President Donald Trump did not lie when he said the president of Mexico and the leader of the Boy Scouts of America praised him during phone calls, CNN reported.
"I wouldn't say it was a lie; that's a pretty bold accusation," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. "The conversations took place; they just simply didn't take place over a phone call."
Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that Michael Surbaugh told him his speech at the annual Boy Scout Jamboree last Monday was "the greatest speech that was ever made to them."
Trump was responding to one of The Wall Street Journal reporters who called the reaction to his speech "mixed."
Surbaugh, though, apologized to those "who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree," and the Boy Scouts said it was "not aware of any call" between Boy Scouts leadership and the White House.
Trump, during the Monday swearing in of his new chief of staff, said Mexico's president called him about a decrease in border crossings: "Their southern border, they said very few people are coming because they know they're not going to get to our border, which is the ultimate compliment."
But Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said President Enrique Peña Nieto "has not had any recent telephone communication with President Donald Trump."