i want to end on this subject, senator cornyn.tweet that you sent out this week. here it is. "the president is not doing cable news interviews. tweets from his account are limited and when they come unimaginably conventional, the public comments are largely scripted. biden has opted for fewer sitdown interviews with mainstream outlets and reporters, invites the question, is he really in charge"? my question i guess is, senator cornyn, is that helpful to be sending out a tweet questioning president biden 'his mental faculties? >> senator cornyn: well, chris, thank you for the question because i think there's been a lot of confusion in the twitterverse about that. that actually was a quote from a politico story that i pasted into a tweet and then i simply ask the question. what i'm trying to do is reconcile the joe biden we heard on january 20th, that many of us know of his previous service in the united states senate, from the joe biden we are seeing now jamming through $1.9 trillion in spending bills. i've learned in washington yo

senator cornyn has been involved in medicaid national security in today. i saturday has led numerous initiatives with national security policies including bill signed into law the protects manufacturers strengthen infrastructure and policy and supports u.s. secure demerits and their family's great likewise a legislation to update ford's security reviews were the more crushing calls for understanding and defend against the written posed by the chinese government party. we are grateful to have the party here and help us understand what is the most uncertain, unstable, and insecure world many of us have

i want to end on this >> senator cornyn.ant to put up a tweet you sent out this week, here it is. the president is not doing cable news interviews tweets from his account are limited and when they come unimaginably conventional key public comments are largely scripted. biden has opted for fewer sitdown interviewers with mainstream outlets and reporters, invites the question is he really in charge? i question i guesses, et cetera cornyn, is that helpful to be sending out a tweet with his mental faculties? >> chris thank you for the question. i think there has been a lot of confusion. that action was a quote from a politico story that i pasted into a tweet and that i simply asked a question. what i am trying to do is reconcile the joe biden we heard from on jane or the 20th to the joe biden many of us know from his previous service in the united states senate. from the joe biden we are seeing now jamming through $1.9 trillion of spending bills. i have learned in washington you not only need to listen to what people say, you ne

senator cornyn: my first question is for ms. abrams. ms. abrams, is the georgia election law that speaker jones talked about, is it a racist piece of legislation? ms. abrams: i think there are components of it that are racist because they use racial animus as a means of targeting the behaviors of certain voters to limit their participation in election. senator cornyn: you believe that the georgia legislature made deliberate attempts to suppress the minority vote? ms. abrams: yes. senator cornyn: georgia has a no-excuse absentee voting provision in that law. as mrs. jones said in her written statement, connecticut, delaware, massachusetts, new hampshire -- >> keeping with our long-term commitment to lively gavel to gavel coverage of congress. we'll have to leave this program here. you can continue watching it online at c-span.org. u.s. house is about to start work on a d.c. statehood measure and immigration bill today. now to live coverage of the u.s. house here on c-span. the speaker pro tempore: the house will now be in order. our prayer t

now senator cornyn. sen. cornyn: martin luther king famously said he had a dream work there would be a date where the children will be known by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. do you agree with that? ms. clarke: absolutely. sen. cornyn: maybe there is a misprint, but i'm sure you can clear it up for me. dating back to your days in school when you seemed to argue that african-americans were genetically superior to caucasians, is that correct? ms. clarke: no, senator. i believe you are referring to an op-ed that i wrote at the age of 19 about the bell curve theory, a racist book that he equated dna with genetics and race. as a black student of harvard at the time we took great offense to this book. it was co-authored by a harvard professor, we did a number of events to speak out against the book. this op-ed opened with a satirical reference to the statement that you just noted. reporting by the campus paper made very clear that this was not a view that i espoused. what i was seek

host: susan ferrechio -- joining him was john cornyn. he had this response. >> in the interest of bipartisanship, i will agree that the senator is half right. there is a core infrastructure bill that we could pass with appropriate pay-fors to pay for roads and bridges and even reaching out to broadband. we have seen advances in telemedicine, more people learning online. i think we can all agree to that. that is the part we can agree on. let's do it and leave the rest for another day. host: that was texas senator john cornyn. susan ferrechio, what is going on? guest: the audio told the story. both parties are very, very far apart on what they want for infrastructure in terms of the size and scope of the bill and how to pay for it. they are so far apart, it seems impossible that they would ever cut any kind of deal. they would pass it in two parts. they would do this core infrastructure bill that republicans would find appealing and pass that, depending on how they would pay for. part two would include this broader idea of what democrats l

