President Trump: 'I am not a racist'
President Trump has denied that he
is racist, after a row broke out over his alleged use of the word
"shithole" to describe African nations.
Mr Trump reportedly used the term last week during a bipartisan Oval Office meeting on immigration reform.
He has now told reporters: "I am not a racist. I'm the least racist person you have ever interviewed."
It is the first time the president has responded directly to the racism accusations.
He made the denial to White House press pool reporters at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Sunday night.
What did the president allegedly say?
The
row broke out after lawmakers from both parties visited the president
on Thursday to work on a proposal for a bipartisan immigration deal.
In
recent weeks the Trump administration has been withdrawing Temporary
Protected Status (TPS) from a number of nationalities currently living
in the country.
Reports later emerged in US media that Trump had
asked during the meeting: "Why are we having all these people from
shithole countries come here?"
Mr Trump was said to have told them
that instead of granting temporary residency to citizens of countries
hit by natural disasters, war or epidemics, the US should instead be
taking in migrants from countries like Norway.
Who backed up the claims?
The
president tweeted on Friday morning that the language he used in the
meeting was "tough" but disputed the wording of the reports.
The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made - a big setback for DACA!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018
He also posted another tweet denying he had insulted Haitians, accusing Democrats of making it up.
But
Senator Dick Durbin stood by claims, and said that Mr Trump had used
"hate-filled, vile and racist" language during the meeting.
Several senior Republican lawmakers at the meeting, including
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, have said they do not
recall Mr Trump making the remark.
But another Republican senator who was there, Lindsey Graham, did not deny the comments were made.
"Following
comments by the president, I said my piece directly to him yesterday.
The president and all those attending the meeting know what I said and
how I feel," he said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, a senior
Republican, said that Donald Trump's immigration comments were "very
unfortunate" and "unhelpful".
Asked on Sunday on whether he
thought the comments had made it harder to achieve any immigration deal,
Mr Trump responded: "Have you seen what various senators said about my
comments? They weren't made."
What has the reaction been?
The African Union on Friday demanded that the US president apologise after the alleged comments, expressing their "shock, dismay and outrage" at the "clearly racist" remarks.
The
UN human rights spokesman, Rupert Colville, told a Geneva news
briefing: "There is no other word one can use but racist. You cannot
dismiss entire countries and continents as 'shitholes'."
The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
accused the president of falling "deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole
of racism and xenophobia".
Several Democratic representatives
have said they intend to skip the president's State of the Union address
later this month over the comments, accusing the president of racism.
BBC
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