President signs spending package to reopen government, touts cuts and new initiatives
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Summary
The president signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act to reopen the federal government and said the package trims some spending while funding the military, driving drug-pricing reforms and creating a HUD initiative for foster youth, statements he repeatedly framed as victories for Americans.
The president signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act onstage, saying the measure will immediately reopen the federal government and fund the majority of operations for the rest of the fiscal year. "This bill is a great victory for the American people," the president said, thanking lawmakers and staff who helped pass the measure.
The president characterized the bill as fiscally responsible and cited several provisions he called central achievements: full funding for the military including a pay raise for service members, investments in U.S. shipbuilding and measures he said would lower prescription drug prices under a "most favored nations" pricing provision. He also said the bill "officially ends all taxpayer subsidies for radical far left woke programming on NPR and PBS" and asserted it "slashes nearly $10,000,000,000 in wasteful foreign aid spending." Those figures were presented by the president as his characterization of the package.
The president announced a new HUD initiative he described as the "Melania Trump foster youth to independence initiative," saying it will support foster youth as they age out of the system. He also said the bill continues funding for the Department of Homeland Security and for deportation flights removing people he described as dangerous illegal entrants.
Lawmakers who spoke at the event praised returning to a regular appropriations process; one attendee described getting 12 separate appropriations bills to the president's desk as a sign of restored order. A lawmaker noted that a rural hospital in Meadville, Mississippi, would have closed without funding in the bill.
The president's descriptions included multiple numeric claims — reductions in foreign aid, drug-pricing decreases and crime-rate drops he attributed to enforcement actions — that he presented as outcomes or expected results. Those claims are reported here as assertions the president made during the signing event and were not independently verified in the event itself.
The signing completed the administration's presentation of the funding package. The event concluded after a short question-and-answer period in which the president and attendees answered reporters' questions about foreign policy and other subjects.
