White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that claims that President Donald Trump is a racist are 'outrageous.'

If he is, she asked, 'Why did NBC give him a show for a decade on TV, why did Chuck Schumer and all of his colleagues come and beg Donald Trump for money?'

'I think it's just an outrageous and ludicrous excuse, and they need to get on board and start actually doing what they were elected to do,' she told reporters who caught her walking back into the White House after a TV hit on the lawn.

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White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that charges that President Donald Trump is a racist are 'outrageous

Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and civil rights legend, said Sunday that Donald Trump 'is a racist' as he condemned the Republican president for reportedly referring to Haiti and African nations as 's***hole countries.'

Reflecting on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis said, 'We have come so far. We made so much progress. And I think this man, this president, is taking us back to another place.'

'I think he is a racist,' Lewis said on ABC News' 'This Week.'

GOP Congresswoman Mia Love, who's Haitian-American, also said Sunday that Trump's alleged comments were racist in nature.

'I can't defend the indefensible. There are countries that do struggle out there, but their people are good people,' Love, the first Haitian-American elected to Congress, said on CNN's State of the Union. 'Their people are part of us. We're Americans,' the Utah Republican also said.

On Sunday evening, Trump defended himself as 'the least racist person you have ever interviewed.'

'No, no, I'm not a racist,' he told reporters as he headed to a dinner at his Palm Beach Golf Club with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Trump's remarks first appeared in the Washington Post. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin then corroborated the report in public.

Durbin would not call Trump a racist in an interview with CNN that aired on Tuesday although he says they were racial in nature.

'I'm not going to say that,' he told Jake Tapper when asked if he believes that Trump is a racist.

Sanders said Tuesday that Democrats were using the charge as 'an excuse' to block the president's agenda.

'Hopefully Democrats will stop playing politics and start governing and getting their job done,' she said.

Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and civil rights legend, said Sunday that Donald Trump 'is a racist' as he condemned the Republican president for reportedly referring to Haiti and African nations as 's***hole countries'

Lewis said Friday that he plans to skip Trump's first State of the Union address in a rejection of the disputed comments.

'In good conscience, I can not and will not sit there and listen at him as he gives the State of the Union Address,' Lewis repeated on Sunday.

The lawmaker who marched with King was one of nearly 70 Democrats who boycotted Trump's inauguration last year on the heels of another racially-charged dispute that erupted over MLK Day weekend.

President Trump has faced fierce blowback over claims that he referred to Haiti and African nations as 's***holes' in an immigration meeting last Thursday at the White House. He reportedly spent the weekend defending himself in calls to friends and allies.

'The president hasn't said he didn't use strong language,' Sanders told a reporter on Tuesday am. 'He's not going to apologize for trying to fix our immigration system.'

Trump's alleged remarks, which he and several Republicans in the room have disputed, were thrown back in his face at an ill-timed Martin Luther King Jr. Day event on Friday in the Roosevelt Room.

'Mr. President, will you give an apology for the statement yesterday?' asked American Urban Radio Network White House Correspondent and CNN contributor April Ryan. 'Mr. President, are you a racist?' she asked in a second attempt.

The president ducked Ryan's questions as he said goodbye to his guests and rushed out of the room.

President Trump has faced fierce blowback over claims that he referred to Haiti and African nations as 's***holes' in an immigration meeting last Thursday at the White House. He's seen signing a Martin Luther King Jr. Day proclamation on Friday

Lewis said Friday after the incident that he 'cannot in all good conscious' attend Trump's State of the Union Address while appearing on Katy Tur's MSNBC program.

The African-American congressman said that Trump must have racism 'in his DNA.'

He told Tur, 'I think the words that he spoke, and the action that he took to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are incompatible.

'You cannot speak the words of tolerance of peace and love and nonviolence and then put down a group of people. A nation of people, because of the color of their skin, or what part of the world they may come from.'

On Sunday morning, lawmakers on the top programs were all asked to weigh in on what had emerged as the question of the day: Is Trump a racist?

