I’m telling you he did not use that word, George. And I’m telling you it’s a gross misrepresentation. How many times do you want me to say that?” Perdue said after host George Stephanopoulos pressed him for an answer.Perdue was one of several lawmakers participating in a meeting with Trump last week when the president reportedly referred to immigrants from African nations, El Salvador and Haiti as coming from "shithole countries."

Trump allies see 's***hole' controversy as overblownTrump allies see 's***hole' controversy as overblownPlay VideoPlayMute0:00/0:43Loaded: 0%0:00Progress: 0%Stream TypeLIVE-0:43 SharePlayback Rate1xChaptersChaptersDescriptionsdescriptions off, selectedCaptions

"Following comments by the President, I said my piece directly to him yesterday. The President and all those attending the meeting know what I said and how I feel. I've always believed that America is an idea, not defined by its people but by its ideals," Graham said. 

President Donald Trump's senior policy adviser Stephen Miller was "escorted" off a CNN TV set in Washington on Sunday by the network's security officers following a contentious interview with Jake Tapper, CNN has said. A CNN source told CBS News that Miller was escorted out "after refusing to leave voluntarily."

During an impromptu gaggle aboard Air Force One on Monday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley disputed those reports, saying Miller was not escorted out of CNN and instead left of his own will. President Trump praised Miller, tweeting shortly after the appearance which at times devolved into an on-air shouting match, that his aide had "destroyed" Tapper. He urged his followers to "watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!"

"I literally kind of knocked on the door and said, 'Can I come in?' and they said 'Okay.' I came in. I sat on the couch, and that's the point of view I wrote this book from; the point of this book is to have readers sit on the couch and watch what's happening in the West Wing," said Wolff.

One year into Donald Trump's presidency, Americans feel more positive about the economy but not as good about the state of the country overall – and the latter is closely tied to views of the president. 

The number of believers has shrunk (from 22 percent to just 18 percent) and the number of strong opponents "resisters" has grown – from 35 percent to 41 percent now. In that regard, President Trump's first year in office looks a bit like a tale of what might have been, as those who began the year looking for a reason to support him have instead become increasingly opposed. 

For Donald Trump's opponents, 70 percent say a big reason they don't support the president is that he's disrespected people like them, and most don't like his policies. Support and opposition to the president connects to whether or not people feel like they have a voice in what happens in the country. Mr. Trump's strongest supporters feel they do, and his most ardent opponents (the "Resisters" – who make up four in 10 Americans) feel they have less of a voice now than they did.  Fifty-five percent of Americans think Donald Trump's response to criticism is that he just argues with those who disagree, but the resisters (73 percent) view Trump as trying to suppress the views of those who disagree with him. 

Washington (CNN)Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a top Democrat newly out of office, had choice words for President Donald Trump on Sunday, calling him "disgraceful," "disgusting" and an "embarrassment."

"Disgraceful, disgusting, he just continues to hurt the prestige of the United States of America," McAuliffe said on CNN's "State of the Union" in response to Trump's reportedly calling nations in Africa "shithole countries."

"The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made - a big setback for DACA!" he tweeted.

Tweet it out, put on “tapes,” or just let the cameras roll. There will be a clear historical dividing line that separates what the American presidency and American politics were on either side of the current occupant of the Oval Office.

It has featured a president constantly pushing boundaries and prodding institutions, not just defying conventions but smashing them. He’s been offensive, shocking, and sometimes seemingly self-destructive – but he’s also getting things done in ways both small and profoundly large.

“He’s willing to say things that are not true,” said Zelizer, the Princeton historian. “He just does it. Even when he’s told he’s doing it, he’s going to continue to do it.”

Around the world, news organizations were struggling under the burden of translating the "colorful vernacular" that the American President had reportedly used to describe certain nations during Thursday afternoon's meeting about immigration reform.

If Trump is calling countries with black populations shitholes, it's because he sees them as cesspools of human excrement, the dark waste of the world -- a point made even uglier by his use of Norway, where over 90% of the population is white and three out of four people fit the Aryan blond and blue eyed ideal, as his example of a nation from which America should seek new immigrants.

There is no logical interpretation of Trump's words other than as an assertion of white supremacist purpose, in which he explicitly states what has been the implied core mission of Trumpism all along: To Make America White Again. (As I noted on Twitter in reaction to this: "If there were a Doomsday Clock for Trump blurting out the N-word in public, it would currently show two minutes to midnight.")

