Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson defended Melania Trump’s Monday speech at the Republican convention against accusations that part of the address was copied from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention remarks.
“These are values, Republican values by the way, of hard work, determination, family values, dedication and respect, and that’s Melania Trump,” Pierson told The Hill. “This concept that Michelle Obama invented the English language is absurd.”
{mosads}Pierson pointed to a speech made by former first lady Laura Bush in 2004 at the Republican National Convention and said similar ideas appeared in all three speeches.
In Bush’s 2004 address, she talked about her husband’s accomplishments and work to protect the country. She also spoke about her husband and her family more personally, using some similar words and concepts that raised flags in Melania Trump’s speech.
“He treats every person he meets with dignity and respect, the same dignity and respect he has for the office he holds,” Bush said at one point in 2004.
She also quoted someone she met as saying: “If you’re determined and you want to work hard, you can do anything you want to.”
Striking similarities between passages in Melania Trump’s and Obama’s respective convention speeches, including some identical phrases, cast a shadow over the headline address of the convention’s first night.
But Pierson said Trump was addressing values that are not unique to the Obamas.
“She was definitely talking about her family and her parents and the values that she taught,” she said, “which, ironically, are the same values that many of us are taught growing up.”