In the final moments of Saturday's Republican presidential debate, Ben Carson quoted Joseph Stalin.
Sort of.
"Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down you have to undermine three things—our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality," Carson said during the Republican presidential debate, hosted by CBS.
But, as it turns out, Stalin may have never said that.
Ben Carson cites a fake Stalin quote: https://t.co/jxsxrs5T59 pic.twitter.com/sW1letXzp4— Mashable News (@MashableNews) February 14, 2016
The fact-checking site Snopes did some digging into this quote earlier in the month and found no way to attribute it to Stalin.
Instead, Snopes found, the attribution dates back to a Facebook post that circulated as early as 2011.
Ben Carson's Stain quote is from one of those disproven chain emails your extended family sends around https://t.co/2ABDmg1qQN— Brian Ries (@moneyries) February 14, 2016
The post quoted Stalin as saying: "America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."
Stalin never said that, which caused wags on Twitter to mock Carson with jokes and memes.
"Like Abraham Lincoln said, 'Don't trust what you read on the Internet.'" - Ben Carson, basically— Matt Ford (@fordm) February 14, 2016
Mod: Dr. Carson, would you like to weigh in?
Ben Carson: Here's something I read in an email that was forwarded to me at my Hotmail account— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) February 14, 2016
BEN CARSON: You know, Joseph Stalin once said, “10 years ago we had Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash, and Bob Hope"— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) February 14, 2016
Ben Carson quoting Joseph Stalin in his closing statement pic.twitter.com/D0vdwa04Zh— josh weintraub (@DoodleTraub) February 14, 2016