White House on 'shithole' remark: Trump 'hasn't said he didn't use strong language'

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not deny Tuesday morning that President Donald Trump had called certain Caribbean and African nations “shithole countries,” telling reporters outside the West Wing that the president had never denied using “strong language.”

"Look, the president hasn't said he didn't use strong language. And this is an important issue. He's passionate about it," Sanders said when asked why Trump reportedly defended the comment to allies while denying it publicly. "He's not going to apologize for trying to fix our immigration system. He's committed to doing that and hopefully Democrats will be too."


Negotiations on an immigration deal between the White House and Congress appear to have stalled in recent days following reports that Trump used the expletive characterization during a meeting late last week. Some who were in the meeting have denied that the president used the term, although the White House has been less than emphatic in its own denials.

Trump last week issued a similar explanation to the one Sanders put forth on Tuesday, writing on Twitter that “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.”

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Opponents of the president have seized upon his reported “shithole” comment, which came days ahead of Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, to accuse Trump of being a racist. That the remark came amid negotiations over protections for “Dreamers” – undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children – has further stoked allegations of racism directed at the president.

Sanders said Democrats attacking the president over his alleged expletive descriptor are playing politics and “using it as an excuse not to help this president get something accomplished.” Allegations of racism, the press secretary said, are “outrageous and ludicrous.”

“If the critics of the president were [right about him being a racist], 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?” Sanders said. “If [he is] who they want to try to portray him as, why did they want to be, you know, with him for years and years in various activities, whether it was events and fund-raisers and other things?”