Facing ridicule from members of his own party, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is backing down from his comments that building a wall along the U.S. northern border is a topic for “legitimate” discussion.
“I never talked about a wall of the north, I’m certainly not now. That’s just what happens when things get run amok,” Walker told Fox News on Tuesday morning.
“This is just a joke in terms of how people react to things. I’ve said for some time that you need to secure the southern border. I’ve talked about the infrastructure, the personnel, the technology needed there. I’ve talked about enforcing the laws,” Walker said. “People should go back and actually watch what I said, I didn’t say that at all.”
Walker came under fire Monday after saying Sunday that talk of building a wall along the U.S. border with Canada was a “legitimate” discussion.
“Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire,” Walker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that is a legitimate issue for us to look at.”
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul replied Monday “That’s a pretty dumb idea,” and Mike Murphy, who’s running Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise super PAC, tweeted that the comment showed Walker is “#notready.”
This is the second time in recent days that Walker has struggled with an issue. Two weeks ago, Walker shuffled between three answers on “birthright citizenship” before saying he would oppose ending it.