Congressman Thomas Massie: From MIT To The Halls Of Congress 57:30

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. Hi, I'm Jason Chaffetz and welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. Thanks again for joining us

got some good stuff we're gonna have 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 somebody who served with in the united states congress

Somebody who can be a little controversial from time to time, representative from the good state of Kentucky, Thomas Massey will be joining us. We'll give him a shout, give him a ring and see what he has to say about life and his approach. He's really kind of a little bit more of a libertarian leaning Republican. He frustrates the Republican side of the aisle, the Democratic side of the aisle, that's for sure.

and just believes in smaller government. And I think you'll find him to be a fascinating individual because his background is just truly is amazing what he's been able to accomplish professionally and

And I'm always curious about how people think these things through. And obviously the people in Kentucky like them, they keep re-electing them. So I think it'd be good to kind of dive a little deeper into the background of Thomas Massey. So that's coming up. But first, let's give you a little riff on the news because, you know, I wrote a book called Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste, The Truth About Disaster Liberalism. There's so many different facets about this. And that's why I wrote the book.

But one of the things that's really bothering me here today is that, and it's not just Facebook, but Facebook and other social media companies are taking it upon themselves to be the lords, the overlords, if you will, of free speech within our country. And

Part of what we're reading about now is that they are looking to dive deeper, not only to control what is said and who can say it by banning certain people and certain speech, not speech that's been prohibited in the past, such as pornography, child pornography, or perhaps inciting a riot, yelling fire in the theater. Those types of limitations on free speech, I think, have been well established.

But discussions about medicine, about politics, about talking through different issues, they want to ban those too. And I guess what's really scary is they want to take it now to a whole new level. And there are stories that the Biden administration is working with these telecom providers and these providers so that they are looking at text messages, right?

Now, you know what? A text message between me, my wife, between me, you, whoever, that's personal one-on-one communication. And you know what? The Fourth Amendment, I think, gives us protection against an unreasonable search and seizure, but an unreasonable search of our private communications. If you're a suspicionless American, that is, you are somebody who

who is not under suspicion, is not on probation, somebody who doesn't have a warrant out for their arrest, if there's not a court order in place, if the police doesn't have any articulable suspicion, which is a legal term that they use. But if you're just a suspicionless American and you want to communicate, that's your own private business. And I think Americans have...

an expectation and a right to be able to communicate with who they want without the government monitoring that type of communication. They'll say, "Well, we're just looking at the metadata. We're just looking for certain keywords.

But the problem is, is an article that I read here recently where the Pentagon is now supposedly reportedly working with an extremism analysis company that considers the Web search, quote, the truth about Black Lives Matter, end quote, and others to be signs of interest or engagement with white supremacy.

So if you go out and you search the truth about Black Lives Matter, they're going to take that and extrapolate it out and believe that you are engaging or potentially engaging in white supremacy. That's absurd. This is an organization, Black Lives Matter, that has taken on some extremely radical positions like defunding the police, like getting rid of the nuclear family.

And the concern is that according to, and I'm reading from the article, according to Defense One, the contractor Moonshot CVE, which has ties to the Obama Foundation, is working on data that would identify which military bases and branches have the most troops searching for domestic extremist content. So the question is, what would extremist content be?

That opens up a whole other can of worms. I mean, this is what the group says about it. This search suggests that the BLM movement has nefarious motives and is a disinformation narrative perpetuated by white supremacist groups to weaponize anti-BLM sentiment, end quote. That is...

The extrapolation of this information is dangerous territory. I think until the American people understand that you, your communication with the loved one, unless you get on some secure platforms, it's hard to fathom that some other outside group, whether it be a government group, a government contracted group, or just a social media company is out there monitoring that information. You know, don't you find it a little creepy sometimes if

I once sent an email to my wife about the need to look for furniture. We were looking for a couch. All of a sudden, we start getting all these ads for couches. Now, some people like Google, this is their business model. And some people don't have a problem with that. I have a problem with it.

I just find it to be creepy, big brother. Other people say, hey, it's something that we should allow to happen. But you know what? This is the type of thing that there needs to be a clear delineation of what you're getting yourself into when you sign those user agreements.

and to what degree the government is using these, not even with user agreements, but is just unilaterally going in and looking people. So that's one of my concerns. All right, time to bring on the stupid. ♪

Because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right, before the Olympics started, there was this controversy about the Olympic beds. Some said that, you know, the reason that the Tokyo Olympics was going with literally, and I'm not kidding you, cardboard beds is that they wanted to protect people. Some of the theories were, hey, we want to protect people against having personal relations, maybe having a little, you know, foresight.

