The tweets have all been deleted, but they went viral before they disappeared.

Ian Bremmer, a foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large at TIME who is president of Eurasia Group and a global research professor at New York University, fired out a post on Twitter on Sunday morning saying that President Trump had said that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un would be a better president than Joe Biden.

“President Trump in Tokyo: ‘Kim Jong Un is smarter and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden,'” Bremmer wrote in the now-deleted tweet, attributing the quote to Trump.

As his post made the rounds, Bremmer seemed to defend the made-up quote, saying it was “kinda plausible.”

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“This is objectively a completely ludicrous quote. And yet kinda plausible. Especially on Twitter, where people automatically support whatever political position they have. That’s the point,” Bremmer wrote in the now-deleted tweet.

Then Trump ripped him a new one.

“@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!” Trump wrote.

.@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

Bremmer was roundly criticized on social media.

When you put out a fake Trump quote without any indication you were making it up, and then blame the readers for not realizing you were making the quote up. Nice work, @ianbremmer. You're only helping the cause of people like Trump who want to label everything "fake news." pic.twitter.com/BYYKmNmDNU — Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) May 26, 2019

Bremmer on Monday offered an apology of sorts.

“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,” he wrote on Twitter.

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

But that didn’t go over too well with Jerry Dunleavy, a reporter with the Washington Examiner.