WASHINGTON (CN) – President Donald Trump Friday disputed accounts of his referring to Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as "shithole countries" during a White House meeting on immigration 24 hours earlier, saying the "language used by me ... was tough, but this was not the language used."
In an early morning tweet, the president tried to deflect a growing global controversy, by adding "What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!”
DACA is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals amnesty program. Lawmakers huddled with the president Thursday to discuss protections for immigrants from those countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal.
After his alleged derogatory comments, which were revealed by two participants in the meeting, Trump went on to suggest the United States should invite immigrants from Norway instead.
Moments later, the Washington Post reported, the president proposed the U.S. would benefit economically if it were more open to immigrants from Asian nations as well.
Media reports of Trump's comments led to widespread condemnation from around the world. As the rebukes mounted Friday morning, Trump sought to clarify his statements, tweeting: “Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti, is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country.”
He also denied questioning why the U.S. “[needs] more Haitians’ before reportedly saying he wished to “take them out” of the proposal.
“Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings – unfortunately, no trust!” Trump tweeted.
Clearly piqued during the signing of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day proclamation in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Friday morning, Trump ignored a flurry of questions by reporters, including one about Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Durbin was in the meeting with Trump and other lawmakers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
“As Sen. Graham made the presentation, the president interrupted several times and in the course of comments, said things that were hate-filled, vile and racist,” Durbin told reporters Friday. “He denied using those words. It’s not true. He said those hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly.”
Durbin also suggested that in the history of the White House -- “in that Oval Office,” -- no president had spoken the words like those uttered by Trump.
But tirades and harsh language -- including overtly racist comments -- are no strangers to the corridors of the White House, said Ken Hughes, a University of Virginia historian.
Hughes, an author and Nixon scholar, has spent 18 years poring over President Richard Nixon's White House tapes as part of the university's Presidential Recordings Program.
“One of my colleagues, Sid Milkas, jokes that it should be easy for me to comment on Trump because he speaks in public the way Nixon spoke in private,” Hughes said.
Nixon, Hughes said, was a man who prided himself on great discipline in public and was keenly aware his views on African-Americans, homosexuals, Jews, Catholics and others were “unacceptable” in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“He hid his racism, his religious bigotry. He hid his bias because he knew if he exposed those things, Americans would look down on him," Hughes said. "He had racist beliefs but he knew he needed to keep them to himself to be a good president.”