WASHINGTON -- The federal government was expected to remain partially shut down past Christmas as the standoff deepened Saturday over President Donald Trump's demand for funds to build a wall along the Mexico border.
With Trump's insistence on $5 billion for the wall and fraught negotiations with Democrats in Congress, even a temporary measure to keep the government running while talks continue seems out of reach until the Senate returns for a full session Thursday.
No one could say how long the closure would last. Unlike other shutdowns, this one seems to lack urgency, coming during the long holiday weekend after Trump had already declared Monday, Christmas Eve, a federal holiday. Rather than work around the clock to try to end the shutdown, as they had done in the past, the leaders of the House and the Senate effectively closed up shop. But they didn't rule out action if a deal were struck.
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"Listen, anything can happen," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. "We're pulling for an agreement that can get 60 votes in the Senate and a majority in the House."
McConnell announced that his chamber would not return to legislative business until Thursday.
The decision came after Trump dispatched Vice President Mike Pence to the Capitol to make the latest offer to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. That meeting ended after 30 minutes with no resolution.
"Still talking," Pence told reporters as he and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney left Schumer's office; the senator had said he would "remind" the vice president that Democrats would not sign off on funding for a border wall.
"The vice president came in for a discussion and made an offer. Unfortunately, we're still very far apart," a spokesman from Schumer's office said.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the top House Democrat, suggested in an interview that if an agreement was not struck by the close of the weekend, lawmakers and staff members in her chamber also should go home for the Christmas holiday.
"I really do think that if it doesn't happen today or tomorrow, then people should just be with their families and relax," she said, adding, "We have certainty we will end this the first week in January," when Democrats assume control of the House.
At the White House, Trump hosted a lunch Saturday with conservative lawmakers, including House Freedom Caucus chiefs Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio, and several senators. Absent from the guest list were GOP leaders or any Democrats, who would be needed for a deal.
"I am in the White House, working hard," tweeted the president, who canceled his Florida holiday getaway to his Mar-a-Lago resort because of the shutdown. First lady Melania Trump was flying back to Washington to be with her husband.
Trump's re-election campaign sent out a fundraising email late Saturday opening what he called "the most important membership program ever - the OFFICIAL BUILD THE WALL MEMBERSHIP." The president urged donors to sign up.
Trump savored the prospect of a shutdown over the wall for months. Earlier this month he said he would be "proud" to close down the government. He had campaigned on the promise of building the wall, and he also promised Mexico would pay for it. Mexico has refused to do so.
In recent days, though, Trump tried to shift blame to Democrats for not acceding to his demand. He has given mixed messages on whether he would sign any bill into law.
After the luncheon at the White House, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, "It's clear to me he believes the additional funding is necessary."
Democrats said they were open to other proposals that didn't include the wall. They have offered to keep spending at existing levels of $1.3 billion for border fencing and other security.
But Trump, digging in, tweeted about "the crisis of illegal activity" at American's southern border is "real and will not stop until we build a great Steel Barrier or Wall."
Senators approved a bipartisan deal early last week to keep the government open into February and provide $1.3 billion for border security projects, but not the wall. But Trump pushed the House to approve a package temporarily financing the government but also setting aside $5.7 billion for the border wall.
A test vote Friday in the Senate showed that Republicans lacked the 60 votes needed to advance the House plan.
With Senate Democrats saying they will never accede to Trump's insistence on the $5 billion for his wall, and the White House offering no indication that the president will accept less, nine of the federal government's 15 Cabinet-level departments have officially shuttered. They include the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security and the Interior; other agencies, like the Defense Department, are unaffected because Congress had already approved their spending.
Also still functioning were the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard. Transportation Security Administration officers continued to staff airport checkpoints and air traffic controllers were on the job.
About 380,000 workers were expected to be sent home, and another 420,000 considered too essential to be furloughed -- including airport security officials and Customs and Border Protection officers -- were to remain on the job without pay. National parks generally planned to remain open, though with reduced services in some cases and without the presence of rangers to assist visitors.
The shutdown's effects will become more pronounced Wednesday, when workers had been scheduled to return after the holiday.
Some of Congress' most conservative Republicans welcomed such a shutdown confrontation, but other GOP lawmakers wanted to avoid one because polling showed the public opposed the wall and a shutdown over it.
Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said, "This is a complete failure of negotiations and a success for no one."
NO STIRRING AT CAPITOL
Both the House and Senate opened at noon Saturday, but there were no signs of progress in negotiations.
Few lawmakers were in the Capitol, and no votes were scheduled in either chamber. Many lawmakers took off Friday night to return to their home states as they awaited word of the talks, having been assured that they would get 24 hours notice before any vote occurred to reopen the closed portions of the government.
In the Senate, McConnell opened the chamber Saturday with a 10-minute address that had hints of optimism but stronger suggestions of a partisan standoff that could last well beyond Saturday.
McConnell suggested the government would remain closed "until the president and Senate Democrats have reached an agreement."
He pointed out other times when Senate Democrats had voiced support for border wall funding and yet now objected to any funds that would go toward an actual wall. "They've refused to meet President Trump halfway," McConnell said.
A few minutes after McConnell spoke, Schumer suggested Trump was the impediment to the government reopening.
"At midnight last night, roughly 25 percent of the government shut down because of one person and one person alone: President Trump," Schumer said. "We arrived at this moment because President Trump has been on a destructive two-week temper tantrum."
Schumer rejected the idea that a deal had to be brokered between him and Trump, saying McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., could not "duck responsibility" from the negotiations.
"If you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall, plain and simple," Schumer said, accusing Trump of supporting an inefficient wall that would end up "swindling the American taxpayer."
Ryan shifted blame for the shutdown onto the Senate.
"Whatever the Senate can pass, and the president will sign, we stand ready. The bill is over there," Ryan said in a brief interview after gaveling his chamber out of legislative session until after Christmas; the House also is not expected to return to business until Thursday.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland said that the House was in limbo, perhaps for days, unless the Senate came up with something that could pass.
"Predicting what this president is going to do is not a worthwhile enterprise," Hoyer said. "I'm going to go to the Maryland basketball game this afternoon. Why? Because the Senate is negotiating. The earliest we could vote is on Monday. That's Christmas Eve. If they had agreement today, they might end up [holding the vote] on Wednesday night."
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the House Freedom Caucus who represents Mulvaney's old seat, appeared on Fox News from his district to say he wasn't returning until a deal was struck.
"There wasn't much happening that we could take part in," Norman said. "It's up to the 60 votes in the Senate. I think Mitch McConnell can come up with the 10 Democrats, hopefully. If not, we're going to sit until we have a secure border."
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro, Darlene Superville, Kevin Freking, Alan Fram, Mary Clare Jalonick and Jill Colvin of The Associated Press; by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Katie Rogers of The New York Times; and by Paul Kane, David Weigel and Philip Rucker of The Washington Post.
A Section on 12/23/2018