Congressman Chip Roy: Rising To The Occasion 55:44

It's time to take the quiz. Five questions, five minutes a day, five days a week. Take the quiz every weekday at thequiz.fox and then listen to the quiz podcast to find out how you did. Play, share, and of course, listen to the quiz at thequiz.fox. Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and we got a good guest today. Really good guest. Of course, we're going to highlight the stupid because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. Got a few thoughts on the news. I can't pass that up.

But then we're going to get on the horn with a real voice in Congress. He's still fairly new in Congress, but Congressman Chip Roy of Texas said,

is a very strong personality and he's got some things to say and it'll be interesting to learn more about how he grew up, how he became into this spot because I know he was very involved with Ted Cruz and some others, but I want to get all that sorted out and learn more about Chip Roy of Texas. So thanks for joining us on that. I can't help but mention yet again the immigration situation because it's bad, it's getting worse,

I've been saying that for a couple of years. It's so untenable. You know, a couple of weeks ago, we had Secretary Blinken and Secretary Mayorkas go down to Mexico to meet with the Mexican president. Obviously, missing from that meeting was the Vice President Kamala Harris. This is supposedly right in her bailiwick here. And she's been totally absent from this duty that she supposedly was taking on there in the White House. But

You know, the only thing to come out of this was, hey, we had a good meeting. You know, I was waiting for a few days to come up with some announcement or some big thing. All we've heard about is, like, announcements about amnesty. That's what you really, what you're, amnesty? Are you kidding me? There are millions of people here that came here illegally. The law says if you don't come through a port of entry, you're to be detained and deported. That's the current law. And now they're going to just want to give out amnesty? And stop blaming them.

republicans for this mess they're the ones the democrats joe biden and kamala harris to fundamentally change the way we're doing things you cannot talk to a border patrol officer out there and there's 20 plus thousand of them who actually likes enjoys and thinks that what's currently going on is the right policy you know it's interesting brandon judd who's the border patrol council president union president

He's the one person the administration won't work with. I mean, they're normally all pro-union, right? Except in this case, they don't want to have anything to do with this. It's just so fundamentally wrong. All right, time to move on. Higher education. You know, we saw the resignation now of the Harvard president. People got to dive in a little bit more. And not only were the anti-Semitic protests and her approach to how to deal with that totally fundamentally wrong, but

The more they dove into her background, they kept finding all these allegations of plagiarism with really no response to it. And I just think that became untenable there a week before last or so. What if she resigned? Here's one thing that I think is worth highlighting as a public policy issue. You know, it begs the question, why are the American taxpayers continuing to give these universities so much money when they have so much money?

I don't know what the proper threshold is, but maybe it's a billion dollars. If you have a billion dollars in endowments with just the interest alone, you're making so much money for your university. Why should the taxpayers have to pour more money into a place like Harvard that has more than a billion dollars in endowments? They should just say, I'm sorry, you're not qualified. You don't get it.

Those types of things are what we should be having as a discussion as the American people. When we're $34 trillion in debt, paying more than a billion dollars a day in interest on that debt, we got to do something, right? And this would be, I think, a move in the right direction. Other thing that I want to highlight is something that's just scary to me. Washington, D.C. had the highest number of murders ever.

since 1997. Now, 1997, I don't, I wasn't there in the city. I don't remember. I remember it from afar, but it was out of control. The lawlessness was just untenable. Well, they had the highest number of murders since 1997, 274. That's a rate only behind New Orleans, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Memphis. So, congratulations, Mayor Bowser. In fact, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪

Let's highlight that. Mayor Bowser, based on this story that I just talked about, guess what? That's something stupid. Because you know what? You changed the policy. You're not enforcing the law. You're not prosecuting that. And Mayor Bowser, it wasn't that bad when you started and it's gotten worse. So in terms of stupid and stupid policies and defunding the police and doing all the things that you advocate that you were okay doing, guess what? There's a consequence to that. And now...

You kind of got what you were asking for. And unfortunately, it's been the people that suffer. 274 murders. That is just absolutely unacceptable and worthy of just being flat out stupid.

Hey, Jason, how are you? Hey, good. Thanks. I'm so glad to catch you on the catch it right now. I really do appreciate it. Happy to be on. Just just came from a little Republican conference meeting talking about spending and the border and all that fun stuff. But I'd rather be talking to you. Yeah. Congress spending. That's I'm shocked. That's yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're having the discussion. And I love your voice in Congress. I mean, you're you're you're not exactly bashful. That's a that's a good attribute for that job.

Well, there's no reason to be here if we're not actually trying to do the things we said we would do when we campaigned. I mean, you know that. You ran. I mean, that's – you know, people come here and they worry, I think, a little bit too much about the popularity among their colleagues. Yeah.

And when, you know, Congress is perpetually, uh, pulling at about 18%, I feel like if I'm, uh, not necessarily loved by my colleagues, I'm going to be loved much more by my constituents and Americans who want us to change this town. And look, I love working with colleagues just like I know you did, but, but we, we came here for a job and we need to go get it done. Yeah. And, um, and so that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about your journey and getting there because I think a lot of people would love to have that vote and that voice that you have. Um,

But let's go back to the beginning. And, you know, one of the first questions is, so, Chip, is that your original given name, Chip? Or is that like a nickname that came on early in life? Yeah, no. So my legal name, my given name is Charles. It was a family name. My uncle was a Charles. My great-great-grandfather was a Charles. My, I think, great-great-great-grandfather was a Charles. But my son is a Charles, as it is, and we call him Charlie.

