Lara Lea Trump is a former American television producer and campaign adviser to the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. She is married to the president’s son, Eric. She used an Abraham Lincoln quote when speaking at the Republican National Convention, but it appears she got the line from a Facebook meme as the former president never uttered the phrase. According to Lara Trump, Abraham Lincoln once famously said, ”America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves”. The quote attributed to the 16th president and it has widely circulated online on social media sites like Facebook and was even listed on Good-reads as something Lincoln said.
Point to be noted that fact-checkers with the New York Times and USA Today, among other publications, were quick to point out that there is actually no record of the president saying those words. Lincoln did make a similar statement in a January 1838 speech prior to when he became president. He said, “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction is our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide”. That quote has been widely used throughout history and even made an appearance at Walt Disney World in the Hall of Presidents.
Animatronics of President Lincoln would say the phrase during his monologue. Misquotes of famous politicians, authors, and prominent figures are not rare. Quotes attributed to figures like President Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, and Mark Twain have circulated and then later been debunked as false. The quotes said, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet just because there’s a picture with a quote next to it”. Besides misquoting President Lincoln, Lara Trump used her speech to claim that the 2020 election would decide whether America stays as is or turns towards socialism. She said, “This is not just a choice between Republican and Democrat or left and right – this is an election that will decide if we keep America America, or if we head down an uncharted, frightening path towards socialism”.