Pete Hegseth's Sacrifice and Service 45:23

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 happen to be Jason Chaffetz, and I really appreciate you joining us this week. We're going to

You know, highlight a few things in the news. And then we're really going to highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we were going to phone a friend. But guess what? We can sit down in person with Pete Hegseth.

Pete Hegseth, you know him from Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend. He's a good patriot, served overseas, and I just thought, what a great week to actually talk with Pete. So we're going to chat with Pete and talk about the world and what's going on on a whole bunch of subjects. Everything from education to the military to wokeism, we're going to try to tackle that with one of my favorites here at Fox, Pete Hegseth. But let me highlight a few things in the news first because...

This is a mixed bag for me. Actually, I'm really proud of her. Brittany Greiner. I can't tell you that I even knew who she was until she was detained in Russia. But if you recall, the WNBA star was detained. She did get out. There can be some criticism of the trade that was made, but nevertheless...

It's good to have an American back on American soil. And what I really, really like about what happened in this story is she said that she would now proudly stand for the national anthem. She didn't do that before. Oftentimes in the WNBA, what they would do is go into the locker room and just not be present when the national anthem has occurred. But now she's taken a different position where

She spent about 10 months in a prison, said she fully couldn't stand up. She's rather tall. I don't know how tall she is, but she's really quite tall. She couldn't even stand up properly. And now that she's back on American soil, she's said that the flag, our country, means a lot more to her. And there's nothing better than a redemption story. Somebody who's coming back to see things in a different, more positive light and to see her standing again.

That's what she says she's going to do, at least according to her agent, that Brittany Geiner is going to do that at WNBA games. Good for her. I mean, I think that's good for the country. I think it's good for her. I think it's good for all of us. And so hats off to her for doing that. I also want to highlight Fred Taylor. Fred Taylor is 101 years old.

He is an Iowa native. He was highlighted in a variety of different ways, but at a graduation ceremony at Cornell. He went there because he missed his graduation 80 years ago. 80 years ago, he was due to graduate, but couldn't attend the graduation ceremonies because of his service in World War II.

So a pretty good excuse for not attending, but I'm glad even after all these years, he's able to walk through and go through graduation. And what a good inspiration to so many people. And I hope his classmates, so to speak, understand the type of sacrifice that the greatest generation made.

sacrifices and, you know, in a very hard fought. We lost millions of people between World War I and World War II. In addition to the other wars that were from Vietnam to the Korean War,

A lot of people lost their lives, millions that gave up their lives to make the United States better and respected and free to this day. And these were people generally in their 20s, some in their teens, that went overseas, put a gun in their hand and told them to go fight. And they did. And we overcame insurmountable odds. It's what makes America, America.

And so hats off again to Fred Taylor, 101 years old, walking graduation 80 years after he was supposed to because of his service in World War II. All right, now let's bring on the stupid because the other contrast to some of those good feel stories are the stupid ones. So let's bring on the stupid.

All right. Conservative Twitter influencer at AG Hamilton 29. Well, he shared a screenshot of the Fox Affiliates outline of a mayor's proposal. And interesting, this proposal had four key action items. Give first time offenders intervention programs instead of prosecution. Way to have that just be a principle.

De-escalation training for retail employees, as if it's the retail employees that are causing theft in this city. Establish neighborhood retail watch groups to share theft info. Well, if you're not going to enforce theft, guess what? Sharing info ain't going to do you a whole lot of good.

But this one is the best one. This is the best one. Install kiosks in stores to connect would-be thieves with social service programs. As if somebody's going to stop by a kiosk. I was thinking of stealing that lipstick. I was thinking of ripping off that Tylenol and Sudafed. But, you know, let me... I see this kiosk here. Let me...

Let's just have, you know, have a social service program. Maybe I can talk it out with this kiosk. Are you kidding me? That to me is pretty, pretty stupid. But I'm glad AG Hamilton 29 shared it so that everybody could see what was going on in his city. And that's bringing on the stupid.

So rather than having to dial a friend, I'm glad we got Pete Hegseth sitting right here drinking his Mountain Dew. Way better. Diet Mountain Dew. Diet Mountain Dew? I'm trying to watch the calories, you know. Well, the... I used to drink cartloads of Mountain Dew. And then at about the age of 30, I switched to Diet Mountain Dew. Just to...

