guest: there's frustration on both sides, democrats and republicans alike. s the fourth c.r. or short-term funding bill since september. and you know, republicans have

said that these types of short-term bills harm the military. they harm military preparedness. troops and generals complain they can't plan ahead when their operations are being funded c.r. to c.r. so that is just -- that has created a lot of headaches throughout the federal government and a lot of frusstration on capitol hill. host: let's take a look at your tweets, over the past couple of hours, a lot has been happening. here's your first tweet about 2 1/2 hours ago. the president, he wasen a spoker -- a speakerphone call with the freedom caucus and was directly negotiating a deal on the continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. then this most recently, the freedom caucus says it's reached a deal with g.o.p. leadership on the funding bill and one of the house freedom caucus members, mark meadows, urging the members

of that caucus to vote yes and a lot of this having to do with promises that speaker ryan has made. what are those promises and what's the likelihood then he's got the freedom caucus now on his side? guest: it looks like they have the vote, that republicans will have the votes to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government and avert a shutdown, at least on the house side. so let's just take the house first. what this deal means is that they will be able to pass a c.r. and then there will be separate votes, it turns out on boosting funds for military preparedness, sort of what i was talking about before on national security. we don't know, we only have the contours of this deal, since it just broke. mark meadow the freedom caucus chairman, and jim jordan, are taking this agreement with the speaker back to their rank and file members. in the rayburn house building.

as we speak. and so we are expecting that republicans will be table come together and pass the c.r. on a party line basis. if they're able to do that, some democrats are expected to come over and help pass the bill in the house, raising questions of whether it can be passed in the senate. host: why would they come other at that point? guest: they want republicans to demonstrate, you know they control both the house and senate and the white house, they want republicans to demonstrate that they can govern on their own before they help them out with this funding bill. they have a number of objections , probably the most crucial objection is that republicans have not put forth any bill on the floor this week dealing with the so-called dreamers or daca kids, immigrants brought to the

country illegally as children. democrats have insisted we want to deal with these young immigrants before we agree to any sort of deal on the spending caps and funding the government. and because republicans have not touched immigration this week, democrats will withhold their votes until republicans can prove their -- prove they can pass this on their own. host: this resolution has just come together as of tuesday. can you run down again some of the key points in this continuing resolution? guest: as you mentioned, it extends government fund, keeps the government's lights on to february 16, right before president's day weekend. it is another kicking the can down the road. but there are some sweeteners on both sides for democrats and republicans. on the democratic side, there is a six-year re-authorization of the chip program, this is a very

popular children's health care program that is used in a number intended nd that is to entice senate democrats to cross party lines and vote with republicans. the reason that's important is because they need to defeat a filibuster by democrats and so they will need between nine, perhaps 11 democratic votes to be table pass this thing on the senate side. in terms of some sweeteners on the republican side, there are three key obamacare taxes that re being delayed in this c.r., including the cadillac tax and the medical device tax. these are obviously taxes that republicans loath and so those are seen as sweeteners for republicans. there's something for everybody. and so that is how leadership

sort of put this bill together to try to amass enough votes to get it through the house and the senate. host: as you run from the house side to possibly the senate side tonight, what's the process, will the senate if the house does pass it, the senate can start taking it up, it'll go right to the senate. what does the next couple of days and into the weekend look like for the senate? guest: government funding runs out at midnight friday. we don't have a whole lot of time. senate democrats will need to take some action by tomorrow and the latest development on that side of the capitol is that senate democrats have said they have enough votes to block the funding bill due to the fact that it lacks any sort of immigration deal or daca deal. and on top of that, three republican senator, lindsey graham of south carolina, mike

rounds of -- mike rouns of south dakota and rand paul of kentucky also said they'd oppose the c.r. due to various reasons, including that it does not provide adequate funding for the pentagon. so it looks like it's going to be able to pass the house. the bigger problem as many of us expected is going to be the senate. and i have talked to a number of sources both democrats and republicans who say for the first time in four or five years, since 2013, it realy does feel like we are, you know, staring at a government shutdown. it feels very different than past c.r.'s and that a government shutdown is very reel. -- very real. host: scott wong, we've been following you all day today, we'll continue to follow you on dc ter, you're at scottwong

and reporting for the hill. guest: thanks for having me. host: we're going to take your calls. democrat, 202-748-8920. republicans, 202-748-8921, and all others, 202-748-8922. one of the actors was president trump, he had been campaigning in pennsylvania earlier , he returned to the white house a few hours ago, got on the speakerphone call with the freedom caucus, here's his arrival back at the white house.

