WASHINGTON • Two days after the record-long shutdown ended, the White House made clear Sunday that President Donald Trump is prepared to shutter the government again without a border wall deal from Congress.

The president’s standoff with Democrats on Capitol Hill is far from over and the clock is ticking — the spending bill Trump signed on Friday funds the government agencies that had been shut down for 35 days only until Feb. 15.

It’s unclear if the Democrats will budge. Trump seemed girded for battle, sending out a series of online messages that foreshadowed the upcoming fight with lawmakers.

“BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!” he tweeted.

Is Trump prepared to shut down the government again in three weeks?

“Yeah, I think he actually is,” acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said.

“He doesn’t want to shut the government down, let’s make that very clear. He doesn’t want to declare a national emergency.”

But Mulvaney said that at “the end of the day, the president’s commitment is to defend the nation and he will do it with or without Congress.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a member of the Democratic leadership in the House, said his colleagues are looking for “evidence-based” legislation.

“Shutdowns are not legitimate negotiating tactics when there’s a public policy disagreement between two branches of government,” he said.

The lynchpin in the standoff is Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion for his prized wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, a project Democrats consider an ineffective, wasteful monument to a ridiculous Trump campaign promise.

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in the House, said Democrats have funded border barriers in the past and are refusing this time simply because Trump is asking for it.

“The president is the only one who has been reasonable in these negotiations,” he said.

Mulvaney wouldn’t directly answer whether Trump would take less than $5.7 billion, but indicated the president was willing to negotiate.

“The president has already gone to the Democrats and said, look, it’s not a 2,000-mile sea-to-shining-sea wall.”

Trump has asserted there is a “crisis” at the southern border requiring a wall, blaming previous presidents and Congress for failing to overhaul an immigration system that has allowed millions of people to live in the U.S. illegally.

A migrant sits with his children as they wait to hear Friday if their number is called to apply for asylum in the United States at the border in Tijuana, Mexico. The Trump administration will start forcing some asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. courts, an official said, launching what could become one of the more significant changes to the immigration system.

the associated press