Karl Rove And The Nature Of Politics 56:02

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Well, welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and I really do appreciate you joining me because we're going to have some fun little thoughts on the news. I'm going to highlight the stupid because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.

and then we're going to phone a friend and this one is very timely with the election coming up carl rove i'm going to talk a little bit about his uh his background and how he got to where he's at a little philosophy on what's going on in the world of politics and uh and then get his take on on the races that are happening right now and have a little fun by asking him some rapid fire questions so uh i'm so thrilled to have carl rove uh come in and join us uh go to

anywhere and talk about politics and I think both sides of the aisle would say you know what this guy actually knows elections and knows his stuff and and understands how the world of politics and elections work and so gonna be have a good conversation I really like Carl he's had a major impact on the world of politics and understands the numbers and how things work but before we get to the conversation when we phone a friend with Carl we're gonna talk a

We're coming up on the election. Early balloting has started. Ballots are in the mail throughout the country. And if they haven't arrived at your mailbox soon, they're going to be there any moment. It's interesting as I kind of sit back at 60,000 feet and I think, what in the world are the Democrats going to campaign on?

What are they offering that would change the overall trajectory of the country? You know, at one point, I think at its high point, I saw that 88% of Americans thought that the country was on the wrong track, that they wanted to go a different direction. And so the Democrats are basically saying, we want to continue to do more and more of the same. But if you want different results, you're going to have to do different things. So I look at the major issues, the things that

happen to coincide the way I see the world, but also the polling suggests are national trends and figures and in no particular order, but they end up being about crime, inflation, energy. We have 20 million people in this country who are behind on their energy bills, just paying the month-to-month bill on making sure they have basic energy bills.

Immigration, you know, these types of things, the military, Afghanistan, what happened there and what are your commitment to the military? These types of things. What is it that the Democrats offer to the American people, not just as a at the presidential level with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, but what is it that they offer that it's going to be a change in policy?

It literally has become a cliche, and there's a reason why it's become a stereotype that Democrats just want to tax and spend. And that's what they've wanted to do systematically is raise taxes and spend more money. And the reason that we're in the place that we're at with inflation is because of federal government spending and the policies of the Federal Reserve.

If you go back and look at Milton Friedman and the way he approaches as an economist, he will tell you very clearly, go back to these videos that are like in the early 70s or something like that. And he said, there's only one entity that is able to print more money. And that's the government. You know, they try to blame it on businesses or greed or this, that, and the other. That's always been there. But you know what? Only the government prints more money.

And so what is the definition of inflation? It's too much money chasing too few goods. And the reason that we have inflation is nearly 25% of our gross domestic product. That is everything that is spent in this country. Almost one out of every $4 is spent by the federal government. And so if you want to ease inflation, you need to be able to do one of two things. You need to lessen that pressure that's coming from the federal government and

And you need to increase supply. If there's more supply of these goods and services or products, then guess what? The inflation will ease. So take energy, for instance. And the reason the energy prices are so high is because of the policies of the Biden-Harris administration. They systematically wanted to cut off petroleum-based products at the very beginning. They campaigned on it. Then they did it on day one.

So don't go out there, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and your spokespeople and go out and say, well, this is Putin's price hike, you know, and all that stuff. And, oh, we're going to go beg Venezuela for more energy. That's just hogwash. Well, we're going to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. What does that do for America? That doesn't solve the problem. They don't offer actual real solutions. And, hey, I'm all for windmills and solar panels. Go for it. Go for it.

But you know what? That's not going to solve all the problems. We've got transmission line problems. There's a way to ease into this and not try to do it overnight without having the bulk of America suffer the consequences. Because you know what? People in the world that do, they'll just absorb it. But the people in fixed incomes, people who are just entering the workforce, other types of things, they can't afford this.

And so as we look at the issues, we go into the news and we look at crime, we look at inflation, we look at energy, look at immigration, these types of things.

I think there will be Democrats that number one issue will be abortion. But, you know, all the Supreme Court did is say that's going to be determined on the state level. So those can be fought out at the state level. I don't how that's going to affect your senator or your house member. I just I think most people are figuring out that Supreme Court is ruled.

And we're going to have to fight that out at the state with the state legislature. All right, let's go on to the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. Bringing on the stupid. Got to start with Joe Biden. You know, Joe Biden, he has two gaffes back to back. One is when he said, I've got two words, two words for you. Made in America. And then he had this.

This one previously, which was just three letters. It's a three-letter word. Jobs, jobs, jobs. I mean, you watch the video of these and it's just painful. I thought it was funny that Lauren Boebert said that she had a two-word response to Joe Biden. And she said, she's the congresswoman out of Western Colorado, Lauren Boebert. She goes out there and she says, I have just two words. Let's go, Brandon.

