Ukraine’s Lasting Impact On Trey Yingst 58:29

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All right, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for joining us today. This week, we're going to walk through some thoughts on the news. We're going to highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then I'm thrilled to have Trey Yinkst, who's going to join us. He's the foreign correspondent for Fox News. You've seen him out there, usually wearing a helmet and a vest in one of the, you know, more volatile parts of the

of the world, particularly in the Middle East, where he spends a lot of time. We're going to dial him up. I think he's somewhere in the Middle East. We'll find out where. And I think it'll be a fascinating conversation. But first, let's talk about a few things that are in the news. Now, again, I try to highlight some things that maybe didn't get on the front page right up front. But this one, this is a crisis.

In Italy, they're having a pasta crisis where the cost of pasta has risen double the rate of inflation. Inflation over in Italy, roughly 7%. Rising cost of pasta up 15%. Nobody can quite understand why it's doubled and why it's so much, at least from the short things that I read, but...

My goodness, if this summer you're headed over to Italy, look out because pasta is going to be a little bit more expensive. And you can't go to Italy without getting some pasta. Also wanted to highlight, I think the name of the pronunciation of this person is Camirita, 53 years old.

Now, he just accomplished something that, boy, nobody else in the world has ever accomplished. He is a Sherpa.

And he just reached the peak of Mount Everest, which is 29,032 feet. Think about how high that is. 29,000 feet high. He did it for the 27th time. That is just amazing. In fact, he went up, came down a few days later, he went back up again. 27 times he has taken a crew and led the way.

for people climbing Mount Everest. I mean, for a person to ascend and get there once is just miraculous. To do it 27 times, hats off to Kami Rita, age 53, doing it for the 27th time. Worth noting and saying hats off to you. An amazing human being and obviously one of the most fit persons on the planet. I don't know how you do that to your body with the lack of oxygen.

But he's done it, and he does it. He did it twice in one week. All right, let's go to this next thing, which I take much more seriously. And, you know, hats off to Joe Manchin this time. He's the committee chairman of a subcommittee there dealing with natural resources. The Biden administration had a nominee named Jeff Marushin.

I think I hope I'm pronouncing it right to lead the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Normally, this is a pretty sleepy position. Normally, this is not something that gets garners a lot of attention. But this time it does because the radical positions that the Biden Harris administration has taken are.

on dealing with many things including gas stoves. What they're trying to do is ban gas stoves from any future production. That everything would have to move to electric. And, you know, it's just too much for Joe Manchin. I think it's too much for the American people. And so the chairman of the committee is not going to allow his nomination. This, fortunately, requires Senate confirmation today.

Jeff Marushin is not going to be that person. And I don't even know if it's anything personal about him, his background, not trying to disparage his character. It's the policy that the senators are concerned about. And rightfully so. It is absurd to do this. It is a very efficient, clean way to

to cook on a gas stove. We have gas stoves. I want to continue to use a gas stove. All right, let's be honest. My wife is the one that uses the gas stove other than me making popcorn, eggs, maybe some bacon. But I got to tell you, that is a radical position. The country's not ready for it. They've never made the case that

And this person, their nomination has been thwarted. And thank goodness. All right, now let's go to the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right, now we just have to go to members of the so-called squad, the Democrats members.

Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush of Missouri, these two representatives voted against a resolution. It was just a resolution recognizing National Police Week. They were two no votes. Now, I can tell you, I haven't been there in Congress. They do this every year. It's virtually, I mean, I can't remember anybody ever voting against this. It was to honor the

But these two...

Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush, congresswomen out of Michigan and Missouri, couldn't see fit to recognize officers killed on the line of duty and ensuring that police officers have the tools necessary to keep communities safe. Nope, that was too much for them. And I'm sorry, folks, that earns you a place on being just downright stupid. Okay, so now let's dial up Trey. Trey Inkst is...

He's just got one of the most fascinating jobs, right? One of the more difficult, dangerous jobs you can possibly have. So I think we're going to be able to get him on the line. He's over in the Middle East, but let's dial him up. Hello? Trey, this is Jason Chaffetz. Hey, Jason. How are you? Thanks for letting me catch you. I appreciate it. I have no idea where in the world you are right now, but my guess is it's not in the comforts of some beach somewhere. Exactly. Right now I'm in Jerusalem.

