A border security compromise that Congress hopes to produce doesn't have to include the word 'wall,' the top House Republican said Tuesday, signaling a rhetorical retreat from a term that President Donald Trump made a keystone of his presidential campaign.

The remark by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the legislative body, came a day before Republican and Democratic congressional bargainers begin meetings aimed at striking a deal on a border security package.

It was the latest sign that both sides are suggesting flexibility and trying to look reasonable as talks begin.

'It could be barrier. It doesn't have to be a wall,' McCarthy told reporters.

A border security compromise that Congress hopes to produce doesn't have to include the word 'wall,' the top House Republican said Tuesday, signaling a rhetorical retreat from a term that President Donald Trump made a keystone of his presidential campaign

Trump's demand that lawmakers provide $5.7 billion to build segments of his prized wall along the border with Mexico prompted the just-ended 35-day partial federal shutdown.

The government reopened Monday for three weeks, giving the administration and Congress more time to craft a border security compromise.

Trump has threatened to renew the shutdown if no accord is reached or to declare a national emergency, which he says would let him snatch money from other budget accounts to begin construction.

Most Republicans say they'd oppose a second shutdown, and many lawmakers from both parties say an emergency declaration in this instance would be an overreach of his powers.

In recent weeks, Trump has veered between using the terms 'wall' or 'barrier.' He's retreated increasingly from 'wall' as it became apparent that he lacked the votes in Congress to win taxpayer financing for the project, which he initially said would be financed by Mexico.

In recent weeks, Trump has veered between using the terms 'wall' or 'barrier.' He's retreated increasingly from 'wall' as it became apparent that he lacked the votes in Congress to win taxpayer financing for the project

His descriptions of how it would be constructed have also changed, with early references to concrete more recently evolving into a structure using steel slats.

McCarthy said wall and barrier mean the same thing to him and Trump.

'Inside the meetings we've had, he's said it could be a barrier, it could be a wall,' said McCarthy. 'Because what a barrier does, it's still the same thing. It's the 30-foot steel slat, that's a barrier.'

Democrats have opposed providing money to build the wall. But they've left the door open to providing money for physical barriers of some sort, along with scanning equipment and more border patrol personnel and immigration judges.

'There are many kinds of walls and so I think that we're going to try to find common ground,' No. 3 House Democratic leader James Clyburn of South Carolina said in a brief interview.

'Right now we have existing fencing, barriers, levees at different points,' said Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, another member of the Democratic House leadership. 'But what we aren't going to do is use taxpayer money to fund a political applause line.'

RETREAT: Trump said Friday that he would reopen the government - for now - while border talks continue. He originally said he wouldn't do that but retreated, even as he threatened to come back swinging with a national emergency

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders warned Democrats on Monday afternoon that they will 'get virtually nothing' if they put Trump in the position of having to solve the border wall fight by declaring a national emergency.

Sanders said that Trump has 'perfectly set' the table for a long-term agreement.

'If they don't come back with a deal, that means Democrats get virtually nothing. That will make the president, and force him, to have to take executive action that does not give Democrats the things that they want,' Sanders said in her first press briefing of 2019.

She added: 'So this is a perfect time and the table has been perfectly set by the president in order for a good deal to come together where everybody gets a little something they're looking for.'

The president's spokeswoman didn't rule out another government shutdown in three weeks when the funding legislation that the president signed over the weekend runs out.

She told DailyMail.com that federal workers who were furloughed for more than a month before and have had trouble making ends meet amid missed paychecks should call their Member of Congress and complain.

'The president doesn't want to go through another shutdown, that's not the goal,' she told reporters.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders warned Democrats on Monday afternoon that they will 'get virtually nothing' if he solves the border wall fight by declaring a national emergency

A deal has to be reached by Feb. 15 or the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and other federal agencies such as the FBI will be shuttered once again.

Trump seemed to be moving toward a national emergency, however, as he repeatedly referred on to 'alternatives' on Friday that he could rely on, if Democrats do not provide him with the $5.7 billion he's demanded for his border wall.

They rejected an offer to trade the money for a three-year reprieve for immigrants living in America under Temporary Protected Status designations and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals beneficiaries.

DACA is a program that former President Barack Obama put in place that provides papers to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. The Trump administration ended it but courts have said that it must remain in place while the merits of both sides' arguments are debated.

A bipartisan commission of lawmakers is sitting down now to try and hash out a border security deal before the new deadline comes into play.

'I personally think it's less than 50-50, but you have a lot of very good people on that board,' the president told the Wall Street Journal over the weekend.

He said that a shutdown in three weeks is 'certainly an option' in the interview with the publication on Sunday.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday morning that Trump is willing to shut down the government again in three weeks in order to secure the border.

'Yeah I think he actually is. Keep in mind he's willing to do whatever it takes to secure the border. He does take this very seriously,' Mulvaney said Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation.'

Mulvaney said, 'He doesn't want to shut the government down. Let's make that very clear. He doesn't want to declare national emergency. What he wants to do is fix this the way things are supposed to get fixed with our government, which is through legislation.'

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said President Donald Trump is willing to shutdown the government again in three weeks in order to secure the border

President Donald Trump announced on Friday a deal to end the 35-day government shutdown

During the 35-day government shutdown - the longest in American history - 800,000 furloughed federal workers went two pay periods with blank paychecks.

A string of federal services were halted, as well, that resulted in overflowing trash cans in national parks and flight delays due to a shortage in transportation workers.

Trump signed a bill Friday to reopen the government for three weeks, backing down from his demand that Congress fund his border wall before federal agencies get back to work. He claimed in tweets over the weekend that he made 'no concessions' in the negotiations as he went to war with friendly media.

