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GLENN: We have Sarah Palin on the phone with us. Where are you, Sarah?
SARAH PALIN: I am in Phoenix, Arizona.
GLENN: Phoenix? That's kind of the anti‑Alaska.
SARAH PALIN: We're thawing out.
GLENN: Let me ‑‑ first of all I want to talk about your new book, America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag and we'll get to that in a second, but there's so much to talk about. There's the TSA, the pat‑downs. China and Russia said today that they are quitting the U.S. dollar. There's north and South Korea, but I want to start with the tough question and that is are you considering running for president just so you can try Jennifer Grey for war crimes?
SARAH PALIN: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, let's get right to the Dancing With the Stars.
GLENN: Yeah. I mean, let's go right for the war crimes of Jennifer. Seriously, war crimes or just ‑‑
PAT: You hate her, don't you? How much do you hate her for beating Bristol?
SARAH PALIN: Can you believe how people are just so wacko?
GLENN: They're so nuts about this and it's like, it's ‑‑ we were talking about it last hour. The guys were joking about all of this about how much you just hate Jennifer Grey now and they are just trying to cause trouble for you. And ‑‑ because you don't have enough. And I said, do you know a soul that really even cares about this? I mean, it's a stupid show; let it go, people. Let it go.
SARAH PALIN: Well, even as Mark Ballas, Bristol's partner, said, you know, we're talking about a little disco ball here and there's a lot going on in the world today. Really? Is this what we're going to talk about?
GLENN: It's really nuts. So let's ‑‑
SARAH PALIN: It's nuts.
 America by Heart : Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag by Sarah Palin |
GLENN: Let's not talk about that. Well, you know what? Actually let me transition from Bristol to the book in this regard. You talk in the book a lot about family. You have the new TV show, which is tremendous, by the way. I think you're out of your mind.
SARAH PALIN: (Laughing).
GLENN: I saw you climbing the side of a mountain and I'm like, I don't know. I mean, is there food up there or something that is making this worthwhile?
PAT: Glenn wants to trade places with you, Sarah. He wants you ‑‑
GLENN: No, I don't.
PAT: You live in New York for a week and he'll climb glaciers in Alaska for a week.
SARAH PALIN: Try to exchange the jungle environment?
GLENN: Yeah, yeah, you go ahead.
PAT: Sit in meetings all day long with ‑‑
GLENN: People who just don't get it, ever? Ever?
PAT: Well, with the exception of some in those meetings who always get it.
GLENN: Really? No, no.
PAT: No?
GLENN: I can't think, with the exception of anyone.
PAT: All right.
GLENN: But the one thing that my wife and I were talking about is the exposure of your family. And I know the press has exposed the family, but you don't seem to have a problem with that. What do you think the effect of all of this is on your kids?
SARAH PALIN: Well, I'm just dealing with reality knowing that they're not going to let up until the collective will of the people is to remind the press that kids should be off limits. And in our case that just isn't happening yet. So I deal with the reality as it is and remind my kids that maybe in our culture there's not a lot of justice in terms of kids being left alone to just be kids and make mistakes but learn as they go and overcome challenges, you know. My kids have the same story as every other kid in this world.
GLENN: But my kids are left alone. I mean, but I just don't, I don't ever, ever put them in front of a camera. You know, anybody takes a picture of my kids, I go all TSA on them.
SARAH PALIN: Yeah, here's the deal. Here's the deal, what we got ourselves into, I guess, was there on the national stage, literally there at the GOP convention when I, being so proud of my family, bringing them on stage like every other politician has done since the beginning of time, being charged then with exploiting my kids and here I'm looking around going, wait, every other candidate, every male candidate brings their family on stage, proverbially and literally. So having done that. And then from there just sort of a different standard that's been applied in terms of the accusations that there's been exploitation or using the kids for whatever. Then, Glenn, having to correct the record and try to change the narrative into what the truth is about my family. So constantly being on defense and having to sort of counterattack the things that they say. That's the position that we're in.
