Trump to ask Congress for initial $4 billion for border wall.

        President Donald Trump will ask Congress for just over $4 billion to start building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico in a pair of budget requests to be submitted on Thursday.

        Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Trump is asking for $1.5 billion for the wall in a broader request for supplemental funds for fiscal 2017, which ends Sept. 30. Trump is also asking lawmakers for $2.6 billion in his fiscal 2018 budget proposal, Mulvaney told reporters. The overall cost of the wall is expected to be far greater than the initial requests. Mulvaney said a more-detailed budget in May would request money beyond fiscal 2018. Estimates of the total cost of the wall range from $12 billion to more than $21 billion.

        Building a wall — and having Mexico pay for it — was a regularly repeated campaign pledge of Trump’s. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has said his country won’t pay for the wall. Trump has responded by telling Americans Mexico will reimburse the U.S

        The money for the wall in fiscal 2018 is part of a wider budget request that envisions beefed-up border security and defense spending, to be paid for by reduced outlays for the State Department and elsewhere. Trump’s proposals on Thursday will be his most detailed stab yet at remaking the federal government after winning his upset victory over Hillary Clinton.

        “This is the America-first budget,” Mulvaney told reporters at the White House. “We wrote it using the president’s own words...you have an America-first candidate; you have an America-first budget.”

        Trump’s fiscal 2018 blueprint won’t be a complete budget that shows revenue projections or proposals for mandatory spending for programs like Medicare. Mulvaney has said that a “full-blown” budget will come in May.

        Still, the fiscal 2018 blueprint will outline Trump’s priorities by proposing funding levels for federal agencies. Mulvaney reiterated that defense spending will get a boost of $54 billion, to be paid for by reductions of the same amount elsewhere. That includes a 28% reduction in funding for the State Department and eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

        Mulvaney said the administration hasn’t settled on a number of details concerning the proposed border wall, including where to start building. He said the funding would allow the administration to start the program.