Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort told CNN on Tuesday morning that Melania Trump—despite all evidence to the contrary—didn’t plagiarize Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech when she spoke Monday
evening at the Republican National Convention. Manafort called the
whole scandal a plot by Hillary Clinton to undermine a woman she felt
was threatening her. “This is once again an example of when a woman
threatens Hillary Clinton she’ll... take her down. It’s not going to
work.” He noted that Trump was aware of how scrutinized the the speech
would be and wouldn’t have made such an error. “These were common words
and values,” Manafort said, “and to think that she would be cribbing
Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.” Before Manafort’s CNN interview,
around 1:30 a.m., a Trump campaign statement on the speech was released
but did not address the allegations. “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,”
wrote Jason Miller, senior communications adviser. “Melania’s immigrant
experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made
it such a success.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told NBC’s Today that he believes it
wasn’t plagiarism. “Not when 93 percent of the speech is completely
different than Michelle Obama’s speech,” he said. “They expressed some
common thoughts.” Matt Lauer countered, “Well, almost word for word.”
Christie bypassed that comment and went on to say that the first day of
the convention is “bloated” and that the national conversation will have
moved on, within 24 hours, to another subject. |
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