But, yeah, I was called Chip from an early on. There was no grand story. I don't think people go, oh, we're going to chip off the old block stuff. No, they just – Chip was a kind of regular nickname for Charles back in the day. And so that's what my parents started using, and it stuck. And so when I ran for Congress, I debated because I always signed legal documents, you know, Charles Roy. But when I ran for Congress, everybody knows me as Chip, so it's also shorter on a campaign sign. So we just went with Chip. Yeah.

Oh, that's good. All right. So growing up, where were you born? And then brothers, sisters? What was life like early on?

Yeah, well, so I'm the product of a long line of Texans. My family came to Texas in the 1850s. My great, great, great grandparents, actually, who moved to Texas from, I think, Georgia. They are buried about eight miles down the creek from the 10 acres. My wife and I have and our two kids out a little southwest of Austin. It's an area called Dripping Springs, Texas. And

my great great grandfather was a texas ranger um uh in the the area that i represent hayes blanco and travis counties in central texas and what we call the hill country and um my family scattered all over texas my grandfather was the chief of police of a small texas town and he unfortunately died of cancer when my dad was really young my dad had polio in the 1940s when that epidemic was ravaging uh young young children my dad was one of the victims and

So my grandmother was there as a single mom in West Texas, raising my polio stricken father because my grandfather died of cancer. And so she ran and became the first woman elected county clerk in Nolan County, Texas. Really? I grew up under her and learning about kind of local politics. And she married a fellow county clerk, you know, this kind of local politicians and

And then I grew up as a child in the 80s as a conservative. My mom and dad, I actually grew up in Virginia. My mom and dad had moved up to the D.C. area. So I grew up in Virginia, went to high school in Virginia, went to the University of Virginia, steeped in all things American founding, right? Reenacting Pickett's Charge up in Gettysburg, reenacting John Brown's Raid in Harpers Ferry, living in a room built by Thomas Jefferson at UVA. My first job was in Richmond, Virginia, right down the hill from St. John's Church, where

Patrick Henry gave his famous "Give me liberty, give me death" speech.

So I was steeped in that American founding and history with a deep dose of Texas in my blood and roots. And that kind of formed who I am. Did you have brothers or sisters? I'm an only child. I'm all my parents could sustain. You know, I think people who know me are like, yeah, you know, we buy that. Yeah, I was an only child and I'm blessed. Oh, that's so we were you playing sports? Were you or were you a geek? I mean, where were you on the.

Yeah, a little while we're doing growing up.

A little of all the above. I grew up on a small farm, like 10 acres in the middle of farm country. And what Western Loudoun was a very rural, very conservative hunting and farming community. Now there are a bunch of liberal elitists who are sort of excerpts from DC, but it was a great place to grow up. We raised cattle. We had, you know, that was my summer jobs all through high school. I was also a golfer. I played and baseball player. Those were my two sports. And I ended up,

going on to UVA and being a walk-on playing college golf, although not particularly great. Otherwise, maybe I wouldn't be doing this, you know. But I, you know, I played that sport and loved it. And then was always kind of a political geek, but also got my degree in finance and business at UVA and information systems, got my master's degree in that and worked in investment banking for a while. And then before I ended up going to law school at the University of Texas when I wanted to go back to Texas. Yeah.

So you go, you finally get to University of Texas, you're going to law school, but how did you make the connection to politics? I mean, being, you know, a family that has county clerks and whatnot, that's a, that's a dose of politics, right? So it's kind of in the air, in the atmosphere. But I mean, were you paying attention to like world affairs and politics?

and budgets and all that kind of stuff. When did that bug or what piqued your interest early on in life to kind of say, hey, I like this political thing?

Well, you'll appreciate because I don't know how far apart we are in age. But but, you know, growing up as a child of the 80s under Reagan, you know, Reagan kind of ignited that imagination of what a government that is steeped in our Constitution and limited government can do for prosperity and for the American people. And he did it in such a magical way. And that kind of lured me into a degree, in addition to my my.

my parents and grandparents that we already talked about growing up in the history in Virginia. But then when I was at UVA, I worked on a couple of campaigns. You'll note that Virginia was slipping from traditional old guards, conservative Southern Democrat to modern conservative Republican in the 90s. And George Allen was a part of that and ran for governor in 1993 when I was at the University of Virginia in my fourth year there.

