ords". sunday, on american history television at 12:55 p.m. eastern, remembering the life and legacy of william f buckley junior, the television personality, political activist, and founder of the national review. at 8 p.m. on " the first president, the first americans, and the birth of a nation. >> the white house said the president will sign the $1.3 trillion omnibus bill once approved by congress. the announcement came during a briefing with budget director mick mulvaney and legislative affairs director mark short. this is 20 minutes. ms. sanders: good afternoon.

the president has three events today that are open to the press pool, and there's a lot to cover, soy wanted to make sure you have the most updated information on the omnibus. this bill is so important on many fronts, from school safety and troop funding to opioids and veterans care. togive you an update best give your rundown and answer questions, we have mick mulvaney short.k short -- marc at the conclusion of their q&a, our press team is around, as always, to answer questions you may have on news of the day. thanks very much, you guys. >> thanks, sarah. we're just going to make a brief opening statement because i know the questions are probably what you want to get to anyway. let's cut right to the chase -- is the president going to sign the bill? the answer is yes. why? because it funds his priorities. we talked for the last 3, 4, 5,

6 months about trying to get the president's priorities funded, and this omnibus bill does that. you heard sarah mention it gives troops the increase we have been trying to give. funds opioids, school safety. a tremendous increase in workforce development comes something that does not get a lot of attention, but this administration has been pushing since we got here. it starts taking a look at funding infrastructure, and it also does a lot of what we wanted -- not everything we wanted, but a lot of what we wanted -- on immigration. all things considered, when we look at the bill, we have to weigh what we asked for with what we had to give away to get it. is it everything we wanted? is it exactly what we asked for? were we ever going to get that echo no. you are going to always have to rely on democrat votes in a republican majority like we have. we need nine democrats to support this bill so there was

no chance of everything we wanted passing. this is probably a good opportunity to bring up the idea of a line-item veto. if the president had that, this bill would look a lot different, but we do not have that opportunity. be a good opportunity to look at the rules in the senate that drive us to these kinds of results, but all things considered, the president supports the bill and plans on signing it. thanks.t: director mulvaney can certainly give you guys more details. his team put together a budget that it submits to congress in february. congress is supposed to appreciate the appropriations the fiscalthe end of year. what we have endured since then is six continuing resolutions. secretary mattis has told us it has debilitated in many cases what he has been trying to do.

one of the greatest priorities was to rebuild the military. this bill will provide the largest year-over-year increase in defense spending since world war ii. it will be the largest increase for our men and women in uniform in salary for the last 10 years. additionally, it provides one of our signature priorities regarding $1.6 billion for a wall. it also provides a 10% increase ar ice's budget as well as 10% increase for dhs overall. a couple of additional things we put into this bill after the tragic school shootings come there are a couple of legislative matters we have asked congress to adopt. one provides an additional 2 billion dollars for school safety, focused on purchasing equipment and personnel. both of those are included in the omnibus, which we are very pleased about. mickck -- has mick -- as

outlined from the start, the process is one which certainly leaves a lot to be desired and what in which the appropriations process in congress has been broken. it has been 22 years since 1996 when the appropriations process worked and the president signed a bill. that leaves us with unfortunately something of a hobbesian choice of do you have a continuing resolution again or do you build the things you laid out as priorities including national security and border security, so we are pleased with that. >> i hear from both of you, you want to dr. russ spending increases and infrastructure. $1.3 trillion to get us to october. a lot about what is in here in terms of money going out but none of the fiscal responsibility. what happened to the republican party? the republican party now controls all branches of

government. what happened to you? your own colleagues of the freedom caucus called this bill an insult to the american taxpayer. >> do you really expect me to give you the same answer i gave jim? we do not control all of the government. when you have to have 60 votes in the senate, there's only 51 republicans. we do not control the senate under the current rules. therefore, we have to give the democrats something. this was the same conversation we had when we cut the deal six months ago that let us here. this was the second step. we raised the caps a couple of month ago, now we spend up to the caps today. in order to get defense spending with the rest of our priorities funded, we had to give away a lot of stuff we did not want to give away and would not have given away if we were really in charge of the senate. this is how it works. this is what a bill looks like when you have 60 votes in the senate or democrats get a chance to take their pound of flesh in order to defend the nation.

