Trump confirms he is working on Democrat DACA deal without wall funding despite White House denying it

'The wall will come later,' the President says

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One (AP)

After hours of denial from the White House, President Donald Trump confirmed he is working on a plan with Democrats to protect young immigrants – without guaranteeing money for his border wall.

Departing for Florida to coordinate hurricane recovery efforts, the President stopped to brief reporters on the news of the day. Over the roar of helicopter engines, Mr Trump said he is working on a plan to save Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and implement “massive border controls”. Funding for the wall, he said, “will come later”.

Rumours of such a plan had swirled since the night before, when top congressional Democrats claimed they had reached an agreement with Mr Trump on DACA – an Obama-era policy that protects some childhood immigrants brought illegally to the United States.

The deal, Democrats said, would enshrine protections of DACA into law. It would not contain funding for the border wall.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly pushed back, tweeting: “While DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to.”

But Mr Trump's latest statement, in which he also promised "massive border security," indicated that funding for the border wall was indeed off the table – for the moment.

Mr Trump described the parameters of an agreement on the fate of the roughly 800,000 so-called Dreamers - those protected under DACA to learn, work and lieve in the US without fear of deportation - reached in his White House meeting on Wednesday evening with top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer and top House of Representatives Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

“We have to have an understanding that, whether it's in the budget or some other vehicle, in a very short period of time the wall will be funded. Otherwise, we're not doing anything,” Mr Trump said after landing in Florida to survey hurricane damage.

Mr Schumer and Ms Pelosi reiterated their opposition to the wall, and Democrats in the past have promised to block funding for it.

Mr Trump said that “we're not looking at citizenship” for the Dreamers, a comment that differed with how Ms Pelosi and Mr Schumer described their understanding with the president.

They told reporters Mr Trump had embraced the provisions of a bipartisan proposal called the Dream Act that would grant permanent legal resident status to Dreamers who qualify, allowing them to attend college, work and serve in the US military without fear of deportation. It also would provide a pathway to U.S. citizenship after at least eight years.

Before Mr Trump made his comment on citizenship, a White House spokeswoman, Lindsay Walters, told reporters travelling with him to Florida that the administration would discuss “a responsible path forward” that could include “legal citizenship over a period of time.”

Working with Democrats to preserve DACA – especially without significant progress on the border wall – could be politically disastrous for Mr Trump. While most Americans support some form of protections for Dreamers, the idea is highly unpopular with Mr Trump’s nationalist base.

One White House aide told Politico that if Mr Trump floundered on border security, conservatives would “revolt”. A headline on Breitbart, home to Mr Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon, read: “Dems Declare Victory as Trump Caves on DACA”.

After the Associated Press broke the news of the deal last night, Republican Representative Steve King blasted the President on Twitter.

“If AP is correct, Trump base is blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair,” he wrote.

Republican leadership, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Pail Ryan, both of whom have had a tense relationship with Mr Trump, also made comments that suggested they might not be on board, as the president said.

“There is no agreement,” Ryan told reporters about DACA. “I think the president understands that he's got to work the congressional majority,” he told reporters, referring to Republicans, adding that “we have not begun negotiations,” although he expected a compromise to be reached.

“As Congress debates the best ways to address illegal immigration through strong border security and interior enforcement, DACA should be part of those discussions. We look forward to receiving the Trump administration's legislative proposal as we continue our work on these issues,” Mr McConnell said in a statement.

But working with Democrats – Mr Schumer and Ms Pelosi – has become something of a trend for Mr Trump.

Last week, he agreed to a Democratic debt ceiling deal that astounded his fellow Republicans with its leniency. After he announced the repeal of DACA earlier this month, Ms Pelosi reportedly convinced him to tweet that the Dreamers had “nothing to worry about”.

On Thursday morning, following a late-night dinner meeting with Ms Pelosi and Mr Schumer, the President tweeted out uncharacteristic sympathy for DACA recipients.

“Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?” Mr Trump wrote. “Really! They have been in our country for many years through no fault of their own - brought in by parents at young age.”

But when his helicopters landed in Florida, Mr Trump made sure to clarify that building the wall is still very important to his agenda – even if it isn't included in this particular deal.

"Very important is the wall," he said, according to pool reports. "…It doesn’t have to be here, but [Democrats] can’t obstruct the wall if its in a budget or anything else.”

However, while the DACA issue had been the main topic throughout the day for Mr Trump, comments on Air Force One as he was returning to Washington overshadowed the debate.

Talking to reporters Mr Trump revived his assertions that he thought there were “bad dudes” among the people who assembled to oppose a white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month.

Mr Trump latest comments came one day after he met in private with Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the Senate's lone black Republican, at the White House. The two discussed the president's past remarks blaming “many sides” for the violence around a Confederate statue protest.

Recounting his conversation with Mr Scott, Mr Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday: “I think especially in light of the advent of antifa [an umbrella term for far left anti-fascist groups], if you look at what's going on there, you know, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also. And essentially that's what I said.”

“A lot of people are saying — in fact a lot of people have actually written, 'Gee Trump might have a point,”' Mr Trump said. “I said, 'You got some very bad people on the other side also,' which is true.”

Mr Trump last month said there were “very fine people” among the nationalists and neo-Nazis protesting the possible removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville. A woman, Heather Heyer, died amid violence after a car was driven into a crowd of counter-protesters. A man has been charged over her killing.