Prospects for a short end to the partial government shutdown seemed bleak Saturday morning, with the president warning of “a long stay” and no sign that the gap between him and Democratic leaders has narrowed.
Mr. Trump took to Twitter to say he’s at work at the White House, holding a lunch meeting with his White House team and some of the congressional Republicans who pushed him into the shutdown.
Both the House and Senate gaveled in at noon, but the House immediately went into a recess and the Senate floor, while still open, emptied out after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave an update on what it will take to strike a deal to end the shutdown.
“It’s really simple,” he said. “Sixty votes in the Senate, a majority in the House and President Trump’s signature. That’s what we need.”
That makes Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, the key figure, given that he holds the power of the filibuster in the Senate.
Mr. McConnell said there were “productive discussions” going on.
That sounded more optimistic than Mr. Trump who, in a series of tweets, said it could take time to resolve things.
“I am in the White House, working hard,” he said, calling reports about the shutdown “mostly fake.” He didn’t say what he found fake about the coverage, but said “it could be a long stay.”
Rank-and-file lawmakers appear to have skipped town, assured by leaders that they’ll get plenty of advance notice before they are called back to vote on an eventual deal.
More than 25 percent of the government that’s funded by discretionary spending ran out of money at midnight.
Given the weekend and the upcoming holidays for Christmas Eve and Christmas — Mr. Trump declared Dec. 24 a holiday this year — the real effects won’t be felt by most government workers until Wednesday.
About 800,000 employees are in the departments and agencies that lost funding. Of those, 420,000 are deemed essential enough to have to continue working — though they won’t be paid until the shutdown ends. The other 380,000 are to be furloughed.
The Senate on Friday passed a bill to guarantee those furloughed workers will still be paid for the time they were out of work.
That legislation has not passed the House, though every previous major shutdown has ended with workers being given backpay for time they didn’t work.
The chief sticking point in negotiations is Mr. Trump’s demand for $5 billion in border wall money.
The White House had signaled earlier this week he would sign a bill without it, but he reversed himself on Thursday and vowed a veto unless he got his money.
Democrats, too, have moved the goalposts.
Mr. Schumer had offered $1.6 billion in funding for a border wall — which he says is more properly described as a fence — earlier in the negotiations, but now says he can’t support that after his left wing balked.
It’s not clear how much he is willing to ante for fencing, but it is clear he wants the president not to call it a wall.
“If you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall, plain and simple,” he said on the Senate floor Saturday.
Democrats are convinced the shutdown will damage Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly angled for one from his first months in office.
Mr. Trump last week had said he would be “proud” to force a shutdown over his border wall demand.
The president now claims Democrats should shoulder the blame.
Mr. Trump on Saturday also defended himself on Twitter against criticism for his decision to pull troops out of Syria.
“On Syria, we were originally…going to be there for three months, and that was seven years ago - we never left. When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!” he tweeted.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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