Ian Bremmer is a political scientist who teaches at New York University. He also apparently works at Time magazine and appears on television occasionally as an expert in foreign affairs. Sunday he created quite a firestorm when he tweeted out a fake quote attributed to President Trump. For a while, Bremmer doubled-down and refused to delete the tweet or apologize, even after other blue-checked progressives began sharing it widely. Today, Bremmer finally apologized:

My tweet yesterday about Trump preferring Kim Jong Un to Biden as President was meant in jest. The President correctly quoted me as saying it was a “completely ludicrous” statement. I should have been clearer. My apologies. — ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) May 27, 2019

He’s referring to this tweet from early this morning:

.@ianbremmer now admits that he MADE UP “a completely ludicrous quote,” attributing it to me. This is what’s going on in the age of Fake News. People think they can say anything and get away with it. Really, the libel laws should be changed to hold Fake News Media accountable! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2019

Here’s the fake quote that got this going:

People are retweeting his first tweet as if it’s real and meanwhile he says “it’s plausible.” pic.twitter.com/mb9xm5pmtw — Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) May 26, 2019

Lots of people on the left thought it was not just plausible but real:

Very cool for @ianbremmer to spread a fake quote and have resistance people pounce on it. pic.twitter.com/DzB1e6DoZP — Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) May 26, 2019

But while thousands of people were spreading the fake quote, Bremmer was playing games:

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1132723378509549569

He said the fake quote was “a comment on the state of media and the twitterverse today.” I guess that’s true but it’s not one that makes him look very good.

How does @ianbremmer of @TIME get away with this? He makes up a quote by the President, it goes viral, then he admits he made it up and takes down the tweet. Whatcha gonna do #TIME? Whatcha gonna do #Twitter? pic.twitter.com/LBEUQrBE0N — Ron Futrell (@RonFutrell) May 27, 2019

Bremmer did finally delete the fake quote and all of his tweets defending it. Here’s the kicker though. Just one day before creating the fake tweet, Bremmer was calling for Trump to take down a “fake/doctored” video of Nancy Pelosi stammering.

Doctored videos are bad for our republic. Doctored quotes are essential for the resistance. pic.twitter.com/0idkcinWvU — Thomas Galvin (@ThomasGalvin) May 26, 2019

Here’s a remaining question for you to ponder. How does Bremmer maintain his blue check when he’s intentionally inventing fake quotes? This guy is a progressive but I agree with him on this point.

He didn't admit to it when it was first brought up.. he doubled down and made no excuses… then as the heat rose, he deleted tweet without an apology… and now that Trump is using his idiocy to attack the medial he begrudgingly apologizes. His blue check mark should be removed — Joe Albanese 🌊🌊🌊 (@AlbaneseJoe) May 27, 2019

I get that the check mark is to verify that someone is who they claim to be but it’s also probably one reason so many people RTd and quote tweeted what Bremmer said without checking to see if it was real.