US Ambassador's Dutch Interview Does Not Go Well

Are we sure Pete Hoekstra, President Trump's new ambassador to the Netherlands, doesn't have that Memento condition? Hoekstra demonstrated some impressive memory loss—both long-term and incredibly short-term—during an embarrassing interview with Dutch news program Nieuwsuur, the Guardian reports. "You mentioned in a debate that there are no-go zones in the Netherlands, and that cars and politicians are being set on fire in the Netherlands," reporter Wouter Zwart says during the interview. Spin explains that "no-go zones" refers to the notion that there are areas in the Netherlands where Sharia law has replaced government control.

Hoekstra responds: "I didn't say that. This is actually an incorrect statement. We would call it fake news." He's then shown a clip of him from 2015 in which he said "there are cars being burnt, there are politicians that are being burnt ... and yes there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.” Hoekstra's response to being shown the clip is truly impressive: He denies using the term "fake news" just moments earlier. “I didn’t call that fake news," he tells Zwart. "I didn’t use the words today." The Washington Post reports the clip isn't playing well in the Netherlands, where one headline blasts Hoekstra for telling "lies about his own lies." Hoekstra, a former Republican congressman and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was sworn in as ambassador earlier this month. (More fake news stories.)