Ian Bremmer, a geopolitical analyst, journalist, and cable news regular, on Sunday shared a fabricated tweet featuring a false quote from President Trump about North Korea, which Bremmer later admitted making up.
But not before it was shared widely by Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., a prominent Trump critic, and a swath of commentators and journalists, including anti-Trump analyst Ana Navarro-Cardenas — leading Bremmer to later delete it.
Bremmer’s tweet captured a supposed quote from Trump, “Kim Jong Un is smarter and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden.”
President Trump in Tokyo: “Kim Jong Un is smarter and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden.”
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) May 26, 2019
The quote was unverified by journalists in the traveling pool with Trump in Japan. Once confronted about it online by a Washington Examiner reporter, Bremmer admitted it was false, though he said it could be “plausible.”
Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, is a foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large for Time magazine.
Bremmer later defended sharing a fake Trump quote by saying that “it’s a comment on the state of media and the twitterverse today.”
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
Bremmer also responded to the reporter’s tweet by calling his own tweet an “objectively ludicrous quote.” And Bremmer tried to defend his spreading of false information by calling his fake quote “kinda plausible … especially on Twitter, where people automatically support whatever political position they have.”
“That’s the point,” Bremmer claimed.
Bremmer’s fabricated statement follows a controversial tweet from President Trump himself earlier Sunday, where Trump dismissed concerns about North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un’s ongoing missile tests. Trump attacked former Vice President Joe Biden, saying that Kim Jong Un “smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual and worse.”
North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2019