A fun time with another person on the bed. So if you build a bed that can't withstand two people on it, then that'll inhibit the ability for people to engage in relations, we'll call it. Maybe it was a COVID thing because they wanted people to stay separate in their rooms. But oh, no, no, no, no. The reason the Tokyo Olympics and their wokeness, the reason they wanted to go with, again, these are the world's finest athletes.

culmination of their lifetime of work and they're having to go sleep on a cardboard bed because they want to prove that they can create sustainable products. They want to take all of the beds and then recycle them. And I got to tell you, if I showed up for the Olympics and we had some athletes say, all right, I just can't do this. But I had to sleep on cardboard as opposed to

Ah, I just can't believe it. Well, that's bringing on the stupid as far as I'm concerned, because that was not the place and time to test it. Not the Olympics. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back right after this. The Fox True Crime Podcast presents Crimes on Campus. Sharing chilling stories of scandal, corruption, and murder. New episodes available every Tuesday this month. Listen and follow at foxtruecrime.com.

All right, time to phone a friend. Congressman Thomas Massey is somebody I served with in the United States Congress. He was actually on the Oversight Committee with me when I was the chairman. But he has an amazing background. I think it's going to be very surprising. Some people have been caught in trying to criticize him. But this is somebody who has two degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT.

He's probably the most sustainable person, if you will, in the United States Congress, which drives the left and Democrats crazy. I'm going to ask him about that. But let's dial up Thomas Massey, the congressman from Kentucky.

Hello. Hey, this is Jason Chaffetz. Hey, Jason. How you doing? Hey, thanks so much for joining. I really do appreciate it. Truth be told, the two of us served in the United States Congress and overlapped for some time.

And I got to tell you, it's kind of fun to chat with you again and get an update because, you know, I thought Congress was strange and weird enough already. But then since I left over the last, it's hard to believe, five years, the place seems to have gotten a little bit crazier and nuttier.

I don't know how it could get any nuttier. And was it five years ago we were on the oversight committee together? It seems like yesterday. Well, it was about four years ago, but we're into kind of the fifth year. And yeah, you and I sat there through some of the craziest meetings, trying to do some oversight on this behemoth of a government. And I really thought this would be interesting to chat with you on the podcast today because

You've got a unique view in the world. You know, you've represented the people there in your congressional district in Kentucky for a number of years.

But you've got a little bit more of a libertarian kind of tint to you and approach. And that frustrates some people. But I always thought it was good and refreshing because you were one of the most consistent principled people that I saw there because you just believed what you believed. And, you know, there's a proper role of government. But in large part, big part of government shouldn't even be doing what it's doing. Yeah.

We could take out large swaths of the government and we'd be better off. One of my favorite bills is one sentence that I introduced. It says that the Department of Education shall terminate at the end of this year. That's all the bill says. I think I was a co-sponsor of one of those bills. And there was somebody else who had sponsored a bill. I'm totally with you. I don't even I care so much about education. I don't think there should be a federal Department of Education. Let the money follow the kids.

Absolutely. You know, I went to public school from kindergarten to senior in high school in in eastern Kentucky and I had some of the best teachers. I'm definitely not anti education. I went to MIT after that and got two degrees.

But I felt like, you know, the school system worked for me. We just need to leave it up to the parents and the school boards and the local school districts instead of having the federal government come in and tell the teachers how and what to teach.

All right. So let's talk about little Thomas, the little guy, the guy who was five, six years old. Tell me about growing up, where you were, what was it like? Was it a rich neighborhood? Were you like poverty stricken? What did your parents do? Did you have two parents in the household? I mean, what was life like when you were a little kid and you started forming these memories?

Well, life was difficult for my parents because of me, I think. My mom was a nurse and my dad was a beer distributor. After school, I would go down to the beer warehouse and take empty cases of beer, you know, loose cans and put them in six pack rings. So dad could make 20 cents extra per case if they were sold in six pack rings.

I don't want you to think that we were enslaved or anything. I had great parents. I grew up in eastern Kentucky, and we lived two hours from a mall in any direction. We went to the mall once a year, maybe as a Christmas treat, just to see what a mall was like.

And I was, you know, I'm going to be honest with you. I was bored to tears. So I got into a little bit of trouble here and there. I would take my mom's appliances apart. I'd take my dad's power tools apart. Anything I could disassemble, I would disassemble. My grandmother's radio, I took it apart. And that was in the first grade. I was just into trying to figure out what made everything work.

i'm still trying to figure out what how things work or don't work here in congress but i've had you know and then round about the fourth grade i started putting things back together yeah and but not in the way that you know that would make them work the way they were intended so i built

a robot arm in the seventh grade, I set out to build a robot to clean my room because it was so messy. Like the great thing about my mom and dad is they never went upstairs where my bedroom was. And it was a total wreck and I kept everything I ever took apart.

So I decided I was going to build a robot to clean my room because I hated cleaning my room. And I built the robot arm and I never got around to building the body or the brain. Of course, I didn't know how to build a brain for a robot.