>> your former colleagues in the freedom caucus -- you would not be voting for this -- >> is going to be a bunch of folks who vote against this for a bunch of different reasons. there will be folks who vote against it because it spends too much money. there will be folks who vote it has it because something and if they don't like or does not have something in it that they like. i have a statement from the , whicht hispanic caucus i call the democrat hispanic caucus because they do not let my hispanic republicans in the group. it says chc could not support the spending bill as it would fund trump's border wall and mass deportation force. there's a bunch of reasons a bunch of democrats are going to vote against this bill and different folks for different reasons. >> i wonder if you could talk about your priorities as a relates to funding planned parenthood. a lot of americans feel strongly the federal government is doing something they believe should be done privately or in concert with the state.

the want to ask about your priority as it relates to the wall. when people see the other numbers, the wall does not seem like as high a priority as perhaps many trump voters might have anticipated. mr. short: on the first one, i think this administration is very proud of our stand for life. from the start, this administration has stood for life beginning with the mexico city policy and having the first president of the united states to actually speak at a march for life rally. we have been proud of our record. if you look at the legislation, it maintains every single pro-life protection in hyde language and helms language to make sure no taxpayer dollars are going to fund abortions. that is the truth in this bill. regarding your second question on the border security, keep in mind this bill is for the next six months of this fiscal year.

$1.6 billion in wall funding is what we can expend over the next six months to actually do what we have been asked to do, and as the director said, it ends up providing more miles in new construction than what we originally asked for. i think the washington times has an article out this morning suggesting we change policy, and the ap is reporting we cannot build the prototype wall. that is inaccurate. here's the breakdown on the one point $6 billion -- $1.6 billion. we asked 28 miles of levee wall in the rio grande valley. we got 25 in this package for 32 miles of pedestrian wall in the rio grande valley. we'll he got 14 there. -- we only got 14 there. that includes building the new type of wall the president visited last year.

funded in this bill. we did not ask for any replacement barrier, and we got 63 miles in the bill. more money than we asked for in technology, more than we asked borderoads, facilities, patrol vehicles, weapons, more than we asked for in cvp hiring retention and exactly what we asked for in planning and design. and we get everything we wanted when it comes to immigration? absolutely not. did we get a daca fix? no. let's make it clear -- the president one at a daca fix as part of this deal. he offered a large package with a complete daca fix in exchange for the entire wall -- he offered a small package, three years with of a daca fix for three years of a will. democrats in the house and senate have made it clear they think they are winning in the courts and do not want to fix this legislatively. we have reached out to them again and again to try to fix daca and they refuse to engage on the topic. on this, we ended up asking for 74 miles worth of wall. we get 110.

not exactly what we wanted where we wanted. congress chose to ignore some of the suggestions cvp made on where the best kind of wall should go. that's unfortunate and some of the things we asked for that we did not get. there's limitations congress put in the bill that we do not particularly care for, but generally speaking, we think this is a really good immigration package, one of the reasons the democrat hispanic caucus probably does not like it very much. >> the 14 miles in san diego, is that replacing something that is already there you could i'm trying to expand -- understand how it is an san diego you do not have this type of wall at all. >> have you been to the border in san diego? there's the wall on the border and the secondary wall. a two-wall system with roads on both sides, and this is the secondary wall, which would be another wall behind the first one, and it's the prototype that is -- again, i don't know how to describe it. the steel wall with concrete

across the top in order to prevent grappling hooks from going over it. >> when you can in you said the only way to get serious wall would be if you got a daca deal. does that still stand? need,got the 110 miles we 10 times that. you heard the president say he wants $25 million to finish the wall. we would look at have that. i think what i said in february stance, which is that congress will not give us that without a daca six, immigration reform, and we want that, but they refuse to do it. >> just a little more clarity because i think it has been underreported as far as the president's commitment. what was well covered was the battle on the daca fix earlier this winter. on the us, the president put forward that if we are not going to be able to do the things we want for larger immigration reform on chain migration and diversity lottery, then what i would look to do is protect those who are in this country working hard who have daca permits.

