CNN's John Berman and Alisyn Camerota talked to former GOP congressman Charlie Dent about the proposed deal to avoid a government shutdown.
"You have lived through this, I assume, working in the late evening hours, holding your breath and waiting to see what the backlash is or what Jim Jordan tweets or what the president is going to say. Because at the moment the Freedom Caucus don't like this compromise. You heard Sean Hannity. What do you predict will happen in the White House today?" Camerota said.
"News flash, the Freedom Caucus and Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity don't like this bipartisan agreement," Dent said. "They were never going to support this.
"The White House will likely pocket whatever gains they receive, the $1.75 billion. By the way, I mean, completely incompetent to think they would get a better deal in the new year than when the Republicans controlled Congress. So that's absurd. He will pocket the gain and try to move money, reprogram money. Good luck with that, because to reprogram money, say, from one account to another would require the signature of the chair of the Appropriations committee, Nita Lowey and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. So I'm not sure how they're going to reclaim the money unless they declare a national emergency, which would be a huge mistake.
"I think there's nothing shocking here. They're at 40,500 beds which is where we are currently at $1.735 billion and essentially, they're not really getting anything."
"No. The Republicans in the Senate offered them more last spring," John Berman agreed. "Sixty-five miles of barrier and more money in December. The president, for the art of the deal, is ending up with less than he wanted. I don't think we can dismiss Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter though, because they appeared to have veto power before," John Berman said.
