Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
President out of view on King day
Fuss persists over Trump comments
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump marked his first Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday Monday largely out of sight, buffeted by accusations that he used a derogatory term to describe African countries and scoffed at the suggestion of admitting more Haitians to the U.S.
Trump decamped to his Florida estate for the long weekend, spending hours each day at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
Trump dedicated his weekly address to the nation, released Monday, to King.
Trump’s tribute followed the firestorm that broke out last week after he was accused of using the word “s***hole” to describe African countries and seeming to balk at admitting more Haitians to the U.S. Trump is said to have made the comments in the Oval Office during a meeting about immigration with a bipartisan group of senators.
The White House has not denied that Trump used the vulgarity, but Trump and some Republicans have
disputed public accounts of the meeting.
On Monday, Trump accused Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of misrepresenting the discussion and said the Illinois senator is threatening prospects for a deal to protect certain immigrants, those who had been in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program before Trump announced he would end it.
Trump tweeted: “Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.”
Durbin — the only Democrat in attendance at the meeting Thursday — told reporters that Trump made the comments that were attributed to him.
Durbin on Monday stood by his claim after two Republican colleagues belatedly rebutted the Illinois Democrat.
“I know what happened. I stand behind every word that I said in terms of that meeting,” Durbin said about the president’s remarks.
Durbin also dismissed reports attributed to unnamed White House aides that Trump said “s*** house” rather than “s***hole.” He told reporters in Illinois, “I am stunned that this is their defense.”
On Sunday, Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, who along with Durbin were among seven lawmakers at the White House meeting Thursday, denied that the president used the word and questioned Durbin’s overall honesty. Their comments were met with widespread skepticism because both Republicans said last week that they “do not recall” if Trump made the comment.
Also on Sunday, conservative writer Rich Lowry suggested that some White House aides believe that Trump said “s*** house,” not “s***hole.” The difference is said to be the basis for Cotton and Perdue to deny the president said what Durbin claimed.
Speaking to reporters in Illinois, Durbin insisted he was correct. He added, “I don’t know that changing the word from ‘hole’ to ‘house’ changes the impact which this has. This speaks toward America and its view toward immigration” and is a message “inconsistent with the values of this country.”
Another Republican at the meeting, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has implicitly affirmed Durbin’s account in a statement. In his latest remarks, in an interview Monday with The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., he again wouldn’t explicitly confirm the vulgarity but did seem to take a dig at Cotton and Perdue’s changing accounts.
“My memory hasn’t evolved. I know what was said and I know what I said,” Graham said.
TRUMP’S DAY
Trump’s low-key King holiday contrasts with how some of his recent predecessors observed the day.
President Barack Obama and his family performed community service. President George W. Bush accepted a portrait of King for display in the White House from his widow, Coretta Scott King, in 2002.
Trump’s first stop Monday was Trump International Golf Club, apparently beginning the holiday with golf rather than the charitable service the slain civil-rights leader’s family has urged as the best way to memorialize him.
Trump began his Monday the same way he has begun each day of the three-day holiday weekend: with tweets sent before leaving his private Mar-a-Lago estate and then a short motorcade to the golf club.
Trump returned to Mara-Lago hours later, and drove from there to the airport in late afternoon. He was not seen in public until he boarded Air Force One to return to Washington.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the president’s plans.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted about King on Monday, as well as about the battle over school desegregation in Little Rock, where she grew up. “Central High is now one of the most racially diverse schools in the state, and black unemployment in America just hit an all time low,” Sanders wrote. “Far more to be done, but let’s honor MLK’s great legacy by empowering all Americans with better schools and better opportunity.”
Sanders also re-tweeted a State Department message about how the day of service is honored at U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide.
NATIONS SPEAK OUT
A growing number of countries, including South Africa, are taking action against remarks Trump is reported to have made that Haiti, El Salvador and African nations’ inhabitants are not desirable for U.S. immigration.
South Africa’s government called for a meeting Monday with acting U.S. Ambassador Jessye Lapenn in Pretoria as part of a diplomatic protest of Trump’s “disturbing” comments, the Department of International Relations said in a statement Sunday. While officials acknowledged Trump’s denial of the exact language used, they said the president’s denial was “categorical, referring only to Haiti and not addressing the entirety of the statement attributed to him.”
South African officials said they hope Lapenn can explain Trump’s statement, and why African countries, along with Haiti and El Salvador, “constitute ‘s*** holes’ from where migrants into the United States are undesirable.”
“Relations between South Africa and the United States, and between the rest of Africa and the United States, must be based on mutual respect and understanding,” officials said in the statement.
“It was noted that Africa and the African diaspora has contributed significantly to the United States and to its development into the country that it is today, and that the African and international reaction to the alleged statements clearly serve as a united affirmation of the dignity of the people of Africa and the African diaspora,” the ministry said after the meeting.
The meeting provided an opportunity for the U.S. Embassy to reiterate its “commitment to working with South Africa to achieve shared goals and strengthen our bilateral ties,” embassy spokesman Cindy Harvey said in a statement. “We remain committed to working together to realize the promise of a more peaceful, more productive, more prosperous South Africa.”
U.S. diplomats in Haiti and other countries have been called to host government offices to hear complaints about the president’s comments.
“One of the great things about being president is that you can say whatever you want,” Undersecretary of State Steven Goldstein said in an interview. “We have advised our ambassadors … to indicate that our commitment to those countries remains strong.”
Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Paul Altidor, has condemned Trump’s remarks and has asked for an explanation from U.S. officials.
Altidor said the Haitian Embassy in Washington has been flooded with emails from Americans apologizing for Trump’s remark, which he found encouraging.
“In the spirit of the people of Haiti we feel in the statements, if they were made, the president was either misinformed or miseducated about Haiti and its people,” he said in a statement.
In Botswana, officials in a statement summoned the U.S. ambassador there “to clarify whether Botswana is regarded as a ‘s***hole’ country” and called his comments racist. In Senegal, President Macky Sall said he was “shocked” by the remarks, and said people in Africa deserve the “respect and consideration of all.” In Nairobi, a communications specialist, Moses Osani, said it is “derogatory and sad to belong to countries that have been labeled ‘s***hole’ countries.”
El Salvador’s foreign minister, Hugo Martinez, said last week that he is seeking an official response from U.S. authorities.
“It’s always been a foreign-policy priority of our government to fight for the respect and dignity of our countrymen independent of their immigration status,” he said. “Our countrymen are hardworking people who are always contributing to the countries where they’re living and, of course, also in our country.”