Jason Rantz & Why It's Okay To Disagree 57:10

Over 25 years ago, on September 29th, 1998, we watched a brainy girl with curly hair drop everything to follow a guy she only kind of knew all the way to college. And so began Felicity. My name is Juliette Littman, and I'm a Felicity superfan.

Join me, Amanda Foreman, who you may know better as Megan, the roommate, and Greg Grunberg, who you may also know as Sean Blundberg, as the three of us revisit our favorite moments from the show and talk to the people who helped shape it. Listen to Dear Felicity on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for spending some time with us. I really do appreciate your time and I know it's valuable and we're going to make this worth your while. So

We're going to give a little thought on the news, highlight the stupid because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to phone a friend. And this time we're going to give a call to Jason Rantz. Now, I don't really know Jason very well. I see him on Fox and he's very good. He's wicked good. He's just, you know, he's coming out of Seattle, radio talk show host. But he's talking about poignant issues and making solid points.

And I'm kind of just fascinated. I think it's going to be a continued big voice in the conservative movement and just the world in general. I've seen him down at CPAC and I've seen him, you know, around Fox. But I've never really had a conversation with him. I don't know where he came from, how he got to where he's at and what his future looks like. Other than I can tell, it's very, very bright. So.

Looking forward to the conversation with Jason Rantz. But first, I want to give a little bit of highlight some things in the news that maybe sometimes we don't always see in other places. And this one, I really, I don't know what it is. I read this story and I thought this is fundamentally going to change the lives of thousands upon thousands of people around.

And I just have a great admiration for people who can take a simple idea and then put it into a practical use, maybe mix that formula a little bit differently than we've seen in the past. And then, boom, it has a big impact on people. Now, there's more and more in the news about smart glasses. And when I kind of first look at smart glasses, I'm thinking, oh, come on, just give me some shades, right?

Give me some bifocals that can help me read. I don't need my glasses to be a George Jetson, you know, out of the future, what it's going to do. And others have tried to do this, that and the other. But there is a new pair of smart sunglasses or glasses that.

that is evidently going to be launched. And you know what? It is going to change the world and it's gonna change the world for the better because these glasses are intended to be for people who are deaf or have hearing loss. And it makes great sense, right? That if somebody's talking to you or there's a siren or think of all the things you use your ears for, a dog barking, whatever,

These glasses are going to be able to take that much like you do voice to text and be able to have the text in the glasses. So somebody could carry on a conversation without maybe knowing American sign language or being, you know, have somebody read lips. The glasses are going to simultaneously take that voice and then transform them in that audio into captions that are instantly projected in front of the wearer's eyes. And I just thought,

Well, this technology has been around. This is a great idea. So this called XRAI. I don't know what that acronym stands for. I don't know what it's called. I don't know anything about the X-ray AI glass company company.

is onto, but it makes total sense to me. So this is the quote from Dan, I think his last name is Scarf. He says, "We are so proud of the ability of this innovative technology to enrich the lives of people who are deaf and having hearing loss so they can maximize potential." Makes great sense to me, Dan.

I just think that we need to get behind this. I just hope the country realizes it. And I hope people that have and suffer from hearing loss, some people lose it, some people never have hearing. Some people, you know, I'm sure there's veterans with improvised explosive devices that have lost their hearing along the way. I mean, I just think this will open up the world to people who are suffering from hearing loss in a whole new way. And I'm just excited about it.

I generally don't get that enthralled with stuff. But I think that that is newsworthy. We talk about a lot of garbage and a lot of frustration in the news, but that's something positive that I think is going to truly help people. One of the other things I want to talk about in the news here, and this borders on being part of the stupid, but

News-wise, I still think that crime is a tier one issue going into the election in November. I think it's one of the top five issues. I think it's something that Democrats have totally lost control of. They have lost their marbles. If they think that cashless bail is a great way to go, then...

that not punishing criminals who are caught doing things and they're released out on the street, whether it's an attempted murder of a candidate for governor of New York in the case of Lee Zeldin, the guys back out on the street the same day to how many horrific stories are we gonna hear up and down the state of New York in the city? You even had the mayor, Adams, a little while ago say, "Hey, things are out of control here. It's just not working."

Let me give you some statistics that came out like two weeks ago. 211 individuals logged at least three arrests for burglary through June of 2022. This is a 142.5% increase compared to the 87 individuals arrested at least three times. Remember,

How many burglars do you have to do to get caught? These guys are burglars and got caught not once, not twice, but three times. Nearly 25% of those arrested for burglary go on to commit another felony within 60 days. I mean...

The key metric that you need to look at when anybody wants to talk to you about criminal justice, criminal justice reform is the rate of recidivism. When I and I learned this when I was the chief of staff to the governor of Utah, he didn't know a lot about the prison system. I didn't know a lot about the prison system. And we went out there and had this crash course. The whole goal is to reduce the rate of recidivism. And you got to you got to.

