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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 House Podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks for joining us. We're going to highlight the stupid today because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. We're going to phone a friend. This time it's going to be Sheriff Lamb. He's the sheriff of Pinal County there in Arizona. It's a big county. It's like four or five hundred thousand people.
A lot of traffic going on there within that proximity of the border that he's having to deal with a lot of immigration border type issues. Somebody I just got to meet, got to know recently, and I asked him if he'd come join us on the podcast. So I want to hear a lot about him. You may know him as America Sheriff. He's got this...
got a show he's got a lot of people recognize him if you pulled up a picture of sheriff lamb and you certainly heard about him but boy he gets after it and gets going and the good people of pinell county uh elected him to be their sheriff you know years ago and he is out there kicking some butt so we're gonna give uh him a call and and talk through kind of his life and what he's dealing with there but let me just give you a quick uh thought on the news and uh
And we'll go from there. I heard a couple of weeks ago, I heard Pete Buttigieg. He was our transportation secretary there for the Obama or for the Biden-Harris administration. A lot of people think that, oh, he would be a much better candidate for president than Joe Biden. And we'll see. He's very articulate, but not very accomplished. I mean, he really just my personal opinion hasn't done a whole lot for
But he had an interesting take on, the thought was with air travel, they need more pilots. And maybe one of the things you can do with having more pilots is just extend the retirement age, which I believe is 66 years old. And so the quote that he came out with was, these retirement ages are there for a reason. And the reason is safety. I'm not going to be on board with anything anymore.
that could compromise safety. Now, what's clear, the case is we have to cultivate, train, and support a new generation of qualified pilots. I don't think anybody's going to disagree with the idea that we need to cultivate a new generation of pilots, but I also want to point out some things that I experienced when I was with there in Congress. And as a little side note, it's interesting that the cutoff he thinks to fly a plane is 66, but then you look at Joe Biden flying
And of course, he wouldn't comment on that. Sure, wouldn't let him fly a plane. But sure, go ahead and fly the country and have the nuclear codes in your hand there, Pete Buttigieg. But here's the thing. I remember a thing called sequestration.
I was told by John Boehner, the then Speaker of the House, that it would never, ever happen. Don't worry. It's never, ever going to happen. Now, this is years ago, you know, like in the 2010 type frame. But oh, how quickly people forget. There was this point where our Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the only thing they would cut was the military budget.
We as Republicans, we didn't want to see a cut to the military. We have always got to have the biggest, baddest, meanest fighting force on the face of the planet so big and so ominous that nobody would ever dare take us on. And if you use that in a good and righteous way, it becomes a tool that propels the peace. It's sort of that Ronald Reagan adage of peace through strength.
Well, somehow John Boehner and Barack Obama led us through into a place called sequestration where there were massive cuts to our defense spending. And something we were very unhappy about, I'm still unhappy about. And I remember some of the discussion that was going on then is that there were these massive, by the billions of dollars, cuts to the defense budget.
So much so that the men and women who were serving were less in number, but also were not getting the type of training that they used to get. So for instance, pilots, and again, it's not just Air Force. You got to think of the Army and the Navy and you got to, you know, their pilots and all the different branches there.
But primarily the Navy and the Air Force, they had to cut back severely on what they were doing with their training. And I remember at the time...
People like Delta Airlines and others were telling us, look, if you cut back on the hours now, what's going to happen in the future is those pilots will not have the hours that they're needed in order to go out and get a civilian job. So here we are 10, 12 years later, and it's all come to fruition. Hey, where are all the pilots? Well, that's because you turned down the spigot a decade ago.
And it's not like a light switch where you just go on, off, on, off. You can't just do that with training and the military and the acquisition of military systems and the training of the personnel.
And what was happening was our civilian pilots were primarily coming from the military. And when the military budgets went down, they didn't get the hours that they got. Guess what? The end of the pipeline is we have less pilots. So there's a consequence to all that. And this is where Pete Buttigieg just has like absolutely no clue of what's going on and how it's going on.
The other thing I wanted to comment on, it'd be interesting to get your feedback on this too, but drafting women and serving on the front lines of combat. Yes, if women want equality, then they should too also be drafted. I don't think there shouldn't be an exclusion. I don't think you should separate the men and the women. I think there are certain roles in certain things that if they don't qualify physically for that, we shouldn't force a woman into just because she's a woman, but
There are physical capabilities that are needed to fight a war and win a war that are brutal. And if you're a female and you can accomplish that, great, more power to you. But if you can't physically accomplish what needs to be done on the front lines of combat, then you don't qualify. I don't have a problem with that either.
So I'm just saying, I don't think we should exclude people because of their gender, but let's not include people because of their gender or gender choices.
you have to meet physical requirements. And the goal here is not to reduce the physical requirements. It's not to say, hey, you no longer have to do push-ups and sit-ups and pull-ups because some of these people on the front lines fighting in a combat infantry type of situation, you're going to have to haul some things. You're going to have to be able to hike a mountain with 60 pounds on your back. And if you can't do that, then you can't do that and you shouldn't slow down our military effort.
That's just my take on it. It's out there. It's out there. And, you know, we got to make sure we're dealing with it. All right. Time to bring on the stupid because, you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And as often the case, we're brought to Florida. It starts with a Florida man.
This was pointed out to me by somebody named Jennifer Scott. I'd never really kind of heard of Florida man, but oh, how many times this story with some goofiness. We'll start with a Florida man. This one does too. This is the headline smoking gun.com. A man busted for battering cop with a hot dog.
