WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of federal workers will wake up on Monday with the U.S. government still shut down and the Senate expected to try again to restore federal funding, if only temporarily, and work on resolving a dispute over immigration.

Amid uncertainty about whether federal employees should report to work in the morning, senators were set to vote at midday on a funding bill to get the lights back on in Washington and across the government until early February.

Support for the bill was uncertain, after Republicans and Democrats spent all day on Sunday trying to strike a deal, only to go home for the night short of an agreement.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said late on Sunday that an overnight vote on a measure to fund government operations through Feb. 8 was canceled and would instead be held at 12 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Monday.

Up until Monday, most federal workers were not directly affected by the shutdown that began at midnight on Friday.

Many were still awaiting notification on whether they are “essential” employees or not, which would determine whether they must report to their offices.

Even late on Sunday, the federal Office of Personnel Management was providing little guidance. It said on its website that “federal government operations vary by agency.”

The Department of Defense published a memo on its site detailing who does and does not get paid in a shutdown and saying that civilian employees were on temporary leave, except for those needed to support active-duty troops.

The Department of Interior, led by Secretary Ryan Zinke, offered no guidance on its website, which still had a “Happy Holidays from the Zinke Family” video near the top of the site. The department oversees national parks and federal lands.

The State Department website said: “At this time, scheduled passport and visa services in the United States and at our posts overseas will continue during the lapse in appropriations as the situation permits.”

The U.S. government had not previously been shut down since 2013, when about 800,000 federal workers were put on furlough. The impasse preventing passage of a needed funding bill centered on former Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

The problem this time focused on immigration policy, principally President Donald Trump’s order last year ending an Obama program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which gave legal protections to “Dreamer” immigrants.

The “Dreamers” are young people who were brought to the United States illegally as children by their parents or other adults, mainly from Mexico and Central America, and who mostly grew up in the United States.

Trump said last year he would end DACA on March 5 and asked Congress to come up with a legislative fix before then that would prevent the Dreamers from being deported.

Democrats have withheld support for a temporary funding bill to keep the government open over the DACA issue. McConnell extended them an olive branch on Sunday, pledging to bring immigration legislation up for debate after Feb. 8 so long as the government remained open.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer objected to that plan and it was unclear whether McConnell’s pledge would be enough for Democrats to support a stopgap funding bill.

Congress failed last year to pass a complete budget by Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year, and the government had since been operating on a series of three stopgap spending bills.

Republicans control both the House of Representatives and the Senate, where they have a slim 51-49 majority. But most legislation requires 60 Senate votes to pass, giving Democrats leverage in that chamber.

Trump earlier this month told a bipartisan Senate working group that he would sign whatever DACA legislation was brought to him. The Republican president then rejected a bipartisan measure and negotiations stalled.

McConnell had previously insisted that the Senate would not move to immigration legislation until it was clear what could earn Trump’s support.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who is involved in bipartisan immigration negotiations, said McConnell’s statements on Sunday indicated progress in negotiations and he urged his Democratic colleagues to approve another stopgap bill.</s>Why did this happen?

Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government shut down at the stroke of midnight Friday, halting all but the most essential operations and marring the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration in a striking display of Washington dysfunction.

Last-minute negotiations crumbled as Senate Democrats blocked a four-week stopgap extension in a late-night vote, causing the fourth government shutdown in a quarter century. The slide toward closure lacked for high drama: The Senate vote was all but predetermined, and since the shutdown began at the start of a weekend, many of the immediate effects will be muted for most Americans.

Still, it comes with no shortage of embarrassment for the president and political risk for both parties, as they wager that voters will punish the other at the ballot box in November.

Social Security and most other safety net programs are unaffected by the lapse in federal spending authority. Critical government functions will continue, with uniformed service members, health inspectors and law enforcement officers set to work without pay. But if no deal is brokered before Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be furloughed.

After hours of closed-door meetings and phone calls, the Senate scheduled its late-night vote on a House-passed plan. It gained 50 votes to proceed to 48 against, but 60 were needed to break a Democratic filibuster. A handful of red-state Democrats crossing the aisle to support the measure, rather than take the politically-risky vote. Four Republicans voted in opposition.

