Gregg Jarrett: The Trial Of The Century 52:10

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Welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thank you so much for joining me. I love doing this. Love having these conversations. I'm thrilled that you would join me. And I'm excited to have this next conversation because Greg Jarrett, not only one of my favorite people, he's a good guy, does great research. Appreciate his analysis along the way. And so we're going to have a good discussion. He's got a new book out.

It really is compelling and something that, you know, historically we should all be paying attention to. So I look forward to talking to Greg Jarrett and talking a little bit about his book and everything else that's going on. We'll give you some thoughts on the news just briefly. Highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then, like I said, have the conversation with Greg Jarrett. But first of all, I want to talk about I know it was last week.

but I'm just still thrilled about the debate that happened. I thought it was a really good exercise in understanding who did what, how they did it, what they believed, what they didn't believe,

You know, it's funny because they said, oh, Vice President Mike Pence had the most time at 12 minutes. And, you know, somebody else, I think Tim Scott was down near the bottom. He had only like seven minutes. And it is interesting how you do two hours of a debate and then somebody like Ron DeSantis had like 10 minutes, 30 seconds or something, you know, something like that.

at the end of the day it's still pretty rapid fire um when you're tackling world politics but i thought fox news and i work for fox news i get it but i thought it was very well done and i think they did gave us the best exposure now candidly my own personal take some people probably shouldn't be on that stage probably time to hang up their cleats but you know what uh

As we turn the corner into September, at the end of the month, I believe it's September 27th, we're actually going to have the Fox business debate. It's going to be at the presidential library, the Reagan presidential library. Again, another great exposure. Big question. Will Donald Trump show up? Will he not show up? I hope he does. I think he needs to be injected into this. I don't want to ever give Joe Biden or anybody else running for political office to an excuse that,

to miss debates. I think if you're going to be the leader of the free world, you're going to represent your party in the general election, you need to show up at the debates.

If you're way out in front, then prove why you're way out in front. If you can't beat that other part of the crowd, then hey, you know. But I have no doubt that Donald Trump is still polling exceptionally well. But you know what? You need to show up and go to the debates. That's just my personal take. There's nothing personal against Donald Trump. I just think that our process is

As a republic is better served if we're going to be a representative government, you have to be able to hear from these leaders in small spurts. And don't worry about some 30 second bite or some jab that's going to be landed. Get out there. Prove that you're the leader. That's that's my that's my take on it.

So that's the big news. It's still consuming everything that's being here. I do want to mention, I mentioned this a couple of times in the podcast. I got to mention it again. I still really feel for the people of Maui. The numbers are stunning. They change on an almost a daily basis.

But I can't imagine that devastation there. I just, you know, I've been there multiple times. I've walked those streets in Lahaina. I've eaten at Prison Pizza. I've eaten at the whole bunch of restaurants, shopped in those shops that are just literally obliterated. And an untold number still of people that were killed. The biggest wildfire death number in the history of the United States of America.

Been some controversy, some people pushing back on should or shouldn't Congress do an investigation. Of course they should. It's biggest loss of life in a wildfire ever. And you're not going to do an investigation. Of course you have to do that. Do it in a bipartisan way.

There should be a lot of curiosity and making sure that we never, ever have this problem again. Was it the electric company that was pouring money into going green as opposed to taking out the underbrush that caused it? I don't know. But we need to know. And not only did the local authorities have to do this.

But I do believe it requires Congress to come in and push the envelope as well. When I was the chairman of the Oversight Committee, we dove in and looked at the Flint water problem. Was it a local issue that happened with local things? Yes. Did the federal government need to come in and bring the Republican governor and the Democratic—

the mayor and the Democrats there in the state legislature? Do we need to understand how we got into that place? Yes. Is the country in Michigan better off for having gone through that process? Absolutely. We had subpoena authority. We had the ability to pull those people together, unlike anybody else.

