DONALD ON DONALD/IMMIGRATION/RACISM/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “After three days of denunciations from around the world, President Trump declared that he is ‘not a racist’ on Sunday [1-14-18], even as the uproar over his vulgar remarks on immigration overshadowed critical issues facing the capital, including efforts to protect young undocumented immigrants and avert a government shutdown.
Mr. Trump also insisted that he had not made the inflammatory comments in a White House meeting on Thursday, part of a newly aggressive defense and a counterattack on Democrats by the president and his allies. But his remarks on Sunday were a departure from the White House’s initial statement last week, which did not deny the comments… His comments, while extraordinary coming from a president of the United States, echoed reassurances Mr. Trump has made several times before…
The senator, David Perdue of Georgia, also accused another participant in the White House meeting, Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, of a ‘gross misrepresentation’ of what the president had said at the session…
The rift over Mr. Trump’s comments, and how they have since been recounted, risked further eroding trust between Democrats and Republicans at the beginning of a critical week for Congress. Government funding is set to expire on Friday, and lawmakers will need to pass a stopgap spending measure to avoid a government shutdown on Saturday.”
-Thomas Kaplan, Noah Weiland, and Michael D. Shear, “Hopes Dim for DACA Deal as Lawmakers Battle Over Trump’s Immigration Remarks,” The New York Times online, Jan. 14, 2018