Well, and by the time this podcast airs, who knows where you're going to be. You lead a fascinating life because, you know, I turn on the TV and you're all over the place. I try. It's what I love to do. And so being able to respond to any news event around the world anywhere is really what I'm passionate about. Well, evidently, because you're awfully good at it. And, you know, it's not for everybody. There's a lot of people I think that want to go into...

broadcasting, going to communications, be a reporter, but to do so on the world stage in volatile areas where you've got to wear a vest and a helmet and you got people throwing grenades at you, that's not for everybody. So I want to go back to where that came from. So take us back, if you can, Trey, to like where, start with I was born in and kind of walk us through

life and how you ended up being in the Middle East. Yeah, it's an interesting story. I was born in Hershey, Pennsylvania. And growing up, my parents took me to different places in the world. I traveled quite a bit with my grandmother as well and just had a fascination with what was happening in other places and with other people. And it wasn't until I went to university at American University in Washington, D.C., that I really decided I could fulfill that dream

through journalism. I grew up watching a lot of Indiana Jones and just watching people travel and I was a fan of Anthony Bourdain and found it fascinating that someone could spend their life going to far corners of the globe and speaking with people about what it's like to be a human in a different place.

And so I started studying journalism at American University and I started a company with my friend called News2Share. And we built News2Share basically as a vehicle to travel other places with an excuse to do journalism, what we wanted to do. And I remember there was one time there was a protest happening in Washington, D.C. And this was really one of the initial ideas that we had to start this company.

We asked our school TV station if we could go cover the protest because it was just down the street. And they told us, no, go work on a story on the dining hall at the university.

And we were just like, "What? How can we miss this news opportunity?" So we just went ourselves and we covered the story and we posted it to YouTube and it got a couple views. And then we had this idea to build a company called News2Share. And basically we ended up being partially a media aggregator and partially a group of freelancers that would sell to larger companies like Fox or the BBC.

or other large broadcasters that needed video from places that either didn't have enough journalists there covering the story or were considered too dangerous to send crews into. So when I was 20 years old, I was traveling the world going to places like the Gaza Strip during a major war that lasted for two months. I was traveling in Ukraine, in Sub-Saharan Africa.

and basically just diving into the profession that I ultimately ended up doing, being a foreign correspondent. So what I do now is basically what I was doing in college. I just have a lot more resources and an awesome company behind me that is committed to telling these stories. So I'm really living out my dream. It's an interesting experience.

Yes, and certainly being on Fox, I mean, you've got the biggest audience out there. But let's go back to Hershey, Pennsylvania. And your parents, what were they doing? Did you have brothers, sisters? What was life like growing up when you were really young? Yeah, growing up, my mom was a substitute teacher. My dad built houses as part of our family business. And we lived sort of in a more rural area. So we did a lot of hiking and spent a lot of time outside.

I have a twin sister and I think growing up with a twin, you're uniquely inspired to talk to someone all the time because there's someone next to you in everything that you do growing up. And I think it makes you a better communicator. And it also is a unique experience in the sense that you can look back in life and speak with someone who was the exact same age at the exact same place. And that's unique. People have siblings and they have family members, but I can relate.

ask my sister at any given time, do you remember that time we went on a trip to this location and that restaurant that we ate in? They had that special dish and she'll finish my sentence and say, oh yeah, the dish with the fresh fish. And that's just something that she's able to do because we experienced life at the same time. So it was interesting growing up with a twin and we spent a lot of time traveling. Like I said, my grandmother was one of the most adventurous people that I knew. She

When we were young, we used to do these activity books and they were basically called top secret activity books. And they were focused on teaching children about the world and different places. And I had one that I really loved and it was about ancient Egypt. And you would do puzzles and you would learn about the culture of Egypt and the Arabic language and the dialect that they spoke there.

And it was a way to teach kids about other countries. And I love this book. And she told me when I was older, she'd take me to Egypt. And she and I went to Egypt together. And we saw the pyramids and we floated down the Nile in a riverboat. And I think that she really inspired a lot of my love for travel and my curiosity about people. We went to really remote destinations, the remote island of Easter Island off the coast of Chile, places like that, that

People aren't normally going to. And I think that when I would come back from those places, I was able to tell stories that were special and able to share with my classmates at the time that the people there are actually a lot like us. They have their own culture and their own language, but they laugh, they smile, they love. And these are all things that, interestingly enough, I feel like I add into my reporting today. It's in my mind, not felt like

time where I didn't have a job and now I have a job this job feels like a continuation of my life it feels like an extension of what I was already practicing which was learning about other people telling people's stories and Really just being on this grand adventure. Well, it has been a grand adventure I you know look when I was young I think one of the great things my parents did and we had the the means to do it and

was travel and not just domestically but internationally you know 15 16 years old I think I went to

did the same thing, went out, saw the pyramids and, and, uh, you know, all the excavation and, and, uh, did that. Went into everywhere from Ethiopia to Kenya to Zambia, you know, doing a safari down into South Africa, went into Rio. I mean, I was very blessed in that we got to see world at the world at a young age and it was so impressionable. And then I remember coming back to the United States and, uh,

