President Donald Trump said Monday he supports the clean Continuing Resolution (CR) that advanced in the Senate Sunday night, which is well-positioned to reopen the government this week.
Democrats folded in a major way on day 40 of the shutdown, with eight members of their caucus agreeing to help Republicans with a procedural vote on a deal to fund the government at 2024 and 2025 levels through January 2026, as Breitbart News noted. After reports of time agreements being met, the bill needs to hurdle one more 60-vote threshold before a vote on final passage.
“It depends what deal we’re talking about, but if it’s a deal I heard about — that’s certainly, you know, they want to change the deal a little bit — but I would say so,” Trump said when asked if he backed the deal.
“I think, based on everything I’m hearing, they haven’t changed anything, and we have support from enough Democrats, and we’re going to be opening up our country,” he continued. “It’s too bad it was closed, but we’ll be opening up our country very quickly.”
The deal is packaged with three appropriations bills that extend funding for agriculture, military construction, Veterans Affairs, and the legislative branch through the 2026 fiscal year. Democrats also received assurances of a vote on a bill of their choosing in the Senate — a far cry from the demands of Democrat leadership in recent months for extensions of Covid-era Obamacare subsidies they demanded in exchange for cooperation to reopen the government, and as Breitbart News reported:
The agreement includes back pay for federal employees and guarantees that the 4,000-plus federal employees laid off during the shutdown will be rehired, as well as a blanket prohibition on future reductions in force through January 30. Those jobs are a drop in the bucket compared to the 250,000 or so the Trump administration eliminated before the shutdown.
The Democrats who broke ranks with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to vote to advance the bill included Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV), John Fetterman (D-PA), Angus King (I-ME), all of whom voted for the previous House-passed clean CR, as well as Dick Durbin (D-IL), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), all of whom voted repeatedly against the House CR.
The break with leadership signals Schumer’s diminishing influence and gives further credence to Trump’s statement in late October that “Schumer is shot.”
“He’s shot; this poor guy. I feel sorry for him. I’ve known him for a long time, but… I think he’s mentally gone. He’s been beat up by young radical lunatics. And I think that Chuck Schumer is–he’s gonezo,” Trump said.
“I think he’s probably not going to run. It shows that he’s losing in every poll. Now, this is hard, you know, he wants to meet with me. Sort of hard to be with the guy after I make a statement like that, but I’m just giving the facts. I think Chuck is probably finished,” he added.