Because there were tens of thousands of people, U.S. citizens in Michigan that had this problem. I'd like to see a follow-up and see where we're at today. Did that Flint water and all that money that American taxpayers poured into this, has it solved the problem? Are there people still drinking leaded products or leaded byproducts in their water?

And Hawaii, you need to think, is this a problem on the big island of Hawaii? What about Kauai? What about Lanai? What about other parts of Maui? Is this an ongoing problem? All things that need to be fleshed out. That, to me, is government being responsible. In this nation, we are different. We are self-critical. We do go in and look at these things under the hood. We don't just brush them aside. And certainly not when you've had...

up to a thousand people still, you know, dead or is the number a hundred, whatever it is, it's not acceptable. It's just not acceptable to have that many missing, that many dead and something that was so avoidable. It literally wiped this town off the map and the devastation, it really does bother me. So that's the news. Let's transition to something a little bit lighter.

And let's talk about the stupid, because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right, I got to go to this story that I saw on foxnews.com. They call it this wedding drama. Young boy wears white to wedding and drama erupts. I cannot believe that this happened. I mean, this is...

This is so silly. It's so out of control. But evidently it was a, hey, don't anybody wear white to our wedding. But evidently for some young person wore white and they went crazy. Quote,

He explained that when he went to check on her, he found her sitting on the floor with mascara running down her cheeks. Quote,

I asked what was wrong, and she told me that one of our nephews was wearing white jeans and a white bow tie, and everything went off the rails from there. This nephew, her sister's son, was six years old, and somehow that destroyed her wedding. I'm sorry, but that's just outright stupid. If that's going to destroy your wedding, if that's going to put you in this place where you can't

Come on, really? That is a crazy story. And then the next one, I don't know, on a big world stage, probably even funnier to me, kind of stupid, but this would be Janet Yellen. Janet Yellen, of course, I missed this, I guess, when it happened in real time, so I'm a little behind on this one, but she is the Treasury Secretary. She'd gone over to China. And this is the headline that's coming out of The Guardian. Janet Yellen inadvertently ate

hallucinogenic mushrooms in China and started a trend. This is what she told CNN, evidently. Quote, I was not aware that these mushrooms had a hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later. Yes, the Treasury Secretary started a trend and a craze in China, evidently, for a magic mushroom dish.

That is called, I can't pronounce, but it translates in English to sea hand blue. I don't know what was, but evidently she was spotted eating this fungi that is known to be a hallucinogenic plant.

While she was in Beijing, this happened back in July, and she said, quote, I went with this large group of people and the person who arranged our dinner did the ordering. There was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later. End quote. Good job. I don't know what our Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, is like.

on hallucinogenic mushrooms, but it probably had to be more interesting than her without the magic mushrooms. Not that I recommend that. Let's not be doing that, anybody. But that does strike me as a little bit stupid, a little bit funny, and kind of cute along the way, too. Along, nobody got hurt, and she didn't spill some top secret, you know, classified information, but aye, aye, aye. ♪

All right, let's transition now. Greg Jarrett, like I said, really good friend. You see him a lot on Hannity. He's been with Fox for a long time. And he's written this cool new book, and he does a great job in his legal analysis. So let's get Greg Jarrett on the phone. Hey, Jason, how are you? Greg, so good to catch you. I really do appreciate you joining me.

Well, it's my pleasure. I always have a good time talking about legal issues and political ones as well with you. Well, you've become a good friend. I mean, one of the benefits here joining the Fox family is getting to know you better and love your analysis, your passion for what you do. And, you know, it's...

you've had a remarkable journey and you've authored some really important books. I want to talk about the books for a moment, and then I want to get more into your background. And then, um, and then we got some rapid questions for you because, you know, I don't care how much legal analysis you've done. I don't know if you're ready for the rapid questions. Okay. I can probably handle some, some of them. Um, that's all we want. We just want a for effort, but, uh,

Trial of the Century is your latest book to come out. Congratulations. I've started it. I love the cover of it. Thank you. You've been a New York Times bestselling author, but this Trial of the Century, what's it about and why did you write this book?

