Faso, Maloney decry Trump vulgar remarks
Area congressman denounced President Donald Trump’s remarks disparaging Haitians and African countries.
In a meeting with a group of senators on Thursday, Trump had questioned why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole countries” in Africa as he rejected a bipartisan immigration deal, according to one participant and people briefed on the remarkable conversation.
U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-Cold Spring, denounced the comments as “outrageous and completely indefensible” and called on leaders in the Republican Party to denounce the comments. “This should not be a partisan issue. Racism is wrong. Denigrating whole groups of people is wrong and we get to expect more from the president of the United States,” Maloney said.
On Twitter, U.S. Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, wrote “President Trump’s comments regarding Haiti and Africa are wrong and deeply offensive. This type of language is counterproductive and undermines the U.S. and our relations around the world.”
The comments revived charges that Trump is racist and roiled already tenuous immigration talks that included discussion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” Trump insisted in early tweets Friday, pushing back on some depictions of the meeting.
But Trump and his advisers notably did not dispute the most controversial of his remarks: using “shithole” to describe African nations and saying he would prefer immigrants from countries like Norway instead.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the only Democrat in the room, said Trump had indeed said what he was reported to have said. The remarks, Durbin said, were “vile, hate-filled and clearly racial in their content.” He said Trump used the most vulgar term “more than once.”