In an unusual move, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed the roll call to exceed 90 minutes — instead of the usual 20 or so — seemingly accommodating the numerous discussions among leaders and other lawmakers. Still as midnight passed and the calendar turned, there was no obvious off-ramp to the political stalemate. Each party expressed resolve in its position — and confidence that the other would suffer the wrath of voters.

Even before the vote, Trump was pessimistic, tweeting, “Not looking good” and blaming the Democrats who he said actually wanted the shutdown “to help diminish the success” of the tax bill he and fellow Republicans pushed through last month.

Democrats balked on the measure in an effort to pressure on the White House to cut a deal to protect “dreamer” immigrants — who were brought to the country as children and are now here illegally — before their legal protection runs out in March.

The president watched the results from the White House residence, dialing up allies and affirming his belief that Democrats would take the blame for the shutdown, said a person familiar with his conversations but not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Predictably, both parties moved swiftly to blame one another. Democrats laid fault with Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House and have struggled with building internal consensus. Republicans declared Democrats responsible, after they declined to provide the votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate over their desire to force the passage of legislation to protect some 700,000 younger immigrants from deportation.

Republicans branded the confrontation a “Schumer shutdown” and argued that Democrats were harming fellow Americans to protect “illegal immigrants.”

Trump had brought Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to the White House Friday afternoon in hopes of cutting a deal. But the two New Yorkers, who pride themselves on their negotiating abilities, emerged without an agreement, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress continued to pass off responsibility.

“We made some progress, but we still have a good number of disagreements,” Schumer said upon returning to Capitol Hill. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told CNN that “Not much has changed” over the course of the day, but he predicted a deal would be reached by Monday, when most government offices are to reopen after the weekend.

Democrats in the Senate had served notice they would filibuster the government-wide funding bill that cleared the House Thursday evening. They were seeking an even shorter extension that they think would keep the pressure on the White House to cut a deal to protect the “dreamer” immigrants.

Trump first described his discussion with Schumer as an “excellent preliminary meeting,” tweeting that lawmakers were “making progress – four week extension would be best!” But that optimism faded as the evening wore on.

Senate GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas said Trump told Schumer to work things out with McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan. McConnell did not attend the meeting because he was not invited, a Senate GOP aide said.

Trump had been an unreliable negotiator in the weeks leading up to the showdown. Earlier this week he tweeted opposition to the four-week plan, forcing the White House to later affirm his support. He expressed openness to extending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, only to reject a bipartisan proposal. His disparaging remarks about African and Haitian immigrants last week helped derail further negotiations.

Trump had been set to leave Friday afternoon to attend a fundraiser at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate marking the one-year anniversary of his inauguration but delayed his travel.

“I think the president’s been very clear: he’s not leaving until this is finished,” Mulvaney told reporters.

As word of the Schumer meeting spread, the White House hastened to reassure Republican congressional leaders that Trump would not make any major policy concessions, said a person familiar with the conversations but not authorized to be quoted by name.

On Capitol Hill, McConnell said Americans at home would be watching to see “which senators make the patriotic decision” and which “vote to shove aside veterans, military families and vulnerable children to hold the entire country hostage… until we pass an immigration bill.”

Across the Capitol, the House backed away from a plan to adjourn for a one-week recess, meaning the GOP-controlled chamber could wait for a last-minute compromise that would require a new vote. But it wasn’t coming Friday night.

“We can’t keep kicking the can down the road,” said Schumer, insisting on more urgency in talks on immigration. “In another month, we’ll be right back here, at this moment, with the same web of problems at our feet, in no better position to solve them.”

The four-week measure would have been the fourth stopgap spending bill since the current budget year started in October. A pile of unfinished Capitol Hill business has been on hold, first as Republicans ironed out last fall’s tax bill and now as Democrats insist on progress on immigration. Talks on a budget deal to ease tight spending limits on both the Pentagon and domestic agencies are on hold, as is progress on a huge $80 billion-plus disaster aid bill.

