The Chris Cuomo Project - Why Sarah Palin Says Political Leaders Are FAILING Americans

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Sarah Palin (Former Governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential Nominee) joins Chris Cuomo to discuss her opposition to continued U.S. support for Ukraine, why she believes the Tea Party���s warnings were ignored, and how Trump reshaped the Republican Party. Palin shares her frustration with government corruption, media distortions, and the disconnect between political elites and working Americans. She also explains why she still supports Elon Musk’s vision for shaking up the system. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So many things are changing in our politics. What now seems to be okay for Republicans was so different just a couple of cycles ago. How do I know? Remember Sarah Palin? Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. I am Chris Cuomo. Sarah Palin was talking about things that are now in play, and she was dismissed at the time, and she was mocked at the time and not just by SNL and now the party of Trump sure does resemble a lot of things that Sarah Palin and John McCain used to talk about. So I wanted her to come on to the project to talk about her experience in politics, what people need to know about it and where we are now versus what her party wanted back then for better and worse.

Sarah Palin, thank you very much for taking this opportunity. Always good to see you. Thank you. It's my honor. Sarah, what's been your experience with the difference between how the media treats you when they're reporting on you versus how when the lights aren't on and or they're not recording? Well, I think anyone who is in any kind of the proverbial spotlight

anyway knows that there's never a sincere and genuine capture of who you are via television, via those cameras. It's tough to pretend that you're anything, that you're not. So I don't try to pretend anything. You know, I'm not an actress. So I don't know. I just wish people could do their own discernment,

just filter through what it is that the camera is in a host or reporter trying to make you out to be. And they would just really get to know the real person behind that. I lived your whole run. I've met your husband. I met one of your kids. Your daughter, I interviewed her

when she wound up working with the Candies guys. Obviously, we've known each other over the years, so I've watched the whole deal. What I always used to love hearing my father talk about, if you could go back after everything that you have dealt with, positive and negative, would you have made the same choice to enter the public fray that you did? Oh, absolutely. I feel very blessed to have a platform today. And there's purpose in everything, so everything that I've gone through has been preparation

for what's around the corner. And I think that there still is more, Chris, around the corner in terms of getting a message out and using a platform for good in this country. So yeah, I would do it again. What I would do differently is I have fought back harder back then, not worrying about what the ramifications really would be, but I'd fight back against, say, my own party

leadership that wanted me to say something or to be something, and it wasn't genuine. I'd have pushed back even harder than I already had back then. And with the media too, I'd call them out more for fake news, for making things up. I think Bill Bradley had it right. Do you remember when he decided to run and they asked him something about his wife early on and he said, I'm not gonna talk about my wife ever. And I'm not talking about my family

and you can, I can't stop you from asking. I will never answer and I'm not talking about my family and you can I can't stop you from asking I will never answer and I will never answer any question that has anything to do with my private life and Maybe it's just that he has a very boring existence or whatever and a very Ordinary existence, but it never happened after that. Do you think there should be a rule that when Sarah Palin enters, you ask about Sarah, you can ask about Sarah's character, of course,

but you cannot go into the family, or is that what we all sign up for, and you know they're coming for everybody, so don't get in if you don't want the full stink. Well I can't answer for anyone else in that spotlight but for me personally I don't mind the questions about my family, about my kids, about my personal life because that background of who you are, what has made you into what you are today, I think is real important.

And central to that is family. I don't like, though, the personal attacks on the kids. Hey, Chris, by the way, the reason that I ever agreed to or wanted to be interviewed by you back then was because you had done that interview with Bristol, and here she was an unwed, you know, she's a single mom, and she was probably, maybe she was 19 at the time, and she came away from that interview with you, Chris,

and she said, Mom, he showed such respect, and she was really, unfortunately, it made her, she was taken aback because she wasn't used to that. We weren't used to that kind of fairness or justice in an interview. And that meant the world to me. And it meant the world to Bristol because she got to get her story out there

with truth behind it. So I wanna thank you for that. But maybe that's an example too of, it's okay. You know, ask me about the kids, ask the kids themselves, whatever issue you want to talk about, because at least my kids, they've got a lot of wisdom, they're all old souls, and they have something to contribute to a narrative.

I think that's a really healthy perspective. I don't know that I share it, by the way, because I believe that if you want to look at someone's personal life as a journalist, I have this feeling that it should happen to you first. Because I'll tell you why, because it is just way too easy for me to spend a lot of time and resources looking into John Smith's background, I'm gonna find something. There's no question. If you're over the age of 11, I'm gonna find something that I'm gonna come after you with

and you're not gonna wanna talk about it, maybe not because of you, but because of someone you love. But I'm coming. And I really believe that if reporters knew that that could happen to you too, they wouldn't value it the same way. Because it's easy to say, hey, John Smith, Chris Cuomo, Sarah Palin, I mean, you want

to be a public figure. Well, since when did that become the test? Because I remember when I got into this business, Sarah, you know, well, long 25 plus years ago, there were plenty of stories about politicians having dalliances or whatever. We never reported on it. Why? That was personal. You stuck to the business of the people. And then it changed in the tabloid era and now with social media. Everything is fair game. Do you think we would be better or is it too academic a question? We're too far gone. Do you think we should get back towards, I'm not voting for somebody to that idea of requesting or mandating that the press

back off when it comes to somebody's personal life. We're too far gone. And it seems like everything you do anyway, it's going to come out in the wild. And I think that's a very important point. I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. I think that's a very important point. that the press back off when it comes to somebody's personal life, we're too far gone. And it seems like everything you do anyway,

it's gonna come out and wash because of social media today. If not a reporter, just a Joe Blow Joe Six Pack reporter is gonna find out and they're gonna report it. So we're too far gone to request such a thing. But I, again, personally, in so many respects, I do not care about somebody's, their dalliances, their personal background. I don't care.

