He denied hes a racist and he denied he made those disparaging remarks about african countries. These lawmakers have gone from saying that they do not recall the president making this remark to on the sunday show saying that they the president insisting he did not make these remarks. Are you saying the president did not use the word that has been so widely reported . Im telling you did not use that word, george, im telling you its a gross misrepresentation. How many times you want me to say that . I didnt hear that word either. I didnt hear what senator durbin has said repeatedly. I dont recall that specific phrase being used. Thats all i can say about that. Reporter now, john, you would think if youre in a meeting with a president with a few lawmakers in the oval office you would recall if he had said something of that nature. Regardless of the specific wording that the president used it does not change the overall sentiment of the message the president was getting across in that meeting and he has not denied saying he feels the United States should take more people from places like norway, but we wont see the president again today until he departs West Palm Beach this afternoon to head back to washington. The president is not denying hes rather have more people from norway than countries from africa, haiti or el salvador and the senators denying they heard it. This is a new recollection for them. They didnt seem to have that recollection until this evolved to something peculiar to say the least. This is having International Ramifications now. The u. S. Envoys in many african nations and haiti had been called in for something of addressing down, correct . Reporter yeah. Thats correct. The fallout is not just in washington, not just here in West Palm Beach but also all over the world as these top diplomats are being summoned to governments in places like south africa, ghana to meet with officials after the president made toes remarks and were told by state Department Officials that the diplomats have been told not to soften the president s remarks or try to defend it but to listen and acknowledge the concerns of these countries, but its clear here, john, that this is not just having repercussions here in the United States but what the president said is changing things around the world. All right. Thank you very much and of course all of this has major ramifications. If you were one of the 800,000 d. R. E. A. M. Ers in this country trying to figure out your future or any one who might want the government to keep running. The country faces a shutdown at the end of the week. Democrats say that funding will not happen without a deal for d. R. E. A. M. Ers. This is what the president says. I dont think the democrats want to make a deal. They talk about daca but they dont want to help the daca people. I dont know if theyll be a shutdown. There shouldnt be. Whats the latest with the negotiations if there are any . Reporter it is so fitting here Martin Luther king talked about a dream. Republicans blaming the democrats for this. It is fair to say that those negotiations, those talks, bipartisan immigration proposal really blew up, that is it a state of play that everything is frozen now after those remarks from the president , those very controversial racist remarks and so now you have this very public will blame game thats been going on for the last 24, 48 hours. Republicans are saying openly and quietly that this does nothing to help the negotiations with the democrats and with the president on the an immigration deal, that in undercuts and undermines the work theyve been doing, the delicate balance. They needs democrats here. They need a super majority, 60 votes on the senate side at least to push forward and get the government funded. That runs out in four days. The democrats for their part you talk to them and they say theyre in no mood for negotiating here. Some say they dont want to make a deal because the environment is so toxic, they would rather let the president kind of stew in it if you will than not give him a win. For many, john, this is a line in the sand. We have heard from democrats and republicans throughout the weekend and also this morning on how they should move forward. The majority of my caucus, myself included, we will not fund the government without a daca deal. If we dont have any measurable progress towards a daca deal, i am not going to vote for a stop gap measure and im asking republican and democrats to take that position. Were in congress and regrettably congress is an institution that only acts when its forced to. Reporter so john, as lawmakers come back to work tomorrow, whether or not the democrats will take advantage of the leverage they do have at this time to push forward and make this essential that daca must go with immigration reform, that must go with the budget. If they decide that they will simply kick it down the road. John . Well get a chance to ask a member of congress about that. Joining me, cnns senior political analyst, ron brownstein, the Washington Post and from usa today susan paige. We have this remarkable, remark debate now and im putting debate in quotation marks. You have senators tom cotton now and purdue all of a sudden coming out and saying, oh, they didnt hear the president say those words. You know who could clear this up is senator Lindsey Graham the republican senator who allegedly confronted the president inside that room and this is no small thing now, ron. Right. Look, the accusations from senator