Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin joined the Today show to talk about her endorsement of Donald Trump as Iowans go to caucus tonight for the Republican presidential primary.
“This was probably a tough call for you, between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump,” began Savannah Guthrie during the interview.
“It wasn’t tough,” Palin interrupted.
“Really,” Guthrie replied.
“No, it wasn’t tough,” she repeated.
Palin explained that she was happy to endorse Ted Cruz in his Senate race, because he was a fighter for the American people but that she wanted him to stay in Washington D.C.
“I want to keep him in the Senate, and I want Donald Trump to be our president,” she said.
Guthrie asked Palin if Trump was necessarily “the godly candidate” for evangelical voters.
“I hope voters aren’t trying to find the most Christian-y godliest candidate out there because who are we to judge one another’s level of faith – our Christian quotient if you will,” she said.
Host Matt Lauer suggested that perhaps Donald Trump wasn’t enough of a true conservative, citing his Democratic record.
Palin referred to Ronald Reagan, pointing out that she was “glad” that Donald Trump was a candidate that had “seen the light.”
Later in the show, Palin was asked by co-host Willie Geist about what she brought to Donald Trump’s campaign by endorsing him.
“I’m very, very conservative, very much a right-winger, proudly clinging to my God, my guns and my Constitution,” she said. “I think I speak for a lot of Americans who have those same values.”
Palin asserted that Trump was a constitutional conservative – and a political outsider that would help shake up Washington.
“I think people are craving honesty and candidness and folks who are outside of that permanent political class that have been kind of part of the problem and, certainly, on the Republican side of the fence,” she said. “That’s what we’re getting in Donald Trump’s candidacy, someone who is promising to restore Constitutional government, which is what we’ve wanted and expected.”
Geist asked Palin if there was any part of her that would be “proud” if Americans elected the first woman president by electing Hillary Clinton.
“Sure,” Palin responded, but added that she would prefer many other women to reach that historical milestone.
“That’s not going to happen though, so that’s such a hypothetical,” she concluded.
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