DEMS/JOHN KELLY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump’s chief of staff privately told a group of Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday [1-17-18] that Mr. Trump had not been ‘fully informed’ when promising voters a wall along the Mexican border last year, and said that he had persuaded the president it was not necessary. He also expressed optimism that a bipartisan immigration deal could eventually be reached.
John F. Kelly, the retired Marine general credited with bringing a measure of discipline to Mr. Trump’s chaotic White House during his six months as chief of staff, told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he had educated the president about the issue of immigration, adding that Mr. Trump had ‘evolved’ on the wall. But President Trump directly contradicted the chief of staff on Thursday, saying his position on building the wall had not ‘evolved.’…
The comments Mr. Kelly made Wednesday were an unusual instance of a White House chief of staff seeming to undercut public statements made by the president, in the process contradicting the central message of ‘Build the wall’ that defined Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. The president has recently begun to temper his own statements about the wall, telling a group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers at the White House last week that a 2,000-mile structure would not be needed because parts of the border would be impassable.”
-Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Thomas Kaplan, “Trump Was Not ‘Fully Informed’ in Campaign Vows on Wall, Chief of Staff Says,” The New York Times online, Jan. 17, 2018