"Mitch McConnell should fight for the Wall and Border Security as hard as he fought for anything. He will need Democrat votes, but as shown in the House, good things happen,” President Donald Trump tweeted. “If enough Dems don’t vote, it will be a Democrat Shutdown!" | Andrew Harnik/AP photo government shutdown Trump warns of shutdown that could last 'a very long time'

President Donald Trump warned Friday that “there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time” if the Senate fails to pass a spending bill that includes border wall funding, laying the groundwork to blame Democrats for a pre-Christmas shutdown that would shutter wide swaths of the government.

Trump pushed the government to the precipice of a partial shutdown on Thursday, insisting in a meeting with lawmakers that he would not sign legislation to keep the government open unless it included $5 billion for his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.


Acceding to the president’s demand, House Republicans on Thursday rejected a short-term funding bill passed by the Senate that included just over $1 billion for border security — not a wall — and instead approved legislation that met the president’s demands for border wall funding. The House bill now goes to the Senate, where it is almost sure to fall short of the 60 votes it would need to pass.

Still, Trump on Friday morning urged McConnell to push hard for border wall funding, which would need some Democratic support to pass. Democrats, who will hold the majority in the House next year, are all but certain to refuse to budge on funding the president’s border wall.

“Senator Mitch McConnell should fight for the Wall and Border Security as hard as he fought for anything. He will need Democrat votes, but as shown in the House, good things happen,” the president wrote on Twitter. “If enough Dems don’t vote, it will be a Democrat Shutdown! House Republicans were great yesterday!”

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Trump also pushed McConnell to change longstanding Senate rules, if necessary, to pass wall funding, writing on Twitter that the majority leader should “use the nuclear option and get it done.” The president has long pushed for an end to Senate filibuster rules requiring legislation to clear a 60-vote threshold to pass, a step McConnell has vowed never to take.

“The Democrats, whose votes we need in the Senate, will probably vote against Border Security and the Wall even though they know it is DESPERATELY NEEDED,” Trump warned. “If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time. People don’t want Open Borders and Crime!”

That the House was able to pass Trump’s preferred funding legislation at all required a herculean effort from GOP leadership, which had to wrangle a lame-duck Congress with many members, including some who will be out of office in a matter of days, already at home.

At one point this week more than 50 House lawmakers were absent for a vote, making it unclear whether the GOP had enough members in Washington to pass the president’s border wall demands. Friday morning, Trump celebrated the lawmakers who returned to town to push his wall funding over the House finish line.

“No matter what happens today in the Senate, Republican House Members should be very proud of themselves,” he wrote on Twitter. “They flew back to Washington from all parts of the World in order to vote for Border Security and the Wall. Not one Democrat voted yes, and we won big. I am very proud of you!”

Earlier this week, the White House had appeared ready to accept legislation to keep the government open without border wall funding. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders signaled that the administration would find alternate sources for border wall money and the president said he would ask the military to build the border wall.

But as the deadline grew closer, the right flank of the Republican party mounted a final push to fund the president’s signature campaign promise now, before Democrats seize control of the House and likely install Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as speaker. Members of the arch-conservative House Freedom Caucus delivered blistering floor speeches calling on the president to fight for the wall now, while conservative media figures similarly spurred the president to demand wall funding, suggesting anything less would amount to a capitulation.

Opponents of the president have long ridiculed his border wall proposal as an ineffective and overly simplified solution to the complex issue of illegal immigration. Trump has been lambasted, too, for his promise that Mexico would pay for the wall, a promise the president has dubiously claimed he kept by renegotiating NAFTA on terms he says are more favorable to the U.S.

Trump defended his wall proposal Friday morning, suggesting he has the technological expertise to stop immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally. Democrats, the president claimed, are “lying” when they argue that a border wall would be ineffectual.

“The Democrats are trying to belittle the concept of a Wall, calling it old fashioned. The fact is there is nothing else’s that will work, and that has been true for thousands of years,” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s like the wheel, there is nothing better. I know tech better than anyone, & technology on a Border is only effective in conjunction with a Wall.”

“Properly designed and built Walls work, and the Democrats are lying when they say they don’t. In Israel the Wall is 99.9% successful,” the president continued. “Will not be any different on our Southern Border! Hundreds of $Billions saved!”