And just feeling so blessed and recognizing that, yeah, not everybody lives the way we live. Not everybody has the prosperity that we have. And I remember seeing these little kids, you know, I had all kinds of toys that I loved, but they had to make theirs out of like tin cans and wire. And they were pretty innovative. They were really cool. And they just, they got so excited when we gave them a piece of gum. I mean, it was, again, it was just fantastic.

eye-opening. It was inspiring, and it still affects me today. Absolutely. So now, it's one thing to travel and have a passion for. It's one thing to understand it. So as you're growing up, you're going to grade school, you're going to high school, but the ability to communicate that, I mean, you have to have a skill set to be able to communicate, particularly

High tension, not a lot of, you know, not a lot of workspace and colleagues to lean on and say, you know, how should we word this? You got a cameraman, right? You maybe have a producer with you.

Um, but what's that, where did this come from? Because again, I think a lot of people maybe want to do what you do, but not very many people make it. And yet not everybody has the communication skills. So where did this like collide and come together? You thought, yeah, I'm pretty good at this and this is what I want to do. I think it was in Ferguson, Missouri. I was an intern at the Washington Post at the time.

I was running this news operation, News to Share. And when the unrest started there, following the death of Michael Brown, I just went. I showed up and started reporting and didn't tell my internship at the time, which ended up

causing some problems for my school sponsored internship especially at where you at yeah exactly when I when I didn't show up but I think it was it was that moment in that year the year was 2014 I'm pretty young 29 years old and it was 2014 that was a series of stories that I think I really started to understand personally I felt that

This is not only coming to me easy, I feel like I operate really well under pressure. I can be in the middle of chaos and think pretty clearly. I can do a lot of things at once. And these were all skills that were really important in these environments. In 2014, I went to Ukraine after the unrest in Maidan and the revolution.

There were presidential elections afterwards. I was in Sub-Saharan Africa. I covered Rwanda and Uganda and street children there trying to figure out what the story was, just wanting to get into the field. And then Ferguson, I think, really was this moment where I realized I could use social media actually to build a brand around what I was doing and also create

inform and educate people about what was happening. My goal with News2Share was always to get there and stay on the ground as long as possible. And I have a really special respect for freelancers because that's basically what we were doing. We would show up. Sometimes if we couldn't afford it, I would just go alone with my camera in my backpack at DSLR and we would just shoot raw video.

And we would shoot interviews and sometimes we would shoot packages. And at the beginning of News to Share, we just cold called news outlets and just asked if they would buy our footage. And a lot of times they said no. And so we had this idea that we would offer it for free. And the first couple of times we would give them free video, but it allowed us to get our foot in the door and build those relationships. And I found that

After that, it really started to make sense to me. Things started to click about how the industry worked and also the role that I could play in the industry, that I could go to these locations that other people felt were dangerous because a lot of times they were, and I could stay out in the field for long periods of time. But most importantly, I knew what the story was. I could identify the storyline and I could find the people who were involved because what we do, it's about people. I mean,

almost what everyone does it has to do with people if you can remember that as a focus I always tell students when I talk to them now remember these stories are about humans and

Humans have emotions. And if you can identify why people are doing what they're doing, why demonstrators are in the streets, why police officers feel they have to show up in riot gear, people make decisions for a reason. And how can we tell that story in a way that's objective, that it's fair and that it's accurate? And so I felt that I really started to do that in Ferguson. And I sort of just built from there using social media and just hustled.

Now, Trey, your business model looked a little flawed by giving away your product early on. I mean, were you living on the streets? How did you afford to possibly go through that? I mean, that's what it takes to build a business, right? Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. But tell us about those kind of early days because that had to be some rough cutting the corners, maybe not eating every meal that you wanted to eat, right? Yeah, I just wanted to make it work.

Whatever way possible and so there were times where we were losing money we buy a plane ticket somewhere and I'd go by myself and we didn't sell any video and The trip never felt like a failure to me, but there were times where I thought wow the business part of this is not as exciting or fulfilling as the news part and quite honestly, I think that's why I do what I do now, I mean I I've always found the business part interesting and

But it didn't come naturally to me. The thing that came naturally to me was the storytelling. Okay, so you're going along. You go to Ferguson. You just inject yourself in volatile situations. What were some of the breaks that you got along the way? And how did you ultimately end up at one of the biggest in Fox News? Looking back, it's interesting because it's like anything in life.

At the time, I was always really worried that it wasn't going to happen. I remember talking to my grandmother about it before she passed and just saying, I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it as a foreign correspondent. Like, I know this is what I want, but it's tough. I mean, the industry is really competitive, but the –

Foreign correspondent beat is even more competitive. There are just not that many positions. Yeah, especially it's like me You want to be a quarterback in the NFL? There's only a few of those jobs Everybody might want to do it, but not everybody's getting on the field Exactly exactly. So she told me she said you'll get there just keep working and that's what I did I mean, I I would sit in front of my computer I would read the news and then I would sit in front of my computer with the web camera on and I would just start reporting and

And I have these clips still where I'm saying, today, the Assad regime has launched a new offensive against rebel forces in Syria. And then I'd go to the next one and I'd say, the Israelis say they're willing to open a border crossing with Gaza, but worry that tension along the border could create a difficult situation. I would just practice these stories over and over again. And then I'd go outside and I'd stand in front of my DSLR and watch

I would try to report and then I'd mess up and I'd do it again. And I did this often. And I think that putting in the reps early on helped a lot. When I graduated, I got a job at a small outlet in DC, covered the White House for a little bit and really hustled there. Just tried to make contacts across the board and just remembered sort of what my parents and what my grandmother taught me about people and the importance of

knowing who you're dealing with and also understanding that, as you know well, probably better than most people that I talk to, it's about relationships and just remembering that going into the industry. And so I got an agent, a guy that I initially linked up with in college. He kind of scouted me and said, gave me his business card. We had dinner in Georgetown. He said, one day when you need an agent to go to the big guys, give me a call. So I called him one day and

We held a bunch of meetings with a bunch of different media outlets, and I loved what Fox was doing, and here I am almost five years later. Well, good for that agent, too. He's recognizing some talent early on in the process. Absolutely. And so you get the break, right? You're going to go to Fox. And what does Fox tell you? Do they just send you out overseas and say, hey, how about it? How does that work? Yeah, so initially I didn't know exactly –

where I'd end up in the conversations. And I had some discussions. Would I stay in D.C., where I was living at the time? And then there was this moment where I spoke with one of the executives at Fox, and they said, well, what's your dream job? What do you want to do? And I said, I want to be a foreign correspondent. But in my mind, I had told myself, well, I need to do X, Y, and Z before I could ever get that opportunity. And they said something to the effect of, well, would you move to Jerusalem? And I said, absolutely. Right.

And a few months later, I moved to Jerusalem. Of course. Sure, you moved to Jerusalem. I left it all behind, too. I had a life in D.C. I had a girlfriend at the time, had an apartment, a group of friends that I still stay in touch with today. They're all people in the media industry. But I just left it all, and I moved to Israel. And I remember landing and getting picked up.

at the airport and I came straight to the bureau and everyone was waiting in the bureau to greet me and say hello. And I just remember in the car thinking like, what have I gotten myself into? I just left my entire life behind, moved abroad. And those early months of living abroad, I think were the most formative months of my life. How so? I moved to a foreign country where I didn't speak the language. I didn't know a single person. And I took a job that

I knew I was capable of doing, but still the pressure was there. It's like being that quarterback. You get drafted, you're in the NFL, the first game, you come out of the tunnel and everyone's watching. And that's what it felt like to me. I knew that I had been blessed with a really, really unique and special opportunity to

And I had prepared for this. I knew this was what I wanted and it was in front of me. And so I wasn't going to let that moment pass.

Passed me by I wasn't going to take it for granted and I worked really hard. I mean I the past five years I have been Grinding really like on all fronts on all stories, but in those initial months I just I didn't know anyone I would walk around Jerusalem and just look at the sites I'd put my headphones in and I'd walk for hours and I learned about who I wanted to be who I wanted to become and I had this vision of in my mind of being

the best foreign correspondent in the world and it sounds a little egotistical but it was the thing that I would think about when I would walk I'd be like I can do this I just need to execute when the opportunities present themselves and so that's what I've done from Afghanistan to Ukraine to Lebanon to Gaza when those opportunities arise and those stories are unfolding

It's personal for me. I want to be the voice that the world is listening to. And I'm so thankful to have the platform of Fox. I mean, the leadership of this company, they're all former producers. They're people who have been there. They've seen the things that I see. And so when I call them and I say, this is the story, this is where we need to be.

It's never a fight. It's like, yeah, let's make this happen. And that's unique. It's especially unique given the current environment that the industry is facing. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Trey Yankst 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. Yeah, to have the resources to be able to actually go out and do it and the personnel. And, you know, I've been to some of these bureaus. I haven't been to the Jerusalem one, but, you know, it's not the most glamorous. I don't know what people are envisioning, but...