Before Thursday night’s House approval, GOP leaders sweetened the stopgap measure with legislation to extend for six years a popular health care program for children from low-income families and two-year delays in unpopular “Obamacare” taxes on medical devices and generous employer-provided health plans.

A shutdown would be the first since 2013, when tea party Republicans — in a strategy not unlike the one Schumer is employing now — sought to use a must-pass funding bill to try to force then-President Barack Obama to delay implementation of his marquee health care law. At the time, Trump told Fox & Friends that the ultimate blame for a shutdown lies at the top. “I really think the pressure is on the president,” he said.

Arguing that Trump’s predecessors “weaponized” that shutdown, Mulvaney said Friday the budget office would direct agencies to work to mitigate the impact this time. That position is a striking role-reversal for the conservative former congressman, who was one of the architects of the 2013 shutdown over the Affordable Care Act.

With no agreement by midnight, the government would begin immediately locking its doors. The impact would initially be spotty — since most agencies would be closed until Monday — but each party would be gambling the public would blame the other.

In the event of a shutdown, food inspections, federal law enforcement, airport security checks, and other vital services would continue, as would Social Security, other federal benefit programs and military operations.</s>WASHINGTON -- The Senate advanced a bill to reopen federal agencies through Feb. 8 after Democrats relented and lifted their blockade against the legislation.

The shutdown began Saturday after Democrats derailed a Republican measure that would have kept government open until Feb. 16.

Democrats wanted to pressure the GOP to cut a deal protecting young immigrants from deportation and boosting federal spending.

Moderates from both parties pressured leaders to end the shutdown and compromise.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats agreed to back the bill reopening government after he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to begin debating an immigration bill by Feb. 8.

The Senate vote was 81-18 -- well above the 60 votes needed. The Senate still must vote on final passage to send the bill to the House.

Both Colorado senators, Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Cory Gardner, voted to move the bill forward.

"This is an unacceptable and disgraceful way to run our federal government. But continuing the government shutdown would have been worse," Bennet said.

“We now need to ensure fair consideration of our Gang of Six proposal. Over the next three weeks, our focus should be on building support for this legislation so that it has the sixty votes required to pass the Senate.”

“This government shutdown forced by Senate Democrats was dangerous and unnecessary," Gardner said. "I wanted a bipartisan solution. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to fix many other remaining issues before us including DACA and to restore responsibility in Congress.”

Schumer lent his backing to the agreement during a speech on the chamber's floor.

"Now there is a real pathway to get a bill on the floor and through the Senate," he said of legislation to halt any deportation efforts aimed at "Dreamers," who were brought to the country as children and are now here illegally.

Earlier Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell raised hopes for a quick end to the shutdown, saying "I hope and intend" to reach agreement soon on immigration and other contentious issues -- if the Democrats agreed to the stopgap spending measure lasting a little less than three weeks.

The vote came as most government offices cut back drastically or even closed on Monday, as the major effects of the shutdown were first being felt with the beginning of the workweek.

Before the government can reopen, the Senate must vote on final passage, the House must approve it in turn and President Donald Trump must sign.

McConnell said he hopes to reach bipartisan solutions on immigration, border security, disaster aid, military funding and more by Feb. 8.

If not, he said "it would be my intention to take up legislation" addressing those issues.</s>Huawei drops a lawsuit against the US after its seized equipment...

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read more</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of federal workers will wake up on Monday with the U.S. government still shut down and the Senate expected to try again to restore federal funding, if only temporarily, and work on resolving a dispute over immigration.

Amid uncertainty about whether federal employees should report to work in the morning, senators were set to vote at midday on a funding bill to get the lights back on in Washington and across the government until early February.

Support for the bill was uncertain, after Republicans and Democrats spent all day on Sunday trying to strike a deal, only to go home for the night short of an agreement.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said late on Sunday that an overnight vote on a measure to fund government operations through Feb. 8 was canceled and would instead be held at 12 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Monday.

