Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Monday that his memory “hasn’t evolved” in regards to the explosive immigration meeting during which President Donald Trump reportedly called Haiti, El Salvador, and unnamed African countries “shithole countries.”
While again refusing to explicitly confirm whether or not Trump made those comments, Graham told the Post and Courier “My memory hasn’t evolved. I know what was said and I know what I said.”
The South Carolina senator was possibly directing his comments at Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), who also attended the meeting and initially said they “do not recall” Trump’s “shithole” remarks.
Cotton later said that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who confirmed the Washington Post’s original report on Trump’s comments, was “incorrect.”
“I didn’t hear it,” he told “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson.
Meanwhile, Perdue insisted on Sunday that Trump never used that phrase, saying it was a “gross misrepresentation” of what happened in the meeting.
Durbin’s spokesman said that both Republicans have a “credibility problem.”
Yesterday, Senators Cotton and Perdue “could not recall” what the President said. Today they can. That, folks, is a credibility problem. https://t.co/cLT13FANc3
— Ben Marter (@BenMarter) January 14, 2018
After shocking reports of the meeting arose on Thursday, Graham neither confirmed nor denied their accuracy, saying instead that “following comments by the President, I said my piece directly to him yesterday.”
On Sunday, Trump denied making those comments and declared himself “the least racist person you have ever interviewed” when asked about the remarks.
