President Donald Trump announced a short-term deal with Congress to end the partial government shutdown on Friday.
Trump and the Democrats had been at a standoff of the president’s demand for $5.7 billion to build a border wall along the southern border. “We have reached a deal to end the shutdown,” Trump said during an announcement at the White House’s Rose Garden.
The government will reopen for three weeks, until Feb. 15, while negotiations continue over Trump’s desire to build a wall on the southern border continue. “After 36 days of spirited debate and dialogue, I have seen and heard from enough Democrats and Republicans that they are willing to partisanship aside, I think, and put the security of the American people first,” Trump said.
The short-term deal does not include any funding for the proposed border wall, but Trump said that a bipartisan panel will work on crafting a border security package.
The 35-day shutdown began just before Christmas and has left roughly 800,000 federal workers without pay. Trump said that employees receiving back pay “as soon as possible.” Many have missed at least two rounds of paychecks during the shutdown.
“Over the next 21 days I expect that both Democrats and Republicans will operate in good faith,” Trump continued, though he hinted that if no deal is reached to his liking by the Feb. 15 deadline, he’ll either shut down the government again or declare a State of Emergency, a move he has resisted so far. “We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier. If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on Feb. 15, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.”
The deal comes a few hours after Roger Stone, the longtime informal political adviser to Trump, was arrested by the FBI as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.