For weeks, the headlines were loud and clear: the government is shut down, and the military might not get paid. Social media exploded with posts claiming that troops would be left without their paychecks because of political fighting in Washington. Many blamed President Trump. Others blamed Democrats. The truth? It’s not as simple as a tweet—and it’s actually a story about how President Trump found a way to protect America’s military families when others wouldn’t.
Let’s walk through what happened.
On Friday, despite a government shutdown that has now lasted over a month, U.S. troops are still getting paid. This isn’t normal. During a shutdown, government workers—including military service members—are often required to keep working without a paycheck. Their pay is usually delayed until the government reopens or until Congress passes a special bill to fund it.
But this time, President Trump’s administration made sure that wouldn’t happen.
According to NBC News, the Department of Defense found a way to pay troops using money from other parts of its budget. About $2.5 billion came from military housing funds, $1.4 billion from research and development, and another $1.4 billion from procurement accounts. That’s a total of $5.3 billion redirected to make sure our men and women in uniform got their paychecks on time.
This wasn’t the first time during the shutdown that Trump’s team pulled off this move. Earlier in the month, they used $6.5 billion to do the same thing. Some experts have questioned whether this kind of workaround is legal, saying that only Congress has the power to decide how money is spent. But the White House argues that paying the troops is not just legal—it’s essential.
And so far, no one has taken the White House to court over it. Why? Because even Trump’s political opponents know it would be wildly unpopular to fight against paying the military. As one senior official told Axios, “no one wants to be the face of denying paychecks to soldiers.”
Still, it’s important to understand why this situation happened in the first place.
The government is shut down because Congress hasn’t passed a continuing resolution to keep it funded. A continuing resolution, or CR, is a temporary measure that keeps money flowing while lawmakers negotiate a longer-term budget. President Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have tried multiple times—13 in fact—to pass a clean CR. That means a bill that simply funds the government without any extra demands or political strings attached.
But Democrats in the Senate have blocked it. Even though there are 55 votes in favor of reopening the government, the filibuster rule means they need 60 votes. That means at least five Democrats would have to cross party lines—and so far, they haven’t.
Why are they holding out? Democrats want to use the shutdown as leverage to force changes to health care and other policies. But that strategy has drawn backlash, not just from Republicans and the White House, but also from labor unions. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents around 800,000 federal workers, said plainly: “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.”
Even some Democrats are now calling for a partial reopening, but President Trump isn’t budging. He says negotiating with “hostage-takers” in Congress would only encourage more of the same in the future.
So what does this all mean?
It means that despite all the noise, President Trump kept his promise to take care of the troops. When others were willing to let military families go without pay to score political points, Trump found a way to get it done—not once, but twice.
In the end, the facts are clear. The troops got paid. The shutdown continues. And the pressure is now on Democrats to stop playing games and do their job.
As Senate Majority Leader John Thune put it: “We need five Democrats to show a little courage. Reopen the government and let’s get to work.”