July 20, 2016
John Fetterman, mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and former Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, started with jokes but added harsh words about Donald Trump's presidential campaign in a television appearance Tuesday night.
Fetterman, who recently endorsed presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton after previously supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders, kidded on "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" about Melania Trump allegedly plagiarizing parts of a speech made by first lady Michelle Obama eight years ago.
"I was in the green room going through Twitter, and apparently, Donald Trump's going to drop a Snapchat video of Melania on the phone with Michelle Obama, and Michelle saying, 'I'm going to let you have it," Fetterman said on the show.
He was referring to a recent Snapchat video from Kim Kardashian that appears to show her husband Kanye West getting quasi-permission from Taylor Swift to use her name in a song.
Ultimately, however, Fetterman said that whether or not Melania Trump wrote the speech – which contains two passages that bear a striking resemblance to pieces of Obama's 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention — is "beside the point."
"The fact is it's a dumpster fire," Fetterman said. "Like, the fact that a presidential campaign would even be dealing with something like this is appalling."
Fetterman would later add that the Trump campaign is "post-factual" while speaking on the Republican nominee's honesty. He also said that he sympathized with Melania Trump for being an immigrant and at the same time being married to a "xenophobe."
Fetterman ran for the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Pat Toomey against former Congressman Joe Sestak and Katie McGinty, former chief of staff to Gov. Tom Wolf.
McGinty won the nomination, while Fetterman came in third, garnering 19.8 percent of the vote.
