In Leaked Transcript Trump Begs Mexico’s President to Stop Saying He Won’t Pay for the Wall

‘You Cannot Say That to the Press’ Trump Urges Peña Nieto

For 18 months Donald Trump campaigned on building a wall on America’s southern border, and promised countless — hundreds if not thousands of times — that Mexico would pay for it “100%.” But just seven days after he was sworn in as president, Donald Trump begged President Enrique Peña Nieto to stop saying Mexico would not pay for the wall, and promised him a deal so that the costs of construction would even out between the two countries.

“You cannot say that to the press,” Trump told the Mexican president, speaking of Peña Nieto’s very public remarks refusing to pay for Trump’s wall, according to a complete transcript obtained by The Washington Post.

Trump told his counterpart, “if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that.”

Between taxes and tariffs and other financial options Trump promised the costs “will work out in the formula somehow,” and, “it will come out in the wash, and that is okay,” meaning neither country would be the loser. 

“The only thing I will ask you though is on the wall, you and I both have a political problem,” Trump says in his January 27 telephone conversation with President Peña Nieto. “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 continued. 

“But the fact is we are both in a little bit of a political bind because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall – I have to [bolding added]. I have been talking about it for a two year period, and the reason I say they are going to pay for the wall is because Mexico has made a fortune out of the stupidity of U.S. trade representatives. They are beating us at trade and they are beating us at the border, and they are killing us with drugs. Now I know you are not involved with that, but regardless of who is making all the money, billions and billions and billions – some people say more – is being made on drug trafficking that is coming through Mexico. Some people say that the business of drug trafficking is bigger than the business of taking our factory jobs,” Trump added.

“So what I would like to recommend is – if we are going to have continued dialogue – we will work out the wall. They are going to say, ‘who is going to pay for the wall, Mr. President?’ to both of us, and we should both say, ‘we will work it out.’ It will work out in the formula somehow. As opposed to you saying, ‘we will not pay’ and me saying, ‘we will not pay.'”

“Because,” Trump continued in his telephone call, “you and I are both at a point now where we are both saying we are not to pay for the wall. From a political standpoint, that is what we will say. We cannot say that anymore because if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that. I am willing to say that we will work it out, but that means it will come out in the wash and that is okay. But you cannot say anymore that the United States is going to pay for the wall,” Trump begged. 

“I am just going to say that we are working it out. Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important talk about. But in terms of dollars – or pesos – it is the least important thing. I know how to build very inexpensively, so it will be much lower than these numbers I am being presented with, and it will be a better wall and it will look nice. And it will do the job.

Six months later Trump would meet President Peña Nieto face to face, and tell reporters present that Mexico “absolutely” would be paying for the wall.

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