Just so I could drink as much. I don't like soda. I'm weird. I like water. This is what I drink when I wake up to host the morning show at 5 a.m. The first thing that hit my lips. It's not good for me. I've heard a rumor. I have to ask you. I've heard a rumor that you were late once to Fox and Friends. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I said once, maybe a little too confidently. I've had close calls. You know what morning it was? It was the morning that...

Baghdadi was killed. Oh. And it was killed overnight, right? News comes out. And of course they're like, well, we got Pete's there. We can talk to the military side of it. I woke up at 515. My alarm didn't go off. I don't know what it was in central New Jersey. Show starts at six. I mean, I threw things on, ran in the car. My driver drove as fast as he could. And I

I didn't make it for the even close for the top of the show. They covered it up and put two people covered it up. And then I showed up in the C block and did an interview. And then we were all C block means the third block. I mean, that means I missed the first 20, 25 minutes of the show, but it's going to happen at some point. It's going to happen for seven years of hosting. And then I had one time where I made it by 30 seconds and they had a camera outside and we made it a big joke.

They had a camera outside and they were like, because that was my first thought that morning, Jason, was, oh, we'll make fun of it. Like, we're on the show. Let's make fun of the fact that Pete's late. Start the show. Where's Pete? He's not here. Well, then we shoot Baghdadi. So it's a serious morning. We can't do any of that. We've got to hide all of it. But the other time I was late, they sent a camera crew outside and I drove up myself. To watch the arrival. And I arrived and I came running in. We showed it on the tape. In the dark. Yeah. I made it right at the start of the show.

All right, that's kind of funny. But yeah, no, that's going to happen from time to time. I will say something else I probably shouldn't say. Just last Sunday, we had to come in early at 545 because Joe Biden had a press conference. And the last thing you want to do is get up earlier so you can watch Joe Biden. That'll keep you up. That's inspiration. That's energy right there. So we get on the couch. We come up early at 555.

And he goes, and then for whatever reason, he decided to give a 40-minute press conference, you know, from Japan. He never does that. Never does that. And I'm watching, and then I lean back on the couch, and then I close my eyes.

It goes all the way to 630. It's 630. He's still going. And at this point, I'm not there. And so the producers get that. He goes, all right, I'm done. And the producers get in our ear and go, okay. And I hopped up.

It was one of those moments where I hopped up and I was like, and if they, if I had, I had nothing to say, I had no idea what was going on. And thankfully, actually right after that, he took another question as he stood up and yelled another one. And it gave me a second to be like, so I was about a second and a half away from having a Tucker moment, but I was there. Yeah. That, that moment where I think that the key here is to own it rather than, Oh yeah. Yeah.

But because it wasn't seen on camera and it was sort of the G7. So my only real hiccup on air was actually it was on CNN when I was still in Congress. And I was in this heated debate about Benghazi with Wesley Clark, right? The former four-star general. Supreme Allied Commander. Supreme Allied Commander. We're arguing about Benghazi. And I'm like making this passionate thing that, look, we were in a firefight and Benghazi

I said fire fart as opposed to firefight. And it kind of took the wind out of my sails for just a moment. And I thought, well, maybe nobody will notice. But my phone in my pocket just started buzzing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Trey Gowdy, my brother, they're all pinging me. You said fire fart, you know. Fire fart. And it does kind of kill your argument in that moment. Yeah. It doesn't give when you, especially when you're knocking heads with a four-star general. Yeah. He's like, okay, fire farter. Yeah. Yep.

But I really meant it, though. I was really into it. Yeah, I believe it. Hey, I wanted to chat with you this week because we got Memorial Day and I worry about

I worry about the younger generation. You got kids. I got kids. I'm older than you. My kids are probably older than yours. But I still worry about this younger generation. And you've been so good on a couple fronts. One is obviously the military, the passion for our country and freedom and liberty, but also about education, right? The schools and the specials you've done for Fox and whatnot. Yeah.