I want to know if they are asking for my vote that they will govern as they campaign, that they will be honest and that they are competent enough to do the job with the public service heart. I don't care if they've got divorces or baby mama stuff or whatever, I just want them to do the job. I think that, yes, I agree with you.

And I guess my beef is, maybe this part you'll agree with, it's allowed us to not have to deal with the real stuff. So Elon Musk has a hundred kids, is kind of weird, kind of party, he holds up a chainsaw. That's all we talk about. That's all you talk about is what is weird

about them personally, because it's become a proxy for are his ideas working or not. Like Trump is the ultimate manifestation of this, right? I mean, that guy is such a pinataata of personal peccadillos, right? It's like you can pick on him all day long about how he is and how he talks, but how does that make anybody's life better? How is that relevant to the economics of your home or the policies that you care about? And because it's so acceptable now, we almost never move past that. Even debates are all about how you looked at me

during the debate, how you sounded during the debate. It's not about your ideas. It's about how mean we were to each other. That's what I mean. I feel like we're obsessed with it now. Well, that's a really good point. But that falls on then those who are covering the person or the issue. It's not on the subject matter. It is on who chooses to focus on something that is going to hijack the narrative

that needs to get out there. They'll hijack it with that more sensational, the sexy stuff, you know, the tea. Oh, they want, you know, you know, they want that gossip so that oftentimes, Chris, it's so that they feel better about themselves and their messed up life. They want to portray somebody else as even more messed up. But again, that's on the person who is doing the reporting. Will you run again? If not running again,

I'd like to have opportunity to accept an appointment to be able to serve. There's still so much that I want to do for this country. And okay, you talked, Chris, about getting into somebody's personal life. And is that good or is that bad in terms of coverage if they're an elected or a public official? in terms of coverage, if they're an elected or a public official. In some ways, it is good, and I'll relate it to me and my circumstances, because that personal life does shape a person's worldview. I look at, for instance, AOC. I don't think she's ever run a business.

I don't think she's ever had to balance a ledger, take care of a whole bunch of employees, and at the same time, take care of a whole bunch of kids. Her worldview, to me, is this big. My worldview, it's huge. It's like I paid my dues, and I've been there, I've done that. I run businesses, I've run a city. I've run a state.

I have a large family, a very diverse family. My worldview is huge. And I spend, you know, I'm not a real social butterfly. I spend my time studying, researching, being very interested in what's going on in the political arena and with these current events. And that's thanks to my parents who are teachers, retired teachers over all those years. They really ingrained that need to be knowledgeable about what's going on to my siblings and to me.

So that personal life kind of digging in there, we have to keep that in mind. It does shape somebody's worldview, which is so important when somebody, again, I'll take AOC, when she's gonna tell us via policy, how to raise our kids or how to run our business or what level of taxation is actually gonna help us or hurt us in a lot of respects,

unless she's been there done that, she does not know these faceless nameless bureaucrats or politicians in a far off bubble. Chris, they don't know better how to spend our money. We know best, that's why I'm a fiscal conservative. They don't relate to say somebody up here in Alaska, we're so pro-Second Amendment up here. Does somebody like AOC understand how protection of that Second Amendment, not just for hunting,

but how important it is to us as American citizens, because she, again, her worldview being this big, I don't know how she would relate, so she wouldn't understand our passion for some of the issues that we do have. You know, you and AOC are politically very different, duh, but there is an interesting dynamic that you both, I'll say share as opposed to benefit from. One part of AOC's appeal is how she looks, okay?

And you know, it was so interesting when we did the town hall together, I did not, I mean, I thought you looked great. It was a passing thought in my head. And then I look at the reactions to the town hall that night and there was so much attention spent on how Sarah Palin looked. And oh my God, she looked amazing. How do you deal with the plus minus of how, even now,

after having been in politics as long as you've been, how you look winds up being one of the first things people talk about when you make an appearance. Well, that was a great example that you just gave was our town hall. That recent event, Daily Mail, they covered it as Sarah Palin mortified the audience because she was wearing all black and high boots.

And I thought, what the heck, who? Tell me somebody who was mortified by what I was wearing. And why was that more important than what I had to say and what the panelists and what you had to say and what the audience members had to say? That was ridiculous. By the way, I'd worn that outfit, I don't know how many times before.

I think I'd even worn it on Huckabee's show. And yeah, I think things like that, that to me are so irrelevant. Really they do, it does get in the way of what that person has to say, their vision, their ideas, their record that they want to convey. Do you think the Democratic Party is a reflection of AOC, or do you think she's an aberration within that party, an exception?

