Rebecca Ballhaus, Kristina Peterson, and Gordon Lubold, Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2019

President Trump said Friday he had reached a deal with congressional leaders to reopen the government for three weeks while negotiations over border security funding continue, marking at least a temporary concession by the president to Democrats.

Speaking in the Rose Garden, Mr. Trump said he would sign a bill to open the government until Feb. 15 and start negotiations between the House and Senate over a full-year bill funding the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the border.

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The stopgap spending bill, which would end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, provides no immediate funding for a border wall. Mr. Trump said he would continue to push for funding for such a barrier in the next three weeks, declaring: “Walls shouldn’t be controversial.”

He thanked federal workers for going more than a month without pay and said he would ensure they received back pay “very quickly or as soon as possible.”

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Mr. Trump warned that if no deal is reached by Feb. 15, the government could shut down a second time. He also threatened to address border security unilaterally if no agreement is struck by that point.

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For weeks, Democrats have urged the president to reopen the government while negotiations continue. Republican senators have been talking with increasing urgency in recent days about passing a stopgap spending bill.

The stopgap spending bill would include an extension of border security funding at current levels, which includes $1.3 billion for border security but not expressly for a wall.

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The deal Mr. Trump announced is a retreat from the hard-line stance he had taken throughout the monthlong shutdown. Mr. Trump dropped his insistence on border-wall funding as a condition of reopening the government, at least while negotiations play out over the next three weeks.

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