They go kind of hand in glove because, but I worry about, you know, going into Memorial Day, we got some patriotic, you know, holidays, right? You have Flag Day, Memorial Day, you know, the 4th of July. But having a true sense of patriotism in your heart isn't just for those holidays. It's the way you kind of lead your life and things you respect and

And I just want to talk about that a little bit. You're exactly right. They do go hand in glove. And, you know, knowing your heart and knowing how I feel, like it's the kind of it's why we are in this business is to perpetuate this American experiment and all these things we love.

But when I think about when I was a kid, Memorial Day actually had a really big impact on me. It's the reason why I joined the military. When I was a kid, my parent, and it's why I'm such a believer in civic ritual, in ceremonies and parades. When Trump said, I want to have a huge parade, I was all about it. Just because we forget about the imprint those moments have on young impressionable minds.

My parents used to take me to the Memorial Day Parade in blink and you miss it, 300-person farming town, Wanamingo, Minnesota. But the whole town would show up on this big, wide main street. And all the vets would walk down Main Street in their uniforms. And there's only... This is a small town. And then you got the county sheriff and the marching band and the local fire department. And that's it. It's not much. But I remember as a kid watching...

The folks in the town stand and applaud when those vets walk by. There was maybe a dozen of them, 15 of them. But you don't see that kind of reverence very often for individuals. And then, of course, because it's Memorial Day, not about the living, but about those left behind, we would go down to Memorial Park in Wanamango and have a ceremony for all the men of many generations of this little town who'd paid the ultimate sacrifice.

I didn't connect it later, but later you start to think, think about if you add up all the one-a-mingle Minnesotas. And that starts to give you just a little flavor of the depth of sacrifice so that you and I could be here doing this. But that, the 4th of July, other ceremonies, it just gave me a perspective of, hmm,

These guys are really special and they did something that people think is important for the country. I should be willing to do that someday. Like that's the light bulb. It was like if they did it, I should be able to. And my parents were not a military family, nothing. And I didn't know the Marine Corps from the army. I you know, when I when I first signed up.

But if I hadn't had those interactions where it wasn't celebrated and recognized as something good, I probably never would have put the uniform on. How would you know? You don't have to go into the military, but even just bringing kids to ceremonies where they see, hey, these guys are special. This is good. What we have in America is different. And I know you haven't gone to other parts of the world, but those guys have. And they've seen it, and that's why they kiss the ground when they come home. So,

The more we can do at Fox for special programming to pound at home, the more you're looking for something to do where you live, like start a ceremony like that if it's fallen out of fashion or make sure it's promoted properly so that families with young kids come out and celebrate it. I just...

Those are the subtle things. If we're not going to get it in our textbooks or our classrooms, which we should still be fighting for, obviously, too, there are a few moments where kids can be inspired, too. Yeah, and I think it's incumbent upon parents to let them have those experiences. Like I look at voting, for instance. I always remember going with my mom and dad. When it was time to vote, I'd go and stand in that booth. Nobody wanted to stand in line, watch them punch cards. But then it was like, oh, this is what we do.

And I think it's true with Memorial Day and Fourth of July isn't just about, you know, fireworks. It's about the celebration of freedom and liberty. But and the founding of our country and why we founded this country. But Memorial Day is a special time. It is a time of reverence. And I know it's, you know, beach time and it's warmer and everybody wants to put on their bathing suit and grill some hot dogs. And I think you should do all that. Yeah, that's wonderful.

But why we do it. Yes. Take a moment before you do that so that the kids understand why you get a chance to do that. Because all the guys that I serve with, they all say, hey, what would the boys want us to do? They'd want us to crack a beer and have a great day. You don't have to sit in the corner and be sad all day. Recognize it, honor it, and then celebrate the lives that they live on their behalf. You know, when I was in Congress...

tremendous honor, uh, eight and a half years. And I used to carry a card in my wallet of each of the people who died while I was in Congress from my congressional district. And I'm proud that I went to each of their funerals. I spoke at each of their funerals and it wasn't about me at all. Um, but I happen to be holding that seat at that time and, you know, handing a flag of

to the moms. It just really got me. And I remember, at least in Utah, it was tradition that the bikers would come out and force, you know, I'm talking like, if you're into bike, if you are a biker, I'm talking the hardcore leather. Yep. They would have this like, I don't know what the proper term is almost like an honor guard. They would all have a flag on the back of their bike.

