Big fat lie o' the day
by digby
Nope. He clearly promised that he was going to directly extort 5-10 billion from Mexico.
Trump’s new insistence that he never envisioned Mexico writing a check to pay for the wall is contradicted by a since-archived memo posted on his campaign website in 2016. The memo, titled “Compelling Mexico to Pay for the Wall,” outlines a plan to pressure Mexico to put up funds for a border wall within three days of Trump taking office.
“It's an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year,” the memo says, referring to “remittances from Mexican nationals working in the United States.”
The memo says that Trump would propose on his first day in office a rule aimed at barring undocumented immigrants in the U.S. from wiring money outside the country, which Mexico would “immediately protest” on Day 2.
“On day 3 tell Mexico that if the Mexican government will contribute the funds needed to the United States to pay for the wall, the Trump Administration will not promulgate the final rule, and the regulation will not go into effect,” the memo states.
Also, remember this from January 2017:
Trump spent much of his call with Peña Nieto seeking to enlist the Mexican president in a deal to stop talking about how the wall would be paid for. Two days earlier, Trump had signed an executive order mandating construction of the wall, but funding for it remains unclear.
“On the wall, you and I both have a political problem,” Trump said. “My people stand up and say, ‘Mexico will pay for the wall,’ and your people probably say something in a similar but slightly different language.”
Trump seemed to acknowledge that his threats to make Mexico pay had left him cornered politically. “I have to have Mexico pay for the wall — I have to,” he said. “I have been talking about it for a two-year period.”
To solve that problem, Trump pressured Peña Nieto to suppress the issue. When pressed on who would pay for the wall, “We should both say, ‘We will work it out.’ It will work out in the formula somehow,” Trump said. “As opposed to you saying, ‘We will not pay,’ and me saying, ‘We will not pay.’ ”
Peña Nieto resisted, saying that Trump’s repeated threats had placed “a very big mark on our back, Mr. President.” He warned that “my position has been and will continue to be very firm, saying that Mexico cannot pay for the wall.”
Trump objected: “But you cannot say that to the press. The press is going to go with that, and I cannot live with that.”
Here's the first part of the memo at the Wayback machine:
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