Trump escalates attack on Swedish policies

President Donald Trump escalated his attack on Sweden’s migration policies Monday, doubling down on his suggestion — based on a Fox News report — that refugees in the Scandinavian country were behind a surge in crime and terrorism.

Trump set off consternation and ridicule Saturday when he seemed to falsely imply to an adoring throng at a rally in Florida that a terrorist attack had occurred in Sweden, which has admitted tens of thousands of refugees in recent years.

On Sunday, a White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said that “he was t a l k i ng a bout r i s i ng crime and recent incidents in general, not referring to a specific issue.”

Trump then said on Twitter that he was referring to a Fox News segment about a n Amer i c a n f i l mmaker who argues that the police in Sweden were covering up a migrant-driven crime wave.

Off i c i al s i n both c ountries expressed alarm and dismay Monday at Trump’s remarks. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said the president should get his information from intelligence agencies and not from television. The Swedish Embassy in Washington offered the Trump administration a briefing on its immigration policies. Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said he was surprised by Trump’s comments, and noted that Sweden ranks highly on interna- tional comparisons of human development and income inequality.

“We h av e c h a l l e n g e s , no doubt about that,” he allowed, adding: “We must all take responsibilit y for using fac ts correc tly and for verifying anything we spread.”

Yet even before the prime minister spoke, Trump pursued his attack. On Twitter, he suggested that the news media was covering up problems related to migration in Sweden.