discussed at the white house can get a lot of support from both sides. as always, i look forward considering additional ideas. i appreciate senator durbin s statements and enjoyed working with him and others on this important issue. i believe it is vitally important to come to a bipartisan solution to the immigration and border challenges we face today. i am committed to working with republicans and democrats to find common ground so we can move forward. again, what we have is lindsey graham not denying that the president called african nations s-hole countries not denying the way that senator dick durbin characterized that meeting at the white house although we have yet to see senator lindsey graham come on camera to make any of those remarks. let s get to jeff bennett at the white house. do we have any reaction? reporter: no reaction just yet to what we heard from senator graham there. i will tell you even though dick
and had a much more impact on those relationships than trump has. but if you want to talk about the broad orientation of governments away from the united states and towards other countries like for example, china, i mean, when you call african states shit-hole countries and china is the dominant economy in those places you think they re going to work more closely with the united states or not? this is such a blessing for the chinese president xi jinping. they would have rather waited until they had more influence to say we re large and in charge but they understand they have an unprecedented opportunity to push leadership and not have blowback from other countries because of trump. because of america first. because of shit-hole countries. ian, thanks for coming in. next up, my interview with civil rights icon congressman john lewis who reacts to the president s remarks during
years ago is a day to remember the haiti people and said were subjected to trump s ignorant racist views of anyone who doesn t look like him. there s some parsing over what the president was referring to in this meeting when he talked about s-hole african countries but part of a larger conversation where haiti was mentioned and he said he didn t want any more immigrants from haiti as well as el salvador. this is the anniversary of the horrible earthquake down there and that s why so many haitians came to the u.s. because those conditions were completely unlivable. phil rutgers is with us now. phil, this is not the only derogatory statement that s been reported from the president about haiti specific. there was a story in december over the holidays that folks might have missed where the new york times found that he said
going to other countries. not just mexico. many, many countries. united technologies and carrier stepped it up and now they re keeping actually the number is over 1,100 people, which is so great. a few months earlier they said they would move and donald trump trashed the decision claiming if he were president he would not let that happen. just before he took office he and vice president-elect mike pence reached a deal with carrier to keep hundreds of jobs from going to mexico in exchange for millions of dollars in tax incentives. but since then, since that photo op of trump at carrier, since those tax incentives that benefited the company, the company has cut more than 550 jobs at its indianapolis plant. 340 people were laid off in july. another 215 lost their jobs yesterday. one of them is with us. a divorced mother of two who worked at the carrier plant for
back again and again and have filled their home with haitian art and it s a special place for them. i don t know if president trump knows that at all but interesting given how fixated he seems that, but he seems to be fixated on hillary clinton these days. and releasing a lengthy letter from the meeting yesterday. does not deny he called them s hole countries. senator dick durbin saying lindsey graham pushed back on the president in the meeting at the time of those comments and lindsey graham alludes to it. not exactly what he said. following comments by the president i said my piece to hem directly to him yesterday. talk about graham. fascinating figure. during the campaign he was vicious when it came to donald trump. he thought donald trump was a joke. he thought donald trump had no business running for office. he was horrified by him.