Trump uttered the vulgarity before several lawmakers in the Oval Office while asking why the U.S. accepts immigrants from those countries, according to reports.
Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was at the meeting, told lawmakers Tuesday she “did not hear” the president use the term or one similar to it. She acknowledged there was “tough language” from the president and members of Congress.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was first at Tuesday’s oversight hearing to broach the subject.
“Now, last week in the Oval Office, President Trump reportedly said the most vulgar and racist thing I’ve ever heard a president of either party utter,” Leahy said.
Throughout the hourslong hearing, no one repeated the phrase attributed to Trump. But when Leahy spoke, an aide held up behind him a large printout of a headline including the comment.
Trump tweeted a denial that he had said the phrase, and he insisted he “never said anything derogatory” about Haitians. Two Republican senators said over the weekend that they didn’t hear the president say “shithole.”
Leahy put the question to Nielsen.
“You were in the room. You’re under oath. Did President Trump use this word or a substantially similar word to describe certain countries?” Leahy asked.
“I did not hear that word used. No, sir,” Nielsen said.
Upon further questioning, Nielsen said the president and the congressmen in the room used “tough language.”
“The conversation was very impassioned,” she said. “I don’t dispute that the president was using tough language. Others in the room were also using tough language.”
Leahy also pushed on the president’s comments about desiring more immigrants from Norway. Nielsen said Trump was making the case for adopting an immigration system based on merit.
“Being from Norway is not a skill,” Leahy said.
Nielsen said Trump was alluding to a comment during his recent visit with the president of Norway, who said the people of Norway are hardworking.
“What he was referencing is from a merit-based perspective, we’d like to have those with skills who can assimilate and contribute to the United States,” Nielsen said.
Over the course of the hearing, Nielsen fielded questions on Trump’s proposed border wall, the impending expiration of a program that offers protected status to unauthorized immigrants who arrived as children, and cybersecurity.
But Democrats on the committee kept returning to the subject of what Trump said behind closed doors Thursday.
Nielsen appeared to grow irritated by the questions. At one point, in response to a senator’s question about Trump’s language, Nielsen said she’d had enough.
“I have nothing further to say about a meeting that happened over a week ago,” Nielsen said.
But lawmakers were not done.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., delivered a ringing criticism of Nielsen and others who have said they don’t recall hearing Trump’s inflammatory comment during the meeting.
“Your silence and your amnesia is complicity,” Booker said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was at Thursday’s meeting and has been a key negotiator on an immigration deal, called for collaboration across the aisle.
“We need to get back to being a great country where Democrats and Republicans work together to do something that we should have done years ago,” he said.
Graham defended Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the only Democrat in the Oval Office during Thursday’s meeting, who has publicly stood by his account of Trump’s statement.
Graham said that early last week, Trump seemed receptive to a deal on immigration. Something shifted before the meeting Thursday.
“The president ran hot,” Graham said, adding that he would like to find out what changed.
“And quite frankly, I got pretty passionate and I ran a little hot too,” he said.
