The president of Mexico and the Boy Scouts have refuted Donald Trump’s claims that he received calls from them praising his immigration policies and speech-making abilities.
On Monday, Trump claimed that Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, had given him “the ultimate compliment” by phoning to say fewer people were crossing the US-Mexico border.
Last week, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump claimed the “head of the Boy Scouts” had called him to describe his speech at their national jamboree “the greatest speech that was ever made to them”.
But on Wednesday Peña Nieto and the Boy Scouts said they had not made those calls to the president.
Trump claimed on Monday: “The president of Mexico called me. They said their southern border … very few people are coming because they know they’re not going to get through our border, which is the ultimate compliment.”
Asked about the alleged call, Mexico’s foreign relations department said Peña Nieto “has not had any recent telephone communication with President Donald Trump”.
Days earlier, in the WSJ interview, Trump said his speech to the Boy Scouts in Virginia – partisan, disjointed and often rambling – had been praised by the organization.
“I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful,” Trump said.
The Boy Scouts told the Associated Press on Wednesday: “We are unaware of any such call.”
The organization specified that neither of its two top leaders – its president Randall Stephenson and chief scout executive Mike Surbaugh – had called the president, AP said.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders acknowledged Wednesday that Trump did not speak on the phone either with Pena Nieto or with the head of the Boy Scouts. “On Mexico, he was referencing the conversation that they had had at the G20 Summit, where they specifically talked about the issues that he referenced,” said Sanders.
She added “in terms of the Boy Scouts, multiple members of the Boy Scout leadership, following his speech there that day, congratulated him, praised him, and offered quite -- I’m looking for the word -- quite powerful compliments following his speech. And those were what those references were about.”
Sanders though declined to say that Trump was lying about having phone conversations. “I wouldn’t say it was a lie,” said the newly appointed press secretary. “That’s a pretty bold accusation.”
Surbaugh had actually issued an apology for Trump’s speech – which the president used to attack Democrats, healthcare and “fake media” – on 27 July.
“I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree,” Surbaugh wrote on the Boy Scouts’ website. “We sincerely regret that politics were inserted into the scouting program.”