cornyn: mr. gardner, you said there is no early voting in new hampshire, but you don't believe that impact turnout. can you explain that? it seems counterintuitive. sec. gardner: it is counterintuitive, but it is factual. if you look at the shots i submitted to the committee, new hampshire has no early voting. we have election day and it stems back to our constitution. the second one is then no-fault absentee. that is unconstitutional in new hampshire. but if the chart is really important. if you look at the chart, i have been secretary of state during 12 presidential election years. the first five presidential elections, the state of oregon had a turnout higher than new hampshire. starting in 1996 after oregon decided to go to all male voting, we had seven presidential elections. oregon has had a turnout lower than new hampshire than all seven elections. so i have lived through these years watching results that take place in certain states and that's why i'm not projecting onto the country what

meanwhile, cornyn doesn't pull any punches when he's the one tweeting. up his criticism of biden's twitter habits with the bad-faith question about biden's governing style. quote, is he really in charge? the implication, which republicans have tried to stoke since kamala harris joined the ticket last summer, is that the vice president is somehow controlling things in the biden administration, an ugly weaponization of the aggressive black woman stereotype. but republicans can't even get that line of attack straight. on wednesday house minority whip steve scalise brand i should a prop milk carton with the vice president's face on it, accusing her of, quote, missing on issues at the southern border. this at the same time harris was holding a public event on that very issue during which she announced further action. >> so our focus is to deal with the root causes and i'm looking forward to traveling hopefully as my first trip to the northern triangle stopping in mexico and then going to guatemala sometime soon. >> republicans can't get their attacks on joe b

wyden: next is senator cornyn. sen. cornyn: i think the chairman will back me up on this, china has risen to the top of everybody's agenda, from concerns about cybersecurity, cyber attacks, stealing intellectual property, espionage, and obviously with vast national security implications, so i will ask you some specific questions in writing later on. i want to follow up on some of the things senator daines raised, because it has such a dramatic impact on my state and the country. if confirmed, you would oversee the office of refugee resettlement, correct? ms. palm: yes, as part of the administration of children and families, yes. sen. cornyn: you mentioned your goal would be to place these children, unaccompanied children, with sponsors, as soon as you could. ms. palm: yeah, our mission is to find the sponsors, the families, the relatives to care for these kids while their immigration processes are proceeding. sen. cornyn: after you place them with sponsors, is it the responsibility of the office of -- is the responsibil

leading voices of the senate republican congress on national security matters print senator john cornyn of texas he served the people texas for tort for decades for justice on the texas supreme court and texas attorney general. and a member

texas senator john cornyn asked that question as president biden is called out for his lack of public appearances and social media usage. reaction from the white house and the power panel next. >> senator john cornyn called joe biden's tweet unimaginably conventional and said his comments were largely scripted and questioned whether he was really in charge. does the white house have any reaction to that? at near record lows. great news for veterans who need money for their family. that's me. refiplus from newday usa lets you refinance at near record lows plus get an average of $50,000. that's me. that's money for security today or retirement tomorrow. that's me. refiplus. (vo) jamaica. (woman) best decision ever. (vo) feel the sand between your toes, and the gentle waves of the sea on your skin. feel the warm jamaican breeze lift your spirits and nourish your soul. escape to exactly what makes your heart beat. you will love every moment. jamaica. heartbeat of the world. let's go. how great is it that we get to tell everybody how liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only

cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. cornyn: i thank the chair. mr. president, as my friend, the republican leader, likes to remind us, the senate is not just a legislative body. we're also in the personnel business. one of the senate's core responsibilities is to provide advice and consent for the president's nominees for a range of important jobs throughout the federal government. in fact, it's a constitutional duty of the senate to perform that function. when the president is of the opposing party, there is all but a guarantee that you will not see eye to eye with every nominee, but the process isn't just about politics or judging nominees based on whether their opinions align with your own or not. as i see it, we are charged with evaluating these individuals to see if they are qualified, not only to carry out the duties of their position but will also do so with honor and integrity. ta

