Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday that he attacked President Donald Trump's derogatory comments last week because "I honestly believe that the vast majority of Americans understand that we are a land of immigrants."
"I'm the son of Italian immigrants," Panetta, who also served as CIA director under former President Barack Obama, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN. "They believed in giving their children a better life, which is the American dream.
"I've lived the American dream.
"The Statute of Liberty speaks to the American dream," he said. "We are a land that has always welcomed immigrants to our country."
In a CNN op-ed, Panetta bashed Trump's reference to Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as "s***hole countries" because "this is not who we are."
Panetta supported the bipartisan immigration plan to protect those affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for people brought illegally to the U.S. as children that was proposed in the bipartisan meeting last week.
"We have the chance now to adopt a compromise that has been put together," he told Blitzer. "It's something that is a compromise.
"We all understand that.
"But it has the best chance of trying to provide the protections that these kids need so that they won't lose their status in the United States."
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