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EARLY START

Melania's Speech to the GOP Convention Raises Plagiarism Questions; GOP Speeches Target Obama & Clinton. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired July 19, 2016 - 04:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:30:05] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning. "Make America safe again", the theme of night one of the RNC, but Melania Trump's speech stealing the spotlight, stealing passages of her speech from Michelle Obama.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans at the CNN grill, 30 minutes past the hour this Tuesday morning.

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, drawing charges of an out and out plagiarism. Several passages directly lifted from the Michelle Obama's convention speech back in 2008.

I want you to listen side by side 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 OF THE UNITED STATES: 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: Joining me now, senior political reporter, Manu Raju.

Manu, what is the campaign saying this morning about these apparent similarities?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, they're not saying they are similar. It is actually sort of a classic Donald Trump response suggests there is nothing wrong. Dig in, push back and move on, frankly.

The statement that came out from the Trump campaign a couple hours after this controversy first emerged did not even mention Michelle Obama or the speech. Now from Jason Miller, senior communications adviser for the Trump campaign, saying that, "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."

So, clearly, they are saying this is all Melania's thinking. This came from her heart. It was all about her message. Nothing to do with Michelle Obama. So, that's probably what we're going to hear from the Trump campaign going forward, especially today when those questions come up.

ROMANS: So, we don't know who wrote those passages that look exactly the same. But that statement from the campaign suggested there were speechwriters involved.

Earlier, though, Melania Trump suggested she was pretty solo in writing these things.

RAJU: Yes, she said that she was the only one who did it, essentially the only one which raised questions about the statement because it did say a team of advisors, suggesting That contradicted what she said earlier.

So, this is what she said earlier to the NBC's "Today" show, suggesting that it was all her who wrote the speech.

(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, there's the contradiction saying she did it essentially by herself, didn't have much help at all. That is one of the things they will have to answer going forward.

But probably also, the Trump campaign didn't want to say it was one single speechwriter, didn't want to throw anyone specifically under the bus and they definitely didn't want to throw Melania under the bus.

ROMANS: Maybe the calculation there is that this is going to blow over. I mean, already on social media this morning, a lot of people whoa are watching our program who are Trump supporters are saying, look, you are being too hard on her.

RAJU: Yes. And that's certainly what they're expecting. I mean, this is -- soon, we're going to get into the next convention. There's going to be a vote on the convention floor to nominate Donald Trump as the next Republican nominee for president. We're going to have primetime speakers and we will move on.

Melania is not the candidate. Donald Trump is the candidate. Things like this have sunk other candidates in the past. Think about Joe Biden's past presidential campaign in 1988, as well as the Montana Democratic Senate candidate John Walsh who in 2014 had to drop his bid after parts of his college speech was plagiarized.

So, this hurt other people. But she's not the candidate. He is.

ROMANS: That's right.

RAJU: And that's one of the things that they're going to look going forward.

ROMANS: All right. Manu Raju, thank you so much for that.

Rejoining me to discuss all of this and what happened last night and the other big story lines of the night, CNN political analyst Josh Rogin and our CNN political commentators, Maria Cardona, Amanda Carpenter and John Phillips.

Does this last, Amanda? Does this last? It has overshadowed the make American safe message from last night, no question. But does this story have legs?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it depends on how hard the Trump campaign will dig in. Most people can make the reasonable conclusion this was plagiarized. But if they're going to say this is a liberal media invention, blame other people for what is clearly a campaign mistake. I would not lay this at Melania's feet. Campaign staffers put this together. I think they made it worse by saying a team of people involved.

If she just said that she looked at notes and thought Michelle's speech was inspiring and somehow carelessly left this on a draft, people would forgive it. If they make this a campaign issue and a question about the campaign's competence, it's certainly going to keep going.

ROMANS: Does it matter?

JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It is no big deal. Her interview with Matt Lauer is not the worst thing a presidential spouse has done on a plane this month. Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch take the cake on this. If she was there to vouch for her husband, she was there to say nice things, if there is a controversy, it will last for a few hours today and it will be gone.

