Melania Trump Accused Of Plagiarizing Michelle Obama Speech

Melania Trump’s prime-time speech Monday contained passages that were the same as parts of the convention speech that future First Lady Michelle Obama gave in 2008.

The night was largely spent bashing the current president’s administration—from foreign policy to domestic—and calling for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to be put in jail. Mrs. Trump, the wife of presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump, gave one of the few speeches that talked about bringing the Republican Party together, while praising her husband.

It was a speech praised by convention watchers on Twitter while it was happening, but shortly afterward, social media focused on the similarities. A look at Mrs. Obama’s convention speech shows that parts of two paragraphs of Mrs. Trump’s speech are the same, including parts when Mrs. Obama praised her husband and speaking of the values they were raised with—and what they wanted to pass onto their children. Gawker quickly posted a mashup of the two speeches.
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Jason Miller, senior communications adviser to the Trump campaign sent a statement to reporters early Tuesday morning. The statement didn’t address the 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,” Mr. Miller said. “Melania’s immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success.”

Mrs. Trump used “common words and values” in her prime-time Republican National Convention speech Monday night, said Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on Tuesday, blaming Hillary Clinton for alleging her remarks were plagiarized from Mrs. Obama’s address.

Mr. Manafort said on CNN that allegations that Mrs. Trump spoke words lifted from Mrs. Obama are “absurd.”

In an interview with NBC on Monday, Mrs. Trump told Matt Lauer that she read over the speech once on the plane to Cleveland and that’s all she needed because “I wrote it, with as little help as possible.”

Mr. Trump tweeted after his wife’s speech, praising the performance, saying “It was truly an honor to introduce my wife, Melania. Her speech and demeanor were absolutely incredible. Very proud!”