“There's still negotiations going on between the two sides, between the two [chambers], and hopefully they will reach an agreement, hopefully they will reach an agreement soon. Obviously, we need to fund the government. We must not shut down the government. Contrary to what [Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick] Mulvaney said, shutting down the government ought not to be an option. We want to see an agreement reached.”

"…One side thinks a wall and expanded money for the wall is appropriate policy. One side disagrees with that. One side believes that clearly we ought to have sufficient beds to take criminals out of our neighborhoods, take them off the streets, and be dealt with in a proper way, period. So when the President says, 'we don't have enough beds for criminals,' we don't think that's the case at all. And certainly nor does [Chairwoman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Lucille] Roybal-Allard or the conferees on the Democratic side. What we don't believe is that we ought to have so many beds that we can randomly take people who are obeying the law, but who may be subject to civil action in terms of their being in the country without papers, but we ought not to have these roundups."

On MSNBC's "Meet the Press Daily"

"…Certainly traumatizing federal employees, [and] shutting down the government is not an option. Hopefully that will be solved by an agreement between the conferees, hopefully tonight.”

"The President talks a lot about this hoard of criminals coming across the border. If you talk to the people down in El Paso and in New Mexico, they will tell you that the people coming across the border are largely mothers and children, not criminals by any stretch of the imagination. So I want to make it clear that Chairwoman [Lucille] Roybal-Allard, who is the Chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, has made it very, very clear that she wants to give sufficient beds so that we can get criminals off of the street, whatever their derivation, and that falls under ICE's responsibility. What she doesn't want is to have so many beds that these general round-ups, this disruptions of families, this disruption of workers is handled in a civil [manner], not by rounding up of people and putting them in arrest.”

"[Democrats are] not for shutdowns. We have not been for shutdowns. We have not voted for shutdowns, so we absolutely don't want to see a shutdown of any agency or department of the government Friday at midnight, period. And we will take steps to ensure that doesn't happen."