Declaring that he is “not a racist”, President Donald Trump has asserted once again that he never made the derogatory comment about Haiti, African migrants at a White House meeting last week as claimed by a senior Democratic Senator.
“No, no, I’m not a racist. I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you,” Trump told reporters in Florida on Sunday night, when asked what he had to tell people calling him a racist after his alleged description of Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations as “shithole countries”.
“Did you see what various senators in the room said about my commentsIJ They weren’t made,” he said, referring to two Republican Senators who said on Sunday morning talk shows that they did not hear the President make any offensive comment of the type.
While Democratic Senator Dick Durbin has continued to insist that Trump did say “those hateful things, and he said them repeatedly”, Republican Senators David Perdue and Tom Cotton, who were also present at the meeting, asserted that they did not hear the President say any such thing. Perdue alleged it was a “gross misrepresentation” on Durbin’s part.
Trump, who was interacting with reporters at his golf club in Palm Beach on Sunday night, also accused Democrats of not willing to make a deal on DACA – the Obama-era protection from deportation for 8,00,000 young illegal immigrants under the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” programme.
“Honestly, I don’t think the Democrats want to make a deal. I think they talk about DACA, but they don’t want to help the DACA people,” he said, claiming: “We are ready, willing, and able to make a deal, but they don’t want to.”
Alluding to some of the conditions he has set for a DACA deal, Trump said: “They (Democrats) don’t want security at the border. We have people pouring in. They don’t want security at the border, and they don’t want to stop drugs.”
As part of the deal for “Dreamers”, Trump wants the Bill to include provisions to build a wall along the Mexican border, eliminate the diversity visa lottery programme, and end “chain-migration”. In place of family-based “chain-migration”, Trump wants “merit-based” immigration.
During his interaction, Trump also renewed his denial of having told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that he had a “very good relationship” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
“Obviously I didn’t say that. I said “I’d have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” a big difference,” Trump had tweeted earlier, adding: “Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters... and they knew exactly what I said and meant. They just wanted a story. FAKE NEWS!”
Amid his raging battle with the liberal mainstream media, Trump commented in another Twitter post: “So much Fake News is being reported. They don’t even try to get it right, or correct it when they are wrong. They promote the Fake Book of a mentally deranged author, who knowingly writes false information. The Mainstream Media is crazed that WE won the election!”