Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
It's time to take the quiz. Five questions, five minutes a day, five days a week. Take the quiz every weekday at thequiz.fox and then listen to the quiz podcast to find out how you did. Play, share, and of course, listen to the quiz at thequiz.fox. ♪
Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks for joining us. We've got a great show today. We're going to get a little riff 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 call Kennedy. Kennedy, as you've seen her on Fox and Fox Business.
For those of you who have seen her a long time ago, you saw her on MTV, and she's just one of the nicest, friendliest, but also funniest people that you could possibly imagine.
She's one of our Fox favorites, that's for sure. And, you know, we're going into Thanksgiving season, and I just think this will lift your spirits and make you smile because she's just a wonderful person. And I look forward to calling her and having a vibrant discussion. I have no idea where the direction of this discussion is going because she's
With Kennedy, you're never quite sure, but it will be fun. I can assure you that. So let's just jump into the news. And, you know, there's some sad news out there. There's things that are just outright depressing. But I got to tell you, one of the things that is the biggest concern that I think people really need to worry about. Yes, we're worried about the reconciliation package, worried about the national debt. We're worried about
We're worried about, you know, what's going on with the Russia. Are they going to attack Ukraine? We're worried about China. And are they going to try to take over Taiwan? Are there there are a lot of those types of things out there.
And I don't want to just go and glance over this because it is a pattern that I think is getting to the point of deep, deep concern. And that is the perception of what President Biden believes is real and is not real. Now, through the decades, he's had trouble with plagiarism and, you know, and
enlarging stories for his own personal political game, but then plagiarism of stealing other people's work and calling it his own, almost verbatim. That's why he had to drop out of the 1988 presidential race when he got caught in that situation. But this seems to be a little bit different. There was a Fox News story just the last few days where he was on a bridge and
in New Hampshire. He was talking about this bipartisan infrastructure bill and the president said, and I'm quoting here, "...without this bridge, as I said earlier, it's a 10-mile detour just to get to the other side. And I know, having had a house burned down with my wife in it, she got out safely, God willing, that having a significant portion of it burn, I can tell, 10 minutes makes a hell of a difference."
End quote. Here's the problem. According to Fox News, according to a 2004 report from the Associated Press, which was archived by LexisNexis, it said that there was a lightning strike on the Bidens' home, which is dramatic. It started, quote, a small fire that was contained to the kitchen, end quote. The report said firefighters got the blaze under control in 20 minutes and that they were able to keep the flames from spreading beyond the kitchen. So,
hardly burning the house down with your wife in it. Now, maybe she was home at the time, but the exaggeration, the perception, I mean, it goes to this story that the president keeps telling about Amtrak and how this person at Amtrak that works there was, you know, this conversation and he relays all of this
but the person had died the year before. And so, you know, sometimes people make a mistake, you know, when you're, I'm sure the age that he is, I'm sure there are some stories a little fuzzy. My guess is there's some fuzzy stories that I tell from, you know, 35 years ago or something, but it just keeps going on and on and on. And the repetition of this stuff, you just really do worry about the mental health
of somebody like the President of the United States, I don't think this can be ignored much longer.
I think there need to be some serious questions asked. I think the chief of staff, some of those senior advisors, Jill Biden herself, these are the people that have the close proximity as well as the White House doctor that at some point really need to look at this because if he's going to keep going off and not have a clear perception of reality, that goes beyond the exaggeration. That gets to mind drift and other things that...
I don't know what the scientific terms for it is, but it's something we ought to be scared about because he was there talking about infrastructure and a tour. Next thing you know, he's talking about his house burning down with his wife in it, which is not what happened. It just kind of, anyway, I think that's an issue too. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Kennedy right after this.
Jason in the House, the Jason Chaffetz podcast. Dive deeper than the headlines and the party lines as I take on American life, politics, and entertainment. Subscribe now on foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts. All right, it's time to bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪
All right, I also went to foxnews.com to find this, and I don't know. Maybe I should have a different category for somebody just being stupid, but when you're a public policyholder and you've got a high-profile position, maybe like attorney general for your state, and the state is Michigan. Now, on the one hand, Dana Nessel, I think is how you pronounce her name. We'll just call her the attorney general.
I give her kudos for admitting out loud that she drank too much alcohol on an empty stomach during a tailgate before a college football game. And this is about a month ago. Didn't sound like she sugarcoated it, but she did post up a photo. And she said, quote, I laid low for a while, but my friends recommended alcohol.
And this is why I put it in the stupid category because this quote, as a public policy holder, the attorney general for your state, these are words to live by. Here we go. Ready? Ladies and gentlemen, here it is. The quote. You never want to have to say this. I laid low for a while, but my friends recommended that I leave
so as to prevent me from vomiting on any of my constituents." You know, as somebody who held public office themselves, I can recommend anybody who's running for office or anybody who's in office
Yes, the low bar of preventing me from vomiting on any of my constituents is a laudable goal. So yes, that sounds pretty stupid. I give her kudos in A plus for being candid about it. She posted a picture in which she looks awful and she does look hammered.
