>> this afternoon we'll have a preview of the president's state of the union address tomorrow night. the preview, hosted by "the washington post," will include white house counselor kelly anne conaway. house minority leader nancy pelosi. and senators angus king of maine and shelly moore cap tofe west virginia. we'll have that live in about 20 minutes. 2:30 p.m. eastern. in the meanle time, we'll lookality the week ahead from today's "washington journal." continues. host: joining us for a discussion on many things, particularly in light of the white house and congress this week, are two guests. we are joined by darlene supervalu from the -- superville by adam weaver.

if you look at the papers this morning, this is from "the wall street journal," that the president is expected to soften the tone on the speech as far as tomorrow's presentation. darlene, what do we get a sense as far as tone eating into the speech tomorrow? guest 1: the white house has said he is going to speak in more optimistic tones tomorrow. contrast that with the inauguration speech he gave a year ago when he talked about american carnage and painted this very dark picture of the united states of america. he is looking to do a little bit of the opposite and be softer, more optimistic, more hopeful in talking about immigration and some of the other issues that we are going to hear him speak about. eaver, not only will he address america, but the members of congress, what is he trying to sell to them on both sides? guest 2: a couple of things. the white house has been talking about an infrastructure deal.

they wrote out this $1.7 trillion figure the other day that they said the white house -- administration would only kick in $200 billion of it. the other thing that has really been talked about on the hill right now is this daca issue. that is the thing ripping everyone to shreds up there. the white house rolled out their framework last week. 1.8 million dreamers that they want to have covered under any such deal, along with $25 billion for wall funding. that is going to be a tough one to sell to democrats even though chuck schumer has floated wall money in the past. host: darlene superville, how did the president and his team arrive at this proposal, considering everything they have set about immigration, and particularly about the daca program leading up to it? guest 1: that is a good question. the president said last week that he wanted $25 billion for the wall and border security and

you might remember that there was a meeting he had at the white house with chuck schumer on the friday of the shutdown were senator schumer offered him $25 billion for the wall and border security. that could be where that comes from. chuck schumer eventually took that offer off the table and then you have the white house coming back and saying we want $25 billion for the wall. the other elements of the plan have to do with the visa lottery program, which the president wants to see eliminated or dressing -- drastically changed. and then what they call chain migration or family-based immigration, where you can come here and then bring relatives, they want to narrow down that program. those are basically the four elements of the administration's deal on immigration, including a fix for the dreamers. host: you know better than anyone else when the president talks, he talks to his base a lot of the time. in crafting this plan, how did they weigh what they want out of this over the concerns of their base?

guest 1: i think it will be interesting to see because there has been a lot of pushback among the president's supporters over the portion of the plan that , a 10-12er citizenship your pathway to citizenship for these young people here illegally. you will recall during the campaign that the president talked a lot about wanting to do away with daca to his supporters regard any pathway to citizenship as amnesty. you have breitbart news that don"red to him as "amnesty last week. i think it will be interesting to watch and see whether the white house tries to peel back from that at all given the pushback they have been getting. host: (202) 748-8000, democrats. (202) 748-8001, republicans. (202) 748-8002, independents. if you want to ask our guests questions during this hour. al weaver, who do we look at in

congress as of today, who are the ones hashing out these large framework issues? guest 2: you look on the senate side, you have the number twos. senator john cornyn, the senate majority whip. dick durbin has been highly involved in this issue. we will see what that means moving forward. they will need to get the nine votes in the senate to get any bill passed. on the house side, you have to look at the leadership, kevin mccarthy, who was on tv yesterday talking about any sort of deal. he is going to be one of the point people in the house. the other people you've got to look for of the conservative members on both sides of the bicameral. senator ted cruz said that this would amount to no less than amnesty for these folks, as darlene mentioned. you have the house freedom caucus, who we are not really sure where they come down on this because on one hand they are very solidly red trump