Well, that triggered the left like there was no tomorrow. And all of a sudden, all these blue check people on Twitter and all these celebrities saying, oh, she's so stupid. She's an idiot. She can't even count. She shouldn't even be in Congress. I mean, all of these everything derogatory. Little did they know, because they're not paying attention, that she was just mocking Joe Biden. It was it was a joke about how Joe Biden said just two words, two words made in America.

And they became so triggered. Oh, nobody should even serve in Congress if they do that. Oh, really? Why don't you take that same thing and apply it to Joe Biden? I thought that was pretty funny, pretty stupid. All right, let's go move on to the next person, which happens to be, in my case, Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris sat down for an interview. I watched it. I didn't watch the entirety of it, but I watched the clip of it.

And she's being interviewed by just some celebrity, not like a real journalist. And she's agreeing with the idea that of course the intensity and frequency of hurricanes has increased. Guess what? It hasn't. Now that's not to minimize in any way, shape or form the devastation of one of the most horrific hurricanes we've ever had in the state of Florida. I had other parts of the country, but really Florida, the devastation of hurricane Ian.

But to suggest that the frequency and the intensity of these storms is like at an all-time record, it's just not true. The numbers of hurricanes are actually down. The number of deaths by these severe storms is down. And again, if you have a loved one or it's your home or your business or whatever, you don't care and you're upset and mad about that. I totally agree that we need to help as a nation to rebuild these places.

But for the certainty of making the argument about climate politics, I just thought was absolutely stupid. And the other part of that she continues to say is that the border is secure. Guess what, Madam Vice President? It's not secure. And every single metric represents that it is not secure. And if you're going to continue to represent and suggest that the border is secure, you're going to continue to bring on and expose the stupid. That is your policy position.

Well, that's bringing on the stupid. Now it's time to bring on a friend. Somebody I actually know this time. Sometimes I interview people I don't even know them. This person I actually know. His name's Karl Rove, and he's been a major impact player in the world of politics. He understands campaigns like none other. I just haven't come across somebody who really understands the numbers and is masterful in terms of memorizing which congressional district does what and how.

He does a master class, you know, that product out there, the videos, master class with Dave on Axelrod. But he's a fascinating individual. And so let's call up Carl Rove. Morning. Carl, it's Jason Chaffetz.

The Jason Chaffetz? My God, I can't believe I'm so fortunate. I can't believe you answered the phone. You know, they have caller ID these days. You really ought to get it. Well, I did. It said a very important person, so I picked it up. Yeah, that's right. No wonder you're in politics. You're proving it right there.

There we go. You know what? I've had a lot of fun and a real honor to kind of get to know you and see you on set there with Fox here and there and bump into you with politics. And you're always a happy warrior. You always got a smile on your face. My guess isn't that is that's not always the case. But, man, that's been my experience.

Well, life is, I have a very interesting life and I enjoy it. And I enjoy being around the people I get to be around. So let's go back to that life because you started out west here. And when was the first time you kind of thought, yeah, you know, this politics thing, that's kind of cool. Well, I actually have always liked history and

government and politics, but I was a complete nerd growing up. You remember the first time you had a civics course about the fifth or sixth grade? Yeah. And you had to write a paper. I had to write a paper. Normally, you do our three branches of government or the Declaration of Independence. I wrote mine on the theory of dialectical materialism.

I didn't know who this guy Marks, what it really was, but he was a bad guy, I thought. So I've always been interested in politics and government history and sort of from a very young age, which is unusual because I didn't grow up in a very – I mean, we did not discuss politics around the kitchen table. My dad did not tell me until he was in his 70s who he voted for, and my mother had no –

theory of voting. One year, she voted for the Republican ticket because I was working in a Republican campaign. And two years later, she voted for the Peace and Freedom Party because my older brother liked Eldridge Cleaver, who was running for president. Well, family first for the Roeves. That's good. Exactly. At least for Mama Roeve. Yeah, exactly.

So tell me about those early days growing up. You said you were a nerd, but did you play any sports or were you literally like just burying your head into a book and –

and focus there? Well, I buried my head into a book a lot. I did play baseball as every kid growing up did. And I got to play in one game when we, when we were, I can't remember whether there was no chance that we could win or we were so far ahead, we could lose, but I got to play one inning. But no, I was not a particularly athletic kid though. I, you know, I grew up in the West. So, you know, you, you go fishing and you go camping and you hike and so forth. And

So I had that. I wasn't exactly homebound, but I was not a very athletic kid. Yeah, you know, I miss those times when you go out and you're throwing dirt claws and you're playing with army men and you're not too worried about what time it is. You don't have a watch on. It gets dark. You get hungry. You go home.

Yeah, yeah, my dad was a hard rock geologist. One of the best times we had was he would take my brother and I with him on my older brother. I have four siblings, but he would take my older brother and I with him on his geological workout in the Nevada desert.

And we had a single shot .22, and we would try and shoot rabbits, for which there was a bounty. And anyway, we had a lot of fun. Yeah, you know, that's harder to do. They're just sitting there, and as soon as you got that gun up, they are bolting off in an indiscriminate direction. But that is fun to do out in the deserts of Utah and Nevada. So your dad's doing that. You're growing up.