Florida man, 47. He ignored an order to, quote, put the hot dog down, end quote. And the story goes on from there. I'm going to read part of this from the story. A Florida man is facing felony battery charges for allegedly striking cop with a thrown hot dog. According to court records, investigators say that Jason Stoll, 47, was selling hot dogs.
Well, the quote, the defendant was asked to put the hot dog down as he continued attempted to sell it.
And when he was ordered to drop the hot dog, Stoll repeatedly became, quote, extremely upset through the item, which is not a sandwich as it says in the article, which is pretty funny.
At a sergeant. Well, that didn't go too well because evidently the hot dog hit the cop. He was not injured by the airborne bun and beef, but nevertheless, this guy got charged, tossed into jail. He was out of jail that following Saturday morning after posting $2,650 bond. Word to the wise, don't be throwing hot dogs at cops. You're going to go to jail as this Florida man did. And that's the stupid thing.
Time now to phone a friend, Sheriff Lamb. He's the sheriff of Pinal County. Big department, big agency. And I look forward to having this discussion. Let's call Sheriff Lamb.
Hello. Hey, Sheriff, this is Jason Chaffetz. Jason, how are you doing? I'm so glad to catch up with you. I had a chance to meet you in person the other day and just chatting with you. And I'm so glad that you're joining me on this podcast. Yeah, it was great meeting you. Thanks for having me on the podcast. Thanks for taking the time to come over to my cousin's house and sit down. It was good catching up. I always love a good political conversation. So when you offered the podcast, I'm like, I'm in. Let's do it.
Well, and I like happy warriors, people that are perpetually happy. They love their country. They love their family. They love what they're doing. And they're in it for the good fight. And, you know, I've seen you from afar, but then you're the same guy in person. That's what I always try to be. And you know what? That's probably the most common question that my friends or my chiefs or my wife even get. What's he like in real life? And it's like, oh, that's what you see is what you get. It's what he's like. So.
So you're kind of known as America's Sheriff. And first of all, let's go back here because you're the sheriff in Pinal County, right?
Tell us about that because it's a big county with a lot of people and a lot of activity. That's for sure down there in Arizona. Yeah. For anybody that doesn't know where Pinal County is, it's between Phoenix and Tucson. We are the third largest county population wise in Arizona, about 500,000 people, 5,400 square miles. So the size of the state of Connecticut, we've got about 650 employees and a budget of about $55 million. And,
So a pretty decent-sized operation. Of course, not the largest in the state, nor the largest in the country, but certainly a lot of work, that's for sure. Well, and it's amazing. As I got involved, I was chief of staff for a governor and then ran for Congress, and it really kind of forced the issue to really understand the different facets of law enforcement, the difference between what's going on in the city, in a county, the state, the feds.
Um, and sheriffs is really, that's really where the rubber meets the road. I mean, that's not only because you got to maintain the jail, but the, you know, the, the law enforcement side of it, especially when you have such large counties, you know, when I was in Congress, I represented two counties that were bigger than the state of New Jersey and, you know, very small populations didn't have the type of
of a population that you did and the other thing i had to learn is that the border isn't just like the 10 feet at the border it's the hundred miles north of the border or south of the border if you have north you know it's the hundred miles that come off the border and so you're right in the thick of everything that's going on with uh this massive immigration that's going on
Oh, absolutely. And I'm glad you brought that up. And so we are not on the border. We are about 50 to 60 miles off the border. But what makes us unique is we have an Indian reservation on the south end of our county that actually extends into Mexico. Part of that reservation is in Mexico.
And so this is the same reservation that you could build a wall 100 feet high all across the southern border. This reservation will never build a wall across their border. And as a sovereign nation, they don't have to. And so we will always struggle because that's where the cartel pushes military age men through. And so you're exactly right. 60, 70 miles off the border, I could take you to 100 spots.
where they're what we call loadout spots, where there's camouflage clothes and carpet shoes, which is exactly what that sounds like, like pieces of carpet that they put over their shoes so that they can actually walk through the desert without us hearing them or without us being able to track them. Backpacks.
You name it, they've left it in our deserts. They're littering our deserts. But it's also the remnants of people that you have no idea who they are that successfully made it into America illegally. You don't know what kind of drugs they brought with them. You don't know what kind of criminal histories they may have.
here or in their own countries. You don't know what countries they came from. You don't know what their intentions are for America. And that's what we deal with. And we also have the I-10 corridor that runs right through the heart of our County. Um, the I-10 corridor is probably the main artery for the cartels to, to bring drugs into America, uh, predominantly fentanyl and methamphetamines now. And so that is what we deal with on a daily basis. And it is not easy. Uh,
We are right in the heart of the smuggling activity, which is not about immigration anymore. This border crisis is about human trafficking and drug trafficking into America. All right. So I want to come back to that. I want to get into a little bit deeper into that. But
Let's talk a little bit more about you and your background because I'm always fascinated by how people get into these predominant positions and how they rise to the top. So let's go back to little Sheriff Lamb. Like, I'm a little kid. I'm born in. Why don't you start there? Let's kind of walk it through because I want to figure out how you got into that spot of being sheriff. And then we'll talk more about what you're up against. Yeah.
Yeah, I was a little holly boy born on the big island of Hawaii in Hilo. Really? Grew up there until I was 11 years old. So, yeah, I understood what it meant to be a minority back in those days. I mean, you're a holly boy in Hawaii. You got to cut your teeth. It's not easy sometimes.
Now, were you surfing? I mean, what was life like? It sounds pretty good if you're in Hawaii. We used to go to the beach all the time, but I was hitting about that age where you start surfing. I mean, obviously we did a ton of boogie boarding and all that. And then we moved to the Philippines. My dad was a graduate of Thunderbird Business College, which is an international business school here in Arizona. Probably one of the most prestigious in America for international business. So he loved being abroad. We went to...
