On Sunday during a rally in Florida, President Trump alluded to terrorist attacks in Sweden as support for his stance on immigration – but even Swedish people themselves are baffled about what exactly Trump was referring to.
According to the New York Times, Trump began listing countries that have been victims of recent terrorist attacks – and included Sweden alongside them.
“You look at what’s happening,” he said. “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?”
If you didn’t hear anything in the news about a terrorist attack in Sweden on Friday night, it’s because it didn’t happen – and Swedes were quick to take to social media to call POTUS out for his lie. (Yes, there were IKEA jokes involved.)
After the terrible events #lastnightinSweden , IKEA have sold out of this: pic.twitter.com/Bs1XI7ffKG
— Jeanna Skinner (@JeannaLStars) February 19, 2017
Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound. https://t.co/XWgw8Fz7tj
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) February 19, 2017
Additionally, Swedish tabloid Afronbladet clapped back with a list of every newsworthy thing that happened in Sweden that night. Spoiler alert: no terrorist attacks are mentioned.
The country’s last terrorist attack, a suicide bombing in Stockholm that killed two, happened in 2010 before the current refugee crisis. Sweden is known for its history of welcoming refugees, processing 163,000 in the year 2015 alone.
Trump’s assertions about an alleged incident in Sweden come a few weeks after POTUS’s senior advisor Kellyanne Conway referred to a made-up “Bowling Green Massacre” attack that never actually happened. Hmm.