And then you decide in fifth grade, you're going to, you know, write some analytical paper about,

Tell us about what you did there in high school. What was your first job? What was your first thing, other than mom and dad saying, hey, Carl, go out and take the garbage out. What else were you doing? Well, mowed lawns, of course. Every youngster has to do summers of mowing lawns. And I delivered the Sparks Tribune, Sparks Nevada Tribune. I was a paper man, paper boy.

My first job in government was I had when I was, let's see, I had to be 14. I got an internship in the Washoe County Clerk's Office filing papers. But yeah, look, we were on the shabby side of the middle class, so we always worked. I had, in high school, I

I worked in an industrial kitchen during high school and college of a hospital. I waited tables. I ran a cash register. I did in high school. I worked at a convenience store. And the second time I was robbed at the point of a gun, my parents said, you're not doing that anymore. Wait, wait, wait. You were...

Yeah. And of all places, Salt Lake City robbed, robbed, robbed by twice by by some guy coming in. And they tell you when you go to work in a convenience store like that, you know, you have a safe in the floor and you put the money in through a slot into the safe.

And you can't get into it. And so they tell you if you're ever robbed, or at least they did back in those days, they said, if you're if somebody robs, don't don't bother. Just give them everything that's in the cash register and and point to them that you can't get in and out of the safe because you don't have the combination and the lock.

But don't worry about it. So twice I got robbed. Does that strategy really work, using logic on somebody who's pulling a gun on a kid in a convenience store? Yeah, well, unfortunately, it worked twice. I think people who rob convenience stores sort of know they're going to have a limited take. But anyway, but yeah, no, I...

You know, we were always working as my mother was always working, you know, just, you know, when we were growing up, she was an Avon lady. And so I became very good at sort of packing up the orders. I used to know all of the numbers for all the shades of Avon cosmetics, lipsticks, you know.

Number 149, get her and get to number 149 and 156, you know, and it's put it in the bag. All right. Well, somehow that equates to a job in politics. What was your first political job and how did that come about?

Well, it came about because of a teacher. Everybody has a teacher that makes some enormous difference in their lives, if you look back. And mine was a high school teacher at Olympus High in Salt Lake City, Holiday, Utah at that time. It's now just all part of the big Salt Lake metropolitan area, Eldon Tolman.

Mr. Tolman was a very formal guy, never referred to you as Jason or Carl. It was always Mr. Chaffetz, Mr. Rove, Ms. Smith, Ms. Jones. It was very formal. And I'd taken a course from him. He was very tough, but I learned a lot and really enjoyed it. And the next semester, I took a course, a fall semester, and he said, Mr. Rove,

Everyone will be able to achieve an A in this class by satisfactory completion of the coursework except you. If you want to get an A, I want you to be involved in a political campaign. Now, Mr. Tolman knew I was a Republican, and he wasn't. He was a union official. He wore bow ties. He was a wonderful guy, but he was very tough.

and a Democrat, and he once allowed that his favorite political figure was Gail McGee, the senior senator from the state of Wyoming, a Democrat, chairman of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, which no longer exists.

But he said, you have to get involved in a campaign. Now, look, I was a nerd. I had hush puppies, carried a briefcase from the fifth grade, had a pocket protector. I was like the complete nerd. So I wanted to keep my A. So I went down to the headquarters of Wallace F. Bennett, Republican senator from Utah, who was running for reelection, and walked into the headquarters on a Saturday morning. And there was a guy sitting there who looked ancient to me, but he must have been no older than his.

late 30s or early 40s. And he said, why are you here? And I explained the situation. He said, well, you know what a nail gun is?

And I said, no. But he showed me, and I spent the day nailing signs together, taking signs with a nail gun and putting them on sticks. And he said, that's great. Come back next weekend and bring some of your friends. So I brought a couple of my pals, other nerdniks, the next weekend. And he said, you're the chairman for your high school for students for Bennett. Come on back next weekend. So we brought a few more kids the next weekend. He said, you're the Salt Lake County chairman of high school students for Bennett.

And we had a lot of fun. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, it was like September, October and then early November, but we had a lot of fun. And just so happened that during the course of the campaign, some people came in from the Republican National Committee, saw all these kids having fun in the headquarters and remembered. And two years later, when I was between my freshman and sophomore years of college, they said,

I got hired for a campaign in Illinois. Now, fast forward many decades, I'm at the White House, our ambassador nominee for Belgium has run a cropper and we have to get somebody quick

And the president says, "You got any ideas as to who we ought to get for this?" And I said, "Well, there's a guy who has been an advisor to every president since Reagan as a lobbyist. Before that, he was an advisor to Nixon and Ford, but he then went into the lobby business, but he's advised every president, and he's taken time away from his lobby practice to selflessly serve the country by being the sherpa to help guide very difficult nominations to the Senate

through the Senate. In fact, he was the chief sherpa as a volunteer for your nominees for the Supreme Court, Alito and Roberts. And he's sort of semi-retired now, but it would be a great sign to people in this community that if you serve your country, speak plainly to any president. He spoke very plainly to you, Mr. President, giving you advice on when he thought you were going wrong and when he thought you could do better.

