Fox News "The Story" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Chris Coons
Interview
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MACCALLUM: Sarah Sanders earlier hinting at a compromise as Friday's looming government shutdown deadline is drawing near. Their position characterized as extremely flexible today by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell but the impasse over border funding on Capitol Hill is raging on tonight with Democrats saying no thanks to the GOP's latest offer.
Here now on that Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. He serves on both the Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, thank you for being here. Good to have you here tonight. So what is -- what's the parameters of the deal that you don't like and why don't you like it?
SEN. CHRIS COONS, D-DEL.: Well, Martha, I'm so encouraged to hear that we're actually beginning to make progress here. In recent days the only person who has said publicly they were cheering for his shutdown was President Trump who was insisting on $5 billion this year in additional wall investments or he was threatening to shut down the government over the holidays.
Now we're beginning detailed negotiations about what more might be needed in order to get a border security investment that the President would accept and that would allow us to complete our appropriations work for this year. On a bipartisan basis, we've made more progress and gotten farther in our annual appropriations process this year than any of the eight years I've been here.
That's something I know Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Schumer have wanted us to complete that work this year.
MACCALLUM: Well, let me ask you because --
COONS: Where I have a problem --
MACCALLUM: Go ahead.
COONS: Where I have a problem is with the proposal for an undefined billion-dollar slush fund that the President could spend any way he chose on internal enforcement, on hiring more agents, on building the border wall. I think you just ran a clip from Senator Collins of Maine talking about a ten-year plan costing in total 25 billion that would be managed by the Department of Homeland Security over a decade. That was part of a broad bold bill on immigration that I voted for and co-sponsored earlier this year but it accomplished some other big things in immigration reform. I think that's the sort --
MACCALLUM: So you like -- you like the bill that Collins proposed. You know, I'm going to play it because we weren't -- you were listening to it in the break with me so let's play it so everyone else can hear it.
COONS: Great. Thank you.
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