mr. president, you were gentleman to have mexico pay for this through the campaign. he said he was not giving up on the idea. the mechanism won t be so direct as mexico cutting a check to the united states, rather, the u.s., the trump administration is now in the midst of these complicated renegotiations of nafta and through the nafta process, there would be some kind of allowance made that would cover the cost of the wall. that was the explanation given to us. there wasn t pa lot of detail on that. but it was the first we heard he was going to use nafta as the vehicle to do it. he se critical of nafta. he doesn t think it s worked. he said we would be better off wiping it out entirely and starting oempd and he is perfectly prepared to pull out but right now he is renegotiating it. the sense we got through him, through that renegotiation, there would be money set aside that would cover the wall.
and sickening if it was what was reported. as we watched the meeting two days ago, the 55-minute televised meeting, we saw republicans jumping in to correct the president. kevin mccarthy saying this isn t what we believe, mr. president. joe and others have asked why people like joe ryan and mitch mcconnell haven t stepped forward more strongly when he says what he s alleged to have said about things like haitian immigrants. when you talk to your colleagues in the senate, what do they say about him that they re not saying publicly? they certainly express huge frustration, especially those who like me are in the senate to fight for the constituents who sent us there, to fight for our states. i think the conflict in terms of whether they speak out or not is wanting to get stuff done, and i know right now obviously we re