Almost eight years later, Trump confirms he used the phrase ‘shithole countries’

President Donald Trump speaks in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. Alex Brandon/AP

It was an international controversy during President Donald Trump’s first term. Media outlets including CNN reported that, at a closed-door January 2018 meeting with senators about immigration policy, Trump had asked why the US should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” such as some in Africa .

Trump’s White House spokesperson at the time didn’t deny that the president had referred to “shithole countries ,” but Trump himself made some vague statements that were phrased to sound like denials . The morning after The Washington Post broke the story of the disparaging remark , he tweeted , “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the languag