The shutdown, scheduled for midnight, would disrupt government operations and leave hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay just days before Christmas.

Trump convened Republican senators for a lengthy meeting at the White House, but it produced no clear path toward passage of a government-funding bill containing billions for wall construction. The Senate began a procedural vote on the legislation but was stuck in a long holding pattern waiting for the return of senators who had already left town.

"This is our only chance that we'll ever have, in our opinion, because of the world and the way it breaks out, to get great border security," Trump said Friday at the White House. Democrats will take control of the House in January, and they oppose major funding for wall construction.