A Christmas Conversation With Trey Gowdy 01:02:55

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 I'm excited that we are going to give a call

to my friend Trey Gowdy. Gowdy and I served in the House of Representatives, overlapped. We were on the Oversight Committee together. We were on the Judiciary Committee together. Similar life situations that we love our family and adore our kids, and we were away from home, so we spent a lot of time in Congress together. Also,

don't drink and you know, don't consume alcohol. So we were kind of behaving there on campus and while we were there, but I saw him morning, noon and night, whether I wanted to or not, and became a very good friend. We're going to have a good conversation with him. I have no idea where this conversation is going to go with him, but that's always the entertaining part of it. Two things before we get to the conversation with Trey.

uh one is hunter biden's no-show in the house of representatives i know that was a couple weeks ago but it still bothers me more than ever a duly issued subpoena is not a suggestion it's not a point of negotiation it is something you have to comply with if you were going to if you were ordered by the court to attend a court proceeding you need to show up if you didn't show up guess what there would be consequences

And for them to suggest, when I say them, Hunter Biden and his attorney, Abby Lowell, for them to suggest that, oh, well, you know, I'm only going to answer legitimate questions and I'm only going to answer, you know, in a public setting. You don't set the terms and the rules. That's not the way our country's worked. And by the way, the Oversight Committee was founded in 1814. They've been doing this for quite a while.

I happen to get to chair that committee. Trey Gowdy used to trade that, used to chair that committee. And it's just kind of laughable to suggest. Now, when the shoe was on the other foot and it was Donald Trump's kids that were brought up and Donald Trump, people like Steve Bannon decided not to show up. Guess what? They were held in contempt.

And then they were prosecuted and we're waiting to see what the sentencing looks like. But it looks like people have the potential of spending months in jail. And so there's got to be a consequence to no show. Otherwise, nobody's going to show up to Congress. Why would you show up if it's optional? You should have shown up, could have pleaded the Fifth. You can still plead the Fifth Amendment. You don't give up your rights to that.

but you still have to show up when you have a duly issued subpoena. All right, enough of that. Time to bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.

This time we go to Michigan and Michigan Live is where we found this. One of our crack producers, she was right on top of this. It was Shop with a Cop Night and at Walmart they had 75 police officers there. I don't know if they were sheriff or police officers but nevertheless 75 policemen, law enforcement were there. This is in I believe Livington County.

Evidently there was a 62 year old woman. The allegation is that even though there were 75 cops there for the shop with the cop night, she decided to try to steal $727 worth of stuff. One of the officers followed her out and as she put the stuff in her car, they detained her and charged her and whoops, maybe not the smartest move to do.

Not smart to do at all, but when you got 75 cops and it's shop with the cop night, really a bad time to do it. Maybe she thought, oh, everybody will assume everything's on the up and up. Bad call, bad move. Probably gonna, the judge is probably gonna look at that and say, yeah, that was probably a bad move. All right, time to move on and bring on my friend Trey Gowdy. I know no other way to introduce him other than just dial him up. And I'm gonna tell you, as I preview this,

This is exactly, I don't even know what we're going to say. I don't know what's going to go down. But I'm just telling you, whenever I call Trey, it goes 100 different directions. We never know exactly what we're going to talk about. If he calls me, I call him. It's just fun. And we smile. And I hope you do too during this holiday season. I hope you enjoy this. Let's give a shout to Trey Gowdy.

listen to the all-new brett bear podcast featuring common ground in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle along with all your brett bear favorites like his all-star panel and much more available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts trey gowdy how are you i'm doing great jc how are you fired up ready to go i i love the holidays i if you got my christmas gift yet

Yeah, it was the same thing I got the previous years I've known you, which is absolutely nothing. Actually, it's usually worse than nothing. It's a request for something.

Yeah, well, I understand that. How many times have you gone to dinner and you're kind of patting yourself down and you're like, where's my wallet? I don't have my – can you help me out? Hey, look, you can't possibly remember everything. I had to remember my phone, so I can't remember my wallet and my phone. Plus, you made a gazillion dollars as a skin care consultant before you got to Congress. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You like bringing that up, don't you? My first job out of college, I worked for Nu Skin Enterprises. And Trey Gowdy likes to remind us all that I was helping to sell skin care. You know what? Your colleague from the great state of Utah, Mike Lee,

Apparently he was eating dinner with us one time. Mike Lee is a United States senator from the great state of Utah. Yeah. And apparently you picked a fight with me and I was defending myself. And of course, Mike Lee is a constitutional scholar. Right. And and apparently it doesn't sound like something I would say, but he claims, I said, who would you listen to?

a cosmetic salesperson or a constitutional law scholar. That does not sound like something I would say, Jason, but he says, Oh no, that's not, you would haven't read with Trey Gowdy ever point out something like that. No, that would never happen. Actually. I enjoy getting your Christmas card. You have a beautiful family. You have beautiful, um, children and children in law and your wife, Julie, uh,

The thing, I guess it saddens me when I get that Christmas card because you are near as I can tell the only person in the history of mankind who broke his foot putting up Christmas decorations. No, no, no, no, no, no. It was it was Fourth of July was changing a light bulb in my garage. Oh.

