Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump and his ally Sarah Palin galvanized an overflow crowd estimated at over 15,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma Wednesday afternoon.
Palin took some not-so-subtle jabs at Ted Cruz and other Republicans for criticizing Trump’s New York background, while Trump said that Hillary Clinton might end up “in the clink.”
Palin called Trump “a redhead from the big red Apple” and turned her attention to Republicans attacking their own frontrunner. “They’re saying we’re not red enough, we’re not conservative enough. And I say, what the heck do they know about conservatism?”
Her jabs at Cruz, without mentioning him by name, were clear.
“His unifying values reach from big cities to small towns…to the Big Apple,” Palin said of Trump, assuring the crowd that Trump will “be the president for all Americans.”
Palin said that Trump’s campaign means that you don’t have to “think that if you live in one zip code or are one color…then you’re different than any other American. He is for equality.”
“Trump’s candidacy, this movement, this force, this strategy, proves that as long as the establishment gets to keep their titles, and their perks in DC, and their media ratings, they don’t really care who wins elections,” Palin said.
Trump, calling his campaign a “movement,” took the podium and took aim at Hillary Clinton, who is under FBI investigation for her private email use.
“I don’t know if Hillary is going to make it. She might not make it with the voters. She may not make it legally,” Trump said to a massive ovation, asking why Clinton is sucking up to President Obama in interviews and the debates.
“She wants to stay out of the clink, that’s why. Every single thing, oh she thinks the president is wonderful. She never thought the president was wonderful before. She couldn’t stand him, and frankly he couldn’t stand her…She wants to make it through this thing, and he has the power of the presidency.”
“Sanders, a socialist slash communist, is doing well. He’s beating Hillary Clinton. Can you imagine? He’s a wack job. He’s a wacko…Does anybody here mind paying 90 percent in taxes? That’s what Bernie wants to do.”
“They don’t control me,” Trump said of Washington donors. “It’s the establishment, they’re very upset.”
“People are sick and tired and fed up, and yes we’re angry,” Trump said to applause.
The line for Trump and Palin was out the door and around the block at Oral Roberts University’s Mabee Center.
Trump estimated that 15,000 people showed up for him, which he mentioned while railing against the media for not showing the size of the crowd except when there’s a protester. After the event’s second of three interruptions, Trump noted, “Look, the cameras are all turned now up there!”
“We are going to win!” Trump declared in his final statement before leaving the stage.
Trump, who has called himself “very conservative” for decades, addressed his New York City-based populist conservatism in a revealing interview with Larry King at the 1988 Republican National Convention, a quarter-century before his zip code came under Republican attack.
“You might be classified as an eastern Republican? Fair?” Larry King asked Trump.
“I guess you could say that, yes,” Trump replied but bristled at being called a Rockefeller Republican. “The people I do best with are the people who drive the taxis. You know, wealthy people don’t like me because I’m competing against them all the time and they don’t like me and I like to win.”
“The fact is, I go down the streets of New York and the people who really like me are the taxi drivers and the workers,” Trump continued. “I am a Republican because I just happen to believe in certain principles of the Republican Party.”