The campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump denied Thursday that he ever gave an interview to a Serbian publication that attributed quotes to him that called the U.S.-led bombing campaign of Yugoslavia in the 1990s “a big mistake.”
Nedeljnik, a weekly magazine, reported that Trump expressed regret for the bombings in what was then Yugoslavia.
“The bombing of Serbs, who were our allies in both world wars, was a big mistake,” the magazine quoted Trump saying. “Serbians are very good people. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration caused them a lot of harm, but also throughout the Balkans, which they made a mess out of.”
Jason Miller, the senior communications advisor for the Trump campaign, called the interview a “hoax” and requested “a formal retraction and apology from all involved.”
“Mr. Trump never gave an interview to the Serbian weekly magazine Nedeljnikas as falsely reported by the discredited Newsweek, nor was such an interview conducted through our Indiana State Director,” Miller said.
Newsweek reported that Nedeljnik said the interview was conducted “via email correspondence with a Trump campaign senior adviser, Suzanne Ryder Jaworowski.” (The Huffington Post followed Nedeljnik and Newsweek in reporting those quotes.)
Jaworowski, the Indiana state director, said in the statement from the Trump campaign that this was “completely false.”
“I have never served as a conduit to interview Mr. Trump for anyone,” she said.
The contested quotes reference the bombing campaigns NATO forces carried out in then-Yugoslavia in the 1990s to halt ethnic persecution and genocide. NATO bombed Bosnian Serb forces threatening United Nations “safe zones” in 1995 in order to prevent genocide like the one that occurred in Srebrenica. Four years later, NATO again deployed forces ― without U.N. authorization ― in a humanitarian mission to stop Serbian persecution of Albanians in Kosovo. Russia, however, viewed the bombing as a breach of international law.
Trump appears to be popular in Serbia. Hundreds of ultra-nationals clad in shirts with the real estate mogul’s face printed on them protested U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Belgrade earlier this summer, chanting, “Vote for Trump.”
This article has been updated throughout to reflect the statement from the Trump campaign.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
Before You Go
