On a special holiday edition of Breitbart News Daily, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin reflected on her experiences in the 2008 presidential campaign, her life after politics, the incoming Trump administration, and the role she might play in the years ahead.
Palin found some humor in the way liberals called her “sexist,” even though she argued she is “one of the most genuine feminists that ever can be, and that is truly believing that God’s created us equal.”
LISTEN:
SiriusXM host Alex Marlow noted that Palin’s 2008 candidacy inspired many women, including his wife, to shift to the Republican Party precisely because Palin offers a real example of what women can accomplish – unlike Hillary Clinton, who “is where she is because she married a powerful man.”
Palin said it was “very cool” to hear that about Marlow’s wife. “That just makes my day,” she said, a wee bit tearfully. “I just love hearing that. Thank you!”
She added the observation that Hillary Clinton “stood by a cheating man” to the critique of Clinton’s position at the head of politicized feminism.
“I’d have none of that,” Palin declared firmly.
“What they have created, unfortunately, is this message to little girls, young women, that they need Big Daddy Government to provide for them, that they’re incapable of providing for themselves, being independent, and pulling themselves up from the bootstraps and making it,” she continued. “That’s so unfortunate, and it’s the antithesis, really, of feminism and understanding equal rights. It’s just such a ruse.”
“And yeah, Hillary’s been a part of that, so those who want government to pay for their cell phone, and their birth control, and their housing, and everything else – and particularly they push so hard for women to receive a lot of gimmes, even though if they’re able-bodied they can get out there and work for it like the rest of us do. They’re sending that message that I’m afraid would make young women feel like, ‘Oh, well if our leaders are saying that, I am just a little girl here who can’t make it on my own. I guess I need Big Daddy Government.’ So that’s unfortunate,” she said.
Marlow asked if Palin would consider a post in the Trump administration such as secretary of the interior, given her experience with energy and environmental issues as Governor of Alaska.
“I told Mr. Trump early, early on that I’m a believer that you don’t need a title, and you don’t need an office to make a difference,” she replied. “I’m sincere. I told him that, and maybe he’s taking it absolutely literally, and I’m not offered a post – which, however it goes, is fine with me. I just voted for him to be the leader of the free world, our President, so I trust him to build a team that works for him.”
“He’s going to have good people around him to change policy that has been shoved down America’s throat, unfairly and unconstitutionally, and that is going to do wonders for, not just our psyche, but our economy, practical things, and national security. The things that Trump and his team will be able to undo, and then the things that he will be able to do, that he has promised to do – it’s all good,” she predicted.
Palin said Trump has “already showed us that he’s going to hit the ground running, and he’s done that through this record-setting transition team process that he’s going through.”
“We need that, we expect that. We expect no betrayals,” she said. “No betrayals this time. America can’t take another political betrayal. So the things that have been promised, we voted for them, we expect them, and we are going to hold everybody’s feet to the fire – everybody on that team, the President included. And I say this with all due respect, but it’s going to be our job as voters to hold everybody accountable.”
“What I expect in the first hundred days is implementation of policies that will undo this administration that had operated independent of the electorate, like with Obamacare, and with the omnibus, and those things that Congress actually capitulated on, and allowed Barack Obama to do to us,” she said. “In the first hundred days, Trump can undo what the administration had done unconstitutionally.”
Palin further argued that agencies like the IRS which have been “weaponized against us, against We the People – no more of that. In the first hundred days, he can do whatever needs to be done to take those weapons away from our own government agencies, who seek to harm the people.”
Marlow asked about the Palin family’s Thanksgiving traditions. Palin said one of them was, “We go around the room – and it’s a big room by now, with a big growing family – and I ask everybody, what are you thankful for, and what do you want to do to make the world a better place in the coming year?”
“I know that, I think 100 percent of the family members this go-around are going to say they’re very thankful that the people elected Donald Trump. We feel more secure,” she said.
She said the Palin family would be obliged by a combination of home remodeling and the quest for better winter sports conditions to drive a few hours from home for the holiday. When Marlow asked what they usually discuss during Thanksgiving, she gave the quintessential Alaskan answer: “snow.”