GLENN: I will tell you this, that I, you know, I watched the first episode of your show and I saw you and Todd with the kids, and I saw the relationship that you and Todd have and I mean, I don't know ‑‑ you know, I don't know how you do it, but I liked the relationship that you two have. And he is just so anchored that, you know, I think there's an advantage to living up in Alaska to where it seems relatively normal in comparison to what this circus is. I think your family would really be hurt living in New York or Los Angeles or some place like that. It just, it's insane what's going on.
SARAH PALIN: Well, that pioneering spirit, that independence, that self‑resilience that is part of being an Alaskan, yes, that is the anchor. You combine that with having great faith in the knowledge that God has everything under control, He's got it all in His hands, we put our faith in God and those two elements help us just muster through.
GLENN: Now, you refer to yourself in the book as a feminist, which ‑‑ well, I'll just ask you straight: I believe you are a feminist. I believe you are a strong woman and you're like, get out of my way but not to the denigration of men. You just, you're kind of like a ‑‑ you're kind of like Texas, where Texas is proud of their state and they think it's better than everything else but not to ‑‑ they don't hate other states. You don't have to hate men to be a feminist. Did you just put this in the book just to piss the left off?
SARAH PALIN: Well, that certainly has been the result, hasn't it?
GLENN: Yeah.
SARAH PALIN: And that's fine, too. You know, Glenn, those gals who have hijacked that term feminist and then try to invalidate or discredit a conservative feminist, they baffle me because they're so inconsistent, they make absolutely no sense. And I think that the whole argument has turned on its head when they try to say we're speaking for all women when we, essentially we try to make women feel like victims, we don't like men and we are trying to really disempower women. This is my view on these feminists who came out of the Sixties and Seventies, some of them who led the charge, trying to make women feel less able, incapable of taking on all that life has to offer by making them feel like they're victims and if they don't, if they don't get a little bit of extra support, usually it's from government they would like the support, then women aren't capable of taking on the challenges. And I'm saying, no, you know, just like the pioneering women of, you know, decades and decades ago, generations ago. These women, they are the ones who pioneered through the West and alongside the men they plowed the fields and taught their children and raised families and contributed to their small communities and grew those communities. That's the same spirit that so many of these common sense mama grizzlies have who are running for office because they are saying we don't need government to do it for us.
GLENN: Yeah, it's a gun and a child on their hip. They got it done, the pioneering women, man, my grandmother was a pioneer. She came across the mountains in a wagon train and she ‑‑ the only story I know about her is she lost an eye on the trail.
SARAH PALIN: Really?
GLENN: I don't know how it happened, and she looked like a woman who lost her eye. And she lost an eye on the trail and the only story we have about her was when it happened she went, I'm fine, keep moving.
SARAH PALIN: Oh, man. That's strong. You know, that's that self‑sufficiency. And those gals back then, they weren't going to be bound by what society maybe across the waters were going to say what they should do and what they should be. They were just determined to create their own destiny. And they are, too, whom we get to forge, helping to forge these new lands and create America.
GLENN: You talk about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington an awful lot in the book which you know is one of my favorite movies, and Frank Capra was ridiculed at the time for It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Hollywood hated him. They mocked him, they panned his movies, and they are classics. I hope that you watch on December 15th when we go to Wilmington, Ohio. I don't know if you've ever been there, but this is Bedford Falls or It's a Wonderful Life. This town is Frank Capra city. It's amazing. And most people think that doesn't exist, and you and I both know it does.
SARAH PALIN: It does. And see, that's been part of my foundation. And I know that I, and you too, we get mocked for this perceived naivety and this unrelenting optimism that we have about America and those who want to be self‑determined and just, you know, get government off our back and make decisions for ourselves because we have a lot of faith in the individual and the rights that God has given us and government maybe tries to take it away and that's why we fight those government actions that would take away our God‑given rights. But that's part of my foundation, and I was brought up to love and to cherish even things like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life which we watch every Christmas. And folks who don't understand where I'm coming from perhaps believe that I put too much faith in those ideals that are encapsulated in those pop culture films and yet I'm saying no, no, no, no, America needs to get back to that. But these are things that maybe Hollywood would never dare make again, films like that. Maybe, Glenn, you need to get into that business, too, and you can help shift some pop culture, please.
