GOP Smacked: Simon Carswell’s Republican convention diary

Republican strategist defends Melania Trump’s plagiarism

Republican strategist Sean Spicer came out in force to defend Melania Trump, the billionaire's wife, from claims that she plagiarised parts of her Monday-night speech from Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech.

Referring to Melania and Michelle’s shared “the strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them” line, he turned to unlikely source material to show how overlapping words are easy to find.

"Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony said, 'this is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams, you can do now," he told CNN.

Spicer is a proud Irish-American. His great-grandfather William Spicer emigrated from Kinsale and received the medal of honour for sweeping mines for the US Navy in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 1898 during the Spanish-American war. Following the family tradition, Spicer did some mine-sweeping of his own in Cleveland this week.

Farage on Trump: He makes me wince It says something about your party's now-confirmed nominee for the US presidency when he makes Nigel Farage uncomfortable.

The "Brexiter" – no stranger at American conservative events – paid a visit to the Republican convention as an "observer." Since encouraging the British people to leave the European Union and exiting stage right, the former UKIP leader seems to have toned things down.

At a media-hosted event around the convention, he said he understood how Donald Trump was trying to appeal to frustrated and "scared" voters but "just occasionally the style of it, that makes even me wince a little bit".

He described some of Trump’s rhetoric as “pretty out there,” pointing out his proposed ban on Muslims was “difficult to enforce”.

Much like many of the pro-Brexit campaign’s promises then.

Quote of the day

“It was easy to come out as a trans, it was harder to come out as a Republican”

– transgender activist and Olympic gold medallist Caitlin Jenner speaking at an LGBT brunch on the fringes of the GOP convention.

Number of the day

96 – number of times Hillary Clinton was mentioned in prepared texts of the speeches on Tuesday night's "Make America Work Again" agenda at the Republican convention. Trump was mentioned 60 times.