host: president trump arriving back at the white house after being in pennsylvania today. our fist caller is mary, calling from hend -- hendersonville, north carolina, republican line. can congress avoid a government shutdown? caller: i think they can but i'd like to express my opinion. i'm sick and tired of listening to people say the republicans have control of the house and the senate and the presidency. when they need 60 votes and it's not that easy. because we have people in the senators of the freedom caucus what are against a lot of the bills. so to get to 60 is not an easy thing. and if it were that easy, then

you know, if the democrats had everything for eight years, more would have been done. it's not as easy as it looks. as someone who worked in government for 37 year i can tell you it's not an easy task. i just pray that we can all come together because i am a catholic and a republican and i supported president obama for year, i kohl rated it, i didn't agree with everything but he was our president. we're not democrats and republicans after the election. we are americans. and we need to come together for the good of america. and i pray that it happens and i thank you for all your, you know, for all your hard work and i didn't discover c-span until recently because i've been working very hard and didn't have time to watch television. thank you for everything. host: i'm glad you discovered

us, thanks, mary, thanks for tuning in, and of course we're going to have our coverage of the house throughout the night, they'll be back in under an hour to vote. we expect a final vote on the continuing resolution to fund the government past midnight tomorrow, of course that measure from the house has to go on then to the senate where it's looking like it's going to have an even tougher battle. one of the big players in the house that we just heard about, turning the corner in the house tonight, is mark meadows. we caught him coming out of his meeting with house speaker paul ryan. let's take a look and then we'll return to your phone calls. >> obviously had a very good conversation with both our conference chair and majority leader, the majority deputy whip, and certainly the speaker, had a good conversation with him. he put forth a few things for

our caucus to consider that would actually be beneficial to the military and our focus on the military needs going forward. at this point i'm not at liberty to discuss what those are until i've talked to my caucus but i can tell you we've made real good progress. hopefully the speaker will have something to announce here in the next 30 to 40 -- >> these are provisions outside of the c.r., that's why your side did not take a position you caucus didn't take a position? >> these are provision that have to do with military readiness and the fact that we want to make sure we keep our focus on our fighting men and women and give them the tools necessary to get their job done and the speaker and the president have been very clear about that today and so hopefully we'll be able to find a path to 218 votes on the house. >> aye got to go to a meeting.

>> will you recommend they accept this? >> obviously i'll be re-- recommending to our caucus based on what i just heard that we support the president in this particular initiative. >> what did the president say? >> i'm not going to characterize -- >> did that help influence -- >> we talked about our military and the fact that our military cannot be held hostage any longer by a broken congress that continues to have 60-vote cloture votes in the senate and hold our military men and women hostage. it's not acceptable. and no one should accept it. and so we've got to fix that. we have a couple of things that are going to be used in the coming days, hopefully will address our military. >> did this proposal come from the president?

>> we're going to talk to our caucus and when our caucus makes a decision, then we'll go from there. >> the president's plan on how we make sure that the military men and women get the resources they need and that would include a vote on the c.r. >> speaker ryan's report came from the president? >> it came from the speaker. >> was the president familiar with it? >> not to my knowledge. >> was there any commitment on immigration? >> we had a lot of conversations on immigration that has been consistent, that's a separate issue and probably should stay separate. > does the plan involve -- [inaudible] host: heading from one of the

members of the freedom caucus there, one of the members of the caucus that was really holding things up with his continuing -- with this continuing resolution, the short-term funding bill the house and late they are esenate will have to be working on to fund the government past midnight tomorrow and that continuing resolution is a short-term fix that would fund the government through february 16. taking your calls and our next call coming to us from north metro georgia. scott on the democrats line. scott, do you think congress can avoid a government shutdown by tomorrow? caller: i hope they do and i'm going to tell our democrats and any republicans listening to this, do your job. if you go back to when trump was running, he said if he had to pay for the wall to come up himself he would do that, don't hold the people and their money and what they need hostage to give him what he wants. let him put his money where his mouth is finally and then he'll learn to stop just talking to

