Donald Trump came under fire Sunday for re-tweeting a quote by the late fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
TRENTON -- Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump came under fire Sunday for retweeting -- posting on his Twitter page -- a quote by the late Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
The billionaire businessman and former Atlantic City casino tycoon defended himself later in the day by saying it's an "interesting quote" and he wants "to be associated with interesting quotes."
It turns out the whole thing was apparently an elaborate setup up by the gossip-tabloid website Gawker.
The site said in a post Sunday that a staff member created a Twitter bot account -- @ilduce2016 -- to tweet out Mussolini quotes every now and then, attributing them to Trump. The photo on the account is a picture of the Italian dictator, with Trump's hair superimposed on top of Mussolini's head. And Il Duce -- "The Leader" in Italian -- is what Mussolini was often called.
"Last year, we set a trap for Trump," the Gawker post reads. "We came up with the idea for that Mussolini bot under the assumption that Trump would retweet just about anything, no matter how dubious or vile the source, as long as it sounded like praise for himself."
Trump is an avid Twitter user with more than 6 million followers, and he often retweets positive messages about himself -- or negative messages about opponents.
Some critics -- such as former New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman -- have also said the real estate mogul champions policies similar to that of fascists dictators.
Just after 6 a.m. Sunday, Trump re-tweeted this:
"@ilduce2016: "It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep." - @realDonaldTrump #MakeAmericaGreatAgain"
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016
Hours later, Trump appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and was asked if he knew the quote was from Mussolini.
"It's okay to know it's Mussolini," Trump told host Chuck Todd. "Look, Mussolini was Mussolini. "It's a very good quote, it's a very interesting quote, and I know it. 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."
"Well, Mussolini was a known fascist," Todd replied. "Do you want to be associated with a fascist?"
"No, I want to be associated with interesting quotes," Trump responded. "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?"
Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.