something that is pretty extreme. >> what do you say to people that worry about the impact of separating parents and children? secretary nielsen: they are breaking the law. that is why they are separated. in the united states, if you break the law, you are separated from your family. should not be any different for illegal immigrants. >> people seeking asylum here -- secretary nielsen: go to the port of entry. thanks guys. secretary nielsen: the house defeated the five-year farm bill. huffington post congressional report matt fuller covering the issue. democrats opposed the bill. unanimously opposed to the snap provisions. but the bill failed because 30 republicans voted no. what was their reason, matt? matt: it was a varied reason. you had about a dozen moderates who opposed the bill on the grounds there were snap cuts, implement work requirements for

a lot of adults who are on the food stamp program, the supplemental nutrition assistance program, and then combine that with about -- i don't know -- close to 20 conservatives, maybe about 18 conservatives from the freedom caucus and sort of with a little bit outside the freedom caucus who opposed it on the grounds they really wanted to use this as sort of leverage in negotiation with immigration. right now you have the discharge petition going on right now. frankly, they feel like they don't have much control over the immigration debate and looking for some must-pass piece of legislation they can hold onto here and try to flex their muscle on that decision with the immigration plan going through. and they sort of saw this as the only last chance before the discharge petition would ripen at the end of june so they want to hang onto this thing and use it as leverage going forward with immigration. host: and the headline of one of your huffingtonpost.com pieces

says the freedom caucus thinks the key part of paul ryan's welfare reform agenda, there was reporting out that the conservatives in the house had been told the house would indeed take up immigration legislation in early june. was that not enough? matt: not really. this started out this idea that the freedom caucus could get what's called the goodlatte bill, a hard line right immigration bill and they want to get a vote on that. they wanted to pass it for a while. the real for this -- the real impetus for this is if you use the goodlatte bill, it would eviscerate the discharge petition. the goodlatte bill is the vehicle for the discharge petition. that turned out to not quite be the case. basically they figured out as long as you have 218 votes, you have 218 votes to amend it. that plan really wasn't going to work out. midway through the week here, freedom caucus changed gears and said, what we really want to do is come up with an immigration

plan that 218 republicans or maybe more with democrats that they could all support, they could all come together that maybe trump could support and that's a tall order. they thought they were getting closer here. they actually were working with moderates, jeff denham, one of the authors of the discharge petition. they thought they were getting close, but they didn't feel like they were close enough to let go this piece of leverage and vote for the farm bill now when the immigration base is ongoing here. host: back to the democrats' opposition to the farm bill, opposition to the farm bill, largely because of those snap provisions, formerly called food stamps. this issue has come up in previous farm bill debates. why was it a real bone of contention for democrats this time around? matt: well, i think the requirements, they're looking at this and there are some reports and unclear how much money they would be cutting from the snap program, but frankly democrats felt there should be no cuts to the snap program. this would be implementing the work requirements, requiring someone to work 20 hours a week, an able-bodied adult work 20

hours a week and training programs. frankly democrats thought this was trying to balance the budget after republicans, you know, increased the deficit here with tax cuts and with the spending of the omnibus. they felt this was sort of balancing the budget on poor people. at least that was their case here. they just weren't willing to go along with it. i think a lot of the republicans who voted against it, moderate republicans were saying, look, i have a lot of snap recipients in my district and they didn't feel like this was a fair deal to them. host: looking ahead what may be in store in the house after the 213-198 vote, you tweeted the farm bill will be back. the freedom caucus demonstrated they will have say over immigration if the g.o.p. wants to pass it. the speaker offering a motion to reconsider. know soon as next week will we see something on the farm bill? matt: under house rules, i believe the direct motion to reconsider is only two days, a clause 8 rule.

within that, you only have a couple legislative days. that would put it on tuesday. you could put it up under another rule and this isn't something that would be so difficult. i would guess they will vote when they have the votes. the freedom caucus thinks they can use this as leverage in the immigration debate. if you did it tonight again or monday or tuesday without movement on the immigration issue, i'm not sure you will get a different result. this might drag on for a little bit into the month of june. june seems like we are coming toward a head on immigration and that seems like the issue they have to sort of solve or at least get close to solving before they can take another vote on the farm bill. host: lastly, you wrote that the senate agricultural chairman, pat roberts of kansas, says he won't bring up their bill unless they have democratic support. someoon might we see

action in the senate? they are looking at what happened in the house. he needs 60 votes in the senate to pass the farm bill. this requires buy-in for democrats. this bill had zero buy-in from the democrats from the start. no votes today on the floor. so whatever they come up with is going to be a different bill than the bill that will be signed into law. that might be a one-year re-authorization. we don't quite know at this i point. think the senate is going to look at what the house does. obviously the house wants to take a hard-line position in conferencing with the senate. that may not be feasible. all of this could have been solved if republicans worked with democrats. he would have plenty of democratic votes if they did not touch snap in this way. host: matt fuller covers politics on huffpost. thanks for joining us. matt: thank you. host: c-span's 1968 america into

immortal series looks at the cold war in 1968 and it impact on the u.s. then texas governor greg abbott and ted cruz hold a briefing on the santa fe school shooting. after that, president trump speaks at a summit on prison reform. -- continue our series and welcome our viewers on american history tv. joining us, elizabeth cobbs and mark kramer, the program program on harvard's american studies. that begins in a moment. but first, this is from a nasa film from 1968 about the launch of apollo eight.