(MENAFN- Live Mint) As the US government shutdown stretched into its 18th day, President Donald Trump on Friday, October 17, blamed Democrats for the ongoing impasse, calling it a“Democrat shutdown,” specifically targeting New York Senator Chuck Schumer.

“It's a Democrat shutdown. It's a Schumer shutdown because his career has failed, and it's over,” Trump said, renewing his attacks on Democratic leadership for refusing to pass the funding measures sought by his administration to end the shutdown.

The prolonged standoff between the Democrats and the Republicans has disrupted key government services and left hundreds of thousands of federal workers unpaid, as both parties continue to trade blame over the budget deadlock. While the Republicans have blamed Democrats for the shutdown, the Democrats say President Trump needs to be directly involved in resolving the deadlock.

“The shutdown continues. The Republican Party is not going to pay a trillion and a half dollars to illegal immigrants coming into our country, coming in for a lot of reasons, coming in from prisons, from jails, from all over the place, from Venezuela, many countries. We're not going to do that. So the shutdown continues,” Donald Trump said.

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The government shutdown in in its eighteenth day with no end in sight, after senators failed for the 10th time to resolve the impasse in votes on Thursday, CBS News reported.

The shutdown is now the third-longest funding lapse in modern history, eclipsed only by the shutdowns of 1995 and 2018-19. Shutdowns are a relatively recent phenomenon, having only begun in their current form in 1980.

According to the CBS News, Senate Majority Leader John Thune adjourned the chamber for the weekend following Thursday's votes, ensuring the government shutdown will extend at least until Monday. Meanwhile, the House has been out of session since September 19 and has no plans to reconvene until the funding impasse is resolved, according to CBS News.

Thune's office said on Thursday that he will bring up a bill next week that would pay federal employees and military service members who have continued to work during the shutdown. But passing the legislation would require help from Democrats, who blocked a long-term defense spending bill from advancing.

The agency that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile told a top GOP lawmaker that it plans to furlough 80% of its staff in the coming days to address a funding shortfall.“These are not employees that you want to go home,” said Mike Rogers of Alabama, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, CBS News reported.

(With agency inputs)

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