The Philippines for a year. And then we came back to Arizona to regroup, which is where my dad was from, which is Chandler, Arizona. When I was in high school, we moved to Panama. So I spent a lot of time in Panama. I was actually in Panama when the U.S. invaded Panama at Operation Just Cause in 89-90. And then I served a mission for my church in Argentina, came back.
I got it. I know I'm glossing over a lot. You can hit, come back and circle back to anything, but I got into businesses. Honestly, I never thought about being a cop. Nobody in my family was police officers. Nobody in my wife's family or police officers. I was just a business guy and I was 33 years old when one of my
One of my guys, my neighbors, my friend asked me to do a ride along. I went on one ride along and I was hooked. I came home that morning. I told my wife, I'm going to be a cop. And within six months I was in the Academy and, uh,
34 years old going through the academy and found my calling in life. But it was a little bit late in life. So I can go on and tell a lot of the sheriff, but I'm going to give you a chance to ask any questions. All right. So let's go back to this, you being a Hallie and then, you know, going overseas. So you develop some language skills along the way. Whether it was the mission or also just being in Panama, you started to speak Spanish. Yeah.
Yeah. Pigeon is a Howley in Hawaii. You speak pigeon. Yeah. But then we I went to Argentina. Panama is where I really started to learn Spanish. We worked every summer in Panama with the Panamanians. And then I moved when I went to Argentina on my mission. I mean, within six months, I had a really good grasp of the language. I'm very fluent in both Spanish and English.
You know what it did? I wrote about this in my book. My first chapter of my book is called Welcome to America. The book's not called Welcome to America. The first chapter is. And basically, I talk about just living in all these other countries and no matter how beautiful some of these countries may be and the beaches and the people, they're not America.
And every time you come back, I mean, honestly, it's just that feeling of I'm back. I'm back in America. I'm back on American soil. And you just want to kiss the ground that we walk on every day and take for granted. And yeah, that's what I love about this country. And the way I grew up gave me a real appreciation and love for America and freedom and what we have and how blessed we are.
So do you have brothers, sisters? Were you the only child? What was going on there? No, I'm the youngest of four. I have two brothers and a sister. And so two of my brothers live in the Kansas City area, basically like Independence, Blue Springs. And then my sister still lives in Arizona. We're all within six years of each other. So we're close together. We get along real well. We're just...
I would like to say a normal family, but man, any day anymore, is there even such thing as a normal family? Yeah. So, I mean, they look down and you're the sheriff. I mean, is there, did they, would they, if I was interviewing, would they say, well, yeah, of course. I mean, he was always acting like that. The guy was playing with the army men. He was, you know, arresting his brothers and sisters. He, I mean, he was just a law and order guy or that were there. Are they like as shocked as anybody?
You know, it's funny you should say that because I was a I was G.I. Joe as a kid. I always had G.I. Joe's and collected them. So that part didn't surprise them. And honestly, I've always been kind of just the my grandpa used to call me the Pied Piper. And I've always just been kind of that way. And so.
So they, I don't know that they were surprised, but it's, I think it's been fun for them to watch, you know, how this progression is to becoming a sheriff. My dad, unfortunately he passed away in 2014, right before I started my first sheriff's run. And, uh, you know, he would have eaten this stuff up. He would have loved it. He, uh, he loved to buck the system. You know, he wasn't the biggest fan of the government. Um,
Just the way they sometimes treat people. And so he would have just eaten it up, you know, seeing me on Fox News or Newsmax or any of those talking about, you know, what the what we could be doing better as a country. So he would have loved that.
Now, where did you this surge or this this kind of pillar or backbone of of patriotism? Where did that come from? I mean, I I was fortunate enough growing up and I in part grew up in Arizona, in California, in Colorado before I settled in Utah, my my college years. But where did that little that surge or that backbone of patriotism, love of country come from?
You know, my parents did a really good job of instilling it. My parents love this country. I'm a descendant of eight of the occupants of the Mayflower. The Lambside came to Boston in 1630 on the Winthrop fleet. So, yeah, we've had a deep history in this country. Been in America a long time. And maybe that's part of it. But as I grew up, I just, I loved history. I loved the founding fathers. I loved history.
I love freedom more than anything. That's probably one of the things I love the most is
And I understand that, you know, what we have in this country, our constitution, what the founding fathers gave us, the fact that it was built by men who believed in God, a higher being, and they instilled those same values and principles and morals into the founding of this country, the constitution, all of those things. I think that's really where my love of country comes from. And then I just have a strong sense of,
I no compromise with evil. I think that's really kind of it. And then as we see evil becoming more pervasive in our society, it is just made me want to stand against it and say, no, here's the line in the sand and I'm not going to let you cross it. Well, good for you. It's so OK. So you're going along. You're bouncing back and forth and overseas. Where do you actually graduate high school? I graduated from high school in Chandler, Arizona. I'm a Chandler High grad.
And then immediately, I mean, I went to I actually spent a little bit of time at Dixie College playing a little baseball in the fall. And then I went to Panama before my mission. And then I served a mission for my church. So I spent a lot of time in Panama before, you know, during high school and after high school. And even after I was married, we lived in Panama for a while. So I spent a lot of time there. So after that, did you did you go to school? Did you start your career? Where did you go from there?
