“Crisis in Sweden” and the Disintegration of U.S. Diplomacy

Saturday at a campaign rally in Melbourne, Florida, prepping for a campaign more than three years in the future, President Trump referred to a terrible situation in Sweden. It came as news to the Swedish, and to the rest of the world. Here is what President Trump 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? 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."
 
Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Friday night appeared to be the source of the President’s remarks. The show included a clip from a film by Ami Horowitz, which claims to document violence, including rape, committed by refugees in Sweden. The film has been discredited by the New York Times and by the government of Sweden. The Swedish government asserts, with statistics to back it up, that a higher reported rate of rape in Sweden is due to the fact that more victims come forward in Sweden, not to more actual crime.

Fox News tried to distance themselves from the diplomatic debacle. “President’s ought to be precise,” said Tucker Carlson, host of the show that carried the controversial segment. He then went on to defend the segment that the President had referenced.
​
The Fox News clarification can be found here.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/19/trump-clarifies-sweden-remark-says-was-referring-to-fox-news-report.html

President Trump responded Sunday, not with an apology, as one might expect when a President had fallen victim to “fake news” and inadvertently propagated it at a rally of his supporters, but with an explanation.

---

The Swedish Embassy responded with a Tweet of their own.

Henrik Selin, a Swedish political scientist and deputy director of  a government agency dedicated to promoting Sweden globally, told the British newspaper the Independent that he had “completed a study focusing on negative news reports about Sweden’s intake of refugees. He said there were many exaggerations and distortions, including reports falsely claiming that Sharia law was predominant in parts of the country.”

Interestingly, rumors of Sharia law in cities in the United States have been widely circulated on extremist U.S. websites. The rumors have been completely debunked.
 
The Independent article can be found here.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-sweden-happened-last-night-based-on-debunked-fox-news-report-a7589031.html
 
 Swedish policemen interviewed in the story shown on Fox were outraged. They assert that their interviews were disingenuously edited to fit the filmmaker’s agenda, with answers spliced onto different questions than had been asked.
 
The response of the Swedish policemen can be found here.
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/20/this-is-bad-journalism-swedish-cops-blast-fox-news-story-based-off-madman-filmmaker-referenced-by-president-trump/
 
It is becoming clear to many that it is not in the best interest of the country for a President to receive his news briefings from Tucker Carlson and a discredited right-wing filmmaker, rather than from the U.S. Intelligence Community.

​Mr. Trump's recent verbal attacks on journalism and journalists, particularly at his most recent news conference, take on an absurd quality when he is the one spreading "fake news" at his rally.

Salon covered the reaction of those interviewed in the piece to the President's comments. 
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/20/this-is-bad-journalism-swedish-cops-blast-fox-news-story-based-off-madman-filmmaker-referenced-by-president-trump/