Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin fought back on Monday, telling Donald Trump to release any tapes that the White House may have from the infamous meeting in which the president referred to brown-skinned nations as “shithole countries.”
Earlier today, Trump attacked the Democratic senator, calling him “Senator Dicky Durbin” and saying he “totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting.”
Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018
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Sen. Durbin was having none of it, saying if Trump truly feels his comments are being “misrepresented” then he should release any existing recordings from the Oval Office meeting.
“I want to just call on the White House right now, release whatever you have,” the Democrat said earlier today. “If they don’t have it, so be it.”
Durbin said he stands by his claim that Trump did, in fact, make the racist “shithole countries” comment and that if the White House can’t take the backlash, they should find another line of work.
“If you don’t have a tough skin, this is not a good business to get into,” Durbin said. “I know what happened. I stand behind every word that I said in terms of that meeting.”
Video:
Sen Durbin this morning stands by his previous comments about what Pres Trump said in DACA meeting pic.twitter.com/AAgCEfBCJW
— Tony Arnold (@tonyjarnold) January 15, 2018
The public is likely to brush off Trump’s claims that he never made the offensive remarks during the meeting. After all, this is a man who has made more than 2,000 false or misleading claims in just 355 days in the Oval Office, according to the Washington Post.
Add his unprecedented lies to his well-documented history of racist rhetoric, and it’s clear that Trump calling African nations “shithole countries” is the least surprising things he’s ever done.
Trump’s half-hearted Twitter denials are fooling nobody, certainly not a U.S. senator who was in the room when he made the comments.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.