I went to a little bit of school at Dixie. And then after my mission, I went to a little school at Chandler Gilbert community college, but I'll be honest with you. I realized really quickly that it wasn't for me. I'm a big believer that education is derived from many sources. It doesn't necessarily come from college. I mean, you can, I'm a big believer in trade schools and I'm a big believer that you can, you know, Thomas Jefferson, he, his education came from a man named George with, who was very, who was also one of the founding fathers and,
and believe that you could find a lot of your education from the classic books that people have written. And so I just try to read as many books as I can and,
And, and I learned from other people like I, you know, the time I spent with you the other day, you know, I'll, I'll watch and I'll glean some of the things that I like about how you carry yourself and maybe something you, you, the way you, you address an issue. And then I gleaned that from, and I try to apply it in my life and, and,
become the best me that I can be. So I feel like the fact that I don't have a proper education through college has enabled me to actually become more well-rounded and more
in a lot of different things. Yeah, I think the traditional... Look, I'm all for people getting their education, but I totally agree with you that education comes in many forms. And trade schools, people that want to pursue a specific profession, hallelujah, more power to you. There's no...
That should be encouraged, not discouraged. And the wokeness that is enveloped some of these institutes of higher learning and that have become so absurdly expensive. I mean, I don't know how a family or a kid can justify going and dropping that much money
And just living into debt for I don't know how many decades in order to get it past, you know, to pay it off. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me in a lot of cases. No, and especially with no guarantee of a job.
For example, if you paid $100,000 to go to college, but the college guaranteed you that you would get a job that paid $150,000, you could justify it. But the schools don't. They indoctrinate you in many cases. They make you take classes that are totally irrelevant to what you want to do in your career. And then when you get out of school, they just kind of kick you to the curb and say, thanks, but no thanks. You know, thanks for giving us all your money and good luck on finding something.
Look, I hire people all the time that have degrees, master's degrees, bachelor's degrees. And guess what? They're making the same amount as the guys that don't. Yeah. I mean, look, I think it's important to get some degree somewhere. I think it shows some. But some of these degrees are degrees to nowhere. And this is I'm going to get in trouble for this. I really am. But I see all these people go out and get a political science degree.
And I'm just like, why? Like, you know, it's amazing to me. I was eight and a half years in the United States Congress. Sorry, I'm getting on my soapbox a little bit here. Eight and a half years. Eight and a half years. And I was the chairman of the Oversight Committee. First time, only the fifth time in 100 years somebody had achieved that. Right. Never once did I ever have a professor say.
political science call me up and ask hey how'd that happen but I'd read their comments in the newspaper all the time and I would think you're an idiot you have no idea how this works so when these kids go out and get these degrees in political science I'm like it's a history class okay you can go learn what a Tory and a wig and you know the the history of all these different forms of government
But to suggest that it has anything to do with how Congress and the real world works, it is such a worthless degree. I would go to hire people and people that had a political science degree,
or were pursuing them, I thought, I don't want you to work in my congressional office. You have nothing to offer the world. This is not based on anything. And you're being taught by these woke professors who have not a clue how politics and political science actually works. No. And let me tell you, the way society is now...
It's evolving so fast. They say that eight out of 10 businesses today won't exist in 10 years. And so how can you truly believe that you can teach something now and you're teaching off of old information as it is and somewhat stale information, even if it is current, and then you're expecting them that that's going to carry them through. I mean, granted, that's why you get a job and you get on the job experience, but
But it is in this world is evolving so fast. I don't even know how you could keep up with a good curriculum to consistently teach people how to keep up with the changes of the world. So, I mean, I do agree. I think schooling is perfect for some people, especially if you're going to be a lawyer, a doctor, whatever.
Um, any of those professions that require those licenses, I think absolutely. But I just, for any youth out there that are listening, don't be afraid to do it different. Don't be afraid to go find the education you want, wherever you want, because it's out there. And, uh,
And the people that I know that are making the most money in this world right now are, frankly, people who have just become true craftsmen in whatever profession it is that they're doing, especially in construction. Oh, my gosh. People are making a killing right now because we just don't have as many of those anymore.
Yeah, people who actually know masonry or actually know carpenters that know what they're doing or plumbers. My plumber, man, that guy's got a life. I'm telling you, he lives in Montana. He hunts. He comes down to Utah maybe once a month, does services to his clients. He goes back up. I mean, guys are making a lot of money. Anyway, more power to him.
Enough on that. Okay, so I want to go back. So what was your first job outside your mom and dad saying, hey, you know, did they call you Sheriff back then? I doubt they did. Did you have a nickname growing up? No, I didn't really. You know, my brother would call me Sparky. Okay, so Sparky. Sparky.
I mean, what was your first job outside your mom and dad saying, hey, time to take out the garbage? So I always worked in our family business. I did scrap metal, which is every summer I would go and spend working with our family. I don't know if that's considered an outside job. Yeah, I think so.
My guess is you had to be there at a certain time and you had to get some stuff done. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We, you know, with our dad, you didn't miss work. You didn't sleep in. You didn't do any of that. You went and we didn't have an option. Like, I mean, my back in the day when I was 12, 13, we were diving into dumpsters, grabbing cans out of the back of the Elks Lodge and the bars.
and taking those cans in and trading them in for money. And our payment was a Pete's Fish and Chips hamburger or cheese. It wasn't even a cheeseburger. It was a hamburger and a Pepsi. But we thought that was the greatest deal in the world. You were going to the Fish and Chips place and ordering a cheeseburger? Who does that?
We didn't even have cheeseburgers. We had hamburgers. They didn't want to use splurge for cheeseburgers. That's an extra 20 or 50 cents. I get that. That's a lot more cans, right? So...
Um, okay. So then you're off on your own. You're getting, you're, you're working. Um, you're married, you're married pretty young, right? Um, 22, 23. And, um, and you're working, then you get the chance to go on this ride along. What, what, what happened? Who was that ride along with? And what happened that night that sparked this interest? Say, you know what? That's me. I'm doing that.
