Palin's take: DHS link to hate site, Ashton's work ethic
Former Alaska governor has high praise of actor Ashton Kutcher's recent Teen Choice Awards speech blasts Department of Homeland Security's 'stupidity on steroids' for allowing manager to run controversial black supremacy site on the side.
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," August 23, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Tonight, a Department of Homeland Security worker is running an inflammatory website promoting a race war, stating, "We are going to have to kill a lot of whites." And we've been paying his salary.
But it gets worse, the federal government giving the DHS worker permission to create a site that has been exposed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They say his fellow employees are afraid of him, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin slamming the worker and the feds on Facebook, posting, "His fellow employees say they are astounded he is employed by the taxpayers. His side job, running the War on the Horizon website, is reportedly approved by his supervisors. Really, fed? Really?"
Governor Palin joins us. Good evening, Governor.
SARAH PALIN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR/FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Oh, thank you for covering this one, Greta. This one is un-flippin'-believable! This one is stupidity on steroids, Obama administration!
VAN SUSTEREN: You know, I don't even -- I don't even get how this one can happen. I mean, it's, like, you know, we give the government hell for a lot of things, and you know, you might disagree with things politically from time to time with administrations. But the whole idea that this guy is -- that they -- they know about him! They know about this guy and his job, while he's -- while he is promoting some sort of race war and making gay slurs.
PALIN: We'll find out more as to whether he received approval for this or not because, evidently, thus far, it looks like he did receive approval to have this side job of running the website.
But it's pretty ironic there that we hear that other officials are saying, Oh, appropriate action will be taken if we form a committee and decide whether this guy has violated any kind of HR rules or not.
Well, it seems to be appropriate disciplinary action with these very gnarly HR issues that we're seeing in -- by some in the Obama administration result in what, sharing tea and crumpets with the offending official!
Look at the scandals in the IRS, DOJ, now DHS and NSA. These are HR issues. It starts at the top when the Big Brother bosses decide what rules, what laws they choose to follow that day!
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, they -- I know that it's -- and it's sometimes difficult to get rid of employees for the state government or the federal government, so maybe they're running into that. But if I ran that office or if I ran DHS and someone came to me and said, you know, We have a -- we have someone that everybody's afraid of, I -- the first thing I'd say is, Why are you afraid of him? And then I'd get the website. I'd look at the website, and say, Well, what's his job?
My next question is to get him out of here! And you say, Well, we can't fire him. I say, Get him out of here. We'll pay him while he's at home while we do some procedure to try to get rid of him.
I mean, it's, like, one of the remarks that was made to the Southern Poverty -- and I don't mean to insult postal workers, but the Southern Poverty Law Center said that they are afraid he's going to, quote, "go postal" in their office, not to pick on postal workers. But you know, so there's a genuine fear in the environment, yet the government just sort of looks the other way!
PALIN: Well, what are they afraid of, getting sued? So what? I've fired people in my jobs as a city manager and as a governor, and yes, I've been sued for firing those who have been engaged in nefarious acts. And so what? So you get sued.
You have to go through that process. Unfortunately, you know, this is a society that loves these lawsuits, and so often, it's the innocent who have to end up paying. In this case, it's going to be the taxpayer having to pay for court costs and everything else if the guy does decide to sue. But so what? Get him out of there.
Maybe he's in a union and sort of protected by some union thug leadership thinking that this guy is a public servant. Well, he's not a public servant. He wants to kill his fellow Americans! We need to get rid of him.
And by the way, it's very important that the leaders in these agencies and in this administration truly have servant's hearts. It's got to be more than just security for a -- job security for an individual like this official. That isn't what we should be concerned about. It needs to be service hearts serving we the people.
VAN SUSTEREN: And you know, the other thing, too, is hate does go both ways. I mean, he makes -- he makes gay slurs, but he almost makes -- you know, he makes hateful things against white Americans.
And so the irony -- when I looked at this story, the irony for me is I thought it was so horrible when lawyers at the SEC were downloading porn on the taxpayer dime. I thought it was bad we were paying for that. I never thought I could think something was worse. Now we're paying for someone who has a website that's promoting nothing but discord, at best, and at worst, violence against gays and whites. It's just bizarre!
PALIN: It's bizarre. As I say, it's stupidity on steroids, this one.
VAN SUSTEREN: I'm curious if -- if -- you know, if -- I guess the idea would be to move him out of there temporarily. Do you think -- is there any possibility that, you know, mind that, you know, the government's just so big that, you know, that it just never sort of got -- made its way up to the head of DHS or even further?
PALIN: Well, I'm glad you bring that up because that's a fundamental problem in our government is it is so grandiose. It's so large that things are out of control. This is an example of that, where, what, this agency even is so big that a supervise, a boss can't keep hold of one of its employees, didn't do the right background information or continued information gathering?
