During a meeting with both Democratic and Republican senators on Thursday, President Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as "shithole countries," a Democratic aide told NBC News.

The lawmakers were in the Oval Office discussing changes to the visa lottery system and immigration as a whole, and when talk turned to immigrants from Africa, Trump asked why they would want people from "all these shithole countries" coming to the United States. Trump, who met with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg on Wednesday, then said the U.S. should try to instead attract people from Norway and similar countries.

In a statement, the White House did not dispute the remarks, merely saying Trump "will always fight for the American people." On MSNBC, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told Ari Melber Trump's comment "smacks of blatant racism. The most odious and insidious racism masquerading, poorly, as immigration policy. And, I'll be very blunt — the president doesn't speak for me as an American." Catherine Garcia

Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen traveled to Donna, Texas, on Wednesday to visit some of the 5,900 active duty troops President Trump sent to the U.S.-Mexico border to counter a "caravan" of Central American migrants. "Let's have at it, young soldiers: What's on your mind?" Mattis asked one small group of Army soldiers. "Sir, I have a question," one solider said. "The wire obstacles that we've implanted along the border ... Are we going to be taking those out when we leave?"

The question drew "a few smirks from those around him," reports BuzzFeed's Vera Bergengruen. "The most visible role U.S. troops have served since they began arriving on Oct. 29 has been stringing up concertina wire, a razor wire that is notoriously hard to remove." And laying out anywhere from 22 miles to 170 miles of razor wire appears to be their primary mission. "We'll see what the secretary says, okay?" Mattis answered, pointing to Nielsen, widely tipped to be fired soon. “Right now, the mission is put them in."

The troops — like the 2,100 National Guard troops Trump sent to the border in April — won't be allowed to arrest or detain anybody and can't enforce immigration or criminal law.

Mattis described the "absolutely legal" deployment as a "moral and ethical mission" to counter illegal immigration. He said his mother — who, Bergengruen notes, Mattis previously said emigrated from Canada as an infant — "told me how hard it was to get into America. So believe me, we want legal immigration." And the deployment wasn't unprecedented, he said, citing President Woodrow Wilson sending the Army to the border in 1916 to fight "Pancho Villa's troops."

"What are the short and the long-term plans of this operation, sir?" another young soldier asked Mattis. "Short term right now, you get the obstacles in so the border patrolmen can do what they gotta do," Mattis said. "Longer term, it's somewhat to be determined." Peter Weber

Saudi Arabia has indicted 11 people in connection with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and five of them may receive the death penalty.

The Saudi public prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, announced the charges during a news conference Thursday, which came over a month after the journalist, who was critical of the kingdom, went missing at the Saudi consulate in Turkey, per The Washington Post. Al-Mojeb says a 15-person team was sent to the consulate to abduct Khashoggi, but when he resisted, they decided to kill him, The New York Times reports. The Saudi public prosecutor says they did so by injecting Khashoggi with an overdose of a sedative and then dismembering his body, per CNN.

After Khashoggi went missing in early October, the kingdom's narrative of events changed dramatically. At first, it said Khashoggi actually left the consulate safely, only to later say he was killed accidentally during a fistfight. Then Saudi officials suggested the killing was premeditated. Now, the public prosecutor claims the decision to kill Khashoggi was made on the spot, The New York Times reports.

Saudi Arabia also maintains that the operation was carried out without the knowledge of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, even though officials say this is unlikely, the Times reports. "It is obvious that this murder was previously planned and that the order had come from high-level authorities in Saudi Arabia," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says. Brendan Morrow

British Prime Minister Theresa May urged Parliament on Thursday to approve a draft Brexit deal her government had negotiated with the European Union. But before she spoke, several Cabinet ministers had resigned in protest of her deal, including Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, and the junior Brexit, education, and Northern Ireland ministers. Britain's pound plummeted after Raab's resignation.