It'd be a great signal to the other people in this community that if you have served your country with great integrity and candor, that there might be a reward for you. He says, great, call him up. So I got to call up Tom Corologos and say, Tom, would you like to be ambassador to Belgium? The guy who said to me, you know what a nail gun is.

That is amazing. That is amazing. Did he become the ambassador? Yeah, he did a fantastic job, thoroughly enjoyed it, did a marvelous job at a difficult time for our relations with Europe and did a spectacular job. And he'll turn 90 in April. Wow, that's...

That is the guy who gave me my start. One's passed, Eldon Tolman, and another one is still with us. And a great friend of mine, I just saw him recently in Colorado where he sort of retired. Oh, that is a great story. So you were off to the races working. You got the political bug. What is it that you like about politics? Well, I like, first of all, the puzzle of trying to figure out how to win.

I like the fact that it generally has, you have a chance to be concerned with important ideas and make a difference. But I like the idea of how do you figure out how to get from point A, where you are today, to point B, which is victory, and what are all the intermediate steps? I like to figure out the strategy of how you get from point A to point B, how you react, what you need to do, how you plan.

And then how, as you go forward, you then modify that plan as conditions change. So I like the process. When I was running the first time, trying to figure out, trying to become somebody, and I was nobody, and I was trying to figure out how to deal with the

I mean, it just seemed like the federal government was everywhere, right? There was no... They were omnipresent. It didn't matter what we were talking about. Inevitably, the federal government was injecting itself into that. And I finally came to the conclusion that I had to focus on principles rather than policies. That if we got the principles right, then you could go figure out any answer to any policy. And so I would say...

principle over policy. And so anybody could ask me any question and I could bring it back up to 30,000 feet and say, all right, what's the principle we're talking about here? Do you look at it like that? Or is that, am I just some weird kid from Alpine, Utah? Yeah. Well, no, I think that's at the core of it. I mean, you have to have, you have to be guided by, by principles.

Now, how you roll those principles out in specific policies that, you know, some people may start from the same point but end up at a different policy perspective. But, no, you have to understand what it is that you think – what makes you tick and what do you think makes the world tick? And what do you think are sort of the principles that if we adhere to them will give the country the best opportunity to be what it is

which is a bright, shining example of the results of liberty and freedom of people living in a democracy. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Karl Rove right after this.

So what are the what are those characteristics? I mean, you've seen a lot of candidates along the way. People you probably initially thought, oh, hey, they're going to win that. This guy's I mean, he's he's great or she she's not going to go anywhere. And then by the time you get to the end of the campaign, it's a different direction. What what are those qualities? What are those things that you see that make people successful or not successful? What have you seen through the years that way?

There's a terrible movie called The Candidate starring Robert Redford. Oh, yeah, I saw that. You know, I think a lot of people think that campaigns are like The Candidate. So here's a guy, erstwhile, you know, environmental attorney in California, son of a powerful Democratic governor. He'd been encouraged by the members of the Democratic Party to take on a senior Republican member of the Senate because otherwise they're going to get beat. And so they take this guy and

surround him with ad makers and they make up these television commercials that show him as something that he really isn't. And by God, between that and sort of, you know, backroom deals cut between the son and the father to gain his endorsement, you know, he becomes a senator from California.

And what it depicts politics as artifice, it's baloney, it's deception, it's fraud, it's misdirection. In reality, campaigns, particularly the bigger they are, the more likely they are to be truly like

the children's story of the emperor's new clothes. At the end of the parade, they're going to see you as you really are, butt naked, walking down the street, hopefully looking about as good as you can on your best day. But they're going to see you as you are, warts and all.

And so the most important thing is authenticity. Who is that person? And how will people perceive them? Because you can ultimately, maybe in a race for the state house, or maybe in a county commission or city council, but really, the bigger the office, the more people are going to see you as you are. And they're going to make up their mind, not on the basis of thinking you're perfect, because they realize people are not perfect. But

But by looking at you and comparing you to your opponent and putting you in the perspective of the time, the moment as they find it, and trying to figure out to the best way possible, are you the right person for the job? Now, that's colored a great deal by our partisan affiliation. But still, at the end of the day, people are trying to do the right thing. So the thing I think is most powerful in a candidate is authenticity.

Are they, as you see them, is that really them? Because if it's not really them, they can't keep up that facade for very long. So authenticity matters. Part of authenticity is personal characteristics, but also from my perspective, it's also what kind of values, going back to your point, what kind of values guide them as they approach the issue of serving the public?

