What was claimed
Donald Trump told People magazine in 1998: “If I were to run, I'd run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they'd still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
Our verdict
This quote isn’t real. People magazine has previously said it has no record of Mr Trump saying this, or of any such interview with him that year.
An image featuring a quote supposedly by US President Donald Trump about Republicans being the “dumbest group of voters” is being shared on social media again.
There’s no evidence he ever actually said this, and the quote has been repeatedly debunked.
The quote attributed to him reads: “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.” Text below the quote says: “People Magazine, 1998”.
But People magazine has previously told fact checkers it “couldn’t find anything remotely like this quote” in its archives, and that it had no record of an interview with Mr Trump that year.
The photo of Mr Trump featured in the post actually shows him during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1988. While he was asked about whether he’d ever run for the presidency, he did not say the quote attributed to him, or anything about Republican voters specifically.
He responded: “Probably not, but I do get tired of seeing the country ripped off [...] I just don’t really think I really have the inclination to do it. I love what I’m doing, I really like it […] I just probably wouldn’t do it, Oprah. I probably wouldn’t. But I do get tired of seeing what’s happening with this country, and if it got so bad, I would never want to rule it out totally because I really am tired of seeing what’s happening with this country, how we’re really making other people live like kings and we’re not.”
We’ve fact checked posts sharing this claim several times before, and it’s been circulating for at least 10 years. It’s an example of what we call a “zombie claim”—one that crops up repeatedly over the course of weeks, months or years, even after being repeatedly debunked.
We’ve also written about other unevidenced quotes attributed to politicians, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and French President Emmanuel Macron, among others.
Misinformation can spread quickly and has the potential to harm individuals, groups and democratic processes and institutions.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because People magazine said it has no record of Mr Trump saying this or of any such interview with him that year.
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