hear himself talk. don't penalize the public. >> thanks for the call from georgia. brooksville, georgia, independent line. jim, you've got the floor. caller: how are you? host: what are your thoughts about making it past tomorrow night? caller: i'm hoping they do, i hope they get things together correctly, obviously there's a big fights in regards to the ideological battle occurring right now and i'm quite concerned over it. i voted for clinton, i voted for hillary, i voted for obama, and now i'm kind of done with it all, i'm looking at what's actually being put in my pocketbook lately and i'm say, i'm doing pretty good. i think we need to start thinking about, are we here in a spiritual batting, an ideological battle, what type of battle are we into here? and what's going on behind the scenes and who is controlling it all? it's kind of silly for the rest of us that want to just go to

work and enjoy ourselves, live our lives and continue on. yet we start to see all this kind of silliness happening. there's a lot of concern over that. it's like, when -- how does the media play into it? it's kind of weird in a way. i'm concerned over it. i think people need to take a really big chill break from it all and look at what really is happening within their spiritual lives and not necessarily with this silliness that we're, we're on the verge of a civil war, so it seems. and yet -- i'm concerned. that's where i go. host: thanks for your call. as you mentioned, some of the behind the scenes, a tweet here from melanie pointing out what was happening behind the scenes that helped the house, it looks like, turn the corner, we won't know for sure until they come back at 7:00 p.m. eastern. they'll start with votes on mortgages but then move on to the continuing resolution. she said part of this, getting through the the sort of gridlock

that was happening, is mark meadow well, saw a few minutes ago and getting a promise from speaker ryan to help bolster military readiness and address other national security issues. some of those big concerns from the freedom caucus. taking your call, we've got a call from george in waterford, new york, republican line. george, go ahead. caller: i hope they do shut the government down because it'll expose all the expensive programs, all the overpaid federal employees, and it's just an economic disaster for the taxpayers to have to pay for all this. i don't care. shut it down. that's all i want to do. host: all right. 29 hours and you'll probably find out whether or not this is going to become a reality there. phoenix, arizona. independent line. mike. what do you think, can congress avoid the shutdown tomorrow?

caller: well, if they do their job, they can but they're never around to do their job, they're going to go do the job of being re-elected. that's all they do. they want their job they want power. but i agree with your other caller. shut it down. it'll bring up -- host: thanks for the call. susan in illinois, independent line and what do you think? are we going to avoid the shutdown tomorrow night for the government? caller: it's okaville, illinois, i don't believe we will, i believe the democrats care more about illegal immigrants than they care about united states citizens and the needs of our country. nancy pelosi can get out there and say all she wants to say, we all know it's a bunch of garbage. she's blown smoke up everybody's

skirt for so long that she thinks that she's powerful. the problem is she's an idiot. the bottom line is, united states of america needs to come first. its citizens need to come first. daca kids, they're not kids, number one, and number two, they are asking our country to do them a favor when their parents did something illegal. that they want to benefit from. i'll be darned if our government should be held hostage by the democrats to accommodate illegal immigrants and forfeit the benefits to american citizens. host: thanks susan, here's a tweet from someone calling themselves retweet queen, about the democratic shutdown, 2018 slogan this person tweets, should be america last and foreign nationals first. and then another one here from

alfred hernandez, both parties backed themselves into a corner by not passing the 2018 budget before passing the tax cuts bill. so a couple of opinions there. you can weigh in on twitter, use #c-span.tag, brad on the republican line, where are you calling from? caller: international falls, minnesota. host: can government avoid a shutdown? caller: they can but in most cases they should avoid it but the point being is that the democratic party's almost done. they don't have but a few -- they don't have a chance coming into 2018 in anything so they're doing whatever they can and the only ones that realy truly follow these people are the ones

who follow cnn and msnbc, so they're going to get what they're going to get. they're going to lose and they're going to lose big in 2018 and then we're just going to continue this again and again and again. so we're where we're at but their party is going to fall even more and more and more. so good luck, right? host: all right, brad, thanks for the call. on to florida, orange park, michael has been waiting on the line, democrat. michael, give us your thoughts. caller: i think the government can avoid a shutdown but i really disagree with your last caller where there's very few democrats really in the system. i think it's really kind of ridiculous that we have gotten to this point where the military has over a $500 billion budget and we can't spare any of it for daca or the dream act or any of that? i think it's goden to a ridiculous point. host: thanks for the call there.