Well, I was a teenager when I grabbed a book off my father's shelf by the great Irving Stone, a wonderful writer. And it was a biography on Clarence Darrow. And I started reading it. The more I read it, the more I admired deeply Darrow's commitment to

to justice, to fairness. He became known as the attorney for the damned because he took on cases that challenged popular opinion. And, you know, he was an iconoclast. He despaired the dangers of conformity and social control and government intrusion.

And he upheld the right to individualism and self-determination. Those are things that we cherish today and are in jeopardy today. And towards the end of the book, he writes about the trial of the century, the Scopes Monkey Trial, in which our civil liberties and free speech rights were at risk. And it was a fascinating trial. So I went to the

courthouse a couple of years ago in Dayton, Tennessee, and I gained access to the dusty archives and obtained the original trial transcript. And the more I read the trial, the more I thought, you know, people need to learn about this because, again,

It's about what we hold so dear: free speech and the indispensable proposition that no one should be told how to think. Now, the case itself, not everybody knows what the Scopes Monkey case was about, but what were the two sides, what were the positions of the two sides going into this case?

Well, after World War I, America sort of turned inward and this great fundamentalist movement swept the nation and the fervor was so intense

that the fundamentalist leader William Jennings Bryan, who'd been a three-time presidential nominee for the Democrats, convinced states to start banning books that he felt were a threat to the Bible. So science books began getting tossed out of schools. But wait a sec, Greg, the party of science was a...

I know. You've got to love the irony there, lost on no one. And in particular, Bryant took aim at evolution, which he thought denied the story of the divine creation in the Bible, which it actually does not. They're harmonious.

But in Tennessee, Bryant got a law passed that made it a crime for a schoolteacher to teach evolution out of a textbook that was state approved that had a subchapter on evolution. And, you know, within about a week or two, John Scopes, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, was promptly arrested and criminally charged.

and sitting in chicago in his law office clarence darrell was incensed he was angry and he volunteered to defend scopes for free because william jennings bryan had joined the prosecution team to convict scopes so it set up the trial of the century this titanic clash between two epic figures

What, in writing it, doing the research, you know, I've seen a movie on this. I haven't read a book like yours. I'm going to read it, The Trial of the Century from Greg Jarrett here. But what, is there anything in particular that jumped out to you that surprised you that you learned along the way?

Well, the movie you refer to is based on a Broadway play back in the 1950s. It was a 1960 movie called Inherit the Wind, but that's a fictionalized version of the trial. And, you know, as I examine the trial transcript, fact is sometimes more fascinating than Hollywood's fiction. And so, you know, the

I mean, Darrow arrives in town, muted reception. Brian arrives in town and they strike up the band. Thousands of people have gathered to cheer him on. So Darrow knew he was stepping into the lion's den. The judge was biased against him. It was the judge was an ordained minister, don't you know?

And the jury was stacked with devoted churchgoers, only one of whom knew anything about evolution. And every time, you know, Clarence Darrow tried to present the defense case, the judge would stop it. So it was a totally unfair trial.

And the amazing part of it is towards the end, Darrow is down but not defeated. And he does something extraordinary. He calls his nemesis, William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor to the witness stand as an expert on the Bible. And the judge said, you can't do that. He's the prosecutor.

but darrow was counting on something he knew brian and he knew brian's ego would never be able to stop him from taking the witness stand sure brian stands up and says your honor i have nothing to fear i you know i want to tell the world the truth of the bible and the judge says all right

But we're adjourning this out of the courtroom because there's so many people jammed in here. I'm worried about the floor collapsing. So he sends the trial outdoors to a platform left over from Fourth of July festivities and there are bleachers. And I show a picture in the book. We have about 40 photographs. And there is this enormous throng of thousands of people

And there is Bryant and Darrow up on the platform. And Darrow begins this eviscerating cross-examination of Bryant. This is going to be a good read. And you know what? It's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I'm excited to read the book. It's Trial of the Century. Yeah.

