The first night of the 2016 Republican National Convention kicked off in Cleveland on Monday, July 18, with appearances from several politicians and stars, including presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, his wife, Melania Trump, and actor Scott Baio — and viewers just couldn’t get enough.
As Queen’s “We Are the Champions” played — without the band’s permission or blessing, it turns out — Donald, 70, took the Quicken Loans Arena stage, emerging as a dark silhouette through a foggy haze. Naturally, several celebs immediately took to social media to discuss the cheesy, dramatic entrance.
“This image will haunt me tonight,” Josh Gad captioned an Instagram photo of the shadowy businessman. Adam Levine posted a similar shot on his Instagram account, which he simply captioned, “NO.”
Earlier in the evening as coverage of the RNC began, Octavia Spencer compared the event to a “car wreck,” writing on Twitter, “I can’t look… but i can’t look away.”
The Huffington Post cofounder Arianna Huffington added, “Bar has been successfully lowered so that any speech not filled with hate, derision and contempt is a relief #RNCinCLE.”
Despite the countless comments regarding Donald’s theatrical arrival, the most talked about moment of the night turned out to be Melania’s seemingly plagiarized address. As previously reported, the Slovenian native’s speech was eerily similar to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention oration.
As Melania, 46, addressed the RNC delegates, one Twitter user shared a GIF of The Hunger Games’ robotic Capitol representative, Effie Trinket, saying, “Happy Hunger Games!” The user captioned the clip, “Melania Trump to America.”
Comedian Kathleen Madigan, however, praised the former model. “Well, Melania is better than Scott Baio. And better than the underwear model [Antonio Sabato Jr.] and Rudy [Giuliani]. And english is her 2nd language,” she wrote on Twitter.
Another Twitter user quoted Taylor Swift’s now-infamous Kimye phone call response, writing, “‘I’d very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I’ve never been asked to be apart of since 2015’ – Melania Trump right now.”
See more RNC reactions below!
