Recycled phrases in Trump son’s speech ‘not an issue’

Donald Trump Jr was saved from embarrassment by one of his speechwriters after similarities were noted in his keynote speech to the Republican National Convention and an article in a conservative publication.

It turned out the author of the May 2 article in the American Conservative helped write Trump’s speech.

“I was a principal speechwriter for the speech,” FH Buckley, a law professor at George Mason University, told Time.com. “So it’s not an issue.”

Trump’s eldest son delivered the speech at the convention the day after his stepmother Melania Trump ran into trouble, when phrases from her keynote address were found to be nearly identical to a speech given by Michelle Obama to the 2008 Democratic convention.

The latest case of recycled language was spotted by The Daily Show, which set off an eruption of commentary on Twitter until Buckley came forward.

In his speech, Donald Trump Jr said:

“Our schools used to be an elevator to the middle class. Now they’re stalled on the ground floor. They’re like Soviet-era department stores that are run for the benefit of the clerks and not the customers.”

Buckley’s article read:

“What should be an elevator to the upper class is stalled on the ground floor.”

“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.”