This is going to be good. Good summary. But let's go back to your passion for the law and for justice. I mean, I see on Hannity a lot in particular, but throughout Fox News...

And you've got a passion and a set of principles that I think is very attractive to a lot of the audiences. So let's go back to little Greg Jarrett. Tell us, start with where you were born and kind of walk us through your journey on how you and I ended up crossing paths. Well, I grew up in Los Angeles. My father was, like Daryl, a trial attorney.

And, you know, I had some interest in it because I was, you know, I would go with my father on weekends down to his law office. He taught me how to research cases back in the day without computers. You know, it was called shepherding cases. It was a long, laborious process. Yeah.

But I would cut school now and again and watch him try cases in front of the jury. And, you know, I was very impressed. I loved and adored my father. But it really wasn't until I read the book on Clarence Darrow that this sort of light came on in my head and said, you know, I'd like to be like Darrow.

I had no illusions that I could ever be anything near a Clarence Darrow. But I thought, you know what? A law career would be a profitable and important pursuit.

And by the time I got to law school, I really had a leg up because my father at the dinner table, you know, would sort of cross examine my sister and myself. And I, you know, I got the feel for the rules of evidence and what it felt like to sit perched on a witness chair. My father would sometimes say, all right, state your name and spell it for the record.

You know, and we'd all chuckle. But, you know, having a conversation with my father really was like being cross-examined. And so, at any rate, I think I had sort of— Was that at the dinner table? I mean, was that everywhere? You kid little—

Hey, Greg, let's talk about those green beans. Yeah, I know. And, you know, I would sort of stretch the rules of evidence and and honesty as teenagers or want to do. But, yeah.

You know, he was a wonderful, loving man. And he taught me a lot about the law. So by the time I got to law school, I mean, I, you know, I had a leg up on on others. And sure enough, I I got a perfect score on the evidence exam and in law school because my father had taught me so much about it. But and then I started out as a trial lawyer in San Francisco, a defense attorney.

tried, you know, some jury cases and so forth. And then I just accidentally fell into television. What was that accident? A buddy of mine was auditioning for a, you know, a television show, you know, UHF TV show that nobody watched that was live from seven in the morning till nine in the morning. And

He convinced me also to audition and, you know, just as a lark. I did. I ended up getting the job. My friend is still a dear friend of mine. And, you know, he had a successful career elsewhere. But one thing led to another. I did local news for several years and then for TV came along. I auditioned and.

Got the job. I was with Court TV for eight years and we covered all kinds of, you know, trials. The O.J. Simpson case, notably. So I was in Los Angeles for nine months inside the courtroom and then outside anchoring the coverage of it. And, you know, the Menendez brothers case, the Rodney King trials, you know, the list goes on and on. Tell us about remind us about that time. What was it?

I mean, you and a whole set of reporters were parked down there for a long period of time. Now, I guess you had somewhat, it was somewhat advantageous, I would guess, kind of being from Southern California. What was that atmosphere like? You know, it was very intense. And it was this sort of circus-like atmosphere, very much like the Scopes Monkey Trial.

You know, back in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee, journalists the world over converged on this tiny town. It was the first trial in America ever broadcast live on radio. There were newsreel cameras set up in the back of the courtroom and a plane waiting at the end of each day to fly up the newsreel film to Chicago, where it was then distributed in Chicago.

movie theaters everywhere. And, you know, so the O.J. Simpson case was very much like that, except in the television age. And, you know, there weren't that many cable channels back, you know, in the 1990s. And Core TV sort of cornered the market in covering the O.J. Simpson case along with CNN. And so, you know, it was interesting.

