Watch: As shutdown bites, Trump invites guests to feast on burgers, pizzas & french fries

US President Donald Trump laid out a White House feast fit for a government shutdown with silver platters heaped high with McDonald's quarter pounders and the red-and-white burger wrappers of Wendy's.

White House chefs normally would serve much fancier fare underneath the stern gaze of the portrait of Abraham Lincoln in the State Dining Room. But they are furloughed, staying home without paychecks as Trump fights with Congress over funding the federal government.

The White House said Trump himself sprang for what he pronounced to be "great American food" for the visiting Clemson Tigers, winners of the US college football championship.

"We have pizzas, we have 300 hamburgers, many, many french fries, all of our favourite foods," Trump told reporters, as one White House worker still on the job lit tapered candles.

"I want to see what's here when we leave, because I don't think it's going to be much," Trump said, before the players, dressed in dapper suits, flooded the room and piled their plates high.

About a quarter of the federal government has been shut down for the past 24 days after Trump dug in on a campaign pledge to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico, demanding $5.7 billion from Congress for the project. Democrats have rejected his demand. 

"So I had a choice. Do we have no food for you because we have a shutdown or do we give you some little quick salads that the first lady will make along with the second lady....they'll make some salads and I said you guys aren't into salads or do I go out, Lindsay Graham, Tim Scott (Senators from South Carolina) or do I send out for 1000 hamburgers," he said, adding, "Big Macs. So we actually did. Burger King, Wendy's and McDonalds, all American companies."