Kellyanne Conway says Trump has 'discovered' there are rivers and mountains on the border that make a physical wall unfeasible

President Trump has vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, claiming during the campaign that the project "is easy, and it can be done inexpensively." At the time, experts warned him that it was not, in fact, simple and cheap — "our southern border is a mixture of winding river, desert, and mountains," former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned in October 2016. "Simply building more fences is not the answer."

CNN's Chris Cuomo went after that point on Wednesday night in conversation with presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway. Cuomo criticized Trump's newfound willingness to drop plans for a physical wall after he had insisted on one so determinedly during 2016. "When the president was promising it's going to be a big new wall all the way across, I'll build it in a year, people said exactly what you're saying now," Cuomo told Conway. "And [Trump] shook his head in defiance and said 'no, not me, that's these other guys.'" Cuomo added: "It's not a metaphor, it's not a fence, it doesn't mean sensors, it's a wall."

Conway, though, said Trump has since "discovered" that a physical wall is not feasible. "There are rivers involved, I'm told," Conway said (this is not a rumor, there is in fact an actual river). "There are mountains involved, there's terrain that isn't conducive to building an actual physical structure in some places."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

There might be one or two people out there sighing, "I told you so." Watch below. Jeva Lange