Trump Lies About His Father’s Birthplace (Again), Claims Fred Trump Was Born In Germany

During his rambling remarks to reporters Tuesday afternoon in which he said he could settle the immigration crisis in 45 minutes and acknowledged that closing the border would hurt the economy, President Trump also inexplicably lied about his father’s birthplace.

This is far from the first time the president has done this.

“I’ll be talking about Germany,” Trump said when asked about the country. “Germany honestly is not paying their fair share. I have great respect for Angela [Merkel] and great respect for the country.”

He continued: “My father is German, was German. Born in a very wonderful place in Germany, so I have a great feeling for Germany.”

For the record, Fred Trump was actually born in New York City, not Germany. Trump’s grandfather was born in Germany, but as The Guardian pointed out last year after Trump falsely claimed in an interview that his father hailed from Germany, Friedrich Trump “left for America at 16 and worked as a barber in Manhattan before heading west.”

The funny thing is that before Trump’s 2016 presidential run, the real estate mogul repeatedly insisted that he was part-Swedish, claiming that his father’s father came to the United States “from Sweden as a child.” The Atlantic’s Edward-Isaac Dovere also noted that Fred Trump “famously denied” his dad was born in Germany in an effort to sell real estate during World War II.

In the Art of the Deal, Trump wrote (OK, ghostwriter wrote) his father’s father came to the US “from Sweden as a child."

That wasn’t true either. Fred Trump, in fact, famously denied his own father’s German heritage& said he was Swedish to help him sell apartments during WW II. https://t.co/AKqHi8f1ss

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) April 2, 2019