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President Donald Trump announced a temporary solution to end the government shutdown, which is now the longest tin history.
- President Donald Trump is expected to announce his support for a plan to reopen the government temporarily and end the shutdown.
- The plan would fund the agencies currently shutdown for three weeks.
- The agreement comes 35 days into the longest federal government shutdown on record.
The government shutdown may be coming to a close - for now.
President Donald Trump is expected to announce his support for a bill to reopen parts of the federal government during a speech at the White House on Friday. The deal will fund the parts of the government that are shut down for the next three weeks, according to reports, temporarily bringing an end to the longest shutdown in history.
Trump's support would clear the way for congressional leaders to quickly pass a short-term funding bill called a continuing resolution, setting up a high stakes negotiating period to avoid another closure of the government.
The shutdown is currently in day 35 and the negative effects from the closure have taken a toll. The 800,000 federal workers going without pay received their second $0 paycheck from the government on Friday and staffing issues led to widespread delays at major airports across the US.
Reopening the government would allow federal workers to get back pay, providing much-needed financial relief for families who are facing mounting bills.
The shutdown kicked off on December 22 after Trump rejected a short-term funding extension because it did not include money for his long-promised wall along the US-Mexico border. Since then both Trump and Democratic leaders have been locked in a standoff over wall funding.
Democrats have repeatedly requested that the president support a short-term funding bill with no wall money. In fact, party leaders declared that no negotiations on a wall would take place while the government is closed.
Negotiations to end the shutdown seemed stalled in recent days and on Thursday the Senate shot down two bills that would have reopened the government - one with border wall funding and one without. The bill with the border wall funding was modeled on a plan announced by Trump on Saturday that would have traded $5.7 billion in wall money for temporary extensions to protections for so-called Dreamers.
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After the failure of the two bills, Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer met on Thursday to try and work out a path forward which appears to have yielded some success.
Trump has consistently resisted opening the government with a short-term bill that did not include wall funding, but recent polling has showed that most Americans blame Trump for the shutdown and dislike the president using the shutdown as a political tool.