The Department of Homeland Security announced Saturday it would resume processing renewal applications for young undocumented immigrants seeking protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

The White House and President Donald Trump initially blasted the decision. But in a statement Saturday, DHS said: "Until further notice, and unless otherwise provided in this guidance, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017."

He then tweeted again on Sunday morning, claiming DACA is "probably dead" despite the judge's ruling prompting the U.S. to resume accepting renewal applications, and claiming he wants an immigration system based on merit. During the now-infamous bipartisan meeting on the subject, Trump reportedly called for the U.S. to accept more immigrants from Norway, rather than Haiti and African countries.

WASHINGTON — Last summer, President Donald Trump publicly pinned much of the blame for his administration’s woes on its communications efforts.

Trump defends his use of Twitter, saying that it offers him a chance to communicate directly with the American people in an open and honest way. But the president, who often takes his cues from cable news — he frequently tags Fox News to his tweets — or from the last adviser to brief him, has proven that in many cases, his views are flexible and subject to influence.

On Thursday, Trump contradicted himself in a pair of tweets sent nearly three hours apart, initially indicating he had serious concerns with the surveillance program that he claimed “may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration.” With the House about to vote on the reauthorization of the FISA program, his comments set off a flurry of confusion

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday called President Donald Trump's comments on immigration "unhelpful," in his first public reaction to news that Trump referred to African nations as "shithole" countries.

Asked how Trump's comments will affect immigration talks, Ryan responded, "We have to get it done."

"The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made - a big setback for DACA!" Trump tweeted.

During a conversation with David Letterman on his new Netflix program, former President Barack Obama issued a stern warning for the current commander in chief: "One of the things that Michelle figured out, in some ways faster than I did, was part of your ability to lead the country doesn't have to do with legislation, doesn't have to do with regulations, it has to do with shaping attitudes, shaping culture, increasing awareness."

It would be a mistake to dismiss the comments as a "distraction" because, with Trump, they are the main show. His rhetoric sends a message to the nation and to the world about the values that we treasure and that the nation will stand for in 2018.

President Trump, who launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, was reported to have said that all Haitians "have AIDS" (the White House denied the statement) and that Nigerians "live in huts."

"DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don't really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military," Trump tweeted Sunday morning.

The program has protected undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children from being deported. The administration announced the end of DACA in September, with recipients beginning to lose their status in early March.

Trump has denied making the remarks, but Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who was at the White House meeting, said Friday that the President "said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly."

WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that it is "unfair" to call President Donald Trump a racist but said his recently reported controversial comments about immigrants from Haiti and African countries are unhelpful

I think it’s unfair to sort of paint him, ‘oh well, he’s a racist,’ when I know for a fact that he cares very deeply about the people of Haiti because he helped finance a trip where they would get vision back for 200 people in Haiti,” Paul said.

rump's reported comments this week came just as members of Congress have been feverishly working toward getting a compromise on immigration that would reconcile increased funding for border security with safety for recipients of DACA — the Obama-era program that allowed the children of undocumented immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” a way to stay in the country without fear of deportation.

Americans from coast to coast plan to commemorate the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s 2016 election win by screaming into the void. Download Thousands of Facebook users have signed up to attend events on Boston Common in Boston and in Washington Square Park in New York on Nov. 8. Events are also planned in Miami, Philadelphia, Dallas, Austin and in Bellingham, Washington.

Some 2,100 people said they will attend the New York protest and 15,000 more indicated an interest in going. More than 4,500 people were registered for the Boston event with 33,000 others showing an interest. 

Artist Carter Goodrich painted Trump as a “dangerous clown” for the magazine’s Oct. 30th issue because he was “still just as stunned now” about the election results as he was last November. The image is called “October Surprise.” “I have been asked to work on movies about him. I can’t do it; most satire seems to lighten what feels to me like a dire situation. He’s already a cartoon villain, infantile and strange,” Goodrich said.

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump has delivered a series of speeches promoting the Republican tax reform agenda and a series of tweets undercutting it.  Download Trump’s speeches focus on how the his party’s tax plan, which has only been sketched in broad outlines, would cut business taxes in a way that would ultimately help working families.  In an effort to replace some of the missing revenue from that corporate tax cut, however, Republicans want to do away with a number of expensive tax breaks that help middle-class families, ostensibly while still delivering the middle class a net benefit.

A similar pattern played out earlier this year when Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act. After the House passed a plan to repeal Obamacare that Trump initially hailed, he later characterized some of its details as “mean.” The repeal effort ultimately failed. 