It's a workspace, nonetheless. But it's always a jumping off point, right? I mean, you're going to be out there in the field doing incredibly hard, difficult things at all hours of the night because then you've got time zone changes. And next thing you know, they need you on Fox and Friends. And then they also need you up on Hannity at night. And so...

you know, the timing and the lack of sleep and the number of hits that you have to do from, say, Ukraine has, I mean, it's just draining. It is something that you have to have a lot of energy and passion for. Tell me about, you know, you were friends, you were colleagues, you had personal relationships. And so when the incident with Benjamin Hall and, you know, the death of two men

our Fox colleagues tell me how that went down for you I mean this is very personable personal for you because you spent so much time with these people yeah it was incredibly challenging it still is you know Benjamin Hall is someone that I look up to I think he's been able to lead the industry in his coverage of foreign events and he's also been able to maintain this beautiful family life and it's something that I think is incredible and also it's rare

this part of the industry Pierre and Sasha were in Ukraine to cover arguably one of the most important stories of our generation and to do it in a way that makes people care and I think that that is what I took away from my time reporting with Pierre and Sasha is that they were there for the right reasons to make people care about the story to inform them to educate them and to hold

the Russians accountable for what they were doing to innocent Ukrainians. And so, yeah, the incident still, I think, sticks with me. It sticks with a lot of people. But it's such a great feeling to be able to see Benji. I saw him at the correspondence dinner, and he's just an incredible reporter and an incredible person. And so it's tough. And I think some people...

their reputation precedes them. And, you know, Pierre was someone like that. Everyone knew Pierre. Everyone knew the quality of his work. And you knew when you were reporting with Pierre that you were safe. You knew that you were in good hands. You knew that you were taken care of because he just was the guy that everyone turned to when they didn't know what to do next. We were in Afghanistan together after the Taliban took over and we

Those moments were some of the most unpredictable I would describe in what I've covered because no one knew what was going to happen. No one knew who was in charge, but Pierre felt right at home. He was comfortable. He had been to Afghanistan so many times that our team of people that we worked with on the ground, our local producers, they knew Pierre had stayed in touch with them. He helped to get their family members out of the country once the Taliban took over.

and that's just the type of person that he was and so as i look forward i always try to think to myself you know what would pierre do in this situation and most of the time that's to just work hard inform people about what's happening and to just overall be a good person yeah i wish i had the uh had had the opportunity to meet him but hearing his story and seeing it from afar and the great work that he and sasha did it's just amazing and

and admirable and impacted countless lives. And then with Benjamin, to see him, again, part of the Fox family, but not somebody I really knew. But a few weeks ago, I was back in New York in the Fox building and came down the elevator, and there he was, just standing with a cup of coffee, talking to Bill Hemmer, just down by the elevator banks. And I just thought, wow, he's...

It was just like, it was quite a moment just to see him standing with a cup of coffee. I just, it was, it was just a moment. It was a real, real moment. And I guess that's part of the skill set and the talent that you have to have, Trey, is to be poised in a war-torn situation where there's so much human suffering and there's

you know, people that are scared and that they don't know what's going to happen. And they're living in the middle of uncertainty. How do you, how do you deal with that? I mean, it's not just a one-off thing. It's something you see on a regular basis. It's a good question. I've been pretty open about talking about the effects of on mental health and

how this job can change you as a person and how it can really take a toll on your personal and professional life. I'm trying to be a leading voice in the industry. I think a lot of people look up to me. They sometimes people tell me I'm Superman or I'm invincible, or I saw you reporting under a rocket fire last week or under artillery fire on the front or interviewing the president of Ukraine. And they see all these moments. And I think that's,

While they're important and they're part of the story, I want to be remembered most for the work that we're doing to illuminate the voices of the civilians that we speak with. Because we have the luxury of leaving. We can go to the airport or go to the border crossing and go home. For the Ukrainians, for example, they can't leave. That is their home. And so...

It is a very special and I think privileged to tell these stories But it does take a toll on you. And so I've gotten better at identifying my emotions at taking time off about taking breaks But it's hard it's hard because we're so often there on the worst day of someone's life we are there for literal hell on earth and

I mean, I was speaking with someone recently about this on the moments that stand out in my mind from across our coverage. But just when you look at Ukraine, because it's still in recent memory for me, you know, we saw mass graves filled with civilians. There were times where we were getting into villages and towns on the Eastern Front that had been liberated the night before. And if you can imagine the carnage left behind, the...

largest ground war in Europe since World War II. We'd get into towns and you'd see civilians looking through their homes to see if they could find loved ones or maybe gather things so that they could flee and go further west. And next to them in the yard where they were growing vegetables weeks prior, stacked up with the bodies of soldiers, experiencing real fear. I mean, I think there's also a misconception about foreign correspondents that we're not afraid of anything.

