at this point because it can t get through a democratic senate and people want to go home for christmas and the president is not fighting for it. has not been making phone calls to capitol hill and the white house keeps sending out conflicting messages about what he wants to sign so republicans can t rally around anything because the president isn t sending a clear message. it s a very confused way to end a year on essential campaign promise. no one getting clear message from the president seems to be the only consistent message that anyone has gotten. the phrase you and i heard is not pay for the wall. this has changed from what donald trump promised. this was the fundamental piece of his campaign. this was his core value was going to be this wall as the symbol of his very hard line immigration policies.
he is being dealt with a defeat here. he hasn t gotten this done. white house aides says the president doesn t want to review this. it was telling this morning on fox and friends not only were they pretty hard on kellyanne conway but their rhetoric was hard on the president suggesting he was bested here. this is good for pelosi and not for him. he s caving on the wall. does he want to go to mar a lago and spent two weeks down there while there s a government shutdown, while federal employees aren t getting paid.
it s a stretch. congress hasn t signed off on the deal. if they do, it generates more business for u.s. companies but the presumption is the u.s. companies would generate more profit and presumably pay more taxes. the only way the u.s. treasury gets more money is if u.s. companies, american taxpayers are paying more. obviously the white house concerned about optics here. trying to feel like they are not backing down from what kellyanne conway says is an essential promise from the president. what is the deal from the wall and who is really stopping the president from getting it? is it the democrats or the house republicans? reporter: republicans don t want the wall. they want it more than democrats but they don t want the wall as much either. they re not fighting for it. this legislation isn t
lemier. peter, there s a divided congress coming in in january. democrats will take over the house. donald trump may run for re-election. he may win. maybe he will gain control of house. does the white house see this as their last chance on the wall. let s walk you through this right now. about that cr, white house officials are waiting to see on the language of this short term spending bill. they are not committing to the tilie i timing. the white house signal this recrete from the president s demand that congress give them that $5 billion for the wall. about his tweet this morning, he claims that mexico is paying indirectly for the wall through the usmca. far more money coming to the u.s. here is a fact check. when the president says mexico will pay for the wall indirectly thanks to the new trade agreement with the to countries,
we know he wants to golf. that s not going to happen around d.c. with temperatures around freezing. the president is concerned the way this looks. this wasn t a concrete wall but it will be a beautiful wall that would have steel slabs that you could see through. if you go back to the campaign that you and i covered, can you imagine in that rebranded to say who will build that wall but who will build that steel slatted wall that you can see through. we were going to reappropriate that money. don t worry it s not taxpayer money even though it s taxpayer money. reporter: exactly. the bottom line is we know where this is headed. they can see this is something they wanted to get done and their window may be closing.