Trump Denies Making 'Shithole' Comments While Going on New Vile Rant

Welcome to WHAT NOW, a morning round-up of the news/fresh horrors that await you today.

President Trump kinda-sorta denied on Friday that he referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and the entire continent of Africa as a bunch of “shithole countries” in a racist rant on Thursday—even though all evidence shows he definitely did.

Trump’s vague refutation—sent many hours after the White House pointedly failed to deny that he made the “shithole” remark—came on the heels of a series of tweets in which he dissed a proposed bipartisan solution to protect DACA recipients and showed himself willing to keep up his toxic commentary, even without profanity.

Trump said the deal he was offered would have forced the U.S. “to take large numbers of people from high crime countries that are doing badly”—which is not too far from calling those countries shitholes.

Few details about the proposed plan, forged in the Senate, are publicly known—other than that it would have reportedly codified legal protections for immigrants and undo Trump’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for certain groups such as Salvadorans. But it was always going to be an uphill battle with both the White House and Congress, even before Trump essentially killed it.

And can anyone explain this tweet about Democrats hating “life and safety” to me? When Trump says “Get smart,” is he amping himself up in the mirror?

Keep in mind, all this comes after another truly insane day. Trump began Thursday by tweeting against the surveillance bill his administration supposedly supports and ended it with the “shithole” remarks, and somewhere in the middle, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with him bragging about his athletic prowess and accusing the FBI of secretly plotting to take down his presidency.

Fittingly, today is the president’s annual physical—which won’t include a test of mental fitness—before he departs to spend yet another weekend at Mar-a-Lago.

WHAT ELSE?

One last batshit Trump tweet anecdote, I sincerely promise: Before midnight, Trump tweeted to blame his cancelation of a visit to London on Barack Obama, who he said “sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for ‘peanuts.’” But that decision was actually made by George W. Bush’s administration.

Mudslides in California have killed at least 17 people ranging in age from 3 to 89. Rescues crews are still searching for survivors.