Update: Donald Trump responds to his speech referencing a non-existent terror attack in Sweden.
American president Donald Trump has responded to his (baffling) claim that there had been a terrorist attack in Sweden. He claims he was referencing a segment on Fox News where Tucker Carlson spoke with filmmaker Ami Horowitz about his latest documentary on Sweden’s open door refugee policy.
The doco argues it’s resulted in an unprecedented rise in crime. “Sweden has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees and rape and violence has since skyrocketed,” the Fox News show alleged.
If this was indeed what he was referring to, maybe make it a little clearer next time…
And also, let’s see if the Swedish government want to clarify those figures instead of relying on Fox News coverage. It wouldn’t be the first time ‘fake news’ obsessed Donald Trump has published his own, er, fake news.
Original story:
Last week, Donald Trump gave his most confusing press conference to date, some people even calling it “erratic”. He attempted to explain what uranium was, told us he was “the least racist person in the world” and labelled the entire country of Russia “fake news”.
Safe to say there were a LOT of factual discrepancies. But he may just have gone one further.
Trump did a ‘campaign event’ in Florida overnight and blamed terror attacks in Europe on refugees from the Middle East.
He told the crowd:
“You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden … Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden …
They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”
As gaffes go, this is indeed a doozy. Because Sweden hasn’t had a terror attack. Nothing has happened in Sweden.
And now officials want answers…
Sweden’s embassy in Washington has asked for an explanation, the foreign ministry in Stockholm said:
The gaffe sent Twitter alight with many quick to mock the POTUS for bringing up Sweden (in extremely stereotypical fashion, we hasten to add).
Former Swedish prime minister, Carl Bildt, even tweeted: “What has he been smoking?”
Scarily, even though he holds the most powerful office in the world, it’s the third time in recent weeks that members of his administration have given wrong details about terror attacks to the media/made them up entirely.
White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway referred to a “Bowling Green massacre” during an interview. She later said meant to say “Bowling Green terrorists” referring to two Iraqi men who were indicted in 2011 for trying to send money and weapons to Al-Qaeda.
And White House spokesman Sean Spicer made three separate references to an attack in Atlanta. He later said he meant to say Orlando, where an American of Afghan origin gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub last year.
Can we get a fact checker to the White House please? Stat?
