00:00For the past 43 days, Democrats in Congress shut down the government of the United States
00:05in an attempt to extort American taxpayers for hundreds of billions of dollars for illegal
00:10aliens and people that came into our country illegally from gangs, from prisons, from mental
00:17institutions. They wanted to pay them $1.5 trillion, which would have really hurt our
00:23health care businesses and our recipients at levels never seen before. Today, we're sending
00:31a clear message that we will never give in to extortion because that's what it was. This
00:35cost the country $1.5 trillion, this little excursion that they took us on. Republicans
00:42never wanted a shutdown and voted 15 times for a clean continuation of funding. There's never been
00:49a time when one or the other party ever didn't sign a continuation, just a continuation, not
00:58a big deal. It's a continuation and we'll talk later. Over the past seven weeks, the Democrats
01:02shut down has inflicted massive harm. They caused 20,000 flights to be canceled or delayed. They
01:10departed so many times, so late. People were hurt so badly. Nobody's ever seen anything like
01:18this one. This was a no-brainer. This was an easy extension. But they didn't want to do it the easy
01:24way. They had to do it the hard way. And they look very bad, the Democrats do. They deprived more than
01:29one million government workers from their paychecks and cut off food stamp benefits for millions and
01:34millions more Americans in need. They caused tens of thousands of federal contractors and small
01:41businesses to go unpaid. And the total effect of the damage their antics caused will take weeks and
01:48probably months to really calculate accurately, including the serious harm that they did to our
01:53economy and to people and to families. So with my signature, the federal government will now resume
02:00normal operations. And my administration and our partners in Congress will continue our work to
02:06lower the cost of living, restore public safety, grow our economy and make America affordable again.
02:13And I'm calling today for insurance companies not to be paid, but for the money, this massive amount
02:19of money to be paid directly to the people of our country so that they can buy their own health care,
02:25which will be far better and far less expensive than the disaster known as Obamacare. And I've had,
02:32I think, great support. I've even had Democrat support. And it's an honor now to sign this
02:38incredible bill and get our country working again. Thank you very much.
Comments