And when your friends, your neighbors, your loved ones, whoever it was, said, hey, let's have you go home rather than vomiting on your constituents at the football game between Michigan and Michigan State. Yeah, that's maybe you've maybe had a little too much. Evidently, she left early. She was assisted as she walked out. And somebody actually put her in a wheelchair to get her back to work.
And then she said she was driven home by a designated driver. I certainly hope so. It doesn't sound like there was an incident and doesn't sound like she vomited on any of her constituents. And that to me, folks, is bringing on the stupid.
All right, we're getting ready to call up our friend Kennedy. But I wanted to say this before we get there because this is... We're going to air this the week of Thanksgiving. And I just want to make sure we're all pausing and giving thanks. And I hope that we don't just give thanks on...
on Thanksgiving Day itself. I do truly hope as a nation, as a people, as an individuals, that we pause and give thanks. And I really want to highlight the people that are serving our nation as the first responders. They're on Thanksgiving. They're there at the hospitals responding to 911 calls, uh,
in the ambulances, work in the phones as dispatchers. But we also have an awful lot of our fellow men and women who are serving in our United States military and our foreign service that are overseas serving our country. One of the great privileges that I had in Congress, I think, was to go out on Thanksgiving and
and go on the San Jacinto, which was part of the Eisenhower Carrier Group. And to the men and women who are out there this year on the San Jacinto, I'm glad that I had the honor and privilege of joining you in one of the Thanksgiving of the past. We were out there just off the coast of Iran, about 16 or so miles off the coast of Iran last
And it was surreal to be out there that day and spend the night and then help to serve the Thanksgiving turkey and meal. I thought it was funny that the sailors got a real kick out of my... You know, I was back there helping to serve the mashed potatoes and gravy and, you know, some turkey and whatnot. But...
the pitch of the ship is such that it's not a steady floor. Now, as you can imagine, being out on a ship in the high seas like that, and it was a little blustery, not too bad, but a little blustery. But for me, I'm a rookie, and I was sliding all over the place, and I think they did get a kick out of it. Fortunately, I didn't fall, but a lot of good men and women out there serving, and I was amazed in the array of people. You know, those ships are
by and large, 20-year-olds, some 30-year-olds, and a couple, handful that are maybe in their 40s, very young people from all across the country, people whose paths would have never crossed before.
You'd be amazed as they watch in the radar and the other sensitive classified information that's coming across, keeping an eye to see if they were going to have somebody try to take out the ship and just to be ready with that carrier group to do whatever they're called upon to do. Working all kinds of shifts, tight living quarters. I just can't thank them enough for their service. And there are people like that in corporations.
Korea and just all over the world serving on behalf of the United States of America. It's dangerous and they're away from their family. We love them. We care for them and we hope that they also have a great Thanksgiving. With that said, I want to give a call to one of the people I was honored and privileged to get to know and I mean have a real fun with. My wife Julie and I, we just have so much fun whenever we're in New York. She has a Fox Business show. It's a great fun time.
time. She is wicked smart. She knows her stuff and asks good probate questions and does so with a big smile on her face. So let's give a call to Kennedy.
Hello? That's how you answer the phone? Kennedy, this is Jason Chaffetz. Oh my gosh, the Honorable Jason Chaffetz? Former Congressman, former Chair of the House Oversight Committee? That Jason Chaffetz. I know you know a lot of Jason Chaffetz's, and I appreciate the formality because I do insist on it. Hard to narrow it down. Well, I do. The Honorable, I kind of get used to it.
I would like to be called Dr. Kennedy, but I have not attended a university or medical facility for long enough to have that title. So maybe at some point. Well, that doesn't slow down a lot of people. I mean, Jill Biden is not an actual medical doctor and we call her a doctor. It's true.
We sure do. She wrote a really just knock-em-dead dissertation on community college. Woo! Yes, doctor. So, Dr. Kennedy, thank you so much for joining us here. You're one of our favorite people, and particularly my wife, Julie. I go to New York sometimes, and I bump into – and she always says, well, did you see Kennedy?
Like, she really digs you. She really likes you. I think when your wife is here, we should go to some musicals because your wife is super, super fun. Well, thank you for saying that. So if we were there and we were in New York, where would you take us? Ooh, I'm really boring, so we'd probably go to Del Frisco's.
All right. Everybody listening to this podcast has no idea how funny that is because Del Frisco's is like right next to Fox News. It's very expensive. And it's a boring restaurant with fancy, expensive food. That's absolutely right. And a lot of Fox people go there. And a lot of Fox people go there because...
Well, it's, you know, all the way across the street. Have you seen the Book of Mormon? Were you offended by it? I would actually really like to see it. I have not yet seen it, even though I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You know, one of the things I'm proud of is that our church bought an ad in the Playbill program saying, now that you've seen the play, now you need to read the book.
I think that's a very smart idea. That's great marketing because, you know, a lot of people perhaps were not exposed to the church until they saw that musical. And, you know, oftentimes when you dip your toe into something, you want to dive right into the entire pool. Well, it is a bit raucous and a bit, from what I understand, having not seen it, a little off message from what the church is actually trying to
to share, but I've heard that it's actually pretty funny along the way. So I don't know that my wife wants to see it, but maybe you could take us or we could go somewhere like, I don't know, somewhere else. Lion King?
Okay, we saw Shrek. I love Wicked. I have to say Wicked. We've seen Wicked. Yeah, Wicked's awesome. And I've seen it like four times. But again, like Del Frisco's, I'm the kind of person that once I do something once, I just keep doing the same thing over and over again. You would take us off Broadway. There's no way you're going to a Broadway show. No, we're going to see something non-traditional, absolutely. Oh, thank you. I do appreciate it. Do you ever kind of like...
Just sit back and say, yeah, I'm Dr. Kennedy, and I can't believe that night after night, day after day, I'm on Fox News. Like, was that the lifelong dream when you were a little girl growing up? Yeah, actually, I was into politics and music then.
with the same intensity all throughout high school. I loved politics and I loved music. So I just assumed, and we had to write an essay our eighth grade year, and I wrote in my essay that we had to write our own eulogy. And so I wrote that I was a two-time Emmy Award winner and the only former Emmy Award winner who was also vice president of
So I didn't think that I was going to ascend to the presidency, but I really, really was convinced when I was 13 that I was going to be vice president. And that seemed pretty great. Well, that would be pretty great. And it would make for very interesting politics to have you as the vice president of the United States. I think you could probably outdo what's going on right now. I'm just guessing. A jar of mustard could, let's be honest. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Oregon. I was born in Indiana and my parents went westward and just sort of stayed in Oregon. Otherwise, they would have fallen into the Pacific and that would have been sad. And I, you know, I grew up, my dad watched a lot of news and we watched 60 Minutes every Sunday night and we would watch the evening news every night when he came home from work and it was very loud news.
And I was always trying to figure out what certain terms meant. And then when I was in high school, I developed an unnatural obsession with Dan Quayle. And I was a member of the Teen Republicans and he came and spoke to us. And I stared at him and made eye contact with him the whole time. And I think I made him very, very nervous. Yeah.
I'm sure there are a few Secret Service agents that were a little bit nervous too. Okay, so wait, I can understand the love and the passion and the excitement about music. Totally get it, right?
Dan Quayle? Yeah. Teenage girl. Where did that come from? Well, he was a senator from Indiana. So I remember when he was on the secret shortlist, my dad – we were in Indiana visiting my grandmother at the time. And my dad was like, you know, Bush might pick Dan Quayle. And I was thinking like there's absolutely no way. And he did. Yeah.
And so that was a big deal. So as Hoosiers, we were so excited. So I was excited for the guy. I thought that he had youth and passion and those dreamy blue eyes. And I really gravitated toward politics in high school because the people who were into politics were so different than –
anyone in my friend group than anyone that I had known who, you know, at that point, I'd really hung out with jocks and weirdos. And so the political crowd, they were smart and disinterested in everybody else, which I thought made them cool in their own way. And everyone got to argue.
And I grew up in a very argumentative family. So arguing all the time about stuff you cared about seemed like a lot of fun. You ended up a little bit more conservative. You're much more, you're not affiliated with any party. I consider you more of a libertarian than I would a Republican or a conservative. Would that be about right? Yeah, I'm.
I'm definitely a philosophical libertarian. I don't belong to the Libertarian Party. There are a lot of candidates who run as libertarians that I vote for. I end up writing in a lot of candidates when I vote because oftentimes there aren't libertarians on the ballot. And if there are, sometimes if I haven't heard of them, I put my friends in like Kat Timpf has done very, very well on the California ballot. And, you know, her name has been sprinkled throughout the judiciary for years now.
So I'm hoping at some point other people sort of catch on and Cat somehow wins a spot on a California bench. I'm telling you, Cat on the bench would be something special. That...
That is must-see TV right there. Yeah, because most things she would let people off for, she'd be like, oh, what? Drugs? Yeah, it's fine. You're doing that? It's consensual? No, you're fine. Don't do that anymore. You're acquitted. No, no, you're good. But then if there were some like,
punk-ass boy who knocked down an old lady, I think she'd probably lock him up in the gulag or Gitmo. She would. She'd send him to Gitmo. Even better. You're not going to Lompoc. You're going to go to Gitmo. That's where you're going to go. Surprise. You think you're going to hurt an old lady? You little bastard. No, I think that she would be great and her lectures from the bench would be fantastic.
