After White House chief of staff John Kelly said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s views on the border wall and immigration have evolved since the election, the President on Thursday morning fired off tweets insisting that nothing has changed.
Trump claimed that he never called for the wall to stretch along the entire southern border and refused to back off his dubious prediction that Mexico will pay for the wall.
The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. 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…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018
….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. The $20 billion dollar Wall is “peanuts” compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S. NAFTA is a bad joke!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018
Trump did not name Kelly in his tweets, but the frustration in his morning rant was clearly aimed at his chief of staff.
Kelly’s remarks about Trump’s views on immigration were first reported by the Washington Post Wednesday night. Kelly told lawmakers in a closed-door meeting that some of Trump’s immigration policy proposals during the campaign were “uninformed,” per the Washington Post. He said that the U.S. would not build a wall along the entire southern border and that Mexico would not pay for it, the Post reported.
The chief of staff followed up with an interview on Fox News, during which he said he told congressional lawmakers that candidates “all say things during the course of campaigns that may or may not be fully informed.” Kelly told Fox that Trump has “very definitely changed his attitude” on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and on the wall.
“So he has evolved in the way he’s looked at things,” Kelly said on Fox News. “Campaign to governing are two different things and this president has been very, very flexible in terms of what is within the realms of the possible.”
