Is Donald Trump’s run for the White House about to get even stranger?
The 2016 presidential campaign was awash with rumor and speculation on Tuesday that the stridently outspoken tycoon was set to secure the endorsement of the equally strident and outspoken Sarah Palin.
Mr Trump, on a three-stop visit to Iowa, promised reporters that a “special guest” would be present at the third and final of his stops.
Asked by a reporter at his first stop of the day what he thought of Ms Palin, Mr Trump replied: “I’m a big fan of Sarah Palin.”
Speculation has been growing about the identity of the special guest since Mr Trump told New Hampshire voters on Monday that he would be getting a “big endorsement” on Tuesday,
The Hill website reported that Ms Palin, the Republicans’ 2008 vice presidential candidate, backed Ted Cruz’s campaign for the senate. Yet she has repeatedly praised Mr Trump during his White House run, especially over his recent proposal to suspend the admission of Muslim refugees to the US.
She said last month: “What a nice problem to have if it came down to Cruz and Trump.”
Speculation that the former Alaska governor might be set to endorse Mr Trump intensified when a senior aide to Mr Cruz said he would be “deeply disappointed” if she did so. Though Ms Palin was a deeply controversial choice to be Senator John McCain's running mate in 2008, she remains hugely popular among some groups of American conservatives.
Mr Cruz communications director, Rick Tyler, was asked on CNN whether such an endorsement would be a blow to the senator’s campaign.
“I think it would be a blow to Sarah Palin, because Sarah Palin has been a champion of the conservative cause and if she was going to endorse Donald Trump, sadly she would be endorsing someone who's held progressive views all their life on the sanctity of life, on marriage, on partial-birth abortion, he supported the TARP bailout - it goes on and on and on,” said Mr Tyler.
“Donald Trump claims he's changed all those views. But I think if it was Sarah Palin, let me just say I would be deeply disappointed.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Trump stopped off at the John Wayne Birthplace Museum, where he received an endorsement from the film actor's daughter.
The endorsement from Aissa Wayne was announced in front of a life-size, gun-toting model of the actor in full cowboy gear. Ms Wayne says the country needs a strong and courageous leader like her father and that her father would back Mr Trump if he were still alive.
“I only met him once. He was amazing,” said Mr Trump. “He said some things to me that were very special.”
Mr Trump said the actor represented strength and power, things that the American people are looking for.
He added: “We have exactly the opposite from John Wayne right now in this country.”