districts were trump did very well, but on the other hand, it is the amnesty issue and where they come down on that is going to be something interesting. from my sources, they want to meet and they get back in town. side am the white house a what kind of reaching out to these groups that al talked about? guest 1: you will remember a week or so ago when the president had the bipartisan immigration meeting that was televised and went on for an hour or so, there was a point in that meeting where he said, i will take the heat, whatever kind of deal this group gets and brings to me, i will sign it, you pass it, i will take the heat. i think also it will be interesting to see how much of a sales job the president does, if he is really serious about wanting to offer these young people at pathway to citizenship, we will see how invested he is in trying to sell members on it. because that would provide them some cover to vote for it. host: is this the president

reaching out directly? is this stephen miller, mike pence? who is doing the sales job? guest 1: that remains to be seen at this point. stephen miller is involved in the policy coordination, so is the chief of staff, john kelly, but as to who will be doing the selling, we don't know yet. host: we have seen nancy pelosi already weigh in, "make america white again" and other things. what is the buzz on the democratic side? guest 2: they are not happy about this at all. the two things they are very arried about, one is between $5 billion. chuck schumer lay down the marker the other week. as darlene mentioned earlier, it is this issue of chain migration that is roiling within the democratic ranks, they really do not like this narrowing down to only spouses and children under 21. because it was previously parents, siblings, a bunch of

those. right now, they wanted as nuclear as possible. the other person you've got to watch a speaker ryan. he is going to be a key figure to watch. one of the reasons he became speaker was he would always talk about any bill, especially an immigration bill, has to get the majority of the majority. that is going to be a tough sell for the republicans. what does trump do? how does he try to sell this to members? possibly say brian and his speakership -- ryan and possibly his speakership if it gets to that level? host: darlene superville, we have seen the president say, i will accept this and then soften what he wanted, are these must haves? guest 1: right now, they seem to

be must haves, but the president has gone back and forth on other issues and he could very well change his mind, change some aspect of it to bring along members of congress. host: (202) 748-8000, democrats. (202) 748-8001, republicans. independents, (202) 748-8002. darlene superville from the associated press who covers the white house. al weaver of "the washington examiner" and services their political reporter. .on, you are on with our guests go ahead with a question or comment. dacar: in my opinion, started in 1986. had two -- hello? host: you are on. go ahead. caller: they have had two

generations of children since 1986, i'm pretty sure. if you are only going to include 1.8 million, i would like to know how this retinal scanning fromming along to keep paper sharing. host: we will leave it there. aside from the last part, history always comes up in these issues. what does the president see far as how his proposals advance those things? guest 1: that is a good question. [laughter] this has always been a tricky issue politically. again, it goes back to, i think, just how much of an effort he puts into trying to sell it.

immigration has always been a difficult issue. we have a deadline supposedly now of february 8 to get a deal, which seems a little bit unrealistic for an issue as complicated as immigration. i think time will tell. host: the deadline, how does that factor into these negotiations? guest 2: i think it is there, but i don't see the february 8 thing being a big deal and i think it will probably go to march or even the summer. mean, the history going back is really fascinating. , a couplek to 2013 years ago, one of the key figures was senator marco rubio and he is nowhere to be seen on this issue right now. he is either playing a silent role or hanging behind the scenes depending on who you talk to. i think the history of this is a real factor, given who is

involved and notably who is not. host: from california, the independent line, justin, hello. caller: hi, i wanted to ask your guests, does the daca legislation address say if family that comes across the border with a young child a year from now, if they pass this legislation and we deal with the people who are here, the children brought over illegally previously, are we going to be right back into the same problem a few years from now, or do all young children brought to the u.s. illegally in the future get rolled into daca? is this issue addressed? guest 2: no, those kids would not be under this or any legislation coming forward. any bill right now would work for the kids between the ages of 16 and 36 that were brought here in the past however many years that are under this dreamer status and have been rolled into

daca or were afraid to rolled -- and role in daca -- enroll in daca. affect orld not impact those who come in moving forward. they would not be covered under any bill. guest 1: the only thing i would add is that one of the talking points coming up with a solution to daca's you often hear republicans say, we need to solve this situation now so that five years from now we are not back in the same situation where you have unaccompanied minors being brought to the u.s. and creating sort of a similar situation that we are grappling with right now. host: the headline from "politico" when taking a look at the speech tomorrow. -- sub headline says