I guess some aren't, but that's really dangerous. That's really dangerous not to be afraid of anything. Because a lot of what we see and experience is scary. I mean, reporting under gunfire, watching – I've seen people get shot in front of me. I've seen critically injured people, dead kids. I mean, things that you just –

You don't want to see, but it's part of our job so that we can see these things and tell people about just how bad it is. And it's not just like that in Ukraine. I've seen these things in other parts of the world as well. But it comes with a massive responsibility. And so I feel that what we're doing is important. I think that personally, I'm incredibly lucky to be doing it at Fox because there is such a commitment to telling these stories abroad. And

The thing that I'm working on every day, even as we speak this week, you know, tomorrow morning, I'll go to yoga in the afternoon, maybe do some meditation is really taking care of my mind. Because if you don't take care of your mind, you can't do this job.

for a long time. It's not sustainable. You just see too much and experience too much despair to properly continue this reporting. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Trey Yankst after this. Your loved ones at home, the ones you're closest to your sister and other family and friends or whatever. What, what, uh, how do you put them at ease? What do you, what do you tell them? This is a really selfish job in some ways.

But I think that the people that care about me most and love me most know why I'm doing it and they see the value in it. But it can be selfish. A few days ago, there was a round of conflict between Islamic Jihad and Israel. More than a thousand rockets were fired into Israel.

And my dad is kind of like my second agent. I talk to him every day and he gives me feedback on live shots and tells me to fix my hair and tells me to give a little bit more context in my on-camera tag. - Hey, Dad, come on, fix my hair. - Yeah, I mean, he's awesome. He watches every single one of my reports and-- - It's great. - He gives me an objective review. And sometimes it's like, you really nailed that point home, you really provided good context there. And other times he'll say,

I don't know who that group is. You need to give the viewer some more background on who these guys are, you know, and like he's right, you know, and it's really, it's great feedback. But I was talking to him in the South and we were pretty close to the Gaza border and a rocket barrage came over and I could see the rockets coming off the strip and I just...

I debated what I was going to do and I just said, "Hold on one second. I'm going to have to call you back." And I hung up the phone. And then we were under fire for a little bit. There were some interceptions overhead, arid sirens sounding. And I called him back and I said, "Hey, sorry, we had some incoming fire."

i made the decision not to keep him on the phone because of how worried i know that he gets about me in the field because it's a dangerous job i mean we've seen firsthand this is incredibly incredibly difficult work sometimes and uh that's why sometimes it feels selfish because i know that there are nights where like my dad and my sister they're not sleeping because they're worried about me because i'm on the front lines somewhere but

at the end of the day, they'd know that this is my identity. I mean, this is everything for me. This is not a job for me. And I often will talk to students about my work and they'll tell me, I want to be a foreign correspondent. How do I do it? And I sometimes feel like I don't have the best advice for them because I don't see this as a job that I show up to work. When I go home, I'm still calling sources. I'm texting people inside Gaza today to ask them, what's the latest? There's a

March tomorrow, how are you guys going to respond? You know, I want to have my thumb on the pulse all the time. And that's not always the most healthy thing, but it's just the way that I am. And I think that my family and my close friends understand that and they really support me in my efforts. Well, that's obviously been, you know, key to success. And I think anybody who rises to the top of their profession, and I don't care what it is, I mean, you pick what it is, it's the same thing. They're

It's not a job where they clock in and clock out. They're passionate about it. They live it. They breathe it. It's who they are, and they have fun doing it, but there's difficult parts of it. Yours, a little bit more obvious how difficult and how dangerous it all is, but how valuable it is to the world.

to understand and get that glimpse, even though you're, you know, Hey, it's a two minute hit. You got two minutes to try to explain something that you much rather take two hours to give all the background on. But that's a talent that's, um, that you have that a lot of people don't. And, and it, it's great to hear those stories about all the practice in all the, you know, when nobody's around and standing in front of that DSLR camera and just practicing as if you were there. I mean, that made all the difference. And for you to be,

not even 30 yet and doing this, it really is quite remarkable. Thank you. I appreciate it. You know, I think that, like you said, the people that I meet in any walk of life that are really good at what they do, normally it's because they really enjoy it. It doesn't feel like work to them. And also because they're doing it for the right reason.

Well, and, you know, some people ask me, oh, how do you do this? How do you run for Congress? How do you get in, you know, this? You know, at the end of the day, it's still about policy. It's still about issues. You have to know your stuff. So whether it's Fox or, you know, pick your job or, you know, Congress or, you know, any other political thing, anything in life, you have to know your stuff. Yeah.

