The highlight to tonights activity was Melania Trumps speech. It turns the night into a catastrophe. This is a plagiarized speech game, set, match on that. What an outrageous disservice to Melania Trump on that, on the campaign. Nicolle wallace talked about the fact that the Trump Campaign such as it is is not configured like a normal political campaign. Maybe you dont need to be configured like a normal political campaign. We know the incongruity between
the theme, the day starting off with the targeting and attacking, Ohio Governor through the program. Hamilton on broadway is a great show, great production. No one leaves it early. Tonight in the middle of the show and be clear, this is a show a lot of people left early. This is not a good first night. Now you have brought scandal to the prospective first lady. Its a scandal and disservice to her and the campaign. Good morning. Tuesday july 19th. Live from cleveland the site of the Republican National convention along with joe, me, willie, we have managing editors of Bloomberg Politics and cohost of with all due respect, mark halperin. Ben ginsburg. Good day to have ben on. That was confusing late yesterday. Wow, eggs steve schmi i guess schmidt didnt mince words last night. What a catastrophe. Steve is one of the guys early on that said trump had what it took to win the republican nomination and maybe even beyond that. That is unfortunate and were going to talk about the whole day. Lay it out. Obviously melanias speech at the end was what everybody was talking about. When the speech was over, i could tell she had actually struck a chord, because i started getting texts and emails. Really. Before the internet took up to say, wow, she outperformed. Wow, what a great speech she gave. I would say more than usual from friends. Even from people who dont like trump. So melania actually outperformed. Then, of course, the questions
about the speech, which, im sorry, if anybody believes shes like bartelby the scrivener and in the back writing this down her self. This is an example of a campaign not built out. The start of daft controversy a few weeks ago. They needed somebody to review everything they put out. Its the same thing with the speech. They had somebody working that said they should fire somebody but theres nobody to fire. Let me lay it out. Donald trump took the stage first night of the party in cleveland addressing the convention with his live speech with a dazzling entry to queens we are the champions. Just like this breathe. Let this breathe. Look at this. He knows how to put on a show. He spoke for a few minutes
before putting his wife on the stage where she talked about her journey to america and her husband. I traveled the world while working hard in the incredible arena of fashion. After leaving and working in milan and paris, i arrived in new york city 20 years ago, and i saw both the joys and hardships of daily life. On july 28th, 2006, i was very proud to become citizen of the United States. The greatest on planet earth. And that is what is tragic about this story. The plagiarism turn, because her story is great. Her story is different. It got a great applause. Within two hours her star turn at the convention the speech she delivered was called into question over two passages that
had word for word similarities with the speech of another aspiring first lady, Michelle Obama, at the 2008 democratic convention. So here are the sections of those two speeches side by side. From my young age my parents impressed on me. Barack and i were raised with the same values. Values. For what you want in life. Your word is your bond. Your word is your bond. You do what you say and you keep your promise. You do what you say youre going to do. You treat people with respect. That you treat people with dignity and respect. Barack and i set out to build lives guided by these values and to pass them onto the next generation. We need to pass those lessons onto the many generations to
follow. Because we want our children. Because we want our children. And all children in this nation. In this nation to know. That the only limit to the height of your achievements. To know that the only limit to your achievements. Is the reach of your dreams. Is the strength of your dreams. And your willingness to work hard for them. And your willingness to work for them. So the trump put out a statement after the similarities put out on twitter. Quote, in writing her beautiful speech melanias team of writers took notes on her lifes inspirations and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own accounting. Melanias immigrant experience and love for america shaone through in her speech, which made it such a success. For the first speech of her
life, she nailed it. You wake up to this, how did this happen. Its a huge ripoff. She worked so hard on her presentation. Its a campaign so skeletal. They are lucky stuff doesnt happen like this more often given how few work there. No campaign with full apparatus could actually let it happen. Its unfortunate for her because if it hadnt happen the story would be what an incredible job she did. By the end of the day, probably sooner, someone in the campaign will take responsibility for this and have to leave. Do you think they will fire somebody . They have to. Not only for accountability, they have to take the onus off her. She said she wrote part of the speech her self. One part ends tonight, the other part begins. Your wife is going to get to speak to the delegates about