I think she's reflective of that party today. That party is, I believe, very disconnected from those who, like I say, they're running small businesses. They're just wanting good education for their kids, and they want education choices because they want the best for their kids. They want to be able to keep as much income as possible because they know better than the bureaucrats

and politicians how to spend that money. They don't want to be forced to, say, with their tax dollars, support issues and projects that they don't believe in. If they want to voluntarily help and be generous, then let them keep their income and then let them voluntarily contribute. But AOC, with their taxes, spend, they're the antithesis of smaller, smarter government,

that's for sure, that is the Democrat Party today. And I think it's very arrogant, and I think it's, as I said, very disconnected. And I think it's all about control. Of course, it's all about money. And a lot of that, though, is on the other side of the aisle, too. A lot of that money and personal greed.

It kind of seeps into policy that's crafted and adopted and that's sad, but no, AOC is the Democrat party. Support comes from Delete Me. Let me tell you something, the more advanced we get, the more worrisome it is that somebody is going to steal your stuff online. Personal data, online, all the surveillance, all the hacking, all the deep fakes, all the AI.

Listen, I am worried about this. I am constantly feeling like someone is out to get me, that stuff isn't safe, I've got to be worried about what's online. I get all these emails about people having gotten my passwords and my account information and half of them are fake, but how am I supposed to know? I'm as active online as anybody, so I care, and that's why I'm telling you about Delete Me, because they can help. Take control of your data, keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me.

And now you get a special discount if you're one of my pod people. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to deleteme.com slash Cuomo. Use the promo code Cuomo. Delete me.com slash Cuomo. The code is Cuomo and you will get this special deal. When people say term limits, take money out of politics,

it bothers me because I feel like anybody who suggests that is BSing the voters because you're not getting a constitutional amendment on what the name of this country is, let alone on term limits, and you're not getting the money out of politics because it's legal. And if it's legal, who's going to put down their weapon? Who's going to disarm when you know the other side is going to use it to advantage. What do you think? Wow, that is so spot on. It infuriates me too as a voter. Is it so tough to ask politicians to govern as they've campaigned?

We see it over and over and over again, all this yakking during campaigns about what they're going to do. I remember when I debated Joe Biden when I ran for vice president and he was on the other podium and we were going back and forth and he's talking about all the problems

and saying, you know, suggesting that I wouldn't be able to know how to solve them because he'd been in there, at that time it was like 47 years already. And I looked at him thinking, I wanted to be respectful though, but I looked at him thinking, you're all about the status quo. And like Ronald Reagan said,

the status quo, that's Latin for the mess we're in. I'm looking at him going, you've had 47 years to not contribute to the problems, but to fix the problems, and you're promising all these things that you're going to do. You've had opportunity to do these things. Same within the last go-around with presidential election. Kamala Harris, she'd been there in DC,

and she'd been in the judiciary in her own state in California. There were a lot of things that she could have done. And then she was vice president. She was second in command. She had all this opportunity to fix the problems that then she would come out and yak about. Voters aren't that stupid, though.

Voters do not, especially today, because we're so fed up with that, the disingenuous acts and efforts of politicians in their campaigns, they need to be held accountable. You have good examples like term limits. How long have politicians been talking about term limits, right?

And it's still not there. How long have we been talking about that debt clock that's running, running, running? It's up to $37 million now, and we're borrowing money from one country to give to another country, and we're all griping about it, and the politicians are agreeing with Joe Sixpack that it's a bad thing, but they don't do anything

about it. We need a whole new crop of people in there who have nothing to lose, Chris, but to do the right thing and be willing to be held accountable. I think too, why do these politicians even want to be there? Their kind of lackadaisical attitude about, oh, you know, if somebody's done something wrong, we will send them a harshly worded letter and no, we'll talk about the problems but never fix them. People though who don't care about the titles

and the money and the power and all that, but they just want to with a service heart, literally serve the people. We need more people like that, but it's tough to get in there because, literally serve the people. We need more people like that, but it's tough to get in there because of the power of the incumbency. And, you know, a lot of it does come down to money. Money and power. And that's why they're there. I mean, I think you could make a pretty fair argument that the two party system now is all about just those two things, acquiring power and keeping it. We need another party. We need a third party. I love the Tea Party movement. And the Tea

Party, which got hijacked by those who didn't want the Tea Party movement to grow any more than it was already growing all those years ago. By the way, the Tea Party is MAGA. That's what it became. The acronym for Tea Party was taxed enough already. It was common sense. It wasn't controversial. It was just, you know, things that your mom and pop business believed in and wanted to convey to our elected officials during the presidential campaigns.

And it was made out to be by the media, though, as some wacko psycho deplorable movement and then that too applied to via their reporting applied to the MAGA movement. It's just these movements are it's it's populism but in a good healthy way it's reflective of the will of the people and that's what these folks are supposed to be doing is ushering the will of the people there in Congress, in the White House, in our state legislatures, in our city councils, in our borough assemblies. The local government has got to get on board too.

How do you think the Elon Musk-Donald Trump relationship goes a year from now? Ooh. Another good question, because the dynamics there are odd, right? Different personalities. You know, we know that President Trump, he's charismatic and he's so good at what he does. He really is. Even if he's stumbling into doing the right thing so often, he does. He ends up doing the right thing and he's what we need.

