Throughout Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign, he would lead his crowds in call-and-response chants about his signature plan for a wall on the southern border of the United States. “Who’s going to pay for it?” he would yell. “Mexico!” his supporters would cheer back.
But now he’s added a major caveat to that plan.
“The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed), will be paid back by Mexico later!” the President-elect tweeted early Friday morning.
The key word in Trump’s tweet that marks the change in policy is “later.” His response came after CNN published a story reporting that Trump will ask Congress to fund the wall through the appropriations process, not Mexico. (The report notes that in October, Trump suggested for the first time that Mexico could reimburse the United States for the cost of the wall rather than pay for its construction up front.)
Now it appears that Trump is going with the reimbursement plan and asking taxpayers for the money first to move things along more quickly, possibly because Mexican leaders have been adamant that they won’t actually pay for it.
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