Mattis To Congress: Budget Impasse Hurting Troops
SAHIL KAPUR, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, BLOOMBERG POLITICS: They just need to write it in a way that both parties can claim, you know, didn't violate the red lines. There'll be some gimmicks, there'll be some funny money in there. But the issue that has held this up constantly has been immigration and DACA, and I don't see a deal quite coming together on that. The two parties remain far apart on the issue of specifically family-based green cards for siblings, for adult children and Democrats are saying that they're not going to with that. And it remains unclear if House Republicans will support any kind of a legalization program even -- the majority of them even for the dreamers. I find it very significant earlier today that Speaker Ryan had said he's not going to put an immigration bill on the House floor unless President Trump supports it. And we don't quite know how far President Trump is willing to move of off his core principles.</s>JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so let's come back to immigration a second. Let's stand (ph) the spending plan here. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, Secretary Mattis made a pretty good point this morning. He's running a multi-billion, multi-trillion dollar operation. He has troops in the field. He wants to buy new aircraft carriers and new ships. How do you do long term planning when you get a four-month budget followed by a four-month budget, maybe by a six-month budget, by a four-month budget. It's ridiculous.</s>MOLLY BALL, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, TIME: Well, yes. I mean to your point, it's like trying to make car payments when you're working a temp job and you don't know when your -- where your paycheck is going to come from a little bit down the road, right? And the entire government is in that situation. The Pentagon is not the only important department of the United States government that depends on Congress to act and allow them to plan ahead. So, it would be a big deal if they could come together. I think what they learned -- the reason this is different than that same episode that your viewers might have seen a few weeks ago is that, they learned from the three-day shutdown that it was no fun for anyone. Nobody wins in a shutdown. Nobody wants that shutdown, I don't think. And Democrats in particular although they were determined to hold the line on immigration and there's going to be a lot of grumbling if they agree to this immigration attach to it because they have been repeatedly promised by Republicans that DACA would get filed as part of funding the government. But what they learned from the last shutdown was that they were actually not willing to hold that line. And so that may have gone by the way and DACA now has its own independent deadline for when that program expires.</s>LAUREN FOX, CNN REPORTER: Well, we have to also remember that McConnell made the promise that we would debate immigration only if the government was still open. So that is why this budget caps bill could be really important, because it really could create some bipartisanship, some goodwill as they head into --</s>KING: So to that point, the spending bill will come first, there has some grumbling among the Democrats but it looks like they will separate immigration from the spending bill at least for now. If it blows up, then he knows what happens after that. But assuming they're on that path, you have a great piece on cnn.com today, Mitch McConnell, who then will bring -- you have to bring a bill to the Senate floor, won't tell anybody what's going to be in that bill. We know we'll have something to protect the Dreamers, we know we'll have some wall money for the president, but what else, he won't say. John Thune, who's his number three in the Senate leadership, "You'll have to ask him. He'll have to decide what he wants to do." The majority whip and number two Senate Republican, "Senator McConnell hasn't announced his intention. Then an administration official who was part of the meeting with Senator McConnell or after meeting with Senator McConnell says, "Total poker face, he's not to going to tip his hand." Probably smart strategy but it frustrates people.</s>FOX: Absolutely. And I think that what McConnell has been saying repeatedly is, this is going to be a fair debate on the floor. This is going to an open debate on the floor. Something that some freshmen members may not be that, you know, comfortable with. They haven't seen it before, and I think a lot of members are sort of looking at this. That bill that McConnell puts on the floor, that is a choice within itself. If he puts the White House framework on the floor of the Senate, that's going to make a lot of Democrats pretty upset. So there's a lot of questions as to what he brings to the floor.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And Republicans largely think that they won, at least at the White House. They believe that Democrats sort of coward. There's no guarantee that that scenario is going to repeat itself. So there is I think some inclination on all sides to try and get this deal done because the DACA deadline is hanging out there, and the White House seems, you know, not movable on that. We'll see if that changes as well. But I just get the sense that you can't keep trying this every month. There are packs on both of the Houses, incumbents suddenly are in huge trouble on both sides here. So, I get the sense that the attributes are done, but it's only Tuesday so it's hard to make the decision.</s>KING: Sixty hours. I mean, if you