He's who we need. We needed a revolution. We got us a revolutionary because he believes and he told me personally, he goes, I got nothing to lose. Everything that they've done to me, what more can they do to me? I'm going to, you know, I know what I'm going to do and come what may. We know though, Chris, you know, he doesn't want anyone to outshine him. And in some respects, and quite often that's a characteristic of a good leader, in some respects, Elon, because of his own caricature, does outshine, you know, he sure sucks up a lot of ink, doesn't he? And he attracts a lot of eyeballs. And so what he says is being heard. I'm just thankful that what he's saying, for the most part,

not the personal stuff, that's, God, but when it comes to policy and finding efficiencies to create a smaller, smarter government, I just, I'm glad he's on our side. Nobody can be against finding efficiencies, finding waste, fraud, and abuse. It was a big part of the McCain-Palin ticket and talking about government back

when you were running against Obama and Biden. And so it's not new, they're making it sound new, but that's politics, that's fair play, is pretending that Doge is something we've never seen before. Reagan called it the grace committee and was doing the exact same thing. It just used accountants and Congress instead of whoever Elon is using. My frustration with it is the amount of money they're

finding is overwhelming to regular people. Billions and billions of dollars. But to people like you, you know you have to cut 20 times. The idea that the tax cut extension will be paid for by what they're finding with Doge is silly. You have to go after the big dogs and you have to cut spending in a big way with entitlements if you wanna do anything about the debt and the deficit. But nobody wants to say that

because you'll get killed politically. No, but there's a lot that can be done without harming the entitlements, and we can talk about that here. But no, enough is enough of this debt, of deficits every year, of our income being taken from us, and now it's so exposed,

it being used for projects and people and issues and places that we don't want our money to go to in terms of support. So all this exposure is all good. Yeah, you'd think, it's just common sense, who can argue what Doge is actually doing and that's finding efficiencies and yet there's huge opposition to it. By, certainly it's a minority, but it is the Democrat Party, who all of a sudden, they don't want efficiencies. Otherwise, they'd be cooperating, they'd be helping out. I think it's very healthy for our country

to be able to benefit from all this exposure of the waste, the fraud, the corruption. Of course, though, that just adds the compounds on the problems and the challenges that we're facing. Complementary to that had better be some solutions. You're right, there has to be big cuts, but you do eat that elephant one bite at a time. Here's what Doge is going to do.

I said this weeks ago when I saw yesterday that Governor DeSantis in Florida, his great governor, he's doing it. I said, this is going to empower state governments and local governments to find efficiencies in their cities, in their states, and that is so necessary. And this is why it's a beautiful thing to have local government experience. A lot of these movers and shakers and decision makers and kingmakers in D.C., they don't know what it's like to be in a position to be held accountable when you're

a city mayor, like I was, a city manager. You are so held accountable, you know, you don't get away. And for the most part, you're not even going to flirt with fraud or corruption or anything because you know, you're facing that constituent when you go to the grocery store in the morning or you go to your kid's school and the person voting for you or against you, you're having the conversation about it. Local government is the most efficient, the most effective. I wish maybe that should be a mandated requirement before you think you're going to seek higher office,

hey, get some experience on the local level. What I did as governor though, when you talk about, yeah, you have to make big cuts in order to make a big difference. I had promised that I would make cuts and we would be a smaller, smarter government to allow the private sector to thrive in Alaska. So what I did, I got in there and granted it was little things at first, Chris, but it set the tone and it showed the voters that I would govern as I campaigned. I put, for instance, the governor's jet on eBay. Back then eBay, I just sold things, sold the governor's jet. The chef in the governor's mansion, I'm like, no, my kids are going to make their own sandwiches,

rid of the chef. All these little incremental things, though, to set the tone. And then I made the largest veto cuts in our state's history because I wanted to get to a place where we would have a surplus. And thankfully, because we're an oil development-friendly state, the price of oil went up, and we did have a surplus. You know what I did with that surplus? I gave it back to the people in the form of a $3,200 check at that time.

I'm like, this is the people's money, and we have a surplus. And better that the people get to spend their own money than Juneau legislators. And that was not just a good tone, but it was good, solid manifestation of what I believed in. If you had 70 percent of Congress and seven of the justices on the Supreme Court, what would be the three things that you would want to make happen as president of the United States?

All right, and I probably sound Pollyanna with this, but no more war. Oh my God, I feel like I'm the Cindy Sheehan of the Republican Party. I hate war. No more war, no more intervention in another country where we don't have our own America First interests. All these old men calling for war and sending our young men and our young women, our sons and daughters to war. No more war. Tackling that debt.

And we do that by tackling each year the deficit, not raising that debt ceiling that's so fake, because it's not a ceiling, it's nothing solid, it's not concrete, it goes up all the time. So being serious about that. And then I'd really like families to know that they do have choices with their kids' education. That's so important to me,

that it shouldn't just be the wealthy, the privileged, if you will, to have choices in where to send their kids to school. I want public schools to be top-notch. From a public school background, my parents worked public school, the teachers, part of the administration, and I still have a lot of hope for public education.

