Gov. Greg Abbott deletes tweet with fake Winston Churchill quote

Greg Abbott Winston Churchill Greg Abbott Winston Churchill Photo: @PatrickSvitek, @GregAbbott_TX Photo: @PatrickSvitek, @GregAbbott_TX Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Gov. Greg Abbott deletes tweet with fake Winston Churchill quote 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

Gov. Greg Abbott deleted a tweet with a fake Winston Churchill quote on Tuesday.

Abbot shared an image of the British wartime leader with the quote, "The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists."

"Some insights are timeless," Abbott wrote along with the tweet.

The falsely-attributed Churchill quote led to a public outcry of fact-checking and jokes. It's unclear who the quote actually belongs to.

We're fact-checking the @GregAbbott_TX tweet below quoting Winston Churchill. Two Churchill experts tell us they're not seeing evidence Churchill made the comment about fascists. Here's the @statesman blog post on Abbott's statement by @JohnathanSilver : https://t.co/8xykYqzBen pic.twitter.com/YXGIDoBfn8 — PolitiFact Texas (@PolitiFactTexas) August 7, 2018

Am I doing it right? pic.twitter.com/ZqscuVz4zc — Robert Maxwell 🌹 (@rmaxwellusn) August 7, 2018

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Several hours after posting it, the governor deleted the tweet and cleared up the early morning blunder in a statement to reporters, according to Texas Tribune reporter Patrick Svitek.

"Listen, what I tweeted was a sentiment that I have, and that is Antifa is dangerous to society and Antifa is the antithesis of safety and security," Abbott said. "And they are antagonists to law enforcement as well as to other people."

"It was irrelevant to me who may or may not have said that in the past," Abbott said. "I didn't want to be accused of plagiarism for saying it. If no one else said it, attribute the quote to me because it's what I believe in."

Fernando Ramirez covers Texas news and politics. Read him on our breaking news site and on our subscriber site. | Fernando.ramirez@chron.com | @fernramirez93



