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Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chapins, and thanks for allowing us to spend part of your day, part of your time with us. We're going to talk a little bit about the news, then we're going to highlight the stupid, because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And we're going to talk a little bit about the news, then we're going to highlight the stupid, because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.
And then we're going to get together actually in person with Stuart Varney. Varney and company, he's been a longtime Fox Business reporter, but he anchors this show for a couple hours on Fox Business. Hopefully you've seen him.
An interesting chap, and I say chap because he's from the United Kingdom, but he got his United States citizenship just a few years ago. So we're going to talk about his life and his rise and his life experiences and learn a little bit more about Stuart Varney because he's one of the most influential people.
voices out there when it comes to business and business news. So looking forward to sit down with Stuart. That's coming up, but let's talk about a few things in the news. I got three things here that kind of caught my attention. First was this U.S. petrochemical giant Dow. You've heard of Dow? Dow Chemical? Come on, they're huge. They're massive, a responsible company, at least so I thought. There's
They're dealing with some allegations here is that they were they had this really nice thing they were going to do. They were going to take old sneakers, you know, shoes. They could take old shoes and then they were going to turn them into playgrounds. What a what a great way to recycle, make the most of things seem like a good thing. Everybody was all good with that. But then the allegation is that Reuters, you know, the news organization, they do some good work.
They decided to take some of these shoes and they put hidden trackers inside 11 pairs of the donated shoes. So they took 11 shoes, put trackers in them. Think of like those, I don't know what tracker they use, but think of like those AirPods or whatever. Turn them in because they were supposedly going to be recycled. But guess what? Most of the 11 shoes got exported to America.
some third world countries and they showed up for sale in some other place. They weren't actually turning most of them into playgrounds. They were, they were dumping them off in some third world country and selling them. Now, I don't know if they made any money, just got lazy, decided not to do any playgrounds that maybe had, they had too many shoes donated. I don't know what it was, but this looks really bad for a multi-billion dollar company. Like,
And they've got some questions to answer. But come on, Dow, you did a pretty serious allegation. And I haven't seen much of a response and denial from them along the way. The other one that's been in the news. And again, we record these podcasts and they don't come out immediately within the hour. But Novak Djokovic is one of the greatest tennis players that the world has ever seen. He's won nearly 100 tournaments in
His winnings are measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. He is an incredible tennis player, one of the best seriously that has ever been. But he's been denied entry in the past into the United States because he refuses to get the vaccine.
Well, my understanding is that he said that he's had COVID, so he has the natural immunity. But here he is, one of the finest athletes. If you're going to play tennis at that level and be the world, I mean, just Grand Slam champion, guess what? You're in pretty good shape. Fine physical specimen, let's just say that. And yet he's being denied entry into the United States of America because...
He doesn't have a COVID vaccine. Now, if you come illegally across the border in the South, the North, whatever, even get caught, detained by Border Patrol, you're going to be released back into the United States of America. There's no check for vaccines. There's no any of that. So here's the guy trying to do it legally and lawfully. And you know what? They won't let him in. But if you come here illegally illegally,
Oh, yeah. No problem under the Biden-Harris administration. That is so fundamentally, totally wrong. So...
You know, Governor Ron DeSantis, because they've got this big tournament coming up in Miami, has said, well, can we just have you go to the Bahamas and then come here on a boat? Because, again, the inconsistency of the Biden policies is just wrong. So here's a guy trying to do all the right things. And why is there still a vaccine mandate now? Now that we know that the vaccine doesn't address, you know, how the virus is transmitted. Yeah.
Um, it may be good for the most vulnerable pop of our population, but the guy is certainly not overweight. He's certainly not elderly. He's certainly not at risk for some of these other things. And he's playing in a tennis tournament. Okay. A tennis tournament singles by himself off to the side. Uh,
You know, he's running around on the court breathing hard, but he's not in close. He's not within six feet. He's not like, you know, a football player lining up, you know, nose to nose against somebody else. It's the absurdity of this stupid thing. And maybe I should put it put this in the in the stupid part. But it gets to this bigger policy position about what is appropriate and inappropriate for how we deal with vaccinations and the requirements that we have to get into this country at this point.
