The former Swedish foreign minister wondered what Donald Trump was “smoking” after the president referred to a nonexistent terror attack in the Scandinavian country.
“Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound,” a baffled Carl Bildt tweeted late Saturday about Trump’s comments during a rally in Florida on Saturday.
Defending his immigration ban, Trump talked about terror attacks in Brussels, Nice and Paris – and then added Sweden.
“You’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,” he said during the speech in Melbourne, Fla.
“Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden,” Trump continued. “They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”
The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet listed a number of news events that happened in the country on Friday – including a man severely burned, an avalanche warning and a police chase involving a drunken driver – but no terror attacks.
Trump may have confused a terror attack in Sehwan, Pakistan, where a suicide bomber killed 80 people on Friday, with Sweden.
His comments about a terror attack in Sweden resemble a mistake by Kellyanne Conway, one of his top advisers, who cited the “Bowling Green massacre” during an interview earlier this month.
Two Iraqi men were arrested in the Kentucky city in 2011 for aiding al-Qaeda. But there was no massacre.
With Post wires