Melania Trump Steals From Michelle Again
Story highlights
- Melania Trump was the main speaker at the Republican National Convention Monday
- Parts of Melania Trump's speech bear similarities to a similar speech given by Michelle Obama in 2008
(CNN)Donald Trump'southward presidential campaign doesn't plan to burn down anybody or to take disciplinary activeness over the controversy surrounding Melania Trump's plagiarism of Michelle Obama, CNN learned Tuesday.
Trump's campaign hopes to just move on without further addressing questions about the spoken language.
Aides to the presumptive Republican nominee are scrambling to move past the imbroglio after a passage in Melania Trump'due south speech Mon night, which headlined the Republican National Convention's opening dark, closely mirrored a portion of Michelle Obama'due south address to the Autonomous National Convention in 2008.
It'due south set off infighting and finger-pointing within Trump's campaign, and two sources told CNN that Donald Trump himself is furious about information technology.
Trump's aides chalked the controversy upward to media bias and blamed Hillary Clinton's campaign -- even though the apparent plagiarism was discovered by an independent journalist and had gone viral before Clinton's allies and Democrats even weighed in.
In an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day," campaign chairman Paul Manafort denied the allegations of plagiarism.
"To think that she would practice something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last dark is merely actually absurd," Manafort said.
Manafort said the words Melania used were not "cribbed" only are common words.
"There's no cribbing of Michelle Obama's voice communication. These were mutual words and values. She cares about her family unit," Manafort said. "To think that she'd be cribbing Michelle Obama's words is crazy."
Sean Spicer, the Republican National Commission's principal strategist, invoked "My Little Pony" in defending the speech in an interview with CNN'due south Wolf Blitzer.
"Melania Trump said, 'the force of your dreams and willingness to piece of work for them.' Twilight Sparkle from 'My Little Pony' said, 'This is your dream. Annihilation yous can do in your dreams, you can do now,' " Spicer said.
He also compared passages of Trump'south voice communication with phrases from musicians John Legend and Child Rock.
"I mean if we want to take a bunch of phrases and run them through a Google and say, 'Hey, who else has said them,' I can do that in five minutes," Spicer said. "And that's what this is."
Even so, Trump's campaign faced criticism even from allies, who largely blamed staffers -- not Melania Trump.
Former Trump entrada manager Corey Lewandowski said Tuesday that whoever is responsible for writing the should exist fired.
"Whoever was the staff person who wrote this voice communication should be held accountable and should be fired," Lewandowski told CNN's John Berman and Kate Bolduan.
Lewandowski, who is a CNN contributor, was fired from the Trump campaign last calendar month.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said at a Bloomberg Politics event Tuesday morning he'd "probably" burn whoever was responsible for including plagiarized quotes, though he added: "It all kinda depends on the circumstances and how these things are written."
The controversy quickly overshadowed the speech, which was to have been her introduction to voters. It focused on her clearing to the United States and her dear for her husband.
The Trump campaign released a argument on the speech after the similarities were uncovered, but it did not mention the plagiarism accuse.
"In writing her cute speech communication, Melania's team of writers took notes on her life's inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking. Melania's immigrant feel and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success," according to Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser.
New Jersey governor and Donald Trump ally Chris Christie dedicated the speech, proverb, "There's no way that Melania Trump was plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speech."
"I just don't run into it," Christie told CNN'southward Jamie Gangel in an interview Tuesday, adding later on, "If we're talking about vii% of a speech, that was really, universally considered to be a good performance past Melania. I know her. There's no way that Melania Trump was plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speech."
Who wrote the spoken communication?
Side-by-side comparisons of the transcripts show the text in Trump's address following, nearly to the word, the would-be future first lady'south own from the first night of the Democratic convention in Denver about eight years ago.
There were a lot of questions well-nigh who wrote the oral communication -- but petty clarity.
Sources familiar with the campaign'southward handling of Melania Trump'southward spoken communication identify tiptop Manafort deputy Rick Gates every bit the person inside the entrada who oversaw the unabridged voice communication process for Melania Trump.
Gates is denying he oversaw the process of putting together the speech.
When CNN'southward Jim Acosta asked Gates if he oversaw the Melania Trump spoken communication process, he said "absolutely non."