cotton and perdue against their colleague senator durbin is just a reminder of how the geneva conventions of politics have been torn up. Sitting senators accusing another senator of lying of what the president of the United States said. Lindsey graham basically confirmed the remarks to tim scott, according to tim scott. Jeff flake the remarks were confirmed to him by a participant in the meeting. Both of them republican senators but Lindsey Graham has a clear obligation to explain exactly what it was that the president said that provoked him by his own words to confront him in the meeting and this really this whole episode underscores the situation that republican members of congress put themselves in when they commit to defending the president because the price just gets higher and higher. I dont think tom cotton and david perdue a year ago, who, by the way, its important to note, the proponents of the hardline legislation to cut Legal Immigration in half. Imagine that they could be in this situation a year ago but that i think is the price of getting into this situation with President Trump. We have every reason to believe that the president did say those words according to the sources talking to cnn, according to the fact that the white house didnt deny them over that night and according to the fact that those senators took a long time to reach their stories. Josh dossy the Washington Post reporter who broke this story now writes this. White house official told me tonight there is a debate internally on whether trump said shit hole or shit house. This person said are use to go deny. Hole versus house, this is the hill to die on in this debate. Its mind boggling. Yeah. The clip that you played of david purdue talking, its a gross misrepresentation. Theres not that much of a difference between those two words if youre talking about gross misrepresentation. That does not seem to apply if this is the internal debate between these two words. Its taking a point of nuance between two bad things, maybe choosing lesser of two evils but using it to hang your hat on. Because its not precisely right clearly everything about it is wrong but that does not appear to be what happened based on joshs reporting and hes a very good reporting with many sources in the white house as well. The paper is standing by his reporting and i trust his reporting as well. It is ironic basically that the republicans are hanging their hat on what may be just a very, very fine difference between the character of the word use and the longer they do this, the longer we continue to debate, you know, not just what comes out of the president s mouth but whats kicking around in his head. If theyre trying to make it go away its not going away by what theyre doing. In the meantime, susan, i do want to ask, what does this do to the negotiations here if there are, in fact, negotiations . What does it do for democrats who may want to come in the room to make a deal or republicans who may want to come in the room and make a deal . This sth a Good Environment to sit down and hammer things out . The thing you need is a certain level of trust to make a deal. Even the low levels of trust that they had before have now been blown to smithereens. You have republican senators accusing the member of the democratic leadership dick durbin of lying in this case and lying in the past. Its a jawdropping statement that the two senators made. Youve got to assume they talked before hand because they said essentially the same things on two different sunday shows. It seems to be quite deliberate and the idea that the senators will now come together and make a deal to keep the government funded to deal with the d. R. E. A. M. Ers i think seems increasingly unlikely. Also, the governments now saying the democrats dont want a deal. This is after he said bring me a deal and i will sign it and they brought him a deal and he, you know, crapped all over it, pun intended, i suppose in this case. Its really important to understand the hangup here because its an important evolution in the attitude of the Republican Party toward a changing america. For years we heard from Republican Leaders that they wanted to be tough on Border Security. They opposed undocumented immigration but they liked parallel immigration. What the president is asking for here and what cotton and perdue has proposed is tougher Border Security but a significant reduction in the amount of Legal Immigration in the country. The cotton perdue bill that President Trump endorsed would cut Legal Immigration in half and that means that over the next 30 years the best estimates are if you cut Legal Immigration in half, you would have no net growth in the number of working aged americans between now and 2050 while were adding 40 million more seniors which can every worker would have to support Social Security, medicare for 80 more seniors than today. Cutting Legal Immigration the way the president has proposed is a clear and present danger to the longterm Financial Stability of Social Security and medicare of which his support prosecutes rely but that is the hill on which they are demanding. These funding for the border but reductions in Legal Immigration that would in the long run imperil the Financial Security of Social Security, medicare. This debate, this discussion only now continues because of the white houses handling it. Part of this discussion now is the president s comments that he chose to make overnight on the eve of the Martin Luther king day