Day 13: New Congress, same old impasse over Trump's wall

WASHINGTON (AP):

The partial government shutdown entered a 13th

day Thursday with House Democrats prepared to pass their plan to reopen government and President Donald Trump accusing them of playing politics with an eye on the 2020 election.

Both sides appeared at an impasse over Trump's demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the US border with Mexico. Congressional leaders will meet with Trump on Friday to try for a resolution.

The new Congress convenes Thursday with Democrats taking majority control of the House, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, expected to be elected speaker, said they'd quickly pass legislation to re-open the government - without funds for Trump's border wall.

"There is no amount of persuasion he can use" to get her to fund his wall, Pelosi said in an interview airing Thursday on NBC's 'Today' show. She added: "We can go through the back and forth. No. How many more times can we say no?"

'Trump fires back'

Trump shot back Thursday, accusing the Democrats of playing politics.

"The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election," he said on Twitter. "The Democrats know they can't win based on all of the achievements of "Trump," so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security - and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics!"

The Democratic package to end the shutdown would include one bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels - with $1.3 billion for border security, far less than Trump has said he wants for the wall - through February 8 as talks would continue.

It would also include a separate measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, and others closed by the partial shutdown. That measure would provide money through the remainder of the fiscal year, to September 30.

The White House has rejected the Democratic package, and Republicans, who control the Senate, are hesitant to take it up without Trump on board. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called it a "total nonstarter". Trump said ahead of his White House session with the congressional leaders that the partial shutdown will last "as long as it takes" to get the funding he wants.

In public, Trump renewed his dire warnings of rapists and others at the border. But when pressed in private on Wednesday by Democrats asking why he wouldn't end the shutdown, he responded at one point, "I would look foolish if I did that." A White House official, one of two people who described that exchange only on condition of anonymity, said the president had been trying to explain that it would be foolish not to pay for border security.

"Could be a long time or could be quickly," Trump said during lengthy public comments at a Cabinet meeting, his first public appearance of the new year. Meanwhile, the shutdown has closed some parks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay.

- AP