It is a tale that seems almost as old as time: Donald Trump is making false claims about Barack Obama.
Before Trump boarded Air Force One in Manila to wrap up his 12-day trip throughout Asia, he told reporters that U.S. relations with the Philippines were on the upswing, crediting that to his administration's relationship with the country's strongman leader, Rodrigo Duterte.
"And as you know, we were having a lot of problems with the Philippines," Trump said, according to the Associated Press. "The relationship with the past administration was horrible, to use a nice word. I would say horrible is putting it mildly. You know what happened. Many of you were there, and you never got to land. The plane came close but it didn’t land."
Except that never happened, the Obama administration never ran into any problems landing Air Force One in the Philippines.
Obama's last time in the Philippines was in 2015, there were no landing problems.
Trump could have been referencing Obama's scheduled meeting with President Duterte in September 2016, in Laos. The meeting was abruptly canceled when Duterte directly insulted the president.
Duterte referred to Obama as a "son of a whore" and said the U.S. president "must be respectful" and not question the brutality and controversy over Duterte's nationwide drug war, which lasted 15 months and left roughly 12,000 people dead.
The Obama administration canceled the scheduled meeting following Duterte's comments, and the president continued with his trip to Laos and met with other leaders instead, the Associated Press reported.
A similar, but less personal, warning was given to Trump last week as well. Duterte said Trump should "lay off" the topic of human rights before the two met. Duterte never had anything to worry about, however, because Trump has praised Duterte's drug crackdowns.
The source of Trump's story, the latest of a running list of falsehoods about Obama, isn't known other than that he made it up. But at one point, Trump did know the truth and — as the rule never fails — he tweeted about it.
"China wouldn't provide a red carpet stairway from Air Force One and then Philippines President calls Obama "the son of a whore." Terrible!" Trump tweeted.
China wouldn't provide a red carpet stairway from Air Force One and then Philippines President calls Obama "the son of a whore." Terrible!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2016
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