Donald Trump (Image: Getty)
Donald Trump recently retweeted a quote that is attributed to Benito Mussolini and stands by the sentiment of the words that were uttered by the Italian Fascist leader.
Members of Gawker’s editorial team, aware of Trump’s tough rhetoric as well as his propensity to retweet what he sees as praise, devised a way of duping the GOP presidential candidate into retweeting a Mussolini quote. The plan was simple: Create a Twitter bot that tweets Mussolini quotes at Trump that are attributed to the real estate mogul, and hope and wait for Trump to retweet.
Months after the plan was set in motion, Trump retweeted the quote, “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”
As could be expected, the retweet of the Mussolini quote blew up on Twitter and led to Trump having to answer for it by the media. Trump claimed that he knew that the quote was one attributed to Mussolini, and that, despite the source, it’s a “good” and “interesting” quote.
“Mussolini was Mussolini. It’s a very good quote, it’s a very interesting quote. I know who said it,” Trump told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “What difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else. It’s certainly a very interesting quote.”
When Todd pushed back about Trump willingly associating himself with the quote spoken by a fascist, Trump held his ground. He suggested that retweeting “interesting” quotes is why he has such a strong social media presence – and why the media continues to cover him.
“That’s probably why I have, between Facebook and Twitter, 14 million people. It’s a very interesting quote and people can talk about it,” Trump said in his defense. “Hey, it got your attention didn’t it?”
Trump is also currently getting a lot of attention for failing to condemn the Ku Klux Klan and former KKK grand wizard David Duke on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. Trump has since claimed that his failure to disavow the hate group and Duke’s endorsement was due to a faulty ear piece.
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