and they would ride up and they would encircle the church. Gets me now, it got me then. It's like they would, and I went and shook every one of their hands, thanked them for being there. It was such an emotional moment. And I just wish everybody in the community would see that and feel that. Because I think some people look at them and say, oh, they're the least like, no, they care more about our country and did more to show it and took time out of their day to show up

and it was such a great moment. You know, it's like, it's the hardest, most difficult thing I had to do as a member of Congress, but it's also the most rewarding, touching, you know, I still feel it today. Well, if we had this on video, you'd see Jason's eyes welling up and the emotion and the connection to it. It's true. And first of all,

It is not about you, but you represent something, which is the closest thing most of those families are going to get to a recognition from the federal government of their sacrifice. Right. And being there, I'm sure they all said to you means more than, you know, and as that extension of that hand. And then those riders, man, I'm telling you, because there's a lot of different biker groups like that across the country. And we work with them a lot in the vets groups that I ran.

A lot of them are Vietnam vets. Yeah. And and they never got anything like this. And they that generation, the way they've given back for this generation is an underreported story that it was the Vietnam vets that greeted the Iraq and Afghanistan guys and said, never again will you be treated like because the dirty secret is the World War Two guys didn't stick up for the Vietnam vets.

In fact, there was a lot of in the Legion Hall, we won our war, you lost yours. And not to love World War II vets and all that, but generationally, there was a bit of this clash. They were just two different groups of people. It was also, you know, you had the draft and everything else. I also remember...

I went out on the San Jacinto, which is in the Eisenhower carrier group, and I got to spend the night. I asked to be there on Thanksgiving, and I helped serve the troops Thanksgiving dinner. And they're all laughing at me because this ship is pitching to the left and the right, and I'm sliding all over the place. I can't keep my balance and whatnot. But what struck me is I was amazed because...

Like 95% of the people on that ship are in their 20s. And they were literally representative from like about 30 different states. Talk about amalgamation of just all corners of our country come together to serve in a united purpose, you know, about 15 miles off the coast of Iran. It was surreal. Yeah.

50 miles off the coast of Iran. That would be surreal. It is surreal. And they're ready for the Iranians to come at them with drones and ships and fast boats. And

And I just thought, you know, and so they put me in the quarters there to spend the night. And I found the nicest bunk that there is. But they had a list of people who had lost their lives and their service. And you see that and you start to recognize how real it is. Because it wasn't just...

it was millions of people who did this for their country. Millions. Millions. It's hard to fathom. Millions of people from Southern Utah and Southern Minnesota from places and with names we'll never know. And thank God for them. And I worry about being able to continue to produce them, to fill our ranks with them. I know we will. Yeah. So let's talk about that because, wait, just to kind of finish that thought.

You can stop by almost any cemetery and they'll have a portion of the cemetery dedicated to people who served and lost their lives and do that. It's really a neat moment. But then now I watch the TV. I mean, look what's up on the screen right now. We're talking about how woke we can get and how green we can go. And I worry that this next generation, we're lowering the standards. We don't have the demand for excellence and we can't fill the ranks. Mm-hmm.

We're lowering the standards in the name of equity, mostly in the name of gender equity, in trying to...

get females into combat positions or different roles. And the argument the Pentagon makes is, well, you traditionally get promoted if you come out of combat ranks, so we need to fill. None of it has to do with, do we have the best people in the right places? In fact, I was just at Fort Campbell last week with a battalion commander. I was there for my old units reunion. I talked to one of the battalion commanders there, and I asked him about that dynamic. And he said, actually, we have, he said, I have four female platoon leaders in an infantry rifle company.

And he said, they're good. He said, they're good. They're smart. And, uh, they're, they're platoons. You know, he's one thing that did give me some policy said these platoons protect him like a pack. I said, that's, that's good. Cause that's the male instinct.

