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No one to be fired after Melania Trump speech plagiarism episode
| CNN | - |
(CNN)
Donald Trump's presidential campaign has no plans to fire anybody on
the campaign or to take any disciplinary action against anyone for the
Melania Trump speech plagiarism controversy, CNN learned Tuesday.
No one to be fired after Melania Trump speech plagiarism episode
Story highlights
- Melania Trump was the main speaker at the Republican National Convention Monday
- Parts of Melania Trump's speech bear similarities to a similar speech given by Michelle Obama in 2008
(CNN)Donald
Trump's presidential campaign doesn't plan to fire anybody or to take
disciplinary action over the controversy surrounding Melania Trump's
plagiarism of Michelle Obama, CNN learned Tuesday.
Trump's campaign hopes to simply move on without further addressing questions about the speech.
Aides
to the presumptive Republican nominee are scrambling to move past the
imbroglio after a passage in Melania Trump's speech Monday night, which
headlined the Republican National Convention's opening night, closely
mirrored a portion of Michelle Obama's address to the Democratic
National Convention in 2008.
It's
set off infighting and finger-pointing within Trump's campaign, and two
sources told CNN that Donald Trump himself is furious about it.
Trump's
aides chalked the controversy up to media bias and blamed Hillary
Clinton's campaign -- even though the apparent plagiarism was discovered
by an independent journalist and had gone viral before Clinton's allies
and Democrats even weighed in.
In an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day," campaign chairman Paul Manafort denied the allegations of plagiarism.
"To
think that she would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her
speech was going to be last night is just really absurd," Manafort
said.
Side-by-side of Melania Trump, Michelle Obama speeches 01:42
Manafort said the words Melania used were not "cribbed" but are common words.
"There's
no cribbing of Michelle Obama's speech. These were common words and
values. She cares about her family," Manafort said. "To think that she'd
be cribbing Michelle Obama's words is crazy."
However, Trump's campaign faced criticism even from allies, who largely blamed staffers -- not Melania Trump.
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Tuesday that whoever is responsible for writing the should be fired.
"Whoever
was the staff person who wrote this speech should be held accountable
and should be fired," Lewandowski told CNN's John Berman and Kate
Bolduan.
Lewandowski, who is a CNN contributor, was fired from the Trump campaign last month.
Republican
National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said at a Bloomberg Politics
event Tuesday morning he'd "probably" fire whoever was responsible for
including plagiarized quotes, though he added: "It all kinda depends on
the circumstances and how these things are written."
The
controversy quickly overshadowed the speech, which was to have been her
introduction to voters. It focused on her immigration to the United
States and her love for her husband.
The
Trump campaign released a statement on the speech after the
similarities were uncovered, but it did not mention the plagiarism
charge.
"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 such a success,"
according to Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser.
New
Jersey governor and Donald Trump ally Chris Christie defended the
speech, saying, "There's no way that Melania Trump was plagiarizing
Michelle Obama's speech."
"I
just don't see it," Christie told CNN's Jamie Gangel in an interview
Tuesday, adding later, "If we're talking about 7% of a speech, that was
really, universally considered to be a good performance by Melania. I
know her. There's no way that Melania Trump was plagiarizing Michelle
Obama's speech."
Who wrote the speech?
Side-by-side
comparisons of the transcripts show the text in Trump's address
following, nearly to the word, the would-be future first lady's own from
the first night of the Democratic convention in Denver nearly eight
years ago.
Sources familiar with
the campaign's handling of Melania Trump's speech identify top Manafort
deputy Rick Gates as the person inside the campaign who oversaw the
entire speech process for Melania Trump.
Gates is denying he oversaw the process of putting together the speech.
When CNN's Jim Acosta asked Gates if he oversaw the Melania Trump speech process, he said "absolutely not."
Manafort: Plagiarism accusations are crazy 01:30
Democrats' role
Manafort, on CNN's "New Day," said the scrutiny over Melania Trump's speech was the work of Clinton's campaign.
"This
is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she
seeks out to demean her and take her down. It's not going to work," he
said.
However, Trump's aides haven't pointed to any evidence of Democrats' involvement in fanning the controversy.
The
Clinton campaign's communications director Jennifer Palmieri said
Manafort's comments about Clinton's involvement were untrue.
"Nice try, not true. @PaulManafort, blaming Hillary Clinton isn't the answer for ever Trump campaign problem," Palmieri tweeted.
Clinton's
campaign on Tuesday focused instead on bashing Republicans for other
speeches Monday night, including the mother of a Benghazi attack victim
saying she'd like to see Clinton imprisoned and the crowd chanting at
another point, "Lock her up!" In a fundraising email to supporters,
Clinton's campaign said "there's a difference between drawing a contrast
and baselessly saying your opponent belongs in jail."
White
House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Tuesday that
President Barack Obama did not watch Monday night's speeches.
"As
it relates to Mrs. Trump's speech, I'll let all of you weigh in on all
of that and try to learn more about how exactly it was written," Earnest
said. "What I can say that in 2008, when Mrs. Obama spoke, she received
an enthusiastic reception and strong reviews because of her words, her
life story, and the values that she and her husband deeply believe in
and try to instill in their kids."
Christie on Melania plagiarism: 'I just don't see it' 01:05
Earlier in the day, Melania Trump told NBC's Matt Lauer: "I read once over it, that's all, because I wrote it ... with (as) little help as possible."
Here is Trump, on Monday:
"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. They
taught and showed me values and morals in their daily lives. That is a
lesson that I continue to pass along to our son," Trump said.
And
we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow.
Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit
to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness
to work for them."
And here is Obama, on August 25, 2008:
"And
Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work
hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do
what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and
respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with
them.
And Barack and I set
out to build lives guided by these values, and to pass them on to the
next generation. Because we want our children -- and all children in
this nation -- to know that the only limit to the height of your
achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work
for them."
The reaction:
"(To
be honest), I was more offended by just about every other speech than
Melania's plagiarized paragraphs," former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau
jokingly tweeted as the accusations went viral hours after Trump's
address.
Journalist Jarrett Hill seems to have been one of the first to notice the similarities on Twitter.
He's a big fan of the
Obamas, and told CNN over the phone that one particular line from
Michelle Obama's 2008 speech really spoke to him: "To know that the only
limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams
and your willingness to work for them."
When he heard Melania Trump start saying "the only limit to your achievements," he knew something was wrong.
Hill said he then Googled Michelle Obama's speech and saw the similar lines.
"It was kind of a total recall moment," he said.
After he posted the comparison on Twitter, his tweet garnered 16,000 retweets.
"Um. This is becoming a thing," he later tweeted.
Never gonna let you down?
In
an even stranger twist, some on social media posited that Trump
surreptitiously Rickrolled -- a common Internet meme involving singer
Rick Astley -- everyone in the middle of her speech.
"He will never give up," she said of her husband. "And most importantly, he will never, ever let you down."
The
chorus of the 80s classic sounds very similar: "Never gonna give you
up/ Never gonna let you down/ Never gonna run around and desert you."
A
bit of background -- Rickrolling is where you get someone to
unwittingly click on a link to the video of the Astley song "Never Gonna
Give You Up."
So, for example, if someone were to tell you to click here,
saying it's another article about Melania Trump, and you click on that
link, you would be taken to an Astley video and thus have been
Rickrolled.
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