The son of presidential wannabe Donald Trump faced a round of plagiarism woes just one day after copycat accusations plagued Melania Trump’s RNC stump speech.
Donald Trump Jr.’s speech at the Republican National Convention bore uncanny similarities to words penned in a book by speechwriter Frank Buckley — but Buckley said it was all on the up-and-up.
“There’s not an issue. It’s not plagiarism. It’s just what speechwriters do,” he told the Daily News, pointing out that he wrote the Ohio speech himself.
When Trump took the stage Tuesday, he spoke about the country’s failing school system, comparing it to Soviet Russia.
“Our schools used to be an elevator to the middle class. Now they’re stalled on the ground floor,” the 38-year-old son of the GOP candidate told the crowd in Cleveland.
“They’re like Soviet-era department stores that are run for the benefit of the clerks and not the customers.”
Buckley — a professor at George Mason University’s law school — expressed similar sentiments in “The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America,” a book released in April and again excerpted as an essay in “The American Conservative.”
“What should be an elevator to the upper class is stalled on the ground floor. Part of the fault for this may be laid at the feet of the system’s entrenched interests: the teachers’ unions and the higher-education professoriate,” Buckley wrote.
“Our schools and universities are like the old Soviet department stores whose mission was to serve the interests of the sales clerks and not the customers.”
Buckley’s wife Esther, who answered the phone Tuesday night, said her husband is on the same page as the leading GOP family.
“I think Frank and the Trumps see eye-to-eye on their message. There was no use of language without Frank’s knowledge. I think he can tell you that Frank is the principal,” she said.
The latest accusation, originally highlighted in a tweet by “The Daily Show,” comes on the heels of a more controversial faux pas courtesy of Melania Trump.
In her Monday night speech about values and hard work, the candidate’s wife apparently lifted lines from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech.
“From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond; that you do what you say,” she said.
Eight years earlier — when then-Sen. Obama was nominated in Denver — the First Lady uttered similar sentiments.
“Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: like, you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do,” she said.
Afterward, RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer went on CNN to defend Melania’s speech.
“We had a 2,000-word statement, we’re talking about 70 words, three passages. And this idea of plagiarism, if we want to talk about let’s talk about,” he said before rapidly reciting a series of laughable examples of similar language, from Kid Rock to My Little Pony.
“Melania Trump said: ‘The strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them.’ Twilight Sparkle from “My Little Pony” said: ‘This is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams you can do now,'” he quipped.
While Spicer seemed surprisingly unconcerned, the Buckleys were sympathetic.
“Poor Melania. We didn’t have anything to do with that,” Esther said.
Meanwhile, her husband took to Twitter to correct public perception about Trump Jr.’s speech.
“Except it wasn’t stealing,” he tweeted.
