Joy-Ann Reid on Melania’s speech: ‘Would Michelle Obama have gotten a pass?’
Joy-Ann Reid doesn’t think her colleagues at MSNBC should be so quick to excuse Melania Trump’s apparent plagiarism of Michelle Obama.
–Joy-Ann Reid to host new show on MSNBC
On Tuesday morning, when Hallie Jackson asked MSNBC contributors to react to the plagiarism, Reid had some choice words for Donald Trump’s wife.“I’ll start by quoting a guy called Tom Nichols, who’s a conservative and very prominent on Twitter, who said, ‘Ask yourself if Michelle Obama would have been given a pass had she done the same thing in 2008?’” she said. “I think we’re all very quickly passing the responsibility onto staff. Clearly, this is a campaign that is poorly staffed. I think that has been clear for a long time. But they sent Melania Trump over to Matt Lauer to say that she wrote it [the speech].”
–theGrio’s Joy-Ann Reid explains Syria conflict in less than 4 minutes
But Reid wasn’t finished. She went on to call out the people dismissed the plagiarism as being the fault of speechwriters and excusing Melania from any guilt.
“But we’re immediately dismissing the idea that she had anything to do with it. I doubt that we would dismiss the idea that Michelle Obama had anything to do with it,” she said.
“She’s an adult woman,” Reid added.” She’s grown up. She has participated in the delivery of this speech. She gave the speech. So I think you have to give responsibilty — sure, to the staff, the campaign management has been poor here — but Melania Trump did give the speech and Michelle Obama wouldn’t have gotten a pass.”
–Plagiarism: Melania Trump lifted parts of Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech
