Umair
President Trump on Saturday signed the government funding bill passed by the Senate on Friday, a White House spokesman said. The bill was passed just hours before a midnight deadline to avoid a lapse in funding, which would have shut down the government.
The signing of the bill ended a week of drama of Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, the House passed the legislation, which funds the government through Sept. 30, in a mostly party-line vote that reflected how Republican fiscal hawks have swallowed their concerns about spending in deference to Mr. Trump. The vote was 217 to 213, with only one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voting against the legislation. One Democrat, Representative Jared Golden of Maine, voted yes.
That sent the measure to the Senate, which spent the rest of the week deliberating whether to accept the Republican bill from the House, or send it back and shut down the government at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
The key vote came on Friday afternoon, after days of Democratic agonizing that divided the party. That procedural vote, which ended debate and moved the bill to a final vote, needed the support of some Democrats. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, and nine other members of his caucus supplied the votes needed to effectively thwart a filibuster by their own party and prevent a shutdown.
