Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, refused on Tuesday to speculate about the similarities between Melania Trump’s Republican convention speech Monday evening and the speech Michelle Obama delivered in 2008, or whether Trump’s speech stole directly from Obama’s.
“I don’t know whether it was lifted or not,” Ernst told reporters Tuesday when asked about Melania Trump’s controversial speech. “I don’t want to go there.”
Ernst, who took the stage after Donald Trump’s wife Monday evening, described Melania Trump’s remarks as “heartfelt.”
The possible plagiarism of a passage in Melania Trump’s speech cast a shadow over the second day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. In response, the Trump campaign started pointing fingers at Hillary Clinton and the media for exaggerating the similarities between the two convention speeches.
