Donald Trump, Mexican President Take Border-Wall Payment Fight To Twitter

A day after their in-person meeting in Mexico, Donald Trump and Enrique Peña Nieto moved their discussions about Trump's proposed border wall and who would pay for it to the next logical medium: Twitter.

The GOP nominee began his morning with a simple message: "Mexico will pay for the wall!"

Mexico's president quoted Trump's tweet and responded, in Spanish, with a message along the lines of: "Repeating what I told you in person, Mr. Trump: Mexico will never pay for a wall."

Welcome to 2016, when a head of state and a U.S. presidential candidate hash out their policy differences on Twitter.

They had a chance to work it out in person.

Trump took a last-minute visit to Mexico on Wednesday to meet with the president of Mexico, whose people Trump regularly insults during the 2016 campaign.

At a joint press conference, Trump said the two talked about his plans for a wall on the United States' southern border but the topic of who pays for it did not come up.

"We did discuss the wall," Trump said at the news conference. "We didn't discuss payment of the wall. That'll be for a later date."

Hours after the press conference, Peña Nieto sent a tweet in direct contrast to that claim: "At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall," he said, in Spanish.

Trump's refusal to confront Mexico's president with his signature idea was mocked by people on both sides of the political spectrum and was a direct contrast to the hard-nosed dealer Trump portrays in public.

Clinton campaign chair John Podesta said Trump "didn't just choke, he got beat in the room and lied about it."

Clinton's vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said Trump "didn’t have the guts to look the Mexican president in the eye and bring up the central position in the campaign.”

Hours after Trump's meeting and press conference with Peña Nieto, nearly 1,500 miles away from the negotiating table and in the comfort of thousands of his cheering fans, Trump was back to his tough, no-nonsense stances.

“We will build a great wall along the Southern border,” he said. “And Mexico will pay for the wall —100 percent.”

Images: Donald Trump via Rick Uldricks, Patch Staff; Enrique Peña Nieto via World Economic Forum, Flickr, used under Creative Commons