It was an interesting experience, especially having been from Los Angeles. It became inevitably a race case. And, you know, for the defense, that was an advantage because at that time, you know, Los Angeles was this sort of cauldron of racial unrest. And the defense took advantage of that. And O.J. Simpson was...

acquitted and you know I've made no bones about it I've never seen such overwhelming evidence of guilt in my life but yet our system of justice doesn't always work perfectly in retrospect why do you think that was what what is it just a racial thing or or was it hey the prosecution or the the cops were too tough and difficult what with it was it the glove what was the tipping point

Well, several things. You had a lousy judge in Lansido who permitted a bunch of evidence that the defense wanted to come into the trial. And that was a huge mistake. You had a very charismatic, flamboyant defense attorney in Johnny Cochran, who personally, you know, I got to know was a wonderful person. He passed away far too early. But most of all,

Gil Garcetti, who was the district attorney, made a huge mistake at the outset by transferring the case downtown where his office was because I think he wanted to appear in front of television cameras at his convenience. Well, that's it. That was a stupid mistake. If the case had been tried in its proper venue out in the Santa Monica Van Nuys area, O.J. Simpson would have been convicted.

He was found liable in the civil trial in that particular venue. But Garcetti moved it downtown. You get a downtown jury in the 1990s. They hated cops. And, you know, Fannie Cochran knew that. And so he made it a cop case. And the jurors were not the kind of people who trusted police at that time in L.A., you know.

And so there there was the the acquittal. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this. I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app or get the free podcast at Guy Benson show dot com.

But, you know, O.J. is still out there looking for the real killers. So I hope he gets there. On golf courses everywhere. Yeah. I hope he's able to reach that goal because it was a horrific case. And it did. Well, there was some cosmic justice in it all because eventually he did end up behind bars for a very long time. He's out now. And, you know, the other victim is.

Ronald Goldman, you know, his father once remarked to me after the acquittal, he said, you wait and see. O.J. will end up behind bars. That was a pretty prescient prediction. Yeah.

Well, let's move forward. So you get to Fox. How did you end up getting to Fox News? What was the what was the moment there that that, you know, they just come see you and say, hey, Greg, you want to come join Fox? Well, when I was at Court TV again for about eight years and I anchored their primetime show, I got offered a job at MSNBC. And it was a point in my life where I wanted to return to to news, which I loved.

And so I anchored a morning show for three and a half years over at MSNBC, along with Chris Jansing, who is a wonderful, intrepid journalist. And I didn't like it at the network. And I left to go to Fox News. And, you know, I've been there, gosh, at Fox for what, 21, 20, 22 years. Wow. A long time.

Yeah, I anchored to news programs at Fox for the first, I don't know, 16 years.

not a little tired of it and decided to um sort of shift to being a legal analyst take advantage of uh you know my legal background as a trial lawyer and i'm glad i did because it allowed me the opportunity to write some books the first one the russia hoax um and it was number one on the new york times bestseller for a list for a month and then the sequel witch hunt

And then this latest book, The Trial of the Century.

Yeah, you've had huge success in writing. Let's talk about the state of the country. You know, I wasn't paying attention to politics my whole life. You know, I've been in politics now and engaged at a high level. It's hard to believe, but, you know, close to 20 years now. But I have just never witnessed, even before I was in politics, after I was in politics, the state of the country is so divided now.

And, you know, I think it's too easy. It's too convenient for people to say, oh, it's both sides. Can't you all just get along? I don't buy that. You know, there used to be a time when I thought that we were all fighting for the same things. We just had different ways of getting there. But I don't believe that anymore. And I see a Department of Justice...

that is so corrupt in that it's got a political persuasion and bent to it

That, you know, we keep talking about the unequal application of justice, but I think the facts are there and they're there in numbers, in consistency. That just, I mean, it continues to scare me that this Department of Justice just cannot call balls and strikes until it figures out who's on which team. And that it shouldn't be that way.

Yeah. And it began when, you know, Trump first decided to run for office. And we saw people at the FBI, top ranks, James Comey, the director, Andy McCabe, his assistant, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Kline, Smith, Jim Baker. I mean, the whole gang at the FBI basically commandeered

the FBI as a political organization, and they began to pursue Trump without any credible evidence. And I made that argument, you know, in my first book, which came out five years ago, confirmed most recently by Durham's report

And it it detailed, as my book did, these egregious acts of misfeasance, malfeasance, corruption for purely political and vindictive purposes.