A Democratic member of President Donald Trump’s voter fraud probe said it should urgently disclose what it’s been working on and its future plans, or else disband entirely. Alan King, a probate judge in Jefferson County, Alabama, is one of four Democrats on the 11-member Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. He told HuffPost on Tuesday that he was disappointed in how the commission had conducted business and wouldn’t be surprised if other members of the panel had already drafted a recommendation to the president. “Based on what I’ve read and accounts, it wouldn’t surprise me,” King said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if this whole commission was set up and they had an end result in mind when this commission was first originated.”

While he added that it was possible “that there are maybe some pockets of folks on both sides of the aisle who perhaps haven’t followed the rules,” he continued, “it’s a huge leap to go from that type of scenario to then go to to this massive plot, conspiracy of almost election mafia standards, to think that there are massive, widespread voting fraud in the United States.” 

As some Democrats on the commission have begun openly questioning their fellow commissioners’ activities, Democrats in Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office to review whether the panel is complying with transparency requirements. Several federal lawsuits have also sought to block the commission from operating, alleging it is not complying with federal transparency and privacy requirements. Critics of the panel characterize it as an effort to weaken confidence in American elections, saying it aims to lay the groundwork for more restrictive voting laws and substantiate Trump’s claim that millions voted illegally last year (several studies and investigations have shown voter fraud is not a widespread problem). Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, the commission’s chair, have pledged that the panel would be bipartisan and neutral.

Thousands of people are fleeing Puerto Rico as the island remains without power and the death toll continues to climb more than a month after Hurricane Maria. Even for those who can afford plane tickets and get to the airport, there’s another hurdle: evacuating with pets.  Leaving the island with animals in tow has become a huge challenge, said Sarah Barnett of the Humane Society of the United States, which has workers on the ground in Puerto Rico. The pet owners Barnett has spoken with have been “hysterical” with worry, she said.

Some pet owners stayed, remaining in dire conditions to care for animals. Others had to make gut-wrenching decisions. Claudia, a single mother who left for North Carolina with her baby and two dogs, left her other three dogs with a friend. She’s now desperately trying to bring those dogs to the mainland, too.

“They’re inundated with people wanting to fly their animals out in cargo,” Barnett said. American Airlines is accepting a limited number of pets per flight as checked baggage, and United is transporting animals through its PetSafe program.  Delta did not reply to a query about whether it is flying pets in cargo, though it previously waived fees for pets flying in the cabin from Puerto Rico. JetBlue and Southwest never transport pets in the cargo hold, though they both fly a limited number of small pets in the main cabin. A JetBlue spokesperson told HuffPost the airline has waived all in-cabin pet fees for flights out of Puerto Rico through Nov. 15, and doubled the number of pets per flight from four to eight.

Those are the words Ed Gillespie uses to describe many of the 168,000 Virginians who have had their civil rights restored by my administration. In an ad clearly-designed to scare and confuse voters, Gillespie implies that giving people their voting rights back who have made mistakes and served their time somehow makes Virginia less safe. This is deeply misleading and the lowest point yet in a Republican campaign that has been based entirely on fear, division, and Trump-style dog whistle politics.

n 1902, Virginia’s constitution was amended to expand the policy of felon disenfranchisement and to add literacy tests and a poll tax. Discussing these changes, Virginia State Senator Carter Glass said, This plan will eliminate the ‘darkey’ as a political factor in this state in less than five years, so that in no single county... will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government.

n 2009, Republican nominee and future Governor Bob McDonnell campaigned on restoring voting rights to those who had served their time. In 2013, my opponent was the sitting Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli. While we disagreed on many issues, both of us presented plans to restore voting rights to felons who had served their time. Until Ed Gillespie brought Trump-style divisive campaigning to Virginia, restoration of rights was generally a bipartisan issue.

JEFF FLAKE, Senator from Arizona: At a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than by our own values and principles, let me begin by noting the somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office and there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret because of the state of our disunion. Regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. Regret because of the indecency of our discourse. Regret because of the coarseness of our leadership. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our, I mean all of our complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end. In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order, that phrase being the new normal.

“Ambition counteracts ambition,” he wrote. But what happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, we Republicans — would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats?

When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country, and instead of addressing it, goes to look for someone to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops.

Bob Corker Says Trump Is ‘Debasing’ the Country By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Oct. 24, 2017 | 0:54 After being attacked on Twitter by President Trump, Senator Bob Corker went on national television and said that the president struggled with the truth.