And then I also want to highlight the budget because the budget is something that members of Congress and our country should be dealing with. Unfortunately, it's been neglected for so long. And I want to try to give you some perspective here. Okay. First of all, I think there's just the principle that you got to live within your means. The 50 states have to do this because, you know, we they don't have the ability to print money.
But the federal government does have the ability to print money, and it's just become too tempting over the course of time. The problem is we spend too much money in this country, and the debt has soared. If you listen to the show in the past, I talk about this a lot. But the debt has soared to just an untenable amount of money, the trillions of dollars.
You know, the president submitted a budget, President Biden. It was more than a month late, supposed to be due the first Monday in February, didn't get released until mid-March. Nevertheless, the president is going to try to tout that he's going to save trillions off the deficit. Let's just be crystal clear here. The deficit is the annual number. The debt is the accumulation of all of these deficits.
And the president has said in order to reduce the deficit, what he's going to do is raise taxes. Raise taxes. We had the all-time highest revenue to the United States Treasury in 2022. All-time highest. And yet he wants to continue to increase revenue. See, revenue is about 20% of our gross domestic product. Take every financial transaction that ever happened in the United States.
That's your GDP, the gross domestic product. The problem is revenue is about 20 percent, but we spend like 23, 24 percent year after year. We have, in essence, a spending problem. We don't have a revenue problem. And if the president thinks that we're just going to increase taxes on the rich and they'll pay for everything, that never, ever happens.
solves it. We have to figure out how to cut spending. And part of the problem is nearly 73% of the budget is mandatory programmatic spending. It's just on autopilot. Congress doesn't even touch it. So you better figure out a way to deal with this
And you know what? Nobody expects the budget to be overnight balanced in one year. But in 10 years, that's what budgets do. They introduce a 10-year budget. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan group, looks at this over a 10-year window. Last number I'll throw at you is if you go back 10 years, go back to 2013, you will find that the budget was roughly 3.5 trillion dollars.
So if you're at $3.5 trillion, but now you want to be at $4.8 trillion, you can't just increase in 10 years by 66%. So 166%.
of the 2013 number is now what you're going to, I mean, inflation hasn't gone up that high and inflation is going high. It's just, we continue to spend at all time record high levels. It's just, it's just untenable. It needs to be solved. And it's one of the battles that we're going to see throughout 2013. All right. Time to transition to the stupid, because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.
Well, we're going to have to go back and look at ABC's The View because one of the co-hosts there declared that Trump had unleashed xenophobia during the conversation about the lab leaks. They're trying to come up with all these excuses now because so many of these news organizations and opinion programs like The View came out there and just bashed Donald Trump.
Donald Trump. They bash the idea. Anybody who suggested like Jon Stewart, comedian who suggested back in, I think 2021 that, um, you know, maybe the lab leak is something we ought to be looking at that that could potentially be what happened. Oh no, no, no, no, no. They're making all kinds of excuses now. And the latest excuse from the view is that because Trump had unleashed xenophobia, uh,
You know, I had to look that up a long time ago. Xenophobia, the idea that you're just doing this because of racial things. Come on. No. During a conversation about the lab leak hypothesis, President Trump was right back then. He's the president of the United States. He has the ability to look at all of this intelligence that the rest of us aren't able to see. And he said at the time that he believed that there was racism.
strong evidence that it potentially was a lab leak. Now we are to the point where, oh yeah, they should have never set down the social media. They should have never suppressed these stories. And I haven't seen a whole lot of apologies or clarifications in these publications as well. And that's why I think it qualifies for bringing on the stupid.
All right, time to transition now. Let's talk to Stuart Varney, somebody who does know an awful lot about the numbers, but I want to know about more of his life and his rise and his great success here in America. And so looking forward to sitting down with Stuart Varney.
I am so thrilled to have sitting next to me Stuart Barney. Stuart, this is so kind of you. I have had so much fun being on your show. And the banter that's like during commercial break, it's been really fun. There are some times where I think the banter during the commercial breaks could actually be on the air. Oh, if they stream that. We get a lot of people viewing, I think. But you're fun to have on the show. And we try to make it, I wouldn't say it's a humorous show. It's not like that. But we smile a lot. Yeah.
