With the US government in partial shutdown, the president continues to demand funding for his Mexican border wall. Lauren Gambino, in Washington DC, and Bryan Mealer, in Texas, discuss how Trump’s central campaign promise has led to this point of paralysis. Plus, John Harris looks back to the optimism of 1989

Donald Trump has visited the southern US border in Texas after walking out of talks to resolve one of the country’s longest government shutdowns in history. The president has refused to authorise the release of funds to pay up to 800,000 government workers until he secures funding for his central campaign promise of a border wall.

The Guardian’s US political correspondent, Lauren Gambino, joins Anushka Asthana to discuss the paralysis in the US government and why the president is so fixated on building his wall. And, as Trump tries to rally support in Texas, the Guardian’s Bryan Mealer reports that there is indeed a crisis at the border, but one largely of the president’s own making. Refugees and asylum seekers are facing appalling living conditions in detention centres struggling to cope with new arrivals.

Also today: the columnist John Harris looks back to 1989: a period of sudden transitions, revolutions, exciting new music and optimism for the future. Amid darkness and division in 2019, can the spirit of that age be revived?