President Trump said Monday that he will abide by a provision in the Senate agreement to reopen the government that requires him to rehire the federal workers he fired during the government shutdown.
“I will abide by the deal,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The measure would rehire federal employees who were terminated during the shutdown, provide back pay for all federal employees regardless of status, and prevent reductions in the federal workforce through Jan. 30, when the stopgap portion of the bill ends.
“The deal is very good. We are not going to be giving one-and-a-half trillion dollars to people who came in from jails and from the gangs and drug dealers and all of these others; they wanted to be given healthcare, which would have hurt our healthcare system,” Mr. Trump said.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who provided one of the Democratic votes needed to advance the legislation, said it was the provision preventing more layoffs that convinced him to support the agreement to end the shutdown.
Specifically, the resolution states that any employee who was fired after September 30, 2025, will be returned to their employment status “without interruption,” and those employees will receive all back pay to which they are entitled.
The Trump administration fired a staggering number of workers during the shutdown, which entered its 42nd day on Monday. On Oct. 1, the first day of the shutdown, the administration fired 4,108 workers, according to a statement filed in a court case opposing the terminations.
That figure was later updated in mid-October to be roughly 4,278. The cuts amount to a fraction of the U.S. government’s workforce, which employed roughly 2 million civilians at the start of the Trump administration.
Mr. Trump said he approved the deal, which was reached by senators on Sunday night. However, it still faces several procedural hurdles in the Senate before it heads to the House for approval and, ultimately, lands on Mr. Trump’s desk.
“We have support from enough Democrats and we are going to be opening up our country,” Mr. Trump said.