Georgia Sen. David Perdue, a Republican who was in the meeting where Trump is said to have derided some nations as 's***hole countries,' told ABC, 'I think that’s ridiculous. I grew up in the south, I fully understand what that means, but the congressman and I just disagree on a couple things.'

Perdue said that what had been reported was a 'gross misrepresentation' of what Trump actually said in the meeting.

'The gross misrepresentation was that language was used in there that was not used,' he said, 'and also that the tone of that meeting was not contributory and not constructive.'

Sen. Michael Bennett, a Democrat working with a bipartisan groups of senators on an immigration compromise, would not call Trump a racist on 'Meet the Press.'

'I was raised not to call people racist on the theory that it was hard for them to be rehabilitated once you said that,' he told host Chuck Todd. 'But there's no question what he said was racist. There's no question what he said was un-American and completely unmoored from the facts.'

Bennett said Trump seems to think that immigrants like his mother and his grandparents - 'Polish Jews who came here after the Holocaust - are 'lazy and, and the truth is exactly the opposite.'

'And-and on the question of what's in his heart, do you have any idea-thought, Chuck, that he would've called into question Barack Obama's birth certificate if Barack Obama were white?' Bennett asked.

The president ducked questions on Friday on his alleged 's***hole' countries remarks

Trump's alleged remarks, which he has disputed, were thrown back in his face at an ill-timed Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in the Roosevelt Room

'Mr. President, will you give an apology for the statement yesterday?' asked American Urban Radio Network correspondent and CNN contributor April Ryan

Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky who ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primary, said on Meet the Press that Trump had helped finance a medical mission trip to Haiti where Paul performed eye surgeries on patients.

'And I think it's unfair then to sort of all of a sudden paint him, "Oh well, he's a racist," when I know, for a fact, that he cares very deeply about the people of Haiti because he helped finance a trip where we were able to get vision back for 200 people in Haiti,' Paul said.

MLK Day was observed by the federal government on Monday, but Trump skipped town on Friday afternoon for Palm Beach. He's expected to return to Washington at some point on Monday.

At the White House on Friday morning, Trump signed a proclamation honoring the civil rights leader and delivered a short speech celebrating King's accomplishments.

Trump said his remarks that King 'courageously' stood up civil rights.

'Through his bravery and sacrifice, Dr. King opened the eyes and lifted the conscience of our nation,' he said. 'He steered the hearts of our people to recognize the dignity written in every human soul.'

Ryan also asked: 'Mr. President, are you a racist?'

And in a moment of irony given his alleged remarks, Trump said, 'Today we celebrate Dr. King for standing up for self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.'

'While Dr. King is no longer with us,' Trump said, 'his words and vision only grow stronger through time.'

Signing an MLK Day proclamation, Trump said, 'This is a great and important day...Congratulations to him and to everybody.'

As soon as the president finished, Ryan and other reporters hit him with a string of questions about the remarks he's said to have made yesterday about 's***hole' nations.

Trump has denied making the widely condemned comment railing against immigrants from 's***hole countries,' although he has admitted to using 'tough' language in an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers on Thursday.

'The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,' Trump said in a Friday morning tweet. 'What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made - a big setback for DACA!'

The tweet came hours after a bombshell report about Trump's comments, which the White House did not immediately deny, and two Republican senators in the room say they do not recall.

Trump's claim that he did not make the directly contradicted by Durbin who was in the meeting.

'In the course of his comments, [Trump] said things that were hate-filled, vile and racist,' Durbin told reporters Friday. 'I use those words advisedly. I understand how powerful they are. But I cannot believe in this history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday.'

Trump's public argument against the emerging deal to protect DACA recipients and make other immigration policy came after a flurry of rebukes from Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress.

'Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said "take them out," Trump wrote. 'Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings - unfortunately, no trust!'

Trump has not apologized, and the White House initially did not not deny he made the comments, which were originally reported by the Washington Post.