general dunford wrote a message to military leaders saying there's been no change yet to the military's current policy on transgender personnel. until the defense secretary receives direction from the president. general dunford also says the military will continue to treat all personnel with respect. meanwhile speak her of the house paul ryan expressed concerns over transgender service members. >> do you agree with the president's policies -- [ inaudible ] >> the problem here are the concern here in the house was whether or not the military will be forced to pay for the surgical procedures. i share those concerns. the question on the broader issue, that is being reviewed by the d.o.d. and the white house. i look forward to seeing what it is that they actually produce. >> the dmplts o.d. is reviewing this with the white house, i want to see what it is they actually produce. >> today the house debating 2018

funding for the defense department, you can watch the house live on c-span. and the senate continues to work on health care law revisions. live coverage of the senate on c-span 2. >> the house today is continuing its debate on four spending bills totaling nearly $800 billion. lawmakers taking up more than 50 amendments, joining us on capitol hill is kelly matrix. following all of this for cq roll call. what's being included in the defense spending bill? and what are you looking out for today? >> just for your viewers, we've already plowed through three of the four spending bills. and hamidment to bid on those bills, legislative branch and energy water, military va and the defense spending measure, the fourth in the four of spending bills that are up for debate as part of this mini bus. they made 54 amendments in order

yesterday. most of them are relatively noncontroversial. some of them just have a member cutting spending and putting it back so they can talk about something that's important to them. but the house leadership which has really compressed the rules process for the spending bills, took all the amendments that lawmakers wanted to submit, traditionally would submit on the floor and processed them in the rules committee to avoid any controversial amendments, including there were several amendments related to transgender individuals being in the military that were not made in order under the rule that will be considered today. >> is there money in this spending plan for a border wall? >> there is. there is money in the border wall as part of the rule this is a little bit of a parliamentary gimmick. essentially what happens is when the house chooses to adopt the rule that governs floor procedure for all of the defense bill, the rule also contain as provision that automatically adds an amendment to the bill which would add about $1.57

billion, for various border security projects. in this amendment they stressed that some of this is for a border wall. but as we saw at the rules committee, on wednesday there was a lot of debate about whether this was a fence, whether this was a wall. the gist of it is that president donald trump is calling this $1.6 billion border wall money. even though it funds three different projects, one of them is a levee across the rio grande and then ballard fencing and security fencings and there's money for planning for the larger wall project that the president promised onned campaign trail. it goes into the bill immediately once the rule is adopted. >> let me go back to the issue of transgender. the statement yesterday via twitter, which by all accounts caught the capitol hill and the pentagon by surprise. how are democratic lawmakers, how are they trying to deal with that during this spending bill

debate? >> after that tweet came out that caught a lot of people offguard, not only republicans but also democrats submitted amendments to this defense rule that's being considered that would have spoken in some way about the idea of transgender individuals being banned from the military. or there was, there was a lot of desire from house republicans, some of the very conservative members, to insert a provision, in the bill that would prevent the department of defense for paying for these for these surgeries for transgender individuals. when trump went on twitter and decided to say that there was a ban of all transgender individuals in the military, a number of democrats, including representative jared paulis of colorado presented han amendment at the rules committee level to make an amendment in order that would have prohibited the department of defense from doing anything to implement this

stated ban. >> the whole environment around that has kind of changed with the joint chiefs of staff and the departments of defense saying they're wait fing for mo information. but none of those amend wrmts made in order. this really demonstrates how leadership's clamping down on the appropriations process has kept some of these flash-point controversies from derailing the movement towards legislation in the house. >> these are four of what are 12 appropriation bills that congress needs to approve before the end of september. will the house approve everything today? and where do things stand in the senate? >> the house is expected to pass this. the republicans have this bill written by the republican conference, designed to garner support from republicans so they can move it out of the house and onto the senate. but it's important to note that this $790 billion approximately spending bill including the border wall money violates

current budget law. if this were to be enacted if the house were to pass it and the senate were to pass it and the president were to sign it into law it would actually trigger what are known as sequestration cuts it would trigger across-the-board spending cuts that are designed by law to prevent congress from spending over certain levels. for defense and nondefense, that are already written into the budget law that governs how congress spends its money. so what they really need to do, and everyone knows this. and the democrats have been resounding this over and over again. they've been repeating that there needs to be a budget deal before all this appropriations action happens. the house republicans then say no, actually this is us laying down our principles. we know that we'll have to come to a deal in the budget later. but the key is, there has to be a change in law. president donald trump signs, that says we're going to spend this amount of money. because currently the house bill

exceeds that by about 70 billion. >> what about this agreement between house speaker paul ryan and congressman mark meadows that allows the house to take up these four appropriations bills and when will the lawmakers take up the remaining eight? >> there's been a lot of talk about which faction of republicans prevented you know, the consideration of a full 12-bill mini bus or omnibus, instead of this four-bill mini bus. but i think all eyes are on september given that's one, by september 30th, you know that's the end of the fiscal year. that's the deadline that they need to pass. something to keep the government funded. it's likely when they come back they can add the eight bills to this four-bill minibus, but the budget issue remains. the levels that the bill is written to, are not ones that would be able to be implemented. they would not be able to be enacted. instead it would trigger cuts so there's no likelihood really

that this, any of these bills become law until the congress decides how they want to raise these budget caps. >> very briefly, the house still on track to recess after tomorrow? >> that's the hope. there's a few things left, including they're trying to push some veterans legislation. they're trying to move through with intel authorization, but the house is looking to finish up by tomorrow. as part of the rule that's going to be adopted on the defense debate. they've allowed themselves suspension authority which allows them to pass legislation under suspension of the rules. not just for thursday, but also for friday. which signals they plan to be there through the end of the week. but the goal is to get out for recess after that. >> kelly maijry, on capitol hill for cq roll call, that's for being with us. >> thanks a lot. >> sunday on q&a, mark bowden

toss about his book. >> the battle shocked me, the battle of hue, the saigon military command was so out of touch with the reality of what was happening in the streets. got a lot of young americans killed. because what general westmoreland denied that the city had been taken. it was a fact, but he continued to deny it. for nearly the whole time the battle was fought. and as a consequence, we've never conceded the sheer number of enemy forces that were in the city. so small units of marines and troopers were being ordered to attack positions that were held by overwhelmingly superior enemy forces in entrenched positions. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a.