The curious case of President Trump and the ‘Swedish incident’

Addressing a rally in Melbourne, Florida, on Saturday afternoon, the President used a specific Swedish example to illustrate his point about the relationship between terror attacks and taking in refugees.

“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.

“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 in to our country and there was no way to vet those people. There was no documentation. They was no nothing. So we’re going to keep our country safe.”

However, no such incident occurred on Friday night.

People quickly picked up on Mr Trump’s mistake, with the former Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt tweeting: “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound”.

Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet obligingly listed several events that did take place on Friday in Sweden, including a man being treated for severe burns, an avalanche warning and police chasing a drunken driver.

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It is possible Mr Trump was confusing clips from a new documentary shown on Fox News on Friday night with a real time event.

The film, showing alleged violence committed by refugees in Sweden, linked a supposed crime surge in the country and its links to its increase in taking in refugees.

In fact, the 2016 Swedish Crime Survey shows that crime rates have remained relatively stable, with some fluctuations, over the last decade.

It is not the first time that the President and his team appear to have invented facts.

At a news conference on 16 February Mr Trump falsely claimed that his Electoral College win was the biggest since Ronald Reagan’s. This is not true.

Both of Barack Obama’s Electoral College wins, both of Bill Clinton’s and George W Bush’s were all bigger than President Trump’s.

On 29 January, senior aid to the President Kellyanne Conway referred to the “Bowling Green massacre” as justification for the Administration’s travel ban.

However, there has never been a massacre at Bowling Green. It is speculated that Conway actually meant the arrest of two Iraqi refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2011 for attempting to send money to Al Qaeda.

And, on 22 January – just two days after President Trump took office – his press secretary, Sean Spicer, claimed that the crowd at Mr Trump’s inauguration was bigger than the crowd at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Photographs taken of the two events clearly showed that this was not true.

During his speech, Mr Trump also said that he wanted to address the crowd “without the filter of fake news” – and insisted the “dishonest media” is part of a “corrupt system”.