And, you know, it's not much better in Joe Biden's Department of Justice under the tenure of Merrick Garland. It would appear that everything he is doing has a political component to it. But most of all, I object to his running a protection racket.

for Hunter Biden in a myriad of multimillion dollar influence peddling schemes and documents show that Joe Biden was an active participant. He was the cornerstone of it. How do you explain, Jason, a five year long investigation, not a single

criminal charge I mean a five-year investigation I even heard you know a left-leaning legal analyst uh on one of the other uh cable channels say it's disgraceful it's absurd and he's right and there's only one explanation political interference by Merrick Garland and Christopher Ray and of course the whistleblowers have told us that

And so I find this to be so objectionable that the only answer is, I think, for a new president to come in and tear down the Department of Justice top to bottom.

and reconstitute a brand new department, maybe split it up into different departments that actually are objective and neutral and not politically driven. And the same is certainly true of the FBI years ago. And I was impressed.

You know, the subject of great criticism when I said the FBI needs to be completely dismantled and rebuilt. And I still believe that. And I think that's the only solution. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this. You know, when Donald Trump descended the golden staircase and, you know, escalator, I don't think anybody thought that.

wow, this guy's really going to pull that off. I mean, I don't even know if, I mean, it's just, you can count on, you know, a few hands. Some people say, oh, I saw that the whole time. The whole mood of the country, the whole skepticism that Donald Trump, businessman, successful entrepreneur, television star, all of that, that he would actually pull this off. I mean, it was surprising right up until the day of the election that

And even then, I think Hillary Clinton was, you know, measuring for the drapes in the, you know, to move back into the White House. But why do you think they went to such great lengths? What was it that was scaring them from the moment he said, yeah, I think I'm going to run for president?

well the the fbi in particular um was deeply alarmed at the polling numbers and uh you know hillary clinton's numbers started to go down in 2016. yeah when her email scandal really uh got a great deal of public attention she clearly violated uh the law by having classified documents

in her home server, which was hacked, hacked by the Chinese. Read the inspector general's report. The Chinese, you know, put a put a program on her system. So they got classified documents, you know, whenever they were sent. If the Chinese did it, the Russians did it. And, you know, the FBI knew all of this and they were worried about it. And so they decided they were going to target

Donald Trump. They knew that the Hillary Clinton funded anti-Trump dossier was utterly phony. It was laughable. But they used it as a pretext to try to stop Trump's campaign.

It didn't work. So once he was elected, they doubled down. Yeah. And they hid from the American public Congress. They certainly hid from the new president the fact that there was no evidence of collusion. And they, you know, they used it to escalate their investigation to try to destroy him and drive him from office. And.

You know, it didn't work, but it did great damage to the nation. And it probably deterred Trump from being able to accomplish more of his agenda. Yeah. No, I think it drove him from, you know, he had a constitutional duty and responsibility to lead the Department of Justice. And yet he was very hands off. And I experienced that personally. And it was I it's too bad that that's the way that went down. I understand why he made that decision to keep at arm's length Trump.

But, you know, part of my theory here is that America didn't want to elect Hillary Clinton. But I also think they they saw Donald Trump as a disruptive force, unlike somebody else that maybe was more predictable in their political in their politics. He wasn't going to play ball. He didn't need a business card. He didn't need the income. He didn't need the fame. He already had all those things.

And so that is a bigger threat to the bureaucracy, the deep state, if you will, that I think that's I think that was a big genesis of what was going on there. And and one of the reasons they were, you know, hyper partisan. And boy, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when James Comey has to get together with President-elect Trump and say, sir, you need to know there's a document here.

I mean, that had to be just hilarious, all the gyrations that Comey was going through to essentially lie to Donald Trump. Yeah, Comey is many things, arrogant, vainglorious, but he's also malicious and conniving, devious. You know, if you look up the word devious in the dictionary, there ought to be a photograph of James Comey's two-faced face.