Up until Monday, most federal workers were not directly affected by the shutdown that began at midnight on Friday.

Many were still awaiting notification on whether they are "essential" employees or not, which would determine whether they must report to their offices.

Even late on Sunday, the federal Office of Personnel Management was providing little guidance. It said on its website that “federal government operations vary by agency.”

The Department of Defense published a memo on its site detailing who does and does not get paid in a shutdown and saying that civilian employees were on temporary leave, except for those needed to support active-duty troops.

The Department of Interior, led by Secretary Ryan Zinke, offered no guidance on its website, which still had a “Happy Holidays from the Zinke Family” video near the top of the site. The department oversees national parks and federal lands.

The State Department website said: "At this time, scheduled passport and visa services in the United States and at our posts overseas will continue during the lapse in appropriations as the situation permits."

The U.S. government had not previously been shut down since 2013, when about 800,000 federal workers were put on furlough. The impasse preventing passage of a needed funding bill centered on former Democratic President Barack Obama's healthcare law.

The problem this time focused on immigration policy, principally President Donald Trump's order last year ending an Obama program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which gave legal protections to "Dreamer" immigrants.

The "Dreamers" are young people who were brought to the United States illegally as children by their parents or other adults, mainly from Mexico and Central America, and who mostly grew up in the United States.

Trump said last year he would end DACA on March 5 and asked Congress to come up with a legislative fix before then that would prevent the Dreamers from being deported.

Democrats have withheld support for a temporary funding bill to keep the government open over the DACA issue. McConnell extended them an olive branch on Sunday, pledging to bring immigration legislation up for debate after Feb. 8 so long as the government remained open.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer objected to that plan and it was unclear whether McConnell's pledge would be enough for Democrats to support a stopgap funding bill.

Congress failed last year to pass a complete budget by Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year, and the government had since been operating on a series of three stopgap spending bills.

Republicans control both the House of Representatives and the Senate, where they have a slim 51-49 majority. But most legislation requires 60 Senate votes to pass, giving Democrats leverage in that chamber.

Trump earlier this month told a bipartisan Senate working group that he would sign whatever DACA legislation was brought to him. The Republican president then rejected a bipartisan measure and negotiations stalled.

McConnell had previously insisted that the Senate would not move to immigration legislation until it was clear what could earn Trump's support.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who is involved in bipartisan immigration negotiations, said McConnell's statements on Sunday indicated progress in negotiations and he urged his Democratic colleagues to approve another stopgap bill.</s>WASHINGTON — Donald Trump campaigned as the master deal-maker, a guy who could come to Washington, knock a few heads and get the government working again.

But on the anniversary of Trump's inauguration, America awoke to a government shutdown — a dramatic testament to dysfunction, partisan gridlock and failed leadership.

There was a lot at stake: for the public, for House Republicans who fear losing their majority, for Senate Democrats whose incumbents will now have to defend their votes and the shutdown to constituents, and for Trump, whose approval ratings have languished below 40 percent.

But as federal spending authority expired at midnight Saturday, the nation's top elected officials sent the election-year message that they're less concerned with performing the most basic task of governance than catering to the demands of partisans.

"The overwhelming majority of voters just want the government to do its job," said Dan Schnur, a veteran Republican political operative and professor at the University of Southern California. "But the bases of both parties hate compromise — and in a turnout election year, the bases get whatever they want."

There's plenty of blame to go around: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., didn't blink. Neither did Trump or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

While it's not clear how long the shutdown will last, it won't end until one of them feels enough political pain to back down. McConnell predicted Saturday that Democrats' constituents would be angry with them for injecting illegal immigration into a debate over government operations.

"When our friends across the aisle remember who it is they actually represent, we will be ready to come together in the bipartisan discussion that will be necessary to clean up all of this mess," he said.

"It's almost as if you were rooting for a shutdown," he said, addressing the president from the Senate floor. "The blame should crash entirely on President Trump's shoulders."

