Although there were hints in 2012 that Alaska's former governor Sarah Palin might run for President, the nomination ultimately never happened. But on Tuesday, Palin said she might "run for office in the future" to rail against liberals who would prefer her to remain on the political sidelines, Politico reported.

"Bless their hearts, those haters out there, they don't understand that it invigorates me," Palin responded to a question on whether harsh criticism had driven her away from politics. "It wants me to get out there and defend the innocent."

"Hey, the more [critics are] pouring on, the more I'm going to bug the crap out of them by being out there with a voice, with the message, hopefully running for office in the future too," she said in an interview Tuesday with Fox Business Network.

Since stepping down as Alaska governor in 2009, Palin has not run for office. Currently, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee hosts an outdoors show on the Sportsman Channel, and weighs in on issues on Fox News, according to The Hill.

In Tuesday's interview, Palin criticized the GOP leadership, but praised Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas for their "courage."

"The leadership right now, those who at least have the titles of leaders in the GOP, they need more guts, they need to be empowered and they need to have the confidence that the American people understand that the planks in the Republican platform happen to be strong planks, upon which our country can grow and prosper and be secure, instead of being so hesitant, kind of going along to get along," she said.

"We do have a lot of good leaders out there like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, and those who they don't have the title of leader but at least in my opinion, and a lot of people I know, our opinion is they are the ones who do exercise the leadership that we need, the boldness, the courage," she added.

Palin, who retains a strong fan base among conservatives, added that liberals "do want to destroy personally those they disagree with."

"They are very, very intolerant of those who maybe hold opposing view to their liberal failed agenda view," she said. "So, they want to crush us."

For this year's campaign trail, Palin has made appearances to support Republican Sen. Pat Roberts in Kansas and Rob Maness, one of two GOP Senate hopefuls in the Bayou State's nonpartisan primary, in Louisiana.