submit it in writing. they're inviting the president to give his address in the chamber instead and the government shutdown is now in its 27th day, six days longer than any previous shutdown. t the shutdown continues over border wall funding. day 27. you were part of a piece that the washington examiner wrote. vote on the wall and bend the shutdown. what are you proposing? is basically a compromise that i think it's simple in my own mind and a pretty common sense compromise for democrats and republicans is to fund the border wall construction the president is asking for in exchange for a deal on daca of some sort.

that gives trump what he wants and democrats a big win insuring people who came here not of their own accord and have not been criminals are able to stay here legally. so that's a pretty simple compromise and it seems like a commonsense idea. but apparently not something congressional leaders are interested in. host: why do you think republicans are not interested? why do you think democrats are not interested? what are the politics? trump wants his win and he wants the democrats to say trump is right and it's a great idea. democrats want to make sure trump doesn't get the signature win on the wall. he's been saying calling for a wall since june 2015 since he first started this whole campaign. finallyng him that wall

is going to be a huge win if they sign on to that. and really they have dug in their feet pretty far for this point. it's tough for them to go back and let him have that win on the wall. members are saying that any kind of border wall is a and things like that. now its ando say it we will let the wall go through. host: what do you think about this proposal that jason russell is putting out their? chicago tribune also has that same endorsement of this kind of idea. a republican, democrat, independent, what do you think? give the president of 5.7 billion for the wall. democrats get the permanent daca program for the so-called dreamers. democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001 and .ndependents (202) 748-8002

for the democrats, why is there a motivation to get these dreamers that permanent status? what happened to that? guest: it's a great question. i think a lot of it has to do with the politics. they've always been able to campaign for dreamers and say this is important and it needs to be done. i think this has been going on for almost a decade. they have been campaigning trying to give dreamers permanent status. it does help that it keeps those voters who agree with them engaged on that issue. #will that the voters might think -- if you finally fixed that than voters might have less of. -- a reason to vote. it's complex.

what is your perspective on who is politically -- who will politically feel the damage of this shutdown? guest: i think it's increasingly going against republicans in the polls. took basically responsibility for the shutdown even before it happened saying i'm going to shut down the government. so naturally the polls are showing that this is going poorly for republicans. some republicans including listening -- lindsey graham are saying let's open the government if only just for three weeks. i think that would be huge. that ensures that federal employees who have been going without paychecks can come back to work. the federal contractors who have been out of work are able to

come back for a little bit and get some more revenues they can help pay their own e. and get some more revenue into their offer so they can help pay their own employees as well. and also this make a big difference if the government opened for three weeks and even if it shut down after that over the same issues and problems then at least there's a little bit of a mitigated damage from -- we were able to find compromise to reopen and help struggle workers. it would be a big political help to republicans. >> herbie is in moss point, mississippi, democrat. >> caller: i want to address, you said these dreamers haven't broke the law because they've been here. they broke the law when they got here. laws work, walls work because we as black people, when we break the laws we're put behind walls. get donald trump that wall so he can stop those people from coming in this country that's

breaking the laws. and those black leaders in the democratic party, your children are being punished as black people and being pet in jail for breaking laws. you're making excuses for these people that are breaking the laws. you yourself, you're there holding up this man from trying to get this thing in order in order to keep these people from breaking the laws. they here in this country. they broke the laws, get them out of this country. i'll solve the problem. just tell donald trump to give them six months to get out of this country and if they don't get out and we have to catch them, we'll put them on a chain gang and build a wall. >> caller, what about the dreamers who came here -- it wasn't their choice, their parents brought them here? >> well, their parents, them, they're wrong. our parents brought us -- we're living in ghettos and stuff and we can't get out of the ghetto and we break the law and they put us in jail. you come up with a thing for crack cocaine to put us in jail for ten years mandatory for crack cocaine, you call the wall

of drugs and everything else, call the wall and what we got going on out here with these illegal immigrants and solve the problem like you're trying to solve the problem. if these was black people coming into this country you would find a way to solve the problem. >> you raise interesting points about there's a case to be made for that but something i've changed my mind on in the past few years is i always thought well, you know, these dreamer protections are for immigrants who are already here, it's not forward looking, it's saying if you came then we'll give you this protection but what we've increasingly seen is that those kinds of programs and protections have encouraged more people to come along over the border and bring their children because they're seeing, okay, yes, it's possible that not right away but in 10, 20 years there is a political constituency that will be there

to say yes, we should protect these people, we should give them temporary if not permanent legal status. >> oregon, john is watching from there, republican. >> caller: i think not funding the wall is kind of like funding the military but don't let them have any bullets. just give them everything else. i think they need all three thing things. and nancy pelosi needs to remember it's not her house it's the people's house and if the president gives his speech there, that's where he should give it. >> it will be interesting to watch what happens.

pelosi's threat/request is heightening the drama over the state of the union and democrats have been known for some kind of stunts in the past. there was a caucus of democratic members who dressed up in all white i think last year or the year before so it will be interesting to see democratic members might boycott and of course pelosi might just say we're not going to let this happen in the house chamber itself. so steve scalise said if president trump comes to the capitol, we'll find a spot for him to speak and i'm sure republicans will and that will make it more likely that i think more people are going to watch because it will be more interesting. >> victor in wind mere, florida, independent. >> caller: good morning. i think you have a good idea about putting out a compromise.

