PHOENIX — When Donald Trump was giving his victory speech, cheerleader Jan Brewer was in a hospital emergency room, straining to watch what was happening on the TV.
The former Arizona governor wanted to be close when her candidate took the stage early Wednesday morning in New York City. In fact, she was heading there from the VIP area when she passed out.
Turns out she had pneumonia. And Brewer, now back in Arizona and still on antibiotics, said she still hasn’t seen the full video of what she missed.
“It was really sad for me,” Brewer told Capitol Media Services on Friday.
“I did work hard for him,” she continued. “I just kept pushing and pushing. And I didn’t get to see him do his victory speech.”
Brewer has been one of Trump’s key surrogates, appearing on national talk shows to explain his positions and defend him when there was negative news. It was Brewer, for example, who said that Trump was being “waterboarded” by women who had come forward to accuse him of sexual assault or harassment.
And Brewer wanted to be with Trump when the votes were counted.
“It’s a shame,” she said. “I went all that way and I was so excited.”
The former governor also said it was sweet that she predicted what others could or would not.
“I had that gut feeling in me for days,” Brewer explained. “It was so good to beat the pundits and the pollster and the media, you know?”
But the moment of victory occurred without her.
“I got down there (to the main floor), and I kept getting warmer and warmer,” Brewer recalled. “The next thing you knew I was on the floor.”
Some of what happened she reconstructed later with the help of her son, Michael, who was with her at the Hilton.
“I don’t remember falling, I don’t remember going to the ground, I don’t remember them getting me up,” she said of those in the crowd.
“But I remember them dragging me out of there, mad and upset,” she continued, “Of course I was upset.”
That led to the ambulance ride to Cornell Medical Center. Brewer said she figured she’d at least get to watch in real time what she could not be there to witness in person.
It was not to be.
She said hospital personnel did turn on the TV in the room.
“But they were bringing equipment in and poking me and doing CAT scans,” she said. “I couldn’t see it.”
Brewer said she did watch some clips when she got back home to Glendale. But she is counting on seeing the whole thing, beginning to end, on her computer.
“When I get a minute and am feeling really good I’ll turn it back on,” she said.
Brewer quipped that there was something positive that came out of the unexpected and unwanted trip to the hospital.
Before releasing her, they asked her a series of questions, like math and even what day it is, to ensure that the fall didn’t damage more than her arm and leg.
“I answered all of them,” she said proudly, saying that shows she’s still in control of her faculties. “I was comprehending pretty good.”
