Sarah Palin joined TODAY on Monday to talk about the Republican hopefuls in the Iowa caucuses, and she also addressed controversial comments she made on the campaign trail involving PTSD and President Obama.
The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, who endorsed Donald Trump in a speech in Iowa two weeks ago, told Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie that she likes the billionaire real estate mogul’s chances when Iowans head to the polls Monday night.
“I believe that he will win Iowa,” she told Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie. “Iowa voters, too, are ready for restoration to constitutional government again, and Donald Trump is the one that can do this.”
Palin had previously supported Trump’s closest rival in the polls, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, during his election to Congress, but said it “wasn’t [a] tough” decision to throw her weight behind Trump, a political novice, for the GOP nomination.
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“I support (Cruz) being there in the Senate to be a fighter for the American people for our will. I want to keep him in the Senate, and I want Donald Trump to be our president,” she said.
Palin also addressed whether Trump was a “true conservative” despite the fact that he’s given generously to Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton, in the past.
“You compare him to someone like Ronald Reagan, who…at one point, he was a registered Democrat even, and then he saw the light,” Palin said.
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“I am so glad that Donald Trump is on our side when it comes to the political spectrum. We should celebrate that he has come over on the right side.”
Palin also addressed the controversial comments she made at a Trump rally on Jan. 20 in which she said the arrest of her son, Track, on a domestic violence charge earlier in the month was due to post traumatic stress disorder. During those remarks, she looped President Obama into the fray, seemingly suggesting that Obama’s lack of “respect” and “honor” for vets had affected her son’s condition. RELATED: Bristol Palin on Tina Fey’s ‘SNL’ skit: ‘Like nails on a chalkboard’ “I never blamed President Obama,” Palin said on Monday. “What I have blamed President Obama in doing, though, is this level of disrespect for the United States military that is made manifest in getting budgets, in not trying to beef it up and let our military do the job that they are trained to do.” “What did I say that’s offensive. I don’t regret any comment I made because I didn’t lay PTSD at the foot of the president,” she continued. “I did say, though, and suggested very adamantly, that there is much more that our commander-in-chief could do to prove that he respects our troops and let them do their job.”
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