Trump concedes using ‘tough’ language at meeting on immigrants but implies he didn’t say ‘shithole countries’

President Trump conceded early Friday that he used “tough” language during a closed-door immigration meeting the day before, but implied that reports he complained about the U.S. accepting migrants from “shithole countries” were wrong.

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

In other tweets posted Friday morning, Trump complained about a bipartisan immigration deal that senators outlined to him at the White House meeting. He said it would force the U.S. “to take large numbers of people from high crime … countries which are doing badly.” The tweets backed up the notion that Trump views immigration policy in terms of favorable and unfavorable countries, not on the individual merit of would-be immigrants, as he says.