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn called the deal a "huge and damaging failure," suggesting Labour MPs won't vote for the agreement, and with defections in May's Conservative Party, it's not clear she has the votes, endangering her tenure as prime minister. May asked lawmakers to approve the divorce deal "in the national interest," arguing that she made "the right choices, not the easy ones," and that having no deal would be worse than the agreement she reached to cleave Britain from the EU while maintaining close ties. She emphasized that this is just a draft, while lawmakers jeered and called on her to resign.

May got a majority of her Cabinet to approve the agreement on Wednesday, though many of them did not look happy about it. Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on Friday, March 29, 2019. Peter Weber

In an interview with The Daily Caller on Wednesday, President Trump bizarrely claimed that you have to show some sort of voter ID to buy a box of cereal and laid out a novel conspiracy theory to explain Republican losses via voter fraud: "When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in, and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It's really a disgrace what's going on." There's not a lot comedians can add to that, but they gave it a try on Wednesday's late-night shows.

That's "a for-real quote from the president of the United States," Jimmy Kimmel reminded viewers on Kimmel Live. "People go to their cars to put on different hats? Our polls are being infested with a team of masters of disguise!" He went on to mock Florida and also its junior senator, Marco Rubio, whose own theory of voter fraud invented some new football terminology.

"That's right, President Trump accused people of voting illegally by changing clothes in the cars and getting back in line — or in Florida's case, putting on a shirt and getting back in line," Seth Meyers joked on Late Night. "I swear our president thinks in cartoons. He probably thinks the Village People is one guy." He suggested that Trump might actually be the person in disguise in the news, and you can watch that below. Peter Weber

President Trump is reportedly angry that his aides didn't warn him skipping a Veterans Day memorial at an American military cemetery in France would make him look bad, and he's under fire for his promotion of Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "We're learning some interesting stuff about Whitaker's past," including his judicial nomination criteria, as outlined during his 2014 unsuccessful run for a Senate seat in Iowa.

"In the opinion of the current attorney general of the United States, if you're not a Christian, you won't be a good judge," Colbert summarized. "But it's right there in the Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, yada, yada, yada, what would Jesus do?" Whitaker is also apparently "steeped" in time travel and Bigfoot. "Before we go any further, I just want to say that there's serious debate over whether Whitaker's appointment is unconstitutional and might obstruct justice," Colbert said, "but tonight, daddy don't give a damn — I want to talk about time travel and Bigfoot man."

This all had to do with the patent marketing company Whitaker worked for (before the FTC shut it down for scamming investors out of $26 million), and Colbert appeared more than happy to run through the details — which, to be fair, are pretty incredible — and tie it all together.

Seth Meyers had some fake facts about Whitaker at Late Night — and they still somehow look tame compared to reality.

Colbert briefly reprised his "Squatch'd" gag during his rundown of Trump's bizarre list of Medal of Freedom recipients, and you can watch that below. Peter Weber

On the morning after the 2018 midterms, President Trump took a few minutes to dance on the political graves of several Republicans who declined to embrace him during the campaign. Among them was Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah). "Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost," Trump said. A week later, it looks like Love has a good shot at winning. On Wednesday evening, Salt Lake and Juab counties released a new dump of 12,000 ballots in Utah's 4th Congressional District race, and Love's deficit to Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams (D) shrank to 873 votes.

"With the heavily Republican Utah County expected to update its count on Friday, McAdams precarious lead of 0.36 percentage points is likely to change, and could potentially erode away entirely," The Salt Lake Tribune reports. Dave Wasserman at the Cook Political Report agrees:

Both campaigns expressed cautious optimism. "Since Election Day, Mia has consistently improved her margin and is on a steady path to victory," Love campaign manager Dave Hansen said. McAdams' campaign manager, Andrew Roberts, said the vote count has had "ups and downs," but "we feel good about the mayor’s lead and remain optimistic about the remaining votes." Love has filed a lawsuit to halt the counting of ballots in Salt Lake County until her campaign can challenge signatures on provision and mail-in ballots. Peter Weber