The timeline of the Trump campaign's many statements on who wrote Melania's speech
Melania Trump's speech was supposed to be the main event on day one of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. And it was. It's just that the speech was also the main event on day one of the Democratic National Convention in 2008.
The speech by the former model, whose husband Donald is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, prompted accusations of plagiarism after viewers noticed striking similarities to first lady Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
The plagiarism appears obvious, but Trump's campaign denies that any took place. Instead of analyzing that, we're just going to look at the campaign's ever-evolving statements regarding who, exactly, wrote the speech.
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Hours before she actually stood on stage at the convention, Melania made it seem as though she was the primary author.
"I wrote it with as little help as possible,'' she told Matt Lauer of the The Today Show.
Soon after her speech, allegations of plagiarism seemed to be all anyone was talking about.
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The plagiarism uproar became so much of a thing that the Trump campaign soon had little choice but to issue a response in the middle of the night. Now, it seems the Trump campaign wants us all to expand our definition of "possible."
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First of all, notice the word "plagiarism" does not appear in this non-statement. Secondly, notice that Melania now has a "team of writers" who crafted the speech that she had just hours earlier claimed to have written "with as little help as possible."
This statement was not enough for many of us media types, and journalists asked Trump campaign staffers and loyalists to address the issue again on Tuesday morning.
Trump's chief campaign adviser Paul Manafort denied any plagiarism at all. He called the idea "absurd" and suggested that presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had somehow planted the idea in an act of retribution.
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Trump staffers and supporters did not seem to be on the same page about the denial though.
New Jersey Gov. (and noted desperate vice presidential wannabee) Chris Christie said Melania, or a ghostwriter, only stole 7 percent of the Obama speech.
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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus didn't lash out at Melania, but suggested he might fire whoever wrote the speech.
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Of course, according to Melania in her interview with Lauer, she wrote the speech. And according to the Trump campaign, a team wrote the speech.
Either way, the campaign has said no one is going to be fired over the incident.
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Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
