WASHINGTON �� Congressional leaders sent senior aides for talks Saturday in Vice President Mike Pence's office on ending the partial government shutdown. But Democrats remain skeptical that any discussions would last beyond the next presidential Twitter post.
Three hours before the talks were to begin in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street from the White House, President Donald Trump fired off a series of eyebrow-raising posts. Several kept up his harsh criticism of Democrats and another painted them as missing in action even though the president predicted progress in the weekend talks.
Trump last month said he would be "proud" to "take the mantle" of a partial shutdown before nine Cabinet agencies and other federal offices were closed. But 15 days in, he is blaming Democrats even after telling their top leaders in mid-December that he would not do so.
As senior congressional aides were preparing to meet with Pence, Trump said in another Twitter post that Democrats "could solve the Shutdown problem in a very short period of time."
"All they have to do is approve REAL Border Security (including a Wall)," he wrote.
The Saturday posts appear, yet again, aimed directly at the president's core conservative supporters who fiercely want a border wall and despite Democratic leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. That's because Trump delivered an upbeat assessment of talks with the other side Friday.
"I'm not saying it was an easy meeting or even a kind meeting or a nice meeting, but in the end I think we've come a long way," he said at a news conference. "We're going to be working very hard over the weekend, and we'll see if we can do something."
The differing messages are vintage Trump, who often changes his mind and contradicts himself and senior aides sometimes within hours. That's why some senior Democratic lawmakers and aides question whether any weekend talks that might produce progress will be blown up as soon as Trump learns what was discussed or possibly agreed to.
"We've seen over the last few weeks that no one on the president's staff _ up to the vice president _ speaks for the president, except the president himself," a Democratic source said on the condition of anonymity.
That's a big change from when the last president, Barack Obama, would at least once a year send his vice president, Joe Biden, to negotiate with congressional leaders.
"The reason why when you send me around the world, nothing gets _ as my mom would say _ gets missed between the cup and the lip is because they know when I speak, I speak for you," Biden told Obama at a ceremony during their final days in office.
Another Democratic source familiar with Friday's White House meeting was eager to downplay the Saturday session as Trump was busily playing it up in the Rose Garden.
This source said it was Pence, not Trump, who "floated the idea of staff negotiations through the weekend."
"In response, both Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer urged the president to commit to re-opening government by Tuesday. President Trump refused," the second Democratic source said. "To be clear, the phrase 'working group' was not discussed in the meeting. We expect staff discussions will continue as they have been."
Schumer in the past week said the White House's negotiating tactics and stances often are "quickly overtaken by hard-right forces." He said he thought before the shutdown that he and Trump had a deal to avoid one.
"Several hours later he called back. He said, 'So, I hear we have a three-week deal.' I said, 'No, Mr. President, no one is even talking about a three-week deal,'" Schumer said. "Then a few hours later they called back again, 'Well we're going to need this, this, this in addition.' Things they knew were far, far right and off the table."
But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy painted a more upbeat picture Friday.
"I actually felt good about the progress that we made. We didn't agree to anything, but there is in discussion that we had ... areas we could agree on," he said Friday. "We had some really good discussion about other challenges in there. So we thought that it was an improvement."
But during the meeting, Trump warned Schumer and Pelosi that he might keep the agencies and offices closed for "years" if they continue to oppose his demand to give him his desired $5.6 billion for the proposed border barrier.
"I don't think so," McCarthy said about a years-long partial shutdown. "My goal is to get this done. Everybody should be in the mode to work to get this solved. It was the president's idea to make sure that we had people working this weekend because we didn't get it done."
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(Lindsey McPherson contributed to this report.)
