WASHINGTON -- On their first day in the majority, House Democrats passed a plan Thursday night to reopen the government. The proposal lacked funding for President Donald Trump's promised border wall.
The largely party-line votes came after Trump made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Thursday, pledging to keep up the fight for his signature campaign promise.
All four Arkansas members of the House voted no.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump and Senate Republicans should "take yes for an answer" and approve the border bill, which was virtually identical to a plan the Senate adopted on a voice vote last month.
"We're not doing a wall. Does anyone have any doubt that we're not doing a wall?" Pelosi asked reporters at a news conference Thursday night.
Thursday was the 13th day of the partial government shutdown.
In his briefing-room appearance, Trump said that "without a wall you cannot have border security." He left without taking questions from reporters.
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The appearance came hours after the new Congress convened, with Democrats taking majority control of the House and returning Pelosi to the speakership after eight years of GOP control.
The Democratic legislation to reopen the government without funding the wall is going nowhere in the Senate, where Republicans want Trump's endorsement before voting on a funding package.
Trump is demanding $5 billion to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, which the Democrats have refused to approve.
Congressional leaders from both parties met with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, but failed to make progress during their first sit-down session in weeks. The White House has invited the leaders back today for another round of talks that officials have suggested might be more successful now that Pelosi has been sworn in.
Reporters were told Thursday that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders would be holding a hastily called late afternoon briefing. Instead, out walked Trump, flanked by members of the unions that represent border patrol and immigration enforcement agents.
"You can call it a barrier, you can call it whatever you want," Trump said. "But essentially we need protection in our country. We're going to make it good. The people of our country want it."
Trump said his meeting with the union officials had long been planned and just happened to come at "a very opportune time." He also said his refusal to budge on the issue was winning praise, telling reporters, "I have never had so much support as I have in the last week over my stance for border security."
White House and Department of Homeland Security officials have spent recent days trying to make a public and private case that the situation at the border has reached a "crisis" situation that demands more money than Democrats have offered.
[RELATED: Six Arkansans uncertain of end to U.S. shutdown]
The Democratic package to end the shutdown includes a bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels -- with $1.3 billion for border security -- through Feb. 8 as talks would continue. It was approved, 239-192.
Democrats also approved a separate measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown. The bill, which would provide money through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, was approved, 241-190.
The White House has rejected the Democratic package.
On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer urged Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to put the House Democratic package on the Senate floor and send it to Trump.
"At this point, we need to take the lead here in Congress in the hopes that we can show President Trump the sweet light of reason," Schumer said.
McConnell has dismissed the idea as a "total nonstarter" and a waste of time.
But some Republican senators appeared open to at least part of the Democrats' proposal.
"I'm not saying their whole plan is a valid plan, but I see no reason why the bills that are ready to go and on which we've achieved an agreement should be held hostage to this debate over border security," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
"Congress needs to take further action on border security, but that work should be done when the government is fully open," added Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo.
Vice President Mike Pence, who was on Capitol Hill on Thursday to swear in new senators, took a hard line, telling Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson, "Bottom line, if there's no wall, there's no deal."
Meanwhile, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers said the ongoing shutdown will cut U.S. economic output by about 0.1 percent every two weeks.
"Our estimate is that [gross domestic product] in the first quarter could go down by about a 10th if this were to resolve in the next few weeks," Chairman Kevin Hassett told reporters Thursday at the White House.
While it wasn't immediately clear whether Hassett was referring to the level of GDP or the annualized pace of growth, his estimate appears to be broadly in line with those from private forecasters.
Earlier this week, Macroeconomic Advisers by IHS Markit lowered its forecasts for fourth-quarter and first-quarter growth each by 0.1 percentage point on the assumption that the shutdown will last for three weeks. JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts estimated that each week of the shutdown will reduce GDP growth by about 0.1 percentage point to 0.2 percentage point, and the drag should mostly reverse once the government fully reopens.
Hassett said if the shutdown persists, the pace of economic growth will continue to decline. "I would guess it's going to be something like, a rule of thumb would be every two weeks is a 10th," he said.
The economic impact will be tempered since furloughed government workers are typically awarded back pay once a budget impasse is resolved, he said, though some economic output is lost because they aren't working during the period.
"I don't really expect to see big economic effects of this, again, assuming that it ends relatively quickly," Hassett said.
Trump has said the partial shutdown, which began Dec. 22, will last "as long as it takes" to get the funding he wants.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Daly, Lisa Mascaro, Catherine Lucey, Jill Colvin, Laurie Kellman, Kevin Freking, Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press; and by Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 01/04/2019