holiday. Im not a racist. Im the least racist person you have ever interviewed. These reporters have interviewed a lot of people right now. The president s comments in that room have been supported by some of the most racist people, richard spencer, david duke, the publication came out over the weekend and they said they were very supportive of the comments the president said there. Weve seen the president not denounce when he when the company that once to keep company with him prays him, hes not very quick to say, wait a second, i did not mean that for that audience. And we have this pattern of these in some cases ep think thets and off the cuff thoughts that he dishes out its difficult not to draw a mental line going back from this episode, going back to charlottesville and the other things interspersed in between that go back to the time of his campaign and draw inferences when hes not really doing a lot to dissuade people from drawing those inferences. The president has characterized himself in many different ways. Hes clearly understanding that there is a grounds fault against him and hes pushing back against the people making assumptions that this is reflecting his views of different races and different cultures and different countries, and but its pretty soft answer compared to Everything Else thats coming out. If hes trying to do damage control and convince everybody whos saying that he may be a racist, he probably needs to do more to drive that point home because its not landing with the audience that needs to hear it. Bill krols notes he couldve, the first thing he tweeted about could have been Martin Luther king, for instance, on this holiday. Thats the thing that influences that. This is going to be another interesting week in a string of 50 straight interesting weeks. Jeff flake, the republican senator from arizona, has big plans to give a speech on the floor of the senate right now criticizing the president for what he has said about the president. Mr. President say testament to the that our own president uses words infamously spoken by stalin. So fraught with malis was the phrase enemy with the people that even in a kitta forbade its use. Jeff flake in donald trump theres no love loss between him but theres a republican senator thats going to compare the president to stalin in this senate. Thats a member to note here this week. I think whats also notable is the republican senator whos doing this is not running tor reelection. On this controversy as on previous ones, only republicans who dont expect to face voters in the near term future are the ones that are willing to be critical of the president because i think republicans on the hill generally have made this bargain that they will pretty much keep quiet about the president s most provocative statements if they can help him deliver on policies they have, deregulation or the tax bill that was signed in december. Surely there will be longterm consequences for the Republican Party in terms of appeal to this rising generation of voters that who are increasingly diverse and at odds with President Trump and the trump gop but for the moment it is hard to find voices like that of senator flake who are willing to take him on. Ron . Real quick. The policy point. What the president is arguing is about shifting from family reunification, chain migration to merit based immigration. Its worth remembering that in 2013 in the comprehensive immigration bill that passed the senate, every Senate Democrat as well as over a Dozen Senate Republicans voted to tilt the Legal Immigration system more toward skills based immigration but not in the context of severely retention the family side. That is the core issue here. The goal is to reduce the number of immigrants in the country. That is the dispute i think much more than whether the balance within that is towards family or skills. There was bipartisan consensus to shift it more toward skills. Four years ago, a lifetime ago. Thanks so much for being with us. Still to come, the president s comments not sitting well on capitol hill. Now, some calling for an official reprimand. Ill speak to a member of the black caucus about that, plus 38 minutes of panic. How hawaii puts new plans in place to stop this accidental Ballistic Missile alert from scaring people again. And the queen like you have never heard her before. 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This week Democrat Members of congress are moving to censure the president for his comments calling african nations blank hole countries. Joining me now is democratic Gregory Meeks of new york. Thanks so much of being with here. Overnight the president said im not a racist and he told the reporters that he is the least racist person that they have ever spoken to. Is that correct . Thats a joke. Look, how do you judge whether a person is a racist or not is by their words and their actions and deeds and clearly if you look at the entire body of this president , going back to new york with the central park five but listening to all the statements he made about president obama and the birther movement. Talking about individuals who were good people, neonazi and others, his words are clear. The words and the language of a racist and if you look at the actions of what he was what he wants to take us back to, lets make America Great again, what period of time was he talking about even during the campaign . When we had racist that were leading the way in this particular country . What i believe what in making