Jeff Flake: Meeting Attendees Told Me Trump Said ‘Sh*thole’ Before ‘Those Words Went Public’

Sen. @JeffFlake tells @GStephanopoulos he heard directly from participants in that Oval Office meeting “those words were used” by President Trump, “before those words went public.” pic.twitter.com/5HdhXSKfAx

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 14, 2018

This morning, Sens. David Perdue and Tom Cotton took to the Sunday morning shows to claim that President Donald Trump never said immigrants from Haiti and African nations were “people from shithole countries” during an immigration meeting. Following their joint statement in which they both said they couldn’t recall the president saying those words, both men today claimed reports of the president’s comments were misrepresented.

Meanwhile, one GOP lawmaker who spoke with meeting attendees said that he was informed that Trump did indeed make those comments. And further noted that he was told about the president’s remarks prior to the comments going public.

Following Perdue’s interview on This Week, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) appeared on the program and contradicted Perdue’s assertion that reports on Trump’s comments were a “gross misrepresentation.”

“All I can say is that I was in a meeting directly afterwards where those who had presented to the president our proposal spoke about the meeting,” Flake told host George Stephanopoulos. “They said those words were used before those words went public.”

He added that he heard the account before that account was publicly reported.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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