Congressional leaders resumed negotiations Tuesday to avoid the partial government shutdown, which President Trump said he considered as a possibility if his key campaign promise, the US-Mexico border wall, doesn’t receive its asked 5 billion dollars in funding. The shutdown was predicted to be at the end of the week, but early Tuesday the White House indicated it was looking for alternative ways to fund President Trump’s signature campaign promise of a border wall without a government funding lapse.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters they were “disappointed” that the Senate hadn’t voted on anything, and said the White House was looking at “every avenue” to find additional funding — including having funds redirected or “reprogrammed” from other departments.

“President Trump has asked every one of his cabinet secretaries to look for funding that can be used to protect our borders and give the president the ability to fulfill his constitutional obligations to protect the American people by having a secure border,” she said.

“At the end of the day, we don’t want to shut down the government,” Sanders said. “We want to shut down the border from illegal immigration.”

The shut down scare was ignited last week when President Trump had tossled with Senate Minority Leader Schumer in front of the cameras in the Oval Office — where Trump said he had no problem shutting down the government.

“If we don’t have border security, we’ll shut down the government,” he said.

Washington has a deadline of Friday night to avoid a shutdown. Any sort of resolution, more than 800,000 government workers could be furloughed or sent to work without pay, disrupting government operations.