Trump Apologizes to Reporter After Calling Her “Fake News”

President Donald Trump swiftly softened his criticism of a reporter on Monday after dismissing her question as “fake news.”

Trump was speaking to journalists before departing for Kansas, where he planned to campaign for Republican candidates ahead of the midterm elections. During the exchange, a reporter asked how he responded to claims that French President Emmanuel Macron had held him responsible for violent unrest across France.

“I think that’s fake news,” Trump said before turning to the journalist and asking which outlet she represented.

“No sir,” she replied. “I’m Mary Margaret [Olohan] with The Daily Wire.”

Trump’s expression appeared to change once he recognized the publication, and he responded with a smile: “Oh, Daily Wire’s good. Sorry, The Daily Wire’s good.”

He then addressed the question, saying Macron was “a friend of mine” and moving into a broader criticism of France’s immigration policies.

Trump said he had warned Macron years earlier that France was making a serious mistake by allowing people from around the world to enter the country.

“Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon,” Trump said, adding that he believed such a development was not what had been intended.

Trump continued by saying he had urged Macron to strengthen France’s borders when they first met, adding that he had known the French leader for roughly eight or nine years.

“We closed our borders, he didn’t,” Trump said. “And you know what? His borders are a problem.”

He concluded that Macron should have taken action much earlier, insisting that he had repeatedly advised him to do so.

Trump had made similar comments on Truth Social over the weekend, after images circulated showing masked protesters allegedly setting cars on fire and looting businesses.

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“France is burning!” the president wrote in a post on Sunday.

He attributed the unrest to immigration, claiming that the arrival of people from what he described as “an entirely different world” had damaged France.

Trump also called on the French government to close its borders and regain control before the situation became worse.

The protests initially began about a month earlier, involving teachers and students concerned about staffing shortages. They later expanded into a broader movement focused on the rising cost of living.

They have been joined by extremist politicians and activists such as Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of the hard-Left France Unbowed party.

Scenes from the weekend showed looters in France smashing their way into designer stores to steal luxury items amid the ‘unrestrained violence’.

Dozens of hooded young men were filmed swarming high-end outlets like Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton, leaving shelves of expensive jewelry and clothing entirely bare.

In an address Sunday night, Macron blamed ‘agitators from far-Left fringe groups, joined by numerous criminals’ for plunging his country into ‘unbridled violence.’ 

He made a plea ‘for unity’ following the weekend of chaos, which saw nearly 2,400 people arrested and almost 1,000 police and gendarmes injured – seven seriously.

‘Looking at these images, we have all asked ourselves how French people could do this to France.

‘Nothing justifies it, nothing explains it, nothing excuses it.

‘Those who looted will have to pay back for the damage, and those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable,’ he then vowed.