Trump on Cruz: ‘He had his moment and he blew it’

During an interview with CNN host Don Lemon, Trump said he told Palin she should talk about her 26-year-old son, who was arrested Monday night in Alaska after his girlfriend said he punched her in the head. In any case, having Trump out on the hustings praising Palin will remind many party actors of the weakness of his attachment to the party and of how little they can trust him either as their nominee or as president. “Cruz, he’s exhibited behavior in his time in the Senate that make it impossible for me to believe that he could bring this country together”, Graham said.

Trump also lamented that media outlets rarely show the large crowds that come to his rallies, referring to the camera crews at the event as “sleazebags”. “We’ve got to get things done folks, OK? And what it really signifies is their hatred for Ted Cruz”, Limbaugh said on his nationally syndicated radio program. Trump is “greatly honored to receive Sarah’s endorsement”, he said in response, adding: “She is a friend, and a high-quality person whom I have great respect for. Would that be a blow to the Cruz campaign?”

Cruz responded to the Trump endorsement by saying he “loves” Palin and will always be her fan.

“We’re going to protect the people in this room and what they love”, he told those gathered in an ornate ballroom at the Venetian resort casino.

It was an effort by the billionaire developer to draw contrasts with Ted Cruz, his top rival in the February 1 Iowa caucuses.

And Cruz has spent much of his adult life in considerably elite quarters, with stints at Princeton and Harvard and a Supreme Court clerkship followed by time as a White House aide before becoming a USA senator.

Palin said military members look at Obama and question whether he knows the sacrifices they make to “secure America and to secure freedoms”. She offered up lots of red meat for conservatives, especially haters of President Barack Obama, whom she called a “weak-kneed capitulator-in-chief”.

Warning of “cataclysmic” and “wholesale losses” for the Republican Party if Cruz prevails, Dole, who unsuccessfully challenged then Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1996, said Cruz had made enemies in Washington.