President Trump on Monday ripped into Time Magazinecolumnist Ian Bremmer for attributing a fake quote to him and proposed changing U.S. libel laws be to better hold the media “accountable.”
“.@ianbremmer now admits that he MADE UP ‘a completely ludicrous quote,’” attributing it to me. This is what’s going on in the age of Fake News,” the president tweeted while in Japan. “People think they can say anything and get away with it. Really, the libel laws should be changed to hold Fake News Media accountable!”
In a now-deleted tweet, Bremmer quoted the president stating that “Kim Jong Un is smarter and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden.” When pressed on the quote’s veracity, Bremmer, also a professor at New York University, replied that the quote was “plausible” and represents the “state of media and the twitterverse today.”
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“And yet kinda plausible,” Bremmer tweet. “Especially on twitter, where people automatically support whatever political position they have. That’s the point.”
The Washington Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy captured screenshots of Bremmer’s remarks.
UPDATE: @ianbremmer has now admitted that he fabricated this viral Trump quote. And yet it is being shared by journalists and congressmen as if it is real. pic.twitter.com/QgNd9DnN8g
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) May 26, 2019
While in Tokyo, the president said he smiled when North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un called former Vice President and 2020 White House hopeful Joe Biden a “Swampman Joe” and a “low IQ individual & worse.”
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Bremmer eventually apologized for fabricating the quote, tweeting on Tuesday morning: “My tweet yesterday about Trump preferring Kim Jong Un to Biden as President was meant in jest. The President correctly quoted me as saying it was a “completely ludicrous” statement. I should have been clearer. My apologies.”
My tweet yesterday about Trump preferring Kim Jong Un to Biden as President was meant in jest. The President correctly quoted me as saying it was a “completely ludicrous” statement. I should have been clearer. My apologies.
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) May 27, 2019
Story cited here.
