“There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values. She was speaking in front of 35 million people Monday night. She knew that. To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy,” Trump’s campaign manager said on CNN.
Donald Trump supporter Chris Christie and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on Tuesday both dismissed allegations that Melania Trump had plagiarized portions of her Monday night speech Michelle Obama’s remarks in 2008.
Speaking on CNN’s New Day, Manafort called any charges that she intentionally copied the first lady “just really absurd.”
“There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values. She was speaking in front of 35 million people Monday night. She knew that. To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy” he said. “Certainly, there’s no feeling on her part that she did it. What she did was use words that are common words. To expect her to do something like that, knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be, is just really absurd.”
Melania Trump came under heavy criticism overnight after Jarrett Hill on Twitter and others noticed that two portions of her speech seemed to have been lifted almost word-for-word from the First Lady’s 2008 speech, with news outlets presenting both speeches side by side.
The similar portions involve both women talking about the lessons they learned growing up and how they want to pass those same values onto the next generation.
On Tuesday, NBC’s Today show aired more of Matt Lauer’s interview with both Trumps, which was taped before her Monday night speech, but Melania didn’t offer any further insight into her remarks beyond what NBC News already aired. Specifically that she said she wrote the speech with a “little help” and read it once.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who’s supported Trump since he ended his own White House bid, appeared live on Today, where he also dismissed plagiarism charges leveled against Melania Trump.
Lauer asked Christie about the scandal right off the bat, asking him as “a former prosecutor” if he could “make the case for plagiarism.”
“Nah, not when 93 percent of the speech is completely different than Michelle Obama’s speech,” Christie said. “They expressed some common thoughts.”
When asked by Savannah Guthrie if this signaled anything about the “staff work” of Trump’s campaign, that “something like this could slip through the cracks,” Christie doubled down on his defense of Melania, saying her speech “sounded like her.”
“They’re trying to do a lot of things at the same time,” Christie said of the Trump campaign. “I know Melania. I think she worked very hard on that speech and a lot of what I heard last night sitting on the floor, seemed like her and the way she speaks all the time. Having been friends with [her and Donald Trump] for almost 14 years, that sounded like her to me last night.”