And that's sort of what inspired me to go to college and major in electrical engineering was I needed to figure out how to make the mechanical stuff work. By the way, along the lines, I might have built a few pyrotechnics or two, might have had the fire department called at our house a couple times, you know,

but might've broken my right arm, jumping a ramp with a bicycle and then might've broken my left arm, jumping the same ramp in the wintertime with a sled.

The learned behavior, maybe I didn't exhibit it when it came to risk, but that was sort of the profile of me as a kid in eastern Kentucky growing up. I got into things to keep from getting bored. So that's an interesting approach to life. So you fill out this application and you get into MIT. Yeah.

And what did you learn there? Like, what did you walk away like really understanding and learning? Oh, well, first of all, let me tell you how I walked into MIT. Yes, I filled out the application. I never even visited the campus. I just heard it was a really good school. I read about it at the library. And so I applied and I got in. But the first day I was there, Jason, it was like only the third airplane I'd ever flown on in my life.

And there's one street, it's Massachusetts Avenue that goes through the middle of the campus.

And I walked across this street. Now, we only had one stoplight in our town that I grew up in, in Kentucky. And there wasn't a crosswalk. I mean, there was. So I'm in my first real crosswalk and a car honks at me. You know, that short little Boston toot like, well, I thought, holy cow, I've been here eight hours and already run into somebody I know. Right.

Because back in Kentucky, if a car honks at you and you're on the street,

you turn around and wave. So I turn around and wave at this car. And then I was like, wait, these people don't know me. And somebody said, that's not a true story. I said, not only is it true, it took me like a month to quit waving at that Boston toot because it sounded just like the Kentucky toot that is, hey, how you doing, pedestrian? Not get the hell out of the crosswalk. You know, I'm going somewhere. So anyways...

You know what? People have been honking at you the whole rest of your life. They certainly do in Congress. I'm sorry. Keep going. Keep going. Well, I'm glad they honk. I mean, some of them would just run over me if they could and they found me on the street. They would not give me any warning. So what I guess what I learned at MIT was honestly how to learn.

It's a technology school, but they're really careful because technology changes so quickly. They know if they teach you just a specific programming language or something very specific, sometimes your education will be out of date. So I learned how to learn more than anything. But the specific things I learned were the electrical parts, like how to build a brain for a robot.

And I got a job at the artificial intelligence lab the first week I was at MIT. And I stayed there my whole six years at MIT. I was in the artificial intelligence lab after class building robots. And I actually built a virtual reality device that lets you feel three-dimensional objects inside the computer. And I started a company based on that. By the way, I'm leaving out probably the most important thing. My high school sweetheart--

also went to MIT. We were the first two hillbillies from our county to ever go to MIT. And the way we met was on the academic team. She's two years younger than me and I could do calculus and she hadn't taken calculus yet. And we were on the buzzers and I would buzz in on the calculus questions. I was captain of the math team, you know, the Uber nerd.

And she watched me do my calculus on the paper and figured out calculus by watching me on the academic team and started beating me to the buzzer. So I was love at first, you know, derivation. So she,

We had this little, I don't want to call it a ruse, but, you know, I was building robot arms for science projects. And she decided to build an yttrium-bearing cupric oxide superconductor on her farm. Oh, yeah, I did one of those. Yeah, we all. Yeah. Well, I didn't know anything about it. Let's just pretend that maybe one of us, you know, somebody listening may not know that, what it does. But what exactly would that do?

- Well, if you super cool this alloy that she was making, magnets would float on top of it. They would levitate, but also it had zero resistance, infinite conductivity. So superconductors are pretty cool things.

I didn't know anything about it, Jason, but everybody believed that I could help her. So I was able to go to her house under the guise of this, you know, the nerd who builds robot arms can help the nerd who's making superconductors. And so, you know, it was somewhat plausible that a nerd who's building robot arms could help the other nerd in the county who was making a superconductor. And so I got to go to her house and,

And we started dating and went to the prom together. And one thing leads to another, and two hillbillies end up at MIT. We both worked in the artificial intelligence lab. She was a mechanical engineer. I was an electrical engineer. And we started a company there based on my thesis project, which was a virtual reality device. And we built, we raised $32 million of venture capital. We had 70 employees, two dozen patents,

But we really wanted to be back in Kentucky. We kind of got stuck in New England.

And we did the company for 10 years and then sold our shares in the company and moved back to Kentucky so we could raise our family where we had grown up on the farm where I went to help her with superconductors, which is where we live now. We bought the farm from her parents after we finished, you know, our high-tech world. And by the way, Jason, you know this,

Right now, Congress, it's I think the words virtual reality and artificial intelligence are applicable to Congress. You served here. You know, you when you first get here, you pinch yourself and say, how did I get here? And then you meet your colleagues and you say, how did they get here?