It bifurcate this. You got to you got to separate the criminal acts that are violent in nature, those involving guns, those attempted murders, attempted, you know, a battery, a rape, those types of things. That's not where you need reform. That's where you need to get tougher.

Some of these other things that are drug related and others, you know, let's work on some other creative ways to deal with that and not plug up the whole system so that we make sure that we always have somebody space in jail for somebody who's attempting to kill Lee Zeldin, the gubernatorial candidate there in New York. But you know what? New York City and then Governor Hutchill have just lost total control of this.

And it is a top tier issue, not just in New York, not just in New York City. I think it's top tier issue all across the country. But the key metric that we all need to look at is what can we do to reduce the rate of recidivism? And when somebody does decide that they're going to break the law, that they get the book thrown out so that they never, ever want to do that again. That to me is what we need to do. All right. Time to bring on the stupid because, hey, you know what?

There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right, I'm going back. I know it's already kind of, you know, it's been a couple weeks here. But the Inflation Reduction Act is the most poorly named, not true act.

Bill that you can possibly have. Now, I got to tell you, there's there's got to be a whole specialty that I'm just not aware of in Washington, D.C., where people sit around the table and say, let's take the opposite of what the bill actually does and then frame it in such a way that nobody would want to vote against this.

You know, the Affordable Care Act. Did that make health care more affordable? No, it didn't. You have bill after bill after bill that's done this. The latest example is the Inflation Reduction Act. Raising taxes, pouring more money into the economy are exactly the opposite of the things that need to happen to reduce inflation.

The inflation rate here in the United States of America. There is no case, no economist, nobody anywhere which way you can look that can say, yes, to reduce inflation, we raise taxes and put more money into the economy. That is just the exact opposite of what needs to happen.

The definition of inflation, too much money chasing too few goods. And I tell you, if they think, by the way, just a side note on this bill, if they think that they're just going to pour 45,000 IRS agents onto the streets and that's going to drive the revenue to the treasury because everybody's doing their taxes wrong. It's just anyway, by the time this podcast airs, maybe it's already been sorted out one way or the other. But

I don't care if it passed. You know, I do care because I don't want it to. But if this bill has been disposed of or not brought up at all, I still it's pretty stupid what they're calling it. The Inflation Reduction Act. Time to call Jason Rance. Like I said, I'm fascinated to have this discussion. So let's give him a ring. Hello, Jason Rance. Hey, this is Jason Chaffetz. How are you?

Hey, how's it going? Hey, I really appreciate you taking some time to do this. You know, I've bumped into you in the hall every once in a while. I think I saw you at CPAC at one point. But, you know, I've been admiring you from afar, just watching you on the Fox News channel. I've gotten to know you.

You rock it when you get on there. You do a great job. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, it's always a blast. It helps that I come from a part of the country that constantly gives me content. Yes.

Yes. I mean, you're based in Seattle, right? Yeah. Not only am I based in Seattle, people usually say they're from Seattle, but they don't actually live in Seattle. I literally live in the center of it all. So I'm right on the cusp of downtown Seattle. So that's a positive and a negative. The negative, you have to deal with all the nonsense there. But the positive is I can get there really quickly when something happens. So.

So did you grow up there? No. So I'm from New York, grew up in L.A., and I spent all but the last, I don't know, 14, 15 years in Southern California. So I'm very much a West Coast person from a personality standpoint. And so did this work bringing you back to Seattle? Yeah.

Yeah, that's all that it was. When you live in one place forever and you go to school in that same city, you kind of look for opportunities that pop up elsewhere. And I had the opportunity to do radio in Seattle. It was for a syndicated company that I don't even think exists anymore, but more on the producing side of things. And I said to myself, yeah, I've heard of Seattle. It seems like a nice place. And so I decided to take the job and

Didn't look back. I've not really even been back to Los Angeles since I made the move. Well, it's not like Los Angeles suddenly became a lot better place to be. I mean, in terms of safety, security, crime and craziness, L.A. has kind of gone off the rails. Yeah, it's very it feels like just a big city left coast issue until you then go to the East Coast.

And then you realize, oh, maybe there is something to be said about this being driven by politics and bad policy and bad decision-making.

Yeah, well, yes, more and more people are understanding the beauty of the Intermountain West and all the benefits that it brings and a lot less craziness along the way. But all right. So, Jason, let's go back to I was born in. So you were born in New York. But how old were you when you moved to L.A.? I mean, like one and a half. OK, so you didn't really have any memories in New York. What were some of those early memories in Los Angeles?

A lot of it was what I what I was doing with my dad. He was my baseball coach throughout my my little league into my later career as a as a pretty bad pitcher who did OK until he tore his rotator cuff and then I was out. But how old were you when that happened?

Oh, my gosh. I was I want to say I was either 15 or 16. And this talk about a memory that is just traumatizing. I was actually reasonably good at pitching. And, you know, when you're that age, it's a fastball and a change up.

