--- title: Donald Trump Tweets Parody Account's Benito Mussolini Quote description: Donald Trump on Sunday retweeted a quote from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. canonical: https://time.com/4240330/donald-trump-benito-mussolini-quote/ author: Melissa Chan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-28T18:40:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:44:52.662Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Retweets Quote Attributed to Benito Mussolini og:description: Trump said he didn't know the quote came from the dictator og:url: https://time.com/4240330/donald-trump-benito-mussolini-quote/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Retweets Quote Attributed to Benito Mussolini twitter:description: Trump said he didn't know the quote came from the dictator twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Donald Trump Retweets Quote Attributed to Benito Mussolini > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Melissa Chan](https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/)  ## Melissa Chan Feb 28, 2016 6:40 PM UTC  by [Melissa Chan](https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/)  ## Melissa Chan Feb 28, 2016 6:40 PM UTC Donald Trump [retweeted a quote from Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/703900742961270784) on Sunday. The Republican frontrunner shared the saying made famous by the founder of the fascist movement with his 6.4 million followers. “@ilduce2016: ‘It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep,’ – @realDonaldTrump #MakeAmericaGreatAgain,” the tweet said. It comes from a [parody account created by Gawker](http://gawker.com/how-we-fooled-donald-trump-into-retweeting-benito-musso-1761795039) specifically to troll the bombastic billionaire, the website claims. The account’s profile picture is a composite of Trump’s hair and Mussolini’s face. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/703900742961270784) Trump said on Sunday that he [wasn’t aware the quote came from Mussolini](http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/28/donald-trump-retweets-post-likening-him-to-mussolini/?smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur&%5Fr=2). “It’s a very good quote,” he said on NBC’s _Meet the Press_, adding that he didn’t want to be associated with the dictator. “I didn’t know who said it, but what difference does it make if it was Mussolini or somebody else?It’s a very good quote.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4240330/donald-trump-benito-mussolini-quote/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4240330/donald-trump-benito-mussolini-quote/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Retweets Quote Attributed to Benito Mussolini","datePublished":"2016-02-28T18:40:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:44:52.662Z","description":"Trump said he didn't know the quote came from the dictator","url":"https://time.com/4240330/donald-trump-benito-mussolini-quote/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Chan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4240330/donald-trump-benito-mussolini-quote/","name":"Donald Trump Retweets Quote Attributed to Benito Mussolini"}}]}] ```