‘Let’s make a deal?’ Trump appears to offer olive branch to Democrats with border wall talks

With no compromise in sight on his border wall, US President Donald Trump is reaching out to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling a meeting with Congressional leaders in a bid to end the government shutdown now in its 11th day.

Trump invited a bipartisan group of Congressional leaders to the White House to negotiate a conclusion to the partial shutdown sparked by clashes over funding his border wall, tweeting a tentative peace offering: "Let's make a deal?"

Eight Republicans and Eight Democrats from both houses of Congress are set to meet in the White House Wednesday, a congressional aide told the Wall Street Journal. The meeting is expected to include a briefing on border security from the Department of Homeland Security, suggesting Trump is not planning to back off the wall push anytime soon, though the wall itself has lately looked a lot less…wall-y. 

House Democrats reportedly plan to end the shutdown by passing a pair of government-funding bills without money for the wall when the 2019 session of Congress opens on Thursday with Pelosi as Speaker. The Senate, however, is still controlled by Republicans, and it's unclear how Pelosi plans to get around them.

The shutdown has a ways to go before it surpasses the current record of 21 days, but federal employees are already growing restive, with 800,000 furloughed or working without pay. Given the one-dimensional tenor of Trump's New Year's Eve tweets – "Please explain to the Democrats that there can NEVER be a replacement for a good old fashioned WALL!" – this game of political "chicken" may drag on for a while yet.