Trump's White House: How a bipartisan policy meeting devolved into vulgarity
Interesting story about the flow of events. Also, very curious that Sen Cotton can't recall the vulgar language of Trump when he was rushed over to this meeting after getting a call from WH staff. Makes Cotton's comments 'don't recall' even more unbelievable!!
Trump's White House: How a bipartisan policy meeting devolved into vulgarity
http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/politics/immigration-meeting-donald-trump/index.html
By Kevin Liptak and Jamie Gangel, CNN
Sen. Durbin: Trump said those hateful things 02:17
Story highlights
The meeting came amid a high-stakes battle over immigration
The White House came out in defense of Trump's immigration positions
]Washington (CNN)Republican Sen. Tom Cotton was meeting with a foreign leader in his Capitol Hill office Thursday when he received an urgent message to come to the White House.
Playing out amid a high-stakes battle over immigration that's gripped Washington for the past week, the summons was a move to slow down an attempt by Democrats and moderate Republicans to push through a deal, according to a senior Republican with knowledge of the meeting.
President Donald Trump, at various points over the previous four days, had expressed openness to whatever agreement lawmakers could devise.
Cotton, an immigration hardliner who speaks with the President regularly, quickly hopped into a car. As he rushed across an unseasonably warm Washington, there was little to indicate the meeting he was about to enter would become so heated and ultimately go down as the time the President derided African countries as "shitholes" and asked why more immigrants couldn't come from Norway.
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When Cotton arrived at the West Wing reception area Thursday, he found Durbin and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, waiting to brief Trump on their bipartisan immigration negotiations. He also found fellow immigration hardliner GOP Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, who was also called by Trump's aides to brief the President.
Durbin and Graham arrived at the White House believing they would be meeting privately with Trump, a source familiar with the situation said, and were surprised to see the others. .........................................
..................Once the meeting got underway, it was clear Trump wasn't in the mood to entertain the plan being offered by Durbin and Graham, which would have increased border security funding, allowed for a 10- to 12-year path to citizenship for some young undocumented immigrants and provided protections for individuals with Temporary Protected Status from countries such as El Salvador and Haiti.
It was that final provision that prompted Trump's vulgarity. Asking why the US needs more Haitians, he pushed to "take them out" of the deal. And in a separate part of the conversation about the diversity visa lottery, Trump referred to people coming from Africa as coming from "shithole countries."..........................
Link to tweet
