(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump’s decision to bid “bye bye” to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and storm out of a White House meeting brought relations between the president and Democrats to a new low just as the impact of the nearly three-week government shutdown was set to intensify.

The breakdown came just two days before some 800,000 federal workers will miss their paychecks, spreading financial pain to families across the country. Far from a compromise to end the standoff, Trump heads to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas on Thursday to rally support for building a wall, the central issue in the standoff.

Trump may bolster his base with a trip to the border but he’s unlikely to sway the Democrats he needs to secure the $5.7 billion to build the wall — a key campaign promise. While the president has so far kept most Republican lawmakers from defecting, that is being tested as the fallout from the shutdown becomes more tangible.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said Wednesday that a group of senators were meeting to see if they could come up with “constructive ideas” to end the spending impasse. She didn’t elaborate but said “we’re going to continue the conversations and see where they go.”