8 Absolutely Infuriating Sarah Palin Quotes

Sarah Palin appears to be banking on a Donald Trump presidential victory as she sets her sights on potentially returning to her former field. The real estate mogul continues to lead the pack as the most popular Republican presidential candidate. Palin and Trump have a strong relationship, and the Donald has even previously indicated that he'd be willing to give her a position in his administration if elected. The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee already has a job in mind: Department of Energy secretary. Sarah Palin should not come back to politics and these eight quotes most certainly prove that.

In an interview with CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, when asked what position she'd consider in Trump's presidential cabinet, Palin said:

I think a lot about the Department of Energy, because energy is my baby; oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped on this part of the earth for mankind's use instead of us relying on unfriendly foreign nations, for us to import their resources. ... If I were head of that, I'd get rid of it. And I'd let the states start having more control over the lands that are within their boundaries and the people who are affected by the developments within their states. So, you know, if I were in charge of that, it would be a short-term job ... it would be really great to have someone who knows energy and is pro-responsible development to be in charge.

Palin's desire to dissolve the Department of Energy is a relatively new stance, but this isn't the first time she's mentioned the importance of utilizing their own resources for energy despite the environmental impact and inherent dangers of continuing to rely on nonrenewable energy resources. In fact, one of Palin's most famous quotes is about harvesting fossil fuels, uttered during a 2008 vice presidential debate:

The chant is "drill, baby, drill." That's what we hear across this country in our rallies because people are hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into. They know that even in my own energy-producing state we have billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas. Barack Obama and Senator Biden, you've said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis. You even called drilling safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore as raping the outer continental shelf.

Most recently, the former Alaska governor reiterated her scientifically unsound beliefs on climate change. During the same interview on CNN's State of the Union, Palin provided erroneous information on changes in arctic glaciers. Host Jake Tapper immediately mentioned that "a vast majority of climate change scientists disagree" with what she had to say. Palin said:

Obama was up here looking at, say, the glaciers and pointing out a glacier that was receding. Well, there are other glaciers, though, that are growing up here and he didn't highlight that. But he used glaciers as an example. One of the markers that they use to measure the glacier that he was talking about, they started measuring ... back in the early 1800s. And then they started showing from there how it shrunk. You know, it's receded. Well, man's footprint, the first Mukluk was not even near that glacier in the early 1800s when it started melting. That was before the Industrial Revolution. So, you know, these blames on man's activity, some of that I know is bogus.

Later in her interview on Sunday, Palin championed a lack of knowledge and said instead that she'd rather vote for a strong leader than a president who "can win a game of Trivial Pursuit." The comment was in response to a question about Trump's mistaking Quds for Kurds in what both she and the Donald deem "gotcha" journalism tactics. Rather than bolster their foreign policy knowledge, Palin insinuated that such research would be inconsequential given a region's lack of stability. Palin said:

I don't know if other candidates were posed the same questions, so I don't know if they would have the answers, but I don't think the public gives a flying flip if somebody knows who, today, is a specific leader of a specific region or a religion or anything, because that leader will change, of course, when the next president comes into power, just based on the volatility of politics in these other areas.

One of Palin's more insulting, tone deaf comments about immigration also came out of her State of the Union interview, proving just how out of touch she is when it comes to current issues. Although she praised GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush for his ability to connect with the Hispanic community, she condemned immigrants who don't learn English — or, as she calls it, American:

It's a benefit of Jeb Bush to be able to be so fluent in Spanish, because we have a large and wonderful Hispanic population that, you know, is helping to build America. And that's good. ... On the other hand, you know, I think we can send a message and say you want to be in America, A, you'd better be here legally or you're out of here, B, when you're here, let's speak American.

Even when speaking out about issues unrelated to politics, Palin somehow manages to take a controversial approach. After former legendary pitcher and ESPN commentator Curt Schilling was suspended by the network over offensive comments in which Schilling compared Muslims to Nazis, Palin took it upon herself to stand up for him:

By picking and choosing who they'll tolerate and who they'll try to destroy, ESPN has zero credibility as a sound and reasonable media outlet. ... Schilling's tweet - was he wrong? No! In fact his stats were too generous in estimating Muslims' attitudes. Reports show it's 88% of Egyptian Muslims favoring DEATH [sic] for anyone who leaves Islam. The majority of Muslims in many other places share the sentiment. In America, these views could be correctly described as "extreme." The difference between Hitler’s army and the genocidal maniacs of ISIS is that the jihadists don't have as much power... yet.

Palin's strong language has extended to issues across the board, including this quote about climate change in which she likens global warming to bunk science, specifically eugenics. The comments were made via vlog on her now shuttered Sarah Palin Channel. Palin said:

I'm not a denier. I don't doubt that climate change exists. No one has proven that these changes are caused by anything done by human beings via greenhouse gases. There's no convincing scientific evidence for man-made climate change. The climate has always been changing. Climate change is to this century what eugenics was to the last century. It's hysteria and a lot of it's junk science. And when it's as discredited as eugenics, you know a lot of people are going to look very foolish and heartless.

Some of Palin's most bizarre statements actually came from her appearance at the Iowa Freedom Summit in January in which she weighed her own candidacy. The meandering speech, which drew harsh criticism from both the left and the right, saw Palin delivering an impassioned oration that was nearly incomprehensible:

Another Latin word, status quo, and it stands for, 'Man, the middle-class everyday Americans are really gettin' taken for a ride.' That's status quo, and GOP leaders, by the way, y'know the man can only ride ya when your back is bent. So strengthen it. Then the man can't ride ya, America won't be taken for a ride, because so much is at stake and we can't afford politicians playing games like nothing more is at stake than, oh, maybe just the next standing of theirs in the next election.

Palin's speech elicited a "thank you" from Democratic National Committee communications director Mo Elleithee. If she were to return to politics, her greatest obstacle appears to be what she has to say. Even if Trump is elected as president, picking Palin as a member of his cabinet may prove to be too much of a risk and therefore not worth it for either Republican.