President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday to clarify what he meant when he mentioned an unspecified incident in Sweden while discussing Europe’s refugee crisis and extreme vetting here in the U.S. during a rally in Melbourne, Fla. on Saturday:
My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2017
White House spokeswoman Susan Sanders also put out a statement saying the president wasn’t referring to a specific incident:
NEW: @SHSanders45 re POTUS&Sweden: “He was talking about rising crime&recent incidents in general, and not referring to a specific incident”
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) February 19, 2017
This may be the segment he’s referring to where Ed Henry, filling in for Tucker Carlson, discussed migrants in Sweden and crime:
turns out "what happened last night in Sweden" actually just means "last night I was watching Tucker Carlson talk about Sweden" pic.twitter.com/6z5pfOJ7Yv
— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) February 19, 2017
The Swedish embassy had earlier tweeted that it had asked U.S. officials for an explanation:
Qs about #swedenincident, unclear to us what President Trump was referring to. Have asked US officials for explanation.
— Embassy of Sweden US (@SwedeninUSA) February 19, 2017
As we told you earlier, many journalists jumped on Trump, accusing him of promoting a terror attack that never happened.
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Journos claim Trump referred to ‘nonexistent terror attack in Sweden’, transcript proves otherwise #SwedenIncidenthttps://t.co/spNwAuTBEI
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) February 19, 2017
Although it was clear from the transcript/video that he never referred specifically to a terror attack.
https://twitter.com/SteveKopack/status/833109003160924160
“You look at what’s happening,” he told his supporters. “We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” […]
“Sweden,” he said. “They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris. We’ve allowed thousands and thousands of people into our country and there was no way to vet those people. There was no documentation. There was no nothing. So we’re going to keep our country safe.”
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