OK, well, you remember it how you want to remember it. And I'll remember how I want to remember it. But we're playing basketball and you're like an eggshell. You say, well, don't touch me. Don't step on my foot. Don't don't make me run. Don't make me sweat because I got 15000 pins in my foot because I misstepped coming off a ladder.

So I can get a little bit of exercise. I can't really run. I can't, you know, it's have this agility and it's pretty fragile. Last thing I want to do is re-break this thing because they did put 14 screws and two plates in my foot. And so in the house gym, there is this basketball court and there was a little pickup basketball game that was going on.

And sure enough, count on the gentleman from, well, gentleman's generous, but from South Carolina, Mick Mulvaney.

And I say to everybody, hey, listen, I'll kind of move like I can, but just don't step on my foot, okay, everybody? Just don't step on my foot. What happens on the first thing? Here comes Mick Mulvaney. He steps fortunately on my left foot as opposed to my right foot. But I'm like, Mick, you can't do that. I'm going to, oh, my gosh. And so I sat down. There's no way I could. Well, here's the good news. And Mick Mulvaney playing basketball in itself is kind of funny.

Yeah, well, Mick moves like a three-toed sloth. He also weighs about what most supermodels weigh. So I'm surprised that you remember he stepped on your foot. He weighs about 100 pounds.

Yeah, and he's, what is he, 4'9"? How tall is he? He wears boots now. He wears those same boots that Marco and DeSantis wear. He's up to five feet. He's up to five feet. Oh, my gosh. Well, look, we had a lot of fun there. You know, we both slept in our offices. You did your configuration a little different than mine. I actually brought a cot.

But you bought, didn't you have like a couch that folded out? I tried everything. Duffy, Sean Duffy, our great friend from Wisconsin, probably better known now as Rachel Duffy's husband. Right. Duffy talked me into buying an air mattress.

And I tried that and it literally was like sleeping on a raft in the Pacific Ocean during a tsunami. That is what it I mean, an air mattress that did not move a lot in your sleep. Well, I mean, like if you move at all, you fall off and, you know, not to gross people out. But I had so many mice in my office. I began to name them. I mean, they became friends.

So I didn't want to like lay on the floor. I did buy a couch. It was supposed to be the best pullout couch. It costs a lot of money, but it, it made me. And, and, and by the way,

The best pull-out couch is still worse than the worst bed. Well, I got grossed out because, you know, constituents would come by and people would visit you and they'd sit on that couch and then you would fold it on sleep. Yeah, but I folded it back up into a couch. It's not like they were sitting on my pillow. Right.

It kind of felt like it. It was weird. It was just weird. But it was a very nice, comfy couch. You know what's different now, though? You know what's different now? I didn't even realize this. I don't know when it happened. They get... They have the ability now. It's almost like a per diem. Yeah. They can get reimbursed, right? Which, I mean...

I assume you looked. I know I looked to see what – I mean, nobody sleeps in their office because he or she wants to. It's a pretty miserable experience. And then going down to the member gym, which is a whole other horror story. We're going to get to that.

$2,500 a month for a one-room efficiency, utilities excluded. Right. And oh, by the way, you also have a house back in your home district. You may have kids that are crazy enough to want to go to college. And it was like I didn't have a choice. But I think, and I'll let you speak for yourself, I think my experience would have been a lot more enjoyable if,

If the evenings were more enjoyable, it is hard to sleep on a couch with the cleaning crew coming in. No matter how many times you say I'm good, I don't need my trash can emptied. Flipping on an overhead light that really looks like the strongest star in the solar system coming on at two o'clock in the morning or better yet. Could you ever hear the elevator sound?

So I couldn't hear the elevator. The problem that I had was members of Congress have a panic button that goes right to the Capitol Hill police. So if something happens...

Well, mine evidently had a bit of a short in it because on more than one occasion, in the middle of the night when I actually was asleep, all of a sudden the door comes flying open, the lights on, and I am just like, and there are two Capitol Hill police like, you okay? And I'm like, yeah. And he said, well, your panic alarm went off. And I'm like, I know I wasn't like walking around pushing the button. And that was...

That was actually pretty funny. But to your point about the cleaning crew, I got to know my guy and I asked him, I said, hey, man, do you mind coming like a little bit early? And I would sit down and chat with him. He would come sit on my couch and we'd talk. I got to know him pretty well. He would tell me stories like he would save up his money and then he'd go to Vegas. And I'd say like, look, and I was coaching him, look, you got to buy your return ticket, okay?

Just whatever cash you're going to go play with, great. Go have fun. And he told me some of the craziest stories, and he loved Vegas. That's all he wanted to do is save up enough money and go back to Las Vegas. But I had fun getting to know him and chatting with him. And the guy that, you know, those little Zambonis, that's what would get me is outside the door, they would clean the floors, and they'd ride around in these, like, Zamboni floor cleaners. I could hear that guy.

I could hear the vacuum bumping into the desk and chairs in the next room. I had fans going. Here's where I kind of stopped with your story. You probably don't know this. Those two police officers that had to respond to your office in the middle of the night while you were asleep in bed, they're both in psychiatric hospitals right now because of what they saw. Right.

