Washington
The US government was partially shutdown on Saturday in a fierce dispute over President Donald Trump’s demands that Congress assign $5 billion for a wall along the border with Mexico.

After failing to strike a budget deal on Friday, congressional leaders and the White House pledged to keep talking through the weekend in search of a deal to end the shutdown ahead of the Christmas holiday.

The impasse came after Trump threw a wrench into the works earlier in the week by refusing to agree to a short-term funding deal cut by Democratic and Republican senators because it did not include the $5 billion for his border wall.

The US House of Representatives, where Republicans have a majority until Democrats take over on January 3, then passed a Bill that included the $5 billion, but it ran aground in the Senate and the shutdown began at midnight on Friday.

After it became clear the House Bill lacked the votes to pass, Senate leaders huddled with Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials to try to figure out a path forward. They failed and lawmakers in both houses of Congress were sent home.

Democrats repeatedly reminded Trump, and voters, that he said last week he would be “proud” to shut the government down in order to get wall funding. “President Trump has thrown a temper tantrum and now has us careening towards a ‘Trump shutdown’ over Christmas,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor on Friday.

For the shutdown to end, both the House and the Senate will have to approve any deal negotiated between Trump’s team and Republican and Democratic leaders.

The shutdown could persist at least until a new Congress convenes on January 3, and Democrats take control of the House from Republicans. That does not necessarily mean, however, that Trump would agree to a compromise.

In a joint statement on Saturday, Schumer and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said that if the shutdown continues, the new House Democratic majority will quickly pass legislation to re-open government when it takes office in January.