RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told the Washington Post that he had not seen a video comparing the speeches of Melania Trump and Michelle Obama in 2008 but that “it certainly seems reasonable to me” that someone be fired over it.
Said Priebus: “Certainly, I don’t blame her for any of that.”
Asked whether it constituted plagiarism, Priebus said: “I don’t have a view yet, but I may later this morning.”
“I wrote it…with a little help as possible.”
— Melania Trump, in an interview with NBC News, before delivering GOP convention speech last night.
“Melania Trump earned praise for her speech on Monday at the opening night of the Republican National Convention, but her remarks almost immediately came under scrutiny when striking similarities were discovered between her speech and one delivered by Michelle Obama at the Democratic convention in 2008,” the New York Times reports.
CNN: “Side-by-side comparisons of the transcripts show the text in Trump’s address following, nearly to the word, the first lady’s own from the first night of the Democratic convention in Denver nearly eight years ago.”
Said a campaign spokesman: “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 a success.”
New York Times: “In an evening of severe speeches evoking the tone and themes of Nixon’s successful 1968 campaign, Mr. Trump’s allies and aides proudly portrayed him as the heir to the disgraced former president’s law-and-order message, his mastery of political self-reinvention and his rebukes of overreaching liberal government.
“It was a remarkable embrace — open and unhesitating — of Nixon’s polarizing campaign tactics, and of his overt appeals to Americans frightened by a chaotic stew of war, mass protests and racial unrest.”
“And it demonstrated that, wisely or mistakenly, Mr. Trump sees the path to victory this fall as the exploitation of the country’s anxieties about race, its fears of terrorism and its mood of disaffection, especially among white, working-class Americans.”
“Donald Trump made an early entrance at this week’s Republican National Convention, briefly introducing his wife and potential first lady, Melania Trump, on Monday night,” the Washington Post reports.
“And boy, was it an entrance.”
Stephen Colbert: “Yes, we are the champions of the world, and we are going to restore conservative American values by entering to the music of a bisexual Englishman.”
New York Times: “By choosing someone so conventional, Mr. Trump has made it easier for Mrs. Clinton to follow suit with an unadventurous pick of her own, like Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia or Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa. She could send Housing Secretary Julián Castro out to debate Mr. Pence without fearing a blowout. Or she could pick Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, who is from the reliably Democratic state of Maryland.”
“Mrs. Clinton still has internal Democratic Party politics to contend with, but Mr. Pence is a balm: He puts little if any added pressure on her.”
Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann: “Trumpism may have parallels in populist, nativist movements abroad, but it is also the culmination of a proud political party’s steady descent into a deeply destructive and dysfunctional state.”
“While that descent has been underway for a long time, it has accelerated its pace in recent years. We noted four years ago the dysfunction of the Republican Party, arguing that its obstructionism, anti-intellectualism, and attacks on American institutions were making responsible governance impossible. The rise of Trump completes the script, confirming our thesis in explicit fashion.”
The latest NBC News/SurveyMonkey tracking poll shows Hillary Clinton now just barely edges out Donald Trump in a direct head-to-head match-up, 46% to 45%.
“This is crazy. You may not know this, but you’re not supposed to see the candidate before the nomination, let alone on the first night. That’s like the bride not only being seen on her wedding day, but jumping out of the cake at the bachelor party.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) declared that he had never seen anything like what transpired on the floor after Republican leaders bypassed a call for a full floor vote on the convention rules, Politico reports.
Said Lee: “I have never in all my life, certainly in six years in the United States Senate, prior to that as a lifelong Republican, never seen anything like this. There is no precedent for this in parliamentary procedure. There is no precedent for this in the rules of the Republican National Convention. We are now in uncharted territory. Somebody owes us an explanation. I have never seen the chair abandoned like that. They vacated the stage entirely.”
Said King: “This whole business does get a little tired… I would ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about, where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
“Chaos broke out at the Republican National Convention Monday after Republican leaders successfully blocked a full floor vote on the convention rules,” Politico reports.
Washington Post: “A renegade group of delegates seeking to force a rules vote that would have embarrassed top party officials and Donald Trump on the first day of their national meeting were rebuffed by convention officials, prompting an outcry and triggering a disorderly sequence of events on the floor.”
New York Times: “Initially there appeared to be at least nine states that agreed to the roll call vote, meeting the threshold of seven required under party rules. But faced with the possibility of a runaway start to the convention, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee staffers working the floor went into overdrive to get delegates to withdraw their support. In the end, only six states consented.”
The Hill: “After being denied the roll call vote, most of the delegation from Colorado walked off the floor in protest, leaving behind rows of empty seats.”
Add your own observations in the comments.
Speaker Paul Ryan said that he believes that Donald Trump is a conservative — just “not my kind of conservative,” The Hill reports.
Said Ryan: “He’s not my kind of conservative, but I come from a different part and wing of the party… I think he is a conservative. There are different kinds of conservatives, that’s for darn sure.”
“As Day One of the GOP’s national convention was gaveled into session Monday afternoon, discord within the fractured Republican Party was already on full display,” Politico reports.
“Republicans who have yet to fall in line behind Donald Trump found themselves in the cross hairs of his campaign, with surrogates for the Manhattan billionaire fanning out to trash the holdouts.”
The Hill: Anti-Trump delegates will force a roll call vote on rules
Just in time for the election season:
A new Monmouth poll shows Hillary Clinton holds a two-point lead over Donald Trump among likely voters, 45% to 43%.
Said pollster Patrick Murray: “Clinton still leads, but Trump is closing the margin. The next two weeks will be crucial to determining which direction this trend goes.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