Because, you know, viewers don't want some angry people fighting about money and politics. They like to see people with a smile on their face. The velocity of what's coming at you. I mean, your show, you know, 9 a.m. to noon.
I mean, the whole business day, the whole world is waking up and you have things. I mean, it's amazing. It seems like every minute there's some new news kind of popping up and how to deal with it. You've got to keep smiling. We decided a long time ago that the way to put business news in front of a wider audience, you don't use jargon. You don't talk about E3 or what is it? Hedges.
I can't remember all this jargon from the Federal Reserve. We don't do that. We simply don't do it. I want clarity. Direct yourself right at the nature of the story and present it in a nice fashion that the viewers want to hear. All right. So you become a United States citizen. You got the most popular business show on Fox Business. You're dominating against the others.
You love the sport that's the beautiful game, which ranks high with me as well. But let's go back. I want to go to the way back machine. Let's go back to like I was born in. And then kind of walk us through your journey because I'm just fascinated. On people that have had great success, there are inflection points. There's important points in their lives that...
And that's what I want to hear about. Okay. Let's start at the beginning. Yeah. Born and raised in Derby. That's a town in the Midlands of England at 120 miles north of London. What were your parents doing? My dad worked in a warehouse, a green grocery warehouse, and he worked there for 50 years. Wow. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, as was the case all those years ago. Yeah.
And so that was the family structure. Went to high school, graduated from... Do you have brothers, sisters? It was a big family, small family? Okay. I had two older brothers. Yeah. One of whom was killed in an air crash. He was a Navy flyer killed in a training accident. And that was in 1960, a very long time ago. It really devastated the family. Yeah. And I...
Maybe I should tell you this, but a little later, when I was 19 years old, my first girlfriend was killed in a car crash. So those were tragedies of my life. And maybe I did something wrong back then because I put those tragedies in a box inside my head and forgot it, walked away from it, never opened that box. Maybe that's not such a good idea because the box leaks automatically.
And in later life, you might have some psychological problems because of the trauma that you hid. I didn't have any psychological problems. But at one time in my life, I was drinking far too much. And I think that was possibly due to my experiences in early life. Anyway, moving on from there, let's move on to something more positive perhaps. I went to the London School of Economics.
But before I went to the LSE, as it's called, I did a year in the British Peace Corps. I worked in East Africa, in Kenya, in a home for destitute African boys. Really? You just think of this. You're 18 years old. You've never been out of England before. You get on a plane and suddenly you're in the game parks of East Africa.
And you've got a responsible job teaching youngsters, African, destitute African boys in a good institution. That was quite an experience. You grew up fast. Yeah. Good for you, you know, but there's probably so many experiences and vivid memories. And I think it's important, you know, our son, he went and served a mission for his church.
in Ghana and he went there for two years and it changed his life and it changed his life for the better and he participated in that service and I'm proud of him for doing that because it really formed him. The theory is that being in the British Peace Corps or the American Peace Corps, you are giving to these countries which need that help. Right. And that's true. You are. You're helping. But you get as much out of it as the country and there's no question about that. Right.
So I come back home from East Africa and I went to the London School of Economics, which was an experience in and of itself because the LSE was and still is the most radical left-wing college. Really? In Europe. Oh, by a long way, yes. It was founded by socialists, Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
way back when it was a socialist institution and I was a socialist. That's the way it was in those days. So I graduate from the LSE and I always wanted to travel. Maybe that was because I've been in Kenya for so long. So I wanted any job that I could get that would pay me as much as possible in the shortest possible period of time. Sure.
I became a bus conductor in London. Really? I was a bus conductor. I was the guy on those red double-decker buses. I'd be the guy with a machine strapped on the front. You wind out the tickets, give the tickets out, you take the money in. Strangely enough, I was a bus conductor on the day that Britain went to decimal currency.
Really? Yes. So this was the day... That doesn't screw you up. The old money... You took the fares with the old money and you put it into your right-hand side bag and you give them change out of the new money in your left-hand bag. Nobody understood what was going on. It was utter chaos, absolute chaos. But that was an experience. Then I made the money and I set off around the world. And I travelled around the world for about four years...