But that's not good. Like the instinct shouldn't be protect the female platoon leader. You know, it should be get out and protect the platoon, period. Protect the platoon. And the female platoon leader's job is to add assets to the fight. Right. Because you're not really a trigger puller when you're a platoon leader like I was. You're directing the fight. If you're shooting your weapon, things are going poorly. You're in trouble. You're in trouble. But he also said we have zero rifle rank and file infantrymen who are females. Zero.

He said they just they don't want to do the job. It's not it's it's a this is something that dudes have dreamed about in their backyard of doing and played army for years and now they get to go be in an elite unit and

But the Army's fighting to try to change those standards to fill those ranks with more females. And none of this is anti-female. It's just pro-science and pro-lethality. Men are different, have different instincts, have a different orientation. And then the race side plays in, too. I'm actually writing a book that will come out next year.

basically how the military went well kind of battle for the American mind for the military and it's a much shorter story because the education in the classroom was a 100 over 100 year project that progressives just chipped away right this is basically I mean there was some stuff under Jimmy Carter there was a was basically a Barack Obama story is where it started when they started to say this is a merit-based organization that we don't control and

and we don't trust it. And so we're going to fill the ranks with political generals who will do our bidding. And then we're going to start to push the same kind of garbage that you see across government and across universities into the military. And so the story is not how did the military go woke? It's how did the military let itself go woke? I mean, it was generals who were effectively politicians who were doing, and yes, there is civilian control of the military, but

There's also should be. But every time the military pushed back, the politicians ignored them. So remember when they were trying to push women into combat, the Marine Corps produced a study. They did a full study, men and women combat. And it came back like bad idea. Like women are getting injured in training. They're not able to keep up. If you want to fill the ranks, you have to lower the standards, all of those. And the White House said, we don't care. Fill it.

And you can do that with a corporation. You can do that with whatever. You do that with Bud Light. Do whatever you want. You can't do that with a military. Not when you got to look that family in Utah in the eye.

And say, was he given every availability and possibility to be a success? This is unlike the classroom. The Pentagon feels like the kind of thing that could be reoriented with the right kind of leadership at 1600, with the right kind of chairman of the Joint Chiefs. You're still going to have to rip some stuff up.

But everyone inside the organization in the warfighting capacities wants to go back to the old school way of doing things. All this woke garbage is done. We don't need to be paying for gender reassignment surgery for new recruits, Jason. As part of my interviews, recruits are joining the army and then they're immediately declaring themselves trans. I'm not saying this is happening everywhere, but it's happening enough that people know about it. And then the army is...

giving them the, uh, the, uh, medication necessary. And then the surgery, which makes them combat ineffective. They can't train, they can't do anything and we're paying for it so that they can transition. And then most of them don't stay in anyway. That's so crazy. Mind boggling. What, what, what, gosh, what, what is the, uh, what's the parallel to also going green? Because, Hey, yeah, we, we,

Okay. If we can do things with solar panels, great. But I mean, the push to go green does not make us the biggest, baddest war fighting machine on the face of the planet. I don't. It is, again, I do think it reflects in some quarters a sincere religious belief that climate change is the biggest threat that we face. I think there are plenty of people out there that really believe the world's going to end and we're going to,

By the way, while we're building battery-powered tanks, China's pumping out diesel-powered tanks. Emissions are emissions regardless of where they're emitted. And they're building coal plants every week, right? I wasn't a straight-A student in graduate school, but when we studied policy...

We learned about something called the global commons problem, which means, you know, if one person is doing something wrong over here, like dumping sewage into the river, and you're not, it's still your problem because it's coming past you anyway, right? Well, same thing with emissions. So here we are cutting off our nose to spite our face, putting batteries into tanks that would be heavier –

And no one else is doing it. So we're not actually making the climate any cleaner and we're getting weaker in the process. I mean, there's nothing. Can you imagine battery powered Humvees? Have you seen the electrical grid in Iraq? Yeah.

Do you know what it takes just to get your generator running on base? It doesn't happen. I mean, we're laughing, but it's like... How are you going to power these batteries? What? With diesel generators. Because it's the only reliable form of fuel. So you're not actually going more green. Oh man, I'm in this firefight, but I've got to charge my battery. Like it's just...

