Rep. Red Lieu (D-CA) and Republican CNN and The View commentator Ana Navarro fell for a hoax quote fabricated and posted by TIME Editor-at-Large Ian Bremmer on Twitter Sunday that said, “President Trump in Tokyo: “Kim Jong Un is smarter and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden.”

Bremmer at first defended posting the hoax quote, then later deleted it and his defenses of it, as did Lieu and Navarro. Screen shots below.

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Thx, I removed the retweet awhile ago. — Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) May 26, 2019

Screen images via Jim Hanson, Ian Miles Cheong, @PubOperator and Jerry Dunleavy.

Late Saturday, Trump tweeted a statement from his Japan state visit about Kim and Biden that apparently inspired Bremmer’s hoax quote, “North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”

North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2019

Trump deleted a previous version of the tweet because of typo that misspelled Biden as “Bidan”.

Lieu and Bremmer know each other personally which may explain why Lieu so readily trusted the hoax quote from Bremmer. The two shared a stage earlier this year discussing Trump, Russia and China.

Ian Bremmer, Twitter avatar.

Bremmer’s TIME bio reads, “Bremmer is a foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large at TIME. He is the president of Eurasia Group, a political-risk consultancy, and a Global Research Professor at New York University. His most recent book is Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism.”