Mulvaney refused to say Sunday whether Trump would take less than the $5.7 billion in the next round of talks, contending that the negotiations would take place in private.

'This is not something where the president's married to a number, he's married to border security,' he offered, though, on Fox News' flagship program. 'The president's commitment is to defend the nation, and he will do it either with or without Congress.'

Republican lawmakers making the Sunday show rounds were neither enthusiastic about the idea of another government shutdown nor Trump declaring a national emergency.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (left) said the shutdown resulted in the status quo while Republican Sen. Susan Collins (right) said nothing good came out of it

Republican Senators Roy Blunt (left) and Marco Rubio (right) both cautioned the president against using a national emergency to get funds for his wall

'Nobody likes to go into a shutdown. But the one thing I would see, especially if you're looking at winners and losers, I don't know why someone would celebrate a status quo,' McCarthy said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'

Moderate GOP Sen. Susan Collins said 'nothing' good came out of the shutdown.

'I would say absolutely nothing,' she told CBS. 'Shutdowns are never good policy, ever. They are never to be used as a means to achieve any kind of goal no matter how important that goal may seem to be. They are ineffective, they cause tremendous harm to innocent federal employees and their families who are struggling to pay their bills without paychecks.'

Two other Republican senators cautioned the president about using a national emergency declaration to siphon off funds to build his wall.

'I think it's a bad precedent. I hope the president doesn't have to go there. If we'll do our job, he won't even have to consider going there three weeks from now,' said Sen. Roy Blunt on 'Fox News Sunday.'

'I don't think it's a good idea. I think it'll be a terrible idea. I hope he doesn't do it,' Sen. Marco Rubio said on 'Meet the Press' on NBC.

He said he would 'fight' the president on the idea but added: 'I don't think we'll have to fight, because I'm not sure they'll end up doing that.'

Mulvaney said he thinks negotiations will be different with Democrats in the 21 days Trump gave lawmakers to come to an agreement, because the White House has heard from Democrats who support them on building a barrier on the border.

'So many of them had come to us and said, you know what, we think you might be right on this barrier thing, but we cannot negotiate with you during a shutdown. We don't like the fact that a president might use a shutdown as a negotiating tool, so if you open the government up, we'll negotiate with you in good faith on a border barrier. Now is their chance to do that,' he told CBS News.

Mick Mulvaney told CBS News he thinks negotiations will be different in 21 days because, he claims, the White House has heard from Democrats who support a barrier

Mulvaney specifically named Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin and Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, as lawmakers who sa they would support a border wall.

'So many, many Democrats, dozens have come out over the last couple weeks to say, you know what, this crisis is real. Let's figure out a way to do it properly, but we can't do with it the government closed,' he said.

'What you saw this week was the president take them at their word and say, okay. You all said you want to do this. Let's give it a shot and see if over the next three weeks we can do this the right way and pass legislation to fund the government and secure the border,' he noted.

He also warned House Democrats of the political danger of following Speaker Nancy Pelosi's lead on shutdown negotiations.

'Keep in mind the last time the Democrats sort of follow Nancy Pelosi blindly down a path on policy, we ended up with Obamacare and bailouts and cap and trade, they lost control of the House,' Mulvaney said on 'Fox News Sunday.'

'So, the question is, is Nancy really leading the Democratic Party, or is she just being led by the hard left wing of her party, and will the rest of the Democrats follow her?'

Pelosi was speaker of the House in March of 2010 when then-President Barack Obama signed his signature healthcare bill into law after it was pushed through Congress in a close and divisive vote.

Democrats took a beating in the mid-term elections that year. Republicans picked up 60 House seats and retook control of the lower chamber in a victory Obama called 'a shellacking' for his party.

The president hammered home his desire for more border security on Twitter Sunday morning.

He claimed illegal immigration was costing the country tens of billions of dollars a month and millions of illegals had flooded the country, although it was unclear where he got his figures.

'We are not even into February and the cost of illegal immigration so far this year is $18,959,495,168. Cost Friday was $603,331,392. There are at least 25,772,342 illegal aliens, not the 11,000,000 that have been reported for years, in our Country. So ridiculous! DHS,' he tweeted.

Roughly 11 million illegals are estimated to be living in the United States.

Asked about the 25,772,342 illegal immigrants Trump claimed, Mulvaney said he did not know where the president was getting his information.

But he argued the number has to be larger than 11 million because of the number of migrants who cross into the U.S. each month.

'We know for example that 60,000 new illegals are coming across each month for the last three months. Again a number that is not made up. That is a real number. So we know the number has to be larger than 11 million,' he said on 'Face the Nation.'

'I'm not exactly sure where the president got that number this morning,' he added.

President Trump tweeted new immigration numbers Sunday morning but it's unclear where he received his data

Mulvaney warned Democrats to be careful following Speaker Nancy Pelosi's lead on shutdown talks following their 'shellacking' in the mid-terms the last time that they did

Mulvaney also said Cabinet agencies followed the president's directive to search for money to come up with the $5.7 billion needed and that they wound up with more than that in their coffers.

'More than $5.7 billion. The president told us several months ago to try to find money in every nook and cranny, he told every member of the cabinet to do the exact same. OMB has been working on this for several months now and there's a lot more than a $5.7 billion,' he said.

He noted the White House would prefer to 'get it through legislation. That's the right way to do it, but at the end of the day, the president is going to secure the border one way or another.'

Trump said Friday that Congress can give him the money to build his border wall or he will end-run them by declaring a national emergency.

'Let me be very clear: We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier. If we don't get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on February 15th, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency,' he said during lengthy remarks in the White House Rose Garden.