The Daily Beast Podcast - The Time Trump Thought Palin Was ‘Hot’ and Stole Her Vibe

Episode Date: February 13, 2022

The first thing Donald Trump noticed about Sarah Palin was her looks according to New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters, the author of Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted. That’s not all that caught his attention, though, and Peters fills co-host Molly Jong-Fast in on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. Plus, Peters tells Molly about the time he interviewed the former president in Mar-a-Lago a few weeks after the Jan. 6 insurrection and he weighs in on whether he thinks Trump will run again in 2024. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of The New Abnormal. We thank you so much for being here. Jeremy Peters is a journalist at the New York Times, as well as the author of Insurgency, how Republicans lost their party and got everything they ever wanted. Welcome to the new abnormal, Jeremy Peters. Thank you for having me. I want to say that I really like this book. And when I saw the cover, I was like,

this is actually the truest subtitle ever, how Republicans lost their party and got everything they ever wanted. It really is. And I think, like, especially given the events in the news right now and the continued whitewashing of history that Republicans are doing around January 6th, and, you know, I was going to say the apologizing they're doing for it, But they're not even apologizing for it anymore. They're just for trying to forget that it ever happened and wipe it from our collective memory.

But it's true because they have made peace with all of Trump's flaws and his destructiveness and the threats that he poses not just to our own democratic system, but to the long-term health of their party, they can look past that because he gave them so much of what they wanted as, as conservatives. And it starts with the Supreme Court, but it certainly doesn't end there. And I spent a lot of time, as I reported this book, especially toward the end, asking social conservatives, evangelicals, and then kind of more, you know, I guess you would call them Reagan-esque, low-tax, low-spending, economic conservatives, was it all worth it? And not a single one of them said no. It's like the real core of the Republican Party is rot. I mean, it's just amazing.

So I want to start with you went to Marlago. Talk to me about what that was like because you were sort of in between, right? I mean, there was a whole kind of tranche of reporters going down there to interview him for books. I mean, what was that like? Yeah, we got like a write-up in Vanity Fair because there were so many of us, including many of my colleagues at the New York Times. but it was it was surprisingly easy and this is this is the thing that people, I don't know if they forget it, but it's something, it's an interesting window into Trump's thinking and the way that he sees the media, even, you know, media like me, who he's called, you know, the enemy of the people as very, very integral to his success as a politician.

But, you know, they invited me down there. And I had asked for an interview, of course, and hadn't heard anything, quite a while. And then a few weeks after he left office, I got a call asking if I'd like to schedule. And I was intrigued, obviously, but given that January 6th was not that far in the rearview mirror, I wanted to just see how, like, how he was mentally. And this was, you know, as you would expect, it's quite a come down, basically moving into retirement at your beach house, even, even one as nice as Maralago, after being the man who could control news cycles with the few taps of his fingers and move markets, right? So he definitely seemed a little deflated to me, but the anger

and the delusion, the denial of reality was just as strong as it was, you know, when we saw him on January 6th and in the weeks after, the weeks before even, really. It was pretty remarkable how he had. And I don't know, I don't want to get inside his head too much. I don't know if he talked himself into this notion that the election was stolen from him. But I got to say, like, I don't think he's kidding when he says, when he says this. Like he's convinced that this happened to him because everything always happens to him. Nothing is ever his fault. Any kind of failure is always someone else's fault. And so therefore losing the election was something that was done to him. And he referred to it with this odd passivity, right? It was kind of like, well, they, he said at one point, well, they say I didn't

win as if it's like this distant thing. It was, it was pretty remarkable. And I got to say, I know you didn't ask this, but like the, maybe you're getting to it, but like the second interview I did with him later on, he was even angrier and more convinced, or at least sounded more convinced that this had been done to him. That is a fascinating adventure. I mean, how would that have even been done to him? He sees it as a number of different failures, none of which are his. It's Republicans who distanced themselves from him, who didn't fight, who refused to stand by him as he, you know, shredded the norms of a quiet, gracious exit from the public stage that we've seen from all other presidents. So I think he feels, and this is part of why I think he's been able to

talk himself into this lie is he looks at all of the Republicans who won. And down ballot, remember, in 2020, Republicans did better than expected. And he went, when I interviewed him, he went through this list of all of these, because he's clearly keeping score, right? He went through this list of all these Republicans who had won their races from Susan Collins to Tom, to Joni Ernst. And I did this. I did a route. Ron DeSantis, he said, I've helped Ron at a level no one's ever seen before. Of course, Ron was 2018. But there is some truth to that that he did help them by doing rallies and, you know, ginning up the base.