I went from London all the way through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal. By yourself? Yeah. Burma, Myanmar, down into Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, then to Australia. Yeah. And met a young lady on the way.
And we got together in West Australia. I've been to Western Australia. So you're in Perth. Yeah, I was in Perth. 1972. Wow. That was a frontier in those days. That was a little bit before America's Cup and that whole. That's right. But before all that. Yeah. It was a village. It is beautiful out there. It is. It is. We went to the Pinnacles. Yep. And Rottnest Island. Yep. Got it. Yeah. I really liked it out there. Yeah. And then we literally hitchhiked.
from Perth all the way up the west coast. How in the world do you do that? To Darwin. You've got to be kidding me. 2,500 miles. Nobody does that. And there's nobody there. Even today they don't do that. 1972. It was amazing. We got as far as a town called Port Hedland. There were no more cars. There were big trucks, which never stopped for you. So we had to buy a car. I had no license, no insurance. I'd never driven a car before. We bought an old Austin Anglia.
And we drove it all the way from Port Hedland, all 1,500 miles. You look at that on the map, folks. That's a long. Huge. Huge. That's crazy. Then we sold the car. What was interesting about Darwin other than that's like the only city up in the northwest? Just wanted to see it.
It's a wild place. Yeah. No, you can't. They got the saltwater crocs. They've got the, yeah. We slept on the beach for six weeks. Oh. And then we went from Darwin to Portuguese Timor. And I bet you cannot tell me the capital of Portuguese Timor. Well, there's East Timor. I've been to, I've been, but Port North, Port? Port Moresby. Moresby. That's Papua New Guinea. But.
That's as close as I got. I was just trying to show proximity, but I'd never been there. I can't tell you the capital. The capital of Portuguese Timor is Dili. And when we arrived in Portuguese Timor, I had to get a cholera shot from a Chinese doctor on the wharf, on the dock. Okay. You're still with us. Then we went from there to Singapore. Singapore.
We were from Singapore to London. We hitchhiked to my parents' house in Derby.
Knocked on the door and said, "Hey, mom and dad, this is Janet. She's my wife." That was a shock. Where did you get married along the way? We were married actually in Derby. This is going to be my wife actually. Oh, great. Oh, okay. So then we get married, go down to London, filled out all the forms to emigrate to America, emigrated to America, and I was a waiter in Stratford, Connecticut and Westport, Connecticut.
What was the attraction to the United States? Like, why do you want to, I mean, you've been everywhere else. Yeah, I was American. Yeah. And besides, I wanted to go. I was fascinated by it. Right. I'd had American flatmates whilst I was a student in London. That intrigued me. Interesting. I'd always mixed with Americans.
So over we came. So she's American. She is. And so she wanted to come and it brought you here. And you've been here pretty much ever since, right? Well. Or did you go, you actually went over to Hong Kong, right? I went over again. We worked for a year, earned the money, and then went back to London, went back through Europe, back through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and into Pakistan, and then into India, then over to Nepal all over again, and then...
What did we do then? Oh, then we went to Hong Kong. And I got a job in Radio Hong Kong, 英語音樂, in the English language service. What did you just say? Radio Hong Kong. 英語音樂, that's Radio Hong Kong. Got the job there. I loved it. That was my introduction to the media. And then I was there for two years. Then we went to San Francisco. And I couldn't get a job because of my English accent.
Really? I went to all the newsrooms, ABC, NBC, CBS. You can't work here. How can we put you onto a murder in Oakland with a voice like that? You have no credibility. I said, okay, okay, we're not going to do that. And then Janet saw a little advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle. It read, wanted entry-level TV newscaster. That's me, baby. So we fronted up. I got the job. Had to work for free for three months. Wow.
It was an early morning business show, one of the earliest in the country. I got the job and I did it for four years. And then miraculously, I got picked up by Ted Turner before he started CNN. Wow. He flew to Atlanta, did the interview, got the job.
And on June the 2nd, I was the first person to broadcast for CNN from New York. Wow. That was 42 years ago. Wow, wow, wow. That's quite the journey. Oh, I haven't finished. How much time you got there, Jason? That only takes us two, yeah. Okay, so I stayed there for 20 years, and then I resigned. In Atlanta? No, I was in New York. Oh, you were in New York. We were in the World Trade Center. Yeah. And then I resigned.
