President Donald Trump "repeatedly" described African nations as "s---hole" countries during a meeting on immigration on Thursday, said Sen. Dick Durbin, who attended the White House event.

On Friday, the Illinois Democrat told reporters that Trump's tweeted denial of using the term "is not true." The senator said the president said "hate-filled things" and "he said them repeatedly."

But meeting attendees Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and David Perdue, R-Ga., said in a joint statement Friday that they "do not recall" Trump "saying these comments specifically." He did "call out ... the imbalance in our current immigration system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest," they said.

During the talks on a possible bipartisan bill to protect hundreds of thousands of young immigrants and boost border security, Trump questioned whether the U.S. needed more Haitian immigrants, Durbin said. The senator added that Trump also made "vile and vulgar comments" about African countries.