Palin overwhelmed the Republican frontrunner, who has considered her for his team, with praise: ‘Everything about Donald Trump’s campaign is ... avant garde’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

It sounded like a match made in Tea Party heaven and did not disappoint. Sarah Palin and Donald Trump teamed up for a celestial voyage to the solar system where Trump is beloved, Trump is right, and Trump will win.



Palin, moonlighting as a guest host on the One America News Network, promised their encounter on Friday night would be the “interview of the year”. In a strange way, it was compelling.

Nothing substantial happened, but here was Trump subject to gushing adoration, a heroic leader invited to share his wisdom and courage, leaving him unchallenged – and unmoored. The fantasies took flight.

“I’ve said it since the day he made the sacrifice to hit the campaign trail: voters crave the anti-status quo politician,” said Palin, John McCain’s surprise pick for vice-president in 2008, in her introduction, seated alone in a studio that could have been the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

“They want results. They need someone to fire all the politically correct police. This is a movement.” It was a movement so radical, so inspiring, it moved Palin to speak French. “Everything about Donald Trump’s campaign is … avant garde.”

So great was the leading Republican candidate’s star power that hours before the interview viewers trying to figure out how to access the little-know subscription network crashed its website.

“He is crushing it in the polls,” beamed Palin, the obverse to Fox’s grand inquisitor, Megyn Kelly. “Viewers … he’s talking to you. He wants to connect with those who are showing up at the polls.” If this was journalism, it was not as we know it.

Trump appeared via video feed from New York, a plush shopping mall in the background, with his daughter Ivanka’s store over his shoulder in some nifty product placement.

How is the US economy affecting the less fortunate? asked Palin, because: “I know that’s where your heart is … in this working class.”

The billionaire famous for firing people nodded.

“Well, if you really look, Sarah, it’s been terrible. We’ve lost a tremendous amount of jobs to China, to Japan, to Mexico and to so many other places. It’s really very sad.”

That day’s headlines complicated things: the Commerce Department revised economic growth in the second quarter to a robust annual clip of 3.7% and the Labor Department reported another drop in weekly unemployment claims.

Palin was not fooled.

“I don’t think we’re getting the true state of the economy out of the White House,” she said. “So thanks for setting that straight.”

“Yeah,” said Trump. “The White House is not truthful.”

The interrogation moved to Trump’s yearning for fairness and a simplified tax code and his “reasonating” with the middle class. Palin then marvelled at his “connection” with military veterans and attributed it to the “respect that they have for a truth-talker”.

Trump reciprocated, lauding the former Alaska governor’s own connection with the military.

“That’s one of the reasons I like you and your family so much,” he said.

By this point, any hope that Palin might ask about his insults against Kelly and women, or McCain, vanished into a black hole.

Earlier in the show she had interviewed Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, each beaming in remotely, and lobbed softballs about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama conspiring with socialists, Islamic State, Iran, the Internal Revenue Service and Planned Parenthood to sabotage American greatness.

She was respectful with Bush and effervescent with Cruz. But she saved her ardour for “the Donald”.

Palin asked about misrepresentation by “idiots in the press” and his showdown this week with the Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, who was briefly expelled from a press conference for challenging Trump over his vow to deport 11 million undocumented people.

“You schooled that radical activist and it was the right thing to do, because I don’t think he’s going to pull that again,” said Palin, apparently unaware of Ramos’s rottweiler tendency. “Where do you get your guts for that kind of necessary confrontation?”

Trump seemed so abashed by such sycophancy he paused – a genuine, actual Trumpian pause, rarer than the eastern crowned warbler – and seemed transported to television heaven, perhaps a dreamy return to The Apprentice where he was being hit on for a job. He has, after all, floated the idea of Palin running on his ticket or serving in his cabinet.

Ramos, said Trump, recovering, was a screaming, ranting raver. And for once the media sided with virtue, he said.

“The press were pretty good to me on that,” he said. “They agreed with what I did.”

Plenty did not, in fact, agree with the treatment of the Latino Walter Cronkite. But Palin moved on to the journalists who quizzed Trump about his favourite Bible verse, calling it “gotcha” journalism designed to catch conservatives off guard.

“I love the Bible,” said the real-estate mogul. “My first favourite book by far is the Bible.” His favourite verse was a personal matter which he preferred to keep to himself, however.

The latest poll, he added, showed him leading with GOP evangelicals as well as with Tea Party members, moderates, the poor and the rich.

“We won on every category,” he said. “I’m very happy.”

One more question, said Palin, blowing her final rose petal. “What is next? Because we know you’re going to keep rolling down the trail.”

Trump purred. He was going to spread the love to Massachusetts, Iowa and New Hampshire. “They want to see something happen, see America be great again. We’re bringing back the silent majority.”

He gazed at his No 1 fan. “I have to tell you, Sarah, you’re a terrific person and it’s great to be with you.”

Palin gazed back. “Thank you so much, Donald Trump. Get out there and let the people know what you stand for!”

One America News Network: a love-fest boldly going where no network has gone before. The faithful were doubtless transported. Those marooned on Earth could only gape.