the midterm elections, this being the elephant in the room. how does the white house account for that? guest 1: because we have midterms this year, the legislative window for the president to get anything done, infrastructure, immigration, there is a list of issues that have been carried over from last year, like the debt ceiling that has to be done with. the window for getting stuff done is even shorter than it is in a normal year. those are some of the dynamics the president has to play too. that the side of it is republicans lost a seat in the senate. they are now down to 51 seats instead of 52. it is a little bit harder for them to get anything done. i think some of that is why you are going to see the president take this more optimistic tone, speak about bipartisanship, because that really is the only way to get anything done as al mentioned earlier. republicans now need nine democrats in the senate to get

most major legislation passed. host: does the white house the president trump taking a more active role in campaigning, particularly for those in the questionable seats? guest 1: i think the president would like to be out there campaigning for republicans a little bit more. he has to be careful where he goes. not every member of congress is going to want him to come to their district because his popularity is so low, his story below a new president it is -- hiso have to be low,arity is historically low for a new president. guest 2: the average going back many years is 24 seats. average is losing 24 seats. the house democrats 26 to overtake republicans.

we will see what happens. i think you are seeing a little bit of a play out in pennsylvania, western pennsylvania, you have a republican state legislator out there and he is running in this seat and if you look at the polls, trump is very polarizing. i saw a poll the other day that had 49% favorable and 47% unfavorable. won by 19 points in 2016. that underscores that this is a trump district, a place where he should have a big impact, but i think we are going to see that. the race is in march. i think that is one place to look for in the coming months. host: in new jersey, charles on the independent line. caller: good morning. i appreciate your show very much. soquestion is why are we worried about the kids that are already here illegally and so

less worried about more people coming through the border illegally and what we are going to have to do in the future if we don't do something to protect the borders right now? so, where should we go? , more emphasis on the wall going up and more border security, and less emphasis on the undocumented children that are here illegally right now. , the darlene superville white house, do they see the wall the same as during the campaign? guest 1: during the campaign, they made it sound like a contiguous 2000-mile wall along the mexican border. lately, he has said he never meant it to be a contiguous wall. naturale lots of barriers along the border and you don't need a concrete wall. he has talked about see-through elements, where you can see through the other side who is trying to come over or toss

drugs over. there are a half-dozen or so prototypes that are up down at the border and he is supposed to make a trip sometime down there in short order to go and see the models and maybe weigh in on which version he likes better. but to go to the caller's question, part of the issue with the docket children is that the president -- daca children is that the president has ended the program. once that program ends come march 5 were sometime shortly after that, then you are going to go back to a situation where these people are living in the shadows, living in fear, that sort of thing, so you want to sort of solve that issue and is desired coupling to solve that problem with demands for border security. ist: al weaver, if the wall not going to sell with democrats and some republicans, what

version of border security are they proposing? what do you think democrats think will work? guest 2: that is the $10 billion question right now. democrats, senator schumer laid down the marker during the negotiations and told trump, you can have whatever you want and border security in essence. people have been talking that he offered up to $25 billion that trump has requested in this negotiation and that is going to be the major issue. i want to go back to the caller for a second and they mentioned how they want to solve the issue moving forward, but i think that it's one thing the white house is pushing. that is the goal as far as chain migration, as they put it, and ending the visa lottery, that they are trying to nip the situation in the bud so that we don't have these problems anymore. host: from decatur, illinois -- i'm sorry, decatur, alabama. hello. caller: hello. concerning the wall, we pay

taxes, we get soldiers and we put them in every other country, why can't we take our own soldiers and put them on the borderline and let them control the border? you could use the national guard as backup when they are training. why do we have to spend borrowed money to build another wall? the arguments you commonly here on this front is the cost, the price tag of these overalls? guest 1: he's asking for $25 billion to do [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] >> we are going to leave this now but you can find our "washington journal" segments online. cspan.org. take you live now for a preview of the president's state of the union address tomorrow night. the preview being hosted by "the washington post" and will include white house counselor