I think that the public is really, really smart in figuring this out. I think they can sniff it out. You can't fake that authenticity. I think that's absolutely right. The down ballot issues, you know, somebody who's running for a school board or a judge or something like those are really tough because nobody ever meets with them, you know, and they don't get attention from the media. And that's one of the factors that I see now. I mean, I was first elected to Congress 2008, you know,

From Utah, they had three reporters that were based in Washington, D.C., but now the media landscape has changed. There are zero reporters in Washington, D.C., covering Utah, and a very scant, if that, news reporting organization. So how does that factor into the whole thing? Because the spin, the whisper campaigns, the stuff that's floating out on the Internet, I mean, there's so much garbage out there.

And, you know, I remember Jim Hansen. I know you know him, 22 years congressman from Utah. And I had just been elected and I said, sir, can I come see you? And I said, I don't know what I don't know. So tell me what I need to know.

And he said, your biggest worry is not the truth. Your biggest worry has got to be the three whisper campaigns and rumors out there that aren't true that are impossible to dispel. That's your biggest challenge. How do you overcome that? So from that kind of perspective –

Carl, how do candidates deal with that and get through what seems to me to be an increasingly dishonest media and certainly one that lacks intellectual curiosity? Yeah, well, and I'd add one thing. I'd make it a trio there and lacks depth. I mean, you're right. I mean, it was look, if there were three people in Washington, D.C., covering Utah politics,

for the Deseret News, the Tribune, KSL, the outstate papers, et cetera, at least you knew they were paying attention to it each and every day. And so you could communicate with them so at least they knew what you were doing each and every day.

But now, you know, the downside is we don't have that anymore. The upside is that we do have the ability to develop through, you know, Twitter and Facebook and email distribution lists. We have lots of channels that communicate, you know, Instagram, TikTok. We have lots of ability to create our own channels of communication.

They're not as fulsome. They have to be constantly fed. The upside is you get to communicate directly with people, but the downside is that there's no editor out there. Particularly if you allow comment, there's something about that social media and the Internet brings out the worst in human beings. Yeah.

But at least you do have the ability to create communication. It does require, it places, in my opinion, a bigger demand upon members of Congress to return home so that they can show up in Provo and be seen by the local TV station. And they can go to Spanish Fork and be on the local radio station. And they can show up in Ogden and be seen at the community group, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the blah, blah, blah.

blah, blah, and that gets around. But it does mean that the days of being able to say, I'm living, I'm sitting here in Washington, DC, and I'm going to call over the reporters who, you know, cover Texas politics, and they're going to get the message back home. Those days are gone, by and large.

Yeah. And so it's this and the suppression from the social media. I don't know what kind of experience you've had with that, but that that is very real. I mean, I'll send out a tweet and say, oh, my wife, Julie, and I enjoyed Southern Utah. And it'll go to thousands of people. I mean, I've got hundreds of thousands of people following. But if I send out a tweet that said, you know, with maybe a Joe Biden gaffe.

It goes to like 12 people. And so there's suppression of what I want to be able to communicate and what supposedly my followers, right? They're followers. They're fans. They're, you know, give me a thumbs up. They don't even get to see it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, look, I don't I don't have any easy answers on because on the one hand, I hear you about suppression of free speech. On the other hand, I also know about disinformation. In 2016, one of the most followed Twitter feeds was 10 T.N.N.G.O.P. Tennessee GOP.

But it wasn't the Tennessee Republicans. We now think that it was foreign actors who got a hold of that name and then began to feed misinformation into the system. And so, you know, say what you will about the old days when, you know, there was a reporter in Washington for the

the Salt Lake Tribune and one for the Deseret News and another one for, you know, KSL TV. But but at least we knew who was responsible for the fake accounts and the misinformation and all the trash that flows through the Internet. It's just it's appalling to me how much misinformation there is. Oh, it's crazy. It's great. All right. So let's transition to what we're dealing with now, because the.

The election's right on. I mean, it's already started, right? They got early voting. Voting's already happening. The issue-wise, I never thought, I mean, I'm looking back just 10 years. I'm looking at crime, and I'm looking at law enforcement, our military, everything.

These were always the things that Democrats and Republicans were united on. I mean, the flag, we'd all stand up. We'd all clap. But I got to tell you, the moment Donald Trump was elected, I just saw this trigger that went off on the Democratic side of the aisle that I've never seen come back. Now they can't even blame it on Trump. And they still...

They wouldn't even stand during the State of the Union. This one really bothers me. State of the Union, the President Trump, like him or hate him, he did a very good job honoring an American, an ordinary person who did extraordinary things, serving our nation, and they couldn't even stand up. And I still don't understand to this day.

why that's good for our country, good for them politically, why that's the right message. It just seems so foreign to me. I can't even relate to it. Yeah, we're in a tribal moment where people feel strongly, and as a result, they act irresponsibly and disrespectfully. I mean, the same thing happened when, while Joe Biden is speaking, we had Republican backbenchers heckling him. I mean, that was, you know, I agree with you. You know, show some respect for the office.

