WASHINGTON _ In a series of tweets Thursday morning, President Trump undercut a deal by Republican lawmakers to keep the government open past Friday and contradicted his chief of staff's comments that Trump had "evolved" on his promised border wall.
By slamming the proposed government-funding plan, Trump also undermined his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who told reporters on Wednesday that the president supported the Republicans' strategy. Their bill would provide short-term funding for government operations and, to attract votes, reauthorize a popular health insurance program for children in low-income families.
But Trump wrote on Twitter, using the program's acronym: "CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!"
Republican leaders in Congress already were scrambling to gather votes for their plan to fund the government for another month until a longer-term deal can be made on federal spending and immigration. Trump's comments raised the odds of a shutdown.
Trump also pushed back against his own chief of staff, John F. Kelly, who had told lawmakers Wednesday that Trump's border wall promise was "uninformed" and Mexico unlikely to pay for it. Kelly repeated his comments during a Fox News interview Wednesday night, saying Trump had "evolved" and changed his views on "a number of things" since entering the White House.
Politicians take campaign positions that "may or may not be fully informed" Kelly told Fox News Wednesday night.
"Campaigning and governing are two different things and this president has been very, very flexible in terms of what is in the realm of the possible," Kelly said.
But Trump, in a note of discord with his top-ranking aide, Trump denied he's "evolved" on building a wall across the U.S. border with Mexico.
"The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it," Trump wrote on Twitter. "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."
