Meetings will take place during the weekend to try to break the impasse between lawmakers and U.S. President Donald Trump over the partial government shutdown.

The standoff over funding to build a wall on the border with Mexico is moving into its third week.

Caught in the border battle – hundreds of thousands of federal workers – going without pay.

CGTN’s Nathan King reports.

U.S. lawmakers and the White House will negotiate through the weekend in a bid to end the partial shutdown of the U.S. government.

The news comes after the latest meeting Friday at the White House between U.S. President Trump and congressional leaders.

The standoff over funding to build a wall on the border with Mexico is moving into its third week with nine U.S. government departments partially shut down and hundreds of thousands of workers going without pay.

At least behind closed doors they are talking. But as they emerged, two very different takes from Democrats and the U.S. President on how those talks are going.

“We had a productive meeting…we’re all on the same path in terms of getting government to open,” said President Trump in comments in the White House Rose Garden on Friday.

However, on the opposite side of the White House on the North Lawn, newly-elected Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi was more circumspect.

“We just completed a lengthy, sometimes contentious conversation with the president. We agreed that we will continue our conversations, but we all – we recognize, the Democratic side – that we really cannot resolve this until we open up government.”

The encouraging news… Talks will continue over the weekend with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence leading a high-level team to try and find a way to get funding for the controversial border wall on the Mexican border. But the reality check – is that Democrats are still saying ‘no’ – to a U.S. president, adamant that one of his key campaign promises gets fulfilled.

In an hour-long news conference, the U.S. president vacillated between compromise and confrontation… At one point saying the shutdown could last months or years. That’s highly unlikely but it’s not clear whether he’ll ultimately take less money for the wall.

This is the first major test of the U.S. president’s political strength since the Democrats took partial control of the U.S. Congress. It’s also a test for congressional Democrats on how they stand up to and perhaps negotiate with the president. Both sides know their political fortunes could rest on the outcome of this standoff.

John Tamny discusses the US government shutdown

CGTN’s Asieh Namdar spoke with John Tamny, the editor of the website Real Clear Markets and an editor with Forbes Magazine, about the latest regarding the U.S. government shutdown.