You may not like the person who ran and won it. You may be on the opposite side, but show respect for the office. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to demand respect when you hold that office. In politics, the ones that are on top today are going to be on the bottom tomorrow. That's the nature of American politics.

And so upholding the norms, even when you don't like doing it, is important. And whether that's the Republican-backed benchers not screaming at Joe Biden or the Democrats having at least the courtesy to stand. And you don't have to applaud enthusiastically and cheer, but you ought to at least show respect for the basic – for these offices and for the traditions and for the great American experiment, which depends upon ultimately –

People agreeing that there are norms and rules and we're going to abide by them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as you look at this year's election, there's always big weighty national issues that drive people one direction or another. You know, abortion may be your tier one, number one issue. But there are other, you know, crime, inflation, energy, immigration. They all come into play. But also all these elections are local, right? There's inevitably some local issues that are...

really hard to see through. How do you, going into where we are today, you know, kind of mid-October, going into the selection, what's your viewpoint of what's going on? Well, look, the issues that matter the most are the things that we feel every single day. So every day we're going to fill up the car or get some groceries at the store or making a purchase to, you know,

for a little home repair or we're getting a paycheck and getting some bills in the mail and trying to, you know, juggle why is our, you know, why is everything the cost of our utilities, the cost of, you know, insurance, the cost of food, the cost of gasoline? Why, you know, why are these things all going up faster than our paychecks are going up? So I think the issue is going to be dominated by those felt, you know, those felt circumstances, the life, you know, that we have, you know,

every single day. That's why if you look at it, look, right after the Dobbs decision on abortion, abortion ratcheted up the list of important issues, but it's now ratcheted back down. In fact, there was a very interesting Gallup poll. They've asked this question literally since the 1940s. Which party do you believe will do a better job of handling

the issue you think is most important to the country. So don't specify what that issue is. They say you get to decide. And it's 48 Republican, 37 Democrat. 11-point advantage. That is the second biggest advantage for the Republicans in history. The last time it was bigger was 1946 when the country was ending World War II and people didn't have houses, they didn't have jobs. We had scarcity of jobs.

of employment. We had people trying to figure out how to go to school. We had, you know, not enough money. We had still rationing and the economy was all whacked up as we had turned the country into a gigantic arsenal of democracy. And we were now trying to convert to peacetime economy. And the Republicans had a 17 point advantage. Now, they then go on and gallop and ask, what do you think is the most important issue? And abortion today is four percent

say that that's the most important issue. Now, it was bigger than that when it was back closer to the decision. But as we've gotten further away, people have sort of said, what matters more to me is the stuff I have to deal with every day. And every day I'm dealing with the economy and the cost of living. And then I'm worried more about the crime and the safety of my community and my neighborhood, my family. And then, of course, along the border, you're getting this

We feel this acutely in Texas, and I was just in Arizona. They feel it acutely there. I mean, we have 2 million people coming across our southern border being dumped by the feds into the communities along the border. The mayor of Yuma, which I think is like 26,000 people, they get more people dumped in Yuma every month.

by the feds coming across the border than they have living in that town. Damon Eagle Pass, Texas or Del Rio, Texas, you know, they're getting more people dumped into their communities by the feds as they, you know, take these people who are pressing asylum claims and who come across the border and, you know, get them given a court date and then released on their own recognizance. So that's what's going to be driving the election or the things that people are feeling in their real lives every day.

Yeah, you know, it's amazing how, you know, 50 people in Martha's Vineyard suddenly gets all the attention. And now suddenly immigration is an issue that affects other people. And the way Mayor Adams and others have dealt with it and Mario Bowser in Washington, D.C., I mean, you just kind of have to smile and say, where have you people been for the last several years? Yeah.

The state of Texas will spend $4 billion this year on additional money, money being spent to provide additional security at the border and to help our border communities deal with the flow of infection

illegals into their community. It's their hospitals that have to provide uncompensated care. They can't turn those people away. It's their social service nets that have to provide a place for them to sleep and a meal for their kids and their bellies. They've got to provide education for the kids.

You know, these are not taxpayers. These are people who are just being dumped in these communities and, you know, are desperately trying to keep body and soul together by finding whatever work they can. And but they got to put their kids in school. And who's going to pay for that? Well, you know, the federal government has has failed to meet its responsibility in these border communities. And the idea that we're not a compassionate people in these states is ridiculous. But but there is a limit to our ability to pay for these things and deal with these things, particularly since

The federal government is doing such a lousy job of providing us sufficient resources to the border. I mean, you go talk to these Border Patrol guys. They're the first to tell you we don't have enough to get our job done. Yeah. And it's always been, I think, a fundamental mistake to

that someone in the administration was supposed to be Kamala Harris doesn't go and at least meet with them, talk with them. Oh, yeah. You know, you got Henry Cuellar going out a Democrat on the border saying they won't even answer my calls. That's really I think that's really offensive to a lot of people and certainly independents. I mean, there may be a disagreement on policy, but if you don't answer the phone, you won't even have the conversation. Then I think that it really bodes. It just really, I think, strikes a nerve.