Yeah, you know, it's sort of like why I watch Judge Judy. You know, it's just kind of fun. This is where I think Fox, if I can be critical of the management here, they're missing the mark with Trey Gowdy. Put Trey Gowdy in a courtroom setting and let him be the judge and question people? No.
that would be much better television. I think that would be great. I think that's actually a great idea and that would be a great Fox Nation show. Now, to be a judge, you don't really have to have done anything. Trey Gowdy went to law school, so he was a prosecutor, so he
He's got all the requirements and the hair. He would be a great judge. I'm going to pitch that to John Finley for a Fox Nation show. Don't tell Trey Gowdy yet because we've got to get the whole thing. We've got to get the treatment together. We've got to write everything up. Got to pitch it to John Finley. He has to approve it. And then we'll let Trey Gowdy know. We'll tell him that it's part of his contract. And I'll give you creator credit. But we should absolutely do that. That would be a fantastic show and just let Trey Gowdy dress people down.
Yeah, you know, and he does it with such an incredibly straight face. And don't worry, nobody listens to my podcast anyway, so nobody's going to know about this. You go ahead and pitch the show. It'll be just fine. It'll be like a big surprise. But you just got to fit people in the right thing. He went with the straight face. Now, let me understand what you did and how you did it. It's the kind of stuff...
That I saw him doing in Congress and that I wish they would provide an opportunity to hear it out, like to be a judge on a show. I just want to be Rusty. I just want to be that guy who's sitting at the stand. The bailiff, Rusty Burrell. That's right. With his hands in his pants, just saying. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, watch it. Under his belt. Under his belt. Just resting. Just resting. That's all.
You know Rusty. Yeah, and then I'd be Doug Llewellyn. I was primed to be Doug Llewellyn. Don't take the law into your own hands. Take him to Trey Gowdy's court. That's right. That's right. And we could bring Tyrus in. Tyrus would be a good...
He could be my counterpart, right? He could stand on either side of Trey Gowdy. He could just growl at people. Yes. And then we could rotate it. Yeah. I'd let you be the judge sometimes. And let Kat be the judge. Kat would be a great judge. Let Kat be the judge. Yeah. And let Tyrus be the judge sometimes, too. Yeah. Just rotate those four or five positions, and then, you know. It's like a judicial commune. I really like how this is coming together, Jason. Yeah. You have a new calling. I don't think that you've realized. No.
Okay. So let's go back to dreamy eyes. Um, uh, the vice president here, Mr. Do you have his number? Have you ever talked to him on the phone? I,
I have met him. You know, his son served in Congress. I know. I know. And I've tried to book Dan Quayle on my show like 700 times. And they're always like, yeah, no, he's busy or he won't get back to us. And I'm like, what did I do? Like, what did I do? I talked to him on the phone one time when I was at MTV and he was very nice and he sent me an autographed picture.
Oh, he did. But I think he probably found out. So I used to have an official picture that I bought in a DC gift shop, probably at the Hinkley Hilton. That's where you get the official ones. Yes. And it was like a tag board, really thick, beautiful portrait of,
of the former vice president and Mrs. Quayle. And so I put that up on my wall in New York City in my apartment on East 7th Street, and I cut out my face, and I taped it on over Marilyn's face, and I had that on my bedroom wall for five years. So weird that I didn't have a boyfriend. Huh.
If you did have one come over, they saw that. Yikes. Yeah, it didn't last. How weird. That is so funny. All right. So you love music. You love Dan Quayle. That's quite the combination, especially in Oregon. Yeah. How in the world did you end up on MTV? So it was really interesting. My parents, they- Back when, by the way, back when MTV was actually about music, like that-
And it was fairly new because MTV, when I got there, was only 11 years old, which at the time seemed ancient. Like it was very established because, you know, at the time it was owned by Viacom and, you know, Viacom...
is and was a massive corporate entity. And so I was interning at a music radio station in Los Angeles, an alternative radio station, KROQ. And my program director, Andy Schoen, was very young. He was only 25 and they called him the boy wonder because he was the youngest program director in any major market on any in any radio format in the country. And he was a programming genius. I
And he was really good at assessing people's talent and really encouraging their gifts. And so I used to go into his office all the time and say, Andy, put me on the air. And one day he did. I had been at the radio station for about 10 months interning for free. And he said, OK, I'm going to give you a two night trial.
So it was two nights on the overnight. And then after that, he said, it was rough, but you made me laugh a couple times. So I'm going to give you a regular air shift on the overnights. And then, and that was in December of 1991. I mean, KROQ is no small station. KROQ in Los Angeles, come on. That's a huge market. Number two market in the country. And you're doing well done. I've,
loved K-Rock in high school. My chiropractor used to have her friends record K-Rock on, you know, big countdown weekends and then she would give me the tapes after she listened to him a hundred times. So he then was poached by MTV to be a
senior vice president of programming. They had heard about some of the promotions that he had done. And so he went to MTV in May of 1992. And I'd only been on the air for five or six months. So I thought that I was going to get fired by the next program director. Yeah. And Kevin Weatherly, who ended up being the
Yeah.
