ALSO – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH REP. STENY HOYER: IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT TRUMP IS NOT WHAT “WE’RE FOCUSED ON”
PLUS – EXCLUSIVE ONE-ON-ONE WITH SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: DEBATE OVER STEEL OR CONCRETE FOR BORDER WALL IS “RATHER BIZARRE”
JAN. 6, 2019 – Today on Meet the Press, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said President Trump is willing to “take a concrete wall off the table” in negotiations with Democratic leaders over the shutdown.
“If he has to give up a concrete wall, replace it with a steel fence in order to do that so that Democrats can say, ‘See? He’s not building a wall anymore,’ that should help us move in the right direction,” Mulvaney told moderator Chuck Todd. “If that’s not evidence of the president’s desire to try and resolve this, I don’t know what is,” Mulvaney said.
When asked where negotiations stand over the government shutdown, Mulvaney told Todd that the discussions with Democratic leadership on Saturday “immediately turned to a bunch of technical requirements or technical requests that the Democrats were asking for the first time ever in these negotiations, so I think this is going to drag on a lot longer. I think that’s, that’s by intention.”
Mulvaney was also critical of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s recent remarks that President Trump risks losing his base if he ‘gives in’ on border wall funding saying, “I like Lindsey Graham and he’s a good friend of mine. We’re from South Carolina. He’s not as good a politician as Donald Trump or else he’d be president. They both ran and one of them won and one of them lost. So, look, the President is interested in resolving this issue.” Watch the full interview.
In an exclusive interview, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the house majority leader, told Chuck Todd that an effort to impeach the president is not inevitable. “That’s not what we’re focused on. We’re focused on substantive bills.” He continued, “I think impeachment talks right now are a distraction. We’ll have to see what the Mueller report says. Nancy [Pelosi] and I have both said that. We have voted that way on the floor of the House of Representatives. What we want to do is concentrate on our substantive agenda.”
When asked about the ongoing debate over steel instead of concrete for a border wall, Hoyer said of the president, “It is an offer he made, and it’ll be discussed.” He continued, “What we ought to do is open up the government first. And that’s what we’re going to do. We passed legislation last Thursday that would open up the government. I would hope that Senator McConnell would take the responsibility as the leader of the co-equal branch of government, the legislative branch, and send this to the president. That would open up government, would start serving the American people.” Watch the full interview.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also joined the program and told Chuck Todd in an exclusive interview that the “debate over what the physical barrier should be constructed of was rather bizarre.” Collins said, “We do need to strengthen our border security. … But we need to look at more than just a physical barrier we need to look at more Border Patrol agents, technology and other means as well.”
Collins also said she was “frustrated” over the government shutdown saying, “We’ve gotten to this point where both sides appear to be intransigent. It is not a sign of weakness to try to figure out a middle ground and I think that both sides need to indicate a willingness to listen and to compromise.” She continued by saying she would like to see Senator McConnell “bring the House-passed bills to the Senate floor” to reopen many of the government agencies. “Let’s get those reopened while the negotiations continue.”
When asked about seeking re-election in 2020 Collins said, “I’m getting ready to run. But frankly, I just think it’s too early to make that kind of decision. But I am getting prepared, and I’ll make a final decision towards the end of this year.”
Watch the full interview.
New York Times Columnist David Brooks, Washington Free Beacon Editor-in-Chief Matthew Continetti, former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), and NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent and Host of MSNBC’s Kasie DC Kasie Hunt joined the broadcast’s roundtable for insight and analysis on the week in politics. Watch the full panel.
Read the full transcript of Meet the Press this morning and follow the show on Twitter and on Facebook for the latest.
PLEASE CREDIT: NBC NEWS’ MEET THE PRESS WITH CHUCK TODD
- Mandatory credit to NBC News’ Meet the Presson first reference.
- The onscreen Meet the Presscredit must be clearly visible and unobstructed at all times in any image, video clip, or other form of media.
- Embedded web video must stream from the commedia player with the unobstructed credit as described above.
