Did you wake up this morning expecting to hear that RNC communications director and chief strategist Sean Spicer used a quote from Twilight Sparkle of My Little Pony to defend Melania Trump against accusations of plagiarizing Michelle Obama?
Right. Well. Let's back up.
Melania Trump was accused of copying approximately two paragraphs of the convention speech Michelle Obama gave in 2008; due to the number of similar or exact phrases that the speeches share, the Washingtonian found that the odds of Melania Trump or her speechwriters "accidentally" using the same words in the same order that Obama did are less than one in a trillion.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Nevertheless, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort argued that Melania was simply using "common words," and that the relation between the two speeches was merely coincidental. Spicer apparently tried to hammer that point home by illustrating that if you dig hard enough, you can find similarities between Melania Trump's speech and totally irrelevant things, like My Little Pony:
Even Spicer looks embarrassed to have made that argument.
-
Political cartoons for November 29Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include Kash Patel's travel perks, believing in Congress, and more
-
Nigel Farage: was he a teenage racist?Talking Point Farage’s denials have been ‘slippery’, but should claims from Reform leader’s schooldays be on the news agenda?
-
Pushing for peace: is Trump appeasing Moscow?In Depth European leaders succeeded in bringing themselves in from the cold and softening Moscow’s terms, but Kyiv still faces an unenviable choice
-
Judge halts Trump’s DC Guard deploymentSpeed Read The Trump administration has ‘infringed upon the District’s right to govern itself,’ the judge ruled
-
Trump accuses Democrats of sedition meriting ‘death’Speed Read The president called for Democratic lawmakers to be arrested for urging the military to refuse illegal orders
-
Court strikes down Texas GOP gerrymanderSpeed Read The Texas congressional map ordered by Trump is likely an illegal racial gerrymander, the court ruled
-
Trump defends Saudi prince, shrugs off Khashoggi murderSpeed Read The president rebuked an ABC News reporter for asking Mohammed bin Salman about the death of a Washington Post journalist at the Saudi Consulate in 2018
-
Congress passes bill to force release of Epstein filesSpeed Read The Justice Department will release all files from its Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation
-
Trump says he will sell F-35 jets to Saudi ArabiaSpeed Read The president plans to make several deals with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week
-
Judge blasts ‘profound’ errors in Comey caseSpeed Read ‘Government misconduct’ may necessitate dismissing the charges against the former FBI director altogether
-
Ecuador rejects push to allow US military basesSpeed Read Voters rejected a repeal of a constitutional ban on US and other foreign military bases in the country
