“I happened to be in Scotland in Turnberry cutting a ribbon when Brexit happened and we had a vast amount of press,” Donald Trump said during a remarkably short press conference on Friday with British prime minister Theresa May. “And I said Brexit—this was the day before, you probably remember—and I said Brexit is going to happen and I was scorned in the press for making that prediction. I was scorned.”
In fact, it is easy to confirm that Trump was not in Scotland on the day before the Brexit vote. As his own tweets from that week show, he landed in the country the morning after the referendum, at which time he congratulated the people there—apparently ignorant of the fact that the majority of Scotland had voted against leaving the EU.
He also tweeted about departing the US to fly to Scotland late on June 23, a few hours before the outcome of the Brexit vote was reported.
At his press conference on Friday, Trump went on to say: “The odds weren’t looking good for me when I made that statement because as you know everyone thought it was not going to happen.” Actually the odds were 100%—the vote had already happened.
Here is the quote in full:
I happened to be in Scotland in Turnberry cutting a ribbon when Brexit happened and we had a vast amount of press. And I said Brexit—this was the day before, you probably remember—and I said Brexit is going to happen and I was scorned in the press for making that prediction. I was scorned. And I said it’s going to happen because people want to control who’s coming into their country and they want to control their own trade and various other things. And lo and behold, the following day, it happened. And the odds weren’t looking good for me when I made that statement because as you know everyone thought it was not going to happen.