After US President Donald Trump's "last night in Sweden" comment at a rally in Florida on Saturday, the two Swedish police officers featured in the Fox News segment that sparked the confusion have spoken out.
Soon after the rally, President Trump defended his statement, claiming he was referring to a 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' segment on Fox News about one of Swedish filmmaker Ami Horowitz’s movies.
Titled 'Stockholm Syndrome', the film blames immigration as a direct cause of violence and rioting.
Excerpts of interviews with two Swedish police officers were also included, but those officers have now come forward to say the entire interview was taken out of context.
Officers Anders Göranzon and Jacob Ekström claim the interview was set up to discuss crime in high-risk areas. They say there wasn’t any focus on issues of immigration and describe Horowitz as a "madman".
“He has edited the answers," Göranzon told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. "We were answering completely different questions in the interview. This is bad journalism.”
The officers are adamant that they don’t condone Horowitz’s work and say "we don’t stand behind what he says".
"It feels like hell," Göranzon told Dagens Nyheter.
"The real questions should be shown along with our answers. We don’t own the rights to the film, but the end result is that we don’t want to talk to journalists after this. We can’t trust each other.”
During the Fox News broadcast on Friday, Horowitz asserted that the increase of immigrant-related violent incidents in Sweden has been covered up. However, the New York Times noted that there is no statistical evidence that immigration in Sweden has led to an increase in crime.
Horiwitz responded to the international reaction to his interview via Twitter.
President Trump echoed that sentiment on Monday with another claim of "fake news".