They gather information on all of us innocent Americans, why not one of their employees who's in charge of security, buying the guns and ammo. They couldn't do any -- any surveillance, if you will, on this guy to find out what the heck his vocation, his avocation happened to be, trying to kill whites?
VAN SUSTEREN: I don't know. Anyway, governor, I want to ask you about one other thing, about Ashton Kutcher, the actor and President Obama supporter surprising many conservatives with his pro-work speech to teens. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASHTON KUTCHER, ACTOR: My name is Ashton, not even Ashton. Ashton is my middle name. My first name is Chris.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
KUTCHER: And -- and it always has been. It got changed when I was, like, 19 and I became an actor. But there was some really amazing things that I learned when I was Chris, and I wanted to share those things with you guys because I think it's helped me be here today.
So it's really three things. The first thing is about opportunity. The second thing is about being sexy.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
KUTCHER: And the third thing is about living life. So first opportunity. I believe that opportunity looks a lot like hard work. When I was 13, I had my first job with my dad carrying shingles up to the roof. And then I got a job washing dishes at a restaurant. And then I got a job in a grocery store deli. And then I got a job in a factory, sweeping Cheerio dust off the ground.
And I've never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job. And every job I had was a stepping stone to my next job. And I never quit my job until I had my next job. And so opportunities looked a lot like work.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAN SUSTEREN: Governor, your thoughts about Ashton Kutcher's little speech.
PALIN: That was beautiful. That was inspiring. I think Ashton's going to help make the idea of wanting to work cool again. I appreciate it that he was so bold in speaking truth to power there to the youth of America! More Americans in this younger generation, they need to hear this, that man was created to work! That's where we get our sense of self and this productivity that's so needed not just economically but emotionally, spiritually, psychologically in our country, lifting up the worker!
His speech was all about that blue-collar, you know, Carhartts and steel-toed boots that so many of us respect. I respected his speech. I hope we hear more of it coming out of Hollywood!
VAN SUSTEREN: You know, I would hope that people would -- young people especially (INAUDIBLE) sort of emulate it and think that, Well, you know, one good way to success is sort of to work hard, even at a young age. I mean, I think that he was carrying around shingles or something for his father on a work site at age 13. Then he went to washing dishes, and as you say, making work cool.
You know, it really does -- it would be -- you know, I don't know how many families still have chores for their children. With the sort of the disintegration of the American family, you know, we probably have less of that. But it certainly would be a rather helpful thing to our culture if we all developed a -- you know, more of a commitment to a work ethic.
Of course, I will be a little bit sarcastic and say Congress is on vacation for a week and Samantha Power, the ambassador, couldn't make it back for an emergency meeting, so we got a -- we got a lot of work to do to set examples!
PALIN: Got a lot of work to do. But you know, this is a step, greatly appreciated coming out of Hollywood. I think that a lot of that is those heartland roots that are in Ashton Kutcher. You know, he grew up in the heartland, and like they say, you know, you can take Iowa out of the boy -- you can take the boy out of Iowa but you can't take Iowa out of the boy. Maybe that's some -- it's a manifestation of that. I love it!
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, a quick question about you. I read newspapers a lot, and I see sort of the chatter about whether or not you might run for senator from Alaska. So let me ask, what's the latest on that?
PALIN: Well, our present senator, Mark Begich -- Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch is kind of how we refer to him up here because he's being led by this bunch of Harry Reid and President Obama, Mark Begich having been so supportive of their agenda, ushering in ObamaCare and incurring more and more debt.
He certainly needs to be replaced, and we need someone there who understands that, you know, our country's going bankrupt and we need to rein in government, some simple "We the People"-type principles that need to be enacted, and that's not going to come from Mark Begich.
He needs to be replaced. But Greta, it doesn't have to be me. There are thousands of good Alaskans with that servant's heart with the ability and the desire to serve we the people. Doesn't have to be me. I do think it's kind of hilarious, though, that Mark Begich seems to want to use my name as his fund-raising tool so often with his far-left friends because every time I speak about this issue, he'll fire off e-mails and fund- raising pleas, saying, Sarah Palin's talking about taking my job!
Kind of in a panic there, being threatened, I guess. But doesn't have to be me. And as of this date, I am not planning to run for the U.S. Senate, but I certainly would never say never in this case.
VAN SUSTEREN: So does that mean, if I could sort of sum this up, that the door is open, but no decisions have been made? It's not closed on the thought. Is that what you're thinking about?
PALIN: The door is never going to be closed in terms of opportunity that could be out there to serve people who are deserving of those with common sense conservative values. But Mark Begich, and heck, all those far-left senators, you know, they do need to be replaced. President Obama does not need more numbers on his side of the aisle when it comes to incurring more debt and burdening Americans with more and more Big Brother government.
VAN SUSTEREN: Governor, thanks. Always nice to see you. Thank you, Governor.
PALIN: Thank you so much.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox