melania trump borrowed from michelle obama for her speech at the republican convention where her husband was nominated for president. to defend him against charges of sexual harassment and groping, she had a different source: hillary clinton. she<u+2019>s parroting the arguments clinton used decades ago to defend her own cheating and lying spouse. <u+201c>i believe my husband,<u+201d> melania trump told anderson cooper this week when she finally broke her silence on donald<u+2019>s notorious 2005 conversation with billy bush and the growing number of women who have publicly accused trump of harassment or assault. trump<u+2019>s accusers are telling <u+201c>lies,<u+201d> melania said, and the media, of course, are part of the problem. <u+201c>i didn<u+2019>t expect media would be so dishonest and so mean. i didn<u+2019>t expect that,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>also for me, from the beginning, i never had one correct story <u+2014> one honest story.<u+201d> but there is something more sinister going on. <u+201c>this was all organized from the opposition,<u+201d> she explained. <u+201c>did they ever check the background of these women?<u+201d> sound familiar? <u+201c>the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president,<u+201d> hillary clinton told matt lauer in january 1998. hillary<u+2019>s conspiracy was on the right and melania<u+2019>s is on the left. other than that, it<u+2019>s the same argument. melania went further and bought into her husband<u+2019>s argument that he couldn<u+2019>t have harassed or assaulted a woman he deemed unattractive, even though such behavior is not about desire but power, control and hostility. <u+201c>i see many, many women coming to him and giving phone numbers and, you know, want to work for him <u+2014> inappropriate stuff from women,<u+201d> she said. i guess that trump politely deflected such advances, although melania did not say. and, of course, trump could not possibly have behaved differently when she was not there to see it. it<u+2019>s not surprising that a woman in melania<u+2019>s position would defend her husband, and publicly accept his apology. but melania<u+2019>s husband and his increasingly loopy surrogates (one said a labor department rule requiring financial advisers not to cheat their clients was like the dred scott decision) have been endlessly attacking clinton for defending her husband and criticizing his accusers. that<u+2019>s supposed to make us think that hillary is to blame for bill<u+2019>s misbehavior. in a particularly transparent ploy, trump even brought a few of those women to st. louis for his second debate with clinton. if we<u+2019>re supposed to blame hillary clinton for her husband<u+2019>s misdeeds, should we blame melania for donald<u+2019>s? maybe melania didn<u+2019>t know what she was going to say to anderson cooper. maybe the same writer who plagiarized michelle obama for the convention speech was whispering into a hidden earpiece. on the other hand, a political professional probably would not have encouraged melania trump to compare her husband to a small boy. <u+201c>sometimes i say i have two boys at home <u+2014> i have my young son and i have my husband,<u+201d> she said. that<u+2019>s what we need. a little brat in the oval office. correction: october 19, 2016 an earlier version of this column misstated the year in which hillary clinton spoke to matt lauer about a <u+201c>vast right-wing conspiracy.<u+201d> it was 1998, not 1988. follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion) , and sign up for the opinion today newsletter .
melania trump mimics hillary clinton to defend donald trump
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