White House counselor Kellyanne Conway called the debate over President Trump’s border wall that has resulted in a partial government shutdown a “silly semantic argument.”

“It is a silly semantic argument because people who just want to say ‘wall, wall, wall’ want it to be a four-letter word and not respect what Customs and Border Patrol and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] tell us they need,” Conway told “Fox News Sunday.”

“Always saying ‘wall’ or ‘no wall’ is being very disingenuous and turning a complete blind eye to what is a crisis at the border,” she added.

The government entered the ninth day of a partial government shutdown on Sunday after the White House and congressional Democrats hit a roadblock on funding for Trump’s barrier.

The president wants $5 billion to build the wall, but Democrats are willing to offer only $1.3 billion for border security — and no money for a wall.

Trump, who campaigned on building a “big, beautiful wall” that Mexico will pay for, has recently backed off his desire for a concrete barrier, instead signaling he would be willing to opt for “steel slats.”

“The Democrats, are saying loud and clear that they do not want to build a Concrete Wall – but we are not building a Concrete Wall, we are building artistically designed steel slats, so that you can easily see through it,” Trump posted on his Twitter account Dec. 18.

Trump’s outgoing chief of staff John Kelly said in an interview published Sunday that the president is backing away from a concrete wall.

“To be honest, it’s not a wall,” Kelly told the Los Angeles Times.

“The president still says ‘wall’ — oftentimes frankly he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats,” Kelly said. “But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”

About a quarter of the government is shut down and roughly 800,000 federal workers have either been furloughed or working without pay.