So I want parents to be secure in their knowing that their kids are getting the best and that our tax dollars are going to efficient, effective curriculum and governance in a school. Those three things. Who's been your favorite president? I have always said Reagan because I came into my own during the era of Reagan, studied political science in college, and he was our president at the time, and oh my gosh,

but really looking back, it's got to be Lincoln, because he gave all to form a more perfect union. He wanted sincerely that unity. He knew slavery was wrong, and he was on the right side of that issue supporting abolition. He did not want slavery, and it's fake when Democrats say that Republicans are the ones who want to hold people down. When no, basically our founder,

because remember it was the Whigs before it was the Republican Party, it was Lincoln who ushered in the Republican Party. He was the one who ushered in the anti-racism. Democrats fought it and didn't want slavery, so it's got to be Lincoln. Here's another thing, though. Here I am in Alaska.

Lincoln was wise enough to have chosen as his Secretary of State William Seward. William Seward recognized... This is Alaska's link to that Lincoln wisdom, whom he chose. Seward recognized this territory that Russia owned because we're so close to Russia and we really are. You can swim between Russia and America.

As a matter of fact. I heard someone say once they could see it from their window. Turn the camera around. And, um, Tina Fey. But anyway, Chris, William Seward recognized, oh, this territory, it's huge,

and we're gonna have opportunity to buy it from Russia for two cents an acre. And it's rich in resources. They didn't know about the oil and the gas back then, but they knew about gold that we had up here, meaning today, you know, we recognize we've got the rare earth. We shouldn't be dealing with Ukraine,

trying to get their rare earths and their minerals. We gotta get cash from them, cash back because they do owe us a debt. Then they recognize fisheries and they recognize waterways where we're strategically located on top of the globe that we would be, they didn't know we're gonna be the air crossroads

of the world, but we are. William Seward purchased this territory of Alaska. We eventually became a state and now we're the largest and we're the most resource-rich. We are the Fort Knox of America. We're just not able to tap into everything yet because of government overreach. But it was Lincoln, his wisdom in choosing William Seward's people.

He wasn't Secretary of State at the time purchasing Alaska, but he's the one who did it. They mocked him. They called this territory Seward's Folly and Seward's Icebox, but he didn't care. He knew he was doing the right thing. It was providential. It was prophetic what he saw and what he created in the purchase of Alaska.

It's also an interesting lesson in politics at the time versus politics later and how things are remembered. I remember when President George W. Bush was in office, there was a feeling at the time that other than Dan Quayle, like we would never have a guy who seemed as out of the box as President George W. Bush again. But now, many years later, people love seeing President George W. Bush again. But now, many years later, people love seeing President George W. Bush and see him as so much more of a strong and conventional figure

because of what followed him. Seward's Folly, 1867, you know, just paying cents on the acre. People thought it was a joke because they didn't think it was worth anything. Now, it's one of the best deals in American history. What have you learned in politics about the benefit of time? Oh my goodness. It's not about me, and I'm not going to brag, but I'll tell you, Chris, I've been before my time with a lot of things. I talked about back in 08, I spoke about what was going to happen with Russia and Ukraine because we were provoking basically by allowing or empowering NATO

to get closer and closer to Ukraine's, to Russia's border. Russia then was going to do something about Georgia, they were going to do something about Ukraine. And then all these years later, people are finally recognizing, oh, yeah, that's exactly what happened. Nobody listened to me back then, though. Imagine that. Oh, the death panels. I was listening today to your podcast from,

I don't know when it aired, because it was a YouTube. And you were asking somebody about, he brought up death panels. And I think it was the guy who runs the Lincoln Project. And I thought, hey man, give credit, where credit's due about the whole death panel things. I talked about that way back when people mocked me. I took so much heat for calling it death panels,

what government regulators were going to be forced to or empowered to do in deciding who gets health care at the end of the line, because it would essentially have to be rationed under Obamacare. Well, now today people recognize, oh, there are panels that make those type of decisions and are going to have to make those type of decisions as we become more and more in debt and insolvent as a nation and still try to provide healthcare for many. So being before my time on a lot of this stuff, you want personally, you want vilification, you want to be vindicated,

you want people at the time to understand what you're trying to say and what you're trying to to do for them, but it often does not unfold until many years later and then you know you get your own little sense of vindication but it doesn't really it doesn't make up for anything but that yeah that's that's some some good thinking there Chris when it comes to what happens in politics the timing of everything because so often it's way down the line the decisions that are made in the present are fully made manifest good or bad way down the line that decisions that are made in the present are fully made manifest, good or bad, way down the line. Do you miss being on Saturday Night Live on a regular basis

because of how resonant you were within our political culture? Well, things like that are fun, you know? And people, they ask often, aren't you offended by Tina Fey, the liberal mocking you like she did, and maybe she still does. I'm like, no, because she knows, but she's really good. And by the way, her husband is Canadian, he's kind of conservative, and the husband's family definitely is conservative. So there's some redeeming factor there. But things like that, involvement in the pop culture, it's fun and it's effective. I tell Republicans especially all the time,

quit preaching in these four square walls. They're like being in a church and you're preaching to the choir. No, everything's downstream from pop culture, politics, the economy, the way we run our businesses, the way everything's marketed, everything's downstream from pop culture. So infiltrate it, influence it, and have fun with it. Don't let the other side take it over anymore

than they already have. We're seeing a shift there though, aren't we? With a lot of exposure about what really goes on with some of these making the decisions shift there though, aren't we, with a lot of exposure about what really goes on with some of these making the decisions to impact our pop culture today, which is so impacting on the youth, of course. A lot of weird, bad, bad, bad stuff is the foundation of some of pop culture, and more exposure is going to be real healthy and beneficial for the American public to see?

