The opening night of the Republican National Convention was, somehow, characterized by both racist commentary and the apparent plagiarism of Michelle Obama by Melania Trump.
Bigoted remarks from two Republican figures ranged from xenophobic to overtly white supremacist, while at least one speaker invited to the convention accused President Obama of being a secret Muslim.
Despite this, Melania Trump still seemed to somehow heavily crib from one of Michelle Obama’s most prominent addresses, when the wife of the presumptive GOP nominee spoke to the convention.
“Several lines of the speech appeared to be copied word-for-word from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech to the Democratic National Convention,” the L.A. Times noted.
Donald Trump’s campaign called accusations surrounding the similarities “just really absurd.”
“To think that she would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night is just really absurd,” campaign chairman Paul Manafort told CNN on Tuesday.
Trump surrogate Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), however, appeared on the same morning to recognize the legitimacy of accusations, saying: “we’re talking about 7% of a speech”
And Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee’s chair, reacted to the story later, remarking he would “probably” fire the speechwriter responsible for the lines in question.
The apparent imitation of Mrs. Obama by Mrs. Trump was all the more noteworthy, given the racial politics on display throughout the Republican primary process, and inside of the convention on Monday.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa.), in a Monday roundtable discussion on MSNBC, for example, praised “white people” by rhetorically asking “where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?” When asked later to clarify the remarks, King later said: “The Western civilization and the American civilization are a superior culture.”
Separately, an obscure actor and underwear model invited to speak to the convention told ABC News that President Obama clandestinely adheres to Islam—a completely unfounded theory that Donald Trump himself has peddled before.
“I believe that he’s on the other side — the Middle East,” Antonio Sabato Jr. said. “He’s with the bad guys. He’s with them. He’s not with us. He’s not with this country.”
Meanwhile, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani seemed to conflate the Iranian Government with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, when addressing the convention. The latter two entities, which are Sunni, are locked in a bitter sectarian struggle with the Shia-led Iranian government. They have found themselves on opposite sides of the conflict currently being waged in Syria and Iraq.
In the part of his speech on “Islamic extremist terrorism,” the former Mayor called for “unconventional victory,” noting: “This includes undoing one of the worst deals America ever made.” He was referencing the multilateral nuclear deal between Iran and the US and five other countries.
“We are actually giving them the money to fund the terrorists who are killing us and our allies,” Giuliani said, alluding the end of multilateral sanctions and asset seizure. “Are we crazy?”
