Trump defends vulgar remarks while partly denying them

President Donald Trump offered a partial denial in public but privately defended his remarks disparaging Haitians and African countries.

Trump said he was only expressing what many people think but won’t say about immigrants from economically depressed countries, according to a person who spoke to the president as criticism of his comments ricocheted around the globe.

Trump spent Thursday evening calling friends and outside advisers to judge their reaction, said the confidant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to disclose a private conversation. Trump wasn’t apologetic about the inflammatory remarks and denied he was racist, instead, blaming the media for distorting his meaning, the confidant said.

Critics of the president, including some Republicans, on Friday blasted the vulgar comments made in the Oval Office. In a meeting with a group of senators, Trump had questioned why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “s—-hole countries” in Africa as he rejected a bipartisan immigration deal, according to one participant and people briefed on the remarkable conversation.

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.