In a highly anticipated TV event with two of the GOP's biggest celebrities, Donald Trump told Sarah Palin on Friday that his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is "bringing back the silent majority" of Americans who "want to see America be great again."
"They want to see something incredible happen that is going to be great," Trump said on Palin's "On Point" program on the One America News Network.
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Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, also interviewed 2012 contenders Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz.
"If you look at what's happening to this country, it's so sad — and we're pointing it out," Trump said in explaining his strong poll numbers and large turnouts at rallies since his June 16 announcement. "We have tremendous support, tremendous standing ovations.
"There is a tremendous group of people out there who just want to see this country be great again," he told Palin. "That's what I'm seeing, and it's really resonating."
Interest in Palin's star-studded GOP lineup crashed the website for the small cable network hours before the interviews were set to take place.
One America News Network acknowledged the outage at 3:45 p.m. PT on Friday, citing widespread anticipation in the interviews.
"So much interest in the interview of Donald J. Trump, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz tonight by Sarah Palin at 10 pm EST that you crashed the oann.com website! It will be up shortly - Thank you for the interest in One America News Network," read the post.
OAN is only available in 12 million U.S. households.
In his interview, Bush said that it was critical for the candidates to discuss issues that help all Americans, as well as his support for helping children with special needs.
"There are a lot of things that government does that are broken, and the education system is a good example of that," the former Florida governor told Palin. "We have a duty to fix them, not necessarily spending more money, but by empowering people to live their lives with dignity and respect.
"This should be a very powerful conservative value," Bush said.
Cruz, the first-term Texas senator, emphasized the importance of religious liberty and said that on his first day as president, he would order the Justice Department and the IRS "that the persecution of religious liberty ends on that day.
"The IRS will not be persecuting anyone for their religious views or their faith."
He also called on the GOP-controlled Congress to "stand together and say that we are going to fund the rest of the government, but we're not going to fund Planned Parenthood."
Material from Reuters was used in this report.
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