Sarah Palin ducks Jake Tapper's question of... by sarahburris
Sarah Palin, the former 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, appeared on CNN Thursday after she joined President Donald Trump for dinner at the White House a day earlier. However, the former Governor of Alaska made some news not for what she said, but rather what she didn’t say.
Paling briefly discussed her visit to the White House and the fact that Russian jets were seen off the coast of Alaska, her home state. However things got interesting when host Jake Tapper brought the Fox News culture of harassment, noting Palin was once a paid contributor to the network.
“Palin said that she ‘used to be with Fox News’ and emphasized, ‘I used to be with Fox,'” according to Raw Story. However, she did seem to endorse the idea that “corporate culture needs to change” and that no women should be forced to work in an environment where they have to face harassment.
Tapper then asked if she witnessed or experienced any harassment during her time there. Her response was cagey.
She said:
I wouldn’t put up with anything that would be percieved as intimidating or harassing…. You can ask them why I am not longer with Fox. I’m not going to speak for them. My contract wasn’t renewed…that’s, um, that’s the line.
Tapper responded by saying it seems like the former reality TV start did, in fact, experience something negative while working there. She deflected, simply saying it was time for her to leave Fox and seek other opportunities.
She also seemingly criticized the women who stayed at Fox News while the harassment was ongoing.
She said:
Women don’t deserve — they should not ever have to put up with any kind of intimidating workspace. At the same time if a woman believes that she is being intimidated and harassed, she needs to stand up and do something about it. Not stick around for a paycheck for years and years and years, and then after-the-fact complain about what she went through.
In 2015, when her contract expired, the story was reported that Palin was “fired” from the conservative network. One report at the time, published in The Week, bashed the former politician as being “terrible” at live television and suggested it was just a matter of time before she was let go from the network.
However, Palin told a different story during an interview she gave to CBN news in December of 2015, saying the past year had been a difficult one for her. “I haven’t talked about publicly, things like getting canned from a job I really liked, sort of out of the blue, because I called somebody out,” she said, according to Mediaite.com.
At the time, it was thought that she “called out” Megyn Kelly for her coverage of the Duggar family molestation scandal. However, the culture of sexual harassment at Fox News, especially how shameless founder and then-CEO Roger Ailes was with it puts this remark in a new light.
What do you think? Do you think Palin witnessed or experienced harassment while employed at the network or do you think it was something more ideological? Share your thoughts, reactions, and theories in the comments below.
Featured image via screengrab
No Comments