President Donald Trump has finally admitted to making the infamous “shithole countries” remark he spent years denying, then went ahead and said it all over again onstage.
At a Pennsylvania event that was billed as a speech on the economy and affordability, Trump drifted into a familiar rant on immigration and announced what he called a sweeping new restriction on migrants from poor nations.
“I’ve also announced a permanent pause on third world migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, and many other countries,” Trump told the crowd, before turning to the controversy that first exploded in 2018. “I didn’t say shit hole, you did,” respond to someone in the crowd, before continuing: “I said that to the senators, the Democrats, so they came in and they said this is totally off the record … I said, ‘Why is it we only take people from shit hole countries. We can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few.’”
With that, the president did what he refused to do in his first term, when reports first surfaced that he had used the phrase “shithole countries” in a closed door White House meeting about immigration from Haiti and African nations. At the time, Trump publicly rejected the accounts, insisted the story was a lie. Now he is not only confirming the language, he is building it into his second term messaging to voters.
First-term Trump: Denies report he privately said “shithole countries”
Second-term Trump: Says the report is actually true and just says it all again publicly https://t.co/5bE5MgHks6 pic.twitter.com/3Dv8QpHx2f
— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) December 10, 2025
The confession came as part of a wider riff in which Trump again painted entire nations as “hellholes” and described migrants from those places as a threat. Local coverage of the event noted that he went on to call some of the countries “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime,” before pivoting to fresh attacks on Somali communities and Rep. Ilhan Omar.
The moment drew immediate attention because it rewrites a long running chapter of Trump’s record. In January 2018, the Washington Post first reported that Trump had asked why the United States should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” instead of places like Norway. Senators who were in the room later confirmed that version of events. Trump and his aides pushed back, repeating his denial became part of his defense whenever confronted with the remark.
Trump is trying to rally his base around a hard-line immigration agenda that includes a “permanent pause” on migrants from what he calls “third world” countries, along with mass deportations and aggressive enforcement at home. Reviving the shithole controversy lets him signal that he has not softened his views and is willing to say it out loud.
The moment reveals how Trump has grown more comfortable leaning into language that once drew global condemnation. Diplomats from the countries targeted in the original remark protested in 2018, and human rights groups accused the president of openly embracing racist stereotypes. Now, instead of walking away from that history, he is using it to draw laughs and applause.
