GP: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (2nd-R), D-CA, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (2nd-L), D-NY, Rep. Steny Hoyer (L), D-MD, and Senator Dick Durbin (R), D-IL, exit the White House after meeting with US president Donald Trump to discuss the partial government shutdown, January 4, 2019 in Washigton, DC. Alex Edelman | AFP | Getty Images

Democrats shifted their focus to unpaid government workers Wednesday as a partial government shutdown entered its 19th day with no signs of an impasse over President Donald Trump's proposed border wall breaking. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will head to the White House in the afternoon for their third face-to-face meeting with Trump about the funding stalemate. After a Tuesday night televised Oval Office address in which the president described a "humanitarian crisis" and used grisly murder stories to call for tougher immigration restrictions, the Democratic leaders countered by highlighting the roughly 800,000 U.S. employees who face missing paychecks due to the closure.

"[Trump] has chosen a wall over workers," Pelosi said as she and Schumer stood in front of furloughed employees Wednesday. "The president needs to end his senseless shutdown and reopen the government." Their remarks came as the partial shutdown neared the end of its third week and no resolution appeared to take shape. Workers from Transportation Security Administration screeners to border patrol agents will start to miss paychecks Friday if lawmakers cannot reopen the nine unfunded federal departments. Trump has pushed for more than $5 billion to fund the proposed wall. Before pieces of the government closed last month, he said he would "take the mantle" if funding lapsed. House Democrats have passed legislation to temporarily reopen the government without wall money. The GOP-held Senate has pledged not to take up the spending bills as Trump has threatened to veto them. Both Pelosi and Schumer again urged the Senate to pass the measures Wednesday. Trump, for his part, has downplayed the shutdown's effect on government workers. On Sunday, the former real estate mogul claimed he "can relate" to federal employees who may not be able to pay bills. He said Wednesday that the workers "are terrific patriots and a lot of them agree with what I'm doing."