Did Trump plagiarize Obama’s congratulatory tweet?

Rumours are circulating that claim Donald Trump plagiarised a tweet used in 2008 by President Obama while congratulating his wife Melania on her speech at the recent GOP convention.

The rumours assert that Trump tweeted the same exact message when congratulating his wife Melania has Obama used back in 2008 when congratulating Michelle.

The rumours are spreading via alleged screenshots of tweets as you can see below.

It was truly an honor to introduce my wife, Melania. Her speech and demeanor were absolutely incredible. Very proud! #GOPConvention

It was truly an honor to introduce my wife, Michelle. Her speech and demeanor were absolutely incredible. Very proud! #DemConvention

Of course these messages are spreading at a time when Melania Trump has been accused by many of basing her convention speech from the same script that Michelle Obama used during the 2008 Democratic convention. And now Trump is being accused of using the exact same congratulatory tweet as Obama used in 2008.

Sponsored Content. Continued below...

However the rumours appear to be a hoax. While the Trump tweet is very much real, there is no evidence that Obama tweeted the same thing back in 2008. An advanced Twitter search reveals no such tweet for the entirety of 2008 when searching for the name ‘Michelle’.

Additionally, it appears the screenshot of the Obama tweet has been photoshopped. For one, the profile picture used in the screenshot of Obama’s tweet (incidentally his current profile picture) shows an older, greyer Obama that was clearly a photo taken much more recently than 2008, thus could not have been the profile picture he used back then. A Google search of historic tweets made by Obama shows he used a different profile picture back in 2008.

Thus Trump did not plagiarise an earlier 2008 tweet by Obama, since the 2008 Obama tweet is not real.