Please confirm and source this incendiary quote

February 10, 2023 1:43 AM

I thought I once heard or read that Roger Ailes said, 'The problem with leftists is that they desperately want to build their socialist utopia, but they are either too poor or too afraid to build it with their own money.' I even hear it in my mind in John Lithgow's voice, but a rewatch of Bombshell didn't have it. And I haven't been able to confirm this at all after a fairly grueling online search. So who really said this, when did they say it, and what was the verbatim quote?
posted by zaixfeep to Society & Culture (3 answers total)

There is a very similar quote of Margaret Thatcher's: 'The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.'
posted by Merus at 2:10 AM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: 'Too afraid' and 'too poor' are essential parts of the quote and are what made the line memorable to me.
posted by zaixfeep at 4:49 AM on February 10, 2023

there was a Roger Ailes TV miniseries, The Loudest Voice, perhaps it was in that?
posted by CancerSucks at 8:47 PM on February 10, 2023