Our focus on the shutdown.

Yesterday, we heard from Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

And today, for a Democratic view, I spoke earlier with House Democratic leader, Hakeem

Jeffries.

Leader Jeffries, welcome back to the News Hour.

Thanks for having me on.

When you were on this program nine days ago, you said there'd been no communication from

either the White House or Republican leaders in the House or the Senate about ending this shutdown.

It doesn't appear that that's changed, has it?

It has not changed. Unfortunately, this is day 10 of the Trump Republicans shutdown.

Clearly, they don't want to reopen the government.

As Democrats, we've made clear, we'll sit down with

anyone, anytime, any place to have a bipartisan negotiation about enacting a spending

bill that makes life better for the American people, reopens the government, and addresses

the Republican health care crisis. Unfortunately, House Republicans who canceled votes last week, canceled votes this week,

and have now canceled votes next week, remain on vacation, missing in action,

and Donald Trump has shown no interest in actually trying to resolve this situation.

What do you make of these Republican proposals

to partially reopen the government,

funding select agencies while leaving other ones shuttered?

I think it's important for us to make sure

that we actually pay our men and women in uniform

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