with our jon karl in the room, the president signals that down payment was just one idea. so is there movement tonight? our senior white house correspondent jonathan karl to lead us off. >> reporter: compromise brewing? tonight president trump tells us he is open to a temporary deal to reopen the government and didn't rule out supporting it without money for the border wall. would you support a temporary spending bill without money for the wall? just to reopen? >> i wouldn't be happy with it. i wouldn't be happy. we have a lot of alternatives. >> even if it has no wall money? does it have to have wall money? >> look, look. i have other alternatives if i have to. i'll use those alternatives if i have to. we want to go through the system. we have to have a wall in this country. >> reporter: this comes less than 24 hours after the president backed down from his showdown with house speaker nancy pelosi over his state of the union address. now the president told us the speaker's demand that the speech be delayed until after the shutdown was over is, quote, reasonable. >> what she said, i thought, was actually reasonable. we'll have the state of the union when the shutdown is over.