Despite reports from the "fake media," President Donald Trump insisted on Twitter Tuesday that he was not caving on his border wall. Hours after the president typed that tweet, his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told CNN that Trump would indeed sign a budget bill that did not include funding for his precious border wall.
When asked on "The Lead with Jake Tapper" if Trump would sacrifice his border wall if it meant passing the budget and avoiding the looming government shutdown, Mulvaney indicated that he would. "Yeah," he said.
While funding for a wall looks less likely to be in this upcoming year's budget, Mulvaney said that there will be money allocated to the southern border.
"The offer that we received from the Democrats the last couple days included a good bit of money for border security," the White House budget director said.
Mulvaney counted this as a win for the president, arguing that this added security will enable Trump "to follow through on his promise to make that border more secure."
"We just thought that it would be a good first step to get these things that everybody agrees on and take that idea of a government shutdown off the table," Mulvaney said.
This change in tone and policy comes after Mexico called Trump's border wall an "unfriendly, hostile act" that was a "bad idea" and will not accomplish anything. Trump had pressured Congress to provide funds for the construction of a border wall, but suggested Monday that he would not insist on it and was willing to wait until the fall for his funding.
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