WASHINGTON — The federal government entered a partial shutdown Saturday as a key vote fell far short of the support needed to pass the Senate and the midnight deadline came and went without a deal.

One year to the day since President Donald Trump took office flanked by a Republican Congress, Washington waited for word of where it goes from here as both parties sought a way out of the impasse.

Federal government shuts down after lawmakers fail to reach deal deadline 3:28
The proposal that failed was the one passed by the House on Thursday. It would have funded the government until Feb. 16, extended the low-income children's health insurance program, or CHIP, for six years and suspended some Obamacare taxes for two years.

Senate Democrats, demanding progress on the fate of the young immigrants covered by the DACA program, withheld their support for the bill after the prospect of an agreement with Republicans and the White House fell apart.

But Republicans failed to assemble a simple majority for the measure as some within their own ranks, frustrated with the spate of month-long spending bills, also opposed the short-term solution. (emphasis mine)

Imagine for a second that Donald Trump isn't president. Imagine it's former senator John Doe from Nebraska. Imagine that the Wall Street Journal reported that, on the eve of the 2016 election, Doe's longtime personal lawyer paid a porn star $130,000 to not talk about an alleged affair, using a shadowy LLC he had established in Delaware. Imagine we then found out that same porn star had told multiple tabloid-y news outlets years ago about sexual encounters with now-President Doe.

It would probably be the biggest scandal of the Doe administration. In the Trump administration, though, it's not even the biggest story of the week.

But the saga involving Stormy Daniels and Trump is getting more and more difficult to dismiss as tabloid trash with each passing day, and there's a serious case to be made that it's actually been under-covered. That doesn't mean it's true or even that there has been any genuine wrongdoing — just that it's worth asking some very serious questions.

First came a series of reports from the Journal about the payment made by Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. It most recently reported Thursday that Cohen created an LLC in Delaware — where LLCs don't have to disclose their managers — and used pseudonyms to facilitate the payment to Daniels.

President Trump may be having an extramarital affair in the White House, according to the latest bombshell claim from “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff.

Wolff said Friday on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” that he was “absolutely sure” of such a tryst, but acknowledged that he lacked “ultimate proof.”

“I didn’t have the blue dress,” Wolff told Maher, referring to the key piece of evidence from Bill Clinton’s notorious Oval Office dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.

The author said he’d even planted a clue in his controversial best-seller.

“You’ll know it,” he said. “Now that I’ve told you, when you hit that paragraph, you’ll say, ‘Bingo.’”

Wolf later added that there were "back doors" at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., saying, "If I can get into the White House, porn stars can get into the White House."

The claim took social media by storm, with viewers speculating on the identity of Trump’s alleged paramour.

Adult actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said she had an affair with Trump after they met at a celebrity golf tournament in July 2006 — months after Barron Trump was born.

Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen arranged for Daniels to receive $130,000 in hush money before the 2016 presidential election, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Still, Trump "vehemently denies" any sexual encounter with Daniels, according to Cohen.

Politico's pollster asked voters to assign President Trump a "report card"-style grade for his first year in office, and the results reflect the nation's deep partisan polarization. The most common verdicts were 'F' (35 percent, including a supermajority of Democrats) and 'A' (18 percent, including a plurality of Republicans). The line to keep an eye on is independents, whom Trump narrowly won (46/42) in 2016, and whose dissatisfaction with President Obama helped fuel two midterm GOP waves.

A few things stand out to me about this infographic: (1) Democrats are much more united in their intense opposition to Trump than Republicans are in support. Nearly two-thirds of them give him an 'F,' with roughly 80 percent slapping him with a 'D' or worse. (2) Among Republicans, 72 percent grade him with an 'A' or 'B,' but the 'A' number doesn't come close to mirroring the large 'F' judgment from Democrats. Indeed, more self-identified GOP voters (44 percent) say Trump has earned a 'B' or 'C' than an 'A' (43 percent). Mixed feelings about this president abound within his own party, although these trends are worth noting: "Since mid-April, Republican voters have become 10 points more likely (from 33% to 43%) to award Trump an "A" grade. Democrats (from 48% to 64 %) and independents (from 21% to 31%), meanwhile, have grown more likely to say Trump is failing."

(3) Independents, per usual, are the bellwether -- and in this case, their assessments track with the overall nationwide averages. By double digits, they're more inclined to give the president poor marks than strong ones, but their grades aren't nearly as bipolar as the partisans'. A big question that will weigh heavily on Republican candidates across the country this fall is how the approximately one-in-five independents who've given Trump a 'C' are feeling about their choices in the midterms.