So I worked on some campaigns in school and got a little taste of it. Then I went and worked in banking, went to law school. And when I got down to Austin. Chip, I got to interrupt you here. Yeah. Can I tell you a funny story about George Allen? Sure. So I was a little kid. I was born in Northern California, but when I was like seven or so, I'm, you know, it's kind of fuzzy now, but around seven or so, we moved down to Southern California in a place called Palos Verdes. Really nice place. Sure. And across the street,

So this is like ages 7 to 8 to like 11. And across the street from us was a really nice big house. I mean, it was a big house. And it kind of went down into this canyon, so they had a good-sized backyard. And I still remember the funniest thing about that backyard. It was that they had field goal posts. Was this George R. Sr.? And it ended up that our next-door neighbor across the street –

was George Allen because he went out to coach the Los Angeles Rams. Oh, that's right. Yeah. The Los Angeles Rams. And he lived across the street. And it always struck me. It's funny because I ended up kicking footballs in college. Oh, really? I mean, what family do you know literally has field goal posts in their backyard?

Yeah. So, you know, that's funny. So George Allen Sr., of course, the governor, George Allen, Senator George Allen, his dad was a football coach, I mean, famously with the Washington Redskins. That's right. I think maybe at Long Beach State or one of those colleges. I can't remember out there. And then, you know, George Allen Jr., the one who was the senator and governor, his brother, Bruce Allen, was a general manager for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for, I don't know, two decades or something like that. Yeah.

So deep family ties. I know that because a couple of buddies of mine, Tiki and Rondé Barber, they were at the University of Virginia when I was there. And then Rondé went on to play for the Buccaneers. In fact, I was blessed to be at his induction into the Hall of Fame this last July in Ohio, which was awesome. So anyway, I love sports. I consider a nerd out on college football and NFL football and baseball.

But anyway, that was it. I worked on George Allen's campaign. And then when I went to Austin for law school in 2000, there was a certain presidential campaign underway in my first year of law school. So I volunteered on the Bush campaign. And then a guy named John Cornyn was the sitting attorney general in Texas. And I went over to work in the attorney general's office as a law clerk.

And then he announced for Senate to replace Phil Graham. And I worked on his campaign. And then I came to Washington to work for John Cornyn. And anyway, you're right. Well, so tell me about a little bit more about the Ted Cruz experience, because you're obviously pretty involved with him as well.

Yeah, I mean, that would actually be a good book or a good podcast, the Ted Cruz experience. I'm going to call up Ted and say maybe he should just sit there and have to moderate three or four or five of his former staffers just talking about the Ted Cruz experience.

And he's immediately he's already getting a spidey sense right now. Run, run. But Ted is a good friend. And we're about we're about the same age. Funny enough, Ted and I originally met, I think, when he was a policy guy on the Bush campaign in 2000. He was working in that headquarters where I volunteered when I was a young first year law student. He then went on to go work, obviously, in the Bush administration, I think, at the FTC office.

went back, was the Solicitor General of Texas in the Attorney General's office. And so we've had a lot of overlapping things. I was the first Assistant Attorney General years later under Ken Paxton in 2014 and 15 after I was Ted's chief. I'm bouncing around a little bit, but basically in 2012, 2010, 11, 12, we had some significant changes going on. We had some conservative candidates

challenging kind of the status quo. You know this, obviously, in Utah, right? You had Mike Lee taking on Bob Bennett, right? That was a big deal. You had Rand Paul taking on Trey Grayson. And then in 2012, you had, oh, I forgot, you had Marco Rubio taking on Charlie Crist in Florida. But then you had Ted Cruz take on David Dewhurst, the Senate Lieutenant Governor.

And Ted won. He won the primary. He got elected. So you had this kind of Tea Party infused, you know, rebellion, if you will, against the sort of main line order in Washington. And Ted came to town and changed things up. And he asked me to be his chief of staff after I'd helped him on his campaign a little bit. And I was glad to do it. I'd worked for Governor Perry right before it. I'd helped Governor Perry write a book.

I'd worked a little bit on his presidential campaign, in the middle of which I was diagnosed with cancer. And I kind of come through the other side of cancer and was helping Ted. And he asked me to come back to Washington for a couple years. So I commuted. My family stayed in Austin, and I came up here to work for Ted. Now, you kind of glanced over the cancer. That's a tough, tough road to go. I mean, the moment you heard it, I don't know what kind of cancer you had, but

Yeah. So, you know, look, I was sitting there and I was working. I had just done, like I said, the book for Governor Perry. Governor Perry then asked me to go work in his administration. I'd just been confirmed. It's a confirmed position to be the head of government relations, essentially, for the governor, right? State-federal relations. So I was going to do that for the federal relations for Governor Perry. And then he announced for president. And so I'm helping out with that.

And then this little tickle in my throat suddenly turned into stage three Hodgkin's lymphoma. And I had a four month old daughter when I was diagnosed just over four months and I had a not quite two year old son. And look, I was very blessed. I went to MD Anderson, I think the best cancer hospital in the world in Houston, Texas, was able to do a trial drug that is now the standard of care. It goes in and targets the cancer cells rather than carpet bombing your body with chemo.

