President Donald Trump ended the government shutdown late Wednesday night, heaping a healthy dose of blame on Democrats for “inflicting massive harm” over the past 43 days.
The House passed a short-term continuing resolution, previously approved by the Senate, to fund the government through the end of January earlier Wednesday evening. The bill was largely supported by the Republican conference, with a handful of Democrats joining them in voting for the bill. The president signed the bill itself into law after 10 p.m. Wednesday night.
Trump opened his remarks in the Oval Office by blaming Democrats for what he called “an attempt to extort American taxpayers for hundreds of billions of dollars for illegal aliens.”
“People were hurt so badly. Nobody’s ever seen anything like this one. This was a no-brainer,” the president stated. “This was an easy extension, but they didn’t want to do it the easy way. They had to do it the hard way. They look very bad. The Democrats do.”
Trump proceeded to double down on his recent calls to abolish the filibuster “so that this can never happen again.”
“If we had the filibuster terminated, this would never happen again. And don’t forget we have another date coming up in the not-too-distant future,” he declared. “So I say terminate the filibuster because, by the way, the Democrats will do it immediately if they ever assumed office, which hopefully they won’t.”
The president also addressed two recent points of focus, for both Republicans and Democrats. First, he reiterated claims that his economic policies are driving down prices, citing a report from Walmart, and subsequently sought to undermine criticism of the GOP for failing to extend expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits, set to expire by the end of the year.
“I’m calling today for insurance companies not to be paid. But for the money, this massive amount of money, to be paid directly to the people of our country, so that they can buy their own healthcare, which will be far better and far less expensive than the disaster known as Obamacare,” he stated.
Six House Democrats broke from the caucus and voted for the bill: Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME), Adam Gray (D-CA), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA).
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Greg Steube (R-FL) were the sole Republicans who split with the party to vote against the measure.
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This is the conclusion to a long shutdown saga that largely took place in the Senate, leading to a 43-day shutdown as Democrats dug in their heels to demand healthcare concessions in exchange for votes. This broke the record of the previous shutdown, which was 35 days under the first Trump administration.
You can watch Trump’s comments in full below.