take texas republican and less sexual mike pence, john cornyn.terday on twitter, cornyn made a serious allegation against president biden: "the president is not doing cable news interviews. tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional. the public comments are largely scripted. biden has opted for fewer sit down interviews with mainstream outlets and reporters." then cornyn added, invites the question: is he really in charge?" exactly! after almost 100 days in office, biden has yet to do "any" of the stuff we associate with the presidency: he hasn't tweeted out cable news ratings, bragged to reporters that he passed a test made for stroke victims or told the boy scout jamboree about his buddy with a sex boat! we don't even know if he cheated on his wife with a porn star, let alone called her horse face! we can't normalize this! resist! but if cornyn's looking for an exciting, unconventional ovalkle it up because duane johnson says he'll run for president if it's 'what the people want.' which means somewhere ou

unfortunately, the cornyn-sinema bill does the exact opposite.e to say, you know, everything's okay down there, that, you know, we should be pro-immigration. the u.s. is open arms pro-immigration. everybody agrees with that, mike. the issue is the humanitarian crisis, with guns, drugs pouring across the border and the drug cartels and human traffickers own big sections of the border. they're right across the border. they're operating and running entire towns doing these operations. the fatally naive, the naivete has to stop. >> you're absolutely right. i mean, there's time to satisfy the far-left base is with no concerns to the absolute wreckage it does to americans of all political stripes. and the only way to stop it, you know, the massive surge of illegal immigration, america is the most generous country in the world when it comes to legal migration. there's a way to do it. we need to get that legal number as close to zero as possible. instead, joe biden is like a third base coach waving at them to come home. and people are going to get hurt.

cornyn said this, quote. invites the question is he really in charge?uite a leap. how is the white house responding? >> i think that's a popular stereotype that you see the president's detractors play up. the white house responded in particular to one part that cornyn had tweeted from the politico story this. wasn't his own commentary but he was quoting where it said that president biden's tweets are unimaginably conventional. i believe that's the phrase they used, and they asked jen psaki about this earlier today during the press briefing and she said, yes, she can confirm he not spend his days tweeting conspiracy theories which is what we often saw on president trump's twitter feed. >> and maybe he should go on judge janine and lie about covid and maybe that would reassure john cornyn. the thanks so much. >>> new accusations that had a high-profile nuclear site has been the target of terrorism. the allegations could have a global impact. stay with us. keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do.

cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, in a state as big as texas, as the presiding officer knows, having lived in and around houston for a number of years in his previous life, we rely on a strong network of roads and bridges to travel safely and efficiently. we have got i-35 which spans the entire length of texas from north to south and from laredo all the way to dallas-fort worth. much of that stretch, it seems like, it feels like, is constantly under some construction. there are bridges that are part of people's daily commutes like r.m. 2090 -- excuse me, r.m. 2900. after this bridge was destroyed by floodwaters a few years back, it didn't just create inconveniences in the community but also risks. it can take a firefighter an hour to get around the water. largely the texas department of transportation construction crews did

cornyn: thank you for the courtesy. i think we have all learned a lot in recent years about law enforcement and the role of mental health in that process. one of the people who made the biggest impression on me a few years back was a journalist named pete early who chronicled his own family struggle with a son, adult son who is mentally ill, but in the process, would commit petty crimes and find himself in a jail cell without any real benefit to him or society because that was the only place they knew to put him. but i have been encouraged by the work that we have been able to do here in this congress, passing things like my mental health and safety community's act, offering grants for those police departments that needed help with active shooter and response, things like de-escalation training and the like and i have been encouraged by the crisis intervention teams that are sprouting up in most major cities around the country, including the major cities and my state, and even the advance of things like mental health co

senator cornyn has been involved in medicaid national security in today. i saturday has led numerous initiatives with national security policies including bill signed into law the protects manufacturers strengthen infrastructure and policy and supports u.s. secure demerits and their family's great likewise a legislation to update ford's security reviews were the more crushing calls for understanding and defend against the written posed by the chinese government party. we are grateful to have the party here and help us understand what is the most uncertain, unstable, and insecure world many of us have ever seen or studied. from iran to north korea, to russia, and of course the threat posed by the chinese communist party, america's national security is serious and complicated challenges all at once. the proliferation of information technology has made it easier for fact and fiction to reach our living room and our homes in a way we've never seen before. thanks to the alarming nuclear force of russia and china they are making the real list of the nuclear arms