And, and so, you know, I was very blessed, was cancer free within a couple of months and went through five months of treatment, you know, lost a little weight, got this nice chrome dome that I got going on now. You know, I used to have a thick head of hair, but I went ahead and kept it because it came back a little weird. So I was saying, I'll just stay bald. I'll just grow some facial hair to cover up my ugly mug. And so now, you know, you know, you get a pretty good attitude about that, but that's,

Look, it's hard. It's scary. It's, I mean, I lost both my parents to cancer and I only wish they had the type of care and treatment and drugs and everything else. Yeah. Cause I, you know, I'm kind of convinced that they probably would have been able to get through it, but they weren't. And, and, but yeah,

you know during that time i i've talked a lot about how you know i got closer to my parents as a consequence not that that's the road you want to take to get close to your parents but you have to go through things and help them with things and and uh emotionally support them and and it just touches your heart and just the the reality of life and and um for all the hard things i guess we go through in life i i hope that people understand that the hard difficult things are

also give us the strength and the core of who we are to persevere and be more loving and caring and but also put in and put in perspective what's really important. No, there's no question. I mean, look, part of the thing that makes you who you are, are the trials you go through. We've all had them varying degrees. Sometimes somebody gets cancer, somebody gets in bad accidents or whatever, but you have these moments in life and

And for those of us with faith, which is still, I think, a good chunk of the American society, although I think, sadly, different podcast, different day, this faith of this nation seems to be waning a little bit. But there are a lot of deeply faithful people. And when you have those moments, you rely on your faith. And you know that my view on the world is, and the reason I'm so animated on the House floor and in general for us to get change is

is that we're only on this earth for a very brief period. And our job when we're here in this brief period is to fight to ensure that our kids, our grandkids can live freely. And the only purpose of living free is to be able to carry out your God-given rights and your ability to be able to know your creator and live your life accordingly. And our job is to try to manage this world such that we're expanding it

ability to go live their lives that God gave us and to know, frankly, to know Jesus and to know God. And so when you go through something like cancer, you know, it reaffirms your commitment to those sorts of things, especially if you have kids and family. Yeah, I know this is kind of a stretch, okay, but hang in there with me. But

there are some parallels between going through something hard like, you know, cancer or, you know, physical ailment or that kind of thing, or a challenge in your life and politics. And I learned this lesson and I've seen it up close. And, yeah, I was a campaign manager and chief of staff to Governor John Huntsman, a wonderful experience. I'm very grateful to him and their family and to be able to go through that. And I still remember that.

that it was one of the takeaways, and he foreshadowed this. He knew this was going to happen, but it was almost humorous to see it play out. And I found this true in my own campaign. People you thought for sure would put a sign in their yard or make a donation or be all in to help you. Man, when it came time to do that, nothing. And then all of a sudden there were people who...

You maybe didn't even know that well. They went to the mat for you. They donated, they put up signs, they volunteered, they were showing up on Saturday mornings to put yard signs together. And I was very touched by that. And when you go through something difficult in your family,

there are people around you like, okay, those are true friends. These people really want to help. Like, and then there's some that you're like, really? You can't like, can you help me out here a little bit? And, um, you never want to be the, the real needy one. Right. But there's something also blessed, I think in service and not only, I'd never want to be the one to ask anybody to help me out. Like net that's like so different. I like want to be totally self-sufficient and,

But I also know in helping to raise kids and stuff that service is really important. And sometimes you've got to let other people serve and serve you too. So I don't know if you have any stories or lessons you've learned like that. I'm not saying you have to parrot what I'm saying, but are there lessons like that that you learned along the way going through some of the harder things in life?

Well, first of all, let me echo your point about the sort of parallels and looking at our, you know, when you go through an experience like cancer and what that means. And then your point that you just raised that people that you thought would be there for you who are a little less so people that you thought would be there when you run for office, you kind of suddenly don't show up. I'm not asking you to give away your life savings for me to put a sign up or show up to an event or give me a hundred bucks or whatever.

and a lot of big talk. But what I'm going to say in general, and I'm sure your experience has been like this too, the number of people who do show up in the end when asked is actually pretty good.

Yeah. The, you know, overall, when people and it's actually an interesting life lesson, right, that people ultimately want to help you. And if you're willing to. And I always we you I'm sure like I and others have mocked the whole Hillary Clinton. It takes a village because what she means by that.

is a government-sponsored, you know, fake utopia, quote, village, end quote. And that's the devastation of freedom. That is the devastation of personal accountability and progress and what you can achieve. What you and I mean by a village, I didn't speak for you, but I'm sure we agree, is that we're supposed to look out for each other as people of faith,

as human beings and people in a community. And one of the things that I want to fight for, I'm getting a little off your question, I'll come back, but

is restoration of that recognition, right? It's not that we should be coming to Washington looking for some massive program to help veterans. You should be concerned about the veteran down the street. We should be concerned about the homeless and the hungry in our neighborhood. We should be going to church and going to local community organizations to help each other out because it's your community where you know people best. And so, you know, to the question of

I don't know, life lessons and things that you see along the way, and you framed it in the context of service. I think what I would say is that I'm always, I think, I don't want to say taken aback, but inspired by and reminded every time there's a crisis,

and you're involved as a public servant, and so many people are looking and they're saying, what are you going to do for me? That's usually the people asking that question are the people in power and the people in Washington, the people in different groups that are saying, oh, what are you doing for me? Almost every American, though, they don't view it that way. They just go help. Remember the Cajun Navy and the hurricanes down there in Houston and Louisiana? Yeah.

