WASHINGTON (AP) — A partial government shutdown will commence at midnight, as House representatives have left the Capitol without a deal in place to keep a number of federal agencies operation.
Funding will lapse for nine of 15 Cabinet-level departments and dozens of agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Interior, Agriculture, State and Justice, as well as national parks and forests.
Many agencies, including the Pentagon and the departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services, are funded for the year and will continue to operate as usual.
The U.S. Postal Service, busy delivering packages for the holiday season, would not be affected because it’s an independent agency.
The House will reconvene at noon on Saturday, making that the earliest time a deal could be passed to re-open the affected agencies.
The shutdown would leave hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay just days before Christmas.
Earlier in the day President Donald Trump convened Republican senators for a lengthy meeting at the White House, but it produced no clear path toward passage of a government-funding bill containing billions for wall construction.
"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.
Trump tried to preemptively pin the blame on Democrats for the shutdown, even though just last week he said he would be “proud” to shut part of the government in a fight for the wall, which was a major promise of his presidential campaign.
Congress had been on track to fund the government, but lurched when Trump, after a rare lashing from conservative supporters, declared Thursday he would not sign a bill without the wall billions.
His supporters on the right warned that his “caving” on repeated wall promises could hurt his 2020 re-election chances, and those of other Republicans as well.
"We're totally prepared for a very long shutdown," Trump said Friday.
Embracing his changed terminology, he claimed there is tremendous enthusiasm for border security - “the barrier, wall or steel slats - it’s all the same.”
Senators were being recalled to Washington to try to find a way forward, after having already approved a bipartisan package earlier this week that would have extended existing border security funding, at $1.3 billion, but without new money for Trump’s wall.
At the White House, senators engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth with the president, but it did not appear to set a strategy for moving forward.
"I was in an hour meeting on that and there was no conclusion," said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
The Senate was expected to reject the House measure because Democratic votes are needed and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell showed little interest in changing the rules - the so-called “nuclear option” Trump proposed on Twitter - to allow a simple majority for passage.
One possibility was that the Senate might strip the border wall funds out of the package, pass it and send it back to the House.
Before adjourning, House lawmakers had said they were told to stay in town for more possible votes.
The White House said Trump would not go to Florida on Friday as planned for the Christmas holiday if the government were shutting down.
Thursday night, the GOP-led House voted largely along party lines, 217-185, to attach the border wall money to the Senate's bill.
House Republicans also tacked on nearly $8 billion in disaster aid for coastal hurricanes and California wildfires.
Both the House and Senate packages would extend government funding through Feb. 8, all but guaranteeing another standoff once Democrats take control of the House in the New Year.
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Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Kevin Freking and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report.
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