And then he talked Judy McGrath and Doug Herzog into hiring me as a VJ. And I did the audition when I was 19. And then a couple days after my 20th birthday, I moved to New York. And that was it. And how long were you at MTV? Almost six years. Was it as cool as, like, I was thinking it would be? Any teenager in America would think that it would be? It was even cooler because...
So many of the people they hired were between 20 and 25. So, so many of the PAs and the interns and the creatives were young music fans. And off camera, we had even more fun than we had online.
And on camera, we had a great time. But it was also an interesting time of music because it wasn't snobbish. Like, you know, we really were encouraged to develop our music taste and, you know, listen to and go see and watch other artists.
genres of music that we weren't affiliated with and it was great. And just getting to go to some of the boxing matches because Showtime put on a bunch of the boxing matches and they were partly owned by Viacom so we would get
like these incredible tickets to boxing matches. So, you know, we saw Holyfield Bo and Holyfield Tyson and I think, you know, Butterbean. Like, did Mike Tyson fight Butterbean? Like, I remember seeing Butterbean fight. And I was like, God, this guy's amazing. Wish I were Butterbean. Wish people called me that.
which people were scared of me and called me butterbean, but neither of those things happened. So you loved MTV because you got boxing tickets, and you must have seen an amazing array of talent going through the doors and coming on the shows and
going to concerts along the way. Yeah, but that's what was so much fun is there's so many people who would come and perform, you know, on my show on Alternative Nation in 120 minutes, and they would oftentimes combine performances. So we would, 120 and Alternative Nation would use performances from various bands. But yes, like, you know, TLC would walk in and LL Cool J would walk in.
And then, you know, some of the guys from Mudhoney would be there. And Paul Westerberg from The Replacements, whom I idolized, I loved Paul Westerberg. So he came to MTV and did, you know, great sit-down interview with 120 Minutes. And oftentimes...
We would piggyback. So Rick Hanke, the executive producer of 120 Minutes, would interview bands off camera. And then I would do a shorter on-camera interview with bands for Alternative Nation. So we were going to do that with Paul Westerberg. And he was so nice. And he was like, yeah, no, I'm so excited. This is great. Let me just, I'm going to run next door to the deli and get a pack of cigarettes. I'm like, oh, great.
So we're all set up. He was mic'd up. He's like, you know, let me take this mic off and I'm just going to run right here and get some smokes and I'll be right back. And so I'm just sitting there and sitting there and sitting there and 10 minutes goes by, 20 minutes goes by. Oh, my God. He's not coming back. And he just left. He just completely went AWOL, walked out the door. He was like, you know what? I don't feel like doing another interview. And he just left.
And I was like, this is so funny. It was such a punk rock thing to do. And I saw him a couple years later. I'm like, why'd you do that? He's like, no, I just didn't feel like talking anymore. I was like, okay. We're done. Yeah. That's it. Good.
Good way to kind of end the show. So that eventually comes to an end. And then what did you do? I moved to Seattle and started doing talk radio in Seattle and, you know, really started sort of fiddling with a more non-traditional talk radio format because I had been so hugely influenced by Howard Stern and
And so I was on an FM talk station and FM talk was relatively new. And, you know, my show on The Buzz in Seattle, which doesn't exist anymore, was before Tom Likas. And so and I had known Tom Likas as a serious talk radio guy in L.A. And, you know, I had listened to him. He was very, very popular. But then he sort of switched to like, no, women are stupid. It's, you know, take me on Columbine stuff. Right. Right. Right.
And it's like, yeah, yeah, you got to break up with a broad and never give a woman a diamond ring. And it was such nonsense. But I always liked talking to Tom off the air because he knew everything about radio. And he knew how to be successful. And, you know, the formula for success, even though his content didn't resonate with me, I really appreciated what he had to say about the formula.
the format. And so, you know, I just, I tried to screw around with it a little bit and then moved back to LA in 2000 to do a talk radio show on an early internet radio site, which was just a little too early to be successful. And it was called Comedy World. And, you know, it was, it was,
really cool. I did a show with Amit Zappa and Greg Barrett did a show and Bobby Rivers and Ken Ober, God rest his soul, the host of Remote Control on MTV and Beth Lapidus, like,
All these different comics. Rover did a show there for a while. He still has a successful morning show. And, you know, I did that. And then Jody Sherman, who was the CEO, lied to all of us and told us that they had two years of funding. And then six months in, he called a staff meeting. He's like, yeah, we don't exist anymore. No one has health insurance. No one's getting paid. Wow.
Oh, wow. Yeah. And then, you know, he had a very complicated life after that, and he ended up taking his own life. And yeah, it was very, very sad. But he had a lot of creativity and a lot of ideas, but, you know, more demons. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Kennedy right after this.
