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Trump writer takes responsibility for Melania Trump speech mess

Melania Trump’s opening-day speech at the Republican Convention borrowed entire phrases from an eight-year-old address by Michelle Obama.

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Cruz aide Jason Johnson said the Texas lawmaker told Trump in a phone conversation two days ago that he would not endorse him during his speech, a decision New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called “totally selfish”.

Texas fundraiser Mica Mosbacher said Wednesday that Cruz has taken a “quantum leap” with his convention speech after a rough primary, but based on conversations with his advisers the senator and his team are not ready to fully back Trump. “No harm was meant”, she wrote. I wrote them down and alter included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech.

“A person she (Melania Trump) has always liked is Michelle Obama”, said McIver.

Accusations of plagiarism plagued the Trump campaign from the moment news of the similarities emerged. She said she had offered her resignation but that it was refused by the Trumps.

Hours before giving the speech, Melania Trump, a Slovenian-born jewellery designer and former model, told NBC’s Today that she had written it with as little help as possible.

“They’re not words that are unique words ” Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, defended Melania Trump and accused Hillary Clinton of making it an issue, while speaking in interviews and at a press conference on Tuesday morning. Ted Cruz just delivered an address at the Republican National Convention – and he got booed.

Because if there’s one important thing Trump’s staff wants you to know, it’s that even in the midst of a plagiarism controversy, Trump is awesome. Outside the convention hall, vendors are selling lewd T-shirts and buttons mocking her. Inside, delegates have repeatedly broken out in chants of “Lock her up!” and cheered on speakers who labeled her a liar.

Trump made an arrival in Cleveland on Wednesday fitting with his larger-than-life personality, landing in a helicopter emblazoned with his last name on the tail. But Wednesday, The New York Times Magazine published a story that muddied the waters about how he came to be Trump’s “first choice”. “I’m confident that what begins in Cleveland will end in the White House”.

Protesters tried to burn American flags outside the Republican National Convention Wednesday afternoon, injuring police officers and leading to as many as 16 arrests.

Cruz’s convention stage speech – a passive-aggressive almost half-hour long non-endorsement of his party’s newly crowned nominee – wasn’t the only tepid cheerleading of the night.

The incident, as well as an earlier unsuccessful effort by Cruz supporters, including former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, and others to unbind the delegates was evidence that Trump has yet to unify the party behind his candidacy. “That could drive America down into a ditch, not make us great again”. If they did, then they knowingly did not tell the truth.

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“Every one of us has an obligation to follow our conscience, to speak the truth, and truth is unchanging”, he said in the speech, throwing a bone to his supporters who continue to oppose the nominee.

A police officer tries extinguish a burning American flag on Wednesday in Cleveland during the third day of the Republican convention