President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, October 16, 2017.

Even before the official deadline for Congress to keep the government open passed at 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday, the White House had put out a statement blaming the shutdown on Democrats — "obstructionist losers."

The statement, attributed to press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, declared that the White House would not "negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants" until Democrats agreed to pass a bill to reopen the government.

That's a reference to the negotiations over the fate of the 690,000 young unauthorized immigrants facing the loss of their protections from deportation as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is wound down. President Trump himself upended those negotiations last week, and they haven't advanced enough since to convince either party that it was worth keeping the government open to let them conclude.

Trump has often seemed less anxious to avoid a shutdown than might be expected. In the days leading up to this shutdown, his White House was as likely to preemptively blame Congress as to try to work toward a solution.