The dissection of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech began before he even delivered it Thursday evening.
The Republican presidential nominee is set to formally accept his party’s nomination in Cleveland, but hours before the speech copies of the remarks appeared online. According to Politico, a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton blasted the text out on its email list.
The PAC, Correct the Record, mocked the campaign for letting the Democratic-allied group get ahold of the speech ahead of delivery. The group’s founder, David Brock, said it was obtained from “a Republican source who had access to it and they sent it to us” but would not identify the source by name, only as a “legitimate Republican.”
Brock said the source was not planted by Correct the Record in the Trump campaign, and he said his group “took a little time” to verify that the speech was legitimate.
The draft was formatted for a TelePrompTer and time-stamped early Thursday afternoon, Politico reported.
The Republican Party remains divided over Trump’s improbable candidacy, with prominent members refusing to get behind the official nominee. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who also ran for the Republican nomination, caused a ruckus Wednesday evening when he gave a lengthy speech that failed to endorse Trump. Cruz only mentioned the nominee’s name once in his speech.