Monday night, Melania Trump gave the speech of her lifetime at the Republican National Convention. And, sure enough, it was a DOOZY. But for all the wrong reasons. It was, as the New York Times pointed out, a “word-for-word repetition of phrases and borrowed themes from Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention eight years ago.”
WHOOPS!
The ridicule from both Democrats and Republicans was instant and relentless, disrupting what was meant to be a high point of the convention.
For days, Donald and Republican spin doctors have been trying to lay the blame on someone, anyone, other than Melania. Hillary Clinton? Sure, why not. My Little Pony? It could happen.
Now, it seems Donald has given up fighting and just decided to double down and embrace the scandal (in that way that he has).
In his first tweets about the scandal, Donald Trump is calling the attention the speech garnered “good news,” saying it “got more attention than any in the history of politics” and that the media was spending more “time doing a forensic analysis of Melania’s speech than the FBI spent on Hillary’s emails.”
Good news is Melania’s speech got more publicity than any in the history of politics especially if you believe that all press is good press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2016
The media is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania’s speech than the FBI spent on Hillary’s emails.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2016
That’s one way to look at it I suppose.
Via the Wall Street Journal:
The plagiarism allegations were the most talked about item on Facebook. A spokesman for Facebook said that in the 24 hours from Tuesday at 5 a.m. to Wednesday at 5 a.m., 14.6 million people in the U.S. created 52.4 million likes, posts, comments and shares on the social network related to the convention and the presidential candidates. The key topic was Mrs. Trump’s speech. On Monday, leading up to the convention, the number was 8.5 million.
A spokesman for Twitter also said that Mrs. Trump’s speech was the top political topic on the social network on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, acknowledged that Mrs. Trump’s speech contained similar wording to Mrs. Obama’s speech, but continued to reject any suggestion that the words were copied and dismissed the controversy as a media creation.