It's fallacy. Yeah. But the defense industry will chase those dollars. Oh, there's hundreds of billions of dollars. Do you want batteries? Yes, sir. Batteries. I'll give you batteries. Well, Kamala Harris spoke at the Naval Academy and she gave a speech and she made this joke about you talk to anybody, they'll tell you they'd much rather carry solar panels than batteries. And I'm over there thinking, like a lot of people think it.

Those solar panels are going to do what? You've got to still charge a battery. Absolutely. Like, come on. Are you kidding me? This person is going to lead AI? Now, the only thing that would change it is the idea of innovation, right? If we innovate our way to some magical, lightweight battery. Yeah, I'm not opposed to it. Great. I want to be more combat effective. I don't want to carry this big thing on my back. Like, whatever. But it's not driven by that prerogative. It's driven by zero emissions and then figure it out.

Like, if you want to make it a fourth order effective combat, like, oh, and a fourth thing is if we can do it a little cheaper and a little greener, great. Fine. It makes sense to me. Yeah. But I just want... Test it. Let's go try to figure out how to do some things like that. But come on. Yeah. You're not going to... You're going to transform your... So that's why someone who comes... Problem is...

someone comes in he's just a scrap all that promise you got such a lead time of all these a see that all these companies dialed in for batteries and that's our stuff becomes almost unstoppable well I i think I keep going back to the Navy to our Navy you know when Ronald Reagan was president we had more than 600 ships now we have less than 300 so so and we got some serious fighting on on the horizon if we are we need to project power yeah in our in our Navy is one of the biggest assets ever in

Can you fight on two and a half fronts? No, you can't right now. And can you fight to kind of tie it back to our original part of our discussion? Can you fight a sustained battle against a devoted enemy when your population doesn't believe you're the good guy?

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like we still had enough reservoir of rah-rah America that after 9-11 people got together and said, it's not clear in a future conflict with the way young people are being indoctrinated that they will feel like we're on the side of good. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to be optimistic and say, you know what, there'll be a rally around the flag effect. But if you're, if you're continually defining us by our sins to our kids, then us fighting the communist Chinese over Taiwan, let's say,

Most kids will probably say, what's that worth? It's probably theirs. Can't point to it on a map. Can't point to it on a map. We've been aggressors around the world for a long time. And I've actually changed my views a lot on how active we should be in the world on a lot of levels. We better get some humility after Iraq and Afghanistan, the outcomes there about what we can affect. So I'm not the first one to say, let's go break stuff. But if we had to...

Could we sustain it? And that's in question. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Pete Hegsteth right after this. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. Stay on top of the latest news and information from Fox News. Listen and download the Fox News hourly update on your time. The trending stories you need anytime you want it. Listen and download now by going to foxnewspodcasts.com.

Again, this does go full circle back to, you know, when I first got involved in politics and really, really kind of dug in with all, you know, 100% of my being to being the very best member of Congress I possibly could. And I was really studying and looking at it. I felt like there were certain things that we could be united on. The flag, support of our military, support of our police. I don't think that's true anymore. Right.

I used to be able to say with confidence that we were fighting for the same things. We just had different ways of getting there. I don't think that's true anymore. We had a law enforcement resolution on the floor just a few weeks ago. Not everybody voted in favor of supporting our local law enforcement. That's unbelievable to me. We're just at a different moment. And I don't like to...

We can often suffer from momentism where we think like our moment is the most important. It's always the most important election ever, right? Coming up the most important election ever. We can go too far with that thinking, especially people will say, well, what about the 60s? Super turbulent political assassinations, racial strife, like really bad.

But on other than those clear sins that had to be rectified and different things that had to be changed, there were still basic bedrock things that Republicans and Democrats would look at each other and say, well, we agree on that. Like Kennedy was a tax cutting anti-communist pro-lifer. Like that's where there were there were core assumptions. And that's what scares me about this moment is.

Whether it's on gender, whether it's on race, whether it's on our flag, certainly on issues of religion, we are on absolute diametrically opposed positions. So there is no, okay, let's come together in good faith on this bill.

