Katie Couric: My Goal Wasn't To Make Sarah Palin Struggle | Morning Joe | MSNBC

and when it comes to establishing your point of view, I was curious. Newspapers and magazines, did you read regularly before you were chosen for this? Most of them again with great appreciation for the press. By the media. These years we read what he sees, well, you know, I love to read. In fact, I'm looking at a book. I'm reading a book. I'm trying to start every time I read about half a page. I receive a phone call that there is an emergency, I love reading this. I can't read much because I'm working so hard on so many different things.

Then-Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in 2008, and then President Donald Trump last year. discussing their respective elections in reading material joining us now host of the Katie Couric podcast Katie Couric's original two-part audio documentary series from the podcast looks at Katie's campaign interviews with Sarah Palin ten years ago and their impact on the 2008 election and how Palin could have helped pave the way for President Trump, so I will never forget her interview with Sarah Palin. It was incredible, yeah, it was hard to believe it was ten years ago and I think it was a pivotal moment in the campaign because I think at the time she was really the most compelling candidate we had ever seen.

I mean, I think she even eclipsed an equally compelling candidate like Barack Obama, but I think it was still people who didn't really understand who she was, where she came from, how she came. what she felt about policy and this was an opportunity to really dig deep and find out if she had accumulated knowledge, if she was intellectually curious, was interested in public policy and how she would govern, especially given that John McCain at the time, I think Steve , had had melanoma four many times would have been the oldest president-elect, so it was really an important moment for us to find out who Sarah Palin really was and I think by asking some simple questions and some more complicated questions, very well thought out in terms of how By approaching it, we were able to reveal her for the candidate she was, we have a great setup here because we wanted a man behind the scenes of the campaign.

Steve, of course, features prominently in the boat. Yes, Steve, I feel like I hear your voice. my flow now if I go I can't understand it, we're talking about the series of interviews with Sarah Palin, the first one with Charlie Gibson, a lot of people saw that interview as if he was a little condescending to Sarah Palin, like he was looking down. her glasses at her, what were your concerns about Sarah Palin and then sitting down with Katie Couric, who is a completely different animal? Well, you know, back at that time, you know you had four networks, Katie was one of the hosts on which Katie's coverage of the campaign and, in our opinion, was scrupulously fair over the course of the senator's campaign.

Obama and Hillary Clinton and we knew we were going to have a fair shot at ten years of all the conspiracy theories that have ever existed. that this was a trap and for the life of me I could hold a gun to my head. I can't understand what the unfair question was that Katie ever asked her and then the reality was at this point in time that interview and we were Talking about this off the air is that that week was the week that Lehman Brothers went down and the financial crisis and at that time what was happening, the global economy was imploding, we woke up the next day, we went from five points up, you know?

Basically, a seven-point trajectory on the right path in the country collapses to six percent in that economic crisis that I would never have imagined at the time not only determined the outcome of the 2008 election. I think it was the determining event in both 2012 as in 2016, and it has been even more so than September 11, has been the most significant event of this generation, where the American people saw all the bankers being rescued with the trillion dollars of their taxes while 13 million families had their homes for clothes that no one was held accountable, no one went to jail and it caused this rise in the anger of populism or nationalism that we see developing over the remaining decade not only in this country but globally and I think, obviously, Sarah Palin was brilliant in that. anger in terms of how he behaved at rallies, how he didn't hold back some of the things that were said when people were shouting betrayal and I think his way of campaigning was very different than John McCain's and I think that created a lot of problems internals, obviously, I'm curious to know if you went into the interview thinking she might not have the answers to these questions or if I suspected she would have a problem, probably just from what I had seen and read and her performance and background. interviews I didn't feel like anyone really delved into some of these topics, so I thought she might be struggling; that

wasn

't the point of the interview, but to ask her important, fair questions that would reveal her ability to be a critical thinker in governing, so what were you thinking when all this started happening in the middle of the interview?

I just want to know and what I thought, what the subsequent dynamics were on a human level. I felt bad for her. because he was clearly having a hard time, I think someone said it was like watching a seventh grader try to recite an unprepared seventh grader tried to recite his oral exams, but that was an insult to the seventh graders and the oral exams, you know, she did poorly and so on. the human side of me, you know, I felt bad for her, on the other hand, I couldn't understand why John McCain hadn't done more or why the McCain Steve campaign had scrutinized her in a much more serious way, clearly she It was not. ready for prime time, she was out of his league, yes, I thought the election was cynical, taking advantage of women liking Hillary Clinton, as if women just like another woman, no matter her background, her abilities , so you know, I went through several stages at first feeling.

I feel sorry for her and then wonder what the hell was going on in the McCain campaign, but politically I'm pretty sure that the social science after the election showed that she was not a liability to the candidacy and that she could have modestly helped McCain , obviously he lost so he was on seven points so well her help

wasn

't much, yes, but I think she revitalized the base. Meghan Trainor says it's all about the bass and it certainly was back then and Steve talks a lot about what Joe Lieberman was going to be like. the photo and John McCain was going to say I'm doing something very unconventional.

I will serve for one term. I want Joe Lieberman to be my running mate, but they realized they had to do something. Shout out to Mary Anne, you're right, he did. revitalize the base, but you necessarily know a good reason, you know it at that moment, remember that she was the most popular governor in the country she governed. I understood it as something moderate, it was "As much as it was a grassroots image, we should revitalize the center of the electorate, we had to close the gender gap, we had excited the conservative base, we had to show that this was not going to be a push." for a third term and you know, look, you know, three days after she was elected, you know, in Nicole Wallace and I really have the first indication that she doesn't know anything, the vetting process was flawed, it was broken and There are many lessons here now.

I will say this about Sarah Palin as we look forward, I have always maintained and believe that John Edwards was absolutely as crazy as she was and had no business being nominated and being on a National Command Authority, so which is a real blessing that she was as ignorant on the subject as I was. I don't think she was ignorant, I think she was just as reckless, reckless, erratic, as inappropriate as she was to be in that space, there are a lot of lessons on how to approach it, I think. that from this, for all time, a selection of vice president and you know the McCain campaign, know all the mistakes he could have made in the investigation of vice presidents.

Wow, the first part of Katie Couric's podcast documentary series, The Palin Interviews Ten Years Later, is available now, you should download it immediately after tomorrow. I think people are not going to be really focused on this today fascinating and Katie, thank you very much, see you at 7 o'clock this afternoon. Yes, Mika is starting the day and ending our day together on 92nd Street. And so it will be. I'll be here for you in New York City, we'll sit down together to talk about my new book, know the value of women's money and how to get what you're worth and Katie Couric, thank you for this and that, thank you, you're the best yet.

Ahead, we are just hours away from that historic Supreme Court hearing with nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his first accuser Christine Blasi. Ford will set the stage for that and, of course, more of President Trump's wide-ranging press conference in which he defended Kavanagh via George Washington or the bus and I was forced to admit that the fiasco at the New York Times in It was actually working very well. We'll be back in a moment. Thanks for visiting MSNBC on YouTube and be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on the day's biggest news. stories and you can click on any of the videos around us to see more four.

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