After a night to let his ‘shithole’ remarks toward immigration marinate, Donald Trump took to Twitter Friday morning denying he said ‘anything derogatory’ towards Haiti and instead blamed Democrats for what was widely reported and corroborated Thursday evening.
Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said “take them out.” Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings – unfortunately, no trust!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018
Some of that corroboration is now coming from lawmakers who were in that meeting.
According to The Post and Courier, South Carolina republican senator Lindsay Graham, one of the lawmakers present in that meeting, told Tim Scott that Trump’s ‘shithole’ comments were ‘basically accurate’.
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott said he talked to fellow South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham about hearing President Donald Trump’s “shithole countries” comment and Graham confirmed to him the president said it.
Graham, Scott said, told him the reported comments are “basically accurate.”
“If that comment is accurate, the comment is incredibly disappointing,” Scott also told The Post and Courier on Friday morning.
“We ought not to disparage any other nation, frankly,” he added. “Thinking about the success of America. It is the melting pot. It’s the ability to weave together multiple communities together for one nation.”
Graham hasn’t yet to publicly decry Trump’s comments from the meeting however Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin confirmed that Graham challenged the ‘shithole’ remarks from the President. “My colleague, [Sen. Graham], spoke up and made a direct comment on what the president said,” Durbin told the media. The Illinois Senator added, “for him to confront the president as he did, literally sitting next to him, took extraordinary political courage and I respect him for it.”
Durbin also confirmed that Trump used the ‘shithole’ reference on more than one occasion in the meeting saying “the president started tweeting this morning, denying that he used those words. It is not true. He said these hate-filled things, and he said them repeatedly.”