So true. About six months in, you'd start looking around and think, "Did anybody meet you? How did you get elected?" That's right. "What's it like at your town halls?" Anyways, so I tell people, after a few-year hiatus from virtual reality and artificial intelligence, I'm back into virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Yeah, well, I wouldn't call it intelligence, but yeah.

I have actually seen pictures of your home, but just describe for us some of the things that maybe aren't in the typical, you know, Kentucky farmhouse because your Kentucky farmhouse a little different than a lot of the other ones. Yeah. So there's a wrecked Model S in the basement. The battery of it I used to run the entire house.

So we decided to live off the grid. We just wanted to build an autonomous house. My wife and I, we'd worked on automation and I had been on the solar car team at MIT. So we built a house that's 100% solar powered and the toughest part are the batteries. We lived with lead acid batteries in the basement, which is not the best scenario, for like 12 years. And then the lead acid batteries went dead

And I found this used model, wrecked Model S. It had been totaled. And the guy sold me the battery in it. And I brought it home on a trailer from Georgia, took it apart because it's a 400-volt battery and our house runs on 48 volts. And I rewired it, put a computer on it to manage everything. And it's right now, as you and I are speaking, it's running the house.

And if it didn't, my wife would leave me. She's like, you can build any house you want, but it's got to have air conditioning.

And that instantly doubled our power requirements in the House. My wife, by the way, she says our House is a science project and she's the mouse in the project. And that I'll come home on weekends and rearrange the maze and then go to Congress and come back and see if the mouse found the cheese. Is the mouse still doing okay? Well, you guys are still married and it's been a number of years. And my guess is she can fix it too.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think one of the most popular Facebook posts I put up, not nearly to the realm that two MIT graduates did, but...

My wife wanted me so badly to fix the toilet in our master bedroom, and I didn't. And I got back on a plane, and I was in the air, and she was kind of a little not too happy that it didn't get fixed. But she sent me a picture, and it was just her thumb in the air, thumbs up, and she had gone in and fixed it. And so I posted that up on my Facebook, and I told the story about how she had fixed it. And almost everybody that responded to my Facebook post was,

Okay, so Julie fixes things, and why didn't we send her to Congress? Why did we send you? She's the one that fixes things. And it was a point well taken. Yeah. The joke with my wife, you know, we have four kids, and in that third trimester, my wife got this burst of energy. I don't know. I don't even know if I can say these words, but my wife uses the words nesting instinct.

And in her third trimester with one child, she installed actually her last week of the pregnancy. She installed the dishwasher, a new dishwasher.

And then with with another child, she installed the garage door openers like I don't know. So it's almost worth having another kid just to get one of my unfinished projects done because she's sort of always does the real important projects. But that reminds me of your toilet breaking the week I was supposed to come to Congress and be sworn in for the first time in my life.

The pump in our well quit working. You know, we're off the grid. Everything's off the grid, the water, the septic, the electric. And we have to manage it ourselves. But the pump quit working. And I went down there to tap on the motor because that would usually get it going again. But there were no taps left.

And the motor had burned up. The brushes were gone. And I had to go to Congress. And we still had four kids in the house and my wife. And I'm like, OK, how do I go to Congress and come back? And my family is still here and they haven't evacuated. I got a big Milwaukee drill and chucked it to the pump, took out the motor, the original motor from the well pump and chucked this drill to it, you know, that you would drill holes with.

and zip tied the trigger on it and wired it to the original wiring. And it worked so well. Like I went to Congress and my kids had showers. There was a drill pumping all the water at our house that I forgot it was there. And then nine months later, our water quits working again. And I realized a drill will pump the water for your house for about nine months. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's not like you can call, you know, 1-800-ROADER-ROOTER or whatever you're going to do. Like anybody trying to come fix this stuff would probably. Now, what always cracked me up, and I want to say always, but there were several instances along the way, right, where people in the debate on whatever it was in Congress would challenge your credentials. Like, what are you, a rocket scientist? Like, what do you, would you graduate from MIT? And like, yeah.

Do you recall any of these? Because I do. People would just sort of mock you like, come on, you have no idea what you're talking about. Then you'd kind of whip out your credentials and the conversation went a whole different direction. Well, the one that I remember the best, and I think ISA was the chairman at the time. This was before you were the chairman of Oversight.

we had cost coming and we, you know, Lois Lerner had taken the fifth or whatever. And so it was the head of the IRS. He was the head of the IRS. Yeah. He was the head of the IRS. And, um,

I said, okay, so the probability that a hard drive fails on any given day, you know, I gave him the mean time between failure and I said, so, and I walked through the math, right? And I said, so the probability that Lois Lerner's hard drive would just spontaneously fail 12 hours after she got the memo, make sure you don't delete anything. I said, the probability of that happening is like one in 300,000. And I worked through all the math right there in real time.

