Mexican President Defends Trump Meeting, Accidentally Creates #HillaryTrump Trending Topic
The president also had a verbal mix-up that created a trending topic on Twitter.
— -- Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto's tough week continued on Thursday, even as he tried to move on from the controversy caused by his meeting on Wednesday with republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Speaking at a town-hall style meeting just hours after delivering his annual state-of-the-nation report to congress, Peña Nieto again defended his decision to host Trump in Mexico for a private meeting and press conference.
He said the easier path would have been to "cross my arms" and do nothing in response to Trump's "affronts, insults and humiliations," but he believed it necessary to open a "space for dialogue" to stress the importance of the U.S.-Mexico relationship, the Associated Press reported.
"What is a fact is that in the face of candidate Trump's postures and positions, which clearly represent a threat to the future of Mexico, it was necessary to talk," Peña Nieto said. "It was necessary to make him feel and know why Mexico does not accept his positions."
He acknowledged Mexicans' "enormous indignation" over Trump's presence in the country and repeated that he told him in person Mexico would in no way pay for the proposed border wall, according to the Associated Press.
But a slip of the tongue dominated the reaction on social media to the president's remarks. Users, many of whom expressed anger over the president's meeting with Trump, took to social media to have some fun after Peña Nieto mistakenly referred to the democratic presidential candidate as "Hillary Trump," before correcting himself.
Minutes after the verbal mix-up, #HillaryTrump sprung up as a trending topic on Twitter, with users posting bizarre memes and mashups superimposing the face of one candidate on the other.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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