WASHINGTON -- Large parts of the federal government were shutting down overnight as President Donald Trump and Congress failed to resolve an impasse Friday over Trump's border wall.
The White House and congressional leaders continued negotiations late Friday, but by 8:30 p.m. Eastern, the House and the Senate had adjourned for the night. That made it impossible to vote on any spending agreement until today, and it remained unclear whether any deal would materialize by then. Funding for numerous agencies, including those that oversee parks, homeland security, law enforcement and transportation, was to expire at midnight.
The shutdown will leave hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay just days before Christmas. Senators passed legislation ensuring workers receive back pay; it will be sent to the House.
Trump's top envoys were straining to broker a last-minute compromise with Democrats and some of their own Republican Party's lawmakers. But as Vice President Mike Pence, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and senior adviser Jared Kushner dashed back and forth at the Capitol there were no outward signs of a deal.
The House adjourned, and senators were told there would be no more votes Friday night.
Congress is planning to be back in session today, but no votes were scheduled. Lawmakers were told they would be given 24 hours notice to return to Washington.
The White House said Trump would not go to Florida on Friday as planned for the Christmas holiday if the government shut down.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, left negotiations Friday calling the chances of an accord by midnight "probably slim."
Mulvaney, who is currently the White House budget chief, sent out a memo around 10 p.m. Eastern instructing agencies "to execute plans for an orderly shutdown" when the funding lapsed at midnight.
It's unclear how long a shutdown might last. Trump predicted earlier Friday that it could drag on for a "very long time."
About two hours before the shutdown was set to take effect, Trump distributed a video on Twitter in which he blamed Democrats but expressed hope that the lapse in government funding would be brief.
"We're going to have a shutdown," he said. "There's nothing we can do about that because we need the Democrats to give us their votes. ... Let's be bipartisan, and let's get it done. The shutdown hopefully will not last long."
Trump's preferred solution -- a stopgap spending bill containing $5.7 billion for a Mexico border wall -- faced near-certain defeat in the Senate, even after the president pressured Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to change Senate rules to allow it to pass.
McConnell refused.
"We're going to be working very hard to get something passed in the Senate," Trump said earlier Friday in the Oval Office before a bill-signing. "Now it's up to the Democrats as to whether or not we have a shutdown tonight. I hope we don't but we've very much prepared for a long shutdown."
"This is our only chance that we'll ever have, in our opinion, because of the world and the way it breaks out, to get great border security," Trump said. Democrats will take control of the House in January, and they oppose major funding for wall construction.
A VOTE AND A HOPE
The Senate narrowly passed a procedural vote in the evening that Republican and Democratic leaders said preserved the possibility of a compromise, though no agreement had yet been reached.
Spending for a number of federal agencies, affecting hundreds of thousands of federal employees, expired at midnight. But negotiations remained extremely fluid, and it was unclear if any spending measure would be able to resolve intense disagreements about whether to fund 215 miles of wall along the Mexico border.
"I hope Senate Democrats will work with the White House on an agreement that can pass both houses of Congress and then receive the president's signature," McConnell told other lawmakers after the vote passed 48-47, with Pence breaking a tie.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats were open to discussions with the White House and Republicans, but would not agree to any measure that funded the construction of a border wall.
The $5.7 billion border wall and stopgap spending bill passed the House on Thursday night, in a last gasp for Republicans there before they turn their majority over to Democrats in January.
But on Wednesday night, the Senate had passed a short-term spending bill to keep the government running through Feb. 8 without paying for Trump's wall. Lawmakers had expected Trump to sign that measure, but the president had changed his mind in the face of a backlash from conservative lawmakers and commentators.
That turnabout provoked frustration among senators Friday, since lawmakers of both parties acknowledge Democrats have the votes to follow through on their vow to block the border funding from passing the Senate.
"This is tyranny of talk radio hosts, right? And so, how do you deal with that?" said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. "You have two talk radio hosts who completely flipped the president. And so, do we succumb to tyranny of talk radio hosts?"
Still, after meeting with Trump at the White House, McConnell called a vote aimed at advancing the border wall bill, saying the legislation would not be considered controversial in more normal times.
"I'm proud to vote for it," McConnell said.
Pence cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate to advance the legislation after a marathon, five-hour session in the Senate that dragged on as senators rushed back to Washington. Both of Arkansas' Republican senators voted in favor of proceeding with the bill.
The vote had to be held open for hours as senators hurried back to the Capitol from their home states and other locations they had traveled after Wednesday night's vote, on the belief that their work was done for the year.
Even after the legislation passed that hurdle, the 60 votes needed for final passage were expected to be out of reach.
