Trump signs bill to reopen government
Posted on : 04 Feb 2026 | By : Catie Edmondson New
Trump signs bill to reopen government...
But even though the president endorsed the deal, which he reached with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, conservative Republicans were dissatisfied with the concessions it included and nearly thwarted it in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson struggled until the last moment to muster the votes to bring it up Tuesday, haggling with an animated group of hard-line holdouts on the House floor for nearly an hour before he managed to cobble together a bare majority. Such messy and drawn-out scenes have become routine in the chamber, where Johnson is working with a razor-thin majority. “I share the frustrations of many that the Senate altered our deal at the last minute,” said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and chair of the Appropriations Committee. “But our obligation is not to those emotions — it’s to the American people.” While the package brings the current partial shutdown to a close, its passage created another funding cliff for Trump and congressional leaders, who now have roughly 10 days to strike a deal imposing new restrictions on immigration agents. If they fail, regular funding for the Department of Homeland Security would lapse. Democrats and Republicans are still far apart on the changes they are willing to agree to, and key Democrats have said they would not vote for another stopgap measure if a deal is not reached at the end of next week. Most Democrats, 193 of them, voted against the spending deal Tuesday, a reflection of how toxic funding the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become in the party. Twenty-one supported it. “I will not stand by and give any more money to Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem to bankroll an out-of-control operation that is terrorizing communities and shredding the Constitution,” said US Representative Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, naming the president’s senior adviser and architect of his hard-line immigration policies and the homeland security secretary. “I am not interested in business as usual. Not for two more weeks; not for two more seconds.” Twenty-one Republicans opposed the measure. In addition to the stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security for 10 additional days to leave time for bipartisan talks over new immigration enforcement restrictions, the legislation also would fund major parts of the government through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Those include the Treasury, Education, Labor, and State departments and the Pentagon. The package rejects the deep spending cuts the Trump administration had requested, but overall provides small across-the-board trims to many federal agencies. With the immediate funding crunch over, lawmakers must now turn their attention to what promises to be a remarkably difficult negotiation to unlock longer-term funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Senate Democrats last week presented a set of demands that would need to accompany any more money for the department that included a prohibition on federal officers wearing masks and a requirement that federal agents wear body cameras and carry identification. Their proposal also would put an end to roving patrols and require warrants issued by a judge for arrests and searches. Democrats have also demanded that federal agents be subject to the same use-of-force policies that apply to local and state law enforcement agencies, which require those involved in violent incidents to be subject to independent investigations if they are accused of wrongdoing. “Absent bold and meaningful change, there is no credible path forward with respect to the Department of Homeland Security funding bill” on Feb. 13, when funding is set to lapse, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said in a statement after the vote. Jeffries was among the Democrats opposing the spending package Tuesday. Trump administration officials, eager to tamp down on at least some of the public outrage that bubbled up after federal agents shot and killed two US citizens in less than a month, have already agreed to some changes. Noem said Monday that all immigration officers on the ground in Minneapolis would be equipped with body cameras and would be expanded nationwide “as funding is available.” But agreement on other changes appears more elusive. Minutes after Trump signed the spending deal into law in a ceremony in the Oval Office, a defiant Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, essentially suggested that his party was in no mood to negotiate, telling the president to “stick to your guns.” Democrats “do have some good ideas, I think, but I’ve got a better idea: It’s your idea,” Graham said, addressing Trump. “End sanctuary cities.” He and other Republicans have said any enforcement changes must start by forcing states and municipalities to drop their policies against cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Johnson, at a news conference Tuesday, ruled out requiring warrants for arrests and searches and has previously said he is opposed to mandating that officers take their masks off. “We do have to apply the Constitution. We have to respect it, and those parameters need to be determined,” Johnson said. “But I can tell you that we are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants, because it is unimplementable. It cannot be done and it should not be done, and it’s not necessary.”