Well, this actually has a very unhappy ending. Well, let's go back to your point about the mice, because I had to had a mouse problem and it was a fight. I wasn't as friendly with you. I don't I didn't need these little they were little mice. They weren't big rats. The big rats are the ones wearing the ties. Right. So it was these little mice and they but they would come out and they were so clever that

And I had some colleagues like, okay, yeah, it's easy. Just set a trap. I'm like, I couldn't get them. So then they said, okay, before I finally had success was with those sticky pads.

And I even sent, I even think I sent out a tweet. I said, dear PETA. And I sent it to PETA. I said, if you care about this, you come get them out of my office. Otherwise, I'm going to kill them. And they didn't show up to help me get the mice out of my office. I did not want to kill the mice. I have a hard time. I still to this. Well, the other night, my wife.

saw a some kind of flying bug on the wall i got it and put it outside i just i don't know well you got like these ferocious dogs at home right you got i didn't mind seeking the death penalty for people that never bothered me but like killing a bug or a or a mouse that that i drew the line there well i'd put this cot and i'd lay it out and i had to make sure all the

My little blanket and sheets and all that, that little sheet did not go on the floor because all I could envision was that the mouse was, I know he could probably just jump up on this little, the cot was not a foot off the ground.

And, but I was always thinking this thing would jump, but somehow I could come from my mind thinking, all right, as long as my, as long as my sheets and my, my blanket aren't dripping onto the floor to allow him a ramp up onto my face, then I think I'll be okay. Yeah.

You obviously watched that Rambo movie one too many times where he's in a tunnel with a bunch of rats on it. I don't know that they're carnivores. Or Indiana Jones. Yeah, I just wasn't that fun. I think I ended up killing half a dozen, maybe six or seven, I think I killed.

Oh, my Lord. That's like the killing fields. We're going to have to give you a third name because all mass murderers have three names. Here, you got to answer this honestly. We were told there were six beds down in the member gym. Yes. And we were told very specifically, you cannot spend the night there. Now, if you want to catch a nap,

You can, but you cannot spend the night there. And I never did. But I got a sneaking suspicion that there were people who did. They went down to one of those six beds and had themselves a really nice night's sleep.

So their justification is that sometimes you're there late at night. You don't have time to go home. They didn't want to sleep. So they put – there are like little tiny rooms in that house gym, which is down in the basement of the Rayburn building. But I once thought, okay, I'm going to do this. I have a super early flight. I don't know. There was some reason I would – and I tried. I tried it, Trey. It was so gross because –

Like, it freaked me out because when I looked at the sheets and I looked at the bed, there were hair. There were a couple loose hairs. And I thought, I'm not the first one to sleep on this. These sheets have not been – so I could not do it. I was like, there's no way I'm doing this. And I just walked out. Like, it was so disgusting. Well, I don't want anybody to get the point.

Can you smell it? I can smell it. And it's got a distinctive gross smell. It had a distinctive smell. It had, you know...

I tried to find a door to go through. I'm not a morning person, as you probably recall. I don't like a lot of chatting in the morning. Oh, really? Let me try to paint a picture of what was going on here. Flip-flops, shorts, some sort of disheveled T-shirt, a skullcap, and...

And legs that were not lifting off the ground. It's just shuffling. Left, right, left, right. But not leaving the floor itself. Literally shuffling through. Hey, Trey, how are you? If that.

is that a pretty good picture is that about why were you in such a good mood i mean it's six or seven o'clock in the morning why are you in a good mood i was exercising i was on the bike or if you were next to jim jordan look out because boy that was the splash zone that guy talk about a workout he still thought he was in wrestling mode he put on the full plastic you know like the

The plastic pants, the plastic shirt, whatever, the hoodie. And he'd just get on there and he'd be dripping. I mean, it was just like a faucet coming off of his face. He really worked out. But boy, you were close to him. You didn't want to be on that machine. I tell people that Jordan does things in the gym that I've never seen anybody else do. I mean, plenty of people on the treadmill. There were plenty of pretty good athletes there. But Jordan...

would do a wide grip pull-up, drop to the floor, do a push-up, do a sit-up, hop right back up. I mean, just one right after the other. And, I mean, that guy's always my age. We're older than you are.

He's doing stuff in a gym I've never seen anybody do. Of course, he was, I mean, to say he was a college wrestler, he was an elite college wrestler. Yeah, he was like an all-American wrestler, yeah. He beat John Smith. Nobody beat John Smith except Jim Jordan. Well, I'm convinced the reason he's, first of all, he's not wearing a coat because it doesn't really fit him. He's a really strong guy, and if not, he's probably still hot from the workout that he had in the morning yesterday.

He's also kind of a farmer. He's a little bit like Mark Wayne Mullen from Oklahoma. They'll wear a suit if they have to, not to get all political. But, you know, Jim, there are more comments made about the fact that Jim might take his blazer off than who's that senator that looks like he robbed a convenience store.

