Sarah Palin opens up about running for vice president

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Sarah Palin opens up about running for vice president

Former governor of Alaska discusses her political history of 'going rogue' and how she was treated during the 2008 election on 'Life, Liberty & Levin.'

This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin," April 8, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARK LEVIN, HOST: Hello America. I am Mark Levin, this is "Life, Liberty & Levin." And I have a great guest, it's my honor, Governor Sarah Palin. How are you?

GOV. SARAH PALIN, FORMER REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Thank you. It's my honor. Thanks.

LEVIN: You flew down from Alaska, I mean that's -- I couldn't be more appreciative for that.

PALIN: Thank you.

LEVIN: You know, we know little bit about your background. We know a lot about your background. You grew up in Alaska most of your life.

PALIN: All my life.

LEVIN: All your life.

PALIN: Yes.

LEVIN: In Wasilla, you settled there, your parents did. You became a member of the city council. You became mayor, you knocked off the incumbent mayor. I seem to recall you ran for lieutenant governor, then you ran for governor and you won. Give me a little history on how you decided to run for governor and how you won. That's a big darn state for an outsider to win. You are like one of the first outsider candidates.

PALIN: Even when I was on city council, I realized in order to really get the job done for the people, you needed to be the top dog in the organization. So, we have a strong mayor form of government which is the city manager job really, and ran for mayor knowing that that's how I could really administratively put our local government back on the side of the people.

So, I ran for mayor and then was term limited out there and then served as an Oil and Gas Commissioner and then ran for Lieutenant Governor, lost and new even during that loss that our state was missing out on the people's will really being done.

So, ran for governor, certainly as an outsider. I had challenged an incumbent Republican Governor, Frank Murkowski. He was a 22-year US senator.

LEVIN: His daughter is now a senator.

PALIN: Yes, he gave his job -- his seat to his daughter...

LEVIN: Passed it along.

PALIN: That's another story, and though you know, I was considered even back then going rogue because I challenged the Republican Party, but we had a lot of corruption going on in our state and people wanted it cleaned up and nobody else was going to clean it up and I said, "I could."

LEVIN: How did you learn that Senator McCain was choosing you as his running mate.

PALIN: Well, I didn't know I was being vetted, and one day I was at the Alaska State Fair awarding the "Farm Family of the Year" and left the podium and put my baby, I just had a baby who was 16 weeks old, put him in my snuggly, was walking out of the fairgrounds, got a call, Senator McCain asking if I wanted to run for Vice President and I said "Well, you know I am Governor, and things are going very well."

You know, as Governor, we were just kicking butt on producing oil and gas and just a lot going on with our agenda and my oldest son had enlisted, he was ready to go off to war, my oldest daughter was still a teenager and informed that she was pregnant, my husband was working up in the north slope in the oil fields, it was a 1,700-mile commute from the Governor's mansion for his work.

So, we had a lot going on and when Senator McCain asked if I wanted to run for Vice President, I said, "I've got nothing else going on, sure. Happy to run."

LEVIN: What do you think he chose you?

PALIN: Probably for practical -- political practical reasons. He probably knew that they needed someone younger, needed a female and needed a true conservative to balance everything out and someone -- they were smart enough to have chosen someone with a lot of administrative his experience. That was -- my career was administration.

LEVIN: Were you glad? Are you glad, looking back that you were chosen and ran for Vice President?

PALIN: Oh yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I had to push back harder on some of those who were trying to mold me into something that I was not during the campaign. I would've pushed back and gotten more truth out there, but heck, yes.

LEVIN: You know, when I think about you and your family, you're very transparent. You say what you think, they say what they think and yet the abuses that you and your husband and your children have had to face, I mean, families have to deal with things that happen.

LEVIN: You know, everything is not primrose. Were you surprised at how vicious the media were?

LEVIN: I was surprised because there in Alaska, as I mentioned, my ratings were very high. Things were going well in the court of public opinion even, so I was mostly shocked, Mark though that the campaign itself didn't defend against a lot of the lies that were being spewed during the campaign, and then when that narrative was created, they created a caricature of Sarah Palin and the Palin family.