Well, good faith on what aspect, what shared ground are we coming? Usually if there's an alliance on a bill and you know this better than me, it's two sides with totally different motivations for the reasons for that bill that come together in some unholy alliance to get it passed. It's not, okay, we agree enough on what's going on that we can figure it out. Yeah, it's a different moment and it starts with the classroom. It's broken families.

It's education. It's a lack of religion, which leads to a lack of humility. Your people are solidified on their side. Everything is existential. Policy is toward the perfection of the individual, which with faith you realize is totally impossible. And we all need grace. So we're all fallen and we're all broken. So let's fix what we can fix and realize what we can't. With all of that gone, it's tough.

So much of this, I think, leads to this lack of respect. This generation seems to have this degree of immediacy, right? Everything's on Instagram. Everything's on social media. Get it right now. Immediate satisfaction. This idea that you had to work for something or that you had to get a job or the value of a dollar and whatever.

I saw this stat. It was just an unbelievable stat to me. It was something like 52% of Americans that are 18 to 28 years old still live at home. The majority of them. Don't do that to me. That ain't happening in the Hegseth household. That is a stunning number of how many kids are still at home. No.

inflation, the economy, it's difficult. Okay. But there's a problem here because I think everybody looks at that Instagram and says, oh, well, you know, my life's going to, I'm going to travel the world. I'm going to be an influencer. I'm going to do all this. And yet we're missing so much because not everybody's going to do that. Yeah. We're extending adolescence effectively. I mean, it used to be, you know, your dad wanted you to grow up, figure it out, toughen up. And it just

between, I don't know, phones have a big thing to do with it too. In talking to this battalion commander, again, I asked him about his troops, his Joes, and he said, man, it's a totally different world. Like, they want a sense of purpose from the moment they join the unit.

And I'm like, excuse me, your privates want a sense of purpose? Your privates are lucky they have a last name. Like they're here to execute whatever you want them to do and embrace the suck, as we used to say. He said, no, no, no. When we're training, like if it's not relevant to them and it's not purposeful, like they shut down and they're out in two years. So they're having to cater, which basically means we got to pepper in blowing stuff up so they think it's interesting as opposed...

Which I guess is kind of a good thing. But there is. I don't... I just think there's... But it's not about the unit. It's not about the whole. No, it's not about the whole. It's not about the unit. It's about... Because your identity is found in your phone and who you are. How are you different on the grievance matrix? And that's what gives you relevancy. The world is empty. And if you're seeking...

adoration and affection and validation from the world, your life will be empty. You will be sitting at home in your parents' house trying to run an Instagram feed and thinking it's cool, but knowing inside it's not cool. So full circle to the military on this Memorial Day, what I think is missing in part for this generation is this

Greater sense of good, the whole of the country, the sacrifices that have been made and the duty and obligation and opportunity to leave something better than how they found it. Not this fake utopia that they see generated by lights on a phone that they are just connected to. It's because they're not being told the story of America. Like if you're not being given...

full spectrum view from from language to literature to history to faith to the to the Bible to Latin to just like the basic bedrocks that introduce you to characters of Western civilization because we're all just part of this long story and we don't live in a magical moment we're an extension of what happened in the past

Our schools teach almost nothing of that, which means you're pretty much disconnected from your heritage of who we are, which means today you're anything and whatever you want to be. So what do you mean I'm going to celebrate who we are? I don't even know who we are. It's like loving your family but not knowing your uncles. Like you don't – you know, I'm proud to be a Hegseth, but I don't know my uncles. But here's what Hegseth means now.

You kind of make it up on your own, which makes it empty and very selfish. And I know I'm a product of that. Like I grew up in a decent public school in the 90s with, in retrospect, a very shallow, surfacy, empty understanding of American history or of certainly the Western story.

Like I wasn't introduced to that until I started reading on my own in the 20s. Oh, my goodness. There's really rich history here. Why didn't anybody teach me this? Yeah, because we just aren't. And so kids are left floundering around looking for something that will validate them or give them purpose.

And today it's superficial things like race or gender or sexual orientation. I do think that after 9-11, I think one of the mistakes was to just tell everybody, keep shopping, keep going to the mall. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Pete Hegsteth right after this.

