GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told NBC’s Chuck Todd Sunday that congressional Democrats are making an immigration reform deal impossible by calling President Donald Trump a racist.

The senator told Todd the uproar attending reports that Trump characterized much of the third world as a “shithole,” during a private meeting with lawmakers is destroying whatever good will might exist to achieve immigration reform.

“You can’t have an immigration compromise if everyone is out there calling the president a racist,” he said. “They’re actually destroying the setting… in which anything meaningful can happen on immigration.”

“Some people in the media have just gone completely bonkers with ad hominem on the president,” he said elsewhere in the interview.