Yeah, I mean social media is tricky. I don't have any answers. I do know if I could go back, I wouldn't give my kids smartphones until they were 16. I lost that fight. I lost it three times. So, and it's definitely been a bad move every time. And whatever my parents were worried about with television is exponentially worse with smartphones. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, you got to play the ball where it lies. And I remember you guys talking in your campaign, and it was shocking at the time.

And I remember it made you a wild card. One of the reasons you were a wild card was you were talking about government and you were talking about subsidies of big corporations. And you're like, look, I'm governor of Alaska and I'm telling you, oil and gas companies, they get subsidies and big pharma, so whatever we were calling it back then,

they get all these subsidies and you gotta look at that. And I remember Republicans were like, what the heck, what is she talking about? And now that seems to have come back again into the Republican playbook as they've attached to the populist politics. Do you think you can go after subsidies for the big corporations and for pharma? Because look, you want to cut the budget, you want to fill the loopholes in, I mean,

those are the biggest pigs at the trough, right? But do you think that anybody can do that and survive? Well, I did it as a governor. I sued Exxon, and I won because they weren't adhering to judicial agreements from the past. It had to do with the Exxon Valdez oil spill. And I still had E6 90% approval rating as governor, the highest governor rating in the nation, I think that's why McCain picked me. But plus other boxes that I evidently checked. But

you can and you can survive and we need more people willing to do that. To take the heat, I took a lot of heat from the Republican Party taking on Exxon. But they're like, I thought you were drill baby drill. I thought you were drill, baby, drill. I thought you were, nobody, I hadn't thought of drill, baby, drill back then, that mantra. But no, you can. And there are subsidies left and right. Oh, man, you want to hear a story,

it'll probably give me a little bit of trouble here. But when Vice President Pence and Donald Trump, they were newly elected. when Vice President Pence and Donald Trump, they were newly elected, and I saw kind of right off the bat, an issue come forth that they supported, and it was essentially moving around some things so that Indiana would have some benefits to attract this manufacture.

And it made me kind of nervous because I'm like, well, why is Pence pushing so hard for that? Well, he had been the governor of Indiana, it's going to make him look good. And I said something about it publicly, pretty innocent, you know, it was just like, man, we got to watch out for crony capitalism. Come on, Republicans. We were elected to do away with crony capitalism and these subsidies and favoritism for one manufacturer over another, one state over another.

And I got a call. Got a call from President Trump and Mike Pence. They were on speakerphone, and diplomatically, but kind of nicely, asking me, why are you saying that? Why did you say that? That just doesn't sound like our cerebral. And I said, you got to be careful. I'm not accusing you of crony capitalism,

but I'm saying please watch out for it. And optics are important. You know, we can't show favoritism to one industry over another. People expect a level playing field so that we can usher in more competition. That makes everybody work harder and do better and produce more.

But yeah, you can take on the big dogs, and you just have to be willing to take the heat. You have to be, again, like Trump, where it's like, I got nothing to lose. I'm gonna call people out on what I believe they are doing wrong, and I'm gonna compliment them when I believe that they are doing right for the people.

And you know, you take that criticism and you gotta just learn to, you take the constructive criticism and you learn from that. And of course, you know that as an athlete, so much of our progress in sports has to do with the constructive criticism of a coach or of a trainer. So with the background like that, we understand that.

But the unnecessary criticism that comes along with the constructive, that's gotta be water off a duck's back, and you gotta just move forward. Did you think that they thought that they would be able to tell you to shut up? Oh, yeah. Steve Schmidt, Nicole Wallace, the darlings of MSNBC.

No, I'm saying when Pence and Trump called you. Oh, when, Steve Schmidt, Nicole Wallace, the darlings of MSNBC. No, I'm saying when Pence and Trump called you. Oh, and those two. I think I'm going to believe that they just genuinely wanted they wanted to know why, you know, maybe they weren't used to a fellow Republican calling or warning the public that, you know, got to be careful, don't want prone to capitalism. I'm gonna leave that they just really wanted to know why. So I

got to explain to them why I did it and then all was well. Was all well? Or did you just hang up on them at the end of it? Well, all these years later. No, all was well. Hey, before that, I don't know if they know this, but Pence had come up here, sat at that kitchen table. He was up here for about four days. He stayed in my airplane hangar. He and his family next door, trying to decide what he's going to do next.

That was before he decided to run for governor at the time. And some of these people who come up here, Ted Cruz is another one, sat at that kitchen table. A lot of do, because this is this Ponderosa, man, it's, there's a lot of healthy solitude, and you can think and get away and pray and meditate. It's just the setting that I'm blessed to be in. and you can think and get away and pray and meditate. It's just the setting that I'm blessed to be in. So people, they utilize this,

but it cracks me up though when they want to benefit from it. And then as they walk out the door, they say, but don't tell anyone I was here. It's like, really? Well, I got pictures. It kind of is reflective too of the, I just want realism in politicians.