Miller also denied Gates' involvement.
"Rick's not a speechwriter and he doesn't take a role in the entrada'south speechwriting process -- we have other people for that," he said. "Anybody saying differently is existence intentionally misleading."
Democrats' role
Manafort, on CNN'south "New 24-hour interval," said the scrutiny over Melania Trump's speech was the work of Clinton's entrada.
"This is again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she seeks out to demean her and take her down. It's not going to work," he said.
Nonetheless, Trump's aides haven't pointed to any show of Democrats' involvement in fanning the controversy.
The Clinton campaign's communications director Jennifer Palmieri said Manafort's comments virtually Clinton'south involvement were untrue.
"Squeamish try, non true. @PaulManafort, blaming Hillary Clinton isn't the answer for ever Trump campaign trouble," Palmieri tweeted.
Clinton's campaign on Tuesday focused instead on bashing Republicans for other speeches Monday night, including the mother of a Benghazi assault victim maxim she'd like to see Clinton imprisoned and the crowd chanting at some other point, "Lock her up!" In a fundraising email to supporters, Clinton's campaign said "there's a difference between drawing a contrast and baselessly maxim your opponent belongs in jail."
White House Press Secretarial assistant Josh Hostage told reporters Tuesday that President Barack Obama did not watch Monday dark'southward speeches.
"As it relates to Mrs. Trump's voice communication, I'll let all of you lot weigh in on all of that and try to larn more most how exactly information technology was written," Earnest said. "What I tin say that in 2008, when Mrs. Obama spoke, she received an enthusiastic reception and strong reviews because of her words, her life story, and the values that she and her husband securely believe in and try to instill in their kids."
Earlier in the twenty-four hour period, Melania Trump told NBC'southward Matt Lauer: "I read one time over information technology, that's all, because I wrote it ... with (equally) fiddling help equally possible."
Here is Trump, on Monday:
"From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that yous work hard for what y'all want in life, that your word is your bail and y'all do what you say and go on your hope, that you care for people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily lives. That is a lesson that I continue to laissez passer along to our son," Trump said.
And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. Because we desire our children in this nation to know that the simply limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to piece of work for them."
And here is Obama, on August 25, 2008:
"And Barack and I were raised with then many of the same values: that y'all work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bail and you do what you say y'all're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if yous don't hold with them.
And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and to laissez passer them on to the next generation. Because we want our children -- and all children in this nation -- to know that the just limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to piece of work for them."
The reaction:
"(To exist honest), I was more than offended by but nearly every other speech than Melania's plagiarized paragraphs," quondam Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau jokingly tweeted as the accusations went viral hours after Trump's accost.
Journalist Jarrett Loma seems to have been one of the starting time to find the similarities on Twitter.
He'south a big fan of the Obamas, and told CNN over the phone that one particular line from Michelle Obama's 2008 spoken language really spoke to him: "To know that the only limit to the tiptop of your achievements is the accomplish of your dreams and your willingness to work for them."
When he heard Melania Trump get-go saying "the only limit to your achievements," he knew something was incorrect.
Hill said he then Googled Michelle Obama's spoken communication and saw the similar lines.
"It was kind of a total think moment," he said.
Later he posted the comparison on Twitter, his tweet garnered xvi,000 retweets.
"Um. This is condign a thing," he later tweeted.
Never gonna let you downwardly?
In an fifty-fifty stranger twist, some on social media posited that Trump surreptitiously Rickrolled -- a common Cyberspace meme involving vocaliser Rick Astley -- everyone in the middle of her speech.
"He will never give upwardly," she said of her husband. "And most chiefly, he will never, e'er allow you downward."
The chorus of the 80s classic sounds very similar: "Never gonna give you up/ Never gonna let y'all down/ Never gonna run around and desert you."
A flake of background -- Rickrolling is where you get someone to unwittingly click on a link to the video of the Astley song "Never Gonna Give Y'all Up."
So, for example, if someone were to tell you to click hither, proverb it's another article almost Melania Trump, and you click on that link, you would be taken to an Astley video and thus have been Rickrolled.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/melania-trump-michelle-obama-speech/index.html
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