President Donald Trump on Monday slapped down a proposal from Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key Republican confidant, to reopen the federal government for three weeks while he negotiates with congressional Democrats over funding for his long-promised border wall.

'That was a suggestion that Lindsey made, but I did reject it,' Trump told reporters as he left the snow-swept White House for a speech in New Orleans.

About one-quarter of the federal budget has been on pause since December 21 in the longest-ever shutdown as the White House tangles with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over how to secure the U.S.-mexico border.

'I'm not interested,' Trump said of a temporary pause. 'I want to get it solved. I don't want to just delay it. I want to get it solved.'

A White House official told DailyMail.com on Monday that the president has 'zero confidence' Pelosi and Schumer would change their position if he were to sign a short-term spending bill, 'and that might just embolden them.'

President Donald Trump has rejected the idea of reopening the government for three weeks while negotiations continue over funding for his border wall

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key Trump confidant, proposed the idea over the weekend as a good-faith gesture to bring Democrats back to the table

The president hasn't taken his foot off the gas pedal, bashing Democrats for leaving Washington while government employees wait to find out when their paychecks will return.

'I’ve been here all weekend,' he groused. 'A lot of Democrats are in Puerto Rico, celebrating something, I don’t know. Maybe they’re celebrating the shutdown.'

And he didn't express any confidence that the shutdown's days are numbered, although he described Republicans as 'rock solid' and claimed of Democrats that 'many of them are calling and many of them are breaking.

'I don't know if we're close on a deal,' Trump said. 'This should be the easiest deal that I've ever seen. We're talking about border security. Who could be against it?'

'We're talking about drugs pouring in, human traffickers tying up women, putting tape on their mouths, and pouring into our country. We can't have that. We can't have that. We have drugs, we have criminals, we have gangs. And the Democrats don't want to do anything about it.'

Trump has said he won't sign a budget that would reopen the government unless it includes $5.7 billion in new spending to complete portions of his border barrier.

With Pelosi and Schumer standing in his way, a remaining option is for the president to declare a national emergency and use existing Defense Department funds, tasking the Army Corps of Engineers to serve as his border wall's general contractor.

Trump has resisted the temptation, and appeared no closer on Monday to taking that tempting off-ramp from the crisis.

'I'm not looking to call a national emergency. This is so simple, you shouldn't have to,' he said. 'Now, I have the absolute legal right to call it, but I'm not looking to do that.

Trump claimed that Democrats 'are stopping us, and they're stopping a lot of great people from getting paid.'

'All they have to do is say, "We want border security." That automatically means a wall or a barrier.'