ABC's Michael Falcone:
Sarah Palin plans to meet Tuesday night with Donald Trump in New York City, according to sources close to Trump.
Her office reached out to meet with Trump. The two plan to meet in his 45,000-square-foot apartment in Trump Tower and later plan to eat dinner together.
Sources say the restaurant will be low-key, not one of New York's more upscale dining establishements.
It's remarkable that Palin still wants to meet with Trump after his discredited birther push -- not to mention his other departures from orthodoxy, like pushing for seizing Iraq's oil wells.
Earlier this month, I chronicled the potentially, politically dangerous association for Palin.
Sarah Palin and businessman Donald Trump have formed a political bond, one united by their populist ideology and contempt for the mainstream media.
Their kinship grew during the height of the birther controversy. As Trump called on President Obama to release his birth certificate, Palin rose to Trump’s defense, excoriating the press.
She blamed the media, not Trump, for the business mogul’s fixation on birtherism, telling Fox News: “Donald Trump is the one being really treated unfairly, I’d say … in the press when they’re hammering him about the one issue … he’s merely answering reporters’ questions about his view on the birth certificate.”
To Palin, Trump’s crusade was merely a curiosity stoked by the media.
“The media is loving the fact that some curious Americans are actually asking the questions, and they’re trying to make those curious Americans sound kind of crazy,” she said about the birther movement one day before Obama released his long-form certificate.
When Obama released it, Palin promptly credited Trump for the action, tweeting, “Media, admit it, Trump forced the issue.”
For his part, Trump reveled in the attention Palin helped bring, telling The Wall Street Journal that she was “so gracious to me on the birther issue. I mean, she really thought that I was doing a great service.”
For better or worse, Palin has attached her seal of approval more clearly to the Trump phenomenon than any other potential presidential candidate.
I don't think Palin necessarily respects him for his positions, as much as she does his political celebrity, and particular, the idea that he was mistreated by the press.
She articulated just that last month (right before Obama released his certificate).
"Donald Trump is the one being really treated unfairly, I'd say, though, in the press when they're hammering him about the one issue that he has brought up and not been shy about, and that's the birth certificate.
He's merely answering reporters' questions about his view on the birth certificate, and then reporters turn that around and say 'That's all he's got. He's always only running on a birth certificate issue' when that's not the case."