I want truth. I want the connectivity between regular people and politicians making decisions for us. I want it genuine. I don't want anybody hiding or faking it. Well, then you were in the wrong business. Let me ask you something. When you were with McCain,

there were few politicians with the visibility that he had who were as openly and aggressively hostile towards Russia. He believed that Putin was not just an enemy to the political interests of America, but that he was a bad guy and that you had to be all in on fighting them everywhere that they were all the time. How do you understand the shift in how to deal with Russia by the Republican

president now? I agree with what President Trump is doing with that relationship with Putin. He, gosh, he took heat for saying that he respects the leadership of Putin. I do, too, because Putin, for his country, for his own interests, he's doing what he's got to do. That's what a president, that's what a prime minister, that's what you got to do. You got to put your country first, and Putin certainly does.

But for Russia in general to be made out to be the bad guys on every issue, you got to take a step back and look at every issue individually and based on facts and history, decide, are they really the ones 100% in the wrong? Let's take the Ukrainian war. Back in 94, the US was part of NATO with this project, they called it the Big State Project, wanting to expand NATO to countries closer and closer to Russia, to Russia's border, because it

gave NATO, it gave America more power. But then, a few years later, it was decided with talking to Putin, talking to the Russian leadership, we're not going to expand NATO anymore. We signed agreements. We were not going to support expansion of NATO. Ukraine, they elected a president who did not want to join NATO. The public then did not want to join NATO. But we all of a sudden started pushing it again, violating our own agreements.

And it was to get to Russia's border. And it was a lot of it had to do with the anti-ballistic missile agreements too that also were violated. But the Ukrainian war was, we participated in taking steps. And again, I warned about this back in 08, where Putin was going to say enough

is enough. You told us, NATO, that you were not going to expand any further because it was dangerous. And that's why Ukrainians, for instance, and Georgians did not want to be a part of NATO. It is dangerous because you're going to be involved then in much more than squirmishes, but in life and death and global annihilation possibilities based on attacks of one country for part of NATO. You're going to be willing to die for another country. Anyway, we violated agreements, though, Chris, and Putin then did annex and take over Georgia. And the next was going to be Ukraine.

I can see it coming. People should have seen it coming. And Putin, now it's a mess, of course. And I know Donald Trump is absolutely passionate about, and I believe will succeed in stopping this war. It has to. It's useless. It's ridiculous.

We don't have the money to keep funneling into Zelensky's pocket in a lot of respects. Remember Ukraine, it was known as the third most corrupt administration on the globe, and yet we still started willing and dealing with them and giving them money. You saw what Zelensky said the other day.

He's like, those weren't loans. We're not going to give any of that money back. Trump, I believe, has said it's $500 billion. Zelensky says it's $100 billion. There's a big difference there, and you can't believe anything that you hear sometimes on the news. So I don't know what the figure is. But Zelensky's saying we're not going to give any of that back, really arrogantly.

We can't afford to keep funneling money to a corrupt regime over there. And there is no accountability in where our money is going over there. And there are innocent lives being lost on both sides in that war. And America, plus, you know, a lot of it affects our relationship with so many other countries. We need to knock it off and Zelensky does need to repay us. Not necessarily though, with they being able to develop

their own rare earths and all these minerals that America does need. I'd rather get the cash back, get the money back, and we develop, we mine, baby, mine in our own country, up here in Alaska. That's where the rare earths are. Well, the point is whether or not Russia will repay it, because whether or not they liked the posturing of NATO,

you start bombing civilian populations and make a full advance on another country, you're gonna have a problem, especially, you know, you're right to point out what happened in 1994. Those Bucharest memorandum, those agreements, you know, America promised to protect Ukraine as part of the extension of those understandings, and Russia was supposed to stay off and took Crimea.

America let it do it, right? And then Obama, you know, dealt with that very passively. And there was all this talk about how the people there wanted to be part of Russia, which is not how sovereignty works. And now you have them going in and it's such an interesting shift in your party. When the war started, Republicans were all in on Ukraine.

Well, same with Iraq, remember, with Republicans? I do, I thought, oh, let's usher in democracy, let's get rid of bad guys. Look at what a mess that ongoing war was. Well, right, but that started in bad faith. I mean, you know, it's funny, I hear Ari Fleischer on Fox, you know, and he would always tell me, oh, no, no, no, yellow cake, we weren't wrong about you.

They were wrong about yellow cake. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was just one big mouth who bragged too much about how much he liked seeing the United States take a beating named Saddam Hussein, and he paid the ultimate price for his mouth. But we never found any weapons of mass destruction. They didn't move them out right before we got there.

So I understand why, I understand two things. I understand why everybody was in favor of it at the time, because there was an active deception going on. And I understand why Congress doesn't want to vote on Moore's anymore and just let presidents do it because they got burned and they want to be able to blame the executive for whatever happens as opposed to owning their own responsibility. But your party went from being all in for Ukraine to now, Trump has him in a box where he seems to be trying to say that Zelensky is the bad guy and Russia didn't really start it and your party doesn't know what to say because you know most of the people in power in your party don't believe that.

