Trump admin live updates: Funding measures fail in Senate, all but guaranteeing a shutdown

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Republicans to come to the negotiating table after the upper chamber failed to pass a measure to avert a government shutdown that is now just hours away.

“We want to sit down and negotiate, but the Republicans can’t do it in their partisan way, where they just say it’s our way or the highway,” Schumer said at a news conference following Senate votes Tuesday night.

Pressed on what the Democrats’ strategy is to get Republicans to negotiate, Schumer said, “The strategy is the American people are demanding it and are going to demand it more and more on Oct. 1 [and] Oct. 2.”

Schumer rehashed the failed votes on the Senate floor — placing the blame on Republicans who “have failed to get enough votes to avoid a shutdown.”

Asked if he can guarantee with 100% certainty that the GOP’s short-term continuing resolution would not reach 60 votes in another round of votes, Schumer carefully responded, saying, “Look, the bottom line is, as I said, our guarantee is to the American people that we’re going to fight as hard as we can for their health care, plain and simple.”

He said the GOP-backed seven-week stopgap measure is “totally partisan” because “there was no input from Democrats.”

Schumer stood firm on Democrats’ health care demands, calling for extending Affordable Care Act subsidies and reversing Medicaid cuts.

“The bottom line is, we need to stop these premiums from going up dramatically. We need to do it now, not in October, when people get the notices; not in November, when they have to decide whether to drop health care or reduce the health care they get,” he said.

-ABC News’ Lauren Peller