And White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in an official statement from the administration, called Democrats "obstructionist losers" and said Trump wouldn't entertain any discussion of an immigration deal until the government is re-opened.

On Friday, Schumer thought he might have struck a deal with the president after having been summoned to the White House for a final round of negotiating. During the meeting, Schumer later said on the Senate floor, he offered Trump a deal: Schumer would support a border wall if Trump would agree to add provisions to the spending bill that would provide legal status for the "DREAMers" who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

Afterward, both sides proclaimed that they had made progress toward a deal.

"We had a long and detailed meeting," Schumer said. "We discussed all of the major outstanding issues, we made some progress, but we still have a good number of disagreements. The discussions will continue."

But the disagreements bested the discussions. The deal-maker president chose not to make an agreement that would have infuriated immigration hard-liners in his own party.

Most Democrats refused to vote for a spending bill unless it provided a shield for DREAMers, who will lose existing protection from deportation in March. Republicans declined to add that fix even though both Trump, who set the deadline in September, and congressional Republicans said they were committed to finding a solution.

It was also Trump who blew up immigration talks during a meeting with several Republican senators and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois earlier this month. Durbin and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., thought they'd struck a deal — but Trump, flanked by immigration hard-liners, told them he wasn't into it. During the meeting, Durbin said, the president referred to African nations as "shithole countries" and wondered why the United States would want more immigrants from that continent or the nations of Haiti and El Salvador.

But Democrats insisted on protection for the DREAMers — roughly 800,000 people — as they refused to vote for a short-term stopgap spending bill to keep the government operating while negotiations with the White House continued. There were a host of other riders as Democrats sought to sweeten the pot, but it was the DREAMers, a touchstone for Latinos and party liberals, who were out front.

"I think it’s a disaster for Democrats," said conservative NBC political analyst Hugh Hewitt. "They backed into a corner where they are rejecting CHIP and putting a DREAMer deal at risk over 700 miles of fencing? Incredible." (Hewitt was referring to the Children's Health Insurance Program.)

McConnell accused Schumer of not knowing what he wanted when he suggested Congress could pass a days-long spending bill to keep pressure on negotiators. He also pointed a finger at the president on the immigration dispute, saying on the Senate floor that Trump hadn't yet made clear his true aims to Republicans in Congress.

Both parties readied campaign attacks against the other side, hopeful — if not certain — that the impasse would benefit their own fortunes.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to McConnell, noted that Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., had voted for short-term spending bills when Barack Obama was president but said more recently that his breaking point was the fourth such measure under Trump.

"What changed, Jon?" the SLF asked in an email sent to reporters. "Hopefully voters ask the same question of Tester when they go to the ballot box this November."

"The underlying issue is that Congress is almost incapable of passing major legislation through its regular process," Republican strategist Chris Wilson said.

"Democrats believe there's political upside to a shutdown for them so they are using DREAMers as the political equivalent of a human shield and daring Republicans not to act," he added, noting a Quinnipiac poll showing that 34 percent of voters would blame Democrats for a shutdown, 32 percent would blame Republicans and 21 percent would blame Trump. "Republicans see that as blame already hitting the Dems and are betting that the number shifts more toward Democrats now that it is Dems in the Senate" that killed the House-passed spending bill.

Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist and former Senate leadership aide, said his party believes it is on the "right side of history" in defending the DREAMers. He also pointed a finger at Trump for creating a "man-made crisis" by rescinding the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protected DREAMers.

And, he said, Trump has done nothing to forge relationships with Democrats.

"For all of the talk of Obama not reaching out to Republicans in that first year … he didn’t purposely alienate Republicans in the way that Trump has alienated Democrats," Mollineau said.

CORRECTION (Jan. 20, 2018, 1 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misidentified the role of Mitch McConnell on second reference. He is the Senate majority leader, not the minority leader.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the budget battle (all times local):

Senate leaders have reached an agreement to reopen the government.

Democrats have yielded and ended their delaying tactics against a bill financing federal agencies through Feb. 8.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says in exchange, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has agreed to begin debating immigration by that date.

