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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he will make a 'major announcement' on Saturday afternoon about the government shutdown and border security.

Trump and Democrats in Congress remain far apart over Trump’s insistence on funding for a wall along the Mexican border as the price of reopening the government.

The two sides have traded taunts and avoided talks so far this week. Trump says the announcement will take place at 3 p.m. He says the announcement involves “the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border.”

The political stakes are high as the shutdown moves into a fifth week, with hundreds of thousands of federal workers going without pay and no outward signs of resolution.

After the shutdown began, Trump suggested he could have his wall built by declaring a state of emergency, which would theoretically enable him to put the military to work on construction without congressional approval.

"I could do it. It's the easy way out," Trump told reporters last week, insisting it would be his "absolute right."

Trump wants $5.7 billion to fund construction for a border wall, but Congress controls appropriations and has so far refused to give it to him. The impasse has led to what's become the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.