chair durbin: senator cornyn. senator cornyn: my first question is for ms. abrams. ms. abrams, is the georgia election law that speaker jones talked about, is it a racist piece of legislation? ms. abrams: i think there are components of it that are racist because they use racial animus as a means of targeting the behaviors of certain voters to limit their participation in election. senator cornyn: you believe that the georgia legislature made deliberate attempts to suppress the minority vote? ms. abrams: yes. senator cornyn: georgia has a no-excuse absentee voting provision in that law. as mrs. jones said in her written statement, connecticut, delaware, massachusetts, new hampshire -- >> keeping with our long-term commitment to lively gavel to gavel coverage of congress. we'll have to leave this program here. you

durbin: senator cornyn. sen. cornyn: thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the fact that both of you have trout court extent -- experience. i think that is very important -- is a very important qualification for someone who is going to sit in judgment on an appellate court. that they understand the appropriate standards of review on appeal. both of you have a very impressive background. i agree with my colleagues, it is important to have confidence in the judiciary. i think part of that confidence is knowing that people like them can serve on the bench and that we applaud that diversity. i have noticed a difference in the way those issues have been treated in the past when my democratic colleagues blocked, for example, janice rogers-brown , an african-american, miguel estrada. thankfully we have had some great judges in the western district, the northern district of texas. people like ada brown. then asian american judge jim ho. since our democratic colleagues seem to be placing so much emphasis on race, i just want to ask this question. none of

cornyn. as i learned in a young boy in a small black church the choir has all thing with army army of us all and now it's time to talk to her witnesses and i'm very excited to introduce our witnesses and i will ask my ranking member to introduce the other witnesses. if i can find my notes here forgive me. if i can get my introduction here, thank you very much. the first witness is major martin smith the commander of the baltimore police department education and training section where he's responsible for the development and delivery of new recruit training and continuing education for approximately 3000 personnel. he also leads the baltimore crisis response program and he has served as the chief of staff to the police commissioner and commander. he holds up that's what degree of arts and creighton university and a masters of criminal justice degree from washington university. and we have the director of the judd foundation and codirector of the mental health strategic impact initiative and sh

on sunday, cornyn was asked about that tweet and blamed twitter. >> my question i guess is, senator cornyng out a tweet questioning the president biden's mental faculties >> well, chris, thank you for the question because i think there's been a lot of confusion in the twitter verse about that that actually was a quote from a "politico" story that i pasted into a tweet and then i simply asked a question >> seth: man, i never want to hear a man your age say the word twitter verse. it's like watching your dad twerk. "dad, knock it off you're getting loose change everywhere." that's how at a loss these guys are to criticize biden and by the way, that's not to say there aren't thing to criticize. they're absolutely are for example, last week biden announced then quickly walked back his decision to break the campaign pledge and keep in place the historically low cap on refugee admissions set by the trump administration rather than lift it as he promised during the election the biden administration tried to reverse that announcement after progressives and refugee advocates were rightfully outrage

durbin: senator cornyn? sen. cornyn: you and i may be only two or three people on the committee that nowhere that part of texas is. thank you for what you do day in and day out. i cannot imagine the challenges that confront the director of the bureau of prisons, and i want you to let us know what we can do to help you accomplish your goal. you made the point that you want to be able to release inmates when they are no longer a threat after they have served their time. i think the perception is just the opposite, and i'm glad you clarified that. but in texas come as you know, we made a major effort that criminal justice reform focused on people who would take advantage of the opportunity to deal with their addictions, learn a skill, and he prepared for life outside of prison, and it was that state aced experiment that was duplicated that -- that state-based experiment that was duplicated around the country. i want to make sure my partner is recognized for his contribution, too. by its name, we did not expect to st

