President Donald Trump plans to speak about the 35-day partial government shutdown at 1:30 p.m. amid negotiations in the Senate to end the impasse, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.
Several Republican senators said Friday they didn’t know what Trump planned to announce.
Negotiations in the Senate restarted Thursday after the chamber rejected rival plans to reopen plans from Trump and Democrats to fund the government. Trump had refused to end the shutdown until he received $5.7 billion for a border wall and Democrats had refused to negotiate with him on wall funding as long as the shutdown continued.
Pressure on Trump and lawmakers to end the shutdown escalated Friday as the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily halted flights into New York’s LaGuardia Airport because of a shortage of air-traffic control staff. While the delay was lifted after an hour and 22 minutes, the disruption cascaded through East Coast airports such as Newark Liberty International and Philadelphia.
About 800,000 federal employees who are furloughed or working without pay and many of them missed their second paycheck on Friday.