WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and some of his top advisers had lunch at the White House on Saturday on the first day of a partial government shutdown sparked by the president’s demand for money to fund a wall along the southern US border, but the White House invited only Republican lawmakers to attend.

The lunch came after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it would be Trump and Democrats who would need to come to an agreement on the spending bill that needs to pass Congress to end the shutdown. The holdup is over how much money to include for Trump’s wall in the spending bill, if anything at all.

McConnell announced Saturday afternoon that the Senate will not return until Dec. 27, meaning the shutdown will now last at least through Christmas.

In attendance at Saturday’s lunch were Sens. Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, and Richard Shelby, as well as Reps. Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, and Andy Biggs. Those members of the House of Representatives are all members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus who have been itching for a fight over the border wall before Republicans lose their majority at the end of this Congress, with the exception of Gaetz, who is a staunch Trump ally.

Also in attendance were Vice President Mike Pence, the new acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and White House adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Trump announced that the lunch would be occurring in a tweet, but left people initially guessing who would be there. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were not invited.

Nevertheless, in a call with reporters, a senior administration official ignored questions about why the top Democrats weren’t invited, and continued to insist that Senate Democrats must “come to the table” to negotiate with Republicans.

“This president has all sorts of conversations and all sorts of meetings,” said the senior administration official. “That doesn’t change from day to day. In this situation it’s important for Senate Democrats to come forward and put forward options.”