Former CBS anchor Katie Couric joined Merit America co-founder Connor Diemand-Yauman on his Is This Working?! podcast on Wednesday, where she recalled her 2008 interview with GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Couric admitted to working with her producer Brian Goldsmith, who is now a Democratic candidate for California State Senate, to construct the questions in a “very artful way” to expose her.
Couric explained her motivations, “So, I think there was just this moment, and she was sort of this—people were fascinated, and she was so magnetic, but nobody knew if there was any there there. So, I think I was the first interview that really exposed her lack of substance and understanding of critical issues.”
An insular Democratic-media world. A tidbit from Katie Couric on the Is This Working?! podcast posted Wednesday. Brian Goldsmith, who worked with her at CBS News in 2008 to make sure the questions she posed to Sarah Palin “were constructed in a very artful way” to expose Palin’s… pic.twitter.com/hPhAKzxqD8
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) July 30, 2026
According to Couric, those “critical issues” included trying to drive a wedge between her and John McCain on ANWR oil drilling, pestering her on the morning-after pill, and demanding to know which newspapers and magazines she read. It was also this interview that spawned the Saturday Night Live skit with Tina Fey that led many liberals to falsely believe that Palin actually said she could see Russia from her house. Her interview with Joe Biden was very different.
Back in 2026, Couric continued:
I think it was less because I did a great job interviewing her. It was just, I think, the timing and the fact that we asked open-ended questions. My friend Brian Goldsmith, who went to Stanford Law School, who is running for state senator right now in California, he's one of the smartest people I know, and we always joke he got grounded in high school for sneaking out of his room to watch C-SPAN. Anyway, Brian and I hold ourselves up in this red library that I had in my old apartment. And we just spent days trying to figure out what kind of questions would really illuminate whether she understood issues or didn't.
It might be obvious, but it is still telling that Couric did not mention that Goldsmith is running as a Democrat. Not only that, on his campaign website, he cites the Palin interview as one of his credentials, “I delayed college to work for Hillary Clinton, and became a journalist to cover politics, from presidential campaigns to the Great Recession, producing Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin and stories from Politico to The Atlantic.”
As for Couric, she kept rolling, “And so I think that it was the questions were constructed in a very artful way. And—but as I said at the time, except for one of her campaign aides, Brian saw his BlackBerry, I believe at the time, saying, ‘we are so fucked,’ writing to somebody. They thought it was kind of a May Day situation.”
Diemand-Yauman then interjected to sing his guest’s praises, “You're very humble and saying, okay, it was like kind of right place, right time, but also very artful questions. Either way, the universe split in that moment because of that interview and—”
Couric interrupted and continued patting herself on the back, “Well, I think a lot of independents were like 'Holy shit, this woman really doesn't seem ready for primetime. She's a heartbeat away from the presidency.' John McCain, I believe, had had melanoma multiple times, and you know, it was older. And I think suddenly they were like, 'Ugh, it's game time,' or 'Is she gonna be ready?' And I think that gave them real pause.”
The Palin interview, which was set up by current MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace, won Couric a 2008 Cronkite Award from the Annenberg Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California. Her “Special Achievement for National Impact” for the Palin interview was said to have been a “defining moment in the 2008 presidential campaign."
There has been a lot of talk recently about the state of CBS, including from Couric, but Couric’s admission that she worked with someone who has since become a Democratic politician to trip up the Republican ticket is a clarifying moment that what liberals consider CBS’s good-old days weren’t actually that good.
Here is a transcript for the July 29 show:
Is This Working?!
7/29/2026
KATIE COURIC: So, I think there was just this moment, and she was sort of this—people were fascinated, and she was so magnetic, but nobody knew if there was any there there. So, I think I was the first interview that really exposed her lack of substance and understanding of critical issues.
I think it was less because I did a great job interviewing her. It was just, I think, the timing and the fact that we asked, open-ended questions.
My friend Brian Goldsmith, who went to Stanford Law School, who is running for state senator right now in California, he's one of the smartest people I know, and we always joke he got grounded in high school for sneaking out of his room to watch C-SPAN.
Anyway, Brian and I hold ourselves up in this red library that I had in my old apartment. And we just spent days trying to figure out what kind of questions would really illuminate whether she understood issues or didn't.
And so I think that it was the questions were constructed in a very artful way. And—but as I said at the time, except for one of her campaign aides, Brian saw his BlackBerry, I believe at the time, saying, “we are so fucked,” writing to somebody. They thought it was kind of a May Day situation.
CONNOR DIEMAND-YAUMAN: You're very humble and saying, okay, it was like kind of right place, right time, but also very artful questions. Either way, the universe split in that moment because of that interview and—
COURIC: Well, I think a lot of independents were like “Holy shit, this woman really doesn't seem ready for primetime. She's a heartbeat away from the presidency.” John McCain, I believe, had had melanoma multiple times, and you know, it was older. And I think suddenly they were like, “Ugh, it's game time” or “Is she gonna be ready?” And I think that gave them real pause.
