WASHINGTON _ Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, the likely kickoff of up to 10 days of political posturing and negotiations over whether the president's border wall should be funded as part of a year-end spending bill that needs to pass by Dec. 21.
The bill, which funds a portion of the government, represents Trump's last chance to get taxpayer funding for the border wall he campaigned on while the House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans. Originally, he'd promised Mexico would pay for the wall.
But Schumer and Pelosi, the top two Democrats in Congress, say there is no way their members will support funding for the wall, especially after flipping 40 seats in the House in last month's midterm election.
If they can't come to an agreement, a portion of the government could shut down on Dec. 22, just days before Christmas. The deadline, originally set to Dec. 7, was pushed back two weeks following the death of former President George H.W. Bush.
Democrats have put two offers on the table, neither of which have wall funding: $1.6 billion in "fencing" along the southern border or a continuation of last year's spending levels for the Department of Homeland Security.
Democrats act as though they have little to lose. They're pinning responsibility to fund the government on the GOP, which currently controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.
"If President Trump wants to throw a temper tantrum and shut down the government over Christmas over the wall, that's his decision," Schumer told reporters in the Capitol.
Republicans had hoped they could get some Democratic support by pairing the wall with something Democrats want: long-term security for immigrants brought to the country illegally who grew up in the United States, or "Dreamers."
But even Pelosi _ an advocate for Dreamers _ shot down that idea last week. "They're two different subjects," she said at a news conference.
Democrats are deeply skeptical of cutting deals with Trump, which could undermine Tuesday's meeting at the White House.
In September of last year, Schumer and Pelosi left a White House meeting declaring they had a deal with the president to extend protections to Dreamers and fund border security, not including the wall. But the president later backed away from that agreement.
A few months later, Schumer and Pelosi bailed on a scheduled meeting with the president to discuss a government funding bill because he tweeted earlier that day that he didn't see a possible deal.
Still, Tuesday's meeting could be a harbinger of how Washington may operate for the next two years, when Trump will need House Democrats to get any legislative priority through Congress.
Top Republicans in Congress had put off a battle over Trump's border wall until after the 2018 midterm elections. But now, the spending bill is the president's last shot to get Congress to pay for the wall before Democrats take over the House next year.
Republicans say the decision of whether to shut down the government rests with Democrats.
"From my view of the negotiation, they're holding this up right now," said Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
But even some Republicans acknowledge that the president needs to decide how badly he wants the border wall _ and if he is willing to shut down the government to do so.
"It doesn't matter how much appetite there is for a shutdown (in Congress), if he is willing to have a shutdown over this issue," said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). "And he's given every indication that he would."
