President Barack Obama and congressional leaders appeared no closer to ending a two-day-old government shutdown after meeting for more than an hour Wednesday night. 
 
 Instead, they resumed the same posture they held before the conference: No one is backing down. 
 
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 reset Reid, Pelosi remarks after meeting Protesters interrupt GOP presser 
 
 “The president made clear to the Leaders that he is not going to negotiate over the need for Congress to act to reopen the government or to raise the debt limit to pay the bills Congress has already incurred,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “The president reinforced his view that the House should put the clean government funding bill that has been passed by the Senate up for a vote — a bill that would pass a majority of the House with bipartisan support.” 
 
 “The president is glad that the leaders were able to engage in this useful discussion this evening,” Carney added. 
 
 (PHOTOS: D.C. closes up shop) 
 
 “They will not negotiate,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said. “We had a nice conversation, a polite conversation, but at some point we’ve got to allow the process that our founders gave us to work out.” 
 
 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also didn’t budge. 
 
 Reid repeated what the president has long maintained, that Democrats won’t barter over Republican-desired changes to Obamacare with the twin swords of the shutdown and a possible default on the nation’s credit hanging over their heads. 
 
 “We are locked in tight on Obamacare,” Reid said to reporters gathered in the driveway outside the West Wing. 
 
 (POLITICO's full government shutdown coverage) 
 
 So, the federal government will remain closed on Thursday as the nation’s leaders refuse to deal with one another in real terms, preferring to deliver missives in the form of letters, press conferences and, now, even a small group pow-wow with no staff allowed in the room. 
 
 When asked, Reid declined to say why it took 80 minutes to conclude that no progress could be made. 
 
 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in a bind on the fiscal fight because he’s in a tough reelection race, released a statement calling the meeting “cordial but unproductive” and showing solidarity with Boehner’s position that the House and Senate should open a formal dialogue on resuming government funding. 
 
 “While I appreciated the opportunity to speak directly with the president about this pressing issue, I was disappointed that he had little interest in negotiating a solution or in encouraging Senate Democrats to agree to the House request for a conference,” he said. 
 
 (POLITICO interview: Rep. Steve King predicts longer shutdown) 
 
 Before the meeting, Obama had told CNBC that he wasn’t in any mood to negotiate on what he considers to be core responsibilities of Congress and will talk about other issues once the government is open and the debt-limit increase is secured. 
 
 “Until we get that done,” Obama said, “we are not going to engage in a series of negotiations.” 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden, who has been a wheeler-dealer on past budget agreements, attended the meeting but did not address reporters afterward. 
 
 The Oval Office session came as the federal government remains shut down for the second day, with no end in sight. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers remained furloughed, and numerous government services have been temporarily ended as Obama and congressional Democrats face off against GOP leaders over the future of Obamacare. 
 
 (WATCH: Veterans storm World War II Memorial) 
 
 In between the interview and the congressional meeting, the president huddled with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who has said the date for the government defaulting on its debt — absent congressional action — is Oct. 17. 
 
 Increasingly, it appears that Washington’s leaders will have to come up with a budget plan that both reopens the government and raises the debt limit. 
 
 Republicans said beforehand that they welcomed the president’s invitation to the White House, as Obama, Reid and Pelosi have refused up to this point to accept anything other than a “clean” continuing resolution that funds the government. 
 
 “We’re pleased the president finally recognizes that his refusal to negotiate is indefensible,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement. “It’s unclear why we’d be having this meeting if it’s not meant to be a start to serious talks between the two parties.” 
 
 (WATCH: Protesters interrupt GOP presser on Capitol Hill) 
 
 If there was a small sliver of optimism, it was in Reid’s recounting of a portion of the meeting. Democrats offered to talk with Boehner about a range of other issues, including health care and farming laws, if he would first pass a “clean” extension of government funding. But, Reid said, Boehner replied “no,” insisting that the two chambers try to strike an agreement on the basic spending bill. Many Republicans now think it’s in their interest to cut a much bigger deal on spending, taxes, and the debt limit, and It is not inconceivable that a deal could be worked out that would involve a two- or three-step process in which the government would be opened, the debt cap raised and a long-term budget agreement triggered. 
 
 A breakaway group of more than a dozen House Republicans have indicated they would vote for a clean government spending bill — without language aimed at Obamacare — if it came to the floor. But they have so far not joined Democrats in procedural votes that would frustrate the GOP majority. 
 