The senator from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman. Yeah, I mean, that was like, you know, oh, let's praise his individuality. Let's praise his nonconformity. But God forbid Jim Jordan take off his jacket during a congressional hearing. Yeah, exactly. And he actually abided by the rules. He put the coat on when you go on the floor of the House.

but Jim does not like wearing a coat, that's for sure. Jim is a rule follower. You know where things picked up in the gym is when there was always, whoever was in the majority, the speaker would appoint somebody to be kind of in charge of the gym from a member's perspective. I don't know if you remember, but at one point Nancy Pelosi appointed Jesse Jackson Jr.,

to be in charge of the gym. And oh my goodness, it's as if there was no budget because everything changed for the better. Huge mat with the logo on it. Suddenly all this boxing equipment came in. Do you remember all the television screens, Matt?

I remember things got better, but I didn't know how or why they got better. But just so the listener knows, you do pay for the gym membership. I mean, it's not. And it's not glamorous down there. People are kind of envisioning like the best. Oh, no, this is like a 1950s high school gym where the lockers are.

not even a foot wide type of thing. Like it's pretty clanky. And that workout room that we talk about with all these members in it and stuff, this is not, I mean, there's a lot of places that are, it's not very swanky, but it does the job. It had a basketball court, which we often converted to a paddle ball court, which is, I played a ton of paddle ball. Like Jeff Flake was really, really good. Bob Dole, Charlie Dent,

Then there's a group right below that guy who was the guy that played volley. He was like an Olympian volleyball. Jared from California. He was really, really good, too. But I taught Tulsi Gabbard to play paddleball. And, you know, me, I'm from the South. I'm sitting here thinking, well, you know, Trey, be a gentleman. You taught her how to play. This is her first game.

You know, just take it easy. Don't try to see how bad you can beat her. It's a hard game to pick up. She just loved it. She kicked your butt, and I loved every minute of it. No, we're 19-19. It's tied at 19, and I'm doing everything I can to not lose to somebody who's never played paddle ball before. And I go to hit the ball, and I run into her.

I have run into softer granite walls than running into Tulsi Gabbard. I literally, I think like stuff is still wrong with me from running into her.

That is one solid human being. She is a great athlete, but I mean, I would rather run into the wall than run into her. Yeah, I had no problem with this. I thought it was great because you could watch from where the exercise bikes were and stuff. You could see out into the gym, and yeah, it was pretty funny. I think there was one big fundamental mistake that I made, though.

Because when I initially got assigned my locker, it was on the main floor. And it was like right next to... It was really close to like Anthony Weiner's locker and some other notorious people. And I don't know. I'm old enough. I don't really like the group showering thing. Like, don't need to do that. Don't need to... Like, I like privacy. And so...

They had individual showers like with shower curtains and stuff, but it still wasn't that private. But then I found the magic of downstairs. And here's where I went wrong. I asked to change my locker and I did. I got downstairs. A lot less people. And I found a private shower and that had like a full sink and toilet in it. And you could lock the door.

My biggest mistake was I told Trey Gowdy about it because Trey said, good idea, Jason. And how many times would I go down there and I think, oh, okay, now it's time to take a shower. And it would be locked. And I knew exactly who was in there. Trey Gowdy taking his sweet old time. That was my biggest mistake because how many times did I sit there for 20 minutes waiting for you to do your hair? I mean, it was absurd. 20 minutes?

I don't know what you were doing in there, but it took a long time. And I remember doing that night, day after day after day. Duffy told me about a shower in the basement of Cannon. And it was like a law enforcement officer shower. And I went down there.

And there were cobwebs from like the Civil War era. So I said, this ain't going to work. I'm not going down there. And then I did the mass shower for a while, which is just awful. I mean, it is awful, awful. That's cruel and unusual punishment. And you're right. You told me about the one down there by the little therapeutic pool. And the door does lock.

And you don't run out of hot water. But I'm telling you, Jason, I mean, I know people are sitting there saying, good Lord. I mean, y'all got to talk about something other than this. But the water in the member gym was really resembled skim milk. It had a whitish hue to it, and it had the same consistency as skim milk. So it's not like any shower you took down there was like a lot of fun.

No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to turn this whole podcast into our griping about the house gym, which was a privilege. We did pay for it, paid a few hundred dollars to access it. But boy, those were some of the times that I remember. I started with, did you get my Christmas present? But I evidently not.

Because we're kind of just past Christmas and it hasn't yet arrived. Well, my guess is it is the 11th in what is probably going to be a 20-part series of your books. Deep State Part 11 is probably the present. Okay.

So if my suspicion is, you know, if I read it, I'll be the only one in this conversation who has read it. Oh, yeah. Do you. Let's go back to your dogs here. Now, I think when I first met you, you had three dogs and I love the names of these dogs. I hope you don't mind my getting so personal.

judge jury and bailiff right were the names of your dogs yeah yeah but it's been a few years now and you know some of them passed away but didn't you just buy like this elephant of a of a dog what was the breed of this dog it's like absurd like you've got a horse what did you do uh we had judge jury and bailiff in fact i was just out my backyard we we

A buddy of ours planted three trees kind of, and they're really cool looking little trees in honor of those three dogs. I got little plaques out there for them. I mean, you know, they're like family. And then when Bailiff, I mean, Jury lived to be 18 years old, which is pretty amazing for a dog. But when Bailiff passed away, I told my wife, I'm not getting anything else that doesn't outlive me. I'm just not going through this again.