>> what do you say to senator cornyn?ing a strong working relationship with my colleagues, and senator cornyn, we sat down on a number of occasions, i think we'll try to work together on supply chain and labor abuses and supply chain for products that enters into the united states. i would be curious whether he or his staff wrote that tweet. this is not about entertainment. this is about making good public policies without drama. that's how president biden conducting himself and getting the job done. it has been a pleasure working with him like we did this last week and a half helping to settle between two industrial to save the lelectric plant in georgia. >> let me ask you that. lg and sk, could save 2600 jobs as you mentioned. those are the jobs at the core of president biden's infrastructure plan. he had a lunch with lawmakers today trying to sell it. what did you learn from this deal done that can help biden with the stratus sphear price tag. >> it was a pleasure working with the president, and saving these 126 jobs i

republican senator john cornyn was, on a sunday morning, a new show today, alongside democratic senator chris coons and said the parties aren't as divided as they seem. listen. >> we're trying to identify areas where we can make progress. i know a lot of concern about gun violence in the country, that's been a chronic problem. i work with chris murphy, the senator from connecticut, we passed something called the fix nix bill which has now resulted in millions of new background checks being uploaded to the background check system and as i've told chris, i'm very proud of our work together on that because i believe it's saved lives. so chris coons and i have tried to identify those areas like civics education, like you said the background check denial, report to local police, americorps where ic make progress and get back the muscle memory of previous years when congress actually worked better together. >> so congressman kennedy, does this make you hopeful that something, something bipartisan, could actually happen at this time? >> look, i hope so, and i don't want to minimize any of the

i want to invite all colleagues to join senator cornyn and i in working on that measure. we've worked together successfully before on the reentry measures that were part of the reform bill and we hope to get our significant fees of legislation put together. what i would ask the witnesses to do is to share what from your experience do you think are the best practical models you've seen whether in your own state, jurisdiction, or because this is your field and you are aware of good examples that are taking place in other states and other jurisdictions around the country. and i will ask that as a question for the record if you don't mind there will be a week or so after the closing of the hearing when chairman booker will allow written answers to questions for the record. and if you don't mind, write down a brief summary of what you think are the best examples of the behavioral health coordination with law enforcement are the best way for engaging with this population and successfully dealing with de-escalation. we would love to know, because the broad support that we can ge

host: that is from senator cornyn, republican of texas. gordon gray, can you elaborate? guest: at the state level, the way the funds are distributed, it is based on a state's share of national unemployment. counties, it is based on employment. on the city level it is based on the community development block grant, which takes into account a number of factors. my assumption is the senator is talking about the state allocation based on national unemployment. to the extent the funds are in excess of needs, you'll find a lot of states are getting something of a windfall. florida, for example, which has an estimated budget for trial -- a of $3 billion, will get an estimated $25 billion under this. california posted a $15 billion surplus. they will get $60 billion. i don't know that i would characterize this as a blue state bailout, but it is certainly a lot of money for a lot of states that don't necessarily need it. host: that issue came up last month. press secretary jen psaki says how she views the need for the american rescue plan. >> all of this money will be coursing th

. >> texas senator john cornyn set down for a conversation threat posed by russia, iran, and china and the need to secure america supply chain. as a member of the intelligence committee and top republican on citizenship and border safety subcommittee. >> thank you for joining us today for discussion with by the leading voices of the senate republican congress on national security matters print senator john cornyn of texas he served the people texas for tort for decades for justice on the texas supreme court and texas attorney general. and a member

i want to start with senator cornyn and what seems to be his lack of understanding of satire.frican-americans were genetically superior to caucasians, is that correct? >> no, senator. that -- i believe, you're referring to an op-ed that i wrote at the age of 19 about the bell curve theory. a racist book that equated dna with genetics and race. as a black student at harvard, that time, we took grave offense to this book. this op-ed opened with a satirical reference to -- to the statement that you just noted. >> this was satire? >> absolutely, senator. >> zerlina, do you want to bet that he doesn't know what satire is? or do you want to bet that he willfully ignored the fact that this was satire? >> you know, in this case, i am actually not sure, alicia. but, i think that, you know, the bottom line is it's pretty funny that one of the mistakes he made has to do with something like -- like the bell curve. and republicans acting like kristen clarke is the person who has these racist beliefs when it's really folks, in their own party, who have been saying things along the lines of

