Donald Trump did not heap praise on a Turkish business partner in a call with Turkish President Recep Erdogan right after his election, as reported by the Huffington Post, according to the source cited by the news outlet. Instead, the new American president-elect used his Turkish business partner’s praise of Erdogan as a way of buttering up the foreign leader.
That version of the call comes from journalist and Wilson Center fellow Amberin Zaman in an article originally published in the Turkish newspaper Diken. She claims that her reporting was badly twisted by the Huffington Post to make an erroneous claim about Trump’s use of the presidential office to enrich his business dealings.
“HuffingtonPost got it wrong. Trump did not praise b[usiness] partner. He said b[usiness] partner praised Erdogan,” she wrote on Twitter Wednesday night.
@HuffingtonPost got it wrong. Trump did not praise biz partner.He said biz partner praised Erdoğan
— Amberin Zaman (@amberinzaman) November 24, 2016
What reporter Paul Blumenthal claimed, citing Zaman, was that Trump “praised Mehmet Ali Yalcindaq” on the call. Yalcindaq is related by marriage to the ownership of the Dogan Media Group which licenses the Trump name and has two buildings branded “Trump Towers” in Istanbul.
Cue the Huffington Post civics lecture: “The praise heaped on his Turkish business partner in the call with Erdogan is just the most recent sign of Trump’s near impossible task in avoiding the significant conflicts of interest his global real estate business presents.”
Wrong, said the author of the original scoop. While it is true that Trump referred to Yalcindaq as “my close friend,” argued Zaman, the purpose of those words was to praise Erdogan, not Yalcindaq. And according to her report, Trump laid it on extra thick, saying his favorite daughter Ivanka was also an admirer of the Turkish strongman.
Zaman also scolded the Washington Examiner for proposing more excerpts from a “rough translation” from the original Turkish. “[N]o rough translations pls! @HuffingtonPost got it wrong!” she insisted.
no rough translations pls! @HuffingtonPost got it wrong!
— Amberin Zaman (@amberinzaman) November 24, 2016
Suffice it to say that the two leaders discussed American-harbored Erdogan antagonist Fethullah Gullen, considered what the two nations might do together to fight the Islamic State, and pledged to meet soon into Trump’s first term.