So you're bouncing around doing that. And then how in the world did you end up with Fox News? So I had started working with...
Reason, doing pieces for Reason TV and writing for Reason.com. And they had approached me about developing sort of a Sunday morning libertarian talk show. And so we went and pitched it to Fox. And John Stossel was hosting a weekend show on Fox Business. And he hired me to be his correspondent. And
in 2012. And then I started covering things for Stossel and did, you know, tons of really fun and dangerous packages. You know, he sent us to Detroit and to a gun range, an outdoor gun range with bullets whizzing by our heads in Austin to shoot the 3D printed gun. And, you know, we went to a raucous, uh,
public school meeting in Oakland because there was a guy there named Ben Chavis who was running very popular charter schools that were infringing on some of the Oakland public city schools and so there was a lot of pushback there but he he sent us all over and then we pitched a show called The Independence that was on Fox Business for a while and that was canceled and then
My show debuted in January of 2015. Well, for those of you that haven't seen Kennedy's show, you've got to watch it. You do such a great job. I mean, it's just funny, but you're hitting the main issues, and you've drawn out the points and points of consideration that people should think about. And I think you do a fabulous job with it.
Well, you are so kind. I love it. I mean, I have to say, and this is all I want for my girls, find something that you love. And, you know, chances are if it's something you really, really love, it's going to be more competitive. So if that's the case, then you have to work harder and you have to figure out what your gifts are and what your deficits are and try and reduce your deficits and increase your gifts. And, you know, it's like it's a fine balance of
that we all have to go back to constantly. But when you are blessed to apply that to something that you love, for me, that's where real fulfillment comes from. And I love where I work. I love the people I work with. I look forward every day to coming in and knocking things out with my team. And, you know, it's like, crony up!
as they say in Greek, which means many years. Well, you've been obviously very successful at this through the years, but a lot of people wanted to be on MTV. A lot of people want to be on Fox, but you do it and you're successful. What's the difference? What's the secret sauce for Kennedy? I think it's I don't hear no.
No, I hear not now. And then I go back and I just find a different way of doing things. And I think, you know, I think when people operate with a sense of entitlement, they
they shortchange themselves. But when someone tells you no and you think of it as a minor obstacle and then you just go back and try and figure out, okay, then what can I do better or differently or both that will change that to a yes? And then, you know, and I think there's just, you know, a little bit of tenacity and I just, I keep going and I keep going and I just try and keep my head down and, you know, try not to get in too much trouble, but try and have as much fun as possible.
Well, that you definitely do. But go back to early, early little girl Kennedy again. I mean, not everybody can speak and think and do the instant creative thoughts that you do. What were you doing as a little girl that was like gave you those experiences or that just pop out of you naturally when you were like four years old? No, I have two older brothers and, you know, who were both funny and very quick and
And so the only way you score points in my family was to have comebacks. And so, you know, you had to be at the ready and it had to be faster and it had to be more furious than whatever anyone started out with. And, you know, we also we we listened to a lot of comedy albums and we watched a lot of movies.
Monty Python and like Blazing Saddles and Fletch and Young Frankenstein and things like that that were goofy but like also kind of
smart funny, which we didn't even realize and appreciate. I think like as a kid, like I liked all the goofball stuff, but then as an adult, you appreciate the layers that are in something. Oh my gosh, that's actually really, really smart. And, you know, I went back and watched the Netflix documentary on Monty Python, Dagan McDowell. That was a great request.
or recommendation from her. And then I went back and watched some of the movies and I realized, you know, why it's so brilliant and why that is so much harder. And I never wanted to be a comic because I always felt that stand-up comedy was so incredibly difficult and there was such a tremendous downside. So I always wanted to be kind of incidentally funny. And that was, you know, have a point of view and something that was substantive, positive,
But then, you know, every once in a while, Be Funny, and someone described my show as, you know, it starts out like buttoned up like a normal political talk show. And then by the end, by the time you get to Topical Storm and Kenna Dogs and Mouth Trumpet Monday, like the wheels have completely fallen off the wagon. So it's like...
one wheel at a time until the end when it's just like utter chaos. And I think that's probably a pretty good description. Yeah, I think it is. I think you've captured it. I think that's about right. But it really is fun. And I think it makes it that much more engaging. And so hats off to you. Do you like TV as much as you liked being in Congress?
You know, I used to joke around. I've been trying to pitch different things and I'd say, you know, come on, I had the number one rated show on C-SPAN and I've already hosted that. So, you know, I really do buy into this whole Margaret Thatcher thing is that is first you got to win the idea, the thought, and then you can go back and win the vote. And I love communications. I actually majored in it. I actually, that's kind of what got me into politics.
