Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that President Trump would be willing to "give up a concrete wall, replace it with a steel fence" at the U.S.-Mexico border in order to appease Democrats and end the government shutdown.
Background: While Trump floated his own "totally effective" and "beautiful" steel version of a border wall last month, Mulvaney's semantics on the issue highlight the still-vast distance between the White House and congressional Democrats. After a 16-day shutdown, little headway has been made in negotiations, and Vice President Mike Pence said yesterday that the White House won't accept anything less than the $5.7 billion in wall funding it originally requested.
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