President Donald Trump’s tweets this morning that seemingly contradicted his chief of staff’s comments on a border wall were not a sign of ‘frustration’ with John Kelly, the White House said on Thursday afternoon.
Kelly was not on a trip with Trump to Pennsylvania today, but it was not because of a tiff, a Trump spokesman said. The men met this morning in the Oval Office and Kelly accompanied the president to a briefing at the Pentagon before Trump departed.
‘His only frustration is with the media, and that’s what that tweet was about,’ deputy press secretary Raj Shah told reporters traveling with Trump on Air Force One. ‘They have a great relationship and that continues.’
President Donald Trump’s tweets this morning that seemingly contradicted his chief of staff’s comments on a border wall were not a sign of ‘frustration’ with John Kelly (back right) the White House said on Thursday afternoon
Kelly was not on a trip with Trump to Pennsylvania today, but it was not because of a tiff, a Trump spokesman said. The men met this morning in the Oval Office and Kelly accompanied the president to a briefing at the Pentagon before Trump departed
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly gets out of the limousine as Trump (not pictured) departs on an helicopter after a meeting at the Pentagon this morning
Yesterday, Kelly said in a Fox News interview that Trump had ‘changed’ the way he looks at some issues since taking office. He used the border wall as an example of a position that had ‘evolved.’
This morning, Trump said it wasn’t true in a string of tweets that claimed his beliefs about the wall are the same now as they were when he was a candidate.
‘The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it,’ the president tweeted. ‘Parts will be, of necessity, see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water.’
‘The Wall will be paid for, directly or indirectly, or through longer term reimbursement, by Mexico, which has a ridiculous $71 billion dollar trade surplus with the U.S.,’ he said.
Finishing the rant, Trump said, ‘The $20 billion dollar Wall is “peanuts” compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S.
‘NAFTA is a bad joke!’ he added, referencing the negotiations he initiated to redo or cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Yesterday, Kelly said in a Fox News interview that Trump had ‘changed’ the way he looks at some issues since taking office. He used the border wall as an example of a position that had ‘evolved.’ Trump denied that in a string of tweets this morning
‘The Wall is the Wall,’ Trump tweeted, saying that it ‘will be paid for, directly or indirectly, or through longer term reimbursement, by Mexico’
Kelly acknowledged Wednesday that Trump had ‘changed’ his position on major campaign pledges like the border wall that was supposed to stretch from sea to shining sea.
At a meeting on Wednesday with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Capitol Hill Kelly reportedly said that some of Trump’s views were ‘uninformed.’ He also admitted that Mexico will not be paying for a border structure, the Washington Post reported.
‘As we talked about things, where this president is and how much he wants to deal with this DACA issue and take it away,’ Kelly told Fox News later, ‘I told them there’s been an evolutionary process that this president’s gone through.’
During his meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Kelly took credit for being ‘the one who tempered’ Trump’s positions on building a wall, Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona told the New York Times.
Kelly was the DHS secretary until late July, when Trump tapped him to replace Reince Priebus as chief of staff.
On Fox, Kelly said that he told Democrats lawmakers that all politicians take positions in their campaigns that ‘may or may not be fully informed,’ and Trump has ‘changed the way he’s looked at a number of things’ since becoming president.
‘He’s very definitely changed his attitudes toward the DACA issue and even the wall once we briefed him,’ Kelly, the former Department of Homeland Security head, said of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly acknowledged Wednesday that President Donald Trump has ‘changed’ his position on major campaign pledges like the border wall that was supposed to stretch from sea to shining sea
‘He’s very definitely changed his attitudes toward the DACA issue and even the wall once we briefed him,’ Kelly, the former Department of Homeland Security head said
‘So he has evolved in the way he’s looked at things,’ Kelly assessed. ‘Campaign to governing are two different things. And this president is very, very flexible in terms of what is within the realm of the possible’
The retired general told Bret Baier on Wednesday evening that Customs and Border Protection experts told Trump last year after surveying the land between the U.S. and Mexico that a wall ‘would not be realistic’ in some areas.
Plots along the border ‘are so wild and untamed that there is no traffic that goes through them’ in certain place, Kelly explained. In other spots along the 600 miles where border structures already exist the experts determined ‘the fencing would suffice,’ he said.
The administration now believes it can build a wall in the areas it needs, roughly 800 additional miles beyond the existing fencing, for $20 billion, the White House chief of staff said.
‘So he has evolved in the way he’s looked at things,’ Kelly assessed. ‘Campaign to governing are two different things. And this president is very, very flexible in terms of what is within the realm of the possible.’
That includes his pledge that Mexico will pay for the wall.
‘It’s possible that we could get the revenue from Mexico but not directly from their government,’ Kelly admitted.
The White House is in the middle of negotiations with Congress to fund the border wall and prevent Dreamers from being deported, which is why Kelly was on the Hill today in the first place
He said that the administration has ‘some ideas’ on how it might otherwise get Mexico to pay using visa fees or through the reenogtiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Last week, in a Thursday interview with the Wall Street Journal, the president insisted that he would get Mexico to pay for the wall, possibly with NAFTA money.
‘They can pay for it indirectly through Nafta. OK? You know, we make a good deal on Nafta, say I’m going to take a small percentage of that money and it’s going to go toward the wall,’ he stated.
Trump claimed then that the wall was ‘never meant to be 2,100 miles long’ and run along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.
‘We have mountains that are far better than a wall, we have violent rivers that nobody goes near,’ he said. ‘But you don’t need a wall where you have a natural barrier that’s far greater than any wall you could build, OK?’
The White House is in the middle of negotiations with Congress to fund the border wall and prevent Dreamers from being deported, which is why Kelly was on the Hill today in the first place.
A group of six senators presented Trump with a deal last week that would do both, but the president rejected it because it did not include the total amount he was demanding for the wall or the restructuring of the visa system he said he wants.
Trump came under fire for the refusal yesterday by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is a part of the ‘Gang of Six’ senators who presented the plan.
Graham said that Trump wasn’t ‘well-served’ by staff, including Kelly, considering the president had said at a meeting two days prior that he’d sign basically any immigration deal that lawmakers bring him and seemed enthusiastic Thursday morning about the deal on the table.
Kelly told Baier that after calling other senators who’d been working on immigration after the call, though, he learned that they had been left out of the loop. So had the House speaker and House majority whip.
‘It was bipartisan no doubt,’ Kelly said, ‘but it was from a focus group of bipartisan senators.’
For Trump to accept a deal, the senior aide said, it would have to include the full border wall funding and restrict companion visas to the spouses and minor children of work visa awardees.
Kelly said he had a ‘great conversation’ today on Capitol Hill with the chair of the Hispanic caucus and other architects of immigration legislation that’s under consideration.
‘And this will lead, eventually, to, I believe, a solution to DACA.’