In yet another social media flub following the devastating Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka that killed at least 290 people and injured hundreds more, President Donald Trump mixed up the country’s president and prime minister.
The now-deleted Monday tweet ― archived by Factba.se, a website that tracks and stores the president’s posts ― Trump wrote, “Spoke to President Maithripala Sirisena of Sri Lanka yesterday to inform him that the United States stands by him and his country in the fight against terrorism.”
However, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement that Trump called Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday morning ― meaning Trump not only mixed up the officials, he mixed up the date, too.
A corrected post has since been uploaded:
It was not Trump’s first error since the tragedy occurred. In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s bombings, he tweeted the death toll had reached “at least 138 million;” at the time, the figure had been put at 138.
That tweet was quickly deleted.
The Sri Lankan government alleges that the coordinated bombings, which hit churches and hotels in 3 different cities, were carried out by a little-known Islamist extremist group in the country. Twenty-four people have been apprehended by Sri Lankan authorities, Reuters reported, but no additional details have been made available by police so far.
The majority of the dead are Sri Lankans, though 32 are foreigners, according to government officials. “Several” are American citizens, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.
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