Well, I don't own a lot of my own businesses. For a time, I was a dairyman up in Payson, Utah. For people from Utah, they'll know Winder Dairy. I actually worked on that. Yeah, great dairy. Yeah. Yeah. And I worked where they actually milk the cows down in Payson, Utah. That was probably really the only real job I had as a I did sales. I mean, I sold for Vivint back before it was called Vivint.
I had my own businesses. Well, right at that time, I owned my own business. I was doing pigeon control, pest control. And I was making decent money. And my neighbor was like, hey, you want to go on this ride along? And I knew I needed something more. I was recovering from losing my business in Utah, had to do a bankruptcy and just was, you know, fighting to get back on my feet and had my business going and was doing better. And
And just knew I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. I just could feel it. So I went on this ride along and I had no reason to not go. So I go that night and it was on an Indian reservation. It was a graveyard shift. And the first one of the calls we go to was a,
a dad who found a 20 year old with his 14 year old daughter in the house. So he gets into a scuffle. The kid runs out the back, we show up and now we're looking for this kid. And if you've been on the reservations, you'll have a house and then maybe a lot of desert behind it, some abandoned travel trailers. So I see this abandoned travel trailer. I'm out there armed with the flashlight and courage because I'm just on a ride along and walk up to this and look in the window. And I see this pile of trash and clothes and debris and,
And I think I see what I think is a quarter size of skin underneath this pile of trash and debris. And I said, hey, I think he's a motion to him. I'm like, hey, I think he's in here. They drag him out. They go in there and he was in there to drag him out, tase him, get him on the ground, cuff him up. And that was it. I went home that morning and I said to my wife, that's it. I'm going to be a cop.
And, you know, for her, people will always ask her, were you afraid of, of him being hurt? How dangerous being a police officer? And she's like, no, I was more afraid of him doing pigeon work on people's roofs. You know, that's far more dangerous. And, and we never had a paycheck when you went on vacation. And I never, uh, those were all things we didn't have health insurance. We had five kids. So honestly, this was really kind of a godsend and,
And I didn't quite realize I had found my niche in life until I actually started doing it. And immediately I was like, this is what I was meant to do. And this is putting me on the path I'm meant to be on. And obviously now leading to being the sheriff, you can look back at your life, 2020 hindsight is 2020. You can look back at your life and say, you know what? All of these things happened the way they needed to happen to bring me to this point.
And I'm grateful for the guy who took me on the ride along that night because it changed the trajectory of my life. And I would like to think if when I die, it will have changed the trajectory of this country.
You know, it is interesting how some of those small things, the things that you could just easily say no to or say, yeah, I don't want to go up all night. You know, I've got to go to work tomorrow or, you know, I got something else better. There's a movie I want to watch. You know, there's all those things. But you get out of your comfort zone, you try something new and not every time, obviously, but every once in a while, something's probably the story of kind of the twists and turns in my life. They were...
I could have easily just said no and it would have changed the trajectory of my life. And so then something good like that happens and it is amazing to me. So you decide, okay, honey, I'm going to sign up, but you got to go get trained. There's no guarantee. You got to sign up and go through post, right? Yeah.
Yeah, I had to get hired and then I had to go through six month academy. And then when you're done with the academy, you have to go through like a 12 to 14 week FTO process, which is field training officer process. And then you have a year probation. So any point you could be let go from this job. How hard was that? How hard was that training? Yeah.
I mean, you're physically fit. You meet Sheriff Lamb in person. He's a big fella. But, I mean, my sense is you got through that all right, right? I mean, was that hard for you? Yeah.
It was pretty easy. I mean, I'm, I was 34. So, I mean, I wasn't a spring chicken either, but I mean, I believe that a man's prime is in these early thirties. And so I was still in somewhat in my prime and felt good, strong, took glucosamine and ibuprofen every morning before we went and did all the PT. But I honestly, I did very well because I was older. I had five kids. Like I'm, my focus was different from the guys that were 21 or 22 and,
When I came out of the I was the valedictorian of my class. And then when I came out of that, I was rookie of the year. My first year, I was officer of the year. My second year, I was detective of the year. My third year. Is this all in Pinal County or where were you? This was all actually on an Indian reservation, Salt River, Pima, Maricopa, Indian community, which is right next to Mesa, Tempe and Scottsdale, Arizona, tucked in right there.
You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Sheriff Lamb right after this. Precise, personal, powerful. It's America's weather team in the palm of your hands. Get Fox weather updates throughout your busy day every day. Subscribe and listen now at Fox News Podcasts dot com or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tell me about the transition because being the sheriff, a lot of people don't even realize it, but that's an elected position. That is not, that's tough to go run for office. People are engaged and involved and focused on that. They got to go figure out now the whole political side, not by going to political science class at your local college. I can tell you that it's by doing it. You got to get in there and earn the vote from a lot of people. And, and not a lot of people are necessarily paying attention to that vote.
No. And it's, you know, honestly, I think my ignorance was a blessing. I was about six years as a deputy or as an officer, five, six years. And I was there one day, remember, with my gang unit. And I didn't like the direction of the country. And I don't believe in being one of those guys who just complains about something but doesn't do anything about it. And so I was sitting there with our gang unit and I said, you know what, guys, I think I'm going to run for sheriff.
And they're like, what? Crazy. It's exactly what you said. It's like nobody knows about it. Everybody just thinks it's just too much. And I hear I am a five year cop saying I'm going to run for sheriff. And I said, no, man, I'm going to do it.
And they're like, whatever, whatever. Well, I did. I went and put in my application from Pinal County. I took a $25,000 pay cut. It took me a while to get hired. I didn't hear from him for a while. I finally got hired and I came over to Pinal County about six years into it and or seven years into it probably. And look, I just I wasn't happy with where the country was going.