Once that bell is rung, it's hard to un-ring. So, that aspect was pursed perplexing and frustrating, but you know, I had learned a lot in these ten years and I don't put up with as much as I had back then and I don't let things bother me.

I obviously didn't let a lot of things bother me then either, otherwise I'd be crawled up in a fetal position under that table and just want to go away.

LEVIN: And you became, in many ways, the leader of this movement, this tea party movement, which still serves as the base of the Republican Party today.

The tea party movement was a progeny of the Reagan revolution. I also think it's part of a big base of the current President, Donald Trump, how do you feel about that?

PALIN: That tea party movement, the movement was always there. There just wasn't maybe a person or a more specific agenda to coalesce around and then turn that movement into results in the ballot box. That movement was there and certainly under Reagan, I am privileged to have come into my own, politically speaking, during the Reagan years, that's when I was in college studying Political Science under Reagan.

So, I knew how to do things right. It's always been there, it's just the voice of the people had been ignored for so long. Both parties, I call it a uni-party, both parties had ignored the common man for so long and just taken us for granted.

That, no, the time was right to get out there and not lead it, but just speak for a lot of the issues and a lot of heart that so many Americans were feeling.

LEVIN: Given your background, given your role with the tea party, your strong principled conservative beliefs, what do you make of what's happening in Congress with the Republican Party today? What do you make of this incredibly profligate budget and spending that they have been involved in?

PALIN: Yes, really frustrated with that recent Omnibus because you know, it just became really apparent that okay, we are only going to slam the big spending bloated budgets, I guess when the Democrats held the purse strings. We won't hold our own party accountable when we are part of the problem with this you know, unchallenged debt that we are incurring, that's growing and the deficits that I now, I guess are okay and specific things in the Omnibus that now are being funded like planned parenthood that we were screaming about you know when Obama was in charge and now, you know those things are not even debated in a lot of respects now.

So, that's really frustrating. There are some really good conservatives in Congress, thank goodness, a lot of the participants in the freedom caucus I have great respect for. I was frustrated when President Trump and President Trump's people had declared war on the freedom caucus, I think they did that by mistake and they haven't, you know, followed up on that much because there are some good people who understand fiscal responsibility and how important it is to get our arms around this debt, but, they are, at this point outnumbered.

The good guys need reinforcements in Congress.

LEVIN: What you think about the way it was done? You have basically McConnell and Ryan and Pelosi and Schumer in a closed room, at least called smoke-filled, but they are in the room and it's not smoke-filled these days, but they are still there. They hammer out this massive 2,200-plus page document. And the Senate, they are not allowed to offer any amendments, and the House are not allowed to offer any amendments. They vote on it literally within hours, is that the way our democracy is supposed to work?

PALIN: No, and that's why people are fed up with politicians. They are fed up with government. You had 2,232 pages, 48 hours to vote on a $1.3 trillion spending package that in six months they are going to turn around and do the same thing again. It's not that 1.3 trillion was going to get us through any number of months. So, no, the whole process was so skewed, and if they think that...

PALIN: ... people are going to just let that go and that we are just going to swallow that and say, "Well, that's just the way it is," well, we're not. That practice that we just saw, we just witnessed how they do things in those proverbial smoke-filled rooms, that's why people are so up in arms when it comes to the direction of our government, and that's why Trump was elected. President Trump is there.

LEVIN: Should he have vetoed it?

PALIN: He should have. I believe he should have, of course, I don't know all the details, obviously.

LEVIN: Do you think Republicans are going to pay a price in the midterm elections?

PALIN: They better start articulating answers to the people who have questions that we are answering right now, as to, "Why the heck did you guys do that? You didn't have to do that." And for us to have conceded, "Oh, we had to give up a lot in order to get this or that," no, you know, that's not -- we didn't get a good deal out of that. If we had to you know, vote on something, nobody read the thing.

LEVIN: No. Which is a great point, they're voting on something they never read. You point out the -- not only fully fund planned parenthood, they get more money than before and yet, look at the border. They don't fund really effectively new walls, new security, and this is coming out of the Republicans.

