President Donald Trump says he’ll do “whatever it takes” to get funding for border security, signaling no end in sight to the partial government shutdown.
Trump declined to tell reporters Wednesday what amount of wall funding he would accept to end the shutdown. Instead he cast blame on Democrats and said “the American public is demanding a wall.”
Trump spoke to reporters who traveled with him to
Trump has requested $5 billion for the wall, an amount Democrats have rejected. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer has said the wall funding will “never pass the Senate” and urged Trump to abandon the request so the government can be funded.
The shutdown started Saturday after funding lapsed for nine Cabinet-level departments and dozens of agencies. Roughly 420,000 workers were deemed essential and are working unpaid, while another 380,000 were furloughed.
Christmas has come and gone but the partial government shutdown is just getting started.
Wednesday brings the first full business day after several government departments and agencies closed up over the weekend due to a budgetary stalemate between President Donald Trump and Congress.
And there is no end in sight.
So far, the public and federal workers have largely been spared inconvenience and hardship because government is closed on weekends and federal employees were excused from work on and Christmas, a federal holiday. The shutdown began at midnight last Friday.
Trump said Tuesday that the closed parts of the government will remain that way until Democrats agree to wall off the
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