And I've always felt that, like on the conservative end of the aisle, that we should be about policy and should be thinking these things through. But most people are so pathetic in their ability to communicate and to make an argument and to do so in a cogent way that actually moves people. I've always felt like Republicans in general were really bad at that. And so I get really – I got frustrated in Congress because –
Most members of Congress, they have like spokesperson. And I'm like, you mean you got hired by 800,000 people and you got to hire some 25-year-old to tell people what you think? You got to be kidding me. I never had a spokesperson. I never did that. Like, I'll answer any and all questions. And so I do love that. I love that with Fox, whether it's this podcast or being on the air or guest hosting or doing something, you get out to actually get out and talk about issues. And they're short bursts.
But I'd love it. I think it should be fun. I think it should be engaging. And I think it should be...
a bit entertaining, but it should also cause you to think and then think, yeah, yeah, I think that's right. Or no, that's not right. What's the most important issue to you? What's the one thing that keeps you up at night? I worry about the lack of the 10th Amendment. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution says that... I worry that the federal government has its tentacles in everything. Like, name something the federal government isn't involved with. That, to me, really bothers me. And then
I don't want to give just lip service to the debt. I think it's real. I think it comes back and hurts us at some point. It just bites us. And I, until we do a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, I really worry about it. But if you don't get the 10th amendment, right, then, you know, it's sort of like you feel about all of the amendments, right?
You know, and personal privacy, I think, is paramount, too. So I had to pick big top three. The Fourth Amendment is also up there. How invasive our government is, it just scares me, as I've seen it up close and personal. And I don't know if we can unring this bell. Yeah.
That's the thing is people just get so used to it. They get so complacent about it. And then they think, oh, you know, it's okay if they spy. It's okay if they watch me. It's okay if they do this. Yeah, I haven't been doing anything wrong. What do I care about? Yeah, what could they possibly do to me? I don't, you know, that's what I worry about. It's just...
We need to starve the beast and get them out of our lives. People are smart enough to make their own decisions and come live with the consequences. And so I got a list. It's longer than one, but those are kind of top three right at the moment. I'll take it. Yeah, the judges will accept it.
Good. See, this is why we need a show with the judge, because, you know, I'd love to argue with Judge Gowdy. All right. As soon as both of you are in town, we're going to go to lunch at Del Frisco's and we're going to pitch this and flesh this whole thing out. All right. I got a couple more questions as we wrap this thing up, Kennedy. All right.
Rapid fire. Rapid fire. Here we go. Ready? First concert you attended. The Grateful Dead, Memorial Coliseum. I believe it was 1983. That's pretty good. That's pretty legit. Mine was Michael Jackson. Oh, that's pretty great. Mile High Stadium.
I'm pretty sure that it was him because my seats could not, I literally was at the top row of the furthest part of the stadium. But, you know, that's what you get when you buy scalp tickets. So, but I'm pretty sure it was him. It sounded like him. What was your high school mascot? Oh, the Lakerage Pacers. Are you ready for the Lakerage Pacers? We are ready for you.
Did you play any sports? Did you do anything like that? No, I traded track for show choir in seventh grade and never looked back. And my dad was devastated. I did play soccer, kind of rec soccer. Because you are a runner. You are a runner. I'm a triathlete, Matt. Come on now. Oh, sorry. Yes. Yes. I have to qualify that because running is really, it really is the worst part. Well, you had that ankle injury, right? For a while. Not a short amount of time. So I hope that's on the mend. That's good. Yeah, you and I both.
First celebrity crush. That's a really good one. Probably Leaf Garrett. Okay, the show has never heard Leaf Garrett, but I know Leaf Garrett because I'm old enough to know who Leaf Garrett is. That's a good one. Yeah, I was very young. Oh, he was dreamy. Yeah, that guy was the top of the food chain there for a while. Yeah.
Most people don't know this about you, but you eat very well. So favorite vegetable? Oh, that's a great question. I do incorporate a lot of baby spinach into what I eat pretty much every day. I like a good sliced Persian cucumber. But I have to say, because I'm half Romanian, half Scottish,
I'm a sucker for cabbage. Cabbage? You're going with cabbage? All the vegetables and you're going with cabbage? I love cabbage so much. Like, I love sauerkraut. I love cabbage rolls. I love cabbage soup. That's another first for the show. But I got to tell you, most people, not most, several people, when I ask for their favorite vegetable, can't name a vegetable. So that's cabbage. Okay, well.
The judges will accept that, but that is a first and I doubt we'll ever be challenged again. I guarantee you any Eastern European person listening and any Scottish person would be like, yep, I get it. I'm down. So if you met Bigfoot, what would you ask him? Are you alone? Are there others? And why are you so stinky? Because apparently Bigfoot...
has a very putrid smell. And those who have come in contact with said beast are overcome by how stank he is. That's a good question.
