President Trump Says Shutdown Could Last For Months Or Years

Pelosi did not offer such a rosy assessment of the meeting with Mr. Trump, saying that she and Schumer had insisted on the need to reopen the government.

"We are committed to keeping our border safe," Pelosi said after the meeting. "We can do that best when government is open. We made that clear to the president."

"We made a plea to the president once again: don't hold hundreds of thousands of federal workers hostage," Schumer said, adding that Mr. Trump has said that he would allow a shutdown for an extended period of time. "So we told the president we needed the government open. He resisted."

It's unclear where Republicans and Democrats may find a compromise. Pelosi says she won't give Mr. Trump funding for his border wall —unless it's just $1, she joked Thursday night — and Mr. Trump has already said he wouldn't even accept the $2.5 billion in wall funding proposed by Vice President Mike Pence. The president won't publicly say what figure he would accept. A senior White House official said Thursday that the president, Pence, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and top White House legislative aide Shahira Knight are all working on landing an acceptable figure for border wall funding. 

Democrats want Mr. Trump to go along with funding the non-Department of Homeland Security agencies, but Mr. Trump told congressional leaders in the Wednesday meeting doing that would make him "look foolish," according to a person familiar with the conversation. 

On Friday morning, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders didn't close off the possibility of trading protections for so-called "dreamers" in exchange for wall funding, but said she wouldn't "negotiate" in the press. 

It's unclear just how long this shutdown could last. Mr. Trump has said it could last a long time. Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said it could last "months and months." 

Mr. Trump made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Thursday afternoon, hours after Pelosi had been elected speaker, attempting to make the case alongside border patrol representatives that his border wall is crucial to national security. He took no questions in his first appearance in the briefing room as president. 

"So this meeting was set up a long time ago," Mr. Trump said. "It just came at a very opportune time ... So, I just appreciate them being here. I said let's go out and see the press you can tell them the importance of the wall. They basically said — and I think I can take the word basically out — without a wall you cannot have border security. Without a very strong form of barrier — call it what you will. You cannot have border security. It won't work."

Reporting by Kathryn Watson and Grace Segers