TRUMP ON SHUTDOWN, ‘I DON’T KNOW’: The optimism over a budget deal that would unlock this year’s funding for the Pentagon has once again turned to gloom as Democrats and Republicans bicker over whether President Trump poisoned the negotiations over protections for “Dreamers” with a vulgar remark and a racially explosive comment about preferring Norwegian immigrants over those from “shithole countries.”
The president denies making the controversial comments at a closed-door meeting with bipartisan members of Congress, and so far not one Republican has publicly confirmed that those words ever passed the president’s lips. Only Sen. Dick Durbin, the meeting’s lone Democrat, has said Trump made the remark repeatedly, a charge that has provoked international condemnation, and damaged the U.S. reputation around the world.