ROMANS: I want to talk about the mood of the night. Before this happened, hey, it is solid day one for team Trump. Trump is crafting the message of make America safe again. Rudy Giuliani had a strong speech. You have law enforcement folks who are saying America is not as safe with Hillary Clinton at the helm.

I want you to listen to a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SHERIFF DAVID CLARKE, MILWAUKEE COUNTY, WISCONSIN: Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make something very clear. Blue lives matter in America!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

RUDY GIULIANI (R), FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR: What happened to there's no black America. There's no white America. There is just America!

What happened to it? Where did it go? How has it gone away?

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

ROMANS: Josh, Donald Trump talked about a divided America in making reference to what has been a real division between police and Black Lives Matter protester. What do you make of that?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think the message is not likely to heal that. It is likely to make it worse. When people say all lives matter. Blue lives matter. They know that and it antagonizes people who say Black Lives Matter. It's not actually a constructive addition to the conversation. It is just a defensive sort of slogan.

So, it fits into the entire theme of the night, which is negative, negative, negative. Hillary has to go to jail. She killed four people in Benghazi. Syrian refugees are coming to get us, right?

This is not a positive, pro-active or positive agenda for either foreign policy, national security or for healing the racial divide. It's the first day of the convention and it's all negative and I think that's what we're likely to see.

ROMANS: What about Rudy Giuliani last night? He was such a strong supporter and defender of Trump. The most vigorous defense I have seen. MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Much better than he talked

about himself when he was running.

But I think his speech in particular was great for the people inside that arena. It did not do anything again to broaden his appeal. In fact, if you are an immigrant, if you're Latino, if you're an African- American, if you're a Muslim, if you are anybody that looked different from the majority of people in the arena, that speech scared the hell out of you.

And that I think is one of the problems that last night's theme had. It is so ironic they talked America, but to Josh's point, Trump and his speakers did absolutely nothing to give him confidence to bring people together. In order to bring people together, in terms of what is going on, you have to acknowledge the racial bias that happens, the discrimination that happens and find a way to bring people together and solve it and actually described proposals on what you would do.

PHILLIPS: I disagree with that, because what Rudy Giuliani did was he appealed to the silent majority, Dick Nixon's silent majority in the country of all races.

[04:40:04] People that want law and order.

Rudy Giuliani represented the James Q. Wilson broken windows theory in New York City that brought crime down to record lows. And that was not only done in New York. It was done in Los Angeles and other big cities. And now, we are seeing an erosion of that, and that's what he was speaking to, and that's why he was front and center.

CARPENTER: I would say though, I think there were a number of speakers that were sort of needlessly provocative. They have the winning message. Really think about law and order. That was a clear contrast of Hillary Clinton.

So, many Americans believe she is not trustworthy, doesn't play by the rules, doesn't follow the rules. They're contrasting that with a strong law and order message. But they're just going a little bit too far by saying Hillary Clinton should be in jail when you have really people who are informed of national security stature that kind of demeans and makes them seem unserious.

There is such a thing as overplaying your hand. And they probably did it last night. They can pull it back more that will help bring in more people.

ROMANS: There was the Benghazi element too. You have Pat Smith, the mother of one of the Benghazi victims who had an emotional speech. I want to listen to a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAT SMITH, MOTHER OF BENGHAZI VICTIM: In an e-mail to her daughter shortly after the attack, Hillary Clinton blamed it on terrorism, but when I saw Hillary Clinton -- she sure is. She lied to me and then called me a liar. (CROWD BOOS)

When I saw Hillary Clinton at Sean's coffin ceremony days later, she looked me squarely in the eye and told me a video was responsible.

(CROWD BOOS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: This is supposed to be the centerpiece of the night. Interesting that Donald Trump was calling in to FOX News at this very moment.