And he goes, well, that's not how probability works. And I said, well, that's how it worked when I took the class at MIT and like everybody kind of died laughing. Yeah. There's been a few moments like that. Yeah, those are classic moments. And there are a couple other of your colleagues, Mike, former colleagues that were there in the house that also there

There was one I can't remember which member of Congress was in, but literally like live on television got challenged it. Oh, come on. You're not a rocket scientist. And he actually said, well, yeah, I actually am. And well, there was a time there was a time that the Democrats, this was more recently called John Kerry to testify as a climate science expert.

So I looked on his resume and sure enough, he had a science degree. So I asked him about his science degree. And of course it was a political science degree. And so I...

And I said, how appropriate. You are here proselytizing pseudoscience, and you have a pseudoscience degree. And he goes, Mr. Chairman, these are not serious questions. This is not a serious hearing. He was trying to appeal, object to his own testimony. His own resume. What happened?

Yeah, what happened that day, Jason, is everybody enjoyed it so much they kept yielding me their five minutes. And I just tormented that poor guy for like two hours, five minutes at a time. I got tired of it. Jim Jordan came over and like, you know, tried to encourage me to keep going. He's like, I know you're not a mean guy, Thomas, but you got to keep on the attack here.

Oh, see, this is what a lot of people just don't see and understand that you've been tormenting a lot of people in Congress for a long time. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Congressman Thomas Massey right after this. You have a very libertarian bent and approach. And like I said, I've, I've seen the consistency and, and the principles in which you, you, where does that come from? Like,

When you're growing up with your parents, you're like, I mean, you don't just show up and then, you know, suddenly you start thinking like this. Where did that come from? And why did you why did you run for Congress? Well, why I ran for Congress, I'm still asking that question. But when I when I go back and try to think about where when did my ideology develop and how it's why is it so ingrained so deeply? I think it goes back to the topography of eastern Kentucky.

So we have hills, but they're arranged in valleys that we call hollers. Now it's spelled hollow, but you'd be laughed out of your holler if you didn't call it a holler. And the creeks are creeks. But, you know, the thought really in Appalachia is you mind your business and your holler and don't worry about what somebody's doing in their holler unless they come over and ask for some help, in which case you go help them.

And so it's sort of like, you know, live and let live, but go help your neighbor. If you've got any tool you can loan them or help out with, but if they want to do it their way, it's, it's not going to affect you. So let them go about it. So I think that's sort of where the libertarianism creeped in. And, um,

I wasn't really political. I mean, I went to MIT. I did not major in political science. Right. But but I did watch occasionally I would watch C-SPAN and the Sunday shows. And that was about the extent of my political exposure. But there was there was an event that sort of catalyzed it for me saying, you know, maybe the two parties are.

aren't always right. And that was in Waco, Texas, when, you know, there was this group of people and the folks on the left didn't like them because they were religious and they liked guns. And the folks on the right didn't like them because they said they were polygamists and they did drugs. And and what happened is the government came in and said, we're here to help.

And, you know, things turned out horribly. And the media just hook, line and sinker sort of would either use the narrative that the right and the left were pushing. And I thought, you know what, I think this is deeper than that. These are some people that just wanted to be left alone.

And the government ended up not helping them. And, you know, it was, you know, they brought in federal agents and that kind of I don't want to say it formed my thinking, but it sort of catalyzed it when I watched that happening while I was doing my bachelor's thesis at MIT.

So why did you – I mean, not everybody says, hey, I'm going to take that, and you know what I should do is I should put myself out there, go raise some money, or you'd spend my own money and run for Congress. Right.

You know, there's that saying, friends don't let friends run for Congress. But I didn't figure that out until I was actually here. And then everybody says, well, you should run again. I'm like, wait, did you not understand what I went through? I've told my wife, if I tell you I'm running for Senate, shoot me in the leg and chain me to the bedpost. Like, I'll forgive you eventually. Yeah.

But why did you decide to do that? I mean, because you did pull the trigger and you did run and you did win and you've won several times after that. That's a great question. You know, what happened is so my wife and I lived in the high tech world. We moved back to the farm she grew up on. We built a house off the grid. And frankly, we just wanted to be left alone.

But the county we both grew up in, we saw it changing. We saw government growing in the county. They wanted to pass new taxes. They wanted to zone all the property and control what people could do with their property. And I thought this is not right and this is not going to help our community. So I was like Johnny letter writer. You know, if you remember Saturday Night Live, there was a guy who wrote strongly worded letters.

to change the world that that was my impression so i would write letters to the editor and i this was right before the tea party this was uh materialized but the sentiment was there the government was getting too big this was 2007 roughly and i mobilized you know 50 to 150 people to show up at in at town meetings

county meetings in a city that only had 1400 people. And we changed, we changed what the county government was going to do. We kept them from raising taxes. We kept them from zoning our farmland. And, um,

Eventually, people said, you should run for the county government job, which is sort of like the last thing in the world I want. I'm an engineer. I'm an introvert. Just let me build my off-the-grid solar house and live in peace. But I eventually ran for the county judge executive job.