i would make the compromise like this if i was trump. i would tell them give me $5.6 billion for the wall and a tax on mexico on goods coming into the united states and all mail going to mexico. that would pay for the wall. the mexicans would pay for the wall and trump would have -- his base would be happy with that. in return i would give pelosi the daca. let her do the daca thing and i would add to that the prescription drug bill that the democrats have been wanting, they can negotiate the price of medicare drugs and they can import drugs from canada. so the price will come down. people are hurting out here on these prices. they're ridiculous. $300, $400, $500 co-pays and they can't make the payments. senior citizens are suffering. people can't get insulin. trump could come out a hero in

this and reverse his bad numb s numbers. >> yes, that's a good idea. the shutdown is related to all government funding so i don't see why they couldn't try that. i don't see it happening for the same reasons i mentioned earlier, democrats don't want to give trump any kind of win on the wall and trump is his and the to give them a win on daca because then a good portion of his base will attack him for amnesty. it's interesting to see a large portion of trump's base, including early supporters like ann coulter and some other -- i'll call them extreme conservatives complaining about the funding for the wall being -- the construction has been steel slats that stop someone from walking straight

through but certainly there are videos of able-bodied men climbing over the steel slats so they're not satisfied with that. they want a concrete barrier like they were promised from day one and even if trump get this is $5.7 billion in the border fight they're going to be unhappy because it isn't the concrete barrier that goes the whole length of the border like they were promised from the beginning. >> how would you describe "washington examiner" conservatism? >> our editorial page is center right but we love to publish all kinds of opinions, whether i personally agree with them or not, whether our commentary editor agrees with them or not. we like to publish good arguments and respond this them and have strong policy debates but we have our strong objective news side and our reporters are doing great work. >> tammy in missouri, democrat. >> caller: yes, thank you for

taking my call. first of all mr. russell i take issue with some of the things that you've said, especially about pelosi taking her stunts about pelosi taking her stuntun. the women wearing white was because it was in the face of some of the things and the misogynistic things trump has done. the second thing is on daca. we don't negotiate with terrorists. the united states has a policy we never negotiate with terrorists and this is a terroristi terroristic tactic he's using. i think he haven't even used the money they already gave him for the wall and trump counts that they're doing work on the wall and they haven't done anything. if they wanted to pass additional funds for the wall they would have done it when

they had control of both houses and the presidency which was just before the midterms. they couldn't even do it then. thank you for taking my call. >> i do think she makes an interesting point about president trump's two years in office with republican majorities. certainly didn't have supermajority in the senate like barack obama and the democrats did from 2009 and 2010 but if trump wanted to make it a priority then he could have had a strong erma jorty in the house to push that through. now he has to deal with nancy pelosi rather than speaker of the house paul ryan when he's trying to get border wall funding. wasn't easy then. you still had moderate republicans leery of going all in on a wall or spending so much money on a wall be if trump wanted to make that priority he could have said we'll do wall funding before tax reform.

we'll do wall funding first before we try to go at obamacare repeal. legislating takes time, you can't do these things. congressional leaders did set the priorities with what they were doing with tax reform. >> virginia, republican. >> caller: please don't hang up on me but correct me if i'm wrong. the last act of the last house they did pass the 5.7 and this was $5.7 billion and that was the last thing that they did and that was the -- right after that night that pelosi was somewhere dancing and happy that they didn't pass -- they didn't vote

on anything but they did pass $5.7 billion, that was the last act of the last congress. now correct me if i'm wrong. i believe that's what happens before the democrats came in. and also i'm wondering if c-span is going to cover blexit, which is black exit from the democratic party. it's happening in l.a. county and the reason it's happening is because of the sanctuary city and sanctuary county and state that's going on in california is affecting the black community there. it's uncivil in the schools, the kids are being told to go back to africa from kids that are not even citizens of this country. it's almost no one will cover the type of frightening situation where the cars are being car bombed, firebombed because there are black people in the illegal latino community.

i'm not sure exactly what's going on down there because people won't cover it. maybe this guy from the examiner can go to some of these sanctuary cities where the -- where black people are living and they're having a terrible time with this illegal immigration and sanctuary cities and it's not being covered? >> there's an interesting point. i think democrats assume all of their constituencies are on board with their immigration fight but i think the caller makes a good point. there's a growing sentiment among african-americans that the democratic party doesn't speak for them on immigration. the first caller, the african-american man from mississippi was also representative of that, a democrat calling for more border funding and saying that democratic congressional leaders betrayed the part yy so it was something from the start that donald trump was painted as a

racist candidate but his approval among african-americans is still incredibly low and he's still unpopular in general among african-americans but he's actually slightly more popular with african-americans than previous republican presidential candidates. >> jackie, jacksonville, north carolina, independent. >> caller: hello. what i want to say is even if we had a 40-foot wall, they're allowing hundreds to come in through the doors everyday but how much money is spent every month on health care, housing, unpaid -- no taxes brought in every month from the illegal

people and it just seems like there's only one-fourth of the population that actually carries this whole country. >> i think that's something that conservatives are concerned about when it comes to giving legal status to legal immigrants and illegal aliens. i think a lot of republicans would say let's make sure that welfare programs and government programs are only available to permanent legal citizens of the country. . and that they want to basically make sure that the people who are paying the most in taxes are the ones eligible for those programs and that does seem like a reasonable compromise that people who are illegal immigrants who come here and if they can pay their own way and still make sure that they can make a living without needing government assistance then that

seems like a reasonable compromise. >> george in ohio, a democrat. >> caller: yes, i have a question for him, for jason. >> we're listening. >> caller: jason, in the 2016, didn't trump say mexico was going pay for it? >> he did. >> sorry for delay, we just finished up our votes on the floor. first of all, wow, i'm so excited that so many people turned out in support of this important initiative and i wanted to welcome everyone here today to the official launch of epac to engage, empower, elevate and elect more republican women to congress. in 2020 and beyond. as you know, we are facing a crisis level of republican women in congress. the number of republican women house members dropped