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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Melania Speech Raises Plagiarism Questions; GOP Speeches Target Obama & Clinton. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired July 19, 2016 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Our breaking news this morning. The Republican National Convention opening night focus on taking down Hillary Clinton. Controversy over what was supposed to be the night's shining star stealing headlines this morning, Melania Trump delivering a speech with segments that were plagiarized.
Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans here in Cleveland at the CNN grill. It is Tuesday, July 19th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East.
Good morning or maybe you're up late.
But the breaking news this morning, the first night of the Republican National Convention ending in controversy. What was supposed to be the crown jewel of the evening, the speech by Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump, drawing charges about now plagiarism.
[04:00:05] Several passages directly lifted from Michelle Obama's Democratic convention speech back in 2008. I want you to listen for yourself to the similarities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
MELANIA TRUMP, WIFE OF DONALD TRUMP: 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.
MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values like you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond. That you do what you say you are going to do.
MELANIA TRUMP: That you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son and we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow.
MICHELLE OBAMA: That you treat people with dignity and respect even if you don't know them and even if you don't agree with them.
MELANIA TRUMP: Because -- 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.
MICHELLE OBAMA: And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values and 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 hard for them.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
ROMANS: In a 16-minute speech, those are the sections that are so, so similar. In fact, some cases, word for word.
Joining me now, senior political reporter, Manu Raju.
Manu, what is the campaign saying this morning about this? They're not acknowledging that any of this was lifted from the 2008 speech from Michelle Obama.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely not. And you can actually sort of interpret that they don't believe that there is plagiarism at all. You look at the statement from the Trump campaign, which I'll read to you right now.
From Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser, saying, "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 American shone through in her speech which made it such a success."
Clearly, an effort her, Christine, to show they didn't do anything wrong. They believe that Melania Trump delivered a powerful speech about her life and told the story about her love for Donald Trump and Donald Trump as a husband and father. They don't think there is anything to do with Michelle Obama in 2008.
ROMANS: Does it overshadow the rest of the night, though, the message that Hillary Clinton is not suited to be the commander in chief? Three different speakers last night said she should be in jail.
RAJU: Yes, it certainly does. The post-convention conversation has been all about controversy, which is not what the Trump campaign wanted, especially with the run-up to the convention yesterday as well, was all about this effort by the never Trump folks tried to disrupt the proceedings.
But, you know, one thing in the statement conflicted with what Melania Trump said earlier in the day. The campaign said there is a team of advisors working on the speech. That is not what Melania Trump said when she spoke to the "Today" show earlier on the day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Has she gone over the speech with you? Did you practice it on the plane?
MELANIA TRUMP: I read it once over it. And that's all, because I wrote over it with as little help as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: So clearly that is one of the things --
ROMANS: A little help --
RAJU: Little help. Saying she did it mostly by herself. Clearly a big difference here.
This is a little bit of Donald Trump tweet tonight, obviously not acknowledging any of this as well. He said, "It was a truly an honor to introduce my wife Melania. Her speech and demeanor were absolutely incredible. Very proud."
So, that's probably the message that you're going to hear from the Trump campaign.
ROMANS: You know, the early review, right, after her speech was she did a great job and talked about the family. Maybe some people more wanted anecdotes about their home life or whatever, but she got high marks right away.
RAJU: English is not her first language.
ROMANS: Or second. It may be her third.
RAJU: She did speak fluently. She spoke well. She did deliver a pretty coherent message about her husband. So, clearly, she passed that initial bar, but whether or not those passages were lifted.
[04:05:01] ROMANS: And ironic that, you know, they were lifted from Michelle Obama. I mean, this whole campaign has been about Barack Obama has been a terrible president. That's been the view from the Trump folks.
All right. Thanks, Manu Raju. So nice to see you this morning.
Joining me here in Cleveland to discuss day one of the Republican convention, CNN political analyst Josh Rogan, he's a columnist for "The Washington Post". And we've got three CNN political commentators on deck here, Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, Amanda Carpenter, former communications director for the Ted Cruz campaign, and Donald Trump supporter John Phillips, talk radio host with KABC in Los Angeles.
John, does this even matter for Trump supporters? I mean, on social media at least this morning, what I'm getting is, come on. Give her a break. You know, somebody lifted something inadvertently. The focus should be on Hillary Clinton. It should not be on Melania Trump here.
JOHN PHILLIPS, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Yes, they'll get beat up today. But you know what? The only thing worse than plagiarism is letting someone write the speech themselves. That's when things really go off the rails. That's what happened with Clint Eastwood when he had the chair on stage. They didn't approve the speech. So, I think the lesson is go out and hire Peggy Noonan, or the next
Peggy Noonan, have the speech prepared for, the bar is set low. They are not expecting her to go out there and explain the cure for cancer. They are expecting her to go out and say nice things about her husband and everyone is happy and everyone goes home.
So, if the Trump campaign can learn something from this, spend a little money on speechwriters.
