Inside the Move That Reopened Washington

WASHINGTON–President Donald Trump signed legislation to reopen the government on Wednesday, ending the 43-day Democrat shutdown.

The clean continuing resolution (CR) funds the government through the end of January and includes three of twelve appropriations for Fiscal Year 2026–agriculture, military construction-Veterans Affairs, and legislative branch–with funding for those through the end of September.

Trump, flanked by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), and cabinet officials, blasted Democrats for refusing to open government ahead of the signing.

“For the past 43 days, Democrats in Congress shut down the government of the United States in an attempt to extort American taxpayers for hundreds of billions of dollars for illegal aliens and people that came into our country illegally,” Trump said.

“Today, we’re sending a clear message that we will never give in to extortion, because that’s what it was. They tried to extort–the Democrats tried to extort our country,” he added.

Trump said that Democrats “inflicted massive harm” in keeping the government closed since October 1.