And that lasted for about two weeks. But I knew that she wasn't quite ready for a new dog. So I had a choice. I could try to talk her into it or I could do it on my own and surprise her. So I went online and I don't think you've watched Game of Thrones before.

Jason, because it's like not rated G, but there was a miniseries called Game of Thrones. Are you familiar with that? I'm familiar. I never watched it, but yeah. No, no. We know you've never watched it because Julie would cut your eyeballs out if you watch that. But I did watch it.

And they have something called dire wolves in there. They're dogs that look like wolves. There's not a single wolf part of the dog. They're just bred to look like them. And I thought, that's a cool look. And they're a couple of breeders, but they're both in the Pacific Northwest.

So I emailed one and said, I'd like to get on the waiting list for one of your dogs. And she happened to be a Fox News watcher. And she said, we actually have the smallest one in the litter that has not sold yet. Do you want him? And I said, sure. Now, when you say small.

the smallest. Well, he might have been small as a baby. He's not small now. How big is his dog? He's about as big as my wife. He's gigantic. Your wife's pretty tiny. So, well, your wife's not gigantic. You're going to have a lot to answer. Okay. But she's like, come on, you might want to clean up this, this podcast. Um, and say, well,

Can you pick up this dog? They're called a dire wolf. It's kind of a combination of different breeds, sweetest disposition in the world. They don't bark. They howl. Oh, that's what I'm looking for. I want a dog that wakes me up to howling like a wolf. It is...

You know, when I went ahead and said, yeah, you got one, you know, they drive the dogs to you. I didn't want to fly them cross country as a puppy. So I paid them to drive the dog from the Pacific Northwest to South Carolina. And I still had not told my wife.

She got an alert from Chewy's that the delivery will be made. And she called Chewy's and said, you know, we must have had auto delivery. Our dog passed away. Oh, you're cruel of you. I still hadn't told her. Trey, you know how mean of you. She had to relive the death of your other dog?

Oh, that's just cruel. My wife is the sweetest human being on the face of the earth. I know. She probably really took that emotionally. No, no. Her emotion was one of anger. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Terry.

I was one of anger of how in the world could you order a dog and not tell me about it? So she came back in my office and, you know, her personality. I mean, she is the sweetest person in the world. She said, did you order something from Chewy's? And I said, I did. And she said, did you do it for our daughter's dog? And I said, no, I've been meaning to tell you.

I've been meaning to tell you. And she said, well, okay, when is the dog coming? And I said, tomorrow. If I surprise my wife with a dog, a wolf, nonetheless, that is bigger than she is. Oh, my gosh. I can't even imagine. He is...

I just, we've had them, we've had a dog in our house for 20, almost 25 years. It just, I thought I'd be okay without one and I was not. Hey, I pretty much grew up with dogs all the time. Now, the...

At one point, I was the campaign manager and then the chief of staff to Governor John Huntsman here in Utah. And John Huntsman had some dogs, and then he always liked to get rescue dogs. But then when he became governor, his dad decided to give him a dog. Well, that meant that I think they had four dogs. And then somebody pointed out to me that the city ordinance for Salt Lake City, where the capital is,

that you can have no more than three dogs. And so I had to go to the governor-elect and say, I hate to tell you this, but you can't, you know, I wouldn't advise being the new governor and just bypassing the city ordinance on the number of dogs. So our kids loved this dog. Its name was Moya. And it was a golden retriever. And it was a little bit older.

And he decided for Christmas that he would give us that dog. And it just fit perfectly with us. It's such a perfect temperament of a dog. And we surprised our kids and gave them this dog from the Huntsman's. It was just really nice. It was really nice. This dog is probably eight or nine years old at this point. And so...

bring the dog and the first night we didn't know exactly where it was going to sleep I'm not a huge let's have the dog sleep in our bed or you know in the room but it was disoriented it didn't like where it was in the laundry room and so we brought it into the bedroom put the little bed out there and it went to sleep but in the middle of the night Trey middle of the night I mean it's like 3 o'clock in the morning we are Julie and I are sound asleep all of a sudden

This dog decided to jump up on the bed and it scared the living daylights out of me. I about jumped out of my skin. All of a sudden have this, I don't know how many pounds, 70 pound dog jump up, 60 pound dog jump up on my bed, like right on top of me. Oh, it scared me so bad.

We started off with Justice as our new dog. We started off with him in a crate. It was a giant crate, but a crate down in the playroom. And I could hear him cry. So I waited until my wife was gone one day and I moved the crate into the bedroom because she told me he is going to be in a crate. We are not going to be stepping over dogs in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. He's going to be in a crate. Yes, ma'am, honey.

So I moved the crate to our bedroom. And then the first night he was in there, he was still crying. So I laid down by the crate and held his paw and did not get a very good night's sleep. And then I don't know where my wife went, but when she came home, the crate was gone. So he's been sleeping on the floor right beside, for the most part, right beside her bed ever since then. Well, it's a good security and they become part of your family and everything.