you. Right. Has she gone over the speech with you . Did you practice it on the plane. I went over it once. I wrote it with as little help as possible. So its worth remembering in 2008 Hillary Clintons campaign accused barack obama of plagiarizing then Massachusetts GovernorDuval Patrick in milwaukee. Obama said should have credited it to him. In 1987, remember this, senator joe biden plagiarized a speech by British Labor party writer but it was a good speech. Seriously, if i were going to plagiarize a speech it would have been that. What frustrates me melanias story and words is effective. She speaks multiple languages. She could have done so much with it and some jerk put in a speech from Michelle Obamas 2008. How does that happen . Reasons people to be fired, too stupid to be employed. For joe biden to plagiarize is wrong. But joe bide is a democrat, hes a labor party politician. Somebody got it in their mind when they were under pressure, stressed out, trying to get this speech together for her to cut and paste Michelle Obamas speech at the Trump Campaign. Its one thing to be a plagiarize, its another thing to be a moronic plagiarist. This is stupid. Instead of maybe a coincidence. Actually ben againstberg ive heard great writers who have won Pulitzer Prizes before talk about how mistakes happen. You jot down notes from this speech and that speech. Then when everybody is in a rush, you cram it together. Somebody else picks it up and says this is a good line, thats a good line. Oh, thats a good line. Then they put it together. Im not making it hold on. Im not making an excuse for the campaign but i guarantee nobody is saying ill cut and paste. What im saying, it was a sloppy process. They didnt have enough people. This is why you need a Campaign Staff, so theres somebody there that said, you know what, this is a great line. Unfortunately Michelle Obama did it eight years ago and that would happen in a normal campaign. There are programs you turn it through. You have your own people look at the speech to make sure nothing like this happens. This is somebody who changed a couple of words in it and thought changing a couple of words made it okay. What you cant estimate is what a sucker punch it is, a punch to the solar plexus. This is bad. This is bad. Trying to build momentum is difficult with Something Like this being talked about. They had no other news they talked about. Some decent speeches, nothing anything like the magnitude of the quality of the rest of her speech. As i said, if it werent for the plagiarism, i think the story of today would have been triumphant first night where she spoke quite movingly about her husband. And could have put to risk a day that began in that seat where Paul Manafort took on governor kasich saying hes embarrassing the state, a floor fight over the rules and washed away by melanias speech. Instead you have a day that began with john kasich being attacked. In his own state. In his own state. Booed the person attacking john kasich booed by this crowd. That doesnt happen on morning joe. Thats a record. Then later in the day the chaos on the house floor, then this. We still have to get to that. A totally forgettable, in some ways kind of ugly, not well done two hours before her they needed melanias speech to go well so the rest balanced out. They were there until this got discovered. Just to go back, to be serious about this, i understand how mistakes can be made and i understand how people under pressure do dumb things. But even under your explanation, what are you doing elizabeths doles 1996 speech or nancy reagan speech, study old republican speeches makes a lot of sense to me, why you would have looked to inspiration for past republican first ladies. I dont know why youre looking at Michelle Obamas speech if you work for donald trump when your nominee criticizes him every day. The Moronic Party of it, her story trumps some of the problems the campaign with the whole issue of immigration, being globally connected. She could really have had a speech that said who she was,
what her talents are, which are many, and how committed she is to them. That would have been amazing and multilingual. Here is the danger. Tonight is in some ways the weakest night of speakers. Again, the way these are scored, a good knit or bad night. Thats the way it works. Tonight they have to find a way with this speaker lineup. What goes on tonight . Don jr. On tonight after that a dropoff in terms of names. The panel, paul ryan. Good luck. Neither one of those guys. They can be have could be interesting. They cannot have another bad night. Lets talk about mitigating this damage really quickly. If youre in regular campaign, somebody is fired by 9 00. I would say by now. Trump comes out with combination of humor and regret. Says sorry. Hes not going to say he regrets it. I regret soandsos action. She did a good job, we should have been better and some sort of joke. Thats a normal campaign. Who gets fired. They have to find out who they did it or who they are going to say did it. The chief of speech writing . There is not a chief of speech writing. Its spread out. They have hired a few people who help out with different parts of the convention, and there are some Old Time Convention folks who were helping to draft the speeches. Let me make a prediction for you. He will not apologize. He will not fire anyone. Hell say the media is obsessing over a couple of lines in a speech, the world is spinning out of control and im the man to fix it. Look at media talking about minutiae. Im just saying ill bet a plate he doesnt fire anyone. His wife. It behooves him to be a little upset. I think that wouldnt hurt. Listen, they fired the guy he was closest to personally, Corey Lewandowski because the kids pushed him to fire Corey Lewandowski. If he was going to get rid of the guy who he was closest to personally i think they may fire somebody to protect his wife. You cant let something this sloppy affect his wife stand. You read what you just saw, she claims she wrote the speech. She said most of it. Im saying, they have to clean it up. The statement they put out in the middle of the night said the speechwriters wrote it. They are taking that back. The convention kicked off under the theme of make america safe again with speakers painting a dark picture about the state of this country and threats from around the world. The event put heavy focus on threats from overseas and former
