Again, let's make a deal on the border, not spark another shutdown

She said it ever so subtly, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made clear this past week she is ready to compromise on border funding.

She will not do it, though — she cannot do it — unless she is given a way to save face.

"There's not going to be any wall money in the legislation,” she said. “However, if they have some suggestions about certain localities, technology, some infrastructure ... that's part of the negotiation."

Pelosi did not directly propose a “fence” instead of a “wall,” but she implied nearly as much. "There's 600 miles of something,” she said. “Three hundred miles of them are Normandy fences. If the president wants to call that a wall, he can call it a wall. ... So, again, if there's a place where enhanced fencing, Normandy fencing, would work? Let them have that discussion."

Pelosi went from there to discuss the cost-benefit analysis of border barriers, implying that a fence would be cheaper and more efficient than a wall.