A Republican senator says the reporting of Donald Trump's "s***hole countries" remark is a "gross misrepresentation" of what was said by the US president.
Georgia's David Perdue - one of the senators at the meeting about immigration with Mr Trump - told US network ABC that reports have inflated the president's comments.
"I'm telling you he did not use that word ... and I'm telling you it's a gross misrepresentation," he said.
Senator David Perdue has defended President Trump. Source: AP
"I haven't heard any of those six sources other than Senator [Dick] Durbin talk about what was said."
Senator Perdue previously tweeted "President Trump brought everyone to the table" at the meeting "and listened to both sides, but regrettably, it seems that not everyone is committed to negotiating in good faith".
'DACA is probably dead'
Mr Trump came back on the issue in a pair of early morning tweets three days after reportedly referring to African and Haitian immigrants as coming from "s***hole countries", triggering global condemnation.
"DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don't really want it," Mr Trump tweeted, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program at the heart of the immigration impasse.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country illegally as children - so-called "Dreamers" - face deportation unless a compromise can be reached that would grant them rights to stay.
A bipartisan deal to resolve the Dreamers problem in return for changes demanded by Republicans in the way visas are allocated collapsed in acrimony Thursday with Mr Trump's remarks, which were widely denounced as racist.
"I think this man, this president, is taking us back to another place," John Lewis, a Georgia congressman who was on the front lines of the 1960s civil rights movement, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "I think he is a racist."
'Can't defend the indefensible'
Other Republicans, pained by the turn of events, spoke out against the president as debate over the slur spilled into Sunday television talk shows.
"I can't defend the indefensible," Mia Love, a Haitian-American congresswoman from Utah who campaigned on Mr Trump's behalf in the country's Haitian community, said.
"I still think that he should apologise," she said on CNN's State of the Union.
"I think that there are people that are looking for an apology. And I think that that would show real leadership."
Mr Trump's "s***hole countries" remarks were confirmed by Senator Durbin, a Democrat who attended the White House meeting, after it was reported by the Washington Post and other media.
But the president has stuck with a vague denial that he used such language, and so far has made no move to apologise, hurting prospects for a deal on DACA and making life uncomfortable for Republicans as they look ahead to mid-term elections this year.
The president sought to shift from the defensive by portraying Democrats as not truly interested in an immigration deal.
"They just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military," he tweeted.
"I, as President, want people coming into our Country who are going to help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on MERIT. No more Lotteries! #AMERICA FIRST," he said.
'A deal to be had'
Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican who has been critical of Mr Trump, said Democrats were serious about a bipartisan deal on immigration.
He said the compromise presented to the White House Thursday would end a visa lottery system and so-called chain migration under which legal immigrants can bring in family members.
The dreamers would be allowed to stay but not become US citizens, according to Flake.
The senator from Arizona said Mr Trump's remarks came in reaction to an element of the deal that would reallocate the visas given out in a lottery to immigrants who are currently in a protected status, like Haitians and the dreamers.
"I believe there is a deal to be had," he said.
Mr Trump announced in September he was scrapping the DACA program but delayed enforcement to give Congress six months - until March - to craft a lasting solution.
On Tuesday, however, a federal judge ordered the government to keep DACA going pending resolution of court challenges to the president's decision.
Meanwhile, dimming prospects for a 2018 spending agreement means lawmakers will have to resort to a temporary funding extension to avert a government shutdown on 19 January.
