The federal government will continue to be partially shut down for the Christmas holiday, as the Senate adjourned Saturday afternoon with no deal.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on the floor just before 3:30 p.m. that the Senate was adjourning for the day and would not return until Christmas Eve for a pro forma session at 11 a.m.
The next time the Senate will be fully in for a session will be Thursday, Dec. 27, at 4 p.m.
“As I said earlier today when we opened, I’m glad that productive discussions are continuing,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “When these negotiations produce a solution that is acceptable to all parties, which means 60 votes in the Senate, a majority in the House, and a presidential signature, at that point we will take it up on the Senate floor. Senators will be notified when a vote is scheduled, and in the meantime, the discussions and negotiations continue.”
McConnell added: “Listen, anything can happen. We’re pulling for an agreement that can get 60 votes in the Senate and a majority in the House.”
The announcement came after President Trump had lunch with conservative Republicans at the White House, and sent both Vice President Mike Pence and Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to the U.S. Capitol negotiate Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
The meeting ended after roughly 30 minutes, and McConnell told reporters that “productive discussions are continuing” — but Democrats were unmoved on their desire not to sign legislation that would include billions of dollars for funding a wall along the U.S-Mexico border.
“It will never pass the Senate, not today, not next week, not next year. So President Trump, if you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall, plain and simple,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Schumer added that the border wall was a “bone to the hard right” and that Democrats had proposed $1.3 billion for “border security.”
More than 420,000 federal workers who are considered essential work without pay during the shutdown. Those employees will eventually receive pack pay. Another 380,000 government employees are be furloughed and home without pay.
The shutdown went into effect at midnight Friday after the Senate could not pass legislation that the House passed Thursday.
Trump threw Washington into chaos Thursday when he told GOP leaders he would not sign any spending bill without $5 billion in border wall funding. That torpedoed deal would have kept the government funded through Feb. 8.
There were little lawmakers in the Capitol on Saturday, and there were never even votes scheduled in either chamber.
Early Saturday morning, Trump wrote on Twitter: “We are negotiating with the Democrats on desperately needed Border Security . . . but it could be a long stay.”
After the Senate adjourned Saturday, he simply tweeted: “Senate adjourns until December 27th.”
Funding that expired at midnight Saturday covers the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the State Department, the Interior Department, the Departure of Agriculture, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, among other small federal agencies.
In addition, dozens of national parks and monuments were closed Saturday, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has posted a list of the services it will soon suspend.
On a conference call with reporters earlier Saturday, senior administration officials placed the blame on Democrats and said they must agree to the $5 billion in border wall funding if they want the government shutdown to ever end.
“We are trying to manage this partial shutdown with as minimum disruption to the American people … to be able to get an agreement that accomplishes the border security priorities of this administration,” the official said.
