Donald Trump signs deal ending longest US government shutdown

The longest shutdown of the US federal government is set to end under a deal between President Donald Trump and Democrats that reopens shuttered agencies for three weeks as discussions continue on funding a border wall, which was at the heart of stalemate and remains unresolved..

The two chambers of US congress quickly passed a legislation ending the shutdown which will go into effect as soon as they were signed into law by the president.

An estimated 800,000 federal employees will return to work now and, more importantly, receive their pay, with missed checks, that will enable them to meet payments obligations such as mortgages, credit card payment and utility bills Heart-rending stories of their struggles — including queuing up at food banks and seeking alternate employment such as driving Uber cabs — aired on TV and radio had kept the pressure up on the president and Democrats to end the shutdown.

Trump announced the pact in an address from the Rose Garden of the White House in a midday address. But, he warned, “If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on February 15th, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.”

Trump has acknowledged considering national emergency before, but stayed with the legislative process. It would allow him to find money to fund the wall elsewhere in the federal government’s budgetary allocations, chiefly the defense department’s unspent money earmarked for construction projects. But it would also have landed him in courts, where his promise of a wall would languish, mired in appeals and counter-appeals.

The deal was widely seen as a victory for Democrats who had insisted on the reopening of the government as a precondition for border wall funding talks, and the president seemed to have capitulated, specially Speaker of he House Nancy Pelosi, the feisty leader of the Democrats, by abandoning his vow to reject any agreement that did not include money for his border wall, a key campaign promise.

The backlash from conservatives was swift and severe:. Ann Coulter an influential commentator adn Trump supporter condemned Trump as the “biggest wimp ever” to serve as president, and warned he would be a one-term president like George H W Bush, who, was called wimp by conservatives earlier.

“TRUMP CAVES”, read the headline on The Daily Caller, a conservative new site that has been extremely supportive of the president and has routinely taken his side in political battles.

The most telling of them all was this tweet by Mike Cernovich, a journalist and a right-wing commentator who has supported Trump through bad and good times: “Trump gets schooled in the shutdown by an ‘alpha’ Nancy Pelosi”.