ROGIN: Right. We have Donald Trump preempting his own guest talking about the death of her son in Benghazi. We also have a Donald Trump who's made repeated misstatements about what happened in Benghazi over and over again.

So, this whole idea that if Donald Trump had been in charge, he would have been more on top of the security arrangements thousands of miles away and prevented this crisis is somewhat unbelievable.

I mean, we can all feel for Pat Smith. She is grieving, obviously. I think it was exploitive of the Trump campaign to use that grief to make the point, because he hasn't done the work to learn what happened and become a master of the policy. It's hypocritical.

CARPENTER: I was just saying though, people were crying in the audience when they watched the speech, as they watched Marcus Luttrell speak because it wasn't just about the Benghazi deaths. Americans are worried that Americans are killed because of terrorism in America and all around the world. You see it play out, you know, almost every day, it seems like. So, if they could figure out how to recalibrate this message to speak to that fear and not going on the wild tangents, they will do really well.

ROMANS: Let's talk about today. I want to look toward today. You have a pretty cool lineup tonight. You're going to see more of his family. You're going to have Chris Christie. The tone today or the theme today is make America work again. Do you believe the safety thing is completely behind or do you think is this a thread woven throughout the week?

CARDONA: They will weave the safety threat with economic security tonight. What I think this underscores and you talked about this at the beginning of the show, the numbers don't bear it out. Yes, there is economic insecurity because of what's going on out there, but the numbers actually bear out, that people are working.

And there was a national poll that came out not too long ago that said that 64 percent of Americans actually credit the Obama administration for bettering the economy. They might not want to give him credit for it personally, but they admit the economy is better.

Again, they are working in the fast-free zone that doesn't really connect with a lot of people who are looking for why should they vote for Donald Trump? He hasn't been straight with them on anything.

ROMANS: (INAUDIBLE) mobile. And that's the big problem.

PHILLIPS: Just like people don't feel safe and what does the administration say when they are confronted? Oh, we made gains in Iraq. We made gains in Syria.

Well, that doesn't make people feel safer here. You say, oh, these job numbers are great. The stock market is great. But people feel they could lose their jobs, they could lose their house. That's the fear that voters have and Donald Trump is going to play to that.

ROMANS: I call it low economic self esteem. The people in that arena probably have 401(k)s than they have ever been.

[04:45:03] Yet, there's real concern about wages, and the like.

Everybody, thank you so much. Great to see you.

Tonight in Cleveland, you will hear it, blistering criticism of the Obama economy. Make America work again is the theme. More Americans are working than four years ago. I wanted to give you the numbers since that is the theme of the day, OK?

In August of 2012, the unemployment rate was 8.4 percent. It is now 4.9 percent. That's a significant drop. And more Americans are returning to the labor market now.

Senator Jeff Sessions providing the counterpoint to that last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALABAMA: Fellow Republicans, we must understand that the incomes of middle class Americans today are $4,000 less per year than in 1999. This is an economic disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: We checked his numbers. That is true. That is true. Not all of the decline came under President Obama.

Here is what it looked like. In 1999, record high median household income. By the time President George W. Bush left office in 2008, income has declined. Remember what was happening in 2008? And then it dropped further under President Obama, but wages picked up since the last election.

Bottom line: more Americans are working, but wages are a big problem. And tonight, Republicans will focus squarely on that issue. Where is America's pay raise? Where is America' opportunity?

Forty-six minutes past the hour. The surprise of the evening, the similarities between Melania Trump's speech and Michelle Obama's 2008 speech. Will this hurt the Trump campaign? Will there be more of a response from team Trump? We're gong to break it down, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:51:02] ROMANS: All right. Welcome back to Cleveland.

A wild opening night at Republican convention with speeches going late into the night. Donald Trump stole the show with his fog shrouded entrance to introduce his wife, Melania. Her speech, instant reviews were solid, but then within the hour, the speech under the microscope for plagiarism.

I want to bring in CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter. He joins us now.