And I had a new coach who was teaching me how to throw a curve ball. And I kid you not the first throw the first pitch using his technique. I felt a tear in my arm. It kind of felt like plastic was tearing like a plastic bag and it didn't, it didn't quite hurt at that point. So I was like, Oh, that's weird. I threw the ball one more time and I,

It just rolled out of my hand. There was no force. I could not use my right hand or my right arm. And it was so traumatizing because I still, even talking about it, I feel the tear in my arm. And it took a long time to repair that. And I never went back to pitching.

Then I got pushed into radio and TV. There's always room for the ex-ballplayers in that, you know, going right into radio or television. But growing up, okay, so nobody grows up in Los Angeles. I mean, which city were you actually in? Well.

Well, so I actually was in L.A. Now, I ended up making the move, obviously, with the parents to Northridge, Porter Ranch. But I was living in Los Angeles, Hancock Park area. So, you know, when even when I say I live in Seattle, yeah, I lived I lived sort of in the heart of L.A. And this was at a time where, you know, my memories were mostly from the early 90s.

where things were relatively peaceful for the most part, at least through the eyes of as a young person. I never recognized any issues until we moved to the valley. And I said, oh, this is such a nicer place. This is so much nicer than what we were used to in L.A., where you have some space and you actually know your neighbors. And, you know, it just has a completely different feel. And so.

I really enjoyed when we moved to Northridge, which ironically, or maybe thankfully, was after the big earthquake. We ended up moving into the area because that was also a traumatizing event. I've got lots of traumatizing events I'm bringing up now with you. Sorry, this is a little therapy session for you here, Jason.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Jason Rantz right after this. Listen to the all new Brett Baer podcast featuring Common Ground. In-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Baer favorites like his all-star panel and much more. Available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you have brothers, sisters, only child? What was going on there? I have a younger brother. He is 37 now. He's three years younger than me. And he, oddly enough, he finds himself, uh,

on the TV side as well, just behind the scenes. He works now as an engineer, which is not something that he was into. He wanted to be an actor. Didn't quite work out. And now every so often I'll get a text from him when he's at a studio in LA saying, "Oh, I see you on Fox right now. I'm in the boot."

Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. So what was it about kind of radio and television? I mean, did you, as a little kid, were you like, hey, give me that mic. I got something to say about this. So TV was never something I even really thought about. It was always radio. And I remember...

growing up listening to radio in the car with my mom or dad as they were dropping me off at school or bring me back home afterwards. And there were days where, you know, we had school, we didn't have any school. And so I spent it with my, my dad and,

And he was basically driving from spot to spot for his job. And we had the radio on the entire time. And it was always soft radio. There was something about this particular medium that really kind of, pardon the pun, I guess, spoke to me in that it is –

And it's kind of the way that I view radio now. It's entertainment, but with a purpose. So it's really this theater of the mind aspect to radio, which I find just so fascinating because it's so...

difficult, I think, to do quality radio that doesn't just sound like you're yelling into a microphone. And listening growing up, that's what I was listening to. I was listening to Jay Thomas in LA. He did The Morning Show and Kevin and Bean. There was Howard Stern as well, who completely revolutionized talk radio.

And then Loveline. Every single weeknight, I would go to bed with Loveline on in the background, Adam Carolla, Dr. Drew, back in the Ricky Rackman days. It was amazing. And I remember...

When I was either, I think it was either 13 or 14, I just sent in an email to a radio station in Los Angeles saying, hey, do you have any internships? I would love to learn more. And it just so happened that they were creating a talk show for kids based on the Dodgers. And talk about luck, because I guarantee you they did not do any searching whatsoever. They just said, oh, we've got a kid here who's interested. Let's put him on the radio. Put him on the air. Give that kid a mic. Yeah.

How old were you? I was 13 or 14 years old. And I remember, you know, they would I would go with my parents down to Dodger Stadium and talk to different players. And I'm sure all the questions I asked were really stupid and probably did not make the editor's job any easier over at the radio station. But, you know, you get a sense of of.

that feeling of almost like you're important. You get to go into the locker room and you get to, to push conversation. Even though at the time, obviously I wasn't pushing any conversation that was meaningful. It was more like, what's your favorite food, random picture. Um, but since then I, I just, I'd really fallen in love with it. So I, I ended up, uh,

weirdly enough again just emailing a different radio station when i got a little bit older probably 17 um 16 17 asking if there were any openings and it was a weekend show that i think was actually paid programming that needed a screener and i ended up getting that job and i literally have worked every single position on the content side in radio i've been

screener, producer, associate producer, executive producer of a syndicated show, assistant program director, program director, and now host. It was, it's really is the, especially now because radio is very difficult to get into and you have to start very, very low and just work your way up. I worked my way up, man. I did everything and I did those shifts on the overnight without ever complaining. And I just, I gained a lot of skills and,

just happen to be in the right place at the right time. Well, I think that's true. You know, that's what it takes. And that's where I think a lot of young people kind of miss the boat and they don't understand that. Hey, you know what? You got to pay your dues. And, and there's a foundation that's created that gives you a perspective that makes a better product at the end of that, that journey. And,

And good for you to not only have the tenacity, but just have the guts to ask. Because it sounds like in some ways it came a bit easy for you, right? Not like, hey, I had to go on 300 job interviews just to get the one. But at the same time, so much of life, and I know this is true in politics, and I know it's true in business, that so much of it is done.

