Bonus Grading Melania Trump's Convention Speech Public Speaking Communication

Last night, Melania Trump addressed the nation by giving a speech at the Republican National Convention. How did she do? I want to grade her at two levels. First is the practical, the delivery level, the style level. The second will be the substantive level on the style, the delivery, the mechanics. I give her an A. Folks, it is difficult to give a speech in front of an audience that large, knowing that everyone in the country is. A lot of people around the world are watching you. Tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people watching around the world. Teleprompters. It's for most people, a scary, difficult situation. And what happens to most people, even savvy politicians who've given thousands of speeches, is they get scared, and all of a sudden they start to sound wooden. They speak at the same speed, the same tone, the same. She didn't do that. She came across relatively conversational. She didn't freeze her body, she moved her head, she moved her hands, she moved her body, she moved her face. All of that. Great. She varied her speed great. Sometimes a little faster, sometimes slower. She also didn't commit the cardinal blunder so many people make, even experienced politicians like Al Gore. She didn't yell. A lot of times, people get up in front of that many people, psychologically, they feel like they need to yell in order to be heard, and it comes across as shrill. She didn't do that. So she was clearly rehearsed. She came across comfortable, confident, polished, relaxed. She might have been extremely nervous, in fact, I'm sure she was, but she didn't project that beyond that. And sorry to sound superficial, but this is how a lot of people are judging men and women. She looked fantastic. So at the delivery level, the style level, the mechanics of speaking, I give her an A. Now, let's switch over to the substance. This is truly a bizarre speech. Bizarre situation in that a speech like this basically writes itself. You have a speechwriter come in and ask you a few questions. So tell me about a time when your husband showed great loyalty to you. Show me about a time when your husband really sacrificed something for himself, for the betterment of you or your kids. Tell me what it's like living with him. Does he bring you coffee in the morning? This speech had not a single solitary story about Donald Trump. To me, that is truly bizarre, and that's why I've got to give the substance level of the speech an F minus. Now, since the speech came out, many commentators have noticed that there appears to be some plagiarism, or at least some bizarre similarities between this speech And Michelle Obama's speech eight years ago. That part doesn't even bother me because she didn't steal the good parts of the speech. What bothers me is the speech is so abstract, so generic. My husband is strong. Donald Trump is strong, he's forceful, he gets things done. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine a first term congressman who had never met Donald Trump giving the exact same speech. And that's a big problem. Furthermore, the speech the congressman gives, it Sounds like a 22 year old staffer wrote it the night before. And now that we know that so much of the speech sounds exactly like Michelle Obama's, it Sounds like that 22 year old staffer went to the Hawk and Dove bar in Capitol Hill, got drunk and then Woke up at 4am and wrote the speech because there was no time left. Folks, part of what you look at in a speech is figuring out what are my goals, what am I trying to accomplish? Presumably, her goal is to make people like Donald Trump more feel comfortable about him. I mean, the big knocks regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. Conservatives have noted this is that Donald Trump seems like a complete egomaniac. Someone who never thinks about anyone other than himself, someone who is never selfless, someone who's never loyal. So the fact that she didn't come up with a single story of talking about how Donald put her first or the kids first or the family first is truly bizarre. And that's why I have to give this speech an F minus again. I understand many of the critics are giving her positive reviews. Those who aren't are fixating on the plagiarism thing, which I'm not as troubled by. I just think her number one goal was to make people feel like Donald Trump is a human by sharing real stories, real examples of how he is on a daily basis at home living with this person. What does he ever do to show he thinks about other people, possibly his wife, and not a single example came up. That's why I have to give the speech an F minus now. In her defense, maybe those examples don't exist.