SUMMARY
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MANILA, Philippines – Social media blew up when Melania Trump, wife of US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, delivered an allegedly plagiarized speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland, Ohio on Monday, July 18 (Tuesday, July 19 in Manila).
During the RNC, Melania Trump gave a moving speech about her husband. It was an attempt to show the public a different, perhaps more compassionate, side of candidate.
While many thought her speech was touching, journalist Jarrett Hill was one of the first people who pointed out that Trump’s speech had several striking resemblances to First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention back in 2008.
CORRECTION: Melania stole a whole graph from Michelle’s speech. #GOPConvention
WATCH: https://t.co/8BCOwXAHSy pic.twitter.com/zudpDznGng
The Receipts
One particular paragraph from Trump’s speech seems to have been lifted off of Obama’s. Here are the two passages side by side:
Websites Washingtonian and Mashable ran a plagiarism checker using Small SEO Tools that compared the transcript of Michelle Obama’s and Melania Trump’s speeches. The results showed that there was a 47% and 44% similarity between the two transcripts:
Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, denied the plagiarism accusations in an interview with CNN. “There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values. She cares about her family.”
Manafort also pointed out that it was absurd to accuse Melania of plagiarizing her speech. “To think that she would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night is just really absurd,” he said.
Hours before the RNC started, Melania herself told NBC News that she wrote the speech with little help from the campaign staff.
Meredith McIver, the Trump staffer who wrote the speech, has apologized for the agony she has caused over this issue. Trump refused her resignation saying that “people make innocent mistakes.”
Social media commentary
Meanwhile, netizens took different stands regarding the issue and it has become a never-ending conversation between Trump supporters and the rest of the world.
A Facebook post that took Melania Trump’s side caused a heated argument in the comments section, most of them coming to the defense of Michelle Obama.
But there were others who defended Trump:
Actually feel BAD for @MELANIATRUMP Not a public figure. Imagine how embarrassed she is; this is major issue for pathetic campaign. #melania
How do you measure the success of a speech?
Watch the left and the media freak out.
They are terrified of #MelaniaTrump.
Name calling, insults, or sexist comments against #Melania Trump are just wrong. Stop.
You can’t shame Melania Trump and then say you support woman’s rights and equality. pic.twitter.com/15cMg56fju
Tbh I feel bad for Melania Trump. She has a speechwriter, just like everyone else. That person (and the campaign, and the RNC) messed up.
The disgusting dialogue against @MELANIATRUMP, makes me support her more. She was poised and elegant and speaking from her heart!!!
Just to be clear:
-Liberals ranting about 58 words in speech by #MelaniaTrump
-But reward #Hillary who deleted 30,000 emails with their vote
Friendly Reminder: You can disagree with Melania Trump’s opinions & policies without shaming her for her modeling career.
On the other hand, netizens on Twitter started up a hashtag, ‘#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes’ to attribute famous lines to Melania Trump, turning the serious plagiarism accusations into humorous tweets and memes.
My book, Staying Strong 365 days a year, was actually written by Melania Trump.
in hindsight it did seem odd when Melania talked about the challenges of being a black woman at Princeton
"I typed up that entire speech myself with as little help as possible." #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes pic.twitter.com/iv8sgBpK6l
— James Michael Sama (@JamesMSama) July 19, 2016
Not sure what all the fuss is about. #MelaniaTrump chose a wonderful,strong&respected woman to plagiarize.She looks up to the right people
"I am a proud independent black woman" #MelaniaTrump pic.twitter.com/V2M6Dz4VPT
“I wanna be the very best like no one ever was. To catch them is my real test. To train them is my cause.” #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes
— DeStorm Power (@DeStorm) July 19, 2016
"These are wise words, enterprising men quote ’em. Don’t act surprised, you guys, cause I wrote ’em".#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes
— Hamilton’s Squad (@hamiltonssquad) July 19, 2016
THIS IS THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA DAY OF ALL TIME. Thank you, whoever you are. #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes pic.twitter.com/tq6Ag7O4FP
Michelle Obama was not the only person whose work got copied in Trump’s speech. Intentional or not, Trump quoted a famous pop song from the 1980’s, Rick Astley’s, Never Gonna Give You Up.
The Slovenian ex-model mentioned in her speech that Donald Trump will “never ever give you up and most importantly, he will never ever let you down.”
Doesn’t that ring a bell?
What’s your stand on the plagiarism issue? Should it be taken seriously? Share your thoughts in the comments section or write about it on X! – Elyse Ilagan / Rappler.com
Elyse Ilagan is a social media intern for Rappler and a journalism student from the University of Santo Tomas.
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