Trump’s ambassador to Netherlands calls own sayings ‘fake news’

@Nieuwsuur to new US ambassador: "You mentioned [..] that there are no go-zones in the Netherlands and that cars an… twitter.com/i/web/status/9…

—
Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) December 21, 2017

From DutchNews.nl:

New US ambassador calls his ‘no-go areas in the Netherlands’ claim fake news

December 22, 2017

The new US ambassador to the Netherlands has denied saying that there are no go areas in the Netherlands and that cars and politicians are being set on fire because of radical Islam.

No politicians are set on fire in the Netherlands. Dutch politicians’ cars ARE sometimes set on fire. But not by ‘radical Islam’. By right-wing xenophobes who think these politicians are too leftist and too pro-refugees. Like happened in Oostknollendam in 2015.

In an interview with current affairs programme Nieuwsuur, Pete Hoekstra told NOS correspondent Wouter Zwart he had never said such things. ‘I didn’t say that. That is actually an incorrect statement. We would call it fake news’, Hoekstra said.

However, the new ambassador can be seen clearly making the statements in a video recording from 2015. ‘And yes, there are no go areas in the Netherlands,’ Hoekstra states.

Hoekstra will take up his position in January. He is known to be a supporter of Trump’s policy on the migration of Muslims to the United States and Europe.

Hoekstra is also said to oppose gay marriage and abortion, both of which are legal in the Netherlands. The ambassador was born in Groningen but his family emigrated to the US when he was three. Hoekstra will be the first US ambassador to the Netherlands since early 2016, when Timothy Broas resigned. Since 2005, no US ambassador to the Netherlands has completed a four-year term in office.

From the Washington Post in the USA in 2012:

Pete Hoekstra’s China ad provokes accusations of racism

Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra (R) aired his first campaign ad of the cycle Sunday night, and Asian-American groups are crying foul.

See also here.

Related articles

• Election Meddling: Bad if Done to USA, Bad to Complain About if Done by USA