A Republican senator's suggestion that Sen. Dick Durbin misrepresented President Donald Trump's calling Haiti, El Salvador and African nations "s***hole countries" is "disgraceful," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted Sunday.
"To impugn @SenatorDurbin's integrity is disgraceful," Schumer, D-New York, tweeted Sunday, shortly after Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation." "Whether you agree with him on the issues or not, he is one of the most honorable members of the Senate."
"I didn't hear it, and I was sitting no further away from Donald Trump than [Sen.] Dick Durbin was," Cotton told CBS' "Face the Nation" anchor John Dickerson Sunday.
Durbin, D-Ill., last week said that Trump had referred to the nations as "s***hole countries" while discussing a bipartisan immigration deal plan presented by Durbin and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Trump has denied using the language, but Durbin claimed that "he said these hate-filled things. And he said them repeatedly."
Cotton would not say definitively if Trump used the word, but Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., who was also at the meeting, has denied that the exact word had been used.
However, Cotton did say that the reports "misrepresented" Trump's content and tone, and accused Durbin of having a pattern of "misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings" and said people "shouldn't be surprised" by what he'd said.
Both Cotton and Durbin were at last Thursday's meeting in the White House when Durbin and Graham presented their bipartisan immigration deal for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
After Graham outlined the deal's proposals, Trump questioned why the U.S. was admitting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and some African countries and granting them Temporary Protected Status, rather than immigrants from places like Norway, whose prime minister Trump had met.
Trump denied using the "s***hole" slur, and Durbin told reporters that he'd heard him say that statement, along with others he called "hate-filled, vile, and racist."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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