MaddowBlog-Republicans' reliance on fake historical quotes goes from bad to worse

[LetMyPeopleVote]

If GOP officials want to rewrite history to suit their purposes, the least they can do is start quoting historical figures accurately.

The problem isn’t just that the Trump administration created a giant banner promoting a fake Teddy Roosevelt quote.

It’s that Republican officials can’t seem to stop promoting fake quotes from historical figures.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-06-18T21:30:46.252Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/theodore-roosevelt-fake-quote-office-personnel-management-banner

With a track record like this, it’s tempting to think officials would take better care to avoid similar mistakes. And yet, the hits just keep on coming. The Washington Post reported:

A giant banner bearing the face of Theodore Roosevelt decorates the facade of the Office of Personnel Management in downtown Washington and carries an inspirational quote it attributes to the late leader. There’s one problem: Historians say the 26th president never uttered the phrase.

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength,” says the quote, which is overlaid in serif font under Roosevelt’s portrait and attributed to him.

It’s certainly a nice quote, but there’s just no evidence to suggest Roosevelt ever said it.

Big banner with a Teddy quote about courage on the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building, headquarters of OPM. Only discrepancy is that the 26th president never said this.

— Steve Herman (@newsguy.bsky.social) 2026-06-15T18:56:14.479Z

Michael Patrick Cullinane, co-director and public historian of the Theodore Roosevelt Center, told the Post, “What I can say for certain is that the quote did not originate with Theodore Roosevelt.”

A search of the database maintained by the Theodore Roosevelt Center, housed at North Dakota’s Dickinson State University, confirmed he simply never said this....

That missed the point: If Republican officials are going to try to rewrite history to suit their purposes, the least they can do is start quoting historical figures accurately.