navy s. E. A. L. Marcus luttrell who survived a battle in taliban spoke an inspirational tone. The world outside our borders is a scary place. America is the light and her people are the goodness that grows from that. Shell always be worth fighting for and it was my greatest honor to fight for her every day of my adult life. And one of the most memorable moments of the night came from Patricia Smith, the mother of a state Department Staffer slain in the 2012 benghazi attack. I blame Hillary Clinton personal personally for the death of my son. Thats personally. In an email to her daughter shortly after the attack, Hillary Clinton blamed it on terrorism. But when i saw Hillary Clinton she sure is. She sure is. She lied to me and then called me a liar. When i saw Hillary Clinton at shawns coffin ceremony days later, she looked me squarely in the eye and told me a video was responsible. Since then, i have repeatedly asked Hillary Clinton to explain to me the real reason why my son is dead. Im still waiting. There was a lot of commentary last night about how republicans were using trotting out parents whose children had been victimized, had been killed, acting as if this were the first time that ever happened. Its worth noting this is not the first time this has ever
happened. Certainly not limited to the republican party. In 2004 Democratic Campaign of john kerry featured gold star mothers of soldiers killed in the iraq war. Last night, though, was it was tough to look at. It was tough to look at these parents. It was tough to listen to some of these people. Extreme grief. They were in extreme grief. I was just sitting there wondering how that worked. I know it was very strong inside the hall but was that too tough for people at home to watch Patricia Smith struggle through that or was it gripping . I watched in the hall. It was gripping in the hall. People thought it was emotional and moving. On tv i dont know. This is a very emotional issue for a lot of people in the country and she symbolized that. I do think it is taking a personal thing and making it political. Some people will find that over
the line. What do you think, ben . Its an indication of what were going to be seeing for the rest of the campaign, both that appeal to emotion on these hot button issues combined with what melanias speech is supposed to be. Its that yin and yang. Mothers whose children killed by guns in a political contest. Youre going to have several high profile it was raw. While the moment was gripping and disturbing, also you couldnt stopwatch it. You wanted to hear what she had to say. You were with her. While this woman was speaking on stage wait a second. I know what youre about to say. Remember, we all went to see hamilton, a lot of times when
the aaron burr character was singing, the lead actor actually went outside smoked a cigarette. Smoked a cigarette and was performing in the street. Wait, why are you undercutting whats going on on the stage. This happens. I didnt know what you were getting at, joe. That was a longwinded way while this woman was speaking at the podium last night about the death of her son, donald trump was on the phone with fox news discussing recent attacks with police and, in fact, taking away attention from his own convention. Certainly in some instances they are. Certainly they have ignited people and you see that. You see that all over. Its a very, very serious situation. We just cant let it happen. Now, everybody is free to say what you wan to say up to a
point. But when youre calling death to police, kill the police essentially, which is what they said, thats a real problem, bill. Thats a real big problem. Somebody tweeted later on that he was on the golf channel later in the day. I doubt thats the case. How bizarre is that . Your own show. Pretty bizarre. Mark halperin. Counterprogramming. Whats also interesting, Patricia Smith representing benghazi, a big theme in conservative circles. In this campaign you would think that would be broadcast on fox. It just shows how overwhelming plagiarism thing is going to be. There were a lot of snafus, the rest by the delegates, attack on john kasich, none of that would be getting much attention today. Instead melania plagiarism turns the whole day into a negative. This is the end of a string of
failures as opposed to her speech they need to clean it up fast. They need to clean it up this morning to protect her. Yes. Still ahead on morning joe, two top senators on the push to unite gop. Republicans tom cotton and John Barrasso are here on set plus former attorney again Ken Cuccinelli whose threw cre tensions on the floor after failing to shab up the Convention Floor. Tomorrow, governor Chris Christie. Youre watching morning joe. Right back live. My cousins wedding is coming soon. I like the bride more than the groom. Turquoise dresses. So excited. Did all her exes get invited . No ones got moves like uncle joe. When its go book on choicehotels. Com for instant rewards like gift cards, plus savings of up to 20 . Book direct at choicehotels. Com you made with your Airline Credit card. These purchases hold on. You only got double miles on stuff you bought from that airline . Let me show you something better. The capital one venture card. With venture, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. Not just. dismissively airline purchases. Every purchase. Everywhere. Every day. No really double miles on all of them whats in your wallet . The chairman of the convention walked off the stage and left it completely unattended for five minutes. Ive never seen anything like this in my entire life. This is a very simple, standard