Let's get to the plagiarism in a minute. I want to talk about the entrance.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: What an entrance.

ROMANS: The WWE entrance.

STELTER: It is something out of wrestle mania. He has a history with WWE. It made sense.

This was actually going to be moved up. Events were running late and speeches running long. So, he came in at 10:20 and captivated the arena. It is perfect Donald Trump style entrance. This is the Trump show. We have three more days of the Trump show.

He is taking full advantage of his ratings power. In fact, when the ratings come in, we will see he was a magnet and so was Melania with her speech.

ROMANS: And really, no insurrection yesterday, that there was going to be any kind of insurrection.

STELTER: That's a great point.

ROMANS: I heard this as a hostile takeover of the GOP. All of the old guards are thrown out. Now he is the brand manager who is shaping the message.

STELTER: You could say he became the establishment when he overpowered the never Trumpers on the convention floor, at least his forces did.

Let's think about what didn't happen yesterday. We didn't see that rebellion. We also didn't see massive protests outside. Maybe we will see that later in that week. There continues to be concern of the protests. But so far, all of the action has been on the floor and much of the convention has run smoothly.

But Melania Trump's issues with this plagiarism story in many ways overshadows and steps on the message of night on and maybe steps on the message of day two.

ROMANS: The make America safe message, when you had at least three of the speakers saying Hillary Clinton should be in jail. You have people shouting lock her up. But we are talking about the similarities between Michelle Obama's 2008 speech and Melania Trump.

We put them side by side, back to back. We even played in this program, the whole 16 minutes of her speech so you can see for yourself. Someone lifted a few paragraphs that appears clear here. Who did it we don't know.

STELTER: It's mind boggling that this wasn't Googled ahead of time.

ROMANS: Is it sloppy?

STELTER: I think what it speaks to a lack of structure in the Trump campaign. This is not new. We said months ago when you go visit the Trump campaign at Trump Tower, by the way, this is "The Daily News" cover this morning. "Thanks, Mrs. Obama," says the cover satirically.

When I first visited the Trump campaign headquarters, you walk in and the space is raw. The space is unfinished. It is like a metaphor for the campaign.

ROMANS: But they boast about that though.

STELTER: That's right. It's been a positive in some ways. Trump is proud of the relatively small size of his staff compared to Hillary Clinton's staffers. Compared to a month ago, they are hiring more and more people. But they are a small campaign compared to Clinton's.

And that might be why something like this can happen. They don't have as many people checking and double checking in this case what the speech is going to say.

ROMANS: Let's talk about the star power tonight. You're going to see his family. You're going to see Chris Christie.

His family has done well for him. That is a big positive to his image.

STELTER: Yes, we're going to see Tiffany Trump on stage. We're also going to see Donald Trump himself via video. He flew back to New York last night. He's going to be in New York today. But he will appear on camera in some fashion. Again, reorienting, this is the Trump show.

It's an unconventional convention. It may not be a bad thing. He knows he has star power and he's able to use it. And he's making this more of a reality show than we've seen at conventions before. That entrance was just the beginning.

ROMANS: All right. Brian Stelter, nice to see you. See you later this week as well.

Fifty-four minutes past the hour. Donald Trump's wife giving a speech last night, of course, with plagiarized passages as we reported. The controversy picks up next with NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:59:10] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We'd like our viewers in the United States and around the world. You're watching NEW DAY. It is 5:00 in the East. Chris and I are live here in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention as we will be all week.

Up first, Donald Trump's campaign facing some tough questions about his wife's speech last night. Two passages from Melania Trump's well- received convention speech appear to be plagiarized from Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic convention.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Appear to be because they were the same. But as is often the case, the political crime is not the story, but the initial response from the campaign that certainly is in the crosshairs this morning.

Now, this story is taking some energy from what was the tour de force for the GOP and Team Trump dropping the hammer on Hillary Clinton all night long.

We have every angle covered. Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly live inside the Q arena -- Phil.