That is a good question. Most embarrassing moment? God, there are so many. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how you narrow it down. That's a fine question. This was this really as a broadcaster. This is a doozy. I still laugh about it to this day. So I was here was covering the Olympics.
for CBS in 1998 in Nagano. And there was an all-hands-on-deck meeting trying to figure out how we were going to do the closing ceremony and who was going to be where and who was going to interview who. And it's always a big deal in the closing ceremony, like, which decorated...
is going to be carrying the American flag. And it's always, you know, it is a true point of honor. Patriotic moment. Absolutely. And, you know, you're representing your country. You're representing the Olympic ideal. And, you know, historically, you've had so much experience that everyone on the team, you
new and veteran really looks up to you. And oftentimes it's more obscure athletes that maybe you don't know of, but sometimes they're pretty big names. So one of the senior producers said, who do you think is going to carry the flag during the closing ceremony? And I looked at him and I go, Wayne Gretzky. And he looked at me like...
Like, I was the dumbest person in the world. And I was like, I'm totally kidding. But I took too long to say it. And my face was bright red. And I was like, I know he's Canadian. That was a total joke. I just said that because he played for the New York Rangers. Okay. But I know it's not Wayne Gretzky. I know that. But he looked at me like I was the dumbest person in the world. That is a great answer.
All right, if you could meet one person, dead or alive, have them over for dinner, who would that person be? Socrates. Oh, interesting answer. You got some questions for that philosopher, don't you? Yes, I do. Absolutely. And I got to stand in what they believe is the cell where Socrates died. And I got to read philosophy and
at the ruins of Plato's Academy. Wow. Yep, when I was in Greece. You've obviously thought this through. I'm impressed. No, I have a lot of very specific questions about the Socratic dialogues, the Socratic method, sophistry, all sorts of stuff. Wow. All right. Unique talent that nobody knows about. Oh, that I have? Yeah.
Yeah. What's my unique talent? Well, not Wayne Gretzky. You. Yeah. My ability to channel Wayne Gretzky's greatness. I'm really, really good at getting knots out. Really? Yep. So when my daughter had three necklaces that she'd been wearing at once, all with very thin chains, and I had to extract them from her neck so she could go to a soccer game. I had a needle and...
And a pair of pointy, pointy tweezers. And I had to work. And it was like a movie where there was a time bomb that was about to go off on a safe. You know, I've got my stethoscope and the safe. And it's like tick,
But I was able to remove all three necklaces and they were unharmed. Yeah, as you were saying that, I was thinking of 24, you know, the show 24 where they're in, you know, some big city like Washington, D.C., but they're always four minutes away from wherever they need to be. And that time is ticking down. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. And I can fall asleep anywhere. See, I can fall asleep on a plane. In fact, I have a hard time not falling asleep. As soon as the plane pulls...
pulls away. I'm out. Yeah, that's it. That's like, I feel like they pump something into the plane ether that is, it's a narcotic because the second they start to taxi toward the runway, I'm like, I think it's because I forces me to sit still and I don't sit still very well and I can't move my legs and I always get a window seat and I just fall asleep. Window seats, the best. It's the key. It is the key.
All right, what do you believe about UFOs? Oh, I believe that they are absolutely real. And there are so many, there are civilizations beyond our comprehension. And, you know, it will be very interesting to learn how they overcame the laws of physics as we know them to traverse the heavens to make little visits. Make little visits. Have you been visited? I do not believe I have been visited, no. All right, just checking. Last one, best advice you ever got.
Really, really good one. You kind of gave it in the middle of the show here, the middle of the podcast. But, you know, we'll see if you got another one in you. Yeah. And I do like advice from old ladies. The one piece of advice I got I can't repeat because it's a little bit filthy. From an old lady? Yeah.
Yeah. I would say go big or go home is always good. My family motto is if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. And my dad would always say that. And I think you can apply that to pretty much anything because, you know, when it's bigger and there's more pageantry, it resonates in your heart. And I really like that.
Well, you're certainly applying it because you're having great success and it's a lot of fun to interact with you just personally one-on-one, but also what you're doing at Fox. You've done a fabulous job of that. You made a lot of people smile and think along the way. Yeah.
I truly appreciate you joining me here on the Jason in the House podcast. I really do. You are so kind. Jason Chaffetz, I can't wait to see you back in the flesh. And you and Mrs. Chaffetz and I, by gum, we're going to go to a wholesome show, and we will change the world for the better. Del Frisco's in Lion King it is. Sounds good to me. Yes.
Kennedy, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Kennedy is just like, I mean, yes, you hear that conversation. You just know you just, she is just a fun, fun person to be around and very thoughtful. And I had Dan Quayle. I had no idea. That was kind of fun. All right. So thanks for listening to the Jason in the house podcast. We're hoping that you can review it, rate it, like it, subscribe to it.
We've got a lot of good, interesting people coming up and an archive of people that we've had discussions with through the months here. You can go over to foxnewspodcast.com to find some other podcasts that are out there. And we'd appreciate it if you'd join us again next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.
From the Fox News Podcasts Network. In these ever-changing times, you can rely on Fox News for hourly updates for the very latest news and information on your time. Listen and download now at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
