"The President's been here, by the way, all weekend, all Christmas", Mulvaney said during an interview with Fox & Friends. "He's staying in Washington, DC, over New Year's. He's cancelled his plans for Christmas. Now, he's cancelled his plans for New Year's".
Though Trump will remain in Washington, the White House expects little or no progress toward reopening the government for at least another week, because Democrats are refusing to negotiate until the new Congress is sworn in and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is elected speaker, Mulvaney added.
"Nancy Pelosi, in fairness, does not have the votes for the speakership yet", Mulvaney said. "She cannot be seen by her party as being weak on negotiating with Donald Trump, so we fully expect that until she is elected speaker and has locked that vote up, we don’t expect to hear from Democrats again".
READ MORE: Government Shutdown Going Strong as the New Year Approaches
The next Congress begins on Thursday. Lawmakers will be sworn in, with Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives and the Senate remaining in Republican hands. By then, the federal government will have been in partial shutdown mode for 13 days.
Mulvaney said that the White House offered to compromise, with a final figure somewhere below $5 billion, but Democrats responded by leaving town instead of making a counteroffer.
Earlier on Friday, Trump threatened to close the entire US-Mexican border if Republican and Democratic lawmakers are unable to agree on a border barrier budget number that Trump can accept.
