U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in a newspaper interview on Sunday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made a "catastrophic mistake" with a policy that let a wave of more than one million migrants into her country.
Speaking in a joint interview with the Times of London and the German newspaper Bild and quoted by Reuters, Trump said of Merkel, "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake, and that was taking all of these illegals.”
"And nobody even knows where they come from. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake," Trump added, noting that he always had "great respect" for Merkel and that he still viewed her as one of the most important world leaders.