Democrats accuse Republicans of “amnesia.”
WASHINGTON — Republicans struggled to get their stories straight Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security secretary became the latest GOP official to offer an inconclusive version of a meeting in which Trump is said to have used vulgar remarks that have been criticized as racist.
Democrats accused Republicans of amnesia, as Kirstjen Nielsen testified under oath that she “did not hear” Trump use a certain vulgarity to describe African countries. “It was a meeting of 12 people. There was crosstalk,” she explained at a congressional hearing, but she didn’t “dispute the president was using tough language.”
Under persistent questioning, Nielsen said she didn’t recall the specific language used by Trump.“What I was struck with frankly, as I’m sure you were as well, was just the general profanity used in the room by almost everyone.”
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, angrily criticized Nielsen’s comments, telling her during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Your amnesia is complicity.”
Nielsen’s comments came five days after the president ignited what GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham termed an s---storm with his Oval Office remarks.
The White House has not substantively disputed accounts of the episode, in which Trump is said to have used the term “shithole” to describe African countries of origin for potential immigrants to the U.S. The revelations, semi-denials and continuing comments have cast a pall over the White House’s legislative agenda, brought the country closer to the brink of a government shutdown and sparked international outrage.
Administration officials and lawmakers spent the holiday weekend debating the precise presidential vulgarity used, and moved to cast last Thursday’s White House meeting as a salty affair, with expletives flying in all directions.
The White House said Trump had no intention of apologizing.
“The president hasn’t said he didn’t use strong language, and this is an important issue,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “He’s passionate about it, he’s not going to apologize for trying to fix our immigration system.”
Trump has not clarified to aides what he said, but told reporters Sunday night in Florida that comments attributed to him “weren’t made.”
White House officials tried to offer clarity on the two-hour period Thursday morning that saw Trump move from requesting a briefing on a potential immigration breakthrough to graphically rejection the agreement reached by Graham and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin. Chief of staff John Kelly phoned Trump from Capitol Hill to advise him against accepting the proposal. The president summoned Republicans to help build a united front against the plan, which would have provided some border security funding and protection from deportation for immigrants brought to the country as children and who are now here illegally.
A senior White House official said Trump does not believe he has an ally on this issue in Graham.
Sen. Tom Cotton, one of the lawmakers summoned to the Oval Office by the president to counter the Durbin-Graham proposal, blasted Durbin’s account of the meeting in an interview.
“I’m not going to get into all the details of a private meeting. I’ll just say, what Senator Durbin has portrayed is a misportrayal,” the Arkansas senator told Little Rock radio station KARN on Tuesday.