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MR Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, took centre stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention, but found herself in the midst of an embarrassing plagiarism controversy.
The billionaire businessman’s wife appeared to have taken liberal inspiration from a 2008 speech by US First Lady Michelle Obama for her own address to the Republican convention on Monday night.
A Mr Trump campaign official suggested the similarity to Obama’s speech may have been the result of an error by her team of speech writers.
However, before her speech, Mrs Trump, a Slovenian-born jewellery designer and former model, told NBC’s Matt Lauer: “I wrote it … with as little help as possible.”
A spokesman for the Mr Trump campaign called the speech a success, but suggested her writers may have mistakenly injected some borrowed language.
“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,” Jason Miller, Trump’s senior communications advisor, said in a statement.
Mrs Trump’s speech was the highlight of a chaotic opening day at the Republican convention that is set to formally nominate her husband as the party’s presidential candidate later this week.
“The row over the speech will drown out everything else, including the split in the party,” said Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, who was at the convention in Cleveland.
“For a convention that was meant to be about competence and unity, it’s off to a very bad start,” he said.
A beaming Mr Trump personally introduced his wife to delegates gathered in Cleveland, which was a break with tradition to appear before his actual nomination.
Mrs Trump used the occasion to take some of the rough edges off her combative husband, who has roiled the campaign trail with inflammatory attacks on Muslims, Mexicans and his many political rivals.
“He’s tough when he has to be, but he’s also kind and fair and caring,” Mrs Trump said, describing her husband as “intensely loyal” to family, friends, employees and the country.
“If you want someone to fight for you and your country, I can assure you, he’s the guy,” she said.
Anti-Trump delegates at the convention walked out in protests after a vote to oppose his candidacy failed.
Some of the biggest Republican names – the Bush family and John McCain – were also absent from the convention while on the streets of Cleveland, protesters marched against Trump’s bigotry and xenophobia.
Meanwhile, The US Republican National Convention (RNC)’s first day has been marked with division amid attempts by some of Mr Donald Trump’s opponents to block his presidential nomination, while many others protested outside the venue.
The convention, which is set to nominate Trump, kicked off in Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday, and soon turned into a floor fight after it was hit by a wave of discord and dissent by a group of delegates, referred to as the “Never Trump” movement.
Earlier in the day, Delegates Unbound, a group working to free delegates from their pledge to vote for Trump, said it had garnered enough support to force a roll call vote.
Chanting “Roll call vote! Roll call vote!” the group tried to set in motion a vote by all 2 472 delegates to formally start the event, hoping the lengthy process would embarrass Trump by delaying the opening speeches.
However, they failed to overcome the majority who countered the move by with their own noisy slogans in support of Trump.
Finally, after a few minutes of confusion, coupled with several musical breaks, the party leaders managed to put down the protest by calling a voice vote on whether to have a roll call vote, at which point the “no” votes prevailed.
The group issued a statement afterwards, accusing convention managers of “strong-arming delegates and skirting the rules” to silence critics.
Initially at least nine states showed willingness for a roll call, well above the 7-state threshold set by the party rules. However, Trump’s campaign showed its organisational might by convincing delegates to flip their votes one after another and let the event began.
US presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mr Trump is only two points behind his Democrat rival, Mrs Hillary Clinton, a new poll shows.
According to the outcome of a Morning Consult survey released Monday, the former secretary of state leads Trump by only two points.
As 20 percent of the American population remains undecided, Clinton earns 41 percent and the real estate mogul 39 percent, it showed.
When libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson is added to equation though, Clinton’s lead rises to 38 percent, three points ahead of Trump, while Johnson gains 11 percent and 15 percent remain undecided.
In the previous edition of the poll last week, Trump trailed Clinton by one point, 41 to 42 percent while 18 percent were undecided.
Some polls have reportedly put trump ahead of Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
In the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls, however, Clinton still holds a three percent lead. — Aljazeera-PressTV.
Online Reporter