“We talk about how lucky we are to live in this paradise, where we get to get out and enjoy God’s green earth, or in our case God’s white earth,” she said joyfully. “The natural resources that we have all around us in Alaska! Alaska is so doggone blessed, because we get to look outside our window and say, ‘Yes, the hand of God is here. Look at the majesty all around us!’ We’re all very thankful for that. I’m very grateful that even the littlest ones in our family realize how different it is up here, culturally and resource-wise, how rich this place is. I’m sure everybody will express some appreciation for that, too.”
Inspired by Marlow’s comment that everyone needs to get off the grid, especially after such an acrimonious election season, Palin said she would add a new tradition this year: a Thanksgiving bucket, into which all guests would be required to deposit their cell phones until dinner was over.
“That doggone phone’s always in my hands, too,” she confessed. “It isn’t good, and that’s not how we were created. Technology is so wonderful, but it can be used for evil or for good. We have to make sure we’re not crossing that line.”
She said her husband Todd was her best teacher on this point because “he despises the cell phone,” and is perhaps even “a little bit harsh, but really good” at reminding his family to “put the damn phone away and get outside and play.”
Palin said her family has been doing great, celebrating the wedding of her daughter Bristol to Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer as a particular highlight. She lauded Meyer as “a very smart young man and politically astute, very impassioned about America,” and “just such a wonderful addition to the family.”
When Marlow asked if Meyer might one day have a political career, she said “he does have a political future if he would choose to do such a thing, he’d be good for the country.” She recommended him for “governor of Kentucky, if not Alaska, because he’s from Kentucky.”
“I tell him all the time, you don’t want to be in the Senate do you? Because unless you have a President you can work with, and team members all around you, reinforcements all around you, you’re going to be beating your head against the wall,” she said. “Because he’s so America First, unless he has colleagues agreeing to that, I think he’d be pulling his hair out.”
As for herself, she wryly noted that “transition meetings are going on in New York, while I’m on the other side of the world,” so the likelihood of an appointment to the Trump Administration seemed minimal.
“It goes without saying that family will be first,” Palin declared. “But then I want to help people like you, Alex, and those who work for outlets that don’t want to be a part of this corporate media that has so adversely affected truth and the things that America stands for. It’s been so bad what this unjust media has done to the country. So for those of you who are working so hard to tell the truth, I will be a part of that somehow.”
“It’s funny that politics and the media, the two most influential aspects of society – also the most controversial aspects of society, I believe – they’ve been in my heart since I was a little girl,” she reflected. “I always wanted to be a sports reporter. I always wanted to do the news. When I was a little kid, I think there was one woman sports reporter at the time, Willow Bay, I’ll never forget her. And I always wanted to do something in politics. That just grows as a passion in me. It’s not diminished at all. So somehow touching both is what I will do.”
At the moment, she still named Facebook as the primary venue for her writing, although she allowed that she doesn’t like “driving traffic to Mark Zuckerberg.”
“I haven’t like that for years, but that’s been the best format for us, for now,” she said. “But I’m working to change that. I don’t like driving that traffic, and the revenue, to Zuckerberg’s people there on Facebook, knowing that that money will go to liberal causes that try to undo everything that we’re doing. So we’re working on getting away from Facebook.”
Having said that, she added “I am a believer in preaching outside of the choir,” and “infiltrating and influencing pop culture.”
“That’s why Todd and I, we haven’t hesitated doing some of the reality-type shows or hits that we’ve done because it’s like, hey, this is another reason why Donald Trump won. People knew him through pop culture,” Palin observed. “Pop culture, as Andrew Breitbart used to say, is downstream from politics. So Donald Trump was able to tap into that … one of the elements of the perfect storm that he is was already his notoriety and his influence on pop culture. That was one of the things that he brought to the table that certainly I recognized early on, and said yep, he’s the one, because he taps into the pop culture thinking.”
“I don’t think any of us should hesitate to be a part of that, if we’re going to do it for good,” she advised her fellow conservatives.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
Listen to the complete audio of Palin’s interview above.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.