Ron DeSantis Posts Fake Winston Churchill Quote After Suspending Campaign

In a social media post on Sunday announcing that he is suspending his presidential campaign, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis shared a quote falsely attributed to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Just days before the New Hampshire primary election, DeSantis announced that he was ending his presidential bid in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter. In both the caption of the post and while speaking in the clip, the governor attributed a quote to Churchill that he never said, according to the International Churchill Society (ICS), an organization dedicated to “preserving the historic legacy of Sir Winston Churchill.”

In his post, DeSantis shared the caption: “‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.’ – Winston Churchill.”

At the end of his video, the governor also said that “Winston Churchill once remarked” before he said the fake quote.

Historians and scholars with ICS have found that while the quote is widely attributed to Churchill, the late prime minister never said or wrote that phrase or a similar quote that’s often misattributed to him, “Defeat is never fatal. Victory is never final. It’s courage that counts.”

“Not only did Churchill never say those words—he never said the similar words more usually attributed to him, which are: ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts,'” ICS wrote on its website. “We base this on careful research in the canon of fifty million words by and about Churchill, including all of his books, articles, speeches and papers.”

In response to Newsweek’s request for comment and to confirm that the phrase was misattributed to Churchill, ICS Director of Publications David Freeman said there is no recorded evidence that the prime minister said those words or wrote them.

“As indicated on our website, there is no documented attribution of Churchill making this statement,” Freeman said on Sunday night.

People on X, meanwhile, were quick to point out DeSantis’ blunder.

User Outspoken posted: “Wrong DeSantis ends his pathetic presidential campaign, endorses Trump, and attributes a quote to Winston Churchill, who never said those words. So on point.”

Attorney Bradley P. Moss replied to DeSantis’ post on X and wrote: “Churchill never said that.”