Donald Trump used his Twitter account to re-post a quote commonly attributed to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on Sunday, and said later he didn't know it was a fascist line.
Gawker reported Sunday that its staffers created a parody account designed to mock Trump's bid for the White House in December. The parody account was named "Il Duce 2016" and featured a profile picture in which Trump's hair had been photo-edited onto a stock picture of Mussolini.
"Last year, Gawker’s Ashley Feinberg created a Twitter bot that would post quotes from the writings and speeches of the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, but with all of them attributed to businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump," Gawker wrote.
"This morning, he retweeted that account."
The New York Times reported that Trump was soon queried about the tweet during an interview on NBC, and said he was unaware the quote was Mussolini's.
"It’s a very good quote," said Trump. "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."
Asked for his thoughts on associating with the fascist dictator, Trump said he only wanted to be "associated with interesting quotes."
"Hey, it got your attention, didn’t it?" he added.