Did Trump say Haitian immigrants 'all have AIDS'?

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White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has rebuked media reports that the US President said immigrants from Haiti "all have AIDS" in response to an explosive piece by the New York Times, slamming the newspaper for printing what she said were "lies".

"General Kelly, General McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Nielsen, and all other senior staff actually in the meeting deny these outrageous claims and it's both sad and telling The New York Times would print the lies of their anonymous 'sources' anyway," Sanders said in a statement on Saturday.

During a meeting with top administration officials back in June, Trump allegedly said Afghanistan was a "terrorist haven," that Haitian immigrants "all have AIDS," and that Nigerians arriving in the United States would never "go back to their huts" in Africa, according to the report published on Saturday.

Haitians in US protest against Trump's decision to send them back home in New York, US, November 21, 2017. /Reuters Photo

More than 2,500 immigrants from Afghanistan, 15,000 from Haiti and 40,000 from Nigeria received visas to enter the US in 2017, Trump said, reading a list provided by White House adviser Stephen Miller.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly were among the senior officials attending the Oval Office meeting.

Trump's relation with US media has been tense since taking office in January.

Shortly after his inauguration, the 45th US president launched an all-out war on the media, which he labeled "among the most dishonest human beings on earth."

US President Donald Trump tweets a "knocking down CNN" video in July. /Twitter Screenshot

"I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth," he said on January 21 during a visit to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Virginia. "They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community."

In early July, Trump tweeted a 28-second video, showing him knocking down and beating up a professional wrestling "villain" whose face had been replaced by a CNN logo. CNN accused the US president of encouraging violence against the media.

The tweet came a few days after Trump bashed outlets including CNN, NBC, The Washington Post and The New York Times for their "phony Russian stories," "fake news" and "garbage journalism," in an apparent response to media accusations that his 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Moscow.