The Swedish Nightmare
by digby
You’ve probably heard about Trump’s rally yesterday in which he lamented the horrific attack that took place in Sweden on Friday Night.
Here’s a Swedish paper’s response:
U.S. president Donald Trump gave a speech in Melbourne, Florida, Saturday evening.
While speaking about keeping America safe he mentioned the major terrorist attacks in Nice, Paris and Brussels – and in the same sentence he pointed out an unspecified event in Sweden Friday evening.
”You look at what happened last night in Sweden”, he said.
Mr President, here is what happened in Sweden Friday night:
3:24 PM (local time): A man set himself on fire at Sergels torg, a plaza in central Stockholm. He was taken to the hospital with severe burns. There is so far no information on his motives but the intelligence service is not part of the investigation.
6:42 PM: The famous singer Owe Thörnqvist had some technical problems during rehearsal for the singing competition ”Melodifestivalen”. (However, the 87 year old singer still managed to secure the victory the very next day.)
8:23 PM: A man died in hospital, after an accident in the workplace earlier that day in the city of Borås.
8:46 PM: Due to harsh weather in the northern parts of Sweden the road E10 was closed between Katterjåkk and Riksgränsen. Due to strong winds and snow in the region the Met office also issued an avalanche warning.
12:17 AM: Police officers initiated a chase for a fleeing Peugeot through central parts of the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The pursuit ended in police officers ramming the suspect at Engelbrektsgatan. The driver is now accused of driving under the influence, traffic violation and car theft.
Another dystopian hellhole.
The truth is that Trump was watching Fox News on Friday night and Tucker Carlson had some wingnut documentary filmmaker on talking about his movie about refugees in Sweden committing crimes. Trump was probably in an intelligence briefing and they wouldn’t let him concentrate on his shows so he got the story wrong.
This happens frequently. Remember the weird one about seeing the planeloads full of money being unloaded in Iran? The thousands of Muslims cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11? He’s a very typical old, white, Fox News obsessed wingnut in that regard. They get mixed up a lot.
But who knows? He also has a very active fantasy life so he might just have dreamed it all up on his own.
Update: It’s a fake news story.
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