In always good for the country as well. On the other side of the political spectrum, former Texas Governor rick perry is believed to be preparing for a run for president. How were your dealings with him as mayor of san antonio . Governor perry served, as folks may remember from 2001 until just recently. And i served on city council in san antonio from 2001 to 2005. Most of the time i interacted with governor was around Economic Development projects. And often times when mayors and governors interact on Economic Development, everyone is on the same page. You want to see investment in your local community. Senators are usually involved in sparking that investment. I have said publicly and privately that, with regard to Economic Development, former governor perry did make that a priority. So my relationship with him on those issues was cordial and good. When he supported san antonio. Obviously, i have much different views from him on a whole host of issues. And i believe in general that texas is getting it half right right now for the 21st century. But i wish him well in the future. In the same vein, how were and are your dealings with senator ted cruz . We had a good meeting when i was going through my confirmation process. Sat down in his office, talk about where a good spot to get texas barbecue is in d. C. [laughter] a place called hill country he said. He and i have different views as well. But what i am looking for as a newcomer to washington dc is where we can Work Together on policies. Whether it is on premium reduction or the work we do in Public Housing or any number of policies. I am here to get a job done, to create more opportunity for folks out there. If it is senator cruz that we can work with or senator cornyn who was kind enough to introduce me at my confirmation hearing, i am eager to do it. I am eager to work with people across the ideological spectrum in the service of creating opportunity for everyday americans, whether they come from texas or somewhere else. Could you comment on the president s outreach to cuba . As the president has said the policy we had in place with regard to cuba was in place for five decades and did not work. And so, the question now is, how do we go forward with a sensible policy of engagement that requires cuba to begin making a change of course . And i am satisfied the president has taken a sensible, prudent step in that direction. That is very meaningful for many americans. I know in the cubanamerican unity, this is a sort source of a lot of different views. But i believe that folks on different sides of that recognize that the goal is to ensure we continue to promote freedom and democracy. And the president has said he believes this the best and most effective way to do it. And many folks of different ideological backgrounds have said that they agree with that, this is a sensible policy. I look forward to progress on the. The penultimate question, before we had the last question, do you think republicans will get on board with immigration were warm, and did the president go far enough in his immigration proposals . The president made a prudent decision to take action. A first step to fix our broken immigration system. There are folks who have suggested that he did not go far enough. I disagree on that. The president has done what is within his authority, and he has been very reasonable about that. Doing something that is measured and at the same time does go further than any president has before to say that we are a nation of laws. We are also a nation of immigrants. And we are going to create a way to be both of those things. To help keep families together. We have folks that are acting responsibly united they, get them to the back of the line. It is also true that the congress has the opportunity to pass legislation. In congress disagrees with the president on his immigration action, they can pass a bill. In fact, americans out there are waiting for congress to pass comprehensive Immigration Reform. If it passed in a wide partisan way in the senate, the house of representatives should have brought comprehensive Immigration Reform to the war floor. They did not. Now it is up to the congress to do the responsible thing and pass comprehensive Immigration Reform. I believe, if and when they do, that will look a lot like what the president has laid out and the senate supported a year and a half ago. Something that is responsible and accomplishes both ensuring that we protect our borders but also that we do something about the 11 million folks who are already here. Because it is not realistic to think we are going to report 11 million people. Mr. Secretary, i would like to resent you with a Traditional National press club mug. Should you return on future occasions, you will complete the set. [laughter] i have not met your twin brother, but the questioner says, being a secretary means being overcommitted. That being the case, will you ever consider allowing your brother to serve as your body double . [laughter] i have to be honest that i will not consider that. My brother habitually introduces himself by saying i am a minute uglier than he is. I will skip that. [laughter] thank you, mr. Secretary. Thank you for being here. We are adjourned. