Pence, congressional aides fail to reach agreement on funding for border wall

Following their meeting on Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would pass new legislation in a bid to reopen parts of the government next week.

House Democrats would pass piecemeal appropriation bills to be able to reopen government agencies, starting with the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, Pelosi said.

“This action is necessary so that the American people can receive their tax refunds on schedule,” she added.

President Donald Trump, who is demanding $5.6 billion to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, said Friday that he was willing to keep the government closed for a year or more unless Democrats agree to his demand. He also tweeted on Saturday that "the Democrats could solve the Shutdown problem in a very short period of time." The White House meeting was attended by Vice President Mike Pence, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a senior adviser, along with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

Although Pence said the talks were “productive,” an aide rejected the idea, saying, "Today was an opportunity for the Administration to come down from an untenable position that cannot pass the Congress. That did not happen."

Democratic staffers called on the administration to reopen the government, asserting that it was difficult to make progress on the issue of border security while the government was closed, the aide said.

The administration instead “doubled down on their partisan proposal that led to the Trump shutdown in the first place,” the aide added.

Following the failed negotiations, the two sides agreed to meet on Sunday again, though to many on Capitol Hill, there does not seem to be an end in sight.

A political analyst has said that Trump himself would suffer from the consequences of the government shutdown.

David William Pear made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday.

“He (Trump) has based his whole campaign on this wall and the so-called threat of illegal immigrants,” Pear said.

“I don’t see him backing down on the wall. I think that this is going to get dragged up for quite some time.”

“Eventually, Trump would be the one to suffer from it, because the world economy is already slowing down, the US economy is slowing down and interest rates are going up and this could be the little push that pushes then to recession in the next year or so and going into election in 2020,” Pear said.

“It is not good news for the sitting president to have a recession on his hands; so, that could be where he gets really beaten,” he added.

KD