Donald Trump tells TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie he hasn’t discussed the possibility of Sarah Palin being his running mate — but there “certainly would be a role somewhere in the administration” for her if he was elected.
“I haven’t discussed anything with her about what she’d do, but she’s somebody I really like and I respect, and certainly she could play a position if she wanted to,” Trump said of the former Alaska governor, who threw her backing behind the real estate mogul on Tuesday.
While Trump insisted he hasn’t considered vice presidential candidates yet, he said he doubts Palin would be interested because “she’s been through that,” referring to her role as the 2008 running mate of Sen. John McCain.
Trump hopes Palin’s formal backing, the highest-profile endorsement yet for the Republican front-runner, could provide the boost he needs to distance himself from rival Ted Cruz. The Texas senator has been his closest competitor in numerous polls in Iowa, which will hold the nation’s first presidential primary contest on Feb. 1.
“Every candidate wanted Sarah. Everybody. They all respect her a lot,” Trump said.
He noted that Palin approached him about throwing her support for his campaign in a string-free endorsement.
“She never said, ‘Gee, I’d like to do this, I’d like to do that.’ She never made a deal, like so many people want to try to make deals,” he said. “She just said, ‘I really like what’s going on. It’s an amazing thing. I’ve never seen anything like it in politics.’”
Palin made her announcement Tuesday at a rally in Iowa. “Are you ready for the leader to make America great again?” Palin asked the crowd. She then took a jab at the Republican establishment for turning against Trump because of his brash style. “What he has been able to do, which is really ticking people off, which I’m glad about — he’s going rogue left and right,” Palin said, referencing the name of her 2009 memoir. This story originally appeared on TODAY.com
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