MSNBC Host's Latest Attack on Trump Just Backfired

MSNBC host Joy Reid took to Twitter Friday afternoon to attack President Donald Trump for his “Soviet” wives, but it backfired after she made several factual errors about Trump’s current wife and one of his former wives.

“Donald Trump married one American (his second wife) and two women from what used to be Soviet Yugoslavia: Ivana-Slovakia, Melania-Slovenia,” Reid tweeted. First, Reid claimed that Trump’s first wife Ivana — who is also mother to Trump’s first three children — is from Slovakia. However, Ivana was actually born in Czechoslovakia in 1949.

Then Reid incorrectly claimed that Yugoslavia was Soviet. While the then-Eastern European country was indeed communist, Yugoslavia was never part of the Soviet bloc and therefore not a member of the U.S.S.R. That fact alone discredits Reid’s claims that first lady Melania Trump or Ivana are Soviet, considering that neither of their home countries were ever members of the U.S.S.R.

People were quick to point this out:

The blatant xenophobia aside, Czechoslovakia was not part of Yugoslavia, and neither were in the USSR@JoyAnnReid https://t.co/HGFs6egEY1

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 21, 2017

Czechoslovakia was in the Warsaw Pact (not in the USSR). Yugoslavia was not, & famously had on-off relations with the Soviets.
Basic history

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 21, 2017

Overlooking Joy Reid's ignorance about the USSR, how did she confuse Slovakia with Yugoslavia? Czechoslovakia has "Slovakia" in its name…

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 21, 2017

1 Ivana was Czech no Slovak 2 Slovakia was not in Yugoslavia 3 neither Czechoslovakia nor Yugoslavia were part of USSR. Otherwise correct.

— derek sayer (@coastsofbohemia) July 21, 2017