‘Сoncrete wall’ or ‘beautiful steel slats’: Trump & outgoing Kelly at odds over border wall plans

Plans for a concrete border wall were “never” dropped, US President Donald Trump has said, despite outgoing chief of staff John Kelly claiming earlier that Trump simply used the word “wall” but actually meant “fence” or “barrier.”

But the president seems to have taken issue with that explanation, and tweeted defiantly on Monday morning, confirming that his long-held desire for a fully-concrete wall at the southern border to curb illegal immigration was “NEVER ABANDONED” despite what “has been reported by the media.”

The president appears to have been referring to the two-hour long exit interview Kelly gave to the Los Angeles Times, which was published on Sunday. In the interview, Kelly said that the idea of a concrete wall had been left behind “early on” in Trump’s administration. “To be honest, it’s not a wall,” Kelly said, adding that while Trump still uses the word wall, what he really means is a “barrier,” “fencing” or even “steel slats.”

But while Trump seems eager to dispel the notion that he has given up on a regular all-concrete wall, as Kelly claimed, he also seemed to contradict himself in the tweet, admitting that some border patrol experts would prefer a “see through” wall in “some areas” so they could “see what is happening on both sides.” It’s unclear exactly what an all-concrete “see through” wall might look like.

Trump has also used similar wording to Kelly in recent weeks, saying the wall could be a “beautiful” structure of “artistically designed steel slats.”

During his interview with the Times, Kelly also said that the zero-tolerance policy at the border, which had resulted in the separation of children and parents, which caused international outrage, had been the then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision and it came as a “surprise” to the White House.

“What happened was Jeff Sessions, he was the one that instituted the zero-tolerance process on the border that resulted in both people being detained and the family separation,” Kelly said.

READ MORE: Fundraiser aims to build tunnels under Trump’s border wall

Kelly, who held the “bone-crushing hard job” of chief of staff for a year and a half, also said that Trump never asked him to break the law, saying that if the president had said “do it, or you're fired” he would have resigned.

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