You know, he knew when he went to meet with President-elect Donald Trump that the whole P-tape story was completely bogus. But he, you know, he tried to use that to entrap Trump. And of course, Trump didn't fall for it. You know, Comey, I can fault Donald Trump for a couple of things. Should have fired James Comey.

You know, five minutes after he was sworn in as president. That's mistake number one. Mistake number two, appointing the most incompetent attorney general in American history and Jeff Sessions. Yeah, it's true. And, you know, three, a lot of people voted for him because he promised to drain the swamp.

He didn't drain the swamp, but but only because the swamp went after him with a vengeance and falsely accused him of colluding with Vladimir Putin in the bowels of the Kremlin. Right. And that really handcuffed Trump for a very long. He couldn't go after the the swamp, as he promised, because the swamp came after him forever.

And you're right when you observe, you know, he had to keep an arm's distance. He kept being accused of obstruction every time he fired somebody like James Comey, which is not obstruction at all. The president has plenary powers to fire anybody in the executive branch for the most part, including the FBI director. And Comey admitted it himself. But, you know, the swamp is so plentiful.

poisonous and they're very clever. And, you know, they mounted a, you know, a very difficult campaign against Donald Trump for four years. That's true. It, I,

Yeah, it'll be fascinating to see how now the Democrats are working to rewrite history. And so we've got to be vigilant on how this all went down. And look, so much of it is playing out in real time right now here today. But it's time for me to transition a little bit here, Greg. And I mean, from this conversation to start talking about some of the rapid questions. I hope you don't. I don't. I hope you don't mind.

Even if you do, I'm going to ask you anyway. Ten second answers? You can wax on a little bit, but yeah, you get bonus points for how rapid you answer the question. Ready? Yep. First concert you attended. James Taylor. And I was, I think I was like a freshman in high school at the Greek Theater Theater.

In Los Angeles. Pretty cool. And my sister had to drive me because I didn't have a driver's license. Were you on a date or was she your date? I was on a date, yeah. Your sister drove you? That's awesome. Pretty good first date to a James Taylor concert. That's legit. I haven't heard that one before. He had just come out with his first album, Sweet Baby James. Oh, that's pretty cool. What's your favorite vegetable?

I hate all vegetables that are green. They're not supposed to be edible for human beings. That's my theory. So I don't, you know, there really isn't a, you know, occasionally I'll eat some asparagus if it's not overcooked. See, I like them crispy. I like them burned. Maybe that's the disguise, the taste. I saw this bumper sticker once, Greg, and it said,

I'm a vegetarian because I hate vegetables, which is pretty funny, right? You think about, oh, he just wants to eat them all day long. It's just because I hate them. It's just different. Caught my attention. That's for sure. What was your high school mascot?

Well, they were the Titans. And, you know, I grew up in San Marino, so San Marino High School Titans. I don't think we really, you know, this is back in the, you know, I started high school in 1969. They didn't really have mascots at my school, but, you know, we were the Titans. This is legit. I mean, probably revived by Denzel Washington and the, you know, the...

but uh there's probably about a thousand titan you know high school mascots yeah but it's it's bold it's strong it's you know i like it it's good i i want to give you this opportunity you're going to have dinner with somebody it can be anybody in history and you're going to call up the family and say guess what family we got a special guest tonight and they're going to come over and break some bread we're going to share a meal and uh

If you can invite anybody in history to come break bread with you, dead or alive, who would it be? You know, Abraham Lincoln, I just so deeply admired him, his intellect, his courage, especially when you consider that, you know, he never went to college or law school.

but passed the bar and became a fantastic lawyer. But he, more than anything else, he became one of the greatest thinkers in American history. Yeah. And from such humble beginnings. And yeah, that would be number one. Number two would be Ulysses S. Grant, who I think was also an equally fascinating character from humble background. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, that would be fun.

