Shitheads probably don't want to recall Trump saying 'shithole countries'

Say something outrageous, vulgar or crude, then deny saying it. That's the now established pattern of President Donald John Trump on what he says from day to day and what he says he didn't say.

Trump T-Shirts at Columbus rally in 2016
Photo credit: John Michael Spinelli

Last week Trump called African nations and others, including El Salvador and Haiti, "shithole countries" and asked why America needs more of them? Maybe it was because the day before he had meet with Norway's prime minister that he wondered why more Norwegians aren't coming to make America great?

After the meeting at which one Democrat and six Republican senators were in attendance in the White House to discuss DACA, Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, the lone Democrat and one of the Republicans confessed the president had indeed used the word shithole in his conversation with them. South Carolina Sen. Lyndsey Graham said he said his piece with Trump at the meeting, while Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin told media Trump used the word not once but several times.

The other Republicans in the room said either nothing or that they didn't recall the use of the word. A spokesman for Durbin is questioning a Republican senator who says President Donald Trump did not refer to African countries using a word the world press was challenged to translate into various languages.

According to the AP, a tweet by Ben Marter Sunday, shortly after Republican Georgia Sen. David Perdue went on ABC’s “This Week” to call reports that Trump used vile language in the meeting a “gross misrepresentation,” questioned Perdue's credibility. Perdue said Durbin and Graham were mistaken in indicating Trump had used that word.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week" show on Sunday, Perdue said, “I am telling you that he did not use that word. And I’m telling you it’s a gross misrepresentation.” GOP Sen. Tom Cotton had weighed in, saying he didn't "recall the President saying those comments specifically” then modified that on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” where he said he “didn’t hear” the word shithole used.

Denying what he said to reporters is now common practice for The Donald, who said he was quoted incorrectly in an interview with the Wall Street Journal about relations with North Korea’s leader. The WSJ, the AP reports, said Trump said he "probably has a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.” Trump quibbles over the quote, saying what he really said was that "‘I’d have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,’ a big difference. Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters and they knew exactly what I said and meant. They just wanted a story. FAKE NEWS!'”

Meanwhile, the White House and the WSJ have released separate audio clips and say they stand by their reporting.

In Ohio, Rep. Jim Renacci, who Trump convinced to jump from the race for governor to the race against U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democratic, said Trump was only saying what Americans are thinking.

Brown seized on the comment by a possible challenger this fall. "The President certainly isn't speaking for me and he isn't speaking for a great majority of people across Ohio," said Brown in a statement.

Then there was Ohio's term-limited Gov. John Kasich who as he so often does, had to drag God into it.

"It's a terrible comment," he said, according to reports. "The bottom line is, we're all made in the image of the Lord and we don't want to say disparaging things. We all make mistakes, but there's no excuse and when you do it you have to apologize."

Although he didn't use a swear word like Trump did, Kasich had no problem saying disparaging things about Hillary Clinton in 2016, when he lost all state GOP primary contests except one.

The question reporters should be asking is this: Why would Norwegians want to come to America when their country is so good when compared to the United States? And why aren't more Haitians wising up and asking to immigrant to Norway, where more Americans migrated to than the other way around?

As the AP reported, "Norwegians generally live longer than Americans. There's a generous safety net of health care and pensions. And although it's pricey, the country last year was named the happiest on Earth"

It seems absolutely impossible to conceive that if anybody, especially a politician who holds the grandest office in the land, used the word shithole several times in a short amount of time to refer to you, that anyone present at the meeting, especially you, could possible develop overnight amnesia and pretend that word wasn't used.

If someone called you a shithead more than once in the span of minutes, would you really walk away from that conversation thinking that you weren't referred to in such a vulgar way?

Does that make you a shithead for not remembering you were just called a shithead? Or does that make the shithead who called you a shithead, a shithead?

Maybe? Probably? Who knows? Really? I don't think so.

For a reminder, here's Emma Lazarus' poem at the Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"