Swedes have been scratching their heads and ridiculing President Donald Trump’s remarks that suggested a major incident had happened in the Scandinavian country.
During a rally in Florida on Saturday, Trump said “look what’s happening last night in Sweden” as he alluded to past terror attacks in Europe. It wasn’t clear what he was referring to and there were no high-profile situations reported in Sweden on Friday night.
The comment prompted a barrage of social media reaction on Sunday, with hundreds of tweets, and a local newspaper published a list of events that happened on Friday that appeared to have no connections to any terror-like activity.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Catarina Axelsson said that the government wasn’t aware of any “terror-linked major incidents.” Sweden’s Security Police said it had no reason to change the terror threat level.
“Nothing has occurred which would cause us to raise that level,” agency spokesman Karl Melin said.
Former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted , “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.”
The Aftonbladet tabloid addressed Trump in an article Sunday, “This happened in Sweden Friday night, Mr President,” and listed in English some events that had happened in Sweden, including a man being treated for severe burns, an avalanche warning and police chasing a drunken driver.
One Twitter user said “After the terrible events #lastnightinSweden, IKEA have sold out of this” and posted a mock Ikea instruction manual on how to build a “Border Wall,” saying the pieces had sold out.
Sweden, which has a long reputation for welcoming refugees and migrants, had a record 163,000 asylum applications in 2015 and it has since cut back on the number it annually accepts. Its most recent attack was in the capital, Stockholm, in December 2010, when an Iraqi-born Swede detonated two devices, including one that killed him but no one else.
At the rally, Trump told his followers to look what was happening in Germany, and also mentioned Paris, Brussels and Nice, in apparent reference to the terror attacks there. He didn’t specify what was supposed to have happened in Sweden, simply saying “Sweden, who would believe this, Sweden.”
Over the past few weeks, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway has also referred to a “Bowling Green Massacre” that never occurred, and she was caught up in a public feud with CNN.
(AP)
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8 Responses
Scratching their heads, as if they have no idea what’s been going on in their country! Trump just played the media AGAIN. Now they are forced to “catch him lying” and expose the actual truth about what’s going on in Sweden.
The reference to “last night” (Friday) was meant as a reference to when the topic of terrorism a.k.a. “high crime rate” (contrary to “official” statistics that hide it) in Sweden was mentioned by Ami Horowitz in a Fox interview as being related to high Muslim influx. So what is the nature of the terrorism? Well, there was Neo-Nazi attack in January (2017) and there are constant attacks by Muslims on Jewish institutions in places, as example, Malmo Sweden, which go way under-reported. In fact “The Simon Weisenthal Center in Los Angeles issued a travel advisory to Jews in 2010 – don’t go to Malmö. It reissued the warning last year.” So as long as it only happens to Jews, I guess it is not “terrorism” to the “mainstream” media.
The exact quote from Trump never mentions the word terrorism regarding Sweden. “They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”
I don’t understand why Sweden is scratching their heads. A major event indeed happened and they should have been notified by now: America elected a schizophrenic man as president.
Don’t worry. We’ll have some readers blame the terrorists for not carrying out an attack to spite Trump. We may also have some people say that terrorists nuked Sweden but the media (referred to as the enemy of the people by dictators) is not reporting it.
There is something seriously wrong with this so-called president. He tells the most outlandish lies and thinks no one cares?
Doesn’t he remind you of אחשוראש? Suppose we have to worry about המן soon making an appearance…
Comparison to אחשורוש is right on the money! But to Dave hirsh I’ll try to explain what trump means here. When Sweden takes in a record number of migrants from Muslim countries and all of a sudden there’s a spike in hate crimes that can be called terrorism or just coincidental. It’s all about what you call it. And this is the game the liberals have been playing for 8 yrs under Obama. Trump is setting the record straight and calling it what it is and that makes it underreported.
“No terrorist attacks have been recorded in Sweden since the country’s open-door policy on migration began in 2013.
However, Sweden is believed to have the highest number of Islamic State fighters per capita in Europe. About 140 of the 300 who went to Syria and Iraq have since returned, leaving the authorities to grapple with how best to reintegrate them into society.”
From the BBC.
Trump may have been a bit inexact and will learn. He wasn”t wrong in his message.