Melania Trump’s Speech Controversy Goes Viral

Look for someone to get fired over this big gaff

CLEVELAND – Melania Trump was the star of day one of the Republican National Convention after giving a beautiful speech that was both warm and inspiring. But then two hours after her shining moment things began to fall apart as accusations of plagiarism over Ms. Trump’s speech began to service.

There were two passages in the speech that were almost word for word the same as Michelle Obama’s remarks at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. That started a wild morning long before anyone of the delegates headed to the Quicken Loans Arena for day two of the RNC Convention.

Paul Manafort, the chairman of the Donald Trump campaign, on Tuesday morning denied that Melania Trump’s Monday night speech used part of Michelle Obama’s address at the 2008 Democratic convention, arguing that Melania Trump’s speech used “common words.”

“There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech,” Manafort said on CNN’s “New Day” when co-host Chris Cuomo asked about the speech “cribbing” from the now-First Lady. “These were common words and values — that she cares about her family, things like that. I mean, she was speaking in front of 35 million people last night. She knew that. To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.”

Manafort is in essence throwing Melania Trump under the bus and saying that she knew what she was doing. Jarrett Hill appeared to be the first to notice that Melania Trump’s speech lifted significant portions from Michelle Obama’s speech, but Manafort blamed reports of plagiarism on Hillary Clinton.

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He also said that her speech was a “collaboration” and that “certainly there’s no feeling on her part that she did it.” This description of the speech-writing process contradicts comments from Melania Trump before her speech on Monday. She told NBC News that she “wrote it with a little help as possible.”

In its official statement on Melania Trump’s speech issued early Tuesday morning, the Trump campaign did not directly acknowledge accusations of plagiarism.

In writing her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in the statement. “Melania’s immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success.”

Charges of plagiarism are nothing new in politics — but when they arise, they often have a significant, negative impact on the plagiarizer’s political hopes.

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Vice President Joe Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race after he admitted to plagiarizing part of a paper he wrote in law school; Montana Sen. John Walsh, a Democrat, ended his reelection bid after less than a year in office because he was found to have lifted chunks of his master’s thesis.

With Trump surrogates blanketing the RNC festivities all week, the plagiarism charges pose another issue the campaign and GOP leadership will need to tackle before the weekends and Trump is officially crowned the party’s nominee.

The video used in the story came from The Quint – check them out on YouTube. 

 

Jim Williams is the Washington Bureau Chief, Digital Director as well as the Director of Special Projects for Genesis Communications. He is starting his third year as part of the team. This is Williams 40th year in the media business, and in that time he has served in a number of capacities. He is a seven time Emmy Award winning television producer, director, writer and executive. He has developed four regional sports networks, directed over 2,000 live sporting events including basketball, football, baseball hockey, soccer and even polo to name a few sports. Major events include three Olympic Games, two World Cups, two World Series, six NBA Playoffs, four Stanley Cup Playoffs, four NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship Tournaments (March Madness), two Super Bowl and over a dozen college bowl games. On the entertainment side Williams was involved s and directed over 500 concerts for Showtime, Pay Per View and MTV Networks.