And it's almost, it's very much like the dog caught the bus. And now I'm the dog driving the bus. I've been chasing it for years. And what do you do once you catch it? And I got in there and

And I started doing stuff like looking at the phone bill, you know, like what every family does, you know, every six months, let's renegotiate our phone plan. And I looked at, there were like two dozen phone lines we were paying for that had been disconnected for ages. And I started combing through the bills, the electric bills. I would go look at the electric meter that they were sending us a bill for. Sometimes the electric meters weren't even there anymore.

And what I found out is when it's not your own money, people are OK wasting it. And so I started keeping a spreadsheet. My goal was to pay for my entire salary by just finding waste in the bills that were being mailed to us. And it only took a few months to do that. And so then I started thinking, wait, this is one of 3000 counties and there are 3000 counties in this country. How much waste? There must be insane waste in the federal government.

And that's why, you know, when I did run for Congress eventually, I gained the trust of people because I was the dog that caught the bus. But I didn't sell out when I caught the bus. I actually tried to sort of be a disruptor and for the best, for the better.

And I built some trust in my county and surrounding counties. And when our congressman said he wasn't going to run again, I decided to run. And that's when I ended up there. And that's why I wanted to be on your oversight committee is, you know, that the job of that committee is to find waste, fraud and abuse. And it was rampant in my county. Yeah, no, you know, I did something very similar. I was 16 years in the local business community. I ended up being the campaign manager and then chief of staff to Governor Dupre.

Governor Huntsman, and when you're chief of staff, you have some leash to go out there. And one of the things I started noticing, you mentioned the telephones, and I thought, well, for the state of Utah, how, and I finally asked, how many telephone lines do we pay for?

Well, the number is like about double the number of people. And I said, why are there more phones than there are people? Like, I can understand where law enforcement, you know, maybe has to. I can understand the National Guard. But can't we institute maybe a one phone, one person policy around here? And and, you know, let's just give them 85 bucks. They can go get any phone they want. But they were expected to do all that. I mean, you would have thought I was the devil incarnate. I'd like you.

So many people came unglued. I'm just like, well, it's just millions of dollars, folks. I mean, it's not your money. That was one of my favorite questions in Congress. And I probably should have used it even more, but I didn't want everybody to catch on to it. But I always I knew if I had a smart aleck coming from the administration, I always love saying to him, so who do you work for?

And almost always they would get it wrong. They would not understand. No, you don't. You work for the American people. Don't tell me you work for Joe Blow over here or for this administration or whatever. No, you don't. It's the American people that are paying that. And there's so little appreciation for that approach. So many people up here forget that. By the way, with the phone lines, I told everybody that was a county employee, you give me the phone numbers, you don't want me to shut off.

And I am going to disable every other phone line. And I threatened this for two or three months. And then I finally did it. I canceled every stinking phone line that nobody would own up to. And the next morning, I got a call from the jail. Their fingerprint machine was no longer able to send fingerprints to the state database. Well, then you figure out real quick which numbers are important and which ones aren't.

Right. So it was like an old modem line or something that sent the fingerprints to the state. So but that was the only phone line that, you know, anybody that I deleted that was needed. And of course, we got it re-enabled fairly quickly. Yeah, I just...

I was pulling it. And then I finally left. And I think everybody was glad that I left because everybody wanted, like, I need a phone on my desk. I need a phone in my car. I need a mobile phone. And then I need a fax machine. I'm just like, why are we doing fax machines? This is like, come on, you don't need a fax machine. Give me a break. Anyway. So let's just jump to this last part because I got to ask you the quick questions and we're getting near the end here. But

From your vantage point, what needs to happen? And again, we got to just kind of be succinct here. But what do you want to see the government? What is the proper role of government? How do you think people should look at that? Because there are divergent views. That's why we have a Congress. But the way I see it now, it's more crazy town than ever.

Well, you know, Adam Smith says there's three roles for government. Institute a system of justice, that would be the courthouses, provide for the national defense, and then provide for infrastructure.

And so now I'm on the Judiciary Committee and the Transportation Committee. So I'm covering two of those three roles. And then the federal government's into a lot of stuff it shouldn't be. It should be state or local. But there's another disturbing trend. And I know you saw it here in Congress when you were here. More and more, we are letting the executive branch have too much power. And I think if we could fix one thing, Jason, it would be for Congress to reassert its power of the purse.

and to get rid of so much regulatory, you know, rulemaking and bring it back into Congress. I think then people wouldn't be so distraught if their person didn't win the presidential race. If you had some confidence that your congressman was actually somewhat consequential, then you would, and your senators could get stuff done, then you wouldn't be so worried that, you know, oh no, the other guy or gal won president. Yeah, you know, it's,

It's so true because everything is a continuing resolution. Everything is an omnibus and it's, you know, multi-trillion dollars in one vote. And it's so wrong. It's so not regular order, but it's,

It's just the way things are happening right now, it's even in the four plus years that I've left, it's just gotten crazier and crazier. Now, before I ask you the 12 quick questions, if somebody were to come visit you in your office, you've got some airplanes or some modes of transportation on the back of your desk. What would they see if they actually came to your office?

