No one "expressed offense" during a recent Oval Office meeting on immigration where President Donald Trump is said to have used a vulgar term to describe Africa, said Sen. Tom Cotton R-Ark., a shift from comments he made last week.
"I was not offended," Cotton said on NBC's Meet the Press. "Nobody in the meeting expressed their offense."
Last week, Cotton said on CBS' Face the Nation that he didn't hear Trump use the obscenity. On Sunday, he said on NBC that he "never denied there wasn't strong language used" at the Jan. 11 meeting on immigration priorities "by lots of people."
On CBS last week, Cotton said he "didn't hear" the comments ascribed to Trump by Sen. Richard Durbin, and he added that the No. 2 Democrat "has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings, though, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised."
Durbin said on NBC Sunday that he hadn't leaked the comment made by Trump but had further amplified the remarks "because the president denied it happened." Trump said in a Jan. 15 tweet that Durbin "totally misrepresented" what was said at the meeting and "blew DACA," referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, has said that he had objected to Trump's comments while the meeting was in progress.
"Following comments by the President, I said my piece to him directly yesterday," Graham said in a statement released Jan. 12. "The President and all those attending the meeting know what I said and how I feel."
According to Cotton, Graham "made a case about immigration policy. He didn't make a case about what the president was saying."