Overview
- At a Dec. 9 campaign event in Mount Pocono, Trump recalled saying, “why is it we only take people from shithole countries,” when discussing a 2018 Oval Office immigration meeting.
- During the rally, he touted a claimed permanent pause on what he called Third World migration and labeled Afghanistan, Haiti, and Somalia as “hellholes.”
- FactCheck.org reviewed the remarks and concluded that Trump’s new account settles the earlier dispute over the wording and shows his 2018 denials were untrue.
- The White House, via Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson, dismissed the renewed focus on the phrase as “another Fake News narrative peddled by Democrats.”
- The 2018 meeting centered on immigration and DACA, and at the time some attendees said they did not hear or recall the specific vulgar term while Durbin publicly asserted that it was used.