Melania Trump Speech: RNC Kicks Off With Plagiarism Concerns, Trump Camp On Defense

Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention sounded quite familiar to some people. According to several reports, Mrs. Donald Trump plagiarized parts of her moving speech from First Lady Michelle Obama, who spoke nearly the exact same words during a speech she gave at the Democratic National Convention back in 2008.

According to the New York Times, Melania Trump’s speech shared some of the same verbiage — word-for-word — and, at times, appeared to be a near copy of Michelle Obama’s speech. Despite Melania Trump saying that she received “as little help as possible” when writing her speech, it does seem like she got some inspiration from somewhere (or someone).

It is important to remember that only a few lines of Melania Trump’s speech were actually similar to Michelle Obama’s. Those lines were so similar, however, that the internet lit up the fury inside the hearts of Trump haters around the country.

Here is part of what Melania Trump said on Monday night in Cleveland.

“My parents impressed on me the values: that you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise. That you treat people with respect. They taught me to show the values and morals in my daily life. That is the lesson that I continue to pass along to our son. And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”

Michelle Obama’s speech in 2008 was strikingly similar.

“Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them. And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and pass them on to the next generation. Because we want our children — and all children in this nation — to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”

You can watch these portions of each respective speech in the video below.

Similarities between Melania Trump’s #GOPConvention speech and Michelle Obama’s in 2008 https://t.co/hFPAf2maXl https://t.co/tmNgFDcEtO

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 19, 2016

Melania Trump’s RNC speech was defended by a senior communications advisor and by Trump’s campaign chairman, according to CNN. Almost as soon as the internet took off slamming Melania Trump left and right, people came to her defense. Sadly, for those who actually enjoyed the speech, this controversy has overshadowed nearly everything else that came out of Melania’s mouth last night.

“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. Melania’s immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success,” according to Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser.

“To think that she would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night is just really absurd,” Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort said on New Day. “There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values. She cares about her family. To think that she’d be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy,” he added.

Melania Trump’s speech certainly wasn’t the first one in which words were “borrowed” (or, as some prefer to say, “stolen”). According to the DC Gazette, other women in politics have said very similar things when giving speeches. In fact, the site reports that “all First Lady speeches resonate the same universal concepts.” Michelle Obama was accused of saying similar things to Laura Bush, for example, and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, and Ann Romney have all had similar speeches to other females in their shoes.

Hillary Clinton was recently accused of copying verbiage from Bernie Sanders — it’s where “#StealTheBurn” came from. Melania Trump seems to be catching way more heat, however.

What do you think of Melania Trump’s RNC speech drama? Do you think that she plagiarized Michelle Obama or is this just another way for the media to slam Republicans?

[Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images | Chris Jackson/Getty Images for Invictus]