Closing summary
The longest government shutdown in US history is done, and so are we. Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s second presidency, and his efforts to tamp down questions about his long association with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, will resume on Thursday. Here are the latest developments:
Donald Trump signed legislation to reopen the federal government, at least until the end of January, after reading lengthy prepared remarks in which he repeated many false claims about Democrats and lied about the cost of Thanksgiving in 2025 being "25% lower than in 2024 according to an imaginary “study” by Walmart.
The Republican-led House passed a measure to fund the government until the end of January with the support of just six Democrats as the bulk of the opposition party remained angry that Republicans refused to extend tax credits for millions of Americans who do not get health insurance through their employers.
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said that he was surprised and angry that the Republican Senate had inserted a provision into the bill to allow Republican senators to sue the federal government because their phone records were subpoenaed in 2023 by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s effort to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. Johnson pledged to repeal the provision next week.
After Adelita Grijalva was sworn in as the newest member of the House, the Arizona Democrat signed a petition to force a vote in the House to compel the full release of files from the federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for more than a decade. The House speaker said that he would schedule the vote for next week, and Republicans who had not supported the petition said that they would vote for the bill.
Trump repeats false claims about Democrats before signing bill to reopen government
Reading prepared remarks from a binder on his desk in the Oval Office before signing the bill to reopen the government into law, Donald Trump launched into a partisan attack on Democrats and repeated false claims about the opposition party wanting to give money to undocumented immigrants.
He then called on the public to punish Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections and called on Republicans to “terminate the filibuster.”
As government workers remained unpaid, Trump boasted about the stock market before signing the legisaltion.
“Also I want to thank Walmart, because they came up with a fantastic study. It was the cost of Thanksgiving, coming up, and the cost of Thanksgiving from a year ago, under sleepy Joe Biden, and we’re 25% lower,” Trump said, incorrectly referring to the cost of a Walmart Thanksgiving basket that is cheaper but also considerably smaller in 2025 than it was in 2024.
He went on to attack the Affordable Care Act, christened Obamacare by Republicans, as a “crazy idea” and “this Obamacare scandal,” before suggesting that he would work to repeal and replace the law with some sort of savings accounts that people could use to but health insurance, and, improbably, negotiate their own rates.
He then signed the bill into law to applause from his assembled audience of cabinet members and Republican lawmakers who all stood around his desk as he, alone, sat.
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