Just showing up. The world is run by those who just show up and given something new a chance. But Jason, you're like, you don't get invited to go speak at CPAC because you're, you know, you're a pretty good conservative minded patriotic person. So where did where did that foundation of your kind of core come to be? I mean, I'm not wrong, am I?

You know, it's funny. I think a lot of liberal heads will explode and they do when I tell them the story. I probably would not be the conservative I am today had it not been for liberals in college, because I went into college. I went to Occidental, which is they proudly say they're the alma mater of Barack Obama, who I think went there for like seven weeks. He was there for a semester. But boy, we really only got to that one.

And I went there and I was interested in politics. I was probably leaning more moderate Democrat at the time, as many people who are younger tend to be. They're more Democrats. And I signed up for Politics 101. I knew that was going to be my major. And it seemed pretty obvious pretty quickly that I was getting one side on.

of the story that I felt the bias towards liberal thought. And at the time I didn't, I didn't connect the dots the way that I do now. I wasn't thinking in terms of this is liberal indoctrination. I just wasn't thinking like that. I just noticed it. And it ended up pushing me into doing my own research and seeking out other content that just ended up speaking to me more. I, the more you pay attention to it and obviously the more life experiences you have,

even as young as that, it shapes your worldview and you don't necessarily think about it in those terms. But once you start

listening to and reading and hearing, you know, conservative thought versus liberal thought, one side spoke to me more. And I've always naturally been the contrarian. And it's just my personality. If you tell me I'm supposed to do something or think something or believe something, I'm going to almost always take the other side, even when I don't believe it, just because I want to mix things up a little bit. And it sort of forced me into that. And it just...

Everything clicked. And since then, I've just grown more conservative, I suppose. I think obviously it's true. I think the older people get, the more they realize that certain policies work better for them and their personality and their finances than the other side. And I just sort of kept there. It just sort of clicks. And at the end of the day, I also see the end results of...

an ideology I disagree with. And I can point to it and say, this is why I disagree. Interesting. Well, you know, that is what college and school is really supposed to do, right? It's really supposed to teach you how to think and how to break something down and

critically, right? I mean, that is the ultimate idea is to teach people how to think and think critically. But it just seems like so much of education is just not geared towards that. Not anymore. And I remember I was in an econ class. It was an elective course that all freshmen had to take. You got to pick. And I picked the econ one. And I wrote a paper and I was...

I can't remember all the details, but I remember defending capitalism, basically. And the professor radical position is, yeah, I know, such a crazy position. But the funny thing is, I got an A minus on it. And then in the back of the paper, the professor wrote a comment along the lines of giving you an A minus. This is a very well-reasoned argument. But I hope as you go through this course and through life, you start to see the other side.

Again, at the time, I didn't think, oh, this is a clear case of liberal indoctrination or whatever. But it just it felt wrong. It was so condescending. It's like, how dare you? What do you mean I have to go through life to change my view to align with what you want me to align with? That is just it just so wrong. And, you know.

In a lot of ways, I do think conservatives going to college now are going to be better suited for the real world because the moment that they step foot on campus, they are deemed the enemy. And when you're the enemy and you're constantly defensive, you do grow in

in your own worldview. You're able to better defend your positions because you're always on guard. You're forced to really think about your positions to make sure that they actually make sense to you and to everyone around. When you're put in that position constantly, I think you just grow as a person rather than just be coddled the entire time. Oh yeah, your view is right. We're never going to challenge you. We're never even going to get you to try to think in a slightly different way.

and i just think it better prepares us for life and it makes us more tolerant at the end of the day and i generally i don't i don't think you know conservatives are the the nicest people in the world and all the liberals are evil and mean but i do think there's something to be said about on the right we are okay disagreeing with others but we just generally think

you're coming from a good place. It feels like currently the left in a more general sense, just they hate the other side because they think there's some nefarious intent and they're viewed as evil. And boy, does that just tear people apart. And I just wish we can get away from that and just say, yeah, we just disagree. It's okay to disagree. And again, I live in a world in which everyone disagrees with me in Seattle and in college. I kind of get used to it.

Was there something I mean, was it the election of Donald Trump that just put us in that direction? I mean, it was almost a moment in time, like literally election night, just something snapped with a lot of people that I saw. They're like, you guys have just gone off the rails. Relax. You know, give the guy a chance. It accelerated. Yeah, I think Donald Trump clearly accelerated whatever it was. And I think I think it has something to do with the fact that he wasn't supposed to get elected.

We were told he can't get elected. He's not supposed to. He's not the right kind of person. He doesn't have the right character or temperament.

