US government heads for partial shutdown over border wall funding

The shutdown, scheduled for midnight, would disrupt government operations and leave hundreds of thousands of federal workers forced to work without pay just days before Christmas.

US President Donald Trump (Source: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Washington: US President Donald Trump on Friday stated that he is prepared for a temporary government shutdown over funding of his proposed border wall. Placing the blame on Democrats, Trump threatened a shutdown tweeting: "Shutdown today if Democrats do not vote for Border Security". Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the Senate failed to garner the votes needed to approve USD 5 billion for the constructing for the border wall with Mexico which the US President has been pushing aggressively . The shutdown, scheduled for midnight, would disrupt government operations and leave hundreds of thousands of federal workers forced to work without pay just days before Christmas. At a White House bill signing, Trump said the government is “totally prepared for a very long shutdown.” Trump tried to put the blame on Democrats for the possible shutdown, even though just last week he said he would be “proud” to shut part of the government in a fight for the wall, which was a major promise of his presidential campaign. “This is our only chance that we’ll ever have, in our opinion, because of the world and the way it breaks out, to get great border security,” Trump said Friday at the White House. Democrats will take control of the House in January, and they oppose major funding for wall construction. Trump convened Republican senators for a lengthy meeting at the White House, but the lengthy back-and-forth with the president did not appear to set a strategy for moving forward. A person granted anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the private session said the president would not get behind lower levels of funding the senators discussed. (With AP Inputs)