Washington – A speechwriter for Donald Trump’s company said Wednesday she made a mistake and apologized for using passages from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech in the Republican party convention speech delivered by Melania Trump.
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In a statement issued by the campaign, Meredith McIver took the blame but made it clear that Mrs. Trump knew the passages were from the first lady’s speech.
“A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama,” McIver says of Mrs. Trump. “Over the phone, she 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.”
The passages in question came near the beginning of Mrs. Trump’s nearly 15-minute speech.
In one example, Mrs. Trump said: “From a young age, 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.”
Eight years ago, Mrs. Obama said: “And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: like, you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, that you do what you say you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect.”
There were similar overlaps in a passage dealing with conveying to children that there is no limit to what they can achieve. Mrs. Trump’s address was otherwise distinct from the speech that Mrs. Obama gave when her husband was being nominated for president.
McIver, co-author of some of Donald Trump’s books, said she offered to resign but the Republican nominee for president refused to accept her resignation.
“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.”
McIver was described in the statement as an “in-house staff writer at the Trump Organization.”
Read the full statement here
I thought she wrote it herself with very little help.
More Trump bad judgment. How much did the democrats pay her to do this?
YOU’RE BOTH FIRED!!!! (not really). Perhaps the Trump campaign needs some adult supervision, between this moronic speech gaffe and the use of the Mugan Duvid in his web ad… Feh…
Mrs. Obama must be flattered to no end and Melania has much to be proud of herself. She did an outstanding job notwithstanding the mere couple of sentences that resembled Mrs. Obama’s. And The Donald is showing himself to be a real mensch by refusing to accept the speechwriter’s resignation. Then again, his campaign received much attention due to this faux pas and good or bad, he seems to relish the limelight.
Look at all of the free publicity Trump’s getting! Smart Man our next president is!!!! He will get Mexico to pay for the wall!
Whole thing is stupid as Michelle Obama never wrote that speech herself anyway! The whole thing is just a feel good piece of propaganda marketing. Like most political speeches. These ones however, from the first lady or possible first lady don’t even have any political power to them anyway.
The media should actually look at policies and speeches that the candidates themselves say, and then compare to what actually happens once in office.
Trump was right. Immigrants steal.
There’s a saying…. that there’s no bad publicity. And this was free!
To #7 - There were more than “a couple of sentences”, which were copied. They did not “resemble”, but were identical to Michelle Obama’s speech in 2008. In fact, the Trump campaign finally admitted that the speech was copied from Michelle Obama’s speech. It only took two days to admit the plagarism. Contestants on “The Apprentice”, was fired for far less errors, than this so-called speechwriter.