Melania Trump’s speech to the Republican National Convention has become worldwide news, but for all the wrong reasons. It appears that Trump has copied large portions of Michelle Obama’s speech to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. You can see the side-by-side footage below.
So that’s pretty blatant, right? pic.twitter.com/EPnHME7afV
— Mike Hearn (@mikehearn) July 19, 2016
We all know that stealing and plagiarising are bad, but plagiarising from the speech of your apparently repellent opponent’s wife is beyond rational explanation. Of course, the Trump camp chose to ignore explanation and went straight to denial.
A statement declared that the speech was carefully constructed by a team of writers who “in some instances included fragments that reflected [Melania’s] own thinking”. This is a non-admission that was quickly backed up by a statement from Donald Trump’s senior campaign official, Paul Manafort. He declared that there was no theft of Michelle Obama’s speech and said that Hillary Clinton was pushing the plagiarism allegations to further her agenda. This attempted shift of focus (often employed by children) was denied by Clinton’s team and illustrates the insubstantial nature of Trump’s campaign.
Many astute viewers have noticed that Michelle Obama is not the only victim of the blatant plagiarism. Melania has also ripped off the infamous song ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ in possibly the world’s most prominent RickRoll.
Twitter is blowing up with commentators calling sabotage on the speechwriters. They say that two such prominent incidents of plagiarism could not be an unintentional accident.
Too much focus on the plagiarism in Melania’s speech & not enough on the RickRoll. Someone in the campaign sabotaged that speech. Seriously
— Adam Hill (@AdamHillLVRJ) July 19, 2016
The “rickroll” line in M. Trump’s speech seems almost like a playful signal that the plagiarism was some speechwriter’s deliberate sabotage.
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) July 19, 2016
One thing is sure: the Trump campaign has been marred by mistakes and missteps that seem to indicate that Donald and his team are not ready to lead the US. This is just the latest development in what is sure to continue to be a terrifying and sloppy campaign.
yeah, plagiarism is bad.What’s worse is that she’s supposed to know Trump best & couldn’t write an original speech about him. Says somethin’
— Stephanie Cutter (@stefcutter) July 19, 2016
