WASHINGTON -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she adamantly opposes the Obama administration's proposed Iran deal -- and again displayed her preference for "Mount McKinley" over "Denali" -- at a rally in front of the national Capitol Wednesday afternoon.
Palin joined Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a whole host of political characters -- including reality TV star Phil Robertson of "Duck Dynasty" fame -- at the rally.
The event was promoted by the Tea Party Patriots and the Zionist Organization of America in opposition to the Obama administration's proposed nuclear disarmament deal with Iran, though most speakers slid in a few other pet issues on the side. Palin indicated her McKinley preference as part of a metaphor regarding a uranium deal.
The proposed Iran deal will go to a vote in Congress some time this week, and so far, all signs point to the rally's purpose being for naught. By Wednesday afternoon, 42 senators had publicly agreed to vote in favor of the deal. That's not enough to approve it, but it means the Senate is far from mustering a two-thirds majority necessary to overturn the veto that President Barack Obama has promised.
Palin arrived on stage an hour earlier than scheduled, under a scorching hot sun on a clear, bright, 93-degree day.
"I never thought I'd say it, but I think you all are a lot tougher than Alaskans, being able to be out here," she told the crowd. "I'm roasting. I'm melting."
Hundreds had gathered to hear Palin, Trump, Cruz and others, sporting signs decrying the Iran deal with slogans like "Do not vote to fund another 9/11," "what part of death to America death to Israel don't you understand" and "BOEHNER MCCONNELL REPUBNICANT TRAITORS" -- referring to Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Throughout the rally, mentions of those Republican leaders received as many "boos" from the crowd as mentions of Democrats, including the president.
Palin got right to the point -- declaring that "Obama's deal is insane" and a "betrayal of America."
"Obama never even clenched a fist against a wicked regime where anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial is official ideology, and where state-sanctioned torture and killing of women just because they're women -- stoning, amputations -- those things that are just national policy," Palin said.
At one point, Palin was interrupted by a man who appeared to rush the stage and was nabbed by about four Capitol Police officers and escorted away. His purpose and statements were unintelligible from the press risers.
Palin, however, was clear in her opposition to negotiations with Iran at all, saying that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has the blood of U.S. soldiers on his hands, and "we dare shake that hand in negotiations?"
She appeared to prod at Obama's trip to Alaska, asking the crowd if they remembered Vice President Joe Biden saying in 2012 that Obama "carries a big stick."
"Well, little did we know he was talking about Obama's selfie stick," she said.
"Now, only in an Orwellian Obama world, full of sprinkley fairy dust blown from atop his unicorn as he's peeking through a really pretty pink kaleidoscope, would he ever see victory or safety for America or Israel in this treaty," Palin said.
And Palin took a swipe at Hillary Clinton and Obama's decision to change the name of Mount McKinley to Denali in the same go-around.
In somewhat twisted prose, Palin referred to a complicated web of interaction among the Clinton Foundation, a group of mining CEOs and a series of deals that led to Russian ownership of a great deal of U.S. uranium, and pinned the result on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Palin called it a "mistake so enormous, on such a grand, crony-capitalism scale that I can only compare its enormity to Alaska's Mount McKinley. It's that size."
Palin's daughter Bristol recently announced she too was against changing the mountain's federally recognized name to Denali, though the state did so in 1980.
Palin's previously stated opposition to the name change was matched by one of the day's other speakers -- presidential candidate, real estate tycoon and reality TV star Donald Trump. Trump has declared that if he becomes president, he will change the name back to Mount McKinley.
One of the stars of the day -- most campaign signs in the crowd appeared to support either Cruz or Trump -- he walked on stage to the blast of R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It" -- and the chorus never got to the line "and I feel fine."
Trump too blasted the Iran deal.
"I've been doing deals for a long time. I've been making lots of wonderful deals, great deals -- it's what I do. Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran," Trump declared.
If he is elected, American prisoners in Iran will be back on U.S. soil before he is even sworn in, Trump said. "I guarantee that. They will be back before I ever take office because they know that's what has to happen. They know it, and if they don't know it, I'm telling them right now.
"So, they rip us off, they take our money, they make us look like fools, and now they're back to being who they really are," Trump said, arguing that this deal with Iran and current leadership will amount to the death of Israel.
"We are led by very, very stupid people. Very stupid people. We cannot let it continue," Trump said.
He touted the country's $19 trillion debt, though in nearly the next breath, he promised to expand the military. "We're going to have such a strong military that nobody, nobody, is going to mess with us. We're not going to have to use it," he said.
"We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning," Trump said.
Trump and Cruz seemed split on the reality of the cash flow headed into Iran as a result of sanctions being lifted -- but both argued it to be well more than $150 billion.
Cruz argued in his speech that CEOs of banks can be held civilly liable for handing over money to Iran -- assets that are frozen by ongoing sanctions.
But negotiators have argued it's not up to the U.S. and American financial institutions. Iranian funds are not held in U.S. banks and thus not beholden to U.S. decisions about the deal. Other countries negotiating with the U.S. over Iran's nuclear capacity have approved the deal and moved forward to lift sanctions.
Cruz argued, however, that approving the deal would result in "billions of dollars" heading straight into the pockets of "radical Islamic terrorists across the world, and those jihadists will use those billions to murder Americans, to murder Israelis, to murder Europeans."
Cruz put the decision not just on the White House and Democratic supporters, though -- he argued that Republican leaders in Congress "can defeat this deal."
McConnell and Boehner could argue that the congressional review period for the deal has not begun since some of the terms of inspections remain secret, Cruz said.