ROMANS: That statement, Amanda, from the campaign, though, it's not doubling down, or it's not blaming the media. But it's saying that there was a team of writers took notes on her life's inspiration and this is what you get. They're not admitting that anything is lifted from Michelle Obama.
AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. This is going to be the problem. This is where it becomes a campaign issue.
People will forgive Melania and her staff for making a careless mistake, if you admit it. But reasonable people will look at those two passages, they will watch the CNN clips and see how similar where they are speaking about their husbands, it's very clear that it was lifted.
And the Trump thinks they can gloss over this. They are just making a mistake. Own up to it. Admit it. Apologize and put her up for some more interviews to make it go away.
(CROSSTALK)
CARPENTER: Yes, just friendly interviews. People are interested in Melania. They like her. People are giving her good reviews for the speech.
So, just put her out there a bit and move on before he puts his children out there on the main stage tonight.
ROMANS: That's what we expect with the children on stage tonight and you want to put this controversy behind you so, it's not still all the focus.
But, you know, last night, Maria, it was, you know, lock her up, lock her up. Chanting to lock her up. Their message was make America safe again and Hillary Clinton makes America less safe.
We are not talking about that. I'm talking about that. Everyone else is talking -- no, no, no. We're not.
MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, we're not. And in the way, I actually wish we were, because one of the things I would love to point out is Tom Foreman did a great piece about how everything they talked about was actually false. There were so many falsehoods that were talked about in all of the speeches last night, that it underscores how much of a fast-free zone the Trump campaign is.
And what I think with the plagiarism of Melania Trump underscores and kind of puts in people's minds -- the people who are not his supporters, because I agree that this does not effect any iota and, in fact, will mobilize supporters even more. But to the people he needs to broaden appeal to, they are like wait a minute, you know, the Clinton campaign is talking about how fraudulent he is. The Trump University, he hasn't show us his taxes, what is he hiding? Now they are seeing Melania Trump's speech is plagiarized? We talked about this yesterday, he did not write "The Art of the Deal" and claims he did. Now we see she did not write her speech and claims she did.
ROMANS: I want you to listen, Josh, I want to get your thoughts on the other end, but I want you to listen to sort of, we made a compilation of the kind of tone last night pre-Melania speech. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
PAT SMITH, MOTHER OF BENGHAZI VICTIM: I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Had she done her job that night, we would not have had to compromise the annex. Ty, Glen, Sean and Ambassador Stevens would be alive today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My son, Sergeant Brandon Mendoza was killed two years ago by an illegal alien who was a repeat criminal. Every one of the crimes he committed have laws that should have resulted in court- mandated jail to time. A vote for Hillary is putting all of our children's lives at risks.
RUDY GIULIANI (R), FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR: Who would trust Hillary Clinton to protect them? I wouldn't. Would you?
SEN. TOM COTTON (R), ARKANSAS: It would be nice to have a commander in chief to be trusted to handle classified information.
SEN. JONI ERNST (R), IOWA: Hillary Clinton has failed to protect our national security in other ways. She jeopardized our safety by deciding our laws don't apply to her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that's right. Lock her up.
CROWD: Lock her up!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to tell you what, it is unbelievable.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
ROMANS: Josh, lock her up. The make America safe theme -- was it effective?
JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, again, it is effective to the people who already think that she should be locked up. It's not effective to anyone else.
What we see here was really a dumbing down of the national security and foreign policy discussions, to the point of almost meaninglessness. I mean, talking about most broad themes, most vague ideas, even the senators that spoke. Tom Cotton didn't really endorse Trump. He just talked about how America should be strong. Jeff Sessions talked about Obama trade is bad. Joni Ernst, right, Mike Flynn calling, lock her up, lock her up, lock her up, right?
This is not a forum where a lot of new specific policy ideas were put on the table. Let's talk about Benghazi for a second here, OK? The guys who wrote "Zero Dark Thirty" blaming her for not doing the right thing on the night of Benghazi, well, they were -- the standoff, if there was a standoff, that wasn't her. That was the CIA, right?
Donald Trump says she was sleeping when she got the call. No, the call came in at 3:00 in the afternoon. She was wide awake.
There is a lot of criticism about the Clinton and Obama foreign policy, but they didn't make any of those, right? They just repeated sort of those tropes and sort of reinforces the idea that what Donald Trump is putting forth on foreign policy is accurate and it's just not.
ROMANS: John?
PHILLIPS: It's the pottery barn rule of foreign policy. You broke it. You bought it. She was the secretary of state when Libya fell, when Gadhafi was taken out and that turned into a disaster. She was the senator who voted for the Iraq war. She was secretary of state when our ambassador was killed. They have to own those --
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: Donald Trump actually supported going into Libya, as did Mike Pence, as did many Republicans.
