Graham: White House Staff Members 'Pretty Unreliable' in Talks

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday said White House staff members were "pretty unreliable" in talks to resolve the government shutdown and that he was "really worried of where this goes if this fight is not resolved tonight."

"I hope the White House comes on board, but the Senate needs to lead because no one else is. In terms of the White House, the White House staff is making it very difficult," Graham told reporters as he headed into a closed-door negotiation with a bipartisan group of senators.

"Every time we have a proposal it is only yanked back by staff members. As long as [White House senior policy adviser] Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we're going nowhere. He's been an outlier for years," he added.

Graham referenced a handout that was distributed to a bipartisan group of lawmakers last week that detailed a White House request for $18 billion in border security spending as part of an immigration deal. Trump responded to the proposal by saying, "I could do it for less," Graham told reporters. "So what does the White House staff do a couple of days later? They pitch a proposal for $33 billion. That's just not credible."

Democrats on late Friday filibustered a Republican bill to fund the government in order to secure a deal for DACA recipients. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) allowed people who illegally came to the United States as children with their parents to stay if they met certain criteria. President Donald Trump in early September announced he was ending DACA and giving a gridlocked Congress until March to decide what happens to the 800,000-plus young people affected.

"I've talked with the president — his heart is right on this issue," Graham said. "He’s got a good understanding of what will sell, and every time we have a proposal it is only yanked back by staff members."

Miller's "view of immigration has never been in the mainstream of the Senate," Graham later told a group of reporters.

"We're never gonna get there as long as we embrace concepts that cannot possibly get 60 votes. One of the concepts that I just completely reject is that we have too much legal immigration."

White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley, issued a statment Sunday night, saying it is Graham who is out of sync with mainstream Republican thinking on the issue.

"As long as Sen. Graham chooses to support legislation that sides with people in this country illegally and unlawfully instead of our own American citizens, we're going nowhere," Gidley said. "He's been an outlier for years."