After the White House backed down on Trump's $5 billion in wall funding, Democrats led by Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York rejected a GOP proposal which included $1.6 billion for border security and an additional $1 billion in flexible funding for Trump's immigration policies.

Schumer said he that Democrats would not accept a billion-dollar "slush fund."

Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he's "in consultation" with the White House about a path forward, and that the administration is "extremely flexible on this issue," according to AP.

When asked if he's confident that a partial shutdown during Christmas can be avoided, McConnell replied "Yeah, I am."

“I believe incoming Speaker Pelosi has little latitude to make a deal,” McConnell says with a grin, hinting she’s worried about her left flank. — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 18, 2018

REPORTER: “Are you convinced we won’t see a shutdown over Christmas?”



McCONNELL: “Yeah, I am.” — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 18, 2018

Schumer says he will stick with his two offers to avoid a shutdown; a stopgap bill across the board, or a stopgap to fund the Department of Homeland Security with appropriate packages for the rest of the agencies subject to closure.

Earlier Tuesday White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said that the Senate has "thrown out a number of ideas," and that when something passes, the White House will evaluate it. On the topic of funding the wall, Sanders told Fox News "We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion," adding "At the end of the day we don’t want to shut down the government, we want to shut down the border." She then said that the White House was looking into other funding sources and believed that it could be accomplished legally.

"There are certainly a number of different funding sources that we’ve identified that we can use, that we can couple with money that would be given through congressional appropriations that would help us get to that $5 billion that the president needs in order to protect our border," said Sanders.

Schumer disagreed - saying "They need congressional approval - they're not getting it for the wall, plain and simple."