Trump blames Democrat for latest debacle
President says senator ‘twisted his words’
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump turned his Twitter torment on the Democrat in the room where immigration talks with lawmakers took a famously coarse turn, saying Senator Dick Durbin misrepresented what he had said about African nations and Haiti and, in the process, undermined the trust needed to make a deal.
On a day of remembrance for Rev Martin Luther King Jr, Mr Trump spent time on Monday at his golf course with no public events, bypassing the acts of service that his predecessor staged in honour of the civil rights leader. Instead Mr Trump dedicated his weekly address to King’s memory, saying King’s dream and America’s are the same: “A world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from.”
That message was a distinct counterpoint to words attributed to Mr Trump by Mr Durbin and others at a meeting last week, when the question of where immigrants come from seemed at the forefront of Mr Trump’s concerns. Some participants and others familiar with the conversation said Mr Trump challenged immigration from “shithole” countries of Africa and disparaged Haiti as well.
Without explicitly denying using that word, Mr Trump lashed out at the Democratic senator, who said Mr Trump uttered it on several occasions.
“Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting,” Mr Trump tweeted, using a nickname to needle the Illinois senator. “Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.”
He was referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young people who came to the US illegally as children. Members of Congress from both parties are trying to strike a deal that Mr Trump would support to extend that protection.
Mr Durbin said on Monday the White House should release whatever recording it might have of the meeting.
Republican Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the six senators in the meeting with Mr Trump on Thursday, supported Mr Durbin’s account.
As well, Mr Durbin and people who were briefed on the conversation but were not authorised to describe it publicly said Mr Trump also questioned the need to admit more Haitians. They said Mr Trump expressed a preference for immigrants from countries like Norway, which is overwhelmingly white.
Republican Sens David Perdue of Georgia and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who also attended, initially said they did not hear Mr Trump utter the word in question, then revised their account to deny he said it at all.
There is some internal West Wing debate over whether Mr Trump said “shithole” or “shithouse”. One person who attended the meeting told aides they heard the latter expletive, while others recall the president saying the more widely reported “shithole”, according to a person briefed on the meeting but not authorised to speak publicly about private conversations.
The person believes the discrepancy may be why some Republican senators are denying having heard the president say “shithouse”.
Mr Trump has not clarified to aides what he said. The White House has not denied that he used a vulgar term, and there appears to be little difference in meaning between the two words.
The reverberations kept coming on Monday.
Martin Luther King III, King’s elder son, said: “When a president insists that our nation needs more citizens from white states like Norway, I don’t even think we need to spend any time even talking about what it says and what it is.”
“We got to find a way to work on this man’s heart,” he said.
A sizeable crowd of expatriate Haitians, waving their country’s flag, gathered near the foot of a bridge leading to Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, to jeer at him as the motorcade returned from the golf club where the president capped his weekend before returning later on Monday to Washington.
The Haitians and their supporters shouted, “Our country is not a shithole,” according to video posted by WPEC-TV, and engaged in a shouting match with the pro-Trump demonstrators who typically gather on the other side of the street.
On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence, who worshipped at a Baptist church in Maryland, listened as the pastor denounced Mr Trump’s use of vulgarity.
Maurice Watson, pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Largo, called the reported remark “dehumanising” and “ugly” and said “whoever made such a statement ... is wrong and they ought to be held accountable”. Worshippers stood and applauded as Mr Watson spoke.
Mr Durbin said after the Oval Office meeting that Mr Trump’s words to the senators were “vile, hate-filled and clearly racial in their content”.
A confidant of Mr Trump said the president spent Thursday evening calling friends and outside advisers to judge their reaction to his remarks. Mr Trump wasn’t apologetic and denied he was racist, said the confidant, who wasn’t authorised to disclose a private conversation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Afterward Mr Trump insisted in a tweet that he “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.”
Mr Trump wrote: “I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians.”