President Trump is under fire after reportedly referring to Haiti and African countries with a derogatory term. USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a Senate committee Tuesday she did not hear President Trump utter the word "shithole" or a similar vulgarity to describe African and some Latin American countries during a meeting on immigration last week with senators.
Trump has denied using the word. At a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pressed Nielsen, who attended the meeting, about the specific language the president used and whether the term "shithole" or a similar profanity was used.
Nielsen replied that she did not hear the term but said the meeting included "tough" rhetoric on both sides.
Here's a transcript of the exchange:
Leahy: Last week in the Oval Office, President Trump reportedly said the most vulgar, racist things, I've ever heard a president of either party utter. ...Now he denies using the specific word and there's been some (talk that) maybe he used a different word, maybe he didn't. Now Madam Secretary, you were in the room. You're under oath. Did President Trump use this word or a substantially similar word to describe certain countries.
Nielsen: "I did not hear that word used. No sir."
Leahy: Did he use anything similar to that describing certain countries?
Nielsen: The conversation was very impassioned. I don't dispute that the president was using tough language. Others in the room were also using tough language. The concept and the context I believe in which this came up was a concept that the president would like to move a to a merit-based system (for immigration).
Leahy: Did he use what would be considered vulgar language referring to certain countries?
Nielsen: The president used tough language in general as did other congressmen in the room.
While Leahy was questioning Nielsen, an aide stood up behind the senator and held up a poster of a newspaper article where the headline spelled out the vulgarity Trump allegedly used.
The president allegedly used the term to describe immigrants from predominately black or Latin American countries and told congressional leaders that an immigration bill should keep out Haitians and allow more Norwegians.
Leahy was not at the meeting but Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. was.
Durbin told reporters last week the president uttered the term during a meeting at the White House with several senators Thursday to discuss the future of some 800,000 immigrants who were brought into the country illegally but are protected from deportation through the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was also at the meeting, has corroborated Durbin's account.
Trump did not dispute Durbin initially but by Monday was pushing back against the senator's claim.
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Later in Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing, Durbin asked Nielsen what she recalls Trump saying at the meeting.
"What I heard him saying was that he'd like to move away from a country-based quota system to a merit-based system so it shouldn't matter where you're from, it should matter what you can contribute to the United States," she replied.
When Durbin asked her about the specific language used, Nielsen said there were about a dozen people in the room, many talking over each other.
"There was a lot of rough talk by a lot of people in the room," Nielsen said, adding she could not recall specific words. "What I was struck with frankly, as I'm sure you were as well, is just the general profanity that was used in the room by almost everyone."
"You didn't hear me use profanity," Durbin shot back.
"No sir," Nielsen agreed. "Neither did I."