I mean, I am flabbergasted by this. They used to say, a lot of these folks, I know, I am not a social conservative, I am not a neo-con, but I am a fiscal conservative, they can't even say that anymore, can they day?

PALIN: Right. No, and you're right, when it came to funding more Border Patrol, more walls, more fences, no, they didn't fund that for inside the US, but we did fund that in some foreign countries and I think what Republicans are going to have to answer to come campaign time -- election time again is where do they think we are going to get the money to pay for all of this?

We are broke and people don't talk about that. You know, we are $20 trillion in debt and with unfunded liabilities coming up in our kids and our grandkids future, it's more like $120 trillion. Where does Congress think that we will get the money to pay for all these things? What are we going to do? Borrow money from -- more money from more foreign countries in order to turn around and give it to other foreign countries? Or will we just print the money out of thin air, you know, with quantitative easing? We just all had to put up with that too with money being printed and I don't know, they didn't watch it. We are going to turn into Germany, 1923 with wheelbarrows full of devalued dollars.

LEVIN: Why do you think they did this?

PALIN: I think...

LEVIN: Scared?

PALIN: I think again that they think that we are not paying attention to the degree that we are, that if they can just placate us by saying, "No, no, that's the way we have to do it, otherwise all of government is just going to have to shut down," you know, and kind of put the fear of God in it.

I think they just take it for granted that we are going to sit there and swallow it and say, "Okay, you guys know best." But no, there are enough people paying attention and again, that was all made manifest in the last Presidential election.

LEVIN: When we come back, ladies and gentlemen, I want to ask Sarah Palin about Obamacare and these other issues where she took the lead on this, fighting Obamacare and took a lot of hits for it, as a matter of fact, but it turned out to be quite right, in my view.

And don't forget, every weeknight you can watch LevinTV -- LevinTV on CRTV.com, Conservative Review TV.com, give us a call, 844-LEVIN-TV and join us. That's 844-LEVIN-TV.

LEVIN: Welcome back. I'm here with Governor Sarah Palin. I want to talk briefly about Obamacare. They never did repeal it. They repealed a tiny little piece of it, but I still have to live with it, you probably still have to live with it. You know, you were very, very concerned about this law. Why do you think they didn't repeal it?

PALIN: Yes, that wasn't even part of the Omnibus, you know.

LEVIN: They funded it, right?

PALIN: Right, right, that there were still too many aspects of it that they funded. It's a shame that they did because that is one of the reasons that President Trump had been elected. So, if for no other reason, you know, Republicans especially should have remembered that just some months prior, people were screaming about Obamacare being so burdensome on the people, so unconstitutional, and yet they didn't even challenge it, this go around, and that's sad because Obamacare is an atrocity.

And not only is it, as I say, unconstitutional, but you know, hijacking 20 percent of our economy, putting that back into government's hands was a huge mistake and then of course, healthcare overall, how it would be diminished kind of our system atrophy under Obamacare and yet, we are still looking at it.

LEVIN: You know, the President really has tried to secure the southern border. He talks about all time. He has demanded funding for it, he is now looking at a way to use military funds, if he can find a legitimate way to do that. He is calling on the military, the National Guard which Obama did and George W. Bush did and in some respects to assist the Border Patrol because of the caravan that's coming or has been coming to the southern border which is by the way, constitutional as long as the military -- this has been well understood legally and constitutionally is not involved in specific apprehensions, arrests, detentions and so forth, so they back up the Border Patrol.

So, I think he's tried to do everything a President can do and yet Congress again stands in the way. Congress passes along 2006 that says, "We are going to secure the border." They don't fund it.

LEVIN: We have Republicans in Congress, including one of your friends in Alaska who refused to stand behind not just the President, but the American people. This is a sovereign nation. Why do you think it's not just Democrats, but so many Republicans don't believe in securing our border?

PALIN: Right, and it's obvious why the Democrats don't believe in securing the border. You know, I think that they just fear that Americans aren't going to vote Democrats, so by golly they will import people who will.

