Did Melania Trump plagiarize Michelle Obama in her RNC speech last night?

The Republican National Convention started yesterday in Cleveland. It descended into chaos in the first hours, as the “Never Trump” Republicans tried to force a Roll Call vote, something, anything to disrupt the ongoing chaotic mess of having Trump as a major party candidate. When the RNC moved into prime time, there was a bit more organization, although the speeches didn’t get any better. I mean, Scott Baio got a prime time speaking slot. I’m not joking. So, by the time 10 pm rolled around on the East Coast, I was ready for bed. I didn’t stay up to watch Melania Trump’s potential-First-Lady speech. Which is a shame, because that’s all people are talking about today.

First let me say that Melania Trump has not been very active in her husband’s campaign. She’s made a handful of trips outside of New York to support Trump, but mostly the excuse used is that she’s a full-time mother and she’s looking after their son Barron. Melania has given interviews to support her husband, but she’s made very few speeches on behalf of his campaign. And now we sort of know why. You see, Melania plagiarized a chunk of her RNC speech. She plagiarized it from Michelle Obama’s 2008 DNC speech. Which makes it especially funny that Republicans were like “Melania is amazing, we love what she said!” Did they like it when Michelle Obama said it first?

Here’s the full speech, with an intro by Donald Trump. “We Are the Champions”?? It would have been great if Trump had played “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” like he did for his VP announcement.

And here are some of the plagiarized passages:

Did Melania Trump plagiarise Michelle Obama in her Republican Convention 2016 speech? https://t.co/TE8CMhkgTnhttps://t.co/F529DfJmsL

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 19, 2016

Republican operative and former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt went OFF last night on MSNBC, saying that Melania could have been a really compelling surrogate for Trump, but that the plagiarized passages did a complete disservice to her and to the campaign. Schmidt blamed Donald Trump’s campaign and the campaign speechwriters. This was my first instinct too – how could professional speechwriters let this happen? Well, funny story. At first, Melania and campaign claimed that Melania wrote the speech herself. Then they released this statement:

Statement on Melania Trump Speech pic.twitter.com/80KgS0jxXz

— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) July 19, 2016

Melania also told the Today Show BEFORE the speech that she wrote it herself, “with as little help as possible.” So Melania is either being thrown under the bus or no one in the campaign knew that Melania was watching Michelle Obama’s old speeches, thinking “Oh, I need to say that.” And now #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes is trending on Twitter. Classic.

"Work, work, work, work, work, work
He say me have to
Work, work, work, work, work, work!" #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes

— jesseWilliams. (@iJesseWilliams) July 19, 2016

"I was born a poor, black child." #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes

— Y'assssssss Al Ghul (@beauty_jackson) July 19, 2016

"Don't go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to" #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes

— Dr Kimberly D Russaw (@kdrussaw) July 19, 2016

I'm just gonna leave this here….. Birds of a feather flock together. #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes pic.twitter.com/bx9RshvxeK

— Jess Fong (@thejessfong) July 19, 2016

Photos courtesy of Getty.

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