The following quotes were made exclusively to a producer for The Rachel Maddow Show:
On how Couric was chosen to interview Palin:
"The whole notion there was a conversation where I tried to cajole her into a conversation with Katie [Couric] is fiction.... I am not someone who throws around the word 'self-esteem.' It is a fictional description. Katie Couric was selected because we did evening anchors.... I did not advocate an interview for anyone I am friends with."
On preparation and expectations for the Couric interview:
"We set up this interview on the day of the U.N. General Assembly, with a walk-and-talk in front of the U.N. It was never made as two working gals. It's either rationalization or justification or fiction. That was supposed to be to highlight her foreign policy savvy [in the context of] the U.N. General Assembly. The picture is in front of the U.N. to highlight her expertise and readiness to be Vice President -- it wasn't about two working gals."
On her overall reaction to Palin's book:
"I think she has probably a legitimate complaint that things could have been better conceived and executed. A book about that would have been painful but not entirely unfair. What she gets wrong is this personalization that [Steve] Schmidt and I were these lone villains -- and that took place entirely in her imagination. Just like the Obama and Clinton campaigns, we were consensus driven.... I think she fixated on me from very early on. She hated me from the beginning. I try not to take it personally, the fact is that she wrote a book based on fabrications. She gave a brilliant convention speech -- other interviews that inspired support. But this book is a bizarre fixation on things that everyone else has moved on from."
