Over a three-day weekend at his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., President Trump showed little or no concern about the angry reaction set off by his use of obscenities to describe the third world countries he fears immigrants could come from under a new immigration bill. His base loved what he said, he told guests at the club, Mar-a-Lago, a refrain he repeated in phone calls over the holiday weekend.

But back in Washington on Tuesday, his advisers and congressional allies have tried to limit the fallout from his remarks in an Oval Office meeting last week, insisting that he had never described the countries as “shitholes.” Some who had been in the meeting said they had not heard his descriptions. Others insisted in background conversations with reporters that they were told the word he had spoken was “shithouse,” a phrase that he often uses to describe physical structures that he finds unsavory.

It was an unusual debate over words that until last Thursday had rarely, if ever, appeared in any mainstream news media. And if the argument seemed to amount to a distinction without a difference, neither the White House nor its allies have publicly acknowledged it, although some Trump aides have privately. There has also not been any acknowledgment that both words, as well as reports of Mr. Trump’s stated preference for immigrants from places like Norway, were offensive and many considered them racist.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, conceded to reporters on Tuesday that Mr. Trump “hasn’t said he didn’t use strong language.”