My mother-in-law passed away recently, but she was 89 years old. But she talks about during the war effort and the fact that she had young kids when her husband, who's still alive, he's 95, went off and served in Vietnam. And how difficult that was to be raising the kids by themselves.

And so when they were asked to produce certain things to show up, and this is in the Phoenix, Arizona, you know, era, they had to gather together, even her as a little girl and make things that the military was using. But there was a sense of sacrifice that there were people that were losing their lives going overseas and they were there to help and support them.

And yet when we came under attack, lost 3,000 Americans, and we had people like yourself and others say, I will raise my hand, I will serve overseas, I don't think the message should have necessarily been, you just keep living your life and go shopping at the mall because everything's going to be okay.

I think that was a missed opportunity, actually. I think you're right. I hadn't thought about that in a while, for sure. Or at least a way to get additional investment amongst young people who maybe don't want to join the military but want to be more civically inclined. They can still serve their country. Absolutely. Even though they may not carry a gun and they may not go overseas. I get that. But there's still a way to support the people that are doing that. Yep, yep. But to have them come back and just say, oh, yeah, you know, just get a job and...

I think that part of it is that that's messier and more inefficient, right? So World War II, it was messy and inefficient, and it took us a long time to get on our feet. And the way Washington operates now...

You know better than me, but like a military industrial complex and all of that is like dollars, money, fast, efficiency, go, go. What do you mean we're going to have Rosie the Riveter over there making stuff like that's not efficient. That's not going to work. And so I do think part of it as government gets bigger and involved in more, it just squeezes out the innovative and interesting ways that people want to get involved. So they end up sending care packages with socks in them.

which is great. I loved, I wore the socks. They were great, but it was, you had to be really dedicated and really want to be involved and take your own independent action in order to be, because otherwise, as you point out, it was meant to be totally separate. Like we can fight this foreign war over here for 20 years and it doesn't impact you at all, which does create that stratification. I still remember one of the best things my wife and I did after 9-11 was,

Our kids were real young. I only had two of our three kids at that point. And we had them draw pictures and we tried to find an address of a local fire department and they made these macaroni necklace. I mean, you know, they did something right. And at least made the parents, me and Julie feel better. Well, and it, but it also imprints on their heart. Right. You know, I mean, my wife does that all the time. She has them make cookies and go to the local fire hall. And, and it's, and,

I don't even know if they probably don't eat them. They're probably terrible. And it's not about the firefighters. I mean, it is, but it's about these kids seeing this is what we do in this family. We support these guys. Just like we go to church on Sunday. This is what we do as a family. And that has as much value as anything else. Yeah. And so here we are Memorial Day, depending on when you're listening to this podcast, and

But Memorial Day is obviously a good time to stop and think about, because every family has relatives at some point somewhere that serve this nation. And certainly they have friends and neighbors and I guarantee you, go to your local cemetery. There are people that need to be, that should be recognized and their story should be told.

I appreciate your service, I really do. And we can thank everybody who's still living, who has served in our military. Memorial Day is about those that have passed.

But I still think we can take the opportunity to thank those that are serving. I didn't know that story of you with your guys in your district. And we need more people like that across the political spectrum who would, because unfortunately there are too many that probably shirk that responsibility. So I salute you. Well, thank you. Thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Can't thank Pete enough for his service to his country.

And for the good friend that he is, his upbeat, optimistic, caring as a father and somebody who loves his country and his family. It's just a good friend. And I appreciate him sharing the thoughts today.

I also want to remind people that they can listen to this podcast 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. Also want to remind people to please subscribe to the show. If you can rate the show, that'd be even better. And you can also go over to foxnewspodcast.com to see others in the Fox family with their podcasts.

And again, I want to thank people for this holiday season and these celebrations that we have in the summer, the moments that we pause and give thanks to our country. Thanks for the service of those who have made this country so good, so safe, and so just the greatest country on the face of the planet. I really do appreciate it. Thanks for joining us, and we'll be back next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House.

From the Fox News Podcast Network. Hey there, it's me, Kennedy. Make sure to check out my podcast, Kennedy Saves the World. It is five days a week, every week. Download and listen at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.