Ted Turner had walked into the Washington office on Ash Wednesday and had mocked all those employees who had ashes on their forehead. And said, what are you, Jesus freaks? I didn't like that. I am a Christian. I don't like that kind of thing. And my job wasn't going very well anyway. And I resigned. I walked away. And I'm very glad I did. It was a personal and professional decision, which I think...
worked against me professionally, but I think it was a personal right thing to do. Well, good for you. But that's got to be hard coming home that day because you didn't have a backup, did you? Or did you? No, I didn't. So I was in the speaking business for a while. You can make somebody doing that. That's fine. But then I got picked up by the Wall Street Journal. They wanted to put their editorial board on television and they hired me to do it.
So we did the Wall Street Journal report, the Wall Street Journal editorial report for about a year. And then I left and went full time with Fox. That's my story. And you've been here ever since? Ever since. It took a while to get that out, didn't it? That's quite the journey. But see, that's what I mean. You have those types of experiences and –
I mean, you've got a number of kids and grandkids now at this point too, right? I have six children and 11 grandchildren. Wow. Honestly, Jason, I think I've lived a full life. It's been amazing. I think that's a blessing.
And just, you can die happy on that, can't you? Well, you know, it was interesting. We were sitting on set one time and we were talking about John Deere tractors. And I said, oh, I got a John Deere tractor. Knewing it would poke you a little bit because mine's a riding lawnmower to cut my grass. But you had a real one. Yeah, I do. I do. Well, we've got a farm.
Upstate New York, about three hours out of Manhattan, we grow trees, hardwood timber. Are these like Christmas trees? What are they? No, no, no. Black cherry, red oak, white oak, hard maple. There's basically furniture and flooring. Really? Yeah. It's quite profitable. There's good tax breaks involved. And that's my pride and joy. And you like it, don't you? Love it. Is that, you know, I ask people all the time, what's that other thing that's
For me, when I want to get away, clear my mind, forget about everything, just get focused on... And it's more than a hobby. People have hobbies. I consider this more than a hobby. But I like outdoor and wildlife photography. I absolutely love it. My mom had been a photographer when she shot weddings and did things like that. Hot shot photography way back in the 70s and 80s.
And, and I still remember going into that, she converted this, this bathroom into, you know, where they would process film. And the younger generation isn't even going to understand this. But as I say it, I can smell it, where you create a dark room that had this little red light, and you'd process the film, put it into the chemicals, you'd hang it up, you'd dry it, and then you'd have the process.
the film strip and you'd see that. And so I still remember that, but I like getting out. Is that kind of the other thing for you to go out and work on the farm and go grow trees, process them? Well, to be honest, it's the most spiritual part of my life. When you're walking through the woods alone and you can hear the wind in the trees and you have that feeling of God's glory, which is the way I prefer to term it,
That's a deeply spiritual moment in your life, moments, and it just happens. I don't know why. See, I have that same experience photographing wildlife. You know, I reside primarily in Utah. I mean, I travel a number of times, coming to Fox. We're here in New York recording this. But I live in Utah. But I go between Utah and Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah.
And I get out there and I can find an elk or a bear or, uh, you know, some big game and I'm following it, you know, safe distance. I've learned to protect myself, but you're out there by yourself. Yes. It's a little scary. And there's a moose. Yeah. And, uh,
Any one of these things could kill you if they want you. But there's something very spiritual about that as well. And it's a separation from our day-to-day lives, professional lives, and city lives, if you like. It's a separation. Yeah. And that's very important. It is a blessing to have such a property, isn't it? Really? No, it is. It's a great investment. There's some about the outdoors. And this is where I wish the youth would have these types of experiences. I mean, you had it exponentially off the chart, traveling the world and going out and
I think young people need to have those experiences outside of... Yes. But remember, what I did way back in the 70s, traveling around the world, you can't do that now. Yeah, you can't, can you? You think you can travel through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma? You can't do that. No. You know, my passport, being in Congress and some of my...
