Bob Vander Plaats is an influential Iowa pastor with a network whose support for Rick Santorum in 2012 helped boost Rick to the unexpected victory in Iowa. This time, Vander Plaats has endorsed and is campaigning for Ted Cruz, leading to another of those strange Donald Trump late-night Twitter rants calling Vander Plaats a “phony” and accusing him of — I’m not sure what — asking for free hotel nights from Trump?
Why doesn’t phony @bobvanderplaats tell his followers all the times he asked for him and his family to stay at my hotels-didn’t like paying
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2016
.@bobvanderplaats begged me to do an event while asking organizers for $100,000 for himself—a bad guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2016
Do you think @SenTedCruz knows about @bobvanderplaats dealings? Actually, I doubt it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2016
Vander Plaats brushed it off.
But is Trump going to do this from the White House for the next four years?
Maggie Gallagher is a senior fellow at the American Principles Project.
