Ankara, Turkey – A Turkish reporter admitted that he fabricated a quote by Jared Kushner in which President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser reportedly said Turkish President Recep Erdogan “is making Turkey great again like [the] U.S. We watch his efforts with appreciation.”
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Yavuz Atalay, a reporter for the newspaper AKSAM, told The Daily Caller Thursday that he made up the quote.
In a private Twitter exchange with The Daily Caller, Atalay said he spoke with Kushner for less than two minutes.
“He did not say that,” Atalay wrote of the quote in question. “I asked him, ‘Do you think, Erdogan is making Turkey great again, like Trump?’ and he only said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’”
The White House did not respond to a follow-up question about the interview. A selfie with Kushner and the reporter accompanies the article.
Atalay has a history of exaggerating the Trump administration’s view of Erdogan and the Turkish government, according to The Daily Caller.