Lara Trump Seems To Have Gotten Her Abraham Lincoln Quote From A Meme — And It’s Wrong

Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of President Donald Trump and an adviser to his reelection campaign, cited President Abraham Lincoln during her speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. But she, or whoever wrote her speech, seems to have fallen for a meme rather than history.  

“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,’” said Lara Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons. 

But Lincoln never said it, famously or otherwise.  

Fact-checkers at The New York Times, USA Today and other outlets were quick to point out that while the line was often attributed to Lincoln in Facebook memes, the 16th president never uttered those words.