was going on but i also felt very marooned and isolated. very alone. alone in a way that is kind of all-encompassing. i did not have anything to fall back on. through all of that process i think i learned to rely and depend myself which was empowering and strengthening but also very hard. >> watch book tv this weekend on c-span two. a short time ago president trump spoke to reporters about the negotiations. between senate leaders mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer to end the shutdown. the president said if there is a reasonable agreement he would support it but insisted there still has to be a while. mister gray congratulations

on your victory we worked hard. that was a great job. thank you. thank you very much congratulations. so thank you all very much i appreciate it thank you. one of the ideas suggested that they open and pay a prorated down payment for the wall which i think people would agree we need, a lot of the democrats are almost all of them are breaking saying walls are good was a good him a big difference from what you had two or three weeks ago. the vote, we had the vote on our bill which we one 50-47, that was our bill but we got one democrat, it was 50-47 and we need as you know, we have to get 60. we don't have 60 votes so we need democrat support. we did not get democrat support other than from an actually wonderful man as you know, senator mansion.

he is doing the right thing for his people. he is doing the right thing for west virginia frankly. the other bill was 52-44 and that included a lot of hurricane relief for a lot of different states so it's sort of not something some of them really voted for the hurricane relief which i felt they needed, that was 52-44 but you needs xt so it didn't go anywhere. we knew they both were not going to go anywhere, we thought. now mitch is negotiating with chuck schumer and we will see what happens. i think they just left a meeting, they just had a meeting and they were going out to see the people but they just left. we have two bills i think we did very well. the republicans held except for two. two were not there, they were not able to be there so there were two non-votes. but even with two non-votes i think there would've been good votes for us. it's 50-47, we won. we needed 60 votes because of

the 60 vote rule. so i just really want to thank the republicans for holding. again on the other one, that was the opening up that's 52-44 but you need 60 votes so it's a long way short. a lot of that, a lot of those votes were based on the fact that there were hurricane relief for certain states. we have a lot of alternatives. honestly, everybody look for the most part people agree when i say everybody, i would say almost everybody, we have to have border security. we have to have a wall in order to have border security. you cannot have border security without a wall. we can play games and we can talk about technology we can talk about drones flying around. you know right now formed is an 8000 person caravan and the caravan is heading our way,

congratulations we have another one. we stop the first one we stop the second one, i would not say that you want is to happy but they are happily living in tijuana right now and a lot of them have gone back. we stop them but it is very tough. if we do not have a wall in those areas it would've been very hard to stop them. we have the military and we have the border patrol that have done an incredible job and ice has done an incredible job all over the country frankly. we have removed thousands of ms 13 and others out of our country. but if we had a wall we would not have that problem. it would be great. so we have a lot of alternatives but i am just honored that almost all of the republicans voted for our bill. our bill is the bill that we were focused on but we had almost all of the republicans so the end result was 50-47. the democrats lost one that came over to our side. so they pretty much held and we held and again we were missing two republicans that could not vote. they were not here.

after this meeting we will find out but right now mitch mcconnell is meeting with chuck schumer and we will see what happens. they are meeting to see if they can work out something maybe on a temporary basis where we start but i have you know we have a lot of alternatives, there are a lot of people that want this to happen. i will tell you who wants this to happen, the military wants this to happen because this is a virtual invasion of our country. of drugs, of human traffickers, of so many different things of criminals, it's an invasion of our country in the military wants this to happen. the border patrol wants this to happen and by the way order patrol, all of the drones flying up in the air having a lot of fun driving drones, it doesn't mean a thing they look down and see thousands of people rushing our border. the only thing that works is a strong barrier or wall. i have not spoken to nancy pelosi, no. but i am here you know.

