WASHINGTON -- The partial U.S. government shutdown entered its fifth day Wednesday as the White House and lawmakers remain at odds over President Donald Trump's demands to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump vowed to hold the line, telling reporters during a visit to Iraq that he'll do "whatever it takes" to get money for border security.
"You have to have a wall, you have to have protection," he said.
The shutdown started Saturday when funding lapsed for nine Cabinet-level departments and dozens of agencies. Roughly 420,000 workers were deemed essential and are working unpaid, while an additional 380,000 have been furloughed, meaning they'll stay home without pay.
While the White House was talking to congressional Democrats -- and staff talks continued on Capitol Hill -- negotiations dragged Wednesday, dimming hopes for a swift breakthrough.
Trump blamed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for prolonging the shutdown.
"Nancy Pelosi is calling the shots, not Chuck," Trump said, referring to Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer of New York. "And Chuck wants to have this done, I really believe that. But she's calling the shots, and she's calling them because she wants the votes and probably if they do something she's not going to get the votes and she's not going to be speaker of the House and that would not be good for her."
Trump declined to say whether he would accept $2 billion for the wall. Vice President Mike Pence is said to have proposed $2.1 billion for new border barriers in an offer to Democrats, along with $400 million for other Trump immigration priorities.
Congressional Republicans were still waiting to hear a counteroffer from Democrats to Pence's proposal, according to a GOP aide.
With no deal at hand, members of the House were told there would be no votes today, assuring that the shutdown will last yet another day. Lawmakers are away from Washington for the holidays and have been told they will have 24 hours' notice before having to return. The Senate is to go into session this afternoon.
Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a Trump ally who has been involved in the talks, said the president "is very firm in his resolve that we need to secure our border." He told CNN, "I don't know that there's a lot of progress that has been made today."
But he added of Democrats: "If they believe that this president is going to yield on this particular issue, they're misreading him."
The impasse over government funding began last week, when the Senate approved a bipartisan deal keeping government open into February. That bill provided $1.3 billion for border security projects but not money for the wall. At Trump's urging, the House approved that package and inserted the $5.7 billion he had requested.
On Friday afternoon, a Senate procedural vote showed that Republicans lacked the 60 votes they'd need to force the measure with the wall funding through their chamber. That jump-started negotiations between Congress and the White House, but the deadline came and went without a deal.
Schumer on Saturday said funding for Trump's wall will "never pass the Senate."
"So President Trump, if you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall, plain and simple," Schumer said.
Pelosi is in lockstep with Schumer against the wall funding. If the shutdown continues into 2019, she has vowed that her new Democratic majority will act quickly to pass legislation reopening the government.
The shutdown has been playing out against the backdrop of turmoil in the stock market, which is having a roller-coaster week.
Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, said the shutdown does not change the administration's expectation for strong growth heading into 2019. He told reporters that a shutdown of a few weeks is not going to have any "significant effect on the outlook."
The shutdown that began Saturday is the third of 2018.
Among the departments without funding are: Justice, Homeland Security, Interior and Treasury. Independent agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, are also affected.
The departments whose funding lapsed represent about a quarter of the $1.24 trillion in government discretionary spending for fiscal 2019.
The shutdown complicates things for essential employees who planned trips for the holidays: According to the Office of Personnel Management rules, employees deemed essential or otherwise exempted from their respective agency furloughs can't take any vacation or sick days.
Furloughed federal workers have been given back pay in previous shutdowns.
Those being furloughed include 52,000 workers at the Internal Revenue Service and nearly everyone at NASA. About 8 in 10 employees of the National Park Service are staying home, and many parks have closed.
Roughly 44,000 U.S. Coast Guard employees are considered essential and will report to work this week without pay, with another 6,000 furloughed. The Coast Guard is the only arm of the military affected by the shutdown because it is funded through the Department of Homeland Security.
The shutdown didn't stop people from visiting White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico, where hundreds of unauthorized visitors have in recent days climbed over a fence to enter the monument, according to The Alamogordo Daily News. State highway workers were sent to the area Monday to erect "no parking" signs along U.S. 70 outside the monument.
Trump claimed Monday that federal workers are behind him in the shutdown fight, saying many "have said to me and communicated, 'stay out until you get the funding for the wall.'" He didn't say who he had heard from. Many rank-and-file workers have gone to social media with stories of the financial hardship they expect to face because of the shutdown.
One union representing federal workers slammed Trump's claim. Paul Shearon, the president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, in a statement said the union has not heard from a single member who supports Trump's position.
"Most view this as an act of ineptitude," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Darlene Superville, Juliet Linderman and Paul Davenport of The Associated Press; and by Scott Lanman, Alyza Sebenius, Erik Wasson, Steven T. Dennis, Jennifer Epstein and Anna Edgerton of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 12/27/2018