McConnell says the end to the standoff shows "the American people didn't understand" why Democrats shut down the government because they wanted to help "illegal immigrants."

The Senate has started a vote to advance the bill reopening government. It is expected to pass easily, and House approval is expected later.

Democrats are aligning behind a plan to reopen the federal government as the Senate heads toward a key vote.

Several Democratic senators predict a proposal to fund the government until Feb. 8 will move forward, overcoming a Democratic filibuster. That would clear the way for an end to the three-day shutdown.

Democrats appear to have jumped on board after two days of negotiations that ended with new reassurances from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that the Senate will consider immigration proposals in the coming weeks.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Monday morning she believed Democrats and Republicans now have "a path forward."

Florida Democrat Bill Nelson is predicting a resounding yes from Democrats on the plan.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he hopes and intends to resolve immigration and a host of other issues by early February in an effort to come to bipartisan agreement to reopen the federal government.

Senate Democrats blocked a House-passed temporary funding bill to reopen the government through Feb. 16. A pending Senate measure would last through Feb. 8.

Opening the Senate Monday, McConnell said that if they could not find bipartisan solutions on immigration, military spending, disaster aid and other issues by the Feb. 8 deadline then he would hold a vote on those matters. Top Democrat Chuck Schumer did not appear on the floor to respond.

Several members of both parties met Monday morning to try and resolve the shutdown mess.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is defending President Donald Trump's lack of outreach to Democratic lawmakers during the government shutdown.

Trump did not speak with any Democratic senators over the weekend. Asked why, Mulvaney said Trump spoke with Democrats before the shutdown and will speak to them when it is over.

But he says: "we are not going to negotiate immigration in the middle of the shutdown."

House Speaker Paul Ryan says if the Senate approves a temporary spending bill to reopen the government through Feb. 8, the House will approve it, too.

Senate Democrats had blocked a stopgap measure passed by the House to keep the federal bureaucracy operating through Feb. 16. But speaking on "Fox and Friends," Ryan says the new date works for the House.

The Wisconsin Republican also says negotiations on an immigration deal are taking place in good faith. Democrats want to protect young immigrants in the country illegally and are skeptical of Republican pledges to bring up free-standing immigration legislation next month.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut says on MSNBC he has "zero confidence" that Ryan will bring legislation to shield the roughly 700,000 immigrants known as "Dreamers."

President Donald Trump is accusing Democrats of prioritizing services and security for noncitizens over U.S. citizens.

He says in a tweet Monday: "Not good!"

Some government functions shut down over the weekend. Democrats are rejecting a funding bill until Republicans agree to protect 700,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

The Republican president says in a second tweet Monday that "Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don't want to do it but are powerless!"

Trump's earlier tweet appeared to undercut comments by his legislative affairs director, Marc Short, who told CNN that the immigrants in question are law-abiding and "productive to our society."

Short says the administration wants to "find a pathway for them" to stay in the U.S.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo says the government shutdown won't affect the spy agency's operations.

He tells "CBS This Morning" in an interview Monday: "We're going to continue crushing our adversaries whether the government's open or closed."

A dispute in Congress over spending and immigration forced scores of federal government agencies and outposts to close their doors early Saturday. But many government functions, particularly those involving national security, are considered essential and won't be affected.

Pompeo also says he doesn't agree that the stalemate on Capitol Hill that led to the shutdown is a signal of dysfunction in Washington.

He says, "The American people are having complicated discussions about their priorities." He says that's entirely appropriate in a democracy.

The government shutdown is set to complicate the beginning of the workweek. Over the weekend, the Senate inched closer but ultimately fell short of an agreement that would have reopened federal agencies.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said negotiations were still underway late into Sunday night, with a vote to break a Democratic filibuster on a short-term funding bill scheduled for noon Monday.

Under the proposal taking shape, Democratic would agree to a three-week spending measure — until Feb. 8 — in return for a commitment from the Republican leadership in the Senate to address immigration policy and other pressing legislative matters in the coming weeks. But there is no agreement yet.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday said he is opposed to using the “nuclear option” to end the government shutdown, breaking with President Donald Trump.

