Trump explains his 'animals' comment — and doesn't back down to the outrage

President Donald Trump was asked to clarify his comments calling certain illegal immigrants "animals," and he did not back down to the outrage in his response.

Here's the video of Trump's comments:

Here's what Trump said

"Mister president, sir," asked a reporter, "could you clarify the context of your use of the word 'animal' yesterday in referring to some people..."

"Yeah," Trump interrupted, "well, it has nothing to do with this meeting, but I'm referring to and you know I'm referring to the MS-13 gangs that are coming in and I was talking about the MS-13, and if you look a little bit further on in the tape you'll see that, so I'm actually surprised you're asking this question because most people got it right."

"MS-13, these are animals," he explained, "they're coming into this country, we're getting them out. They come in again, we're getting them out. We need strong immigration laws, we have the weakest immigration laws in the entire world."

"We have laws that are laughed at in immigration," he added. "So when the MS-13 comes in, when the other gang members come into our country, I refer to them as animals, and guess what, I always will."

"But we're getting them out by the thousands," the president continued, "but it's a big dangerous job, and they're in some cases to come back in, or new groups come in, also from the gangs. Thank you."

Media malfeasance

Trump doubled down on his comments that were in response to a California sheriff asking specifically about MS-13 gangs during a White House roundtable Wednesday.

Many in the media distorted the comments to apply to all illegal immigrants, and this inspired a wave of outrage from those on the left and other critics of the president.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also doubled down on the comments during the daily briefing Thursday.