White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp seemed to move the goalposts on the border wall debate Friday morning, bizarrely accusing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of being fixated on a “concrete wall” while the President would happily take any “physical barrier.”
“Speaker Pelosi gets stuck with seeing the wall as concrete,” Schlapp told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson. “The President has said multiple times we are dealing with steel slats, we’re dealing with that there are other ways to make sure there are physical barriers there.”
“He’s said wall, he’s said physical barrier, he’s said steel slats,” she continued, trying to distance Trump from his signature campaign promise.
The nearly two-week shutdown began when Trump refused to accept any funding bill that omitted money for his long-promised border wall, a point Democrats refuse to concede.
Now, the two chambers are at an impasse: the Democratic-majority House has already voted on and passed spending bills (sans wall funding), but they are likely dead on arrival at the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) allowed funding legislation on the floor weeks ago, which the Senate passed unanimously, only to have the rug yanked out from under him when Trump reneged on Vice President Mike Pence’s promise of a signature.
Watch Schlapp’s interview here:
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) January 4, 2019