i have not left except for a beautiful evening in iraq. i have been here for a long time. i have not heard the statement but i do understand that perhaps you should have set it differently. local people know who they are where they go for groceries and everything else. i think what wilbur was probably trying to say is that they will work along. i know banks are working along if you have mortgages the mortgagees the mortgage, the folks collecting the interest in all of those things they work alone. that's what happens in times like this. they have been dealing with them for years. the grocery store, i think that that is probably what wilbur meant that i have nothing the statement. he has done a great job i will tell you that. >> i want to know are you worried -- >> we are looking at venezuela, it's a very sad situation. that was the richest state in

all of that area, it's a big beautiful area and by far the richest and now it's one of the poorest places in the world. that is what socialism gets you . when they want to raise your taxes to 70%. it is interesting, i have been watching our opponents our future opponents talking about 70%, number when you can do it for 70% it has to be twice that number but maybe more importantly what happens is you really have to study and take a look at what is happened to venezuela. it is a very very sad situation. so we have our i very closely on venezuela. it depends on the agreement. if they come to a reasonable agreement i would support it yes. >> does it have to -- >> i have other alternatives if i have to. i will use those alternatives if i have to. if we want to go to the system, we have to have a wall in this

country. we have criminals pouring into our country. i am not talking about the southern border, they don't stay there they go through and permeate all throughout the country. including places like wisconsin, a lot of different places. that is the problem. i say that we would cut, we are doing very well on crime rate compared to past administrations but i think the crime where it would go way down in our drug, our drug what has happening is the drug supporting and. they come to the ports of entry but the big trucks come through areas where you don't have a wall and you have wide open spaces. we have to have the well. you would stop the drugs and the human trafficking. human trafficking where they tie up women and they put duct taped on their miles and put them in the backseat of a car or in a van. they don't come through a port of entry because the people at the port of entry are going to see that. that's not like hiding drugs in

the engine of the hubcaps and they have incredible ingenious ideas, i mean frankly some of these people are so genius if they were ever they would become very rich people if they were legit but what they do is they go through the ports of entry but the big stuff comes through areas where you have nobody watching. you have hundreds of miles of open space and they go out there and they are loaded up with drugs or they have women in the backseat of the car's duct tape all over the place it's a disgrace. you don't catch them. you don't even know the difference between mexico and the united dates. they make a left turn after they go out 20 miles or 40 miles, 5 miles in some cases or less. they make a left and they are in the united states and they do whatever they have to do. you need the wall. we can all play games and we can all talk about technology i know more about technology than anybody, you don't have the while the technology doesn't work. first of all the wall is based,

any technology works only with the wall. it's not gonna work otherwise coming to the well. a lot of the technology is put on top of the wall. that is how you see it. the cameras and everything else. they literally put the technology, they fasten it to the wall. then you have drone technology and that's great in terms of what are you going to do to follow the people? first of all once they step into the country you know what happens right? you know what they do. it's called, what they call it you know? they put 1 foot in our country right? and we have them that's it. the drones don't help us. we have to keep them out. we have no choice but to have a wall or a barrier. if we don't have that it's just not going to work. it's very important to me. one more question. >> what is your message to federal workers? >> i love them i respect them i really appreciate the great job they are doing. many of those people that are

not getting paid are totally in favor of what we are doing because they know the future of this country is dependent on having a strong border especially a strong southern border because we have tremendous violence and crime coming through that border. we have tremendous drugs we have human trafficking, we have ms 13 and gangs pouring through those borders and if we don't strengthen this borders we are going to have a big problem in the future. one of the people i blame is myself because the economy is so strong right now, stronger than ever before. today, today right now we have more people working in the united states that has ever worked in this country before. that's a great complement so i blame myself. the fact is people come up because our country is doing so well and they want to bring to our borders. the fact is we want them to come up we have a big we took in more people last year legally than we have in a long time because we need them

because we have a lot of companies are coming to our country. so we need people coming in. i want people to come in but they have to come in legally and they have to come in through marriage. they have to be able to help companies and if they don't help countries in need of help our country we cannot do that folks we just cannot do that. >> why did you decline to agree with at the plaza? >> it's really her choice i would have done it in a different location but i think that would be very disrespectful to the state of the union to pick some other place. i could've gone to a big auditorium and gotten 25,000 people in one day and you have been there many times but i think that would be very disrespectful to the state of the union so what she said i thought was actually reasonable. we will have the state of the union when the shutdown is over. >> when you think it will be? >> that i cannot tell you. we have a lot of alternatives but we need border security. okay thank you very much everybody.

thank you. thanks everybody. a short time ago senators ben cardin chris van hollen in lisa murkowski held a news conference to talk about efforts to end the government shutdown. their briefing on capitol hill ran about 15 minutes. good afternoon good evening, over the last several days and weeks there have been a group of bipartisan senators that have been in discussion on ways that we can and the shutdown and responsibly take up the border security issue. senator murkowski and i agreed to lead on the flooof