Sarah Palin denies blaming President Obama for son’s PTSD struggles

In her first television interview since endorsing Donald Trump, Sarah Palin sat down with NBC “Today” show hosts Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday.

But things quickly turned sour when the former Alaska governor was asked about controversial comments she made at a Trump rally suggesting her son’s recent domestic violence arrest could be related to posttraumatic stress disorder from serving in Iraq and linking it to what she called President Obama’s lack of respect for war veterans.

“You guys brought me here to talk about Iowa politics and the caucus tonight, not to talk about my kids,” Palin said. “And that was a promise. But as things go in the world of media, you don’t always keep your promises, evidently.”

Lauer said there were no specific promises made about the content of the interview, “only that this would be your first interview since endorsing Donald Trump.”

“Well, I was told this interview was about the caucus tonight,” Palin said. “And, right on, who will it be to put America back on the right track and restore constitutional government we are lacking today that we so need. And I said, ‘Right on, let me go talk about that.’”

Palin’s son Track was arrested at the family’s Wasilla, Alaska, home last month and charged with assault, interference with the reporting of a domestic violence crime and possession of a firearm while intoxicated after his girlfriend told police he punched and kicked her before threatening to kill himself with an AR-15 rifle. The 26-year-old, who served in Iraq in 2008, reportedly told police the incident began when he learned she had been in touch with an ex-boyfriend.

“My son, like so many others — they come back a bit different. They come back hardened,” Palin said at a Trump rally in Tulsa, Okla., last month, a day after endorsing the Republican frontrunner. “They come back wondering if there is that respect for what their fellow soldiers and airmen and every other member of the military have given so sacrificially to this country, and that starts at the top.“

Palin: “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 and to secure the freedoms that have been bequeathed us?’”

Related: Veterans assail Palin for pinning son’s alleged domestic violence on PTSD

On the “Today” show, Palin denied she was placing blame on the president for her son’s PTSD struggles.

“I never blamed President Obama,” she said. “What I have blamed President Obama in doing though is this level of disrespect for the United States military that is being manifest in gutting budgets, in not trying to beef it up and let our military do the job that they are trained to do. And in specific issues that we’re talking about that are so hot today, specifically, let’s get in there and utterly destroy ISIS as we know our United States military can do, yet we have a commander in chief who seems to kind of want to kowtow, allow the enemy to be poking at us. And that’s unacceptable to most Americans, certainly to me.”

Palin was asked by Lauer if she regretted laying PTSD “at the foot of the president.”

“What did I say that was offensive?” Palin replied. “I don’t regret any comment that I made, because I didn’t lay PTSD at the foot of the president. I did say, though, and suggested very adamantly that there is much more that our commander in chief can do to prove that he respects our troops.”