But it's also true that he was so toxic and just failed to do the, you know, the basic fundamental job of the president as like the sootheer in chief and leader during a time of great national crisis. And people were like, all right, you know, I can vote for a Republican, but not this guy. Right. I mean, that's the thing that's so interesting is he's sort of a fascinating character. Like, imagine having this guy as your boss or your dad. Oh, my God. There's a funny line. And it's interesting because, you know, well, I mean, I'm no Mary, you know, you know Mary Trump, Molly. She's the expert at this because she not only has the, the first-hand experience with the family, but that brilliant of psychologist's logic as to, you know, what is what is, what is motivating him. But one of the things I heard from an aid of his, and it's interesting on a number

levels, but a lot of the people who work for him are very clear-eyed about who he is. And in private, they will say things. Like Steve Bannon said to me once, and I quote this in the book, he said, you know, Trump is the guy, going back to your question, he's the guy, women hate him, because he's the guy, you know, he's the husband who cheated on you, the dad who forgot your birthday, and the boss who sexually harassed you. I mean, I think that's... Seems very true. It comes from Steve Bannon, right? That's pretty good. Yeah. No, I mean, the thing with Steve Bannon, why he's done so well is because he's very

smart. I mean, he's just credibly evil. But that is my opinion. He's taken this election fraud lie and realize that you can monetize it. You can build a political following and a big nest egg. Yes. And he has. which has been super fascinating. One of the things that I was glad you did in your book was that you don't start with Trump because Trump is not the beginning of Trumpism. Thank you for noticing that, yeah.

You get to exactly who the beginning of Trumpism is, and it's so true. Talk to me about Pat Buchanan. So Pat Buchanan was the person who I think best person the problem that the Republican Party continues to have. And that's, he was the guy that the Republicans, establishment Republicans let inside the tent, who then, you know, pissed inside the tent. He, and this is actually what he did.

And he's very proud of this. So I'm not saying anything disparaging of it. But after running against the sitting Republican president, George H.W. Bush in 1992 in the primary and almost taking him out in New Hampshire, which was a sign. that Bush was not going to hold up very well against Bill Clinton in the fall, but Pat Buchanan stayed in the primary race long enough to really bloody up HW. And I interviewed him a number of times with the book, and you could begin to see the seeds of Trumpism in that primary for a number of reasons, one of which is immigration, right? So Pat told me he remembers the night of the California

primary in 1992. And he wasn't doing very well because he, of course, had no shot. at becoming the nominee, but he looked at the returns from Southern California. And in Orange County, San Diego County, and L.A. County, he was getting a much higher share of the vote than he should have for basically somebody, like a dead guy on the ballot, you know. Right. And it was all about immigration because he had gone to the border and said, I'm going to build a fence. But it was also, it wasn't just immigration. He told me that the thing that motivated him to get in that race was affirmative action.

He was so angry that Bush had signed the civil rights bill in 1991. He said that was the last straw because he saw it as a betrayal as a way that Republicans were siding with Democrats and progressives who wanted to give minorities a free lunch, so to speak. And that's what pushed him into the race. It's funny because it really is such a core tenant of this Republican Party. You know, they would sort of pretend it wasn't the core tenant until Trump, in which case then, Well, or until Buchanan really is the truth. So explain to me where you sort of where you get to in this book in a vague way for our listeners. What your general thesis here is.

What I started working toward as I reported and then started writing the book was to explain more about those people in episodes like Buchanan and his experience in 92. that showed you the ways that the Republican Party's modern history is one of inviting insurgents inside the tent, thinking, you know, and I go from Buchanan to Sarah Palin to the Tea Party to Trump, then the establishment Republicans making the mistake all along that they think they can control and co-op these people, starting with Bush inviting Buchanan to give a speech at the 1992 Republican Convention in prime time, which they never should have done. And as Buchanan reveals to me, they didn't even read before he, or they didn't ask him, they read, maybe someone might have read it, but they didn't ask him to change anything. And it ended up, you know, for your listeners who were old enough to remember being the most famous convention speech given in modern times, the famous culture war speech where he rails against homosexuality and the evils of Clinton and the evils of Clinton and it just blew the lid off the convention center. And it horrified the bushes and it horrified the media and the establishment. and Buchanan loved every minute of it. And so what I do is I build on episodes like that, you know, ones that I think people have forgotten

or at least don't remember as clearly these days, like the Ground Zero Mosque, which most people will remember in the summer of 2010. Oh, God, I remember that. Yeah, right? And Trump, people don't remember, was involved in that. He offered to buy the, it was a publicity stunt, but he offered to buy the land to keep this.

And it wasn't a mosque, of course. It was an Islamic center, just like a, you know, a Jewish community. Center or a YMCA, it just happened to be Islamic. And Trump offered to buy the land so they couldn't build it there. And it got huge news attention at the time. Sarah Palin is back in the news for suing your employer. I'm actually headed to her trial. After we get done here, I'm going to the trial to observe and report for the time. So yes, it's very timely. I mean, unless something goes horribly wrong, which it can and it often has, and it often has. And it

American democracy. It seems unlikely that she has much of a case here. But as a journalist, and I mean, I'm on the opinion side, but still, the idea of making a mistake and ending up on television is pretty scary. Or ending up on trial for making a mistake for something that you said that you didn't intend to be taken the way it was taken. And that's essentially the Times' case. It was both an honest mistake that the paper soon corrected, but also that the writer, the editor didn't intend for it to be interpreted as Sarah Palin causing this mass shooting, which of course is what she's claiming. It's interesting because I observed her today on the stand. And it was like a time capsule back in 2008 watching her at the convention

giving the speech at the debate with Joe Biden in these interviews with journalists who were her sparring partners. She has had such a talent for engaging and antagonizing institutions and people that her voters, her followers, load. And that is Trump. Very Trumpy. Because it's more about with Trump, who your enemies, like having the right enemies. And Palin, she can be really irreverent and funny.