And I certainly agree from a character perspective that he's not a traditional president. He wasn't a traditional presidential candidate, but it just broke a lot of people. We probably would have gotten to where we currently are now without him. It just would have been slower. I think a lot of it has to do with social media, which is one of those things where I hate it, but I'm also addicted and I have to be for work.

That's just you have to live in that space when you work in the media, especially when you're working in radio, I think. Right. And I think it's you take away.

Any of the true parts about conversations that we all love, which is like seeing the other person, hearing tone, knowing who you're actually talking to. And it's so easy just to throw a whole bunch of garbage online and just be disturbingly mean and rude or like aggressively arrogant because you don't have your true personality and your true identity attached there.

to the arguments that you end up making. And it just, it, it allows people to be bad at it. Just at the end of the day, we all have that in us. We can all be mean, we can all be bad people, but generally, you know, we have societal rules that we try to uphold that we don't want people to think that we're bad people or mean or evil. And yet on the line, it's very easy to get away with it. And I think for some people, they just lean into it and it's created such hostility.

and it's draining. I'm sure it's draining for you when you go online and you have to see what everyone's saying about various things, usually in response to maybe a position you take. And it's just like, oh my gosh, what are you doing? So we were going there. We were going there anyway. I just think Trump broke a lot of people. And I

you know, I keep hoping that we'll start to turn the corner and go back to some level of normalcy. And I don't see that happening yet. I just didn't think Jason, that I would see the time, you know, growing up, I kind of grew up in a more, uh, democratic household, if you will. I think we were actually very conservative family and my parents were very conservative, but Democrats were not, uh, shunned upon. I mean, my dad was a, you know, and mom were Reagan fans and, uh,

They didn't like Carter. But at the same time, there wasn't this divide with liberals and Democrats on core issues like the police and safety and security or the United States military, let alone the flag of the United States. I mean, those were things that were common ground and where we lost our way and where the Democrats just sort of abandoned those things. I just don't get it.

I don't either. And it's funny because you and I are experiencing it in real time, right? Like we've, we're living through that period. And yet I don't think I can point to any, any like logical reason as to why this is happening. I know the accelerant, which was Donald Trump, but I don't know why. I, at the end of the day, I really don't know why there was this significant shift in

But I can see the aspects, I guess, that help shape this new movement. Like I said, social media, but also the media in general. I think, you know, part – and Fox News does this the best, which is, yeah, there's a lot of conservatives on Fox, but they're giving you both sides. And they have generally respectful conversations with people on the left. You've got a guest on the right. You've got a guest on the left. I've been a part of some of those conversations.

But then you look at some of the other networks and they are just aggressively bad faith in pursuit of a political ideological end goal. And I certainly have no problem with people who are hardcore Democrats or hardcore Republicans or hardcore socialists. I just like to have good faith conversations. And it feels like we're being primed to have bad faith ones.

where you can turn on any of these networks and just hear people say, Ron DeSantis is a white supremacist. Donald Trump is a fascist. It's like if you are constantly getting hit over the head with this,

And then you're starting younger because you've got educators who are now putting this in the minds of kids. I suppose it makes sense that we're at where we're at, right? I mean, you have this larger movement generally driven by younger people about how this country was founded on white supremacy, systems of oppression have to be dismantled, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I guess if you're being told that at a young age because a generation of activists became teachers,

And for the most part, parents didn't know that this was going on for as long as it was going on. You're going to shape a generation, right? And you have to really push back at that hard. And I think that conservatives were caught off guard a little bit by some of the radical views of younger folks. Because to your point, you knew what a Democrat was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and at no point –

did being a Democrat mean you would attack cops on a regular basis or talk about white supremacy being a part of every single institution? We would have general disagreements about policy and direction of the country, but not to this extent. And then all of a sudden, this was the big talking point. It started nationally. We had a bigger conversation because of the BLM movement. Obviously, this was going on before that. But for most people, it just kind of exploded.

And it caught, I think, a lot of us off. It certainly caught me off guard. I didn't realize that this was the level of thinking on the left with the younger demographic. And how much of that do you think is Seattle? I mean, it's...

You know, I grew up – look, my exposure to Seattle was going up there and playing some soccer games. I've been there to do business a little bit. And then, you know, I went on a cruise once and I left out of Seattle. And then I watched Frasier. So that's kind of the sum total of my exposure to Seattle. But they just – I mean, when they did that Occupy –

movement and they had that what did they call that town again the capitol hill well so it's either chopper chad capitol hill autonomous zone or the capitol hill occupied protest they had to change the name and it's very seattle they have to change the name in the middle of it yeah i mean that to me was just so off the rails i just thought oh my gosh there's something wrong here there's just something fundamentally totally wrong

Yeah, it's a mix of this weird sense of entitlement that a lot of activists have where they think they can call all the shots, that no rules will apply to them. Their feelings are somehow factual.

and they get to rule and then you've got a whole bunch of you know the people who should be the adults in the room who say i'm terrified of these people they're getting organized i'd like to stay in a position of power so i will just give in and by the way i will gaslight everyone and pretend that this is just a summer of love that everything is great here why don't you come on down it's a good time meanwhile i'm there actually covering this

And I'm seeing the assaults happening nonstop. I'm talking to the businesses that are getting vandalized, one nearly burnt to the ground. I'm aware of the calls coming in of like a deaf woman almost being raped at a camp that everyone previously were saying, oh, this is such a peaceful, wonderful place. It's like, no, that's really not what that was. And to see

Some of the media outlets cover it was just it was baffling to me. And I was getting called out by people in the media here saying I was overhyping it. I didn't know what I was talking about. And I'm like, you only come and cover this on a Tuesday at noon. I'm here at night and I know what's actually going on here. You don't.