And those who are part of that uni-party, the globalization of America agenda, they want cheap labor. It comes back to either supporting the rule of law, our legal immigration system, or supporting and incentivizing illegal immigration with no expectation of assimilation of the people into our culture or anything else.

It's really whack. People are really sick of it. It's another reason that we saw a change in party power at the last election cycle, and yet the voice of the people, it is being ignored. Those who want -- those who are looking out for the big corporations who are pro-open borders because they do want that cheap, unskilled really labor competing for our jobs, those who are supporting that, I think they are going to feel it come their reelection time.

LEVIN: And yet, we conservatives, we vote and we vote and we vote. We throw out Pelosi as the speaker in 2010. You were involved in it as you are well aware, 2014 we gave the Republicans the Senate, 2016 the presidency, governorships all over the country, state legislatures all over the country and yet, we continue on this progressive trajectory...

PALIN: Right.

LEVIN: Progressive ideologically, this trajectory. Do you think the progressives have won? Do you think the Republican Party which really was the home of the progressives early on in the early of the last century, do you think the progressives have won? I mean, the Democratic Party is hard left, but the Republican Party has no great shakes either?

PALIN: Right. No, they haven't won, otherwise Hillary Clinton would have won the Presidential election. They haven't one, but as I -- you know, I repeat myself, but as we see made manifest, the uni-party still has not heard the voice of the people who are saying the status quo has got to go. Look where the status quo has gotten us.

With these bloated budgets, unsustainable debt and deficits, with open borders essentially, with the rule of law being ignored, with the judicial system acting as judges, ignoring the balance of power, all those things that have put us on that trajectory. Those things that are going wrong, those in Congress who still haven't heard that and accepted that what we said during the Presidential election was status quo has got to go, I think a lot of them are choosing to retire.

You know, they are realizing, "Oh, maybe I am not going to have it so easy," I think you're going to see a lot of primary Republican candidates and it's to send that message.

LEVIN: I want to jump into foreign policy a second. One of the things I know you're concerned about is Russia and China land grabbing and resource grabbing and grabbing minerals under the sea, really with no challenge. Russia's militarizing the Arctic with the help of the Chinese, claiming natural gas and oil and so forth. Are we doing enough about this? Is this even becoming a big enough issue?

PALIN: I hope it becomes a big enough issue because what Russia is doing right now is they are flagging under seized resources -- oil and gas -- and things that can be responsibly exploited for mankind's use.

Russia is claiming these areas and yet, these areas don't belong to Russia and we are not doing anything about it and we really need to get on board with that agenda to start protecting our resources and areas that are being disputed and you know, of course, I know all that about Russia because I keep my eye on Russia, of course...

LEVIN: I am only asking, right?

PALIN: And China, you know, we, not keeping up with what China is doing with their aggression and of course the international community is telling China, you know, "You can't do that," and these South China Seas area, that's not your territory, you've got to stop. But nothing has ever enforced.

So, these countries keep on keeping on and in the meantime, America can be seen as kind of dithering and stepping back, allowing them and their aggression to start claiming more...

PALIN: Our sovereignty and our solvency is at stake here, so Congress, you know, they've got to be schooled up on this stuff and they have to start via the laws that they can make, start directing administration to really start exerting US power to claim a lot of resources that we are letting go today.

LEVIN: The President has set a fleet to the South China Sea. It sounds -- it seems to me the President is trying to do these things and undo what Obama did...

PALIN: Exactly.

LEVIN: ... basically surrender all these areas of the world, these navigable waters, these trade lanes and so forth that he's trying to reverse course, you know?

PALIN: Yes, he definitely is. He was adamant about doing things different in the campaign and that's why he has won. He was an outsider and despite the huge threats against him, he is winning in a lot of respects and there is you know, a huge threat. It's a triple threat against this President.

You know, he's got the obstructionists, the Democrats. Obstructionists in his own party, which is a shame because he's got some vipers on his own staff who maybe, he doesn't realize it, but they're not serving him well, some of them. And of course, he has an obstinate press, so that triple threat against him, despite all that, he is still succeeding in a lot of areas.

