Trump Tweets Denial of Reported ‘Shithole Countries’ Comment: ‘This Was Not the Language Used’
After the Washington Post reported on Thursday (Jan. 11) that Pres. Trump referred to immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as coming from "shithole countries" during a meeting with lawmakers about a proposed bipartisan deal on immigration, the commander in chief denied the claim on Twitter on Friday morning (Jan. 12).
"The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used," Trump tweeted, adding that what was "really outlandish" was the proposals made at the gathering.
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A short time later, Trump tweeted another denial, saying he never said anything derogatory about Haitians, claiming that he has a "wonderful" relationship with the nation's people and that the latest outrage was "made up by Dems."
Though Trump denied the use of the incendiary curse, the White House issued a statement shortly after the report that did not walk back the remarks. According to NBC News , the African Union said it was "alarmed" by Trump's statement. "Given the historical reality of how many Africans arrived in the United States as slaves, this statement flies in the face of all accepted behavior and practice," spokeswoman Ebba Kalondo said, adding that it was "particularly surprising as the United States of America remains a global example of how migration gave birth to a nation built on strong values of diversity and opportunity."
Trump, who has made a number of remarks in the past that have been construed as racist — including kicking off his presidential campaign by disparaging people from Mexico as "rapists" and reportedly saying that in December that Haitians "all have AIDS" and that Nigerian immigrants would never go "back to their huts" in Africa" — was called out over the "shithole" remark by Republican Rep. Mia Love of Utah, daughter of Haitian immigrants. She released a statement that said Trump's words were "unkind, divisive, elitist and fly in the face of our nation's values," while demanding an apology from Trump.
The United Nations' human rights spokesman Rupert Colville also said plainly that Trump's remark was "racist," according to the Post . "There is no other word one can use but 'racist,'" he said during a briefing in Geneva. "You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as 'shitholes,' whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome." Government leaders across Africa and Europe swiftly condemned Trump as well, with a Kenyan political cartoonist summing up what he described as the "White House map of Africa" in a drawing for the nation's Star newspaper, which consisted of variations on the alleged slur.
On Thursday Trump also abruptly canceled a planned trip to England next month to open the U.S.'s new billion-dollar embassy, blaming predecessor Pres. Barack Obama for his decision to sell the existing embassy for "peanuts."
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, however, suggested in a tweet on Friday that the real reason Trump called off what would have been his first visit to the nation that for decades had been a staunch U.S. ally was that he'd "got the message" that he was not welcome in light of his "divisive" comments.
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