I traveled to places I thought, oh, you know, I teased my friends. I said, okay, I got some on my list that you'll never have. You'll never go to Libya. Sorry, folks. And I've been there twice, you know, things like that. But you're naming those countries. And I think, yeah, I've been there. I've been there. And I haven't been to Iran, but I've been off the coast of Iran on a,
You know, in the Eisenhower carrier group, about 15 miles, you know, and it's right over there, and they're sending boats at you. You know, but that's different than traversing and not knowing where you're going to sleep that night, right? That's true. That's true. I spent most of this time sleeping out in the desert. That's unbelievable. Yeah.
I never thought about snakes. It never occurred to me. Did you ever see one? No. If I'd seen one, life would have been different. Very different indeed, yeah. Now, you love football. F-U-T-B-O-L, the real game. Did you play that growing up? Yeah, I played it. Not for my high school. We played rugby in my high school. So I played rugby, but my real interest was soccer. When I first came to America, you lose track of
football, soccer, call it what you will. You lose track of it because it's not a really big deal in America. And I was throwing a football around with my sons, getting into American football. But then, let's say about maybe five, six years ago, all of a sudden, Premier League soccer, big time teams, Man U, Man City, Arsenal, you name it, you
You could see it on American television easily every game. And that picks up your interest all over again. So now I'm an avid Premier League fan, and I mark my day in accordance with the games that I'm going to see. First of all, I thought the World Cup was exceptionally well done. But I would much rather watch a Premier League game than I would –
sitting down watching an NFL game or anything else. And I played football in college. I was a place kicker, but that's because I played soccer my whole life growing up. And I love it. And you're right, the proximity, the ability to watch the games. And now these reality series, I don't know if you've ever watched these. There are some really good reality seasons everywhere.
I confess to you, Jason, I've not seen Ed... What's his name? All or Nothing is one of them. Ted Lasso. Oh, Ted Lasso. I've not seen that. Oh, it's so good. You would love it. And I'm not following... You're going to binge watch it one week. You're going to be out there with your trees and you're going to say...
I wonder what Ted Lasso is doing today. And I'm not seeing the Wigan story either. You know, Wigan was taken over by some crypto guys in America. Yeah. By this little tiny club. Wrexham. Wrexham. Wrexham. Not Wigan, sorry. Yeah, yeah. Wrexham. Rob McElhinney, whatever his name is. I'm sorry. I'm going to get in trouble for not... And it's just... It's in Ryan Reynolds. And it is a really good story about how the whole town, the whole city...
city revolves around the club and how they do it so differently. I wish American sport would pick up on how
and throughout Europe, but really in England, how they actually develop these teams and have developmental teams. It's just, it's something really special and different. I think we could learn a lot. Definitely. You turned out, okay, so you go to a pretty liberal school. But you're a pretty conservative person. I am now. Well, what happened? I'll tell you what happened. Yeah. I got on a plane, I forget, in India, and flew to Hong Kong.
So I was flying from basically a socialist bureaucratic society, India, and flying to a free market dynamic capitalist society like Hong Kong. And this is 1974, something like that. And the difference was so striking. Everything worked perfectly.
In India, things didn't work that well. But in Hong Kong, oh, Lord, I mean, it was fantastic. It was dynamic. It was bustling. I very quickly adopted free market economics. This thing works. Capitalism works. And I thrived.
You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Stuart Varney right after this. Hey, it's Clay Travis. Join me for Outkick the show as we dive deep into a mix of topics. New episodes available Monday to Friday on your favorite podcast platform and watch directly on Outkick.com forward slash watch.
You know, I went to Hong Kong five or six times back in the 90s. And I just wish I could bring my wife there now. I mean, now it's not the same. It's not the same. I wouldn't dare, you know, go over there and spend time. I don't think you could. You have a security problem. I do. Yeah.
A Fox anchor in Hong Kong today? Now you're really testing the waters right there. But it used to be that you could go in Hong Kong, and it really was. I mean, the size of the buildings, the proximity, the hustle, the bustle 24-7. I mean...
It was beautiful. It was dynamic. It had the craziest airport that you ever land in. Oh, Kai Tak. Remember that? Yes. The planes used to bank around office buildings to land. You were literally looking at people hanging out their laundry. You could see the...
