The government of Sweden is calling on the US to offer “clarity” in the wake of new remarks by President Donald Trump about a terror attack in the Scandinavian country.
The comments triggered a reaction by the Swedish embassy in Washington on Saturday, asking the US State Department to clarify what Trump said.
In the latest example of the new administration’s “alternative facts,” Trump referred to a non-existent terror attack in Sweden while talking about the need to protect America against what he describes as “radical Islamic terrorism” during a political rally in Melbourne, Florida.
Dropping the names of European cities and countries victimized by Daesh Takfiri terror attacks, Trump also mentioned Sweden, where “They're having problems like they never thought possible.”
"Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers.”
Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom tacitly responded by citing a passage from her earlier remarks, shared on Twitter specifically “owing to certain circumstances."
"In 2016, ‘post-truth’ was named Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries. Both functioning democracy and constructive cooperation between states require us to speak with, and not about, each other, to honor agreements and to allow ideas to compete. They also require us to respect science, facts and the media and to acknowledge each other’s wisdom.” read the passage from her speech on foreign policy in the country’s parliament last week.
Good one!
This is not the first time that the Republican president or his allies fabricate terror attacks and recount them as real ones.
Kellyanne Conway, his top adviser, told MSNBC earlier that two Iraqis in the US “were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green Massacre,” a terror attack that never actually happened.
She later said that she had just made an “honest mistake” and was actually referring to where the Iraqis were from, citing Bowling Green, Kentucky.
It emerged subsequently, however, that she had used the word “massacre” twice before in reference to fictitious security incidents.
Trump’s new one is now getting a whole lot of attention particularly by Swedes on the social media, where #LastNightInSweden and #SwedenIncident remained trendy.
Since he started campaigning for the US 2016 presidential election, Trump has been complaining about “fake news” spread by media against him.
He ultimately admitted in a tweet that he had heard something about Sweden on Fox News.
“My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden,” he tweeted.
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