Well, my favorite mode of transportation here, because I'm on the Transportation Committee, so I've got some models of airplanes and things. But my favorite model is this X-Wing fighter, because I think Congress is like the Death Star, the Capitol up here. It's kind of shaped like the Death Star, and they're always working on it. They're scaffolding all over it, and it's capable of destroying any happiness in the universe. Even though it's not fully built, it's fully functional.

And so I am up here looking for the exhaust port. If you remember in the first Star Wars movie, they found a chink in the armor of the Death Star and found a way to sort of restore peace in the universe by momentarily disrupting the Empire, as we found out in later episodes. Well, that's what I...

out to do that it needs disruption and and you are certainly a disruptive force you can look on both sides of the aisle and they both complain about you so um hey real quick on that before we get into speed round on march 27th of last year this is 2020 the first two trillion dollar bill they told us to stay home they would just pass it with nobody in the chamber

And that really bothered me. I drove to Congress and objected and everybody had to come here and vote. The President Trump called me a third rate grandstander and said I should be thrown out of the GOP on the same day that Nancy Pelosi went on national television, called me a dangerous nuisance. John Kerry called me an asshole. And Liz Cheney max donated to my primary opponent all in one day.

So I think I did. I pressed on a very sensitive place right there that day. Yeah, you would think that showing up to vote on a two trillion dollar bill is well, that's maybe something Congress should be on the record.

Hey, if the folks at Amazon are bringing your packages and the grocery store baggers are bringing your groceries to your car and the nurses are going to work and the farmers are going to work, then by golly, Congress can go to work, especially if it's their constitutional obligation in a crisis.

Should we hide? Should we cower and eat ice cream out of our twenty thousand dollar refrigerators? No, we need to go to work. This is the time that you come to work. And this is not the time you throw out the Constitution. It's Constitution is made for tough times, not easy times. Amen to that. I totally agree with you.

All right, I don't care how many calculus classes you've done at MIT, nothing has prepared you for these rapid questions. So we're going to say good luck to you and we'll see how the judges rate your answers. But are you ready for the speed round? I am ready. By the way, I had three calculus classes, differential equations, linear algebra, and probability.

I believe you. All right. I still feel unprepared for your questions because I know this is not CNN and you have not told me anything about. All right. What was your high school mascot?

The lion. Yeah, because there's a lot of lions there in Kentucky, right? We have like mountain lions. We actually have bobcats. All right. We got mountain lions, cougars, whatever you want to call them out here out west. All right. If it's that kind of lion, I'll buy it. First concert you attended.

I went to Sting concert. Oh, that's legit. Yeah. When I was in Boston, because the police, I liked the police, but they had sort of faded out. And by the time I could afford to or had the time to go to a concert, Sting was still around. Hey, I'd pay to go to a Sting concert. That's legit. All right. Since you was a beer distributor, what was the age of your first beer?

Oh, you know, I never I never drank until I was young. I mean, I might have had it when I was young. I might have had a sip. But honestly, I was in college before I had a beer. And it was probably after college before I had even consumed maybe 24 beers in my life.

All right, good for you. All right, favorite vegetable. By the way, now I drink medical margaritas. They're not recreational. I go home on Fridays from Congress and I have a medical margarita. You probably built your own still. I'm not judging. I'm just saying. We'll go to the next question. Yes. Favorite vegetable. Oh, it can't be a fruit. My favorite fruit is peaches. My favorite vegetable would be artichokes.

Yeah. You know, judges like that answer. I love artichokes. Every single time I've asked this question, everybody's given me a different answer and everybody struggles to think of one, but that's good. All right. If you met Bigfoot, what would you ask him? Oh, um,

How long do you live? Like, what's the lifespan of a Bigfoot? See, you're going right for the mechanical. You want that Bigfoot arm to be able to clean your room in the morning. Well, what I want to know is, are we all seeing the same Bigfoot and does he live forever? Because if he's got a short lifespan, there has to be a Mrs. Bigfoot and baby Bigfoots. Yeah, see, that's what I went on to play back the videotapes and say, is that really you? Which one's fake and which one's real? All right. Favorite fast food restaurant?

I'll just say my favorite fast food is McDonald's french fries. Oh, there you go. Most embarrassing moment? Oh, gee. I'm in Congress. I'm beyond shame and embarrassment these days. Judges like that answer. We got to keep going. If you could meet one person, dead or alive, who would it be? Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, that's a good answer. That's a really good answer. He was such an impact player. If you could invent one more thing, what would you want to invent?

