The government was sent into a partial shutdown Friday night as both houses of Congress adjourned for the evening after a last-ditch effort to continue talks in the Senate failed.
Both the Senate and House adjourned until Saturday, with House members going home at 7 p.m. and senators dismissed an hour later, pushing talks past the midnight deadline for averting the shutdown.
In the Senate negotiations, it took a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence to keep alive a bill that would provide the billions of dollars in funding demanded by President Trump for his border wall.
But Senate leaders said they would vote only on legislation backed by Republicans, Democrats and Trump — an unlikely prospect given days of increasingly heated rhetoric.
Democrats held firm to their refusal to give Trump the $5 billion he wants for the wall.
“As we said to President Trump a week ago, his wall does not have 60 votes here in the Senate, let alone 50 votes. That much is now clear,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor moments after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the deal to keep talking.
“Democrats have offered three proposals to keep the government open, including a proposal offered by Leader McConnell that passed the Senate unanimously only a few days ago. We are willing to continue discussions on those proposals with the leader, the president, the speaker of the House and the leader of the House.”
McConnell said he hoped Democrats would negotiate with Team Trump and stressed the next vote would be on a bill all parties agreed on.
“I hope Senate Democrats will work with the White House on an agreement that can pass both houses of Congress and receive the president’s signature,” he said. “So, colleagues, when an agreement is reached, it will receive a vote here on the Senate floor.”
The move came after Pence broke a 47-47 tie to move the Senate’s version of the House bill to the floor for debate.
The missing senators did not make it back to DC from their districts in time to vote.
About a dozen had left town for the Christmas holiday, believing a budget extension until Feb. 8 was all but signed.
Several rushed back for the vote. Democrat Brian Schatz, turned right around after landing in his home state of Hawaii.
The agreement to continue discussions came after Pence, Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney huddled with Schumer behind closed doors to find a way to avoid a shutdown.
Trump warned earlier Friday that Americans should prepare for “a very long shutdown.”
He also did a 180 on his claim that he would be “proud to shut down the government” and would not blame Democrats — doing just that at the White House while signing the criminal-justice reform bill.
“It’s possible that we’ll have a shutdown. I would say the chances are probably very good, because I don’t think Democrats care so much about, maybe, this issue, but this is a very big issue,” Trump said.
“They’ve devoted their lives to making sure it doesn’t happen. It’s up to the Democrats. It’s really, the Democrat shutdown. I hope we don’t, but we’re very well prepared for a very long shutdown.”
Days earlier, Trump sang a different tune.
“I am proud to shut down the government for border security. I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you. I’m going to shut it down for border security,” he told Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leaders, on Dec. 11.
Senate Republicans need at least nine Democrats to jump the fence to get the 60 votes needed to pass the spending extension that included the wall funding approved by the House.
A senior Senate Republican aide said there was hope that the two parties could find a “sweet spot” in a temporary spending bill that would provide more funds for border security than was in the bill the Senate passed this week — but not the $5 billion for a wall that the House approved.
With Reuters