You could see individual people. When I was there, there was actually, there was an accident and one of the planes went into the drink. It went into the water and they never pulled it out. So you could see the tail fin of the airplane while you're taxiing. Well,
Welcome to Hong Kong. Either landing or taking, you're looking at this plane that had been unsuccessful and was in the water. Why they didn't take that thing out? It sat there for a long time, but it was very memorable to me as somebody who's put on an awful lot of miles. Okay, Jason, you tell me, what am I going to do now? I'm 74 years old. I'm still gainfully employed, but I am slowing down a little bit.
Should I retire? No, you're not slowing down. Give me a break. You love the hustle and bustle. You got everything moving, right? You got grandkids. You got trees. You got the right balance in your life. I don't see you slowing down. Well, I am. You love it. I've seen you, I don't know how many times on set, and you love it. It brings a whole energy together.
But in its work. But I always want to establish a harmonious set, a good feeling in the studio. I want to walk in and have – I like everybody. I'm not having a beef with anybody. We're here to have a good time and entertain our viewers. That's what we try to do. Yeah, but that passion is –
would if it was fading away or not existent because that would be because you didn't care. But you do care. You know what people want. I do. I've seen you at those commercials time and time again like that. That graphic did not work. That did not explain the situation. Or there you would ask for one ahead of time and they would and you'd look at and say, forget it. Blow past that one.
That's why the show is so successful. And you know that. Real life, live rock and roll. Yeah. That's what it is. No, and it's a dynamic market that's happening all the time, right? No day is going to be the same. And that's... You have to really be nimble to be on television and on radio. Yes, you do. Particularly on television because...
Things are happening and don't happen, and then you have technical problems. You have cameras that go down. Somebody does something crazy, breaking news, horrific things. But the three hours goes very quickly. Oh, it does, and that's a sign that it's working. When you've got news and you're bopping and rocking and rolling, it goes. It just flies by. It does. All right, so I have some rapid questions I have to ask you. Okay. Not too rapid. Okay. Take your time here.
First concert you attended. Oh, good one. That would have been Eric Clapton in Oakland, California, 1970-something or other. How cool is that? Yeah, but I had a seat in the nosebleed section. It wasn't very good. Well, my parents tell this story about going to the Beatles concert in the San Francisco area. I think it was at the Cow Palace, I think they called it. Yeah.
And I remember them telling me about this, Jason, we got to see the Beatles. Problem was we didn't hear the Beatles because the screaming was so loud. And the amplification, the speakers back in the day were not nearly what they are. It said, all we did is watch this screaming crowd then come out doing their thing.
We never heard a tune that happened. That's why they stopped touring. Yeah. Because they just didn't enjoy it any longer. It wasn't for the music. I think the Beatles, I've watched, I'm a huge fan. Me too. I mean, I look at the people that I want to meet in life, and I think Sir Paul McCartney would be one that I'd want to break bread with. Brilliant guy. At the age of 80, he could still... Have you ever met him? No, I haven't. At the age of 80, he still did a three-hour live set. Oh, yeah. Which is remarkable. Just belted out.
Yeah. He teaches a class about music writing, and I think he still does it. And part of this documentary or news show or whatever I saw, he teaches a class. Can I get into that? Well, so they showed him how he writes a song. And I was just like, wow, you are something special. Okay, so if you came home one day and you said, you know, guess what?
family we got somebody exciting come on or dead or alive anybody in history they'd come over and break bread with you and share a meal who would you who would you want that to be margaret thatcher really oh yes absolutely yes a wonderful woman did you ever get to meet her i did and i did why her i'll tell you a quick story yeah um we would i was with cnn at the time uh-huh and um
Margaret Thatcher, we were in Washington, D.C. There was a huge conference of world leaders and diplomats from all around the world, including Margaret Thatcher. And we were due to interview Margaret Thatcher. So we took her off into this small studio side room. And there were the big hot shots of CNN all lined up waiting to meet Margaret Thatcher. And I was with her.