Yeah, we have a Republican Congressman Tony Gonzalez, Democrat Henry Cuellar, another Republican down the Rio Grande Valley, Maya Flores. And then we have one other Democrat. So we have two Republicans and two Democrats along the border where this problem is taking place. And we used to have no Republicans along the border. But that's changing because the National Democratic Party is proving to be so tone deaf and unresponsive to the needs of the communities along the border.

Carl, let me switch gears a little bit. Let me ask you, how do you deal with the idea that a number of these Democrats don't want to debate? I mean, you look at Kathy Hochul in New York. She won't debate. Lee Zeldin now wants to try to limit it to an hour to kind of check the box, but not really do it. You have this problem in Pennsylvania. You have this problem around the country where people just say, nah, I'll give you an hour.

How would you deal with that if you were the person that really was wanting to debate and debate a few times? Well, I'd accept every invitation I get to every joint appearance or debate and talk about, you know, with frequency about how my opponent is refusing to do it. But I would always link it to an issue. I'd say, you know what, there's a reason why, you know, John Fetterman doesn't want to debate me more. And that's because he can't defend these policies of X, Y and Z.

I just was in Arizona with one, Siskamani, who's running in the congressional seat right there along the border, Tucson, from Tucson. His opponent refuses to debate him, even though she accepted a debate earlier.

hosted, I think, by the local Chamber of Commerce in a rural county, and then didn't show up at another debate that she'd accepted. She'd accepted like three times that she'd be there. Juan is there to debate her. Well, the hour has come for us to start the debate. Let's hold off. Maybe she'll be here in a few minutes. Let us try and call her. So half an hour, 45 minutes later, they finally get a hold of somebody, and they say, well, she decided not to come. Well,

And she's creating a problem for herself because let me just tell you, it may not matter in the greater scheme of things, but it'll matter in those communities. When the word gets around, she said she'd come and she wouldn't come. But if your opponent refuses to debate you, you got to make it about not about them. You got to make it about their views on the issues. To go back to your point, it goes back to what are your values? What do you care about? What motivates you? And if you can say there's a reason why they don't want to come because they don't want to defend the following,

in which she and I or he and I have a much different opinion of what ought to be done. Well, I could talk to you for a few more hours and ask questions about your experiences in the White House and with President Bush and all of those things. And we probably should do that. You've led a fascinating life in politics. I need to ask you some rapid questions, but can you give us some predictions? Give us a couple predictions, just in general, how you see this election coming out.

I've got to ask you the rapid questions before we lose sight of the time and the clock. Jump into it. All right, well, so the predictions. What kind of predictions do you have? What's going to happen? The House, the Senate? What's the balance going to be like? Yeah, I think the Republicans take the House by a 20 to 25. They pick up 20 to 25 seats. That's less than the average since 2016.

since the 1930s, 28 seats. But that's because the Republicans picked up 14 in 2020. So they got a head start. If they pick up 20 seats, that would put them at 233. That's three more than they had when Newt Gingrich was sworn in as the first Republican speaker in 40 years. So Republicans take the House. Senate is a jump ball. I think it eventually ends up being 51R49D.

but it is the craziest election I've ever seen. And there are a whole bunch of contests that are on the edge of the knife. What's your, in the Senate, let's focus on just the Senate surprise race that people should watch. Uh, could be Colorado. Uh, this guy, Joe O'Day is really an interesting candidate, very authentic, uh, you know, adopted, uh, grew, you know, didn't know who his parents were raised by a Denver cop and his stay at home mom. Um,

graduated from high school, went into a union training apprenticeship program, became a union carpenter for four or five years before falling in love with a terrifically smart and attractive Latina following her to the Colorado State University and enrolling in the construction management program there. And before he even graduated from college, he started his own construction company, which is now one of the biggest in Colorado.

does a lot of reclamation work and site work and roads and is a wonderful human being and an incredible straight shooter. Yeah, and Michael Bennett,

The Democrat, I've got to tell you, that ad that he ran, the fishing ad that he ran, and then they went and figured out that he got just a day pass for fishing. Yeah, David, yeah. Look, in the West, you and I, we're Westerners. So, you know, if you're going to go out there and pretend that you're an outdoorsman, do not, for God's sake, buy a one-day fishing license. My God.

And he's trying to dry fly a cast. Anybody who's into fly fishing knows that guy has never thrown a fly before in his life. It's like the lamest cast they could possibly get. But,

It fits some New Yorkers view of what a Coloradan should be doing and liking. And I just so bad, such an unforced error. My surprise race would be Tiffany Smiley in Washington state. Oh, what a terrific human being. Wow. Love her. She's wonderful. Talk about authenticity and for, you know, the Seattle Seahawks, Amazon and a Starbucks to go after her with cease and desist on a campaign ad where she

You know, her husband served our country by an improvised explosive device, loses his eyesight, becomes the first blind officer in the military. They honor him, give him a Seattle Seahawks jersey. He's wearing it in a campaign ad for what, a second and a half? And they say, take it off. It could be an endorsement. That does not bode well.