What can you do? What's your, what can you, what unique talent does Greg Jarrett bring to the world? I'm talking like, you know,

I can knit a sweater with my toes or I can juggle or I don't know. What unique talent do you have that nobody knows about? I have no unique talent. I wish I did. About 10 years ago, I took up painting landscapes on canvas. Yeah. And, you know.

You might be able to sell my best work for 50 bucks. Unlike Hunter Biden, who's selling a six figure, you know, kindergarten finger painting. And nobody quite knows who's buying it. My guess is the Chinese or the Russians and the Ukrainians, his benefactors. I have no special talent and I so wish I did.

What's your superpower? Now, I believe everybody has a superpower. It's the thing that they do really well. Like, you know, that like, yeah, I'm really good at that. Just always have been. I'm good at that. What's yours? You know, I don't think I have any superpower. Oh, you're being a little hubby. Everybody's got one. I mean, is it look, I can synthesize an argument down into 30 seconds. Is it.

Like I can read something and comprehend it, start to finish. I mean, there's got to be something, Greg. You didn't have the success that you had. New York Times bestselling author, all the success on television and legal analysis by being just a regular Joe Schmo. I can sleep anywhere, anytime. That is a superpower. I am really proficient, top-notch at taking naps. Yeah.

That is a good talent to have because, you know, like I'm really good at flying on airplanes and falling asleep. A lot of people I know, they can't fall asleep. I can't stay awake on an airplane. Like I get on a plane in a confined space. They put a seatbelt on me, put on my headphones, put on the music, and I am out.

Yeah, I'm pretty good at that. You know, when when we I was at the outset of the Iraq war, I was there from late April till the beginning of July. And, you know, you didn't you didn't get much sleep.

Right. So because, you know, you're doing stories all day and then doing, you know, you're doing a hit like every 30 minutes. And that's hard, hard on the body. And so, you know, you you might get like three, four hours sleep a night. But I made up for it by taking, you know, in between hits. I would take these power naps and I'm really skilled at power naps. So that's it. That's good. All right. Last question.

Two questions. Sorry. Pineapple on pizza. Yes or no? No. Yeah. See, we like Greg Jarrett. Judges love that answer. Good answer. It's the right answer. It's the only answer. Only acceptable answer. Last question. Best advice you ever got?

Best advice I ever got. Yeah. You know, my father taught me never give up, never give in. Perseverance, determination, and hard work win the day invariably. And I think that's true. Yeah. Good advice. Good advice.

Greg Jarrett, everybody. He is the author of Trial of the Century. He's got some other books too, but the one that's new, the one that's out there today, Trial of the Century by Greg Jarrett. You can find it anywhere. People sell books. It's an important story. And

it should be very illuminating. So thank you for sharing that and your kind of life and how we got here. And I appreciate you joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. Now is it my turn to ask you a bunch of questions? Oh, look at the time here, Greg. Time has run out, my friend. Because I got the goods on, Jason. Yeah.

Yeah, too bad we ran out of time. All right, Greg, thank you so much for joining us. Really do appreciate it. Always my pleasure. Good talking to you, Jason. Thanks for having me. All right, I can't thank Greg Jarrett enough. Such a good guy and fascinating book. So I hope you have a chance to read it, look at it. You know, summer's kind of concluding up, but you always need a good book as you snuggle up and we turn the corner into the fall. Can you believe that? We're going to get ready. Summer's going to come to an end. The air's going to change.

Football is going to be in the air, but hey, you want to snuggle up and read a good book. I bet that's, you're going to, I've started it. Like I said, it's good so far, but I got to finish it. So, all right. I want to thank him for all of his time. I also hope you can subscribe to this podcast. Hope you can rate the podcast. That would be really helpful. If you could rate the podcast, really do appreciate it.

I also want to remind people you can listen to 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. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with more next week. Stay with us and appreciate you joining us on this Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chapins. Have a great day.

Hi, everybody. It's Brian Kilmeade. I want you to join me weekdays at 9 a.m. East as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and, of course, what you think. Listen live or get the podcast now at BrianKilmeadeShow.com.