That's good. People, you gotta, you gotta love dogs. I just, I almost lost my first election. I remember I was way out in front and my little staff that we had, and we were all volunteers. There was no paid staff, but we were talking about what to do the last three weeks of the campaign. And I'm pulling like way out in front, but it's my first campaign. And the strategy was basically don't blow it. Don't do something stupid. And so sure enough,

Fox 13 here in Utah comes and puts a microphone, says, hey, we want to do the... I think they call it 6 and 60, something like that. You know, answer six questions in 60 seconds. And one of the very first questions was, cats or dogs? And I couldn't just answer that question. I didn't just say dogs. I said...

And I'm paraphrasing because it's been a while now. I said, dogs, you know, one of the great books I got was 101 Uses for a Dead Cat. That is a really good book. Oh, my gosh. I got lit up nationally on this answer to this question. The hate mail I received, the I will never vote for you again. You're an evil person. Oh, my gosh. You just I can't believe that I did.

My staff turns to me and says, all you had to do is answer the question. That's all you had to do. And you did that? Well done, Jason. Well done. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a communications expert. We can get Dana Perino on the phone. She's really good about stuff like this. But to me, there's a big chasm between I love them both, but I prefer dogs. And then what you said, which was 101 uses for a dead cat.

There was like, there's like an entire universe between those two answers. And you decided to go, you know, John Wayne Gacy on everybody. It's a pretty funny book. I haven't looked at it in years, but maybe...

I've learned a few things, and I'll probably get some hate mail from this podcast. No, you haven't, because do you remember when they came to interview us about the NCAA brackets? They wanted us to come fill out the names. Well, we need to forget about this moment. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am in the state with the number one ranked women's basketball team in America, and Kim Mulkey has been my friend for 20 years.

So they asked us, we fill out the men's bracket, and then they appropriately say, you know, you want to fill out the women's bracket. And I said, yes. And you said, who cares about women's basketball? I said, nobody watches women's basketball. Who cares about women's basketball? This is like on ESPN or something. Or something. We were like doing a live shot on ESPN. I think it was ESPN. We're doing a live shot, and...

And Trey is over there waxing on. He can name like the players, the coaches, the teams who did well last year. And I'm thinking, why did they invite me? I know I can't name a single player. Never been to a game. Can't name a single coach. Can't even name the teams that there are playing. Other than I knew Connecticut was a pretty good team. And.

Yeah, I was a little too candid with just saying nobody watches women's. Yeah, that was not the best. What was your worst, most embarrassing moment like that? You know, because I got a really long list, but you want them alphabetically. You want them chronologically. The very, the very first interview I ever did was with Megyn Kelly. And and I was very nervous.

It was over in the cannon rotunda. Yeah. Well, but it's it's remote. So all you're doing is looking at a, you know, four inch round circle. There is no person. So I decided that it would be more interesting if I looked at the top of my shoes.

So I literally did the interview with her. I mean, now I'm a little bit better at it. You know, you have to look at the camera tray. I literally looked at the at the top of my shoes and it was awful. And I knew then that I would never be invited back on. And and, you know, for about a year, I wasn't. And then, you know, God bless Greta Van Susteren. She said, well, surely he can't be that dumb anymore.

Still. So Greta gave me a chance to come on and then Martha. But but no, that first interview with Kelly was awful. What's the hardest thing about having your own show? Probably not falling for. We all have a desire to be successful, but you have to define success in your own way.

Then there's a temptation to chase ratings that that the number of people watching, therefore, means that it must be real quality. And I had tried to resist that. I've I've tried to have, you know, I mean, I say this with respect and humility. There are stories that we don't hear about, but we probably should. Right. Right.

And then there are the stories that you hear about, you know, pretty much nonstop all day long. And I like to go find, I mean, I think now two or three times we've done stories on missing women of color. That's something that was important to me because I actually prosecuted those cases. And I think to me, it's part of fairness. It's not going to be a ratings driver. So the hardest part, and I'll say this.

Jason, and this is, you know, with the Lord as my witness, my bosses at Fox have never once said a word about ratings. They have never once said, you know, you got to get your numbers up or you got to get this demographic up or you got to be more provocative. Never once. Right.

But there's still this temptation. You know, you host all the time. You don't want to, like, be perceived as a flop or a failure. And you judge that based on the number of people watching. Right. I mean, don't you think? Yeah, I mean, I'm glad to hear that because, I mean, Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy, that's probably what I like about it. You're not going to get the...

It's not going to be an all red meat show. It's just, you know, you're going to tackle, bring on some guests that you normally wouldn't see in other settings. I mean, you got to do something, right? Because it's top of mind. It's what people are talking about. It's what the country's thinking about. But you also bring in some guests. I'm like, I've never seen that person before. And it's good. That's what I like about it.

Well, thank you for that. And also, the other thing that's a little bit different is I spent the first 20-something years of my professional career interrupting people. I mean, you do it all the time in the courtroom. We had to do it in congressional hearings. You just have to – the questioner is the star. And in television –

I just have decided I'm not going to interrupt the guest. I just, they're my guest. They get five minutes. I can say what I want before or after they come on, but I'm not going to. So if you like that verbal sparring, which, I mean, you're such an affable, easy to get along with guy. You're not conflict oriented. I'm not saying you're afraid of it, but you don't wake up in the morning saying, how can I pick a fight with somebody? I don't.