I was at the head of the line there, and Margaret Thatcher walked up to me right in front of all the top brass at CNN, and she said, Oh, Mr. Varney, I watch you all the time. Priceless. It was contract time. I was in. Well, she certainly gravitated to your history, I'm sure, and I'm sure your prowess and all that, but that accent had to be fairly appealing for her. I guess so. But explain to people...
there's a whole younger generation who doesn't remember how incredible she was i mean she took on some she was the leader of that conservative movement there and it wouldn't happen without her well she was a woman the first female prime minister of great britain right and she never mentioned it she wasn't some kind of feminist standout who was breaking the glass ceiling
She just wasn't like that at all. She was the prime minister. That's who she was. Identity politics didn't count in those days. And even a fairly conservative society like Britain, no problem electing Margaret Thatcher four times as I recall. The first couple of times was a landslide majority.
A couple other questions. Unique talent that nobody knows about. Something you can do that, like, man, nobody knows I can do that. I'm pretty good at it. I didn't know until recently that you were, like, a tree farmer, so that counts. And you could drive a tractor, but anything else on that list? Unique talent. I know the capitals of most countries in the world. And please don't test me, Jason, because I might fail on your podcast. Well, you tested me, and I failed, so I thought I was pretty good, too. It's my privilege. Yeah.
That's funny. Pineapple on pizza? Yes or no? No. Yeah, good. See, there's a reason we all love Stuart and Barney. Best advice you ever got? Forgive me for taking time on this one, but I was once thinking of leaving TV news and becoming a pitchman, an advertising guy. And a professional came up to me and he said, don't you dare.
Don't leave what you're doing now. Stay with it and stay with it a long time because you can climb that tree and you'll do all right. And that was good advice. It was good advice because it was 25 years ago. I think that's always sometimes you wonder, should I get out? Should I move? I mean, the best people have options, right? They have options to do other things.
But sometimes sticking with it and staying past that part of the uncertainty. So you asked me that question, what should I do? Don't get off the train too early either. I'm going to be 75 in a couple of months. Do you feel like you're 75? Because you don't look 75. I do feel like it. You do feel like it? Yes, sir, I am slowing down. I am. I know you can slow down a little bit, but you don't strike me as one who lacks for energy. My problem, Jason, is if I don't do TV...
What do I do? Right. I mean, it's fun being walking in the forest. It's fun being with the grandchildren and the children and Naples and Florida. Right, right. It's all fun. But where's my sense of purpose? Right. Am I just going to wait to die? Yeah. I don't have any hobbies. I think some people retire too early. And they do. They struggle with it because you wake up one day. I heard a...
Colin Powell, who's passed away, he would tell an amazing story. You know, there he was at the pinnacle of power, commanding troops. And he tells this great story about how, and then he retired. And he said, so that Monday came along and his wife had things to do and she took off. And he said, I got in the car and I had not driven a car in like decades. Wow.
And he said, and I'm driving down and I'm just thinking, McDonald's or Burger King? McDonald's or Burger King? Colin Powell. And normally I'm looking at, should we move 10,000 troops here? Should we, you know, he couldn't figure, you know, it was a fascinating story, but
you'll always find something. You'll always be in demand. People want to be around happy people. And people want to be around people that bring energy and they bring competency to understanding what you're doing. So I hope you don't. But you know what? When you do make that decision...
I'll tell you what it is, okay? You'll tell me what... No, but you'll also figure it out. Oh, I will. You know, you have different stages in life. Thanks so much for joining us. You're very generous with your time and look forward to joining on the show soon. But thank you so much for joining us on Jason in the House. Jason, thank you very much indeed for having me. Great privilege. Thank you. You're listening to Jason in the House. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
All right. Well, thank you for listening to the Jason in the House podcast. I can't thank Stuart Varney enough for taking the time and sitting down. I thought that was really it was very fun. It was very fun. I please rate this would really appreciate that. You can subscribe to the podcast as well. And I want to remind you that you can listen to ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad free on the Amazon Music app.
Again, rate the program. Join us again next week. We'll have another exciting guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House. The Fox True Crime Podcast presents Crimes on Campus. Sharing chilling stories of scandal, corruption, and murder. New episodes available every Tuesday this month. Listen and follow at foxtruecrime.com.