And they just brought all their boats, these fisher dudes out there in Louisiana. They rolled over to Houston and they just got on their boats. That's the American way. And that's when I've noticed as a public servant, you get a massive flood through the hill country because we've had drought. And then people just show up and they bring food. You know, you have a passing of a loved one, a death and a funeral. And people bring food. When I was sick with cancer, the number of people that just showed up with meals was

That's who we are as Americans. And that to me is what I've observed and learned as a public servant and as a citizen.

about how I'm just so inspired by the American people. And I'm so uninspired by all of the people that, that are in DC messing that up. Now there's a lot of good public servants here, but, but, but there's a lot of people in this town that stand in the way of all of that greatness of Americans being able to help each other out. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back with my conversation with Congressman Chip Roy of Texas right after this. No, well, well said. I totally agree with that. I,

I've said many times I'm inspired by, you know, ordinary Americans who do extraordinary things. And they didn't even wake up that day thinking necessarily they were going to do that. And then all of a sudden they answer the call. And you're right, whether it's a flood or a tornado or an earthquake or a neighbor or in a car accident, you know, I saw a car accident.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt. The one guy, he just got out of his car and walked away. I couldn't believe it. But, you know, he's going down the freeway. Next thing I know, he's right in front of us. I see this car flipping multiple times. Oh, my gosh. And, you know, I put the car in park. And by the time I put the car in park, there are seven people out, you know, helping this guy. And

That's not some government program. That's not some bureaucrat who has to organize. I mean, there is a proper role of government, right? And there is a need for assistance to those that can't help themselves. I totally get that. But you're right. It's this American spirit and this neighborly spirit that's going to help solve and change and

make america you know what it needs to be it's not going to be some washington program that suddenly suddenly makes the magic happen i think then the magic's happened a lot you know i've been watching a band of brothers that's one of my favorite shows so um i try to watch it every kind of holiday christmas season and i'm due to watch it again it's been a little bit since i've watched it's probably been about two years maybe since i last went through it my son's 14 i'm kind of going

All right. I think now's the time. Like, I've been kind of waiting, like, because, you know, it's a little brutal. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little brutal, but it's about the right time for him. And it's a it's such a great series. Unbelievably good. Yeah. Well, OK, so I got us a little bit off track in the service and whatnot. So you go and you serve with with with Ted Cruz. You've done a variety of things with Senator now, Senator Cornyn, when he was attorney general, that sort of thing.

I happen to serve with Lamar Smith. I mean, Lamar was one of my favorite people in Congress. He's just such a nice gentleman. And when I was on judiciary, he was chairman of the judiciary. And then he retired, you know, when he got done with his chairmanship. And I believe that's the seat he ran for and won.

It is. And I've known Lamar for some period of time. I had worked when I was on the Senate Judiciary Committee as a lawyer for John Cornyn, who was on Judiciary, and then Ted Cruz ultimately was on Judiciary as well when I was the chief of staff. So I'd worked with a lot of these folks and had these deep relationships, both with members like Lamar, but also, you know, staff that were over here. And so then Lamar announced in 2017, November, that he wasn't going to seek reelection in 2018. And

I announced that I was going to run. It took a little bit and think it through it. And so I didn't get in. There were 18 of us in the primary. I don't know if you remember that, but it was a bunch. And as you have run before 18, it's pretty dang crowded. And there we go to a dinner or a function. And now we're going to hear one minute from everyone. I mean, it still takes a long time to get. That's what it was. We'd get like two, two minute spiels and it would take an hour, you know? And so,

So but it was it was a sprint, as you know, primaries are won basically with name ID. And so, you know, we ran into it. We had 90 days and we were able to win the plurality. We finished first, but then we had a runoff, went through the runoff, which was a tight race with the guy who'd run multiple times against Lamar before. And then I won the general election. And then the second election was against Wendy Davis, who was a fairly infamous Democrat candidate.

wore pink shoes on the Texas Senate floor for abortion. She was an advocate of abortion. So it was a $30 million race. Think about that, Jason. Holy cow. $30 million race. I mean, combined, both sides. So about 14 for me and 16 for her. So it was a lot. $30 million for a house? Yeah. That's crazy. Crazy. Why do you think you won? I mean, it takes a lot of different talent, skills, organization, belief. I mean...

How do you prevail in that? Why do you think you prevailed over the other Republican challengers? Well, I think there's a couple of factors. I mean, one was, of course, that I had at least been around it enough and knew what to do to make it happen and had support of Senator Cruz, support of

Rick Perry, the 14-year governor of Texas, and some others, some groups that were conservatives. I had a track record of having fought as a conservative. So you had organizations and immigration border security groups, Gun Owners of America, Club for Growth, and others that knew me. So they knew that I would come here and do what I said I would do. And that's the fundamental difference, right? I think the American people are just sick of people who aren't straightforward.

And so to answer your question, I just laid out what I wanted to do. I was aggressive about it, realistic about you got to figure out how to get it done. But I was very clear. I said, look, I want to deal with our spending crisis. I want to balance the budget, limit spending, and get our fiscal house in order. I want to restore health. That's a pretty radical position there, Chip Roy. Come on. I know. Balance a budget? That's a restraint?