senator cornyn from texas senator collins from maine. senator cassidy from louisiana is in rosen from nevada senator romney from utah and what this has allowed us to do is talk to people on the front line. being a former governor i know whatever happened in washington we had to implement or liveke with it or make adjustments or ask for a waiver to makef it fit. we can prevent that from happening if we start coordinating what we are doing. in the senate we have a working group ten republicans and ten democrats the g 20 group and we meet consistently and we have the problem solvers coming over and working with us. we are working in a bipartisan and bicameral way to have the executive branch of the governor's involved to complete the triangle helps us to have good input so we don't have redundancies or waste that's what we're trying to achieve with the pathway forward t i think today was a tremendous start for that. >> you covered at the whole goal is to work together not just democrats and republicans but senate as we did this past winter

cornyn: i beg your pardon. director wray, what do you say? dir. wray: we were very enthusiastic from the recommendation that speaks to this issue. as i said before, the private sector controls many of the dots on all manner of cyber threats, and it's important to think of the private sector not in just one broad category, there are two big groups relevant to this issue and why they go straight to the heart of your question. i put them in two buckets. one are the providers, the i.t. industry. they have a unique visibility into how adversaries traverse u.s. networks. making sure the glue is there is critical. but then there are the victims are the reality is, most offenders are going to come back to victims again, most cyber actors are coming back and most victims will be popping up again. you have repeat offenders and repeat victims. their hard drives, their logs, their servers provide key technical dots to who is compromising them, how they're being compromised and this is the key, who might be targeted next. that gets back to my point from before

texas senator john cornyn over the weekend suggested $800 billion.han the biden plan if you're counting at home. and that may be too big to get a wide enough backing of republicans. and when it comes to it, republicans don't want to raise the corporate tax rate. but those who have taken the lead to draft the republican offer have made that a nonstarter and talking about some sort of user fees. joining me now, someone in the office with us yesterday, a former governor of florida, charlie crist. congressman crist, good to see you. >> good to see you, chuck. how are you doing? >> good. give us the best observation you can give us inside that room. what is the divide -- how big is the divide between the two sides in your view, and how much of it seems -- how much of it is too big? is the divide more on scope of the package or how to pay for it? >> you know, that's a great question, chuck. i think that a couple observations if i might. there was a great spirit of bipartisanship in that meeting yesterday. republicans, democrats, independents, and i thought

>> well, listen, i think senator john cornyn has often likes to use twitter to poke the bear.ou hear a lot on capitol hill among republicans and they feel like it's one of the few areas where they've been able to make some headway when it comes to attacking joe biden that he's elderly and not actually running the ship and it's staff-driven administration and you'll continue to hear those same kind of criticisms behind the scenes and i'm sure publicly as democrats to try to push this american jobs plan. >> it's just rich following the tweeting habits of the former president. that's all i was thinking. >> yeah. listen, i think there was a lot of republicans that had that were certainly exhausted by donald trump and tweeting all the time. so, it is kind of ironic, but this is going to be their i think talking point going forward. >> so, anna, there's waffling and then there's waffle house, right? there's flip-flops and then there's nikki haley. you know, political gymnastics, it's like you can't even name all the superlatives here because i want to read you what she told politico

and as a result, republicans are stuck complaining that biden doesn't tweet enough and as the cornynshow, trump may be gone, but trumpism as an ideological project, as well as the performance of trumpism are very much ascendant within the republican party. as we speak, the gop is actively trying to use the power of the state to punish anyone who disagrees with them. the latest example being major league baseball. >> three republican senators are looking to put pressure on major league baseball after it decided to pull the all-star game out of georgia. the league making the move to protest georgia's controversial new voting law senators ted cruz, mike lee and josh hawley are introducing legislation today to eliminate a nearly century old anti-trust exemption for major league baseball as a way of punishing the league >> seth: so the america first crowd is going after america's pastime. what's next, you guys going to try to cancel blue jeans and pickup trucks? oh right, i forgot, cruz already canceled blue jeans. yikes! he really puts the dung in dungarees. i have to say it's especially

i mean, john cornyn is somebody you know very closely tied to mitch mcconnell, very much part of the together what the republican messaging will be going into the 2022 mid terms. and this is just a continued attempt now to find something that sticks because they haven't found it yet. >> david, just very quickly, what does it tell us about the choice the white house made about where to have its political battles to this point? you know, the relief package first. infrastructure second. they're choosing advantageous political ground it seems. >> yes because one way to maintain your popularity is to do popular things. and so, what joe biden has clearly chosen to do here with his administration is even though there are lots of other issues that the left wing of the democratic party would like him to put front and center, they may be more divisive to the body politic overall. and so, he's sticking to what he believes are broadly popular economic policies for the country as the country is trying to recover through this covid crisis. that's what's keeping his numbers up at the moment. >> dav

