Presumptive Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, in her first major political speech on Monday, portrayed her husband as a talented, compassionate and unrelenting leader who would unify rather than divide the country if elected to the White House.
The Slovenian-born jewelry designer and former model delivered the speech, part of which strongly resembled an address given by US first lady Michelle Obama in 2008, to a cheering crowd at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland after a one-minute introduction from Trump.
Trump made a dramatic entrance, silhouetted against a white background, to the accompaniment of Queen’s 1977 rock anthem We Are the Champions.
“I have been with Donald for 18 years and I have been aware of his love for this country since we first met,” the aspiring first lady told the convention.
“He’s tough when he has to be, but he’s also kind and fair and caring,” she said.
“Donald wants prosperity for all Americans,” she said.
Her 15-minute speech was a bid to soften the image of the New York businessman-turned-politician, who has been accused of bigotry and callousness for his calls to suspend Muslim immigration and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. He has also been criticized for insults directed at women, political opponents and journalists.
Part of the text referring to the values held by her family was strikingly similar to a section of Michelle Obama’s speech to the Democratic convention in 2008.
A Trump campaign official suggested the similarity was the result of an error by her speech writers.
“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,” Trump’s senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, said in a statement.
The convention’s opening night featured a string of emotional speakers attacking presumptive Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s record as secretary of state under US President Barack Obama, many saying she had made Americans vulnerable to Muslim militancy.
“I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son,” said Pat Smith, the mother of an information management officer who was among the four Americans killed in an attack on a US mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
The convention erupted in chaos earlier when Trump opponents inside his party stormed out of the room and others chanted, in a failed attempt to force a vote opposing his candidacy.
The turmoil threatened efforts by the Trump campaign to show that the party had united behind him.
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