You're absurd. You're the wrong person. And then finally it started to click. I mean, unfortunately, it took the murder of two black teenagers, black boys, before they realized what it created there. But no one has apologized for the horrible coverage and the gaslighting. Politicians certainly haven't. Media members haven't. It's because we've become just so tribal now.

And I own my bias. I'm a conservative. I don't hide that. And I'm not a traditional reporter. I'm a member of the media. I'm a talk show host, so I give my opinions. But you can hold your own view while also acknowledging just facts.

And it feels like there are a lot of people just don't want to acknowledge facts because it doesn't conform to their worldview. At some point, the public has to be the ones that say, hey, city council. Hey, mayor. Hey, police chief. We're just not going to stand for this anymore. We're the ones that have the businesses. We're the ones that have to live here. It's our kids that. But it just didn't seem that there was. They seem to be almost indifferent. Was it? But you were there on the ground. Was it was I misreading that?

No, you're not. And Seattle, like a lot of these bigger cities that are ideologically driven – and I imagine the same is true just in a different way with hardcore conservative cities – that you don't want to acknowledge that what you believe and what you supported and what you put into place –

can cause this kind of chaos. And I think it's very easy for folks who live in a bubble, who didn't go down to the occupied zone, stayed in there. Because remember, this was also happening during COVID. And especially in Seattle, you know, folks still are outside alone for a jog with a mask on. They were taking it uber seriously. And so I don't think that they...

actually experienced what was happening. The local media fails all the time because local media is just awful. It is so left wing. It's absurd. So I think some of them just honestly didn't know what was going on and the others didn't want to believe it. I've spoken to so many people who in their own words said,

I finally saw the light, but it felt like before when you're on Fox talking about it, you're just bagging on my city. And I have this pride in my city and I want it to be seen as negative, which is something that I obviously understand. But that's what's driving a lot of my reporting. I don't want to see this become Seattle permanently. I just have a different sense, I guess, just from a political perspective, of

I feel a little bit more comfortable calling it out than they might. But I heard that excuse from a lot of people and they almost use exactly the same language of they just didn't. They felt like they were turning on their city by acknowledging essentially what was going wrong. That's interesting. That's really interesting. So, you know,

The divide in the country is very real. But I get so, like I said, concerned that why can't we just rally around the flag? Like, why is that controversial? Can we support our United States military when they do men and women who are from our own neighborhoods, our own, you know, communities and they're serving? Can we give them a voice of support? No, no longer. Can we even do that?

Yeah, and it's funny because I truly believe, and maybe this is me being naive, but I truly believe that the average person, Democrat, Republican, anything in between, they are reasonable and respectful of the military and police. I think it's, and this is where the social media aspect comes in and the media in general, there's a small group, they're growing, I'll certainly grant you that, but it's a relatively small group in the grand scheme of things that are very loud.

And for whatever reason, control of the culture, control of the party, control of the media, generally speaking, has been ceded to them. I don't know why they did that. I don't know why the people in positions of power decided to cede all of this to them other than maybe they thought that they were bigger because it feels a lot larger. The social media amplification, I think, plays a role. But I don't think that the average person holds those views. The average Democrat...

you might believe in reforms around policing right and i think that that's reasonable sure we have those conversations but i don't i don't think the average person you know is is chanting a-c-a-b at some rally i think it's a small group of people who we've decided just to allow to have this level of control over us and at least for me i'm not going to allow them to control that for me

I'm not going to allow them to dictate my beliefs and I'm not going to be scared to fight for things that I believe in the way that some others are. And, you know, when you live in a city like a Seattle or LA, New York, you are surrounded by a lot of folks who you don't want

to judge you. You don't want them judging you for holding a slightly different position than they hold. And that kind of echo chamber has some significant effects where people sometimes are too scared to say anything. They know. They know that the park has been taken over by homeless people. They know that that's a used needle that was left in a playground. But if you say anything, you get the sense that that small group of people will attack you for it.

sometimes literally. And the unfortunate reality is that's true until you just don't give them the power over you. They're going to, you know, you talk about cancel culture a little earlier, like, yeah, they'll try. They'll try to bully you into silence. They'll win if you allow it. For the most part, they will win only if you allow it. So just don't allow it. And I think once we all turn on that switch to say,

