Just when you think media is ready to calm down and cover President Trump more carefully, they prove you wrong.
What appears to be the latest in a long string of bogus reporting on the Trump administration comes courtesy of the Sunday Times, which reported on March 26 that the president handed German Chancellor Angela Merkel a fake multibillion-euro invoice for her country’s NATO obligations when they met earlier this month in Washington, D.C.
The story is completely false, according to Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert.
“Reports that President Trump had presented the federal chancellor with a kind of bill with a concrete billion sum are not true,” Seibert told reporters Monday.
White House spokesman Michael Short also rejected the story Sunday, calling it “false” and saying, “No, this is not true.”
These denials came after the Sunday Time created a stir with an anonymously sourced story published this weekend.
The article, titled “Germany slams ‘intimidating’ ¢300bn White House bill,” said Trump told Merkel she “owed” NATO the money.
The story cites an unnamed German official who called the supposed note “outrageous.”
“The concept behind putting out such demands is to intimidate the other side, but the chancellor took it calmly and will not respond to such provocations,” the anonymous official reportedly said.
It’s also worth noting that Trump said the following on social media shortly after his meeting with Merkel: “Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes … vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”
Aside from the supposed say-so of a nameless German official and Trump’s personal remarks on Twitter, however, there’s nothing to verify the Sunday Times’ story about the invoice.
The German government and the White House, meanwhile, deny it ever happened.
Unfortunately for the Trump and Merkel administrations, their respective denials came only after a significant number of media groups in the United States and Europe latched onto the Sunday Times’ reporting.
“Trump handed $300 billion-plus NATO ‘invoice’ to German chancellor: report,” read a headline by the Hill.
Fox News published a headline reading, “Trump handed Merkel $374B NATO bill during talks – report.”
“Angela Merkel’s White House Visit Was Way More Awkward Than We Knew,” read an Esquire headline, referring to the supposed NATO bill incident.
The story added in its subhead, “This is not how you conduct diplomacy.”
“Donald Trump ‘printed out fake ¢300bn Nato invoice and handed it to Angela Merkel,'” reported the U.K.’s Independent.
The Huffington Post U.K. published, “Donald Trump ‘Handed Fake ¢300bn Nato Invoice To Angela Merkel.'”
Even the Washington Examiner published this: “Trump gave Angela Merkel fake ‘bill’ for NATO expenses: Report.”
If the Sunday Times’ report is proven to be one hundred percent bogus, the narrative is already out there, and it’s awfully difficult to un-ring that bell.