I did that. I did it for a quarter of a century. Fought with people in the courtroom and in congressional hearings. I just don't want to do it on television. Totally switching gears here, Anya, but it's kind of the same. It just sparked this. You know, you're a prosecutor for a long time. I said to you one time, I said, how many cases did you lose? And I don't know if you give the same answer twice, but I said, how many cases did you lose? And you said,

none, right? And I said, "Come on, how can you not lose any cases?" And then I think you said to me, "Well, look, a good prosecutor knows when to plea out a case." I thought that was very telling. But when you go back and you look at, and I see them sometimes on some of those crime shows and stuff, you had some horrifically hard, difficult, I mean, brutal cases.

How did you, like emotionally, mentally, I mean, between you and your wife and your family and your values and everything, how do you go through such a gruesome, brutal evil? I mean, some of these cases are just flat out evil. How do you do that and then maintain a sense of balance and sanity? And how did you do that? Well, I didn't. Unfortunately, you do pay a price.

And and probably you're you're a man of faith. I say this with all due respect to myself, I guess. But it impacts your faith. I mean, just you it's it's all you see and therefore you think it's all that exists. You try very hard to keep it from your family. But I'm actually, you know, not hawking a book because it's nowhere near done. But I'm writing a book now that's a crime drama.

I've written three others that were, I guess, more self-help. But I'm writing a crime drama. And I send it to someone and they say, God, how in the world could you come up with this depravity? How could you come up with these crime scenes? And I'm thinking every one of them is real. None of this is made up. Every part of this I saw.

The truth is, it either makes you closer, I guess, to your faith. I have seen prosecutors that it made them more, I guess, stronger in their faith. It didn't have that impact for me. I just wonder if God can create the universe and create everything he's created in six days, why he couldn't keep a kid from getting killed. Why did you gravitate to criminal law?

I mean, you start going to law school, you can go a lot of different directions, right? But prosecuting, criminal law, that's a tough row. And, you know, it's not the most financially lucrative either. So what was the impetus there? What was the driver where you had, Terry said, yeah,

I think it was a couple of things. There were no lawyers in my family. There are now. Both my kids went to law school, and a brother-in-law. But at the time, no lawyers. So I had nobody to ask, nobody to talk to. I did okay in constitutional law class, which is not exactly similar to criminal. But what really clicked...

was something my mom said. She was a victim advocate in a district attorney's office. So she would make sure the victim knew what their rights were, and she would come home very, very frustrated because a defendant could go hire the best lawyer money can buy, but a victim is stuck with the prosecutor.

And she used to lament that. She goes, why would the family of a homicide victim, why would a sex assault victim not be able to go hire the best lawyer money can buy? Why are you stuck with a DA? And I thought, well, if you're going to be stuck with a lawyer, you ought to be stuck with a good one. And I watched the federal prosecutors when I was clerking for a judge. I watched them.

They were really, really, really good. And I thought, how cool would it be to stand up in front of 12 people and say, I represent the United States of America or I represent the state of South Carolina? And once it gets in your blood, Jay-Z, you cannot get it out. There's not there's no area of the law that captures you like like criminal does.

Well, thanks for doing it because you're right. We need good people doing that and it's tough. It's gotta be just take an emotional toll. You know, I, I look at these people, I have to, some of the, you know, some of these crimes are just, there's just horrific in it. And I don't know how you get those pictures out of your mind. And anyway, thanks for doing that. I, you know, admire you for doing that. That's a, but you gotta get into it and then, then move along. And,

You know, somehow, someway, Trey, you got to figure out where that Christmas gift that you were going to get me is because we're now past the deadline. And I count on this. I bank on it. I tell my family it's coming. It's coming. I feel like Clark Griswold on Christmas vacation. It's coming. I promise it's going to be good. And then nothing shows up. And I feel like I failed my family.

No. You know what Terry and I have decided doing? I mean, Terry used to make stuff and all this stuff. Yeah. I haven't seen that in a while either. Well, what I talked her into, although I think she's about to go back to her old ways, I said, you know what, honey? We are so lucky. Almost no one in our lives literally needs something. They may want something, but they don't need something. So why don't we...

donate money in name of and in honor of our friends and that is our Christmas gift let's be honest here I want something I I am no longer in Congress I can accept gifts I I I can accept some of our colleagues I don't have to fill out a disclosure

Some of them accepted them when we were in Congress. You didn't, but some did. I know. And so there was a dearth. There was a void there for a while. And look, your wife knows how to cook.

I mean, and I got, I, and I like to eat. I got the body to prove it. Oh my Lord. Do you like to eat? Oh, one of my, I have so many good memories. But here is, we kind of conclude the podcast. Yeah. I could tell her. I actually have no bad memories of you at all from the, I spent more time around you. Well, it would be between you and Tim Scott. And then when you left Radcliffe,

But I spent as much time around you as anyone. And I have no bad memories. I remember one time coming back from dinner because you're always in a good mood, always in a good mood. Nothing ever bothers you. And our mutual friend, God rest his soul, probably staff, probably staff. But Elijah Cummings had done something, more likely staff, that disappointed you.