Yeah, we can disagree, and it's our duty to actually step up and say things are not going right if we want to save these cities. Once you get that switch turned on, man, I think that that changes everything, and we're starting to see a little bit of that. I think the momentum is shifting a little bit away from the crazy, not fast enough, but we are seeing some results when you look at even just –

not even just Seattle. Look what's happening in Minneapolis. Look at the pushback in San Francisco. I think people are starting to realize they need to get a little bit more active in pushing back at their own side. Yeah, no, I think that's right. It goes to that point that I was making that, you know, until these communities and the people that live there step up and say, no,

We're not doing that anymore. It's really not going to change. Ultimately, our system is about the idea that government works for us. But boy, it's amazing how quickly some people lose sight of that early on in the process. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back. Stay with us.

Where do you go from here? I mean, I know you love what you're doing, but what is it that you want to do? What's the ultimate for you? I mean, so the ultimate for me is having the freedom to cover the stories that I want to cover in the way that I want to cover them.

And for the most part, I'm able to generally do that. It's a little bit different radio versus TV, obviously. TV, Fox is interested in stories that I do after they see them. So there's never any guarantee that anything I do on the West Coast

ends up making it on Tucker's show or on Harris' show. But on the radio side, I can do what I want for the most part. I'm my own boss in that sense. I don't have someone looking over my shoulder telling me from an editorial standpoint, this is the kind of story you go, you have to go chase. And part of it is because I'm a talk show host. And I am definitely taking advantage of that role. Because if you're a traditional reporter,

When you're doing things the right way, you're supposed to be completely down the middle. You've got an editor who's trying to guide you after. I don't have to do that. If I find something curious or interesting, I will dive in and I will get to cover it the way that I want to cover it. And sometimes I do good work. Sometimes I kind of phone that one in a felt like at the end of it. But I get total ownership and I like that.

aspect. So, you know, the next logical step or the next step I would like to take is to be able to do that more on the TV side. So, um, sort of hitting it at both angles because there, you can do things differently on radio than you can, uh, in writing and that you can on TV. And I like that. I like being able to really take a deep dive onto some of this stuff. And I'm, I'm driven by this and this is a fault of mine because I have no wife. Um,

I want to be first all the time. I want to find a story. I'm the nerd who goes through public disclosure requests and hundreds of documents and thousands of emails just to find one piece of a potential story for me to dive into. I find that interesting to the point where I legitimately don't have a leg.

This is what my life is right now. And I'm doing this intentionally. I'm trying to grow my brand a little bit and, you know, get the experience that I need to get. It's paid off so far for the most part. But I don't like downtime. Well, you know, I got that.

That sliver of nerd in me as well. Like they would issue all these reports in Congress. I would actually read them. And I got the sense I was the only one that read them. And but that's what it takes. And that's why people are gravitated to. I don't I mean, it'll be fascinating to follow your career and see. But from my vantage point, you're just knocking it out of the park and you're doing an amazing job and giving voice, I think, to.

So many people who share a similar perspective got the same concerns, and then you can articulate it in a smooth way, and not everybody can do that. So hats off to you. But Jason, I got to tell you, we got to ask you some rapid questions because, you know, I don't care how many shows you've already hosted along the way as a radio talk show host.

You got to answer these rapid questions to find out a little bit more about you. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. Sit down, strap on. Here we go. First concert you ever attended. First concert was the Toadies at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles.

Well, there you go. High school mascot. We were the Bruins in high school. Yeah, that's a little jit. Yeah, I think it was the school, the headmaster just liked the UCLA Bruins, so we just stole it. That's good works, especially in California. All right, first job you had. Not the one working for your parents or whatever. Hey, Jason, go take out the garbage. I'm not talking about that. First time you had to go...

Like report to somebody else and they give you a paycheck for doing it. My first job was a radio job. It was a screener for KLSX Radio in Los Angeles. It was all talk. I don't know what they are now, but they definitely flip. But that was my first job. I was a talk show screener.

You have been radio all the way, haven't you? I've literally not had a job outside of radio. I've never had a job outside of radio. Did you have a pet growing up? I did. We found a German Shepherd mixed with, we think, a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Wow, that's a big dog. She was our...

It actually wasn't a big dog. You would think it would be, but I think it was the Rhodesian Ridgeback mix. And there had to have been something else that kept her relatively medium size. She was not a huge dog. She had the personality of a huge dog. And she was awesome.

And that was my first. And then we, you know, we constantly as we were growing up, the family was adopting a whole bunch of other pets. Whoever showed up would be the latest pet. I get that. OK, so if you could meet one person, have them over for dinner, dead or alive, you know, throughout history, who would be that person that you'd want to break bread with and say, yeah, I'd like to have a conversation with that person?