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] next, president obama makes remarks before his meeting with congressional leaders. Then governor Chris Christie delivers his state of the state address. After that, senator rand paul at the conservative policy conference. President obama travels to iowa wednesday to speak about broadband access. We will join the president live at 3 40 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. After his first full year in office, Terry Mcauliffe delivers the state of the commonwealth address wednesday. We will be live from the capitol in richmond at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the cspan networks. On cspan2 saturday night at 10 00, wall street journal editor Brent Stevens argues our competitors are taking advantage of the situation abroad created by the u. S. As it focuses on domestic concerns. Sunday night at 10 00, steve israel on his recent novel about a salesman and a topsecret surveillance program. On cspan3 saturday at 8 p. M. Eastern, Professor John turner on the early mormons and their attempt to create a new zion in the american west. Sunday afternoon at 4 00, the 1964 Academy Awardwinning film about forced desegregation of little rock, arkansas central high school. Let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. Email us at www. Cspan. Org. Or send us a tweet. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. President obama met with congressional leaders tuesday at the white house to discuss policy and issues for the coming year. He made a brief statement to the press before that meeting. Everybody all set . Good. I want to welcome the congressional leadership to the white house. Harry reid is absent. He is convalescing a little bit from the mishap at the gym. But he will be back strong next week. I want to thank the speaker and leader mcconnell as well as dick durbin for filling in for mr. Reid and nancy pelosi. First of all, some of these folks i have not seen. I have not had an opportunity to wish them a happy new year. To the speaker, i want to point out i said there are some things we would disagree on. As the College Football playoff is something we can agree on, i think it turned out pretty well. Particularly for ohio. [laughter] want to congratulate the buckeyes for their outstanding victory and commend oregon. Their quarterback is from my original home state of hawaii. I also want to talk to all this leadership about how we can keep the progress going. Particularly in our economy. The latest job report indicates that the recovery continues to move in a robust fashion. We have now created 58 straight months of privatesector job growth. About 11 million jobs created in the private sector. Unemployment rate is coming down faster than any time in several decades. We are now seeing the strongest job growth overall as well as in manufacturing since the 1990s. We are producing more energy than ever before. The deficit has been cut by two thirds. We are starting to see some movement in wages going up at a time when families are also enjoying lower gas prices. So we are in a position to make sure that 2015 is an Even Stronger year. And to our competitors, we are holding a much better card. The key is to make sure we are working as a team. Obviously, there are disagreements, but there are areas where we can agree. That is where we will be focused. To cite a few examples, i had the state of the union next week. Will be talking about cyber security. With the sony attack that took place, with the twitter account that was hacked by jihadist synthesizers yesterday, it goes to show how much work we need to do both public and private sector, to strengthen our cyber security, make sure Bank Accounts are say safe. I have talked to the speaker as well as Mitch Mcconnell about this, and i think we agree this is an area where we can work hard to get legislation done and make sure that we are much more effective in protecting the American People from these kinds of cyberattacks. I think there are going to be opportunities for us to Work Together on trade, opportunities for us to Work Together on simplifying access to making sure everyone is paying their fair share. There are going to be opportunities to streamline government more responsibly. On each of these issues, i am going to be listening to everybody around the stable. And i am hopeful that, in the spirit of cooperation and putting America First we will be able to look back and say we are that much better off than we were when we started the year. I just want to thank everybody for being here. And i am very much looking forward to not just this discussion, but some real collaboration over the course of the next several months. All right . Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Simon tim is a congressional reporter with politico and joins us to discuss the spending bill coming up in the house and the amendments as far as immigration is concerned. The house is scheduled to debate this policy. Wise this coming up now . It is coming up together right now because the funding for dhs runs out on february 27. It is only midjanuary. Republicans are working ahead of time to make sure Homeland Security is funded. That is because they want to attach controversial legislative language that basically ghut guts the president s actions on immigration. It is kind of the opening salvo to the debate over funding Homeland Security. Five amendments, one of them being offered by house republicans, including a pennsylvania congressman. He sent out his tweet about this amendment. He said most of his priorities in defunding amnesty will now get a houseboat this week, including daca. What would this amendment do specifically . It is interesting to see how the debate moved considerably to the right. The conversation originally began last week. It was looking at overwriting executive actions the president allows announced last november. It could affect up to 5 million people. But what he and other members of congress including those who wrote the legislation, want is to go over older executive actions, including daca. Those that were