LEVIN: We'll be right back.

KELLY WRIGHT, CORRESPONDENT, FOX NEWS: Live from America's News Headquarters, I'm Kelly Wright in New York. Here's what's happening. Breaking News right now, Syrian news agencies are reporting that the military's air defenses have confronted an air strike and shut down eight missiles heading towards Central Syria.

US government officials however say that no airstrike has been launched against Syria. This is all coming a day after what appears to be a devastating chemical weapons attack on civilians in Syria, at least 40 people were killed and activists says hundred more are being treated for symptoms consistent with chlorine gas exposure.

The attack happened in Douma, the last remaining rebel stronghold near Damascus, the country's capital.

Nine of the 15 member nations of the UN Security Council have called for an emergency meeting to be held tomorrow.

That's all the news this hour. I am Kelly Wright, we take you back to "Life Liberty &Levin."

LEVIN: Welcome back. Now, Governor Palin, I want to follow up on some of this with China.

As you point out, China now has built these fake islands in the South China Sea and they have militarized it. They are threatening Japan, certain islands. They are threatening the Philippines. The Vietnamese government has even asked us for help, so we docked one of our warships in their ports and nobody would've ever thought that would happen.

China is stealing our technology left and right. They are forcing companies that do business in China to turn over our technology. The President seems to want to confront this and address this, but again, the media, Congress, not so much.

PALIN: Well, out of those entities that you mention, maybe the President is the only one who is aware that China is not even shy about their intentions, which is ultimately, it's world dominance and China has even named their plan, and it's the One Road, One Belt, you know, how they believe that they are going control, not just all of the parts and pieces of things that the rest of the world needs to function, including material for our own infrastructure, but also now, China is saying, "Oh, we are also going to control the way that the things they manufacture are transported," and that's water ways, and that's via landmass that ultimately covers two thirds of the world's population.

Maybe the President is the only one understanding what China's ultimate goal is even though China is telling us pretty clearly.

LEVIN: And he seems to be doing things prior Presidents wouldn't do, and I a mean that in a very positive way, in other words, he is confronting China. He is confronting Russia, North Korea -- the outrageous Iran deal, and I could be wrong, I think he's going to kill it and I think he should, why do you think the Obama administration was at best, passive and at worst, contributory to this kind of really, outrageous foreign policy?

PALIN: Right, well, the Obama administration was full of those people who believe in globalization that America is just like every other country. You know, we don't have anything special, we are not exceptional. Our constitution wasn't inspired by those things that time-tested truths proved will work. No, we are just like everybody else.

So, they had to kind of diminish America's standings. I think that's the bottom line about that administration.

But yes, in the past, too many people have been beholden to special interest that actually profit from an agenda like the Obama administration was having us on. But yes, as for the particulars there with North Korea and with that Iran deal, isn't it ironic that here, under Bill Clinton, it was nukes for North Korea and under Obama, you know nukes in Iran. Under Hillary, it was our uranium being sold to the Russians and yet, they are all claiming that it's President Trump who wants to have nuclear war.

No, if anything, it was past agendas that were based on special interests that have gotten us into the pickle that we are in and that is kind of some diminished power of America that President Trump is trying to grow again for the right reasons.

LEVIN: Did you like his recent appointments? Of Pompeo for State and Bolton as National Security Adviser?

PALIN: I don't know either one personally, but reading a lot of Bolton's past work and what he is really a proponent of, I am thankful that he is all about, you know, US sovereignty and power. I am not the war hawk that maybe some people would think that you know, hard-core Republican would be, and that's because I see what war does to an individual, to a family. War is hell and I don't want America to go to war.

And I believe in the old Reaganism that we can show strength and then have peace, and of course some criticism about Bolton is he is such a hawk, but I believe he is wise enough to know that we will exert our power only when necessary. Military power is the very last option.

LEVIN: Well, the Russians seem to be very nervous about him. So are the Chinese and the Iranians.

PALIN: So, that is a good sign then right, and you know, it is Trump's team. He is the leader of the team and he has every right and responsibility to have his team members around him.