And frankly, it was under the Biden administration. I thought they were undermining the rule of law. They were deteriorating the rule of law. Cops were being made to look like the bad guys. And that's so dangerous to society. And I wanted to be part of that difference. I wanted to make a change. And I had no idea what the future would hold for leadership. And so I decided to be part of the solution. So I went to Pinal County, spent a couple of years there.
And then after two years, I remember I got put on a shift where I had to continue to work Sundays and I hadn't been to church for eight months. And I told my wife, I said, honey, we got to leave at some point. And this is probably my, this is, I feel like the Lord telling me, hey, it's time for you to step away and start preparing for the next step.
And so we did. And I went back to owning our own businesses, fought through it again, made enough money to be able to try to run for sheriff. And like you said, I had no idea. I knew nothing about politics, nothing about campaigning, but I knew marketing because I had been a business owner. And so I just applied marketing principles and that's the approach I took. So what was that first? Okay. I filled out the form. I'm now a candidate. What was your first move?
Started showing up to events and collecting signatures. I knew that I had to figure that out. I didn't even know what the process was to even get on a ballot.
And I would go talk to people. And what I would do is I would go and listen to these people that would bet in politics. And they would tell me, you got to do this and you got to do that. And you got to do that. Well, I knew that I wasn't going to have as much money as my competitor. I knew that I that he was going to probably do what they were telling me that I needed to do. So I thought, you know what, I've got to do it different and I've got to beat him.
at it. So I would employ marketing principles to achieve the same thing that they were telling me that I needed to do. I would say, okay, what's going to be the end result for what they want me to do? Okay. You want me to do mailers, send out mailers? How about I just deliver them by hand door to door and reduce the costs and I get to more people and I can do it for, you know, I had flired everybody three times before the election even showed up. Didn't even waste money on mailers. So little things like that.
But yeah, just started collecting signatures, which wasn't easy because I was a nobody. I had no name recognition. I had to literally build everything.
Yeah. You know, you're putting a big smile on my face because when I first, when I ran, I thought that's what I did. I made a list of everything I was supposed to do and then challenged it and then said, well, wait, what? Okay. I don't have 50 cents for every, a mailer would actually cost a dollar because they had to print it. Then you had to pay the mail house. Plus you had to pay the postage. I'm like, that's a buck a shot. I can't do that. And so I
we ended up putting out hundreds of thousands of door knockers over the course of time and um but we had to find volunteers to put them up and i told them i said don't go to every house because not every house votes yeah like and i in in places we didn't have good maps boy i might get in trouble for this one too but this is just how i did it i said you know what put them on the houses that have flags because if you fly a flag my guess is you also vote
And if they don't fly a flag, they probably don't vote. And I'm sure that's not true. But I had to figure out a way on a street to not just waste every flyer on every home.
That's right. And you know what? You're actually not wrong. And especially nowadays, what's sad is you see a flag. Probably it's a pretty good indicator as to which party they represent, too. Yeah. So there's no if you fly a flag, there's no way you don't vote. Let's put it that way. If you fly a flag, you're also a voter. And so.
Anyway, so I did stuff like that.
And so what I told people is you'll talk yourself. If you talk to people on the doors, you'll talk yourself out of as many boats as you'll talk yourself into. Why not just package what you want them to know about you on a flyer, put the flyer in their door. And instead of hitting 20 doors, because you're wasting time waiting for people to answer or talking to somebody, one person will take up all your time. And then I said, instead, I'm hitting hundreds of doors with flyers.
And I found a lot of success in that. But the average political advisor will tell you, oh, no, you got to knock doors and talk to people and you got to tell them who you are. And I can't think of a bigger waste of time. Well,
Well, and it's too big. I mean, you got Pinal County, 450, 500,000 people, congressional districts, like 800,000 people. I'm like, wait a sec. I can do that math. I can't get from here to there. So I was I was very similar. I'd I'd put out a flyer. I talk about it and they'd say, hey, my next meeting's here. And I figure, you know, at the 30 people that actually do want to have a conversation about the show for the meeting.
And, and so, and now with social media and other communications tools, they can come join a, you know, some sort of discussion. But back in 2008, you know, when I first ran that, that wasn't the case. And, and, um,
But that was true. And so, but you're right. I had to challenge every single norm. And my wife and I put in $10,000 and we said, hey, you know, if we don't raise it, we're not going to spend it. So I got outspent by a lot of money, but we were way more effective. Same with me. My opponent spent $110,000 in the primary and I spent $35,020 of it, which was mine. Wow. Because it was really hard to raise money as a nobody. And so...
The money matters, but it doesn't matter if you're willing to get out and work. And that was one thing I knew is my opponent was running, was the current, was the, the sheriff was running for Congress. So I was running against the chief deputy and people would say, well, he's there. That's an advantage. And I said, no, that's his disadvantage because he actually has a job to do where I am self-employed. So I can, I'm like a boxing match. I'm going to push the pace.
and dictate the pace of the fight, and I did. And it was very hard for him to keep up with that pace, and eventually that was what helped us carry us over. And we ended up winning the primary 64% to 36%, and I spent a third of what he spent. Well, congratulations. So now you've been the sheriff. Let's talk about the reality of what's going on.
Because, I mean, I see Bill Malusion, who's a Fox News reporter. That guy is doing amazing work down on the border. I did a podcast with him about kind of how he went through ASU, and it's a great podcast. If you want to hear another podcast kind of in this genre, listen to Bill Malusion's story. It's really neat. But the guy actually gets down there, gets his fingernails dirty, and understands what's really going on. But you even more so, because...
