Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Melania Trump—What did she know and when did she know it?

Did Melania Trump know (or should she have known) that portions of her convention speech were nearly identical to Michelle Obama’s speech. 

The New York Times reports that Meredith McIver, who NYT says had worked on some of Trump’s books was called in to help with the Melania speech after Ms. Trump rejected earlier drafts prepared by professional speech writers.

The NYT quotes McIver as follows:

“In working with Melania on her recent first lady speech, we discussed many people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people…A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama…Over the phone,” Ms. Trump “read me some passages from Mrs. Obama’s speech as examples. I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech. I did not check Mrs. Obama’s speeches. This was my mistake and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps as well as to Mrs. Obama. No harm was meant.”

Wait a minute!. Melania Trump was the one who read the Obama passages to McIver?  Melania Trump was apparently familiar enough with Michelle Obama’s speech to suggest the passages in question to McIver as an example of what she wanted to say.  But, Ms. Trump didn’t recognize that some of the words in her speech were lifted from Obama’s speech?  Come on.


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