A Return to Sh*thole Countries

Revisiting Senator Tom Cotton eyewitness account.

In January 2018, the political ecosystem in Washington was consumed by a specific, vulgar epithet. Reports had leaked from an Oval Office meeting on immigration suggesting President Trump had referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.” This was according to Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.

On January 12, 2018 (the morning after the story broke), he tweeted:

“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.”

Two days later, on January 14, when asked by reporters in Florida about the comments, he was more direct:

“They weren’t made.”

On Tuesday night (December 9, 2025), during a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, President Trump explicitly admitted to using the phrase, effectively erasing seven years of denials from himself and his surrogates.

He did not just admit to it; he reenacted the 2018 meeting as a point of pride to cheer on his new “permanent pause” on migration from specific nations.

“We had a meeting and I said, ‘Why is it we only take people from shithole countries,’ right? ‘Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden—just a few... But we always take people from Somalia. Places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.’”

So, it turns out it was true. At the time, I interviewed Senator Tom Cotton. Here is the exchange (transcript below):

I asked Senator Cotton repeatedly about the President’s “sentiment”—whether he was grouping people by country rather than merit. Cotton denied the sentiment existed. Tuesday night, the President didn’t just confirm the word; he confirmed the sentiment was the entire point.

DICKERSON: All right, let`s move on to immigration.

You were in the Oval Office meeting that has gotten a lot of attention where the president reportedly used a vulgar and derogatory term. Also there was Senator Perdue. He talked to ABC “This Week,” and I want to get your thoughts about what he said and what he told to George Stephanopoulos.

Let`s watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “THIS WEEK”)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Senator Durbin has been very clear. Senator Graham has told others that the reports were basically accurate.

Are you saying the president did not use the word that has been so widely reported?

SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R), GEORGIA: I`m telling you he did not use that word, George, and I`m telling it`s a close misrepresentation. How many times do you want me to say that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DICKERSON: Senator, your view on this that he said this word?

COTTON: Yes, John, I didn`t hear that word either.

I certainly didn`t hear what Senator Durbin has said repeatedly. Senator Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings, though, so perhaps we shouldn`t be surprised by that.

Here is what did I hear. And here is the point.

DICKERSON: Just -- sorry to interrupt.

You didn`t hear the word or it was not said? Because Senator Graham also told Senator Scott, your Republican colleague, that this is what happened. Senator Flake was in a subsequent meeting right afterwards, where he was told by people in the meeting this happened.

So, just to button that up, you`re saying it did not happen, or you haven`t -- or you just don`t recall?

COTTON: I didn`t hear it. And I was sitting no further away from Donald Trump than Dick Durbin was.

DICKERSON: But it...

COTTON: And I know what Dick Durbin has said about Donald -- about the president`s repeated statements is incorrect.

DICKERSON: So, Durbin -- was Durbin lying?

COTTON: Senator Durbin has misrepresented what happened in White House meetings before, and he was corrected by Obama administration officials by it.

But here is the point, John. We have an immigration system today that treats people based on where they`re from or who they`re related to, not who they are. That`s not the system we need.

When Senator Durbin and Senator Graham came to the Oval Office and proposed not to fix that system, but to expand it, to create more quotas, more set-asides for other countries, yes, senator -- or the president reacted with pretty tough language, as he said, because we want to move to a system that treats people for who they are, not where they`re from.

DICKERSON: But isn`t that precisely the problem here, is that the president in the sentiment, leaving aside the word, the sentiment behind it, which Senator Graham thought was strong enough that he rebutted it, according to accounts of the meeting, the sentiment is to treat people based on where they come from, not who they are.

COTTON: No, the...

DICKERSON: The countries they come from, these African countries or Haiti.

So that`s treating people in a big old basket, not as who they actually are. And that was the sentiment -- forgetting the word for a moment, that`s the sentiment the president was expressing.

COTTON: John, it`s the exact opposite. That`s what Senator Durbin and Senator Graham are doing.

What I`m trying to do and Senator Perdue wants to do, what the president said he supports is treat people for who they are. That`s why we want to move to a skill-based system, so if you`re a doctor or a scientist or a computer programmer, it shouldn`t matter whether you come from Nigeria or Norway or any other country on this Earth.

Today, though, we have system that rewards ties of blood, ties of kin, ties of clan. That`s one of the most un-American immigration systems I can imagine. That`s why we`re trying to fix it.

DICKERSON: The president and White House officials have said -- leaving the word aside, they said he used strong language.

Help me understand the strong sentiment about why people who come from African countries and Haiti should not be allowed in and the strong sentiment for why people from Norway should be allowed in. What`s the policy sentiment the president is supporting there, if not to put people in baskets based upon...

COTTON: John the point is that country of origin quotas are arbitrary, and they treat people based on where they`re from, not who they are.

Today, for instance, over 300,000 Indians are waiting to immigrate to this country. They can`t do because we have arbitrary caps on the countries from which people come.

If you change our immigration system to a skills-based system that respects and treats people for who they are as individuals, as opposed to residents of a certain country...

DICKERSON: Right.

COTTON: ... or relatives of certain people in the United States, it`s a system that is more in keeping with American values.

DICKERSON: So, then, in this notion of American values, which is what is at the heart of this debate, because people what need to know is that their president isn`t judging people on the color of their skin, but based on those skills that you talked about.

So, can you say then that the president, in your conversations, in this specific one, was not grouping people based on the countries they came from, that that was -- sentiment was nowhere in anything he said, not the words, but the sentiment from him, that that was absent from his mind or anything he said?

COTTON: No, John, what Senator Durbin and Senator Graham propose is to expand our country of origin and quota-based system.

The president reacted strongly against that, as he should, and I do as well, because we want to get away from a country of origin system that treats people as Nigerians or Norwegians, and treats them as individuals, as doctors and scientists and computer programmers and so forth.

DICKERSON: I understand your sentiment. And you`re quite clear on that.

But the president`s sentiment, you`re saying, in all these meetings, there was never an instance in which he did what you`re saying...

(CROSSTALK)

DICKERSON: ... where he grouped people in that fashion.

COTTON: Well, John -- and -- and -- John, in his -- in his tweets, in his interviews, in his public statements just Tuesday, when we had the large meeting in the Cabinet room, he repeatedly insists that we need to move to a skills-based system.

DICKERSON: But you were in the room where it happened.

So, you`re saying, in that room, you didn`t hear any of this sort of lumping everybody together? Is that what you`re saying?

COTTON: I did not hear derogatory comments about...

DICKERSON: But the sentiment.

COTTON: ... about -- about individuals or persons, no.

DICKERSON: OK.

So, you -- this sentiment is totally phony as well that is attributed to him?

COTTON: Yes.