President Donald Trump raised eyebrows Saturday evening during a rally in Melbourne, Fla., where he delivered a lengthy speech defending his recent executive orders and reasserting his political agenda after a torrid first 30 days in office.

Heat Street: Looks like Donald Trump was right about Sweden, after all

But it was his reference to Sweden, a Scandinavian country with a population of about 10 million, that appears to have drawn the most attention in social media.

“You look at what’s happening,” Trump said. “We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” the president said. “They took in large numbers, they’re having problems like they never thought possible,” he said.

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Trump’s remarks were intended to serve as a counter to critics of his controversial executive order signed on Jan. 27 banning the entry to the U.S. by people from seven majority-Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) for 90 days; suspending all refugee admissions for 120 days; and barring all refugees from war-torn Syria indefinitely. The order has been blocked by a federal appeals court and the Trump administration is in the process of drafting revisions to the order.

But Trump’s reference to Sweden flummoxed many because it suggested that a specific terror incident had occurred a night earlier in that country. Swedish representatives, current and former, including former Prime Minister Carl Bildt, responded in shock, pointing out that nothing had happened, as had been implied in Trump’s remarks:

The curator of Sweden’s official Twitter account, according to reports, was flooded with tweets after the speech, but indicated that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred:

Trump said Sunday that his reference to Sweden was in response to a segment aired by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Friday night about a documentary that makes the claim that crime has been on the rise in Sweden, linking it to the country’s open-door refugee policy (see the video below).

He later added another tweet that referenced immigration to Sweden that also referenced what he called the “FAKE NEWS media.”

Still, Trump riffing off the Carlson segment doesn't account for the president’s innuendoes that a terrorist incident had occurred the previous night.

A White House representative couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

— David Marino-Nachison contributed to this article.