Donald Trump Donald John TrumpUS reimposes UN sanctions on Iran amid increasing tensions Jeff Flake: Republicans 'should hold the same position' on SCOTUS vacancy as 2016 Trump supporters chant 'Fill that seat' at North Carolina rally MORE’s former campaign manager revealed in an interview before his firing that the campaign knew a story the candidate often told about Muslims prisoners being executed with bullets dipped in pig blood was a myth but decided to repeat it at rallies anyway.

Corey Lewandowski told The Washington Post it didn’t matter whether the story was true.

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“It’s not about that. Look, it’s an analogy,” he told the Post for a story published Tuesday, a day after his unexpected firing from the campaign.

Since February, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has told his supporters a story about U.S. Gen. John Pershing killing dozens of Muslim prisoners in the Philippines in the early 20th century.

“He took 50 bullets and he dipped them in pigs’ blood,” Trump said at a rally in South Carolina in mid-February. “And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said, ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem.”

The story is false, according to a 2001 post by fact-checker Snopes.com.