Ahead of her 2016 Republican National Convention speech, Melania Trump boasted to former “Today” host Matt Lauer, “I wrote it with as little help as possible.” This turned out to be untrue, as she got a lot of help from the unlikeliest of sources: former first lady Michelle Obama. However, Obama was not a willing participant in Melania’s speech-writing process.
On X, reporter Jarrett Hill first pointed out that passages from Melania’s speech were plagiarized from Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech. However, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, tried to paint Hillary Clinton as the real villain in the situation, accusing her of being the one who brought the stolen words to the media’s attention. He also insisted that Melania didn’t plagiarize her predecessor. “This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she seeks out to demean her and take her down,” he told CNN.
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A Trump Organization employee, Meredith McIver, later took the blame for cribbing Obama’s remarks. In a statement, she admitted that she had been tasked with penning Melania’s RNC speech, and Melania apparently wanted to channel Obama. “Over the phone, she read me some passages from Mrs. Obama’s speech as examples,” McIver wrote, per NBC News. Unfortunately for Melania, late-night hosts had already gotten a few laughs at her expense. “She delivered her speech like a true First Lady. That First Lady being Michelle Obama,” Jimmy Fallon joked on “The Tonight Show.”