brought here illegally at a young age. They got a reprieve from deportation with permits from a 2012 program. Republicans want to override that. They want to overwrite a series of memos dating back to 2011 that kind of set the administrations priorities on immigration enforcement. What about the other amendments that will be offered . What are some of the details . The one thing offered by Marsha Blackburn of tennessee has a similar effect. That approaches daca directly saying they cannot accept or renew applications. Right now those under the program have a twoyear work permit. That effectively makes hundreds of thousands of young immigrants eligible for deportation again. You have other amendments, congressman desanto has one saying people accused of Domestic Violence are on a higher level for deportation. Couple of amendments from republicans saying it is the sense of the congress it is a symbolic resolution that you should not prioritized undocumented immigrants, people here illegally, over people who did it in a legal way. What about funding . Is there anything in the amendments that would affect the funding . When people say they are blocking the implementation, that is how they use it. To use the power of the purse thing. Congress, which basically direct how the federal government controls the money, that is what congress is trying to do. Their trying to block funding for the implementation. The problem is that a lot of these programs are what we call city funded. The latest executive actions that the president announced in november are going to be run by the night is they citizenship and immigration services, an agency under the hs dhs. It has been tricky trying to figure out how to defund and agency not funded by congress. The republicans think the light which they put together can be used to implement these actions. At the same time, president obama is sure to the to this. What about House Democrats . They have in holding news conferences talking about objections to these amendments. Any democrats supporting these amendments . I talked to a few lawmakers today. It seems unlikely. If there are a couple of House Democrats that peel off and vote with republicans on these immigration legislation, it is likely to be just a couple at most. A lot of very conservative House Democrats, who actually voted with republicans on a lot of these measures in the last congress, john barrow of georgia , they lost their reelection bids and are no longer in office. You can expect unanimous House Democrat oppositions on wednesday. You mentioned the potential to veto. What our president obamas thoughts on the underlying bill, the Homeland Security spending bill . Why is he opposed to it . Could it lead to a Government Shutdown on february 7 . The white house and the department of Homeland Security, secretary jeh johnson, based they expressed support for the bill about 9. 7 billion in funding for Homeland Security that runs through the rest of the fiscal year. Obviously, immigration is a big part of it, but it is a Diverse Agency that oversees operations regarding national security. They are finding different spending levels they have set for various agencies. Is really immigration amendments they are taking issue with. If those get attached to the underlying bill, it does not matter if they like the funding bill, everything will get vetoed. Thank you for your time. We will follow you on twitter. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. The u. S. House returns wednesday at 9 00 a. M. For a final day of work for the legislative week. Members resume work on the Homeland SecurityDepartment Funding bill. The bill provides 39. 7 billion in discretionary funding for the department through the end of the fiscal year. Current funding expires on february 27. Members will debate amendments to the bill that woulds block the president s executive action on immigration. Than a vote on final passage. Also on the agenda, a bill to make changes to the dodd frank Financial Regulation shall. Members will vote on final passage of that legislation. President obama travels to cedar falls, iowa wednesday to speak about broadband access. We will join the president live at 3 40 pm eastern on cspan2. The cspan cities tour takes books tv and American History tv on the road, traveling to u. S. Cities to learn about history and literary life. We partner with comcast for a visit to wheeling, West Virginia. There are two volumes. The reason i thought it was important to collect these histories is that wheeling transformed into an Industrial City in the latter part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. It is kind of uncommon in West Virginia in that it true immigrants from various parts of europe here in search of jobs and opportunity. So that generation of immigrants is premuch on. I thought it was important to record their story, to get the memories of the immigrant generation and the ethnic neighborhoods they formed. It is an important part of our history. Most people tend to focus on the frontier history, the civil war history. Those are important but of equal importance in my mind is the industrial period in immigration in wheeling. Wheeling starts as an outpost on the frontier. That river was the western extent of the United States in the 1770s. The first project funded by the federal government for production was the National Road that extended from cumberland, maryland two wheeling, virginia. When it comes here to wheeling that will give this community, which about that time, is about 50 years old, the real spurt it needs for growth. Over the next 25 years, the population of wheeling will almost triple. Watch all of our events