Trump signs deal to reopen government
President Trump signed a measure late Friday night to reopen the government, hours after the House and Senate both passed it. The continuing resolution (CR) will keep the government open for three weeks to negotiate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a border wall or barrier.
The House and Senate also voted to establish a bicameral, bipartisan conference committee to negotiate funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The conference will include Republican Sens. Richard Shelby, Shelley Moore Capito, John Hoeven and Roy Blunt, as well as Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin and Jon Tester.
Before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer thanked federal employees for working without pay during the shutdown, despite the "callous" treatment of the Trump administration which he said "belittled" workers' financial struggles.
"We cannot ever hold American workers hostage again," Schumer said during a press conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi said that she looked forward to working in a "bipartisan, bicameral way" to pass bills to reopen the government. She also praised Democrats for holding firm on opposing a border wall during the shutdown.
"We're grateful to Democrats on both sides of the Capitol for their unity. It's sad, though, that it's taken so long to come to an obvious conclusion," Pelosi said. "Disagreement on policy should never be a reason to shut down the government."
Pelosi said she was "optimistic" that the government would not shut down again at the end of the three-week CR. However, she seemed to reiterate her opposition to a border wall. She also told reporters that "the State of the Union (address) is not planned now." President Trump was originally scheduled to deliver the annual address on Tuesday.
Pelosi had recently urged the president to postpone the address until the government was reopened, which he agreed to this week.
Schumer was asked whether he thought Mr. Trump had underestimated Pelosi in negotiations to end the shutdown.
"No one should ever underestimate the speaker, as Donald Trump has learned," Schumer said.
After refusing for over a month to sign any government funding bill without money for a wall, Mr. Trump agreed to sign a bill to temporarily reopen the government without wall funding Friday. The CR will include $1.3 billion for border security, and is essentially the deal that the GOP-controlled Senate in December before the shutdown began (this resolution would be in effect until Feb. 15, rather than Feb. 8, the date agreed upon in the December deal). The conference committee will continue bipartisan, bicameral negotiations over border security.
Mr. Trump announced the deal in an address from the White House Rose Garden Friday afternoon, and he thanked the federal workers who had been furloughed or working without pay.
He also said that he expected Democrats and Republicans to cooperate on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, although he reiterated that building a wall was important to border security.
"I really feel that in working with Democrats and Republicans, we can make a truly great and secure deal for everyone," he said. "Walls should not be controversial." He added that the wall he wanted to build were not "medieval," as Democrats have contended, but that it would be a "smart wall."