PHILLIPS: But he didn't have the information that the administration --
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: Donald Trump supported the Iraq war, he was actually for it before he was against it. Again, last night underscored what a fact- free zone this campaign lives in.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: That line is getting old and it doesn't broaden the appeal, which he needs to do --
ROGIN: Let me bring a full circle for you. If the Trump people are really calling for accountability in the Obama/Clinton foreign policy, what about the accountability on their side? Tonight is a perfect example. They can't even admit that a speech was accidentally plagiarized, then what can we anticipate when they invade a country or make a mistake or do something wrong? Are we supposed to believe they will own up to it and say, this is what we did? I don't think so.
ROMANS: We're going to argue about that for three more minutes in the break. Thanks, everybody. Don't go away.
The surprise of the evening, of course, the similarities between Melania Trump's speech to Michelle Obama's speech in 2008. Will this hurt the Trump campaign at all? We are breaking it down next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:17:08] ROMANS: All right. A wild opening night at the Republican National Convention here in Cleveland. Speeches going late into the night. Donald Trump stole the show with his fog shrouded entrance to introduce his wife Melania.
Her speech getting solid, really solid instant reviews. But then, an hour or two later, now this morning, the speech under the microscope for plagiarism.
CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter joins me right now.
"The New York Daily News", I want to talk about some of the media response this morning, the "Daily News" cover. Let's look at that.
Pretty interesting here.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: "Thanks, Mrs. Obama", the cover says. This is a last-minute change by "The Daily News". You know how this works, late at night, they'll rip up the cover they had but produce a new one. So, in this case, that's what "The Daily News" comes up with.
That is a liberal-leaning paper. No surprise they would take a whack at Melania Trump for this. I think it's going to be a lot of criticism as people wake up and they watch the side by side video that showed a few minutes. That video speaks for itself and it speaks volumes.
So, what will Melania Trump say? And more importantly maybe, what will Donald Trump say? We know he loves to bash the media. Is this going to be an opportunity for him to trash the people that are covering this? I have a feeling he might be.
ROMANS: He could say that this is a liberal media hit job against his wife.
STELTER: And by the way, don't people men and women like to see a husband stand up for their wives. Whether you love Donald Trump or hate him, I think people would understand that and appreciate that.
But the bottom line is here, you look at the quotes, you look at the transcripts. It is clearly plagiarism. We're not saying she plagiarized. We're saying someone did, the words came from somewhere.
She said in an interview with Matt Lauer last night that she worked on the speech, that it was her speech, she tried to use as little outside help as possible. The campaign is saying there are speechwriters involved. ROMANS: That were other people involved as well. They are not saying
who wrote those lines, or lifted those lines from that 2008 speech from Michelle Obama. And to be fair, there were three sections in what a 16-minute speech overall. She got high marks.
STELTER: Hard work and integrity come from the Obamas. Now, I wonder this time next week, Michelle and Barack Obama will be on stage at the DNC. Do you think there's any chance they would talk about this? Probably not. Maybe they'll make a slight reference to it.
But this is one of those rare things where the Hillary Clinton doesn't need to say a word, that they can let the video speak for itself.
ROMANS: What do you think about the reaction from the Trump camp, though? I mean, coming out with a testament, not acknowledging anything was lifted, instead just praising her immigrant experience and how that came through in her speech.
STELTER: I think that's to be expected from the campaign. They're going to try to at least focus on the positives of the speech. And there were a lot of positives. There were rave reviews from the speech. It was clearly the highlight of the night.
They were also the most positive, uplifting message of the night. The overall theme was rather dark. We heard about warnings of terror and warnings of dangers across the country.
Melania had a more positive approach talking about her husband in personal ways.
[04:20:00] ROMANS: All right. Brian Stelter, nice to see you this morning. Thank you so much for staying up late.
STELTER: Thanks.
ROMANS: All right. Nineteen -- 20 minutes past the hour.
Five straight record days for the Dow. That's right. While you weren't peeking, you have records in stocks. Will see a fix? An early start on your money is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: All right. Welcome back to Cleveland.
I want to get an early start on your money. Five straight record highs for the Dow. That's right. It's OK to look at your 401(k), folks. That capped a seven-day win streak. The S&P 500 is also closing at all-time high yesterday.
Will we see more records today? Well, let's take a look at future and pointing a little bit lower right now.
[04:25:00] Stock markets in Europe are slumping a bit. Shares in Asia finished mixed overnight. Look at oil right now. Oil is dropping.
Keep an eye on shares of Netflix, folks. The stock is down 12 percent in pre-market trading. Ouch.
It posted a gain of just 1.7 million subscribers last quarter. That was way below estimates. Growth was weak in both the U.S. and international markets. Netflix was the darling of Wall Street last year, surged 135 percent in 2015.
That was the best performance of any S&P 500 companies. It lost 13 percent in the share price so far this year. So, look again for a big drop for Netflix shares today. Futures overall pointing a bit lower here. But you are sitting at record highs in the major stock market.
The breaking news and accusations this morning folks. Melania Trump delivering a plagiarized speech, parts of it taken from Michelle Obama 2008 speech. I'm going to bring you the side by side comparisons of what they said, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
