Trump said smugglers couldn’t cut through his replacement wall. Then they did.

For months, President Trump said it would not be possible to cut through his replacement wall. Then smugglers cut through it. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post)

Over the weekend, President Trump did something that has become a near-routine feature of his presidency: undercutting his promises with his own words.

Hours after The Washington Post reported Saturday that smugglers “have repeatedly sawed through new sections” of Trump’s border wall “by using commercially available power tools,” the president was asked about the report.

“I haven’t heard that. We have a very powerful wall,” Trump said. “But no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness.”

It was a stark contrast to what Trump had said just 24 hours earlier.

Telling rallygoers in Mississippi how he went about building replacement segments of the border wall with concrete, steel and rebar, Trump said he “did all three.”

“Because it’s a different form of cutting,” Trump continued Friday. “You can cut through steel, but you can’t through the concrete, and then you can’t through the hardened rebar. We got it all.”

In the video above, you can watch Trump’s reversal and previous comments promising an impenetrable wall.

It is not the first time Trump has reversed himself on the border wall, and if history is any guide, it may not be the last.