You would think that that would be something that's pretty basic, but unfortunately in DC it is kind of radical. Yeah, it does differentiate you. Yes. I'm sorry. Keep going. No, I ran on that. I ran on what I call healthcare freedom. That's restoring the ability of the individual, the doctor to own their healthcare instead of insurance companies and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.

I ran on making sure that we secure the border of the United States. And obviously, we're not doing that, Joe Biden, although we did some good work under Trump. It's a mess right now under Biden. I ran on making sure our men and women have a clear mission. Men and women in uniform have a clear mission. The tools to carry it out, they care when they get home. And then I pretty much ran on leave the rest of the world alone to Texans.

and the good people who live here. And that was kind of my five-point platform that I ran on in 17 and 18. And I frankly have never really diverged from that. You add little layers in there on different issues that pop up.

But those are the things that animate me. It's freedom, limited government in order to ensure that we have a sovereign, secure nation that people can go about living their lives and that they're able to go get the health care they want, take care of their families and live their lives according to dictates of their conscience. And and and look, people know that's what I believe. What you see is what you get.

I'm not going to be afraid of challenging the order up here if that frustrates some people in Washington. So be it. I'll always try to be honest about it. I was just getting chastised not one hour ago right now by some of my colleagues for a floor speech I gave two weeks ago tomorrow in which I posited that Republicans need to answer, you know, name me one thing we've delivered for the American people in this year in the majority.

And my colleague said, oh, my God, you're writing the ads for the Democrats. I said, no, let's write the ads now. We've done good things in the House. We have a year to go. Negotiate with the Senate. Let's secure the border. Negotiate with the Senate. Let's limit spending. Negotiate with the Senate. Right. That's our job. I want to go deliver for the American people. I don't want to run campaign ads saying how bad Democrats are. I want to deliver.

Well, why that's controversial, I don't know. You know, I hear, for instance, I hear Jim Jordan a lot talk about, why don't we just do the things that we actually campaigned on? Correct. You know, if we would actually do the things that we campaigned on, imagine how much better it would be. And he's always made that point. I mean, the whole time I was in Congress, that was always the thing that he was talking about. And you've got a similar kind of voice and approach and...

I think it's very appreciated, and it's refreshing, and it's what leadership's about, trying to say, hey, here's the hill we need to go over. But it's amazing the resistance that others will give that along the way. Now that you've been in Congress for a little while, and really not that long, you saw it from the outside. You saw it as a staffer. You saw it.

pretty up close and personal, but now that you're actually a member and have been, what, what's, what's different about it? What's, what, what have you learned or seen that's like, okay, I didn't know that, but now that I'm a member, I do understand that. Uh, let me offer one positive and one negative. Um,

Let me start with the positive. I think as much as I rail on the swamp and rail on our failures, which I do regularly because you've got to kick this town into gear to hold them accountable –

there are a lot of really good men and women in congress there are a lot of really solid people um people in prayer groups people praying for each other people praying for the country people who uh wear the wounds of having served in our military in war people who are lifelong public servants strong businessmen and women who have been successful

but genuinely good people who care about you and care about each other and care about this country. It is not the caricature of just evil, you know, corrupt, in it to get rich kind of things that a lot of people say. And I think you would, having served in this body, echo that, right? The vast majority, not everyone, but the vast majority of people here are here for the right reasons.

and are generally good people and particularly my republican colleagues that i know that's not a slight on democrats i just know them less well but but even those that i know over there there's some genuinely good you know good human beings that i've got friendships with so right that's that's the positive and i assume you would agree with that oh yeah totally yeah there are some really good people and but there's also a few scoundrels yeah there are

Well, that leads me to my second point, right, which is the negative. And I knew this as a staffer, but you asked me what's a little different about being a member. It's the extent to which my colleagues are too, I want to be very careful my word choice, but timid or afraid to challenge the status quo and to jump in front of what they perceive as like, well, I can't vote against that because someone will say bad things about me.

And that then manifests itself in all manners of sin. If you can't look at, you know, a group who's here advocating for something. So I have the Farm Bureau come in. I represent awesome, God-fearing farmers in the whole country. They want me to say I'm going to vote for the farm bill.

I look them in the eye when I campaigned and now and I say, I'm not going to vote for the farm bill. The farm bill is going to be bloated with food stamps. I will do my best to minimize it. I will do my best to support farmers in the right ways within the realm of limited government. But just know, I'm not going to vote for that. It's 85 percent food stamps.

And they kind of look at you and they go, okay, right? I mean, when you take a position and you go look people in the eye, like, you know, there's a kill switches currently that they put in a statute two years ago

in order to make it to where cars can sense you and your fingers and whether you're drunk or your eyes are darting around. So you're going to have automated cars by mandate of the federal government, by statute that Republicans voted for, that are going to be able to shut down on you in the car for whatever reason. And they'll say, well, that'll stop drunk driving. I'm sure it might.

But it also might stop you and be stranded in a freezing cold because it thinks you're drunk. And you've got it right. So you're going to be creating that environment. Why do I bring that up? Because we tried to kill that in a bill about a month ago. And 19 of my Republican colleagues said, well, I couldn't vote against that because mothers against drunk driving were in my office railing on it.

