TRUMP: It's fine to spread 'very good' Mussolini quotes
"It's certainly a very interesting quote," Trump said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Earlier in the day, Trump retweeted a parody account that attributed a famous Mussolini quote to Trump: "It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep."
The account Trump retweeted had a handle of "Il Duce 2016," a reference to Mussolini's nickname when he ruled World War II-era Italy. The photo of the account was a picture of Mussolini but altered so the dictator had Trump's hair.
On "Meet the Press," host Chuck Todd asked Trump about the retweet.
"Do you like the quote? Did you know it was Mussolini?" Todd inquired.
Trump suggested that he did, in fact, like the quote:
Sure. It's OK to know it's Benito Mussolini. Look, Mussolini was Mussolini. It's OK. It's a very good quote. It's a very interesting quote. And I saw it and I know who said it. But what difference does it make, whether it's Mussolini or somebody else?
"That's probably why I have, between Facebook and Twitter, 14 million people," Trump said of his followers. "It's a very interesting quote, and people can talk about it," he added.
"Do you want to be associated with a fascist?" Todd asked.
"No, I want to be associated with interesting quotes," Trump replied.
"We do interesting things. And I sent out and certainly, hey, it got your attention, didn't it?" he asked Todd.