Well, some of us though at the very beginning, you know, it didn't matter what I thought. But I thought back then, I'm like, wait, why are, for instance, why are all the churches all of a sudden having these prayer warrior meetings for the people of Ukraine? You know, they're these victims and they are, but there were victimization on the other side too. Why are we only focusing on the sympathy given to Ukraine and everybody was willing to spend so much money? I was questioning back then though, I'm like, wait, Zelensky though, I mean, he's an actor, he's a comedian. And now he's going to be one of the leaders on our globe.

We're putting him there basically. We're funding him. And yet there was so much corruption. And then we find out, well, look, Hunter Biden, other politicians' kids getting so wealthy with Ukrainian countries, wasn't there a little bit of some conflicts of interest that we should have been looking at way back when? So not everybody was all in early on. But hey, you made a point,

you said, well, well, the question is, will Russia pay back? And I want to ask you what you mean by that. But you talk about then the atrocities that Russia has caused in the country of Ukraine. And it's tragic, it's sinful, it's horrible. But the atrocities are on the other side, too. So, you know, we have to keep that in mind. And that is war. And that is why war is the absolute last, the absolute last choice for any nation,

for any leader, and for any populace, to support atrocities, innocent lives, loss, women and children, makes me sick. Gosh, guys who are calling the shots and making these decisions to go bomb and to kill and God, sit down and figure it out. Well, look, one of the reasons that you're making the case to look at Alaska for mineral rights instead of Ukraine.

Once America signs that deal for the mineral rights, that would trigger President Trump's ability to use military action in Ukraine to defend America's interests. So there's another wrinkle there. When I say Russia, you know, Russia going into all these civilian territories and bombing civilians actively, I mean, I don't know how you get away from them having to pay back something that's happening in terms of a settlement agreement, you know, for all of the... They did so much civilian damage on purpose, so much infrastructure damage on purpose. And yeah, it's war.

The last time I checked, when the war is over, you know, people have to pay, depending on who's the perceived winner and loser. And it shouldn't be America, that's for sure. Then rebuilds Ukraine. If the brightest minds in the world are around a table, and that's what a presidential administration promises the people, you know,

if that individual politician doesn't have all the answers, don't we all the answers, don't we all promise as politicians, we all say, oh, but I'm going to hire the very best, the brightest minds. OK, brightest minds, figure it out then. And I don't say that naively. There are solutions. This particular issue of needing to be paid back, justifiably paid back, because this

was American taxpayer money, that wasn't, nobody was holding anybody to account and where that money was going. And we want it back. Okay, I'm not all in favor, though I don't know all the details about being paid back in with mining developments in Ukraine. Brightest minds? What's another option? It can't just be rare earths.

And it's funny, Chris, that an issue that really grows legs and runs, runs, runs. An issue, a good example of that is this, that all of a sudden we're going to make Ukraine pay us back, and yeah, there's still a lot of corruption over there, and we don't know where all that money is. Well, we'll find out where all the money is and get it back. Don't just automatically think that it's got to be paid back via minerals and rare earths when we have them right here in America, in Alaska. And that one issue, though, that one solution has really grown legs. And that's what everybody now,

all of a sudden, the last couple days, is assuming, okay, that's the best solution. Now, I want to hear what some other possibilities are, because you make a great point. Here it is. Not just the fact of relying on a foreign country's soil to be developed for our benefit, to energize America with minerals,

but it could be a tool to justify military action to protect it. I don't think people have, I haven't heard people talk about that angle yet, but it's good to hear. Sarah Palin, I appreciate you. Thank you for the opportunity to have a talk. Thank you for accepting my invitation. You're always welcome wherever I am.

Hey, thanks. And I dress more modestly on purpose so that you wouldn't take any heat for being the host, asking questions of someone who was wearing high-hilled boots or whatever the problem was last time. Yes, it's already difficult to interview you because you are distractingly attractive. asking questions of someone who was wearing high-heeled boots or whatever the problem was last time. Yes, it's already difficult to interview you because you are distractingly attractive. So thank you for trying to tamp that down, Sarah. Thank you.

Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thanks. Governor Alaska, one-time vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party. Sarah Palin says she's still ready to serve, but boy, oh boy, her place in history will certainly be preserved. She was a big flashpoint of a change in how nominees were picked and how candidates were weighed, and she is still Getting so much attention every time she makes her witness. So it's good to have her do it here on the Chris Cuomo project We'll see how it plays

Thanks for subscribing. Thank you for following. Thank you for being with me at NewsNation AP and 11 P every weekday night Remember be an independent critical thinker. Wear your independence. Get the free agent gear. You want the podcast ad free? You want to learn about what I'm doing to keep myself in a shape that's a little bit less than a pair? Subscribe to the sub stack. Five bucks a month, 50 bucks a year at a discount there. You get the podcast ad free. You get all my wellness tips. You get all the stuff I've learned about Long COVID from my doctor and her longevity tips all there. What a bargain. Let's get after it.

Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it.

Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it.

Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. Let's get after it.

Let's get after it.