{"id":8208,"date":"2025-12-10T18:55:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T18:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/12\/10\/almost-eight-years-later-trump-confirms-he-used-the-phrase-shithole-countries-cnn\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T18:55:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T18:55:03","slug":"almost-eight-years-later-trump-confirms-he-used-the-phrase-shithole-countries-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/12\/10\/almost-eight-years-later-trump-confirms-he-used-the-phrase-shithole-countries-cnn\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost eight years later, Trump confirms he used the phrase \u2018shithole countries\u2019 – CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\"President<\/picture> <\/div>\n
\n

It was an international controversy<\/a> during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term. Media outlets including CNN<\/a> reported that, at a closed-door January 2018 meeting with senators about immigration policy, Trump had asked why the US should accept immigrants from \u201cshithole countries\u201d such as some in Africa<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s White House spokesperson at the time didn\u2019t deny that the president had referred to \u201cshithole countries<\/a>,\u201d but Trump himself made some vague<\/a> statements that were phrased to sound<\/a> like<\/a> <\/a>denials<\/a>. The morning after The Washington Post broke the story of the disparaging remark<\/a>, he tweeted<\/a>, \u201cThe language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.\u201d <\/p>\n

That was then. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, almost eight years later, Trump explicitly confirmed he had spoken of \u201cshithole countries\u201d during a past closed-door meeting with senators. <\/p>\n

Trump delivered the confirmation during a speech in Pennsylvania that was officially devoted to economic issues but that veered into various other topics<\/a>. When the president said<\/a> he had \u201cannounced a permanent pause on Third World migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, and many other countries,\u201d somebody in the audience called out the word \u201cshithole.\u201d Trump responded, to laughter, \u201cI didn\u2019t say \u2018shithole,\u2019 you did.\u201d <\/p>\n

But then Trump said this. <\/p>\n

\u201cRemember I said that to the senators that came in, the Democrats. They wanted to be bipartisan. So they came in. And they said, \u2018This is totally off the record, nothing mentioned here, we want to be honest,\u2019 because our country was going to hell. And we had a meeting. And I say: Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can\u2019t we have some people from Norway, Sweden \u2013 just a few \u2013 let us have a few. From Denmark \u2013 do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people, do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia. Places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump didn\u2019t specify the meeting with senators in which he made these remarks, but his description of his comments, including his plea for immigrants from Scandinavia, matches media reports about what he had said at that January 2018 meeting that sparked the \u201cshithole countries\u201d controversy. For example, a CNN report<\/a> said: \u201cOne person briefed on the meeting said when (Sen. Dick) Durbin<\/a> got to Haiti, Trump began to ask why we want people from Haiti and more Africans in the US and added that the US should get more people from countries like Norway.\u201d The report said a source said Trump had asked during the meeting, \u201cWhy do we want all these people from \u2018shithole countries\u2019 coming here?\u201d <\/p>\n

In 2018, two Republican senators who were at the meeting, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and then-Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, issued a statement<\/a> saying they did \u201cnot recall\u201d Trump using such language, and Perdue went on to say<\/a> on television, \u201cI\u2019m telling you he did not use that word\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m telling you it\u2019s a gross misrepresentation.\u201d Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was also present, said<\/a> on television at the time, \u201cIt was an impassioned conversation. I don\u2019t recall that specific phrase being used, that\u2019s all I can say about that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Durbin, a Democrat, publicly confirmed<\/a> at the time Trump had referred in the meeting to \u201cshithole countries.\u201d But Trump tweeted<\/a>, \u201cSenator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/main> <\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was an international controversy during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term. Media outlets including CNN reported that, at a closed-door January 2018 meeting with senators about immigration policy, Trump had asked why the US should accept immigrants from \u201cshithole countries\u201d such as some in Africa. Trump\u2019s White House spokesperson at the time didn\u2019t deny that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}