TAPPER: Your own border experts in your own administration say that investing in those countries is working. For instance, in El Salvador, USAID money has gone to El Salvador. The homicide rate has gone down and migration from El Salvador has gone down as well.

Isn’t this also self-defeating? Taking away aid from those countries ultimately will make the migration crisis worse.

MULVANEY: Look, there’s a lot of good ways to help solve this problem. ... Honduras could do more. Nicaragua could do more. El Salvador could do more. And if we’re going to give these countries hundreds of millions of dollars, we would like them to do more. ...

We could prevent a lot of what’s happening on the southern border by preventing people from moving into Mexico in the first place. And that’s what...

TAPPER: Right, but that’s the USAID money does, is it makes those countries more stable. This is not according to me. This is according to experts in your own administration.

MULVANEY: Okay, career staffers, but let’s talk about — let’s talk about that for a second.

If it’s working so well, why are the people still coming? ... I think at least now people are starting to realize that we were not exaggerating a couple months ago, when we had this nationwide debate about the wall.