“The Republican Conference opposes changing the rules on legislation,” a spokesman for McConnell told The Hill.

Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that Republicans should use the option, which would allow the Senate to pass the long-term budget with 51 votes instead of by 60 votes.

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“Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked. If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!,” Trump wrote.

Republicans currently hold 51 seats in the Senate, and the nuclear option would allow them to pass the bill without needing a single Democratic vote.

McConnell’s statement came on the second day of the government shutdown, which means that “non-essential” federal employees are not supposed to report to work, otherwise known as being furloughed. Both essential and non-essential workers do not receive compensation, although they are supposed to be paid retroactively.

Both parties have blamed each other for the shutdown, which is centered on a dispute about protection for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. Democrats want to ensure that 700,000 “dreamers” who arrived on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program are not deported, while Trump has said he wants to include dreamers in a large legislative package that would be accompanied by funding for the wall and ramped up security along the U.S. and Mexico border.

And even if Republicans were to use the nuclear option, it is unclear whether they would be able to pass the funding bill along party lines, as four Republicans voted against it on Friday and five Democrats voted for it.</s>President Donald Trump responded to the ongoing government shutdown Sunday morning by issuing a tweet urging Senate Republicans to consider using the nuclear option to pass the House’s Continuing Resolution bill and put an end to the shutdown.

“Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border,” Trump wrote. “The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked. If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!”

The shutdown was triggered Saturday morning after the Senate failed to pass the House’s Continuing Resolution bill, which would have funded the government for an additional four weeks and also extended the Children’s Health Insurance Program by six years.

According to CNBC, 45 Senate Democrats and five Senate Republicans voted against the funding bill late Friday, including Sens. Rand Paul R-Ky., and Jeff Flake, R-Az.

For the bill to pass through the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must muster up a minimum of 60 votes. However, were he to trigger the nuclear option, he’d require only a 51-vote “simple majority.”

Politico noted Sunday morning that McConnell has signaled his opposition to pursuing the nuclear option, despite the fact that he used the same trick last year to push through the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The reason for his hesitation lies with the potential repercussions. Were Democrats to retake only two additional Senate seats in the upcoming midterm elections, they would then be permitted to follow the Republicans’ lead and exploit the nuclear option to push through their own agenda.

To be clear, it was former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, who first triggered the nuclear option in November 2013, using it “to change the rules so that federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments can advance to confirmation votes by a simple majority,” as reported then by The Washington Post.

This move paved the way for McConnell to apply the nuclear option to Gorsuch’s confirmation, and if he were to trigger it again — this time for just a continuing resolution — it would set a precedent that some conservatives find concerning.

Moreover, it remains unclear if even the nuclear option would provide McConnell with enough votes to pass the CR, given that two out of the Senate’s 51 Republicans voted against it Friday.

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Some worry that if McConnell applied the nuclear option, Sen. John McCain would vote against it.

“John McCain is a question mark, for example, both for health reasons and because if he participated in such a vote he might oppose the elimination of the filibuster,” Patterico of RedState pointed out.

Patterico further emphasized the worry among conservatives that “we’re likely looking at a wave election this year. Democrats could retake control of both houses of Congress.”

Regardless, McConnell plans to keep the Senate in session all day Sunday, including up until as late as 1 am Monday morning, according to Bloomberg.

“We’ll be right back at this tomorrow and as long as it takes,” he said Saturday evening.

The problem is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly made it clear he has zero interest in a CR and would rather that any potential deal “sets budget caps for defense and non-defense spending, protects young undocumented immigrants from deportation, and provides disaster relief funds.”

And unless either McConnell pursues the nuclear option or Schumer moderates his position, the shutdown may very well continue for far longer than anyone had initially expected.
U.S. President Donald Trump says on Twitter that if the shutdown stalemate continues, Republicans should consider the "nuclear option" parliamentary procedure in the Senate. Majority leader Mitch McConnell is opposed to taking this step, a spokesperson said.