LEVIN: Which is the point. He will make the final decision and people will give advice. You know, I have known John Bolton for 30 years and you know, he was our UN Ambassador for a period of time. The Democrats blocked him from getting a permanent position and he worked in the Reagan administration at the Department of Justice under Ed Meese.

He worked in the Bush administration at the State Department and so forth and all these attacks on him, I don't remember him being a hothead. I don't remember him wanting to go to war. You talk about make America great again and America first in terms of foreign policy, that's John Bolton.

PALIN: My response to you about, well, I hope he's not a war hawk. That's an example then of even someone very informed, someone obsessed with current events and history and politics not knowing quite how to judge someone because too much of my judgment comes from what I see on TV and hear on the radio from others who want me and others to believe that he's not the right person.

So, you know, it's a lesson too for all of us, for me, for everybody to do our homework, to really dive into these issues and these people and what they stand for before we do make judgments.

LEVIN: Don't forget, folks, LevinTV every weeknight on CRTV.com, give us a call and sign up, 844-LEVIN-TV. 844-LEVIN-TV. We'll be right back.

LEVIN: Welcome back. I am with Governor Palin. Governor Palin, this horrific killing in Florida. You see another one at the YouTube headquarters. There have been killings before and it almost immediately triggers or spurs this anti Bill of Rights, anti Second Amendment movement, and this time, it really has kicked into gear where even critics are being attacked and so forth and so on and the media seems to be behind this. I know you are a proponent of gun rights as am I. What do you make of this?

PALIN: It is always to be expected after such a tragedy. Unfortunately, it becomes politicized right off the bat and the left goes after the good guys who want to protect our Second Amendment and want to protect themselves via that tool -- firearms. The left just kind of lumps us all in together as being I guess, a surrogate of or that shooter being a surrogate of us, of our thinking that our Bill of Rights and our Constitution is our perfect blueprint.

And that's quite unfortunate. It's to be expected though, and that is why those who do say they are proponents of the Second Amendment can't cave. They need to expect what's coming, the rhetoric, the attacks, the criticisms and you know, just deal with it, but stand strong on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

LEVIN: And yet, I find it interesting and troublesome that when you talk about having people in the schools that can defend the children who obviously can't defend themselves, whether they are ex-military, police officers, ex-police officers, trained personnel like teachers like they have in Israel and so forth, you are said to be introducing too many guns into the school system.

Don't we have people who protect us at airports? Don't we have marshals on our planes? When you go to a sporting event, do we have people who are trained and armed to protect us? Why do they take that position, do you think?

PALIN: Yes, talk about hypocritical and double standards. Yes, we have every right -- we have God-given right that's codified in our Bill of Rights to protect ourselves and to protect our property and our families and it's not just a select few that government will choose who gets to be protected -- the movie stars, the politicians in DC, those in the courthouse -- no, you know, the Bill of Rights does apply to every single citizen of the US.

LEVIN: When retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens who wrote the, I mean in our opinion, the Heller decision, in which the court held that you do have a right to protect yourself with a weapon. And that was a five-four decision and you see are fundamental rights really do hang in the balance with one vote here or one vote there. It's a fundamental right if we have five votes, and it is not a fundamental right if they have five votes.

LEVIN: Which seems absurd on its face, but it shows you how close we came to the undoing of the Second Amendment by the courts. Do you think the courts are too powerful?

PALIN: I think the courts today ignore their role as a third branch. I think that they -- too many judicial activists try to take over other branches of government and it's our responsibility though to not allow them to do that and we do that by voting for representatives who will make sure that we have an administration that doesn't appoint judicial activists and, yes, things certainly have gotten out of control there.

It tells us, as we say, how important our vote is. And you know, the midterms, coming up here in seven months, what the monumental vote will result in is our House of Representatives, one third of the Senate, 36 Governor seats across the nation plus all the Attorney General seats and legislative and local government seats. The vote is monumental because ultimately, our representatives whom we do vote for are the ones who can appoint the people or you know, block the people from these judicial appointments that make such important decisions.

So, coming up, the vote being so important and people need to know that you know, it's on their shoulders. You know, they have got to be the ones out there making their voice heard.

