WASHINGTON — (CNN) John Kasich didn’t appear to sweat Sarah Palin’s new endorsement of Donald Trump.
“Good for Sarah, she’s back in the news again. God bless her,” the Ohio governor told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday.
The former governor of Alaska endorsed the GOP front-runner on Tuesday, lending Trump a star-powered boost in Iowa.
But Kasich said he doesn’t think Palin’s support will have much of an effect on the race in New Hampshire, where Kasich is working hard to compete. He was speaking with Blitzer from the trail in the Granite State.
“I always liked Sarah Palin. She speaks her mind and that’s good for Donald,” Kasich said. “But here in New Hampshire, they’re a lot more interested in the mayor of a small town here than they are somebody who comes from the outside.”
Kasich also didn’t make much of the deal struck over the weekend to release four Americans held prisoner in Iran, saying the administration doesn’t deserve much credit for negotiating their freedom.
Although Kasich said it was “really fantastic” for the families of those released, he said they were being held on “trumped-up charges.”
“To do somersaults over this is inappropriate. These people should never have been there,” Kasich said. “There’s no reason to have some big celebration of ‘We’ve had some big diplomatic breakthrough,’ because they only released people they shouldn’t have been holding in the first place.”
The Americans had been held in Iranian prison for years, facing sentences of decades in prison and potentially death.
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