No, no, no. The Democrats are nervous about that one. You forgot to mention he loses his eyesight and does another combat tour as a blind guy. Apparently he was a great intelligence officer. And they said, we'll keep you out of combat, but we need your skills in this intelligence gathering apparatus and fusion center that they created. And, of course, she's just terrific. She's a charismatic woman.

A very compelling speaker, and I agree that could be another one. There's a reason why Patty Murray does not want to debate. She does not want to debate the contrast between the two. That's my race to watch that night. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back right after this. All right, Carl, a couple quick questions. Some rapid-fire questions. Ready? Ready. All right. First concert you attended.

Peter, Paul, and Mary. Oh, that's good. That's good. That's historic. What was your high school mascot? We were the Titans. Yes. In Utah, there are a lot of Titans. That was a good one. Did you ever mess up in front of Laura Bush? Oh, my God, yes. I'm not going to tell you how, but Laura was.

But that was okay because she was gentle. The one that I was fearful of ever messing up in front of and lived in mortal fear of for 33 years was Barbara Bush. I went to work for her husband when I was 22, and I learned rather quickly she was a formidable person. I love her to death. What a fantastic human being. I can see how she inspired a certain respect, let's say, among her children.

Well, she, she was an amazing human being. I didn't, I didn't get to, I got to shake her hand once, but I tell you, I, to be around in that atmosphere is, uh, that would have been a great experience, but that's an interesting perspective. Um, all right. So if you can meet one person and you could have them over for dinner, break bread, dead or alive, one person you want to just break bread with and spend an evening with, who would that be?

Oh, that one person, please. It's tough. Obviously, Jesus Christ. But I mean, my God, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill. There are lots of people I'd love to have dinner with. That would be yes, that would be quite a treat. All right. Unique talent that Karl Rove can do or that nobody knows about.

I mean, just Carl Rove could do a pretty good imitation of Bill Clinton. Jason Chaffetz is one of the most remarkable human beings I've ever met. He'd make it. Hillary's the most qualified person to be president, but I'd put Jason right behind her. All right. That's a that is a hidden talent. I hadn't heard you do that before. I'm impressed. All right. Pineapple or pineapple on pizza. Yes or no.

No, no. Oh, no. I knew we liked you, Karl Rove. That's a good answer because there's something wrong with people who think that putting a wet fruit on pepperoni pizza is... Yeah, what is that?

I mean, we're talking about Philistines. I mean, come on, man. Nellis, we're talking about the end of civilization. I mean, come on. Pineapple on pizza? Forget it. Totally agree with you, Carl. Totally agree with you. Best prediction. All right. What's that other thing for Karl Rove? And what I mean by the other thing, when you want to get away, clear your head, just get out, forget about the world and everything, just relax. What is that other thing for Karl Rove?

Well, if I can travel, it's to head to the ranch in Blanco. But if I'm stuck at home, read a book or play with my stamp collection. Yes, I admit it. I'm a philatelist, an open, active, practicing philatelist. All right. I don't care who knows it. I don't care who knows it. All right. Last two questions. Best advice you ever got.

Your ability to be effective in politics is in a direct relationship to your ability to say no, and your ability to say no is in an inverse relationship to the amount of money you need to derive from the project at hand. It was more colorfully given to me by now-Professor Donald Schroeder of Elon College, but back in our college Republican days, his nickname was Duck Schroeder.

Interesting. Interesting. And last question, who's your favorite former oversight chairman from Utah's third congressional district? I got to say there's only one in my pantheon. It's Jason Chaffetz. You know, most people that I throw that question to, they throw it and they say, I'm undecided. I'm really undecided.

I really need to think about that one. They never get invited back, do they? It's funny how that works out. Carl, it's always been a treat. You're a very special personality. And I just like being around happy warriors, people who enjoy life and have a smile on their face, but also know what they're doing and work hard doing it. And it's a pleasure to spend some time

talking about how pineapple should not be on pizza and everything in between. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Jason. Lots of fun. Thanks for having me. Can't thank Karl Rove enough. We'll see how the predictions turn out when in a few weeks these elections will be over and we'll see what the new House and the new Senate mix-up is there and what the balance of power is. But I really do appreciate Karl joining us. Can't thank him enough.

I'd appreciate it if you could rate this podcast. If you could subscribe to the podcast, that would be even better. But do you need your ratings out there? That would help. And if you want to go over to foxnewspodcast.com, there's lots of others from the Fox family to look at and enjoy. There's some really good ones out there. I do appreciate it. Hope you're able to join us next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

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