And people, you know, there's a tendency to just kind of, you know, write her off. as some kind of dimwit. And she's, you know, she's not, like, today it was during the trial, she didn't like the question that a New York Times lawyer was posing to her. So she blurts out objection. And like, I saw that. Which I don't think they can do, right? That's not how, no.

That's her lawyer's job. But the crowd laughed, and it was just kind of a reminder. It was what it reminded me of is like that was the spark that a lot of people. saw in her. You know, the flip side of that is the grievance. Well, and she's also, the flip side of that is that she's a fucking moron. I mean, like, you're electing people who are too stupid to govern. I mean, sorry, go on. But yes, the grievance, too. I'm sorry, I just had to interject that. It's your podcast. You're entitled to spout as you choose. I'm just singing for my supper. Yeah. No, no, I appreciate it. But, no, the grievance was a key part of,

her formative political days, right? Like her early days as a city councilwoman and a mayor of Wasilla. And it kind of starts in this anecdote that I report out in the book where a Republican establishment type figure, who's the son of a famous Republican senator, refers to the people in Sarah Palin's hometown of Wasilla as valley trash. And that's because they live in this place called the Matsu Valley that wasn't as prosperous. as Anchorage and was kind of rednecky and it had a high percentage of evangelicals. They call it the Bible Belt of Alaska. And what does Palin do with that? She takes it and wears it as a badge of honor.

And while she resented it and it kind of stung to be called Valley Trash, she realized that, hey, there's something here. Turning that around on them, people respond to the fact that I throw this back in the faces of the elites who look down on me. people like you. Right. And that's a very, very Trumpy trope. But there's no world in which Trump saw this and put it together and was like, I'm going to be this person. It wasn't as, you know, one plus one plus one as that. It was, it was more like he saw her on television and he thought she was hot and he knew that, and that's, that's actually true. It's somebody who who works with

him told me that, although I won't use the exact words Trump apparently used to describe her appearance. And that's the thing as being people, Palin, as much as she brought a lot of the scorn on herself, because she distorted the facts, she lied about the Obama death panels. It was, you know, she brought this on herself, but she was also, as I get into in the book, a victim of a lot of these men who had power over her like Roger Ailes, who apparently, as I report, made her so uncomfortable in one meeting that he insisted she come into alone, that she came out and she said, I never want to be alone with that man again. But the point, you know, Trump did Trump put it together is your question. He saw her and he thought to himself, she's got

so much power, but there's just something that she, that isn't working. Like, she doesn't know how to close the deal. And I don't think he thought to himself, I can replace her. But it so happened that her star was falling because she wasn't interested in pursuing a national political career anymore. and he was, and there was an opening for somebody like that on Fox News. And what does Trump do? He joins the cast of Fox and Friends as a regular guest every Monday in the winter of 2011. I just am curious, now you've met Trump, you've been to Mara Lago, you've really dug in on how this sort of this kind of demise is, you know, of the Republican Party. Molly, I know you've been dying to know if the Amlet Station is bagging at Mar-a-Lago.

And I was not going to ask about the Amlet Station, but where do you see this going? Like, you have some clear-eyed sort of reporting here. Do you think he runs again? Do you think, I mean, where do you think this goes? Do you think Sarah Palin runs again? Do you think Ron DeSantis? I mean, where do you see this going? Great question.

As much as an author wants the end of their book to, be the end of the story. I don't think that we're at the end of the Trump story and the story of the Trump party. I think that we're probably somewhere in the middle. And my answer to whether or not he runs again has been the same as it was a year ago when I went down to Marlauga for the first time. And I could tell that he was still, you know, just so aggrieved and outraged and frankly deluded about what had happened in 2020, that I said, if the election were tomorrow, he absolutely would run. And I maintain that today. I think if the election were tomorrow, he's running. But it's not tomorrow. And he's a very fickle guy. He changes his mind all the time.

In 2015, when he was getting ready to announce, you know, people close to him told me he was ready to call it off at one point, if not several points. So you just, you don't know, getting inside his head is very, is very hard because he can be so unpredictable, but yet at the same time, he's also one of the most predictable political figures or popular figures we've ever had in American society because of how the outrage and the craziness is what's so predictable about him.

So in that sense, yes, I would lean toward a yes there in 2024. Yeah, that's my take too. I mean, it's just if only it were a no, but it seems like likely a yes. Thank you so, so much for joining us. This is great. Oh, thank you for letting me on to talk about it. I hope we

can do it again soon. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from the Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country

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