Trump huddles with Pence, Mulvaney, Kushner as shutdown hits one week

President Trump huddled with Vice President Pence, incoming acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner on Friday night.

Trump was dining with the senior administration officials at the Naval Observatory in northwest Washington, D.C., according to pool reports, as the partial government shutdown reaches the one-week mark.

The shutdown is likely to extend into next year and the new Congress, which begins Jan. 3, after the House announced Thursday that there would be no votes this week.

Republicans and Democrats are still divided over Trump’s demand for $5 billion for a border wall as part of any funding legislation to reopen large swaths of the federal government.{mosads}

About 25 percent of the federal government has been shut down since last Saturday after Congress remained deadlocked over Trump’s border wall demands.

The Senate had previously passed a government funding bill without extra money for a border wall, but Trump declared the next day following pressure from conservative allies that he would not sign the bill without money for his signature wall.

The House passed a bill last week with $5.7 billion in border funding, but it was expected to be dead on arrival in the Senate. Democrats in both chambers have declared their opposition to the border wall, with likely next Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) calling it a “non-starter.”

The shutdown has resulted in the furloughs of hundreds of thousands of federal employees and the shuttering of various government agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce, Justice, Interior and State, among others.

Trump threatened Friday morning to completely close down the southern border if his funding isn’t agreed upon. However, Democrats have shown little interest in conceding to the demand before they take control of the House next week, when they will have more leverage.