurries and it is 12 degrees. She is expected to announce that she is getting to the 2020 race for the White House. And her crowd is there to support her. They are braving the conditions there and they even have been passing hot chocolate and hot apple cider to keep warm. We will bring you the comments as it happens.