It’s the story of the day. In her speech at the Republican Convention last night, Melania Trump plagiarized a section of a speech that Michelle Obama delivered at the Democratic Convention in 2008.

The Trump campaign is responding by denying reality, blaming others for their own mendacity and ineptitude and by trying desperately to make the whole story go away.

“There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values. She cares about her family,” Trump campaign chairman Paul Manfort said on CNN this morning. “To think that she’d be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.”

He also blamed the controversy on Hillary Clinton. “This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she seeks out to demean her and take her down. It’s not going to work,” he said.

So who wrote the speech. According to Melania Trump — she did. In an interview a few hours before the speech, Mrs. Trump told Matt Lauer, a host of NBC’s “Today Show,” that “I wrote it — with as little help as possible.”

Other reports from before she gave the speech last night said she had worked on the text with a speechwriter for five or six weeks. She told Lauer she’d looked at it once during the flight from New York to Cleveland, and when she delivered the speech last night she read it off a teleprompter.

Here’s the transcript:

Trump: “From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreamsand your willingness to work for them.”

Obama: “Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values – that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you saying you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect … because we want our children and all children in this nation to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dream and your willingness to work for them.”