Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler are pictured in September 1938 in Munich, Germany. | AP Photo Trump explains tweeting Mussolini quote

Donald Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he retweeted a quote from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist dictator, because he wants to “be associated with interesting quotes.”

“Chuck, it's OK to know it's Mussolini. Look, Mussolini was Mussolini. It's OK to — it's a very good quote, it's a very interesting quote, and I know it,” he said Sunday morning. “I saw it. I saw what — and I know who said it. But what difference does it make whether it's Mussolini or somebody else? It's certainly a very interesting quote.”


Trump posted the tweet early Sunday morning from @ilduce2016: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”

When asked if he wanted to be associated with a fascist, Trump said: “No, I want to be associated with interesting quotes. And people, you know, I have almost 14 million people between Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and all of that. And we do interesting things. And I sent it out. And certainly, hey, it got your attention, didn't it?”

Benito Mussolini took power in Italy in the early 1920s and ran the nation for more than two decades, until being toppled from power in 1943 as Alliied forces fought their way up Italy. "Il Duce" was allied with Germany's Adolf Hitler during World War II, and his armies invaded a number of nations, including Ethiopia, Greece and Yugoslavia. Mussolini was captured and executed in April 1945.

The website Gawker claimed to have created the account that sent out the Mussolini quote that Trump re-tweeted.

Trump has come under criticism for declining to distance himself or reject support from those on the far right, particularly white supremacists. On Sunday, he declined to condemn either David Duke or the Ku Klux Klan.

