In the last 24 hours, the Donald Trump campaign has offered a number of dubious excuses for why Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention’s opening night appeared to lift passages of First Lady Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic Convention speech word-for-word. Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, who has enthusiastically endorsed Trump, offered a novel explanation: the Jewish agenda.
Trump initially refused to disavow the notorious white supremacist’s endorsement, eventually distancing himself from Duke after pressure from the party establishment. But Duke has continued to vociferously defend Trump against all accusations of racism, generally by blaming the Jews.
After Melania’s speech, Duke concluded in a blog post that there was “inescapable logic that this was intentional sabotage and treachery” by Trump’s speechwriter, who Duke assumes must be Jewish.
“Nobody could have been so stupid as to make about five or six common quotes out of Michele Obama’s Demo convention speech just a few years before and put it Melania Trump’s speech and not think it would get exposed!” Duke wrote.
Duke rose to Trump’s defense against another purported Jewish plot recently, after Trump accused a Mexican American judge of being biased against him because of the campaign’s anti-immigrant bent. The repeated racist smears against Judge Gonzalo Curiel prompted a dive in Trump’s favorability numbers. Still, Duke blamed a Jewish media conspiracy for blowing the comments out of proportion. The media coverage of Curiel, he said at the time, was “very illustrative of the Jewish tribal nature.”