LEVIN: All right, we'll be right back.

LEVIN: Governor Palin, we have a Special Counsel running around, we have congressional committees, we have the perversion of the FISA court, we have got this dossier that was funded by the Democrats with Russian input and so forth and so on.

And if the Democrats take the House, everybody is concluding that they might try to impeach the President of the United States. Have you ever seen anything like this?

PALIN: I think this is unprecedented. All of those elements of a perfect storm against the will of the people having elected a President to get rid of the status quo, and make America great again. Yes, there is a lot going on. There's a lot of abuse going on. There's so much corruption going on and I think a lot of that will come to the surface, hopefully soon because these investigations to nowhere and all these resources being spent on things that thus far are proving to be futile and proving to be jus attacks at individuals.

So much of this is such a waste of time and such a huge distraction which is a lot of their goal is to distract the people from the issues that really matter.

LEVIN: You know, when it came to Hillary Clinton and the Espionage Act and the violations of classified documents and so forth, these same elements within the FBI and the Justice Department did everything they could to brush it under the rug. I mean, this is quite serious when we have a government that functions like the.

PALIN: Very scary and very scary to see what perhaps has happened the FISA court, with an unwarranted spying on American citizens that was allowed under some FISA rulings, and to consider that we have these weaponized agencies, against the people.

We saw what happened with the IRS and DOJ and FBI, and you know, it's this alphabet swamp there in DC that the President is trying to drain and cleanup. So, it's been good, not only in terms of his candidacy but his Presidency, to be able to rip the veil off this system -- power and wealth corrupt system, people now can see what is going on which is good because now we can do something about it.

LEVIN: And so I guess one of the things you would say is, "You better hold onto that House of Representatives, Republicans and you people, even though you're upset with them, this is a different ballgame. We're talking about preserving the President as President."

PALIN: Right. People need to realize that the next vote -- I mean, we are talking about whether we block nominees or not, we are talking about subpoena power. We are talking about all these ramifications of the House of Representatives vote that's coming up. Yes, so people need to paying attention and doing their homework and become educated activists.

LEVIN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back. Governor, the Iditarod and the iron dog. I don't even know what I am talking about. These are things you are doing in Alaska. This are things your husband do, tell me about them.

PALIN: They are hard-core endurance athletic events. One involves dogs -- the dog machine, a thousand miles across Alaska and another involves snow machines, 2,000 miles across Alaska. It's kind of an example of the hard core tough things that toughened me up as an Alaskan and let you know that if you can accomplish things like those endurance events, you can put up with anything.

LEVIN: Now, Todd hurt himself, actually in one of these events, didn't he?

PALIN: Oh, yes. They crash a lot and Todd had one major crash, but no, he's still out racing. He is still out doing his thing. In fact, that's why he's not here today because the snow is still really good in Alaska. Good in terms of it is deep and you can still do a lot of things in the snow.

LEVIN: And something took place in a recent bill, and I know you were fighting for it and that is more drilling.

PALIN: Yes.

LEVIN: Right, tell us about that.

PALIN: Well, ANWR is open, so Alaskans are grateful. America should be grateful. You know, we are the Fort Knox of a lot of natural resources up there that need to be responsibly exploited, so we more and more independent.

When we talk about natural resources and God's creation that can be responsibly used for mankind, America has got it all. We don't have to rely on any other nation. We're talking economic security and national security, militarily even. The more independent we are, the safer we are and the more prosperous we are.

There's an inherent link between oil and security and natural gas and economic prosperity. That inherent link, I think that this administration, thank God, this new administration gets it and they are going to do all that they can to make sure we are responsibly using natural resources.

LEVIN: And many people that don't live in Alaska may not know that when we talk about ANWR, we are talking about a speck. Really, Alaska is so big, we are talking about a speck, and so the people who don't want drilling there really are the radical extremists.

Listen, I want to thank you so much for coming. It's been a great pleasure.

PALIN: Thanks.

LEVIN: You can join us next week right here, "Life, Liberty & Levin" next time. Thanks for joining us.

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