we had senator cornyn from texas, senator collins from maine, senator cassidy from louisiana, senator rosen from nevada, senator romney from utah and senator young from indiana. the thing that this allowed us to do is talk to people on the front lines. ing a former governor, i know whatever happened in washington, we have two implement it, lived with it or try to make adjustments. we can prevent that from happening if we start coordinating what we are doing. in the senate, we have a working group. we have 10 republicans and 10 democrats. we call it the g20 group and we meet consistently and we have the problem solvers with josh and brian coming over and working with us. we are working in a bipartisan, bicameral way. to have the executive branch of the governors involved truly complete set triangle and helps us have good input so we don't have redundancies or waste. that is what we are trying to achieve and set a pass forward. i think today was the tremendous start for that. >> i think our whole goal here is to work together, not just democrats and republicans, but working with the sen

cornyn: mr.president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, the new power dynamic in washington has brought about a frenzy of proposed institutional changes by our friends across the aisle. the american people elected a democrat president -- that's true. they reduced the democratic majority in the house and elected a 50-50 senate. in all of congress there are seven more democrats than republicans. that's all. self isn't out of 5 -- seven out of 535 members. despite these tight margins, our friends have tried to characterize this new power dynamic as a mandate. first came the push to eliminate the filibuster. just a few years ago, the idea of such a radical change terrified our democratic colleagues. we certainly didn't do it when we were in a position to do it, notwithstanding the encouragement of president trump. when republicans

republican senator john cornyn and democrat kyrsten sinema both who represent border states unveiling legislation that would create four new processing centers at the border. the bill would add four more judges. >> they've simply overwhelmed our capacity to deal with it and exploiting these gaps and these quirks in our underlying asylum laws. >> reporter: it comes as the biden administration considers imposing sanctions or financial penalties against central american countries that fail to crack down on government corruption, one of the root causes of the flow of migrants. the administration is already considering a task force that would help local prosecutors fight corruption in what's known as the northern triangle countries of guatemala, el salavador and honduras. abc's matt gutman travelled to the region where climate change is causing it too. >> another crop, corn here, which is the staple, what people eat, has failed for two consecutive seasons. it means people here do not have enough to eat. >> reporter: drought and hurricanes have battered the region. experts say you can see t

reporter: senator john cornyn said they were largely scripted and question whether he was really in charge. does the white house have any reaction to that? jen: i can confirm the president does not spend his time tweeting conspiracy theories and spends his time working on behalf of the american people. reporter: to piggyback on the corporate tax rate, senator manchin said he would only raise it to 25%, that is his line in the sand. what is the white house response to that and has the president or secretary buttigieg spoken to him about that? jen: we are in touch with a range of officials and members of congress and there have been dozens of meetings and briefings. i don't have a specific readout, but we are encouraged to hear senator manchin is open to raising the corporate tax rate as a means of potentially paying for a historic and been spent -- historic investment in our nations infrastructure and creating jobs. the president is happy to ideas about how this plan and package should be paid for. his primary focus is on creating jobs, on helping put back to work the millions of men and wo

. >> but president biden will have a harder time winning over republicans like texas senator john cornyn. i think a president legislative proposals look like he wants to turn the united states into europe into a social welfare state. now tonight will also be a big night for south carolina senator tim scott. >> who will deliver the republican response to president biden's speech in washington. rashad hudson, back to you. >> thanks for shot tonight. president biden will pitch is one 0.8 trillion dollar investment in children, families and education that could transform the role government plays in american life. according to reports, biden will lay out a sweeping proposal for universal preschool 2 years of free community college, 225 billion dollars for child care and monthly payments of at least $250 to parents who qualify biden will make his case before a pair down gatherings were shot mention of mask-wearing legislators at 6 o'clock tonight. and again, we will kerry that here on kron 4 will carry the entire speech and then once the speech is done, we have a complete. team coverage scena