Ooh, a better battery. Better battery. I tell people I'm the greenest member of Congress. And I've been fact-checked, and nobody disputes it. I live in a solar-powered house. I've got the wrecked Model S Tesla battery in the basement. I've got a chicken coop that moves itself. It runs on solar power. It moves the chickens to fresh grass every day. And I can tell you, every time I run into a problem, it's the battery.

So we don't solar panels don't need to be cheaper. We just need a better battery. Interesting. Interesting. I think the first time I drove in a Tesla, I think was yours, right? You had a Tesla. Yes. And I still have the setting, the Jason Chaffetz setting, like you adjusted the seat and everything. And I saved that setting. So you'd be very comfortable in it. You scared the living daylights out of me, but it was fun. It was really good. All right. Unique talent nobody knows about. Oh, banjo.

Really? Play the banjo? I can swarp at it. Yep. Three fingers. I'm impressed. All right. Pineapple on pizza. Yes or no? Once a year. No. You are on such a roll. Judges give you a big thumbs down on that. That is not the right answer. We're going to have to go back to this. Once a year to remember how bad it is and to see if you can acquire the taste. See, that's why you're in politics. That was a good recovery. All right. Best advice you ever got?

Never confuse activity with progress. That's so true. That's so true. In business, you'll go out of business if you think your activity is progress. And in Congress, you probably get reelected if you can convince people all the activity is just progress. But they always try to conflate it here, Jason. They always say, oh, we passed this many bills and we worked this many days. That's activity. That's not progress. Yeah, I think it was. Oh, gosh, I can't remember who said it, but there was a

famous person in the past who said, the opposite of progress is Congress. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. Listen, Congressman Thomas Mastey from Kentucky, thank you so much for joining us today on the Jason in the House podcast. Really do appreciate it.

Thanks for having me on, Jason. It's been a blast. I look forward to what my wife has to say about your podcast when she listens to it. Yes, we're going to have to publish this quick and soon before she has a chance to lean on the host and try to get something out of there. But listen, it's great to chat with you. I am glad there are good principled people who fight for their congressional districts. And so I thank you for your service and the time. It's hard to be away from your family. And you got those kids and

and a wife that you love and, and it's hard to be away. So thanks for your service. And thanks for joining us today on the Jason and the house podcast. Thanks, Jason. I'm headed to the airport right now to go home. You're listening to Jason and the house. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Congressman Thomas Massey right after this.

Again, I can't thank Thomas Massey for carving out the time and answering some few questions and peeling back the curtains there so we can see what's going on behind the scenes with him and what he's doing. And I don't know, I have a better appreciation of why he's so popular there in Kentucky, but I also understand why

He will dig his heels in on a principal. And you know what? I much rather have people fight for principal and be consistent than be the flip-floppers that I saw so often in Washington, D.C. So thanks to Thomas Massey for joining us. All right, time for a little bit of inspiration before we close out the podcast. And I'm looking at Linda Patterson. Linda Patterson is from New Mexico. And I read about her on FoxNews.com.

and she is a 78 year old, 78 year old power lifter. Now, evidently she had a car accident years ago and she lost some of her ability to extend her spine.

And then she had to have her knees replaced. And you know, a lot of people kind of older in life, I think they get hurt, they fall down, they have problems, it just doesn't feel good. They decide, hey, they're not going to do this. But you know what? I got a father-in-law who's in his mid-90s and he's a doctor. He was an orthopedic surgeon throughout his career. Great man, inspiration to me. I love him. Very fortunate to have great in-laws like this.

But he continues to say, because I'm amazed at how alert and attentive and how physically fit he is, but he always says, you use it or you lose it. And that's true. No matter what age you're at, particularly as you start to grow older, you got to use it or you're going to lose it. And to Linda Patterson, hats off to her because not only should she become this amazing power lifter,

This is what she said, quote, when I first went to a gym, I sat in the car for 15 minutes like, oh man, you can at least walk in. But now I feel like it's very comfortable. I'm excited to do it and it just feels good. Well, she's become one of the most prolific power lifters, certainly at her age. I hope you see a picture of Linda Patterson. Hats off to you for being an inspiration to so many people and keep going because you

I don't know. I think she can out bench press me and do a lot of other things that I'm just, I'm highly impressed and it is inspirational. And I'm glad she's living a vibrant life. As she said, at 78 years old, wishing her nothing but the best. All right. Thanks again for listening to the Jason and Al's podcast. Give it a good solid rating there. We need your help on that. If you like this podcast, I think if you go over to foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, you'll see a host of other shows out there.

But I hope you enjoy this. I hope you join us next week. We'll have another good guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House. This is Jimmy Fallon inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com.