GLENN: Just wait. We are. Just wait.
SARAH PALIN: Good, good, good. Good. And why you need to do it, Glenn, is we are to be salt and light out in the world. We are not to just assume that our own little circle of influence within our church or within our own little neighborhood or our small family, that we're going to get out there and change the world just by preaching to the choir? No. Pop culture is the great influencer in our society. We are called to and we should be proud to and not hesitate to get out there and show them what truth can be and what can ‑‑ what light can shed on some darkness in the world. And that's how we're going to change the world.
PAT: Sarah, you said in the last few days that you are considering a run for president.
SARAH PALIN: Yes.
PAT: And polls show that you would probably win the Republican nomination. How would you handle a situation like just developed in North Korea?
SARAH PALIN: Well, North Korea, this is stemming from I think a greater problem when we're all sitting around asking, "Oh, no, what are we going to do" and we're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea's going to do. So this speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policies. But obviously got to stand with our North Korean allies. We're bound to by treaty. We're also bound to by ‑‑
STU: South Korea.
SARAH PALIN: Yeah. And we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes. And, you know, to remind North Korea, well, we're not going to reward bad behavior and we're not going to walk away and we do need to press China to do more to increase pressure on that arena.
GLENN: How do we press China? I mean, Sarah, I'm going to go way out on a lunatic fringe here but I've talked to enough people are in this missile business who say that was not an airplane contrail that we saw off the coast of California. It is my belief that that was a two‑stage missile launched by China telling, sending a signal that the world has changed. They're dropping the dollar in their trade with Russia today. I mean, they control the world. The world has changed. We're no longer the superpower that we were even two years ago.
SARAH PALIN: Well, that's right. And China's going to own our notes because we are becoming so beholden on them. And a lot of this has to do with energy. When we're not allowed to responsibly exploit our own natural resources, and that's, of course, one of the ways that America grew into such a prosperous nation.
GLENN: Yes.
SARAH PALIN: We developed domestically our own energy supplies. Instead as we're reliant on foreign sources of energy, here's one thing that we can do in pressing China. They need to restrict energy exports to North Korea. But do you think that the Obama administration gets that and understands why we would need to? No, they do not because they're still locking up the lands that are warehousing our own domestic supplies of energy. So they have it all wrong on energy policy to start with.
GLENN: Real quick. If you were going through the scanners today, are you going through the scanners, you getting the pat‑down or what?
SARAH PALIN: Either one just is just so intrusive. You know, I think I would do the pat‑down because I don't want the naked pictures, you know.
GLENN: Yeah, yeah. I know. You're ‑‑ I can guarantee you, Sarah, when you fly commercially, if you take that scanner, I can guarantee you the picture of you will come out. I can guarantee you.
SARAH PALIN: Of course it will.
GLENN: It will.
SARAH PALIN: Of course it will because things have already leaked out about things we have had in our luggage and we're like, how do they know this kind of stuff and who leaks this kind of stuff? But Glenn, what worries me is ‑‑
GLENN: Now I want to know what was in your luggage but I'm out of time.
SARAH PALIN: (Inaudible) hot dogs and we snuck through. But no, it's ‑‑ you know, I think about my teenage daughters. I don't want somebody frisking them, you know, and maybe that's just the mama in me again, but we've got to have a ‑‑ we've got to profile the bad guys and we've got to profile their behavior, those who we assume could do some damage on an airplane. And we go search them and then, yeah, there's got to be that assurance that everybody getting on the airplane isn't carrying a weapon. All of us absolutely. But nothing like TSA thinks that they are going to get away with today. Not when they're not even profiling those who could be doing the damage.
GLENN: Okay. Thank you very much. Sarah, great talking to you.
SARAH PALIN: Thank you.
GLENN: Have a great Thanksgiving and best of luck. The new book is America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag available in bookstores everywhere. Have a great tour and stay safe, Sarah.
SARAH PALIN: Thank you. Talk to you later. Bye.
