Sen. Durbin confirms Trump's "shithole" comments

Although President Trump has vaguely said he did not use the language attributed to him in his "shithole countries" comment, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the second ranking Democratic in the Senate, confirms that he did.   He was in the Oval Office himself and heard it, along with Sens. Lindsey Graham and five other senators.  According to HuffPost, Sen. Durbin contradicted the president, saying that he had in fact 'said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly.'

"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," Durbin said.  "You've seen the comments in the press.   I've not read one of them that's inaccurate."    Sen Graham (R-SC) said that what has been reported in the media "is largely accurate."

This comes within a day of the president's almost scuttling the reauthorization of the FISA warrant requirement for surveillence because of something he heard on Fox News, which advanced a conspiracy theory feeding Trump's belief that his own 'wires were tapped' during the transition.  Trump decided that was the explanation.  It took a phone call with House Majority Leader Paul Ryan to convince him otherwise and to salvage the legislation.

Add to this his tortured explanation for why he's not going to attend the opening of the newly constructed U.S. embassy building in London.  His explanation:  he doesn't like the location or the design;  it cost too much and it was a bad deal made by Obama.  'They want me to come cut the ribbon.   I said No.'

The real reason:   The trip was planned in the early weeks of his administration when Prime Minister Theresa May visited him in Washington and extended a routine invitation.    But now, his behavior -- especially his anti-Muslim antics -- has earned him so much disapproval in England that everyone was anticipating large demonstrations against him if he came.   Parliament at one point took a vote to rescind approval of the invitation.

And a couple of facts:   The embassy building replaces a 1960s design by foremost Modernist architect Eero Saarinen.    But it posed a number of security threat exposures which were impossible to compensate for in that location.   And it had become too small by far for the work force.  As to cost:    with the sale of the building to the Qatari government, which plans to turn it into a luxury hotel, plus the sale of supplemental buildings required for additional work space, the billion dollar financing for the new building was secured.   It essentially paid for itself.

As to blaming it on Obama -- as Trump loves to do about anything -- the decision to relocate and rebuild was made during the George W. Bush administration, even though actual construction didn't begin until 2013.   Although the location is not in the toney Mayfair district it has been in, the new location, on the banks of the Thames, has already sparked development and construction that is transforming the new location.

Admittedly, this is a tough time for Trump -- with Mueller nipping at his heels -- but, if the president can't handle it, he should resign.

Ralph

PS:   The U.S. ambassador to Panama, John Freely, a career diplomat, has resigned after telling the State Department he can no longer honor his oath "to serve faithfully the president and his administration in an apolitical fashion, even when I might not agree with certain policies. . . .  My instructors made clear that if I believed I could not do that, I would be honor bound to resign.  That time has come."

PPS:   As of Friday evening, reported by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Georgia's Sen. Johnny Isakson has made the strongest criticism by any Republican member of Congress of the president's racial slur, saying:  "(The president) owes the people of Haiti and all of mankind an apology.  This is not the kind of statement the leader of the free world should make, and he ought to be ashamed of himself."
    Good for you, Johnny.  If I was ever going to vote for a Republican, it would be you.