PHOENIX — Donald Trump ended a week of fundraising and campaigning across the country Saturday on a self-congratulatory note, telling a crowd here: "I feel like a supermodel, except like times ten."
"It's true. I’m a supermodel. I’m on the cover of these magazines — I’m on the cover of the biggest magazines," Trump told the crowd of around 4,500.
Trump’s tendencies to praise the attention his campaign has received hit a new high on a day in which temperatures outside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum passed 110 degrees. Trump later added: "It’s not about me ... I'm doing a good job as a messenger. But I’m a messenger."
Earlier, Trump praised former Arizona governor Jan Brewer — who signed a strict immigration measure in 2010 as governor and has been a staunch supporter of the presumptive GOP nominee — as "an amazing person.”
"You know, it's not nice to say about a woman, but you are tough, aren't you?” Trump said. “She is tough, she's smart," he said.
Related: Trump Threatens to Self-Fund if GOP Support Wavers
Before the event, Brewer took the stage and pronounced to the crowd: “We need to keep Arizona red!”
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio also helped introduce Trump to the stage. Arpaio, the longtime, forceful critic of illegal immigration, was found by a federal judge last month to be in contempt along with his sheriff’s office for continuing law enforcement practices previously found by the judge to be racial profiling.
Arpaio, addressing the crowd from the stage prior to Trump’s arrival, took an apparent shot at current Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey for not publicly backing Trump by name. Ducey has said he would support the nominee but has not appeared in public with Trump.
Ducey did, however, attend a Trump fundraiser prior to the rally, held at the home of GOP donors.
Related: Trump Claim That Muslims Don't Assimilate Called 'False' By PolitiFact
U.S. Sen. John McCain, in the midst of reelection fight, did not attend Trump’s rally. His campaign spokeswoman said he had his own "campaign activities" on Saturday.
But McCain’s opponent in the state’s August primary, former state legislator Kelli Ward, roamed the crowd and told NBC News: "We’re at a Trump rally — they’re hungry for change, they’re disappointed, disgusted, frustrated, angry, upset at the DC insider establishment, and John McCain is the poster boy for insider politics."
