Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney Claims Trump Caved Because He Was ‘Winning the Battle’

Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney spent Sunday morning trying to argue that Donald Trump‘s big defeat on the government shutdown was actually caused by the fact that Trump was “winning” on the issue of building a border wall or fence or barrier or slat-art installation.

On this week’s edition of Fox News Sunday, fill-in host John Roberts asked Mulvaney “Did [Trump] cave to the Democrats?” and added “I think a lot of Republicans think that he capitulated here, because he really came away from 35 days of a government shutdown with nothing more than he could’ve had at least two weeks ago when Senator Graham propose the same thing and maybe even back to before this whole thing started.”

“No, I think what you’ve seen here is the president seeing an opportunity,” Mulvaney said. “Why he did what he did was because many Democrats had come to us, some of them privately, many of them spoke out publicly, that they are actually starting to agree with him on the necessity for a barrier on the southern border, and they had come to us and said Look, we agree with you, you’re winning the battle on the importance of a barrier on the southern border, but we simply cannot work with you while the government is open, excuse me, while the government is closed’.”

Mulvaney went on to cite Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) as Democrats who have spoken out publicly in support of barriers, but that’s simply not true. Durbin recently told CNN that he would support the existing level of barrier funding, while Clyburn says he would support a “smart wall, which is a euphemism for non-wall technology to secure the border.

Watch the clip above, via Fox News Channel.