President Trump and congressional leaders failed again on Friday to break a deadlock that has kept the government partially shut down for two weeks, and the president acknowledged he threatened to keep agencies closed for “months or even years.”
Emerging from what they called a “sometimes contentious” meeting at the White House, Democratic leaders said Mr. Trump remained adamant that he would not sign spending bills to reopen the shuttered offices unless Congress approved money for his proposed wall on the southern border.
“We told the president we needed the government open,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, told reporters outside the White House. “He resisted. In fact, he said he’d keep the government closed for a very long period of time, months or even years.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, whose party just assumed control of the House on Thursday following the November midterm elections, said Democrats were also committed to securing the border but want government operations resumed while they negotiate that. “We can do that best when government is open,” she said. “We’ve made that clear to the president.”
In a separate appearance afterward in the Rose Garden, Mr. Trump called the meeting “productive” and said he had invited the congressional leaders to form a working group with his advisers to meet over the weekend to talk about border security needs.