You remember that? And I'll remember you calling because it was so out of character for him. And I don't think he did it. I think his staff did it. But almost every memory I have of you from our time there involves laughing. That's true. That's true. We had a good time. We did. You know, there's a lot of weighty issues and things that come before you, but you got to just laugh and not take yourself too seriously and have fun. That's why...

I enjoyed it to your point at night, you know, it's kind of hard. It's lonely. You're away from your family. Your wife's back by herself. You're there and, um, and you got a bunch of reading you got to do to get ready for the next day. But I think the, the dinners and stuff that we had, that, that was a really fun times. That was really fun times.

People back home early on, because their idea is that congressmen are surrounded by these Hollywood actresses and these supermodels. I don't know what they think, but I used to have people say, we're so proud of you. You've gone there and there's been no scandal. And I'm sitting here thinking, guys, I don't drink.

And I spend my time with Tim Scott and the Mormons. So what trouble exactly would I be getting into? I mean, that is not a formula for getting in trouble.

We had a pretty... I mean, it was fun for us, but in terms of it's work, it's go to dinner, it's walk back to the office building, maybe watch something, prepare for the next hearing, and go to bed. That was the glamorous life of a member of Congress. Yeah, fight off the mice in my office was part of that equation. I will say, and I hope you take this the right way. I hope everybody listening takes this the right way. I think one of the...

the funniest things you said about me and there's, you're a funny guy, right? So there's a lot of funny stuff. But if you recall, we, I had a hearing about the secret service and then there was a notice put out from kind of the number two person at the secret service saying it's time to, it's time to, uh, even out this fight. Uh, we need to get Jason Chaffetz and 40, 40 secret service agents dove into my background and did all this stuff. And, uh,

After this investigation of a year, the only thing that they found was that I had filled out this application thinking, oh, maybe I should be a Secret Service agent. That was the only thing they found in my background. And when this story came out, I remember you said, and it was pretty funny to me, you said,

Congratulations. You just figured out that Jason Chavis is the most boring person in Congress. We could have told you that. You had to stick 40 Secret Service agents on him to figure that out? Come on, guys.

I actually mean it as a compliment. I started laughing. If you want to punish someone, tell them to go do a background check on Jason Chaffetz. I mean, you will be bored out of your mind. I started laughing so hard. I thought that was pretty funny because I know that there were 40 agents that were doing everything they could to find something that

And I just felt like I got this political enema that like I didn't deserve. But, you know, when you when you go in and you get your colonoscopy and it comes back clean, you think, yeah, I feel good. So that's good anyway. With that, Trey, I'm just telling you, I mean, maybe I should call Terry, but, you know, food is a good substitute or is a great gift, too. So I'm just saying that those all work.

Yeah, well, Julie, I mean, I don't want to dime Julie out. Julie, there was something Julie told us maybe we could send. I think it's pronounced a Zempik. So are you familiar with that? Yeah, I am familiar with the reference. Yes. Not the actual, but yeah, the reference. Yes, I get it. I hope that 2024 is the best year ever for the Chaffetz family.

And I hope that all the rumors about you getting back into politics continue to hound you and you continue to have to answer questions for the remainder of the year. Thank you. And for you and Terry and your kids and that wolf dog you have, I hope you have a great new year as well. So it's going to be a crazy year 2024, but I appreciate the friendship and

And thanks for joining me on my podcast. I appreciate it. I wanted people to know, this is like a typical discussion that we would actually have on the phone. Many times we've been on the phone and I thought, oh, that would have been a funny podcast if we had talked that through. So, yeah.

well here this will shock you i didn't really prepare for this podcast and neither did you so this is good i appreciate it for better or for worse this is just like a normal conversation but i'm gonna end it on a high note because i'm trying to be better and trying to do better and you know trying to work my way to heaven although my theology may be off a little bit we i mean

12 months from now, that'll probably give you time to write five more books. So we will have, at the rate in which you've been pumping them out, it will be Deep State Part 13 by this time next year. And I look forward to – well, you would not have read them all by then, but we'll talk about the ones you have read.

Trey Gowdy, thanks for joining us. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, JC. I'll see you soon. All right. I hope everybody has a wonderful holiday, wonderful holiday season. You can see why Trey Gowdy and I, we really do enjoy the time together and have a lot of fun. And I hope you, with your loved ones, your friends.

Enjoy it. Some of you may be by yourself. Maybe it's a little wee bit too lonely, but I hope this brightened your day. And I want you to know there are people out there that love you and care for you, even though you may not be able to be with them. Maybe you have a service member in your family who's away from home. Maybe you have somebody who's serving you.

in a church capacity and they're oceans away. I don't know what it is. I just hope this puts a little bit of a smile on your face and you have a wonderful, wonderful, happy new year. Thanks for listening to Jason in the House podcast. Hope you can rate it. I'd really appreciate it if you could rate it. Subscribe to it. Every week we've got great guests.

and um i want to remind people you can listen to ad free with a fox new podcast plus subscription on apple podcast and amazon prime members can listen to this show ad free on the amazon music app join us again next week we'll have another great guest happy new year merry christmas happy hanukkah all of the above um i'm jason chaffetz this has been jason in the house

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