Trump ends government shutdown, signs funding bill

President Donald Trump late Wednesday signed into law a funding bill to end the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.

The measure, which will fund government operations through the end of January, was passed by the House of Representatives earlier Wednesday night in a 222-209 vote.

“The Democrats tried to extort our country,” Trump said before signing the bill in the Oval Office at the White House to reopen the government after 43 days.

Democrats had blocked passage of a funding bill until Sunday, when a bloc of the party’s Senate caucus agreed to support a new funding measure in that chamber, despite it not including an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits.

“Republicans never wanted a shutdown,” said the president, who was flanked by GOP leaders of Congress, as well as by business leaders such as Ken Griffin of Citadel, John Paulson, and Masa Son, CEO of SoftBank.

“People were hurt so badly,” Trump said, noting the more than 1 million federal workers furloughed, and the effect on government services for Americans. “We can never let this happen again.”

He reiterated his call for the Senate to end a filibuster rule that effectively requires 60 votes to pass legislation, including short-term funding resolutions.

Trump did not take questions from reporters after the signing, despite several of them trying to ask about the release by House Democrats earlier in the day of documents from the estate of his former friend, Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sex offender. He was asked about, but ignored, a question about emails by Epstein referring to him.

Trump has denied knowing about Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls and young women when they were friends.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., before Wednesday’s vote, in comments backing the bill on the chamber’s floor, said, “My friends, let’s get this done.”

Just two Republicans in the House voted against the bill: Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Florida’s Greg Steube.

All but six Democrats voted against the bill: Adam Gray of California; Maine’s Jared Golden; Tom Suozzi of New York; Washington’s Marie Gluesenkamp Perez; Don Davis of North Carolina; and Henry Cuellar of Texas.

The Office of Management and Budget told federal employees to return to their jobs on Thursday.

Earlier Wednesday night, the U.S. Department of Transportation froze the level of flight cuts it imposed in light of shortages of air traffic controllers during the…