Despite Past Remarks, Donald Trump Says He Wants A Wall And Not A Fence At The Mexican Border

Maybe Donald Trump needs to have a conversation with himself when it comes to the Mexican border wall.

During the President-elect’s first press conference since (long) before the election, Trump stated, “It’s not a fence, it’s a wall. You just misreported it,” when discussing the much bandied about border defense project. Was he bristling at the characterization of the project as “a fence?” Perhaps, but the optics aren’t great because, in an interview with 60 Minutes shortly after his victory over Hillary Clinton, words about parts of the wall being a fence fell out of Trump’s own mouth.

To be fair, if you take these words at face value, you’re judging Trump on what he said and not on the contents of his heart, though.

Trump also spoke about his eagerness to kick off the wall project and not wait for financing to come through from Mexico. However, Trump again assured that Mexico will eventually pay, adding that it will come, “whether it’s a tax or whether it’s a payment” before conceding that it is “probably less likely that it’s a payment.” Is he referring to the proposal that was floated during the campaign to block wire payments that filter down to Mexico from Mexicans in the U.S. or is there some other method of extracting billions from an unwilling country that is on the table?

Time will tell.

Two things are clear, though: Donald Trump really wants to build a wall-like structure bigly and quickly and when he says that Mexico has been nice throughout this process, he’s probably not talking about former Mexican President Vincente Fox.