Trump of course is lying about it.

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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018

I suppose he’s too thick to realize that all his many lies have the result that informed people won’t believe this one.

Anyway, there are witnesses.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said on Friday that the president did use the term “shithole,” repeatedly, during the course of the meeting on immigration — which Mr. Durbin attended. The senator described Mr. Trump as saying “things which were hate-filled, vile and racist.”

In a Twitter post on Friday, just hours before the president was scheduled to sign a proclamation to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is Monday, Mr. Trump appeared to parse the language he spoke about immigrants from different regions of the world.

The president wrote that he never said of Haitians, “take them out.”

Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said “take them out.” Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings – unfortunately, no trust!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018

The president writes (i.e. tweets) a lot of things, and most of them are lies. There’s zero reason to think he’s not lying now.

The White House has not denied his use of racially charged rhetoric.

“I cannot believe that, in the history of the White House in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday,” Mr. Durbin said on Friday.

In an earlier tweet on Friday, Mr. Trump said, “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.” His tweet did not elaborate on what “tough” language he used and did not provide a specific account of the meeting.

The cake was not eaten by me. The window was not broken by me. The car was not crashed by me. The pussy was not grabbed by me. The innocence is all belong to me.

The Times explains how it came up:

Mr. Trump’s remarks, the latest example of his penchant for racially tinged remarks denigrating immigrants, left members of Congress from both parties attending the meeting in the Cabinet Room alarmed and mystified. He made them during a discussion of an emerging bipartisan deal to give legal status to immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children, those with knowledge of the conversation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting.

When Mr. Trump heard that Haitians were among those who would benefit from the proposed deal, he asked whether they could be left out of the plan, asking, “Why do we want people from Haiti here?”

The comments were reminiscent of ones the president made last year in an Oval Office meeting with cabinet officials and administration aides, during which he complained about admitting Haitians to the country, saying that they all had AIDS, as well as Nigerians, who he said would never go back to their “huts,” according to officials who heard the statements in person or were briefed on the remarks by people who had. The White House vehemently denied last month that Mr. Trump made those remarks.

The Trump White House, like Trump, tells a lot of lies. Its denials, however vehement, are worth nothing.

Representative Mia Love, a Republican of Utah who is of Haitian descent, demanded an apology from the president, saying his comments were “unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values.”

“This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation,” Ms. Love went on in an emotional statement that noted her heritage and that said her parents “never took a thing” from the government while achieving the American dream. “The president must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned.”

“As an American, I am ashamed of the president,” said Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez, Democrat of Illinois. “His comments are disappointing, unbelievable, but not surprising.” He added, we can now “say with 100 percent confidence that the president is a racist who does not share the values enshrined in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence.”

The reactions were extraordinary bipartisan rebukes to a sitting president, but they only fanned what has been a long-simmering debate over Mr. Trump’s views and talk on race.

Or to put it another way, they underlined why he never should have been elected, and why his election was and is a national and global emergency.