Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told NBC’s “Today” on Monday morning that she never blamed President Barack Obama for her son’s post-traumatic stress while endorsing Donald Trump.
Palin tried to chastise “Today” hosts Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie for asking her why she appeared to lay the blame for her son Track’s PTSD at the President’s feet, insisting she had agreed to do the interview to talk about Iowa politics and “not to talk about my kids.”
“I never blamed President Obama,” Palin said. “What I have blamed President Obama in doing, though, is this level of disrespect for the U.S. military that is made manifest in getting budgets, in not trying to beef it up and let our military do the job that they are trained to do.”
Lauer told viewers there had been no agreement to avoid discussion of Palin’s son’s arrest or her comments during her endorsement of Trump.
Palin, who endorsed Trump in a rambling speech on Jan. 20 in Iowa, said her son’s arrest on suspicion of domestic violence the previous night made her “realize more than ever it is now or never for the sake of America’s finest that we have that commander-in chief-who will respect them and honor them.”
“They have to question if they’re respected anymore. It starts from the top,” she said. “The question, though, that comes from our own President where they have to look at him and wonder, ‘Do you know what we go through? Do you know what we’re trying to do to secure America?'”
Palin told the “Today” hosts she doesn’t regret those comments.
“I don’t regret any comment I made because I didn’t lay PTSD at the foot of the President,” she said. “I did say, though, and suggested very adamantly, that there is much more that our commander-in-chief could do to prove that he respects our troops and will let them do their job.”
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