 Reps. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) are working on a bipartisan continuing resolution, or CR, to fund the government for six months, which would include a repeal of the medical device tax, according to several lawmakers and aides. Dent was working the floor during the afternoon votes to try to get support from fellow Republicans. ||||| Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and his leadership team encouraged President Obama to “take any lawful steps” to avoid default — “without Congressional approval, if necessary.” (Andrew Harrer/BLOOMBERG) 
 
 Democratic leaders in the Senate on Friday urged President Obama to consider bypassing Congress to prevent the nation from defaulting on its spending obligations if lawmakers cannot agree to raise the nation’s $16.4 trillion debt ceiling next month. 
 
 In a joint letter that served as a warning to congressional Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and his leadership team encouraged Obama to “take any lawful steps” to avoid default — “without Congressional approval, if necessary.” 
 
 The letter appeared to be an effort to push the White House to play hardball in its negotiations with Republicans as the federal government edges up against a legally imposed limit on borrowing. 
 
 Republicans have insisted that they will not increase the government’s borrowing authority without deep spending cuts, including to entitlement programs. On Friday they rejected the idea of unilateral action by the president. 
 
 “The Democrat leadership hiding under their desks and hoping the President will find a way around the law on the nation’s maxed-out credit card is not only the height of irresponsibility, but also a guarantee that our national debt crisis will only get worse,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a statement. 
 
 Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said that Americans “will not tolerate” hiking the debt ceiling without spending cuts. 
 
 
 
 Obama has said he considers raising the limit — which the nation will hit in February — an obligation of Congress because doing so allows the government to pay off debts it has already incurred. 
 
 Unlike in the summer of 2011, when Obama negotiated with Boehner in an effort to pair a debt-ceiling increase with a broad deficit reduction package of spending cuts and new tax revenue, the president has insisted he will no longer negotiate spending concessions in exchange for a higher ceiling. 
 
 That has left both sides without a clear strategy for how to proceed in what is likely to be a bitter and protracted fight. 
 
 In their letter, Reid, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) indicate that they will support Obama if he moves without Congress. 
 
 They wrote that the GOP position to block a debt-limit increase unless Democrats agree to cuts in Medicare and Social Security is “outrageous and absurd.” 
 
 They urge Obama to act unilaterally “in the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt limit extension only as part of unbalanced or unreasonable legislation.” 
 
 One option some congressional Democrats have long advocated would involve Obama invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to declare congressional action unnecessary for raising the limit. 
 
 The amendment holds that the validity of the country’s public debt “shall not be questioned.” Some constitutional experts believe that statement means that Congress cannot tie the government’s hands to borrow funds to meet obligations the government has already incurred. 
 
 The White House has indicated that Obama does not believe the Constitution gives him the right to ignore the congressionally imposed limit on borrowing. 
 
 Officials have been less definitive, however, about another route: allowing the Treasury Department to mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to bolster the nation’s assets. The seemingly wacky idea has been gaining traction in recent days because of a law that allows the Treasury to mint coins of any value. 
 
 Asked recently about the coin, White House press secretary Jay Carney pointedly refused to rule it out as an option — though he repeatedly indicated that there “is no plan B” to congressional action. 
 
 In his statement, McConnell called the coin idea “ridiculous” and accused Democrats of considering “outright abdication of Congressional responsibility” in order to avoid cutting spending. The letter from Senate leaders came a week after a similar suggestion from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). She told reporters last week that if she were president, she would invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling “in a second.” 
 
 “I’ve made my view very clear on that subject,” she said. But, she added, “I’m not the president of the United States.”
– Is President Obama facing a revolt from his Democratic generals? Nancy Pelosi certainly doesn’t seem happy. She offered a surprisingly blunt critique of the president and his team recently, buried within this Howard Kurtz Newsweek piece on Obama’s newfound populist punch. “I think you need to talk about how poorly they do on message,” Pelosi grouses. “They can’t see around corners; they anticipate nothing." Rumor has it that Harry Reid isn’t happy, either. Take this one with a grain of salt, but conservative Washington Times columnist Joseph Curl writes today that there’s a “story making the rounds in Washington” that Reid and Obama have been on the outs ever since Obama, in a secret meeting, nixed a debt ceiling deal that both the House and Senate thought could pass. “I’m not going to do anything for that [expletive] again,” Reid is rumored to have declared afterward. Curl does not cite any sources.