You know, that's, you have to live it, breathe it, and just go in and immerse yourself. There's not somebody who's going to hand you the book and the playbook and say, yep, just do this and you'll be just fine. And you've obviously done that. So, Trey, I've got to ask you some other questions as we kind of wrap up here. We do rapid questions. And, you know, you may have had a lot of rockets going off above your head. You're not ready for these questions. All right? Sounds good.

All right, we're going to do these. And pineapple on pizza, yes or no? Yes. Oh, Trey, we were in such a role. Judges do not like this answer, but we're going to cut you a lot of slack given what you do. All right, first concert you ever attended? Billy Joel and Elton John. Oh, that's pretty cool. That would be really cool. What was your high school mascot? The Rams. The Rams? Yep, centered off in the Rams. Very good.

Favorite vegetable? My favorite vegetable would probably be broccoli. Yeah, that's legit. You'd be surprised, Trey. Maybe half the people I asked that question to can't name a vegetable. So you passed the test by just naming a green vegetable. So that's pretty good. The pressure's on. Yeah. What was the first job you had? Not mom and dad saying, hey, you know, take out the garbage there, Trey.

What was the first job where you got a paycheck from somebody else? I was the assistant for a DJ, and I would carry the speakers and set them up at weddings. And normally at the end of the night for like 20 minutes, he would let me actually –

do some djing and that was and that's and that was uh one of my first jobs yeah yeah it sounded like a very lucrative gig there trey i'm sure your parents were mighty proud that oh yeah yeah i got a dj job that's great um what's your what's your superpower and what i mean by that is like everybody i think can do something a little bit better that they know they're pretty good at it what would be your superpower

My superpower. I would say this is just something that nobody knows about me, but I'm really good at snowboarding. I used to snowboard all the time growing up and I've never ever talked about it until this moment right now, but I love snowboarding and I'm really good.

Now, where in the world did you go snowboarding? Because if you're growing up on the East Coast, I happen to be from Utah. So we kind of giggle when we hear people talk about how great the snowboarding is out on the East Coast. So where were you snowboarding? Sometimes we'd go up to Jay Peak in Vermont. Wow. And then out to Boulder. That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.

And spent some time in Colorado and and during the summers. This is a fun fact I would go to Mount Hood and I would go to a snowboard camp called high cascade snowboard camp and I'd spend weeks there in the summertime because they'd still have snow Yeah, and so all the big snowboarders Sean White Scotty Lego Olympians they'd come out and they would teach like master classes for snowboarding and I learned a lot being there and I would say that's a

One of the top five things that I don't like about living in the Middle East is that it's not really accessible to snowboard. Yeah. Okay. That's fascinating. I had no idea. And you know what? Someday you will graduate to the best and you will be able to actually snowboard in Utah. Yep. And I've never been. You will reach the pinnacle when you're boarding in Utah. So let's work towards that moment. Yeah. Okay.

Just a couple more quick questions. So if you could have one person over, hey, family, dad, sister, whoever, hey, we're going to have a special night tonight. I've got somebody who's going to come over and join us, dead or alive. It doesn't matter who, pick anybody in history. Who would you want to have come over and share a meal with and enjoy an evening together? This is such an interesting question, and it's one of those questions that

you should have a great go-to answer for and so you're really going to get one off the top of my head i would say george orwell and um which is actually not his real name but the the authors of dystopian literature always fascinated me and i would be interested to hear about george orwell's take on society today and what he thinks about it and and uh

I don't know. That would be my thought. And his real name is not George Orwell. It's actually Eric Blair, but it's his pen name. It's not as inspiring as George. I know. He knew he needed to change it. That's good. That's interesting. Last two questions here. If you weren't doing television, what would you be doing? If this didn't come to fruition, what would you be doing? That's a tough question. I think that I would...

Be working in a snowboard shop somewhere? Yeah, be working in a snowboard shop. I often, I have a friend and he spends the winters in Austria and he snowboards all winter. And I've always thought that was so cool. I think I would be building a company. I wasn't so good at it in college, actually the business part, but I've always looked up to my father who ran a company. And I think it would be interesting to run a company that you could manage from afar and

which, you know, I'm very interested in coffee. So actually, I've got an answer for you, Jason. It would be having a coffee company.

