Talks go nowhere as partial gov't shutdown enters 13th day

WASHINGTON (AP) — No one budged at President Donald Trump's closed-door meeting with congressional leaders, so the partial government shutdown persisted over his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. They'll all try again Friday.

In public, Trump renewed his dire warnings of rapists and others at the border. But when pressed in private Wednesday by Democrats asking why he wouldn't end the shutdown, he responded at one point, "I would look foolish if I did that."

A White House official, one of two people who described that exchange only on condition of anonymity, said the president had been trying to explain that it would be foolish not to pay for border security.

In one big shift, the new Congress convenes today with Democrats taking majority control of the House, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said they'd quickly pass legislation to re-open the government – without funds for Trump's border wall.

"There is no amount of persuasion he can use" to get her to fund his wall, Pelosi said in an interview airing today on NBC's "Today" show. She added: "We can go through the back and forth. No. How many more times can we say no?"

But the White House has rejected the Democratic package, and Republicans who control the Senate are hesitant to take it up without Trump on board. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called it a "total nonstarter." Trump said ahead of his White House session with the congressional leaders that the partial shutdown will last "as long as it takes" to get the funding he wants.

"Could be a long time or could be quickly," Trump said during lengthy public comments at a Cabinet meeting, his first public appearance of the new year. Meanwhile, the shutdown dragged through a second week, closing some parks and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay.