President Donald Trump admitted that he used “tough language” during his immigration reform meeting with members of Congress but hinted that reports of his “shithole countries” comment were not accurate.
“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday morning.
Trump further denied saying “anything derogatory” about Haitians, although he acknowledged that it was “obviously a very poor and troubled country.”
According to the Washington Post, Trump described countries like Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa as “shithole countries.”
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” he said according to sources who leaked information from inside the meeting with members of Congress on a possible DACA amnesty deal.
Trump expressed frustration that leaks of his comments were reported, adding that he should probably “record” audio of future meetings with members of Congress in the future.
He also appeared disappointed that the bipartisan group of senators could not come up with a tough DACA deal that secured the border.
“What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!” he wrote.
Trump said that Democrats refusal to bend on border security threatened a DACA deal and warned that they would shut down the government.
“Because of the Democrats not being interested in life and safety, DACA has now taken a big step backwards,” he said. “The Dems will threaten ‘shutdown,’ but what they are really doing is shutting down our military, at a time we need it most.”
Trump criticized the bipartisan deal proposed by pro-amnesty senators including Sen. Jeff Flake.
“Wall was not properly funded, Chain & Lottery were made worse and USA would be forced to take large numbers of people from high crime,” he said.