Sources from the Donald Trump campaign told NBC News reporter Katy Tur that there is an uproar over accusations that Melania Trump’s much-anticipated speech on Monday night was plagiarized from a speech by First Lady Michelle Obama in 2008.
The Trump camp has been scrambling to explain similarities between the two speeches, going so far as to blame Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Tur, who has been covering the Trump campaign, said that Melania didn’t want to do the speech in the first place, but in the end was brought on board to try and humanize the bombastic candidate.
“Well this morning I’m told that she didn’t necessarily want to do this, and that the campaign basically had to put their best person to help her with the speech,” Tur reported. “They were putting somebody from the staff with all of the family members because this is obviously a big deal, the convention, it’s not unusual to have a staff member help write a convention speech.”
Tur said that Trump staffers were hoping Melania would “outshine everybody” and immediately after the speech, she was praised for her performance. But shortly after, striking similarities between Obama’s 2008 speech were raised and people began mocking it online.
“What I’m hearing is that somebody needs to stand up and take responsibility for this, that ultimately right now this is a ‘save my marriage’ moment rather than a campaign moment,” Tur said. “Somebody on the campaign staff, their head is going to roll because of this, because they did not take care of Melania Trump.”“Work, work, work, work, work, work— jesseWilliams. (@iJesseWilliams) July 19, 2016
He say me have to
Work, work, work, work, work, work!” #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes
