House adjourns with no deal in sight

Partial shutdown all but certain

WASHINGTON — Even as frenetic negotiations continued at the Capitol, the House adjourned without a deal on spending Friday night, all but ensuring a partial government shutdown at midnight with President Donald Trump demanding billions of dollars for his long-promised Mexican border wall.

Trump’s top envoys were straining to broker a last-minute compromise with Democrats and some of their own Republican Party’s lawmakers. But as Vice President Mike Pence, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and senior adviser Jared Kushner dashed back and forth at the Capitol there were no outward signs of a deal.

The House adjourned, and senators were told there would be no more votes Friday night.

The shutdown, scheduled for midnight, would disrupt government operations and leave hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay just days before Christmas.

At a White House bill signing, Trump said the government was “totally prepared for a very long shutdown,” though hardly anyone thought a lengthy shutdown was likely.

The president tried to pin the blame on Democrats, even though just last week he said he would be “proud” to claim ownership of a shutdown in a fight for the wall. Campaigning for office two years ago, he had declared the wall would go up “so fast it will make your head spin.” He also promised Mexico would pay for it, which Mexico has said it will never do.

“This is our only chance that we’ll ever have, in our opinion, because of the world and the way it breaks out, to get great border security,” Trump said Friday at the White House. Democrats will take control of the House in January, and they oppose major funding for wall construction.

Looking for a way to claim victory, Trump said he would accept money for a “Steel Slat Barrier” with spikes on the top, which he said would be just as effective as a “wall” and “at the same time beautiful.”

Trump convened Republican senators for a morning meeting, but the lengthy back-and-forth did not appear to set a strategy for moving forward. A person granted anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the private session said the president would not get behind lower levels of funding the senators discussed. He has demanded $5.7 billion.

“I was in an hour meeting on that and there was no conclusion,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell returned to Capitol Hill and quickly set in motion a procedural vote on a House Republican package that would give Trump the money he wants for the wall, but it was not expected to pass.

To underscore the difficulty, that Senate vote to proceed was stuck in a long holding pattern as senators were being recalled to Washington. They had already approved a bipartisan package earlier this week that would continue existing border security funding, at $1.3 billion, but without new money for Trump’s wall. Many were home for the holidays.

Only after a marathon fivehour delay Pence cast a tie-breaking vote that loosened the logjam.

ASSOCIATED PRESS The Capitol is seen at day’s end as the Senate works on a House-passed bill that would pay for President Donald Trump’s border wall and avert a partial government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington.