FIGHTS, NOT DEALS IN D.C.
With the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the balance, relations worsen between lawmakers.
WASHINGTON» With the fate of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants in the balance, relations between key GOP and Democratic lawmakers turned poisonous Sunday over disagreement about President Trump’s use of a vulgarity to describe poor countries last week during a meeting.
Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and David Perdue, R-Ga. — who attended the meeting and previously said they could not recall whether Trump had used the vulgar word — on Sunday denied outright that Trump ever said it.
They suggested a Democrat who confirmed the remarks, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, could not be trusted.
“This is a gross misrepresentation, it’s not the first time Sen. Durbin has done it,” Perdue told ABC News.
The accusations prompted Democrats to blast the GOP senators for impugning a colleague’s integrity, while slamming Trump and his remarks as unabashedly racist.
The only administration official to speak publicly this weekend about the meeting was Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who attended the session. She said she did not “recall him using that exact phrase” but acknowledged Trump “did use and will continue to use strong language.”
Trump addressed the issue briefly Sunday at one of his Florida golf clubs. Asked what he thinks about people who think he’s racist, Trump said: “I am not a racist.” He told reporters: “I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed.”
The White House did not dispute the remarks Thursday. Trump offered a vague denial in a Friday tweet, and not until Cotton and Perdue spoke Sunday did another participant challenge whether Trump had used the word.
International reaction to Trump’s comments was strong, and U.S. diplomats in Haiti and other nations have been called to host government offices to hear the complaints directly.
The developments stand to undermine bipartisan talks aimed at shielding from deportation immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, including the approximately 800,000 who secured work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created under President Barack Obama. Democrats have suggested they could force a government shutdown Saturday unless an agreement protecting those “Dreamers” is reached.
“Both sides now are destroying the setting in which anything meaningful can happen,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a conservative, on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
But Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado said Sunday morning he still thinks a deal can be struck. Although some members of both parties may want to continue fighting, “that’s not where a lot of the Democrats that I’ve been working with are. That’s not where the Republicans that I’ve been working with are. Where we are is trying to find a real solution,” Gardner said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
A tentative deal worked out Thursday by a small bipartisan group of senators — including Gardner and Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado — crumbled in an Oval Office meeting in which, according to multiple people involved, an angry Trump asked them why the United States should accept immigrants from countries such as Haiti, El Salvador and African nations over those from European countries such as Norway.