"What this does is push this ahead to a negotiation," said Corker, who wanted some guarantee the next vote would be on an agreement reached by all sides. He called it "the best we can to keep from shutting down government -- or if it does shut down, shutting down very briefly."
Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said it looked like a shutdown might not be avoidable, but top leaders were talking and he indicated any government disruption could be short.
POINTING FINGERS
In a spate of morning tweets, Trump sought to pin blame on Democrats for a potential shutdown even though he said last week that he would proudly own one if lawmakers did not provide at least $5 billion toward his marquee campaign promise.
"The Democrats, whose votes we need in the Senate, will probably vote against Border Security and the Wall even though they know it is DESPERATELY NEEDED," Trump wrote. "If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time. People don't want Open Borders and Crime!"
After Trump threatened on Thursday to veto the Senate measure that did not contain the border funding he sought, the House hurried to appease the president, pulling together the bill that would keep the government funded through Feb. 8 while also allocating $5.7 billion for the wall and nearly $8 billion for disaster relief for hurricanes and wildfires.
But Democrats showed no signs of relenting.
During a floor speech Friday, Schumer noted that the Senate had unanimously agreed to a spending bill earlier in the week and accused Trump of having a "temper tantrum."
"President Trump, you will not get your wall," Schumer said. "You're not getting your wall today, next week or on Jan. 3 when Democrats take control of the House."
"The Democrats now own the shutdown!" Trump insisted in one of his Friday morning tweets.
Trump and Schumer had dug in after the president reversed course Thursday morning and renewed his demand for taxpayer money to build the wall. But there were signs of a thaw late Friday, when McConnell, Democrats, and Pence began huddling separately in the Capitol.
"I'm feeling better now than I did an hour ago because that meeting is occurring," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican, adding that he was "so happy" about the session, which also included Mulvaney and Kushner. "The fact that that's happening represents progress."
After the meeting, Schumer signaled they had made little progress, with a spokesman saying the minority leader made clear "that any proposal with funding for the wall will not pass the Senate."
Schumer told Pence, Mulvaney and Kushner that other offers to keep the government running with existing levels of border-security funds remain on the table.
Pence separately joined Kushner and Mulvaney for a meeting with House conservatives.
In other tweets Friday, Trump urged McConnell to "fight for the Wall and Border Security as hard as he fought for anything."
Trump also urged McConnell to "use the Nuclear Option and get it done!"
That was a reference to a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. Trump was advocating that McConnell change the rule so that only 51 votes are required. By doing that, Republicans would be able to pass a bill without Democratic cooperation in a chamber in which Republicans hold 51 seats.
But a McConnell spokesman soon put out a statement making clear that wouldn't happen.
"The Leader has said for years that the votes are not there in the conference to use the nuclear option," said McConnell spokesman David Popp. "Just this morning, several Senators put out statements confirming that there is not a majority in the conference to go down that road."
In his tweets, Trump also sought to counter Democratic arguments that a border wall is an antiquated strategy for curbing illegal crossings.
"The Democrats are trying to belittle the concept of a Wall, calling it old fashioned," Trump wrote. "The fact is there is nothing else's that will work, and that has been true for thousands of years. It's like the wheel, there is nothing better."
"Properly designed and built Walls work, and the Democrats are lying when they say they don't," the president added.
The construction of a wall along the Mexico border was one of Trump's top campaign promises in 2016, and he had promised that Mexico would finance the entire project. But since taking office, he has demanded the money come from Congress, and Senate Democrats have easily blocked every attempt.
In recent days, Trump has tried a number of tactics to try to secure the money. He called on Cabinet secretaries to search their budgets for extra money, and on Wednesday he pronounced the entire project would be funded by the military. But by Thursday he was back to demanding that the money come from U.S. taxpayers, leaving many GOP lawmakers scrambling to accede to his demands.
Looking for a way to claim victory, Trump said Friday that he would accept money for a "Steel Slat Barrier" with spikes on the top, which he said would be just as effective as a "wall" and "at the same time beautiful."
On Friday night, Democrats continued to blame Trump and the Republicans for the partial shutdown.
"I think we ought to make it clear that it's the president's abrupt change in position and refusal to accept the deal he's already told his leadership he'd accept," said Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del.
"Look, this is the last week we have a Republican-controlled Senate and House and White House -- they've got to work this out."
Information for this article was contributed by Erica Werner, John Wagner, Damian Paletta, Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey and Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post; by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Emily Cochrane of The New York Times; and by Lisa Mascaro, Matthew Daly, Zeke Miller, Alan Fram, Kevin Freking, Mary Clare Jalonick and Jill Colvin of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/22/2018