inl you partner with me doing that and funding the wall. democrats said no. we came back after multiple additional conversations to something democrats have asked for previously, which was will you give us three years of wall funding for keep these people here and protected for the next three years. democrats said no. what is clear at this point is that democrats do not want a solution to this. this is a political weapon that they appreciate. they want to use permit holders as political pawns in their game. the president has tried to fix this problem and solve it and has offered multiple different proposals, yielding in many ways where we started, but it is absolutely clear that democrats no longer want a legislative solution to daca. >> democrats said they never were interested in a short-term, 2.5-year, three-year deal. is that fair or not fair? >> we have been more than willing to negotiate the terms of it as well. democrats have shut down each of those conversations because they

appreciate this as a political weapon and do not want a solution to this problem. >> one of the other items wanted to look at was some kind of limitation on section where he cities. how are you ever going to get that? >> it is disappointing to us. again, a lot of the policies that we wanted to see in immigration we did not get. we got a lot of the physical structure, the money we wanted, but a lot of the policies we did not get. we go back to the original point that i think if this was a republican bill, it would be dramatically different. the house actually passed all 12 of their appropriations bills this year. house appropriations bill was actually pretty good. it contained a lot of our policies. that's the difference when you have to deal with that rule in the senate where you have to buy democrat votes but you're giving them stuff that republicans do not like or taking away things that we do like. we're not conceding in the

least. keep in mind, the sanctuary cities bill passed the house, which we supported in the vote in the senate was 54 votes. the way the senate rules are constructed, it requires 60. it does have him i don't -- majority in the senate. it does not yet have 60 votes. he will see the president continue to make this a priority and we will continue to talk about things like what happened in oakland, which i think the american people were very disturbed about and we continue to raise and elevate the importance of the issue. we hope we will get additional votes in the senate. >> thank you. this is for both of you. one, on daca, are you prepared for the fact that it stays in place through midterms? have you effectively lost your leverage on that issue? number two, on the terrace -- is the president sparking a trade war? >> we are actually going to have to wrap up in a few minutes because the president is going is begun tariffs in just a couple, so we will only take a couple more questions, so we

will let him speak for himself on that one. on the first question, this was, i think, the best chance to fix daca before midterm elections. the president has been actively engaged in trying to encourage a daca solution -- permanent, short-term, whatever, so that the uncertainty caused by these court decisions could be put to rest. democrats blocked it as a political issue. >> it is staying in place because some of the president's core supporters want to see dr. thrown out. >> the president wants to figure out a way to solve this issue, and that has not changed. this will be our last question because we have to go. >> setting aside the barriers that are secondary walls and replacements for what is already there, you gotten 33 miles of new barrier where there was nothing before. is that about right? >> i cannot confirm -- >> those of the numbers you get out. >> it is safe to say 110 miles. not all of that is brand-new. 33 miles of barrier

with her was not anything there before. the president has said before he does not want to build a 1900-mile wall. if you assume about half of it, at this rate, it will take you more than 14 years to complete the project he promised would be done in his first term. -- do you square that >> of congress would give us the money to do it, we would do it now. to your specific point about the number of miles, i don't know if you were here last time we did -- and a six months ago, we did a presser on the actual wall. if you have a broken down chain-link fence that you and i could walk through with no effort and we put up a 20-foot-high solid wall, technically, that is not new barrier, but it is effectively a new barrier, so i do not think it is apples to apples when you say is only 33 miles of new material. but the bottom line is if congress will appropriate the money, we will build the wall. >> what about the president saying that you guys did not work hard enough to get that?

>> i would also ask you to keep in mind this money is for the next six months. we're already halfway through this next fiscal year. tohave certainly continue ask for additional funding to continue the wall throughout this year. this is for six months because congress has been unable to complete the appropriations process was has left us in the position of having repeated continuing resolutions. >> one question for you, director mulvaney. how would you have voted on this? >> i'm not the fifth district congressman from south carolina anymore. i'm the director of the office of management and budget, and my job is to get the president's priorities funded, which this does. there's a bunch of people who are going to vote no on this today from the hispanic caucus to the freedom caucuses. to passident wants it and wants it to be signed. >> what kind of conversation has the white house been having with senator rand paul? any assurances made?

>> i have not spoken with senator paul regarding this bill. i do not know for sure, but i would also ask on john's knowion, if you want to where the administration stands, look at the budget we submitted. cuts $3 trillion over the next 10 years. president's budget. we have to work at getting 60 votes in the united states senate. look at the budget that we have submitted to show where we would be making cuts. the president has taken seriously his commitment to making sure the $20 trillion in debt that has been added by the last several administrations is overturned. we put forth a is fully responsible budget. we need congress to partner with us on that. >> looks like we have to go. the president is getting ready to speak on tariffs.