let's take a look again, mark meadows, oner of the members of the freedom caucus, he came out of a meeting with the speaker of the house, paul ryan, after quite a bit of reporting that looked like they were not going to be able to come to pass this continuing resolution and then after a phone call with the president and the freedom caucus, looks like a deal may have been struck between the freedom caucus and the other conservatives. here's a look at what he had to say. mr. meadows: obviously had a very good conversation with both our conference chair, the majority leader, the majority deputy whip, and certainly the speaker and had a good conversation with him. he put forth a few things for our caucus to consider that would actually be beneficial to the military and our focus on

the military needs going forward. at this point, i'm not at liberty to discuss what those are until i talk to my caucus but i can tell you we've made real good progress. hopefully the speaker will have something to announce here in the next 30 to 40 days. >> these are provisions outside of the c.r., that's why your side did not take a position in mr. meadows: these are provisions that have to do with military readiness and the fact that we want to make sure we keep our focus on our fighting men and women and give them the tools necessary to get their job done and the speaker and the president have been very clear about that today and so hopefully we'll be able to find a path to 218 votes on the house. i've got to go to a meeting with our caucus. >> would you recommend that they accept this? mr. meadows: obviously i'll be recommending to our caucuses can, based on what i just heard

that we support the president in this particular initiative. >> what did the president tell you? mr. meadows: i'm not going to characterize. we talked about our military and the fact that you are military cannot be held hostage any longer by a broken congress that continues to have 60-vote closure -- cloture votes in the senate and hold our military men and women hostage. it's not acceptable, no one should accept it, so we've got to fix that. we have a couple of things that are going to be used in the coming days, hopefully we'll ddress our military. >> did this come from the president? mr. meadows: we are going to talk to our caucus. when our caucus makes a decision we'll go from there.

we support the president's plan on how we make sure that the military men and women get the resources they need and that would include a vote on the c.r. >> speaker ryan's support came from the president? mr. meadows: it came from the speaker. >> were there commitments made on immigration? mr. meadows: we had a lot of conversations on immigration but -- it has been consistent that's a separate issue and probably should stay that way. > does the plan involve -- involve an actual change to the c.r.? host: mark meadow there is from a short time ago talking about a deal being reached between the freedom caucus and the house speaker. we're taking your phone calls. gary on the line, independents

and other, calling from van buren, arkansas. go ahead. caller: yeah, i think that they can avoid the shutdown. being a veteran, i never want to see the military, you know, shut down or hurt in any way. but what they need to do is sit down and figure out, you know, it's the people's country. it is not the democrats' it's not the republicans', it's the people's country. if we got to be a law-abiding citizen, for the 67 years i have been in this country because i was born here, everybody else should obey the laws and abide by them. get off their high horse. everybody needs to go out and vote and get rid of these incumbent, rich, filthy, dirty rich people sitting in an office and send them back home and get this country back@people it belongs to, the united states of america people.

that's what i think. they can avoid the shutdown if they vote, not get my caucus to say whether i can or can't vote. vote your heart. vote what your incumbents out there, vote what the people in your district want you to do. keep this country going. we are great and we always will be. thank you, have a good night. host: thanks for the call. voting in under half an hour, about 25 minutes away, expecting the house to come back to start votes, they're going to begin with votes on mortgage legislation and then move on to this continuing resolution, this short-term funding resolution, that would take the government another month through february 16 and a tweet now from our capitol hill producer, from c-span, craig kaplan, saying the house vote on the continuing resolution after 7:00 p.m. tonight, majority support of that house freedom caucus that was so key to moving forward with this legislation. let's get one more call in here.

jacqueline from virginia, republican. what do you think, can congress avoid the shutdown as this gos from the house on to the sthath? caller: they can if people will just agree with the president and do what he's asking them to do. he needs to have them do what needs to be done. and the american people want this. our people were impoverished under obama. we were made so poor that it's unbelievable. we had lives, we had things that we were doing and then when obama come in, everything went downhill and for the last however many years, it's been miserable. and honestly, donald trump is our only hope. he's our only hope. we need to agree with him. host: thankers in call, thanks for weighing in from virginia. appreciate all the calls tonight them house coming back in,

expected in around 7:00 p.m. they're going to be working on a numb of things. vote on a possible motion to recommit on home mortgage legislation and a final passage expected on that tonight but of course the main question on this continuing resolution, h.r. 195, and followed by a couple more votes as well, but we'll keep you posted. you can continue watching what's happening on the house floor here on c-span and of course with the senate on c-span2. now while we wait for the house to come back in to start their second series of votes, we're going to take a look at some of the debate from earlier on the continuing resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. cole: thank you, mr. speaker. let's be crystal clear on something. the house of representatives never held up chip. they passed it in october. we're still waiting for democrats in the senate to work with republicans in the senate and send us something back. in the meantime in this bill