President Trump has invited Congressional leaders to the Situation Room at the White House for a briefing on border security.  

This comes as we’ve reached day 12 of the shutdown and a solution doesn’t appear to be in sight.

Nikole Killion reported from the White House.

President Trump focused on border security during a cabinet meeting at the White House.

“Our southern border is like a sieve,” said President Trump. “It just pours through our southern border and unless we’re going to have physical barriers, it’s never going to be stopped.”

The President is hosting Congressional leaders at the White House this afternoon for a briefing with the border patrol. This will be the first face-to-face talks between the President and Democratic leaders since December 11 when he said he would take responsibility for a government shutdown.

“I will be the one to shut it down, I’m not going to blame you for it,” said President Trump.

The partial shutdown is now in its 12th day and as of today, the Smithsonian Museums and National Zoo are now closed after running out of money.

Democrats gain more leverage for the negotiations tomorrow when they take control of the House of Representatives. They say they’re ready on day one to pass a bill to reopen the government.

House Democrats are proposing a plan that reopens all of the government agencies now closed except for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS will get funded with a short-term bill that includes $1.3 billion for border security, but not the wall.

“The president should sign it, unless he simply wants to deliberately create an artificial shutdown of a good part of the government in which this wall controversy has nothing to do with,” said New York Representative Jerry Nadler.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called the Democrat’s plan a “non-starter.”