First Lady Melania Trump ripped off a 2014 Obama-era publication for her anti-cyberbullying campaign.
Trump launched the “Be Best” initiative to focus on children’s health, well-being, their activity online, and opioid addiction. She released a 27-page document outlining her plans with the Federal Trade Commission about keeping children safe online.
Trump gets an E for effort, but the only small issue is that the document copies word-for-word from a FTC pamphlet for the “Net Cetera” campaign, which started in 2009 under President Barack Obama. Of course it was altered to make an introduction from the First Lady, and some of the language was changed. But for the most part, it was a duplicate.
First Lady spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham told BuzzFeed News:
As it is clearly related to the social media portion of Mrs. Trump’s initiatives, it is a good resource to include with some of our Be Best materials. It was updated and edited to reflect today’s event and we were happy to be able to provide the children in attendance with such a resource.
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration was inspired by an Obama-era document. Melania plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
An associate director with the FTC, Nat Wood, says they worked with Trump to update and redistribute the early edition, and many organizations modify and reprint previous material.