I said, you can't look them in the eye and say it is a bad idea to have a mandatory feature in a car that will shut down on American citizens because you want to end something that is clearly bad, drunk driving. And they're just not willing to say no. They'll look you privately and they'll say, yeah, I think it's kind of a bad idea, but I just couldn't say no.

That's the kind of thing that frustrates the crap out of me, Jason, that I think is actually on steroids why we have $34 trillion in debt, why government has grown, is you have too many people that are just like, okay, well, whatever you say, you might run a bad ad against me. Who cares if they run a bad ad against you? We're talking about the Band of Brothers. Those men were sitting in foxholes in five below zero weather getting shot at on Christmas.

I think I can take a vote and get yelled at. Yeah. No, I, I, that series is so well done and so important. And I thought it was a good Christmas. I, I, maybe I'm just a little different. I think around the holidays puts in perspective, what's really important. But to your point about that, I mean, what if there's a mother who's like scared and, and,

in a neighborhood or went down, you know, getting out of work late and, or, uh, eight in class late. And she's darting her eyes around cause she's worried about where she is or maybe it's lost or, right. Or, or you got a child that's sick and, you know, they're trying to find, you know, run to the hospital. I could just see a car like shutting down. Like, are you kidding? I mean, it's crazy. I mean, you can see all the ways where that's not going to work real well. Yeah, exactly. Um,

Lots going on in Congress. You never know. That's the thing. I think when you go through elections, you really got to elect people of principle because there are things that you hope they fight for and advocate and they do what they say they're actually going to do.

But inevitably, in those years, particularly for like a presidential race, you just don't know what's going to face the, you know, come before a president, come before Congress, and you just hope you get people a principle. And like you said, I think most people, they're good and they care. But boy, you're right, the lack of...

how quickly they run for the hills based on who's in front of their office and they can't think through and have the intestinal fortitude or backbone. I mean, you signed up for a job that you're supposed to take hard votes. And some of those things should not be hard votes, especially when you're saying, look, I'm just trying to give people more liberty, more choice, more self-determination. Right.

I got to ask you a few questions, a few personal questions. I hope that's okay. Sure. This is rapid fire, and I hope you've strapped in your seatbelt here because these are really deep, penetrating, Chip Roy, who is he to his core kind of questions. You ready? Let's roll. All right. What was your first job?

Uh, your first job, what? Yeah. Doing farm, farm work, both on our, uh, little 10 acres and raising cattle and also down the street, like hay bales and other stuff, just, uh, you know, farm work, uh, in Western, uh, Latin County. What, uh, what was your high school mascot? The Vikings, the Loudoun Valley Vikings. Well, because there are a lot of Vikings in, in, uh, Virginia, obviously, right? Totally. They're, they're just, it's, you know, replete with Vikings. Yeah.

What was your, what was the first concert you went to? First real concert? You know, you go see like, you know, pickup shows. The first real concert was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Nice. Probably circa 1989. I think it was when he was doing the Full Moon Fever tour and kind of that rebound after his early success in the late seventies and eighties, early eighties. So yeah,

So, yeah, that was that was when it was. He was the man. I mean, sorry to see him pass. But yeah, yeah, I have listened to a lot of Tom Petty growing up through the years. That's a that's a good concert. That's good. It was a good concert. My wife and I are big music folks. We're a little bit more of the Texas music genre. And, you know, the sort of, you know, Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, now the younger guys, guys that you may not know of like Pat Green and

Corey Morris, some of these guys in Texas. So we do a lot of the local scene. I represent a lot of dance halls and stuff. My wife's to my first date was a Willie Nelson concert in 2003, May 9th, 2003, when we were in law school. And so anyway, we love the music scene. You know, up on Instagram, it's this old school Willie Nelson song popped up with Willie singing. It's like unrecognizable. It's like.

you know, you think of Willie Nelson, I say that and people are thinking, envision what Willie Nelson looks like. Yeah. But look at Willie Nelson was like when he was in his twenties, it's unbelievable. You got to go back and find those pictures. It's crazy. Well, a lot of people don't know that he wrote songs that like Patsy Klein saying, and, uh, you know, like crazy. He, and he was a prolific writer. And then he started saying that he kind of became, you know, hippie Willie and, and, uh, that whole persona. But, uh, but like a lot of good gospel music, a lot of great stuff. Uh,

And his son, Lucas Nelson, is actually very good. His voice sounds very similar. He's a young guy. Anyway, I can nerd out on that all day. Okay, well, that's part of getting to know you. Did you have a pet growing up? Yep, we had dogs predominantly and several dogs. Brutus was my first dog that was mine, a little German Shepherd, Collie mix. Brutus. All right, so if you can invite one person.

You call up your wife and you say, hey, honey, guess what? Got a guest coming over tonight. It could be one person. Anybody, dead or alive, okay? Throughout history of time, who would you invite over to break bread and spend time with the Roy family? Oh, man. Dead or alive? Yeah. Yeah.

well now that one's interesting obviously there's a lot of people who've walked this Earth um if you give me dead or alive I mean I don't know I can cheat and get multiple answers but that look my where my brain instantly goes are a couple three people one would be um the apostle Paul um just what he went through what they faced the book of Acts uh you know

spreading the gospel, running right into the buzzsaw of a Roman empire that was persecuting them. The time period, the knowledge of advancement of the early church,

That would be such a fascinating conversation. Any of the apostles, but Paul would probably be the person that I want to sit down and talk to. And a slightly more contemporary look. I went to the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson was, if not the intellectual leader at the time.