Um, and a coffee company that I could build a coffee shop, but also be able to travel and, and operate from afar, get things in order and then be able to travel. I really like coffee. Um, there's a new coffee shop by my apartment in Tel Aviv that I went to today. And it's just one of those things where you can take a moment out of your day, have a double espresso and, um,

Just think, spend some time thinking. Yeah, just relax. And yeah, I have no doubt that you'd be highly successful about that at that because you'd go figure it out. You know, you may not know it, but you figure it out and you wouldn't be a successful correspondent if you didn't have the innate ability to just approach people and ask questions and go figure it out. I mean, that's ultimately what you're paid to do, right? Go figure out what's going on there and tell us what you found. Exactly. Exactly.

Last question. Best advice you ever got? Things have a way of working out. And my father gave me that advice. And generally, he's been right. I think that it's really easy to get caught up in moments and things happen in life. Things are difficult. Life is not easy. And that could be said to a varying degree for a variety of people. But life can be challenging. But things do have a way of working out.

And I'd say a second piece of advice while we're talking about it is the harder I work, the luckier I get. And that's been said before, but my grandmother told me about that advice and I took it to heart. And I think about it often that there is some luck and timing to most of what we do and people who are living out their dreams accomplished, but you've got to work hard and you've got to put the time in behind the scenes. So whenever I talk to students or,

any of my mentees, I just tell them, put the work in, work hard. Nothing replaces hard work. Yeah. Work hard, work smart and good things will happen. And you're supposed to have obstacles and challenges and your role in life is to overcome them and figure it out and get to the next step. So Trey, very proud of you. I'm honored that you'd begin to spend the time talking with us and kind of sharing your insight and your story and

you know, when you come on the air, it's just up. Something's really happening because they're not going to you just for to fill time. If there's something volatile happening in the world and there, and you're coming up, you know that, um, there's news happening and you're right in the thick of it. So I really do appreciate joining us on the podcast today. Well, thank you. I really appreciate you having me. And I felt it was an informative conversation. You can always learn something from people. And I, uh,

respect the work that you've done and continue to do. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. And be safe out there and look forward to seeing you soon. Absolutely. Talk to you soon. I can't thank Trey enough for joining us. He's got a lot at his footsteps there in the Middle East and dealing with the volatility that is constantly going on there. But like I said to him there at the end, I really am proud of him because I think

It takes a lot of guts and fortitude and expertise and passion to do what he does, and he seems to combine all of that. So I really do appreciate him joining us today. Before we go, I want to offer a little bit of a prediction. A prediction here that we're going to have a contentious presidential race. Anybody going to vote against that? There's no doubt that there's going to be contention and wild turns with the presidential race.

But here's my prediction. At the end of the day, we'll still figure it out. We'll still get through it. You know, the analogy I like to use is that there's a tree and you got to shake that tree really hard because the nuts fall out of the tree. That's how they get it. Have you ever seen one of those walnut machines?

If you ever see something funny, look at how they shake the walnut trees in order to get all the nuts. They fall into this big net. It's a cool little video. Watch it on one of the streaming services.

But you know what? That's what we do in this country. I think the times in the country where we have run into problems are when we maybe didn't vet people as thoroughly as we should have. Now, some of it is so invasive that it's up and over the top. Some of it's a little too salacious, unverified. Be careful when you see things like unnamed sources online.

There are a lot of others who want contention in these races. They create these bots. They do all kinds of weird things. But you know what? Our system is really a great one. Now, personally, I don't like the way we vote. That's just me, personally. I wish everybody voted the same day with the same information, the same...

No voting before debates, that kind of thing. Make it two or three days if you have to. Make it a Thursday, Friday, Saturday so the people can... If they have problems with work

Then they have no excuses to get out there, vote in person, vote with an ID. But that's not the way it is. So we have to play by the rules that are there. And if you want to change those rules and work with those rules, then you have to work on your state and your county commission and your counties because they're really the ones that administer these elections. Don't let it become federal. Anyway, my part of making a prediction that, hey, it's going to be contentious. It is going to be volatile.

And it's supposed to be invasive to these candidates who want to earn your trust. But, you know, there are certain lines we shouldn't cross. If they're crossed, I think you'll know what they are. But...

Let's keep it about issues. Let's talk about policy and, you know, people's background. Fair game. I understand that to a degree. There's certain things that maybe are over the line. Anyway, my prediction, not a bold one, but it's going to be contentious and it's supposed to be. And it's going to be here before we know it because the first debate for the Republicans for the presidential race happens in August. Amazing how quickly that comes upon us. All

All right. I want to thank everybody. Hope you can rate this podcast. I'd really appreciate it if you do that. Subscribe to it. I want to remind people also that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts.

And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. You can also go over to the foxnewspodcast.com, hear some other podcasts that are out there on the Fox network, some really good ones out there. But again, rate it, review it, and subscribe to it. And we'll be back with more next week with an exciting guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

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