The people that are flowing through there, and I try, I try, I try to explain to people, and I've just done ride-alongs. I've gone, I've seen, but not to the degree, obviously, that you and the men and women on the Border Patrol, the sheriffs, you know, there's so many good people out there working hard. But what's really going on? And explain the human toll, because this is where...
I think the Biden-Harris administration have it so, so wrong. They think they're doing the world a great favor by creating this conduit and attracting people to the United States. But the human toll is just stunning. This is an utter – the complete and utter disaster. And it will be one of the major challenges –
If we were to ever fall, this would be one of the major reasons why we fall as a country. I don't believe we will, but this is certainly not helping us. And you're right. This is a people issue as well. And I always tell people, like I said earlier, this isn't about immigration. It's about human trafficking and drug trafficking. And frankly, this isn't about politics. It shouldn't matter whether you're a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. If you care about human beings, you should absolutely care about border security.
The women are being raped on a daily basis that try to come across. As a matter of fact, we had a woman we caught several months ago. She had a baggie full of pills on her, like 50 pills. And we said, hey, what are these pills? And she says, well, when I was going to cross the border, I knew I would be raped multiple times. These are morning after pills. Like where in the world do we lose our moral compass so bad as Americans that we allow politics to trump what is right for people?
The kids are being abused. The kids are being used as pawns, separated from their families. Not here. We're not separated from their families. The cartels are separated from their families. Over 100,000 youth that have been caught at the borders, unaccompanied minors. We separated them. Unaccompanied minors. 100,000. The men are being extorted and forced to carry drugs, and oftentimes the men are being raped.
Gays are being, people who are homosexual are being
raped at a 50% rate, according to their statistics. Even people who are trans people are being raped and abused as they're coming across. So they think they're doing something good when in actual reality, they have created an opportunity for the cartels to make unprecedented amounts of money. And they have created the, the mark. I don't even know what you would call it. The, the darkness of,
for these people to take advantage of other people. And these other people are coming here, not knowing what they're getting into most of the time. And they get here and they find themselves in,
in sex trafficking or being abused or raped or their children being stolen from them, all because our government won't protect our borders. We are creating more victims every day, more people being abused, and it starts because we have failed to secure our southern border.
And most people don't understand that. And this administration certainly does not understand that. And I'll be honest with you, they bear the responsibility and the culpability for what has happened to these people trying to come into this country.
Yeah, I think they're complicit. I think they I think they do know what they're doing. I don't think it's an accident or a failure. I think it was a concerted plan to say this is what we're going to do and why we're going to do it. And there can be different motivations. But the sick reality of is when Secretary Mayorkas goes to that, you know, before Congress and says that he has operational control of the border, he's
He does not. And he doesn't do it. And he's I mean, it's just it's just factual. He does not have control of that border. And when the White House spokesperson says the border is closed, I mean, it's just one of the saddest, most sick and perverted comments that she can make. Yeah. If you deem control as you're allowing what happens to happen, then.
Then yes, they are controlling it because they're doing exactly what they wanted. So either, either that's the case or you're lying. It's one of the two. And I believe in most cases, it's both. I do believe that they are, this is on purpose. They are because they've made no effort to fix it. No matter how much we talk about it,
They just continue to ignore it. We have the czar who's been to El Paso one time in four years, in two years. We have a president who even as a vice president, if you total all of it, he's been to the border, I think twice, both times to El Paso. And he that was when he was the vice president several years ago. These are folks that do not care. They're there. I don't know why they allow some of that.
The fentanyl alone has become the leading cause of death in America, killing amongst Americans 18 to 45. It's killing women, children, teenagers, babies, grandparents. But it has become the leading cause of death amongst American adults. Over 100,000 people have died in a year, and we do nothing about it. Our government says nothing about it. Their priorities are completely out of whack.
And how do you say to yourself, they're just not that ignorant. They're not that incompetent. They hire incompetent people, but they're not that incompetent. They're exacting the plan they want to exact. Yeah. We could go on for hours and hours. I,
I can't thank enough for you, you know, the men and women that you employ, the stuff you have to deal with and see and experience. You shouldn't have to do that. And, you know, the same with the Border Patrol, the other counties, the other sheriffs, locals, the toll on the communities themselves. It is absolutely stunning.
And can I just say one more talking point that they're going to give you is they will say, well, there's a lot of good people coming across. And I'm not going to argue that there are a lot of really good people that want to come here and make a better life. And we have a process in place for them. First of all, they should follow that process.
just like all the other good people who are trying to follow that process are doing. But I talked to a congresswoman out of Washington one day, and kudos to her for getting on the phone with us. And we talked about the issues we were facing. And then she says, well, what about all the good people that are coming in?
And I said, well, Congresswoman, let me put it this way. If I told you that I had 10 people that I wanted to put in your home, five of them were good and five of them were bad. But I can't tell you which ones are which. Are you OK with that? And she was silent. And I said, you know why you're silent? Because you know you're not OK with that. You shouldn't be OK with that. And I said, let me take it a step further. Let's say that one out of those 10 was bad and nine were good. But the one was a sex offender.
and put your children at risk. Would you be okay with me putting them in your home? I said, and silence again. And I said, you're silent because you know I'm right again. And I said, my job is law enforcement.
is to say, if I have to stop nine good people to stop one bad person from coming in, one wolf from getting into the herd of sheep, then that's my job. And that's what I'm going to continue to do. For the good people, I continue to encourage them to follow the legal process for coming to this country so that they can fully experience the American way of life instead of doing it the
the backdoor way, which is illegal and it is cheating and undercutting anybody else who's in the process. And so for anybody that listens to the argument or when you hear that argument of, well, we're just, what about all the good people? We're not discounting those people, but our job is to keep the bad people out. And if I have to keep good people out to do it, then that's what I'm going to do. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, come in the front door, do it legally and lawfully. And I, I feel like the system that's been put in place now is,
It fails the people that are trying to do it legally and lawfully that aren't willing to break the law. Those are the people that we should be given higher priority to. Those are the people that we want to be our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers or everything else, you know. But you're absolutely right. It's well said. Well said. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back right after this.