He certainly was one of several of him and Adams and Franklin and others. So Jefferson would be a hard one for me to pass up. And then if I'm being a little less thoughtful, it might be somebody like, you know, look, I played college golf. You know, Arnold Palmer was a great guy and hero. I wish I could have gone back a few years. I met him once, but didn't get a chance to sit down and talk with him at length. That would have been a fun thing. Yeah, you know, I don't think they're going to –

I don't think he's going to have a conversation with me. This is one of those things in Congress where I took a principled – I was so sick and fed up with recognizing athletes and celebrities that the Democrats had done. I said, I am not voting for another one of these. I'm just not going to do it until – Oh, look, I'm with you on these gold medals and coins. Yeah, I said –

Let's go, you know, until you find some border patrol agents and first responders and, you know, ordinary scientists that have done something amazing, you know, until you start also recognizing that I'm not doing another celebrity. So sure enough.

Then Republicans get in the majority. And what is the thing that John Boehner loves most? Golf. Other than alcohol and cigarettes, he loves golf, right? And so sure enough, here comes one to recognize it. He came over and leaned on me and I said, no, I'm not. And I was the only no vote. It was like 434 to one. Well, can I just, can I say something along those lines that is really important because I,

I'm similar. Like, so like for me, like there's a, there's a kind of a deeper, yes. Like some of the things that I've gone through and the, you know, I, you know, I remember playing golf with one of my golf teammates when I had chemo and there's like a life, like some of these guys that I know, like one of my golf teammates, this guy named Louis Chetangwa, he was the first black man to win the South African amateur. He was kind of the Jackie Robinson of South African golf. It was a big deal.

And I can sit here and tell you stories about all of that and his Christian faith and what it meant to him and being a leader in the sort of civil rights movement down there without being one. He didn't go embrace that. He just did it. But like, you know, you know, guys like, you know, Arnold Palmer and others that they had this sort of, you know, kind of bigger than life persona. For me, it would have been about like, well, how did you like he reshaped like a whole world in that space? I added that one as well. That's fun. But look, I applaud you.

I have voted no. I've been the solo no vote on a lot of things that I actually kind of like. But I'm like, it doesn't matter. That's not my job, right? Like right now, I vote –

Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, he's a great American, great inspiration. But how many times has he been recognized? Right? Yeah, right. Seriously? 100%. You don't need to do it anyway. No, no, totally. All right, let's keep going. Let's keep going. We're running out of time. I've got to ask you two more questions. Two more questions. Pivotal questions. Biggest questions we got so far. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no?

um not my first preference but my kids love it and i eat it and it's good i like it so yes is the answer okay as long as you wouldn't order it first and foremost no okay all right well we'll kind of let that slide because we're being generous here um here um last question best advice you ever got oh best advice i ever got um

I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's, you know, I've gotten, I've been the beneficiary of lots of good advice from lots of different folks on a lot of different topics. Almost all of those topics are,

geared towards, you know, how to succeed and how to make other people like you and all those things. For me, the advice that is most meaningful is that from my parents, you know, in this case, my dad. And, you know, it was always basically just, you know, don't forget who you are and where you came from and the importance of faith.

at the center of who you are and not diverging from that. And as a young man, and my dad would always bring it back to that. Um, and remember that it's, it's the doing the little things over time that define who you are. It's no speech. It's no moment. It's no winning a championship. It's no sporting accomplishment. It's no, I'm a rich guy, poor guy. It's,

It's, you know, yeah, my dad went to church every Sunday and was the deacon in the church. It was, yeah, my dad prays and reads the Bible every day. It's, you know, my dad, you know, I have a friend of mine whose father, he said, I've never heard say a swear word, right? There's those are the things that you actually remember. And that was the thing that my dad tried to. So I mean, I've failed on a lot of different fronts, but but I try to remember that as as the as the advice that matters.

No, that's great. It's really good. Listen, we get good people on the bus. You know that book, Good to Great? Get good people out there and good things will happen. Yeah.

I'm glad you're serving in Congress. I guess we need people who got their heads screwed on straight. So, Chip Roy, thank you so much, Congressman, for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. I do appreciate it. Yeah, Jason, my pleasure. God bless you. Thanks for your previous service and your continued service out in the media. And let's catch up sometime out west or here in D.C. Will do.

Well, thank you all for listening. I think you'll find Chip Roy is just a good person. Works hard, works smart. That's what you want. I think he's a great representative for those people in Texas. They're lucky to have him because he does work hard and he does know what he's doing. And I may disagree with him on things, but I expect that. But he does pour his heart and soul in the right direction. I want to thank you for listening. Hope you can rate this podcast, subscribe to it.

Want to remind people you can listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Again, rate it, review it, subscribe to it. You can go over to Fox News Podcast Network at foxnewspodcast.com for other podcasts. I've got a lot of colleagues who do great podcasts.

And then be sure to join us next week because we'll have another exciting guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.