WASHINGTON – Republican congressional leaders sought Wednesday to persuade President Donald Trump not to shut down the government over funding for his border wall right before the midterm elections.

Trump repeated threats his threats Wednesday. "If it happens it happens. If it's about border security, I'm willing to do anything. We have to protect our borders. ... I'm willing to do what has to be done," he said.

But after he and other Republican leaders met at the White House with Trump, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Fox News he saw "zero" possibility of a shutdown. "No chance of a government shutdown," he said.

The government runs out of money Sept. 30 at the end of the nation's fiscal year. Lawmakers in both chambers have been passing appropriations bills in small clusters to get funding locked in for as many agencies as possible. Then they hope to pass a short-term funding bill – known as a continuing resolution – to keep the leftover agencies funded at the current level while they continue to hammer out a solution.

That strategy could avoid a partial government closure just before Nov. 6, when Republicans face a tough electoral battle to hold their majority control of the House and hope to expand their narrow Senate majority.

But if Congress and the president can't come to terms on the remaining budget items, only a few areas of the federal government will be affected by a shutdown.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said earlier Wednesday he doesn’t think he has to convince the president not to shut down the government. “That’s not in anyone’s interest and he knows that,’’ he said.

Even Rep. Mark Meadows – the chair of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has had no problem bucking GOP leadership and is close to the president – said he’s talked to administration officials and urged them to not fight over border security.

“I think that at this point we need to fund the government and we need to have a deliberate plan on how we secure our border,” Meadows told reporters after the GOP conference meeting Wednesday. “I don’t see a deliberate plan on how we secure our border happening by the end of September. You know having that debate over the next three months is probably more prudent than trying to have it in the next week-and-a-half.”

Asked about the GOP appropriations strategy, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley of New York slammed Republicans for an “inability to govern” and putting Congress on the path to a “fiscal cliff of their own making.”

“They can’t even make the trains run on time,” he said. If Republicans need Democratic votes, he said, the legislation must reflect Democratic values.

“That means no border wall,” he said.

Contributing: David Jackson