Donald Trump Jr. also recycled part of his Republican Convention speech, but apparently it's OK
UPDATE: July 20, 2016, 10:44 a.m. EDT — Added Buckley's admission of using someone else's phrases via Twitter.
On first blush, it looked like the Trump family learned very little from last night's speech scandal.
In what would be an extremely embarrassing gaffe for the newly minted Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, his son appeared to plagiarize a few lines of his own Republican National Convention speech, the night after his stepmother did the same.
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As pointed out by the Daily Show Twitter account, a few sentences from Donald Trump Jr.'s speech seem to have been lifted directly from an article in The American Conservative, published last May.
"Our schools used to be elevators to the middle class, now they're stalled on the ground floor," Trump Jr. says at around the eight-minute mark of his speech. "They're like Soviet-era department stores that are run for the benefit of the clerks and not the customers."
It just so happens that these two sentences are very close to those laid out in an article called "Trump vs. the New Class: The Donald is a Liberal —Just Like Ronald Reagan Was" by F.H. Buckley, from May 2, 2016.
He writes: "What should be an elevator to the upper class is stalled on the ground floor ... Our schools and universities are like the old Soviet department stores whose mission was to serve the interests of the sales clerks and not the customers."
Very close language. But that might not be the whole of the story.
As many avid Twitter watchers began circling around what they saw as another possible scandal, Frank Buckley -- the man behind the article -- chirped up, suggesting that everything is fine.
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Then, Business Insider Executive Editor Brett LoGiurato confirmed that Buckley was a speechwriter on Trump Jr.'s speech and must have decided to recycle some of his own work.
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He also seems like he downgraded the school system to taking kids from the upper class to the middle class.
Sorry kids.
On July 20, Buckley returned to Twitter to admit that even he didn't make up the phrases. In fact, he can't remember from where they came.
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So the words were re-recycled? Maybe the original author will appear one day.
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