Oh, that is so, that is an unfair question because I want to meet with so many people. What pops in your mind? I mean, the first person weirdly who pops into my mind is, is Bill Clinton. And I'm going to tell you why, because he was. Yeah. You're going to need a little explanation with that one, Jason. Well, so there's a few reasons. Number one, I went to the high school that Monica Lewinsky went to. But number two, all that was going on. Yeah.

when I was in high school and it got me interested in politics. It legitimately got me interested in politics and it would be kind of interesting to talk to the person who is the technical reason why I started paying attention. Not because I agree with anything, although I do like to have

conversations with people who I disagree with. So I think that would kind of be fun. Otherwise, I would talk to Pete, you know, I would talk to a conservative who I'm going to agree with at the time. And I don't like conversations where I was like, yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I want to get into it a little bit. Yeah, good for you. That's a great answer. Actually, the more I think about it, that's interesting. Unique talent that maybe nobody knows about. What can you do? Like, can you juggle with your

I, I, oh my God, I was just about to say that I know how to juggle really, really well. When I was in high school, I was also the nerd who they put in front of the auditorium for an assembly because I was such a good juggler and they gave me basketballs to juggle and I was quite successful at it. Really? I haven't done it. I haven't done it in a while. I haven't tested the basketball thing anymore in a while, but I was really good.

That's pretty good. Juggling is tough enough, but with basketball, that's a talent. All right. Big question. Big one for me. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no? No, that is an absurd question. That does not match. It does not go. No. Please, come on. Thank you. Thank you. Jason, we think alike there. That's good.

What's that other thing in your life? When I say other thing, I mean like to go out and clear your head. I've told people on this podcast time and time again, I love to do wildlife photography.

Um, that's how I get out. I forget about the world and I just do photography. So what do you do to like clear your head, get away? What's that for you? So if we're talking about a bigger thing that I would do is I love to travel. I go to Europe, uh, pre COVID I was going two or three times a year. Um, my, my favorite, uh,

city in the world is London. And what I love to do is pop in my AirPods, walk from neighborhood to neighborhood, listening to music or a podcast, stopping in as many coffee shops as I can. I'm a coffee lunatic. And just read. I like to completely disconnect. And I plan...

when I go there because I now know a whole lot of people, I plan days where I'm literally seeing no one and doing nothing, just exploring on my own. I love that. I find that to be so...

rejuvenating, I guess. You don't have to worry about anything. You're just doing your thing. You don't have to worry about getting to places on time or making conversation where you kind of just want to be alone for a bit. Just unplug. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I just don't want to talk 24-7. I'm like...

I get to just do my thing. Plus, I legitimately love everything about London. That's good. If you weren't doing television and radio, which is pretty much all you've done since your teenage years, what would you be doing?

I would probably be a lawyer. I took the LSATs, was getting ready to go to USC Law School, and I decided kind of at the last minute, I'm not going to do it. I'll stay on the path that I'm on. So just the thing we need, one more lawyer. I would probably be doing that.

All right. Two more questions. Favorite menu item at Taco Bell? You know what? The cheese roll-ups. Those are so good. And it's just a tiny quesadilla in a wrap. That's all it is. Give the man four cheese roll-ups. Yes, I totally get it. One person I interviewed had never been to Taco Bell. I'm like, never been to Taco Bell? How can you live in this country and never go to Taco Bell? That's impossible. Right.

Best advice you ever got? The best advice I ever received was to make mistakes. And that was, my dad told me that. I'm sure he got it from somewhere because I see that sometimes on posters. But make mistakes. And part of why I like that is

And not only do we all kind of in this sort of the lazy responses. Yeah, we learn from mistakes, but being OK with making mistakes. Right. That's the part that I think is really important. Like, yeah, you're going to screw things up and that's OK. I mean, there's different levels of screw up. Right. But I mean, for the most part, as long as you're actually learning and just kind of accept the fact that you're never going to be perfect.

I just think that that takes a lot of pressure off of us just in everyday life, just in everything. Well, Jason, I hope you didn't think that joining me on this podcast was a mistake. Not at all. No, I loved having you on, getting to know you. I think you're going to be a big part of whether it's radio, television, Fox, I mean, wherever you go, I think you're going to be just an incredible voice that way. You already have been, and you're well on your way to success.

To have an even more prominent role in that. And I just thank you for taking the time to join me on this Jason in the House podcast. I appreciate the kind words. I've been a big fan of yours for a very long time. As I think I said when we bumped into each other almost a year ago today. I'm at CPAC right now. So that was the last time you and I hung out. That's right. Well, Jason Rance, thank you again. And I hope we get to see each other soon. Me too. Can't wait.

Can't thank Jason enough for taking time, joining us, getting to know him a little bit better. I think you're going to see more of him, not just on Fox, but on the radio. And I think he's got a good, strong voice and a great head on his shoulders.

Really wanted to thank you for listening to the Jason in the House podcast. Really want you to rate it. Would love it if you'd subscribe to it. Head over to foxnewspodcast.com if you want to check out some other similar podcasts. And I hope you're able to join us next week or look back at the archive of stuff that we've already recorded. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House.

I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app or get the free podcast at Guy Benson show dot com.