All right, Sheriff, I got a few more questions for you because I don't care how many people you've arrested along the way. We want to get to know you a little better and we got to do these rapid questions. Are you ready? Ready. All right. First concert you attended.
Screaming Trees, Soul Asylum, and Spin Doctors. Took a girl on a date there. I'd never been a concert guy. That was it. Actually, I lied. I went one time to a Don Williams concert, who I love, when I was in high school because I love Don Williams. All right. So what was that high school mascot? Chandler Wolves. The Wolves. There you go. Your first celebrity crush?
Jennifer Connelly. You didn't really hesitate there. I didn't have to ask twice. You came up with that pretty quickly. And she's on the new Top Gun movie, which I love. So yeah, I'm a Jennifer Connelly. She's great. She actually is really good. She's actually really good at that. Did you have a pet growing up?
We were unsuccessful in the few pets we did have. Our family has never really been dog people. We had a dog named Spunky when I was about 13, and we bathed him, and he froze to death even in Arizona overnight. Oh, my gosh. That's terrible. I know. So over the time, we've just not really been dog people. One of my kids has a dog at our house now, but we love dogs. We just don't necessarily want to be the owners. All right.
That's a terrible story. All right. Uh, life's most embarrassing moment. Oh man, I shoot. I've learned to just put all shame aside. I think, uh, I don't even know. I, you know, I have so many all the time and I've learned to just smile through them and just try to have a good attitude. And, um,
I can't even think of most embarrassing. All right, fair enough. All right, let's go on. So if there's one person, you call up your wife and say, you know what, honey, tonight I get this special wish coming true. Dana White.
That's who you would have. All the people throughout all of history, you'd pick Dana White to come over for dinner. Throughout all history, George Washington. All right. George Washington and Dana White are coming over for dinner. Now that is going to be a conversation. Oh, man, it's going to be great. Because they're both from the Boston area.
All right, so they got something in common. All right. Unique talent that Sheriff Lamb can do that nobody would really know about. I mean, can you juggle? Can you, like, you know, whistle using your toes? I mean, is there something goofy? Any unique talent that... Man, I don't even know of any unique talents. These are great questions. You're stumping me on a couple of them. All right, well, here's one that you should get right. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no? Yes. Yes.
Gosh, I'm a Hawaii boy. You can put pineapple. We put pineapple on Hawaiian haystacks. You can put it on pizza, ice cream. I'm in. Just don't put wet fruit on pizza. But you know what? You've got the best excuse I've heard yet. So favorite childhood toy? G.I. Joe.
There you go. See, mine was a Stretch Armstrong. Did you have a Stretch Armstrong? I had a Stretch Armstrong. He was probably the victim of my GI gels at that point. Yeah, there got to be a point when I got a little bit later and I want to see if I could make him bleed. And I did. But it was sad because then my GI gel was no more. Right. It's actually red. It's actually like a red jelly in there. It's like blood. They thought about that. They thought, you know, somebody's going to pierce this guy at some point.
And but boy, I miss my G, my stretch Armstrong. Best advice you ever got. Be yourself. Be authentic. Just be who you are. Let the world experience what we all have different fingerprints, different DNA, different irises. When you really stop and think about how.
what a majestic thing that is that every single one of us are different from each other and all the billions of people on this earth that shows you how, how much destiny you have in this life. And by not being authentic to who you are, you are depriving not only yourself, but this world of what you were sent here for. So be authentic, be the best you can be. Um, the world deserves it. Yeah, that's great advice. Um, last question, uh, uh,
for you um what's that other thing for sheriff lamb like if you wanted to go out clear your head just kind of get away from things a little bit just what what is that for you for me it's cruising and that's why i hate covet so bad because the last two years i haven't been on a cruise that is my disconnect place i love the beach i was born and raised in hawaii philippines panama
I love the beach and I love cruising because you can eat a ton of food while you're enjoying the beach. So yeah, that's my, that's my jam. All right. All right. Well, I hope you can get out and do that sooner rather than later. And Sheriff, thank you so much for joining us on this Jason in the house podcast. And thanks for all that you do because, uh,
The men and women, they're there in your office, and you've been trusted by a lot of people to do a good job and pour your heart and soul in it. And I know that's what you're doing. So thanks for doing that. It's so important to the country and Arizona and the real human lives that you come in touch with. So thank you.
Well, thank you too. God bless. And thanks for having me on today. And truly, it was a pleasure. You're a patriot as well. And I look forward to seeing what you're going to do in the future. All right. Thank you.
Ah, Sheriff Lamb. What a good man. You know, somebody who picks himself up by the bootstraps, takes all of the experience, pours it together, and is running one of the most important law enforcement agencies there in Arizona. Good inspirational story for people trying to figure out what to do and how to do it, and who's really got his head screwed on straight in terms of, you know, what's good for law and order in this country. So, yeah.
Can't thank him enough for joining us on this Jason in the House podcast. Hope you can rate it. I need you to rate this thing. Subscribe to it if you can. Go over to foxnewspodcast.com if you like these kind of genre of podcasts. And make sure you join us next week. We'll be back with another great guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House. ♪
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