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This Senator Is Not Letting Trump Get Away With His Shit

by Valerie Williams
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
Image via Chip Somodevilla/Staff/Getty Images

Sen. Dick Durbin is the first to go on record confirming Trump’s racist words in yesterday’s immigration meeting

As an American, it’s become easy to feel disillusioned by our current political situation. The person occupying the Oval Office is not only a repulsive, racist, xenophobic creep — he’s a habitual liar. It sometimes feels like nothing is being done to keep President Donald Trump in check, but then we’re reminded that our country still has some politicians who have our best interests at heart.

Senator Dick Durbin is one of them.

Senator Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters today that he was in the room yesterday when Trump reportedly said, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” referring to immigrants coming to the United States from Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries. He also said, according to people familiar with the meeting, “Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.”

Durbin confirms, “He said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly.”

Of course, Trump took to his favorite app this morning and denied it all. Because he’s lying as long as his mouth or typing fingers are moving.

Durbin’s account completely contradicts Trump’s, and after all the lying the president has done, why would anyone believe him now? Durbin said, “I cannot believe that in the history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday.”

“You’ve seen the comments in the press. I’ve not read one of them that’s inaccurate,” says the senator.

The president said these words in response to Durbin, in fact. When the senator told Trump about the number of people holding temporary protected status, including Haitians, that was when the president asked if we “need more Haitians.” Durbin says the “shithole” comment was “the exact word used by the president ― not just once, but repeatedly.”

While Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was among the other seven senators in the meeting, hasn’t spoken out on Trump’s words publicly, Durbin does confirm that he challenged the president’s harsh words during the meeting, which he says “took extraordinary political courage.”

I’m not sure I agree. If telling the president that it’s wrong to be a vile racist is now considered “courageous,” that means we’re even more far gone as a nation than we could’ve imagined.

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