Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the record-breaking partial government shutdown and said the California Democrat is playing “one big political game” with the lives of 800,000 federal workers who are now going without paychecks.

The Kentucky Republican said Pelosi is adhering to the wishes of her far-left base by opposing money for a southern border barrier and additional border security funding that Democrats had largely agreed to in the past, including in the fiscal 2018 spending bill, which included $1.3 billion to upgrade existing fencing and barriers along the Mexican border.

The impasse has led to a fight over federal spending that has so far partially shuttered the government for a record 24 days.

“There was bipartisan support in the Congress for billions of dollars of physical barriers at the border before Rep. Pelosi was speaker,” McConnell said.

McConnell also rejected Pelosi’s recent declaration that a wall on the border is “an immorality.”

Pelosi is calling for other kinds of border security in place of a wall, such as drones, which she said are more effective at detecting illegal immigration.

McConnell said Democrats are objecting to the kind of border barriers embraced by former President Barack Obama. He pointed out that the Obama administration built new steel-slat walls just like the ones President Trump is requesting.

“Is Speaker Pelosi calling sitting Democrats immoral because they voted to invest billions in border security over the past few years alone?” McConnell said. “I’d like to see how this new philosophical opposition to the existence of walls plays out in practice. Shouldn’t the speaker introduce a bill to destroy the walls and fencing that already exist?”

McConnell is refusing to take up House-passed spending bills put forward by Pelosi that do not include new wall funding.

Senate Democrats have been filibustering unrelated legislation. They say they won’t back any bill until McConnell takes up legislation that would end the spending standoff and reopen all government operations.

Trump is seeking about $5.7 billion in funding for border security and a wall. Democrats are refusing to back any funding dedicated to a wall.

“I have a hard time believing that every one of my Democratic colleagues really stands with Speaker Pelosi on this,” McConnell said. “Hard to believe Democrats now agree their own recent votes on border security were actually immoral, that it would be better to keep the government shut down than invest 1/1000th in border security that the Obama administration bragged about funding.”

Democrats want Trump to sign spending bills before they’ll negotiate on border security, but McConnell pointed out Pelosi has pledged to oppose any wall funding, now and in the future.