In a sign the controversy over the now-infamous “shithole” meeting at the White House will continue to reverberate, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker angrily rebuked Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen over her assertion that she did not recall hearing President Trump use that epithet in describing potential immigrants from Haiti or the countries of Africa.
Testifying under oath in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Nielsen was first asked by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont whether she heard the remarks, which were first revealed by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat, and tacitly confirmed by Republican Lindsay Graham of South Carolina. Nielsen recalled that the president used “tough language” but avoided repeating the specific vocabulary Trump used in the Oval Office meeting. (She did ultimately acknowledge the president used “cuss words.”)
Cory Booker“When ignorance and bigotry is aligned with power, it is a dangerous force in our country.”
Shortly thereafter, Durbin himself asked Nielsen to share her recollection of the meeting, including whether the president expressed a preference for Norwegians. Again, she declined to repeat the president’s exact words.
Nielsen’s testimony drew a fierce and emotional response from Booker, who only recently joined the Judiciary Committee. “When ignorance and bigotry is aligned with power, it is a dangerous force in our country,” Booker said. “Your silence and your amnesia is complicity.”
Elsewhere in the Senate, some 300 immigrant youth expressed their frustration with the impasse on a deal to ensure that so-called “dreamers” are able to stay in the country. The protestors were removed from the offices of Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, among others.
Yet the most interesting development may well have been Lindsay Graham’s increasingly public breach from the White House. Though Graham had lately been taking great pains to repair his relationship with Trump, he appears to be deeply frustrated by this latest imbroglio, telling reporters the president is “not well-served” by his staff. Noting that Trump seemingly flip-flopped on his support for the deal negotiated by Graham and Durbin last week–the deal that fell apart following the “shithole” conclave–Graham said of the more amenable, deal-making Trump, “I don’t know where that guy went, but I want him back.”
