President threatens to declare national emergency and build wall without congressional approval: ‘I can do it if I want’

As a partial US government shutdown hit the two-week mark, Donald Trump told congressional leaders at the White House he was prepared for the standoff to last months or even years.

“Absolutely I said that,” said Trump during a Rose Garden press conference, when asked if Senator Chuck Schumer was correct in his claim that the White House was prepared to continue the shutdown indefinitely.

Ocasio-Cortez's response to jibes about college dance video? A congressional dance video Read more

The president also upped the ante, threatening to declare a national emergency and build a border wall without congressional approval.

“I can do it if I want,” he said. He also suggested what he called “the military version of eminent domain” as a method of obtaining private property for wall construction.

Sign up for the new US morning briefing

Trump faces a divided government, with Democrats newly in control of the House. Democratic leaders emerged from Friday’s meeting reporting that the president had said he was prepared to close the government “for a very long time, even years” if there was no deal.

Trump had invited leaders from both parties back to the White House just two days after a meeting on border security in the Situation Room did not resolve matters, and a day after Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House and Democrats passed legislation to reopen the government.

Seeking to ease concerns, the White House sought to frame planned weekend talks as a step forward, as did Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader. Trump designated vice-president Mike Pence, the homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and the presidential adviser Jared Kushner to work with a congressional delegation at a meeting scheduled for Saturday morning.

Senator Jack Reed, the senior Democrat on the Senate armed services committee, criticized Trump’s Friday afternoon comments, saying in a statement: “Declaring a trumped up national emergency in order to skirt congressional approval is wrong.”

The US constitution assigns Congress the power over funding the federal government so Trump probably would face legal challenges if he tried to bypass Congress on financing the wall.

About 800,000 federal workers have been affected by the 22 December closure of about a quarter of the federal government, as Trump withholds his support for new funding until he secures $5bn to build his long-promised but unachieved wall along the US-Mexico border.

Such a wall, Trump has argued, is needed to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants and drugs. Running for president in 2016, he promised Mexico would pay for the wall, which it has refused to do.

In his press conference, Trump initially took an optimistic tone, saying: “We are all on the same path in terms of wanting to get government open.” Faced with questions from reporters, however, he promptly changed his tone.

The president confirmed that action on the status of undocumented migrants brought to the US as children had been discussed. But he also went on at length about the various benefits of different construction materials, regularly talking about the difference between steel and concrete.

“A see-through wall made out of steel is far stronger than a concrete wall,” he said.

On Thursday, in a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room, Trump had appeared to give himself negotiating space when he said: “You can call it a barrier. You can call it whatever you want. But essentially, we need protection in our country.”

Asked on Friday about the hardship faced by federal employees either furloughed or working without pay while the showdown over his demand for a wall continues, he claimed support, saying such workers were “in many cases the biggest fans of what we’re doing”. In a tweet last week, however, Trump claimed most workers “not getting paid are Democrats”.

Both parties continue to seek to avoid blame for the shutdown. In a meeting at the White House last month, Trump said he would be “proud” to take responsibility for it. He has since tried to blame Democrats, who have not shifted their position.

Play Video 1:45 'Immoral': Nancy Pelosi on Trump's border wall – video

“We’re not doing a wall,” Pelosi said late on Thursday. “It has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with a wall is an immorality between countries. It’s an old way of thinking. It isn’t cost effective.”

The same night, the House passed two bills to reopen government agencies for varying lengths of time. One would provide appropriations for all government agencies except the Department of Homeland Security until the end of the fiscal year. The other would continue the current level of homeland security funding through 8 February, in an attempt to allow more time for negotiations with the White House.

McConnell, a Republican, will not support the legislation and has pledged not to pass anything the president will not sign. But he now faces increasing pressure from fellow Republicans.

“We should pass a continuing resolution to get the government back open,” Senator Cory Gardner said on Thursday. His colleague Susan Collins also called for the Senate to pass the bills. Both Gardner and Collins are up for re-election in 2020 in states Hillary Clinton won in 2016.

Trump, who deflected questions about McConnell’s absence from the Rose Garden press conference as House leaders stood with him, has pledged to veto the bills. He insisted: “We won’t be [opening the government] in pieces, we won’t be doing it in dribs and drabs.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report