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Welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. I happen to be Jason Chaffetz and I appreciate you joining us. We've got a really good guest, Chris Ruffo. He's got a new book out. It's a New York Times bestseller. I look forward to chatting with him. You may have seen him on Fox News, may have read some of his stuff.
He's really was one of the core people to get after the critical race theory and expose that for what it is. And so he's got this new book that's out. It's called America's Cultural Revolution, How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.
Should be a very interesting read. I've never chatted with him before, but I'm looking forward to it. But first, we're going to talk about a few things, just a few things in the news. And then we're going to highlight the stupid, because as I've said before, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to get Chris on the phone and have a good, vibrant discussion with him. But I want to start with things in the news. And again, there are some big, weighty issues out there with
Trump, there's some stuff with Biden and Hunter Biden. I mean, come on, those are the big things. But there's a few things that wept through. I want to make sure that listeners are also paying attention to, and I say these in part with a smile, but also with a little bit of, I don't know. Brooks Koepka, anybody know who Brooks is? One of the best golfers in the world.
He was asked if he thought Justin Thomas, another really good golfer, would make the Ryder Cup team, you know, where they take the best of the best. And Brooks said, the only way JT, meaning Justin Thomas, the only way JT goes to the Ryder Cup is if he buys a ticket. Oh, ouch, ouch. That was a smackdown from Brooks on JT, Justin Thomas. I do like golf and Justin Thomas.
He got married. We got to get his game going again, though. He's one of the best golfers. Seems like one of the best people out there, too. All right, next thing I wanted to talk about. This is really interesting, and I saw this on FoxNews.com. FoxNews.com had a story about this, and it interviewed a guy who is a writer at Beer Business.
daily. And if you don't subscribe to Beer Business Daily, then you can listen to this podcast and get the updates as applicable. But he made a really good, interesting point about everything that was happening with Bud Light. And I thought this was instructive because look, it was like the most popular beer out there. I don't drink beer, so I can't really talk authoritatively about beer. But in 2015, Anheuser-Busch, which is based in St. Louis,
decided to move its marketing and advertising teams from St. Louis, heart of America, right smack dab in the middle of America, they decided that it would be really smart to move them over off of 24th Street in New York City. And voila, what this guy, Harry Schumacher said of Business -- again, Beer Business Daily,
is that it fell into a culture that he calls checkbox marketing, where coastal elites in a trendy Chelsea neighborhood made decisions that will look good on LinkedIn as opposed to what will actually help sell beer in the heartland of America. And this is his quote.
Anheuser-Busch made a conscious decision back in 2015 to move their sales and marketing functions to New York from St. Louis, where they had been headquartered for, you know, 100 years. At the time, distributors warned them that might give them a hole in their thinking. It might give them gaps in connectivity with middle America. And sure enough, that clearly happened. It happened with Bud Light. And you're wondering why? How did it get from here to there?
There you go. A big bad decision that happened back in 2015 played itself out, and now it's just a Me Too brand that'll have a very limited marketplace. They destroyed it, and I don't think it's coming back. That's just my take on what's going on with Bud Light. Last thing I want to mention is just a hats off to Taylor Swift. I know we got a lot of Swifties who listen to this show,
my family included. But Taylor Swift has one of the biggest tours ever. It's supposedly going to grow something close to a billion dollars. We've never seen anything this big. Taylor puts on an amazing concert. It goes for like three plus hours. And worldwide, you cannot believe this thing just sells out as fast. She can't do enough shows. Well, she's working that crew pretty hard from truck drivers to backup singers to everything else.
But it came out that she gave out $55 million in bonuses. Truck drivers for the Taylor Swift Eras. I found and figured out what Eras means. E-R-A-S. Concert tour. If you're a truck driver, you got a $100,000 bonus. Good for her. You know, you're having great success.
Share it around a little bit. She's probably got more loyalty from her backup singers and dancers and all that crew that has to work their butts off in order to put on show after show after show and city after city all around the globe. $100,000 to a truck driver, that's going to make a difference. Good for you for Taylor Swift. So I'd like to highlight the good things in the news too. But now it's time to bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪
So, of course, we're back to the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team. Somehow, representing the United States of America, the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team could not find it in their hearts when the playing of the Star Spangled Banner came on. They could not find the ability to put their hands over their heart or actually sing along.
Doesn't have this problem in any other country that I'm aware of. You see people singing their hearts, tears dripping. Oh, no. Now, some of the players did put their hands on their hearts. Some of the players did sing, but a lot of them did not. And you know what? If you're going to represent the United States, if you're going to put on the red, white, and blue, if you're going to call yourselves the U.S. Women's National Team,
You salute the flag. You honor the flag. You are wearing the red, white, and blue. It is not time for you to be doing and giving us your political statement of the moment. Win soccer games.
Represent the country. If you're on your own time and your own thing off the field, you want to do something, great. But not while the cameras are rolling, the world is watching, and that star-spangled banner is playing, and they're flying the flag. Shame on you for doing that. And you do it time and time again, and you wonder why you don't have the type of adulation and the income and everything else. It's because so many of us that love soccer and love the sport
despise what you do and how you do it and won't watch you. All right. The other one I want to bring on for bringing on the stupid is we have a replacement for Adam Schiff. His name is Representative Dan Goldman. Just keep watching him. He's an idiot. I'm sorry. This is my opinion. But to suggest that Joe Biden was simply talking about the weather when he joined Hunter Biden on all these business calls that was alleged happened.
Don't tell me that they were there to talk about the weather. You got to be kidding me. That's an offense to so many people from a guy who said he's never had a conversation. Oh, really? You took a Hunter Biden's business partner, Jeff Cooper on Air Force Two with conducting business in Mexico and
You I mean, we haven't even talked about the Romanian thing. We can talk more about Louis Freeh and how he gave one hundred thousand dollars to Joe Biden's grandkids as a thank you for pushing business his way. You know what's going on in Ukraine and probably the worst of all is China, particularly its ties to the Chinese intelligence community.
And then Joe Biden's leaving office and, hey, we need a set of keys for my dad to get into the new office that he's going to have. Then he's sharing with the Chinese chairman who's tied to the intelligence committee. I could just go on and on. Dan Goldman will run before the cameras and say anything. And he's already just shot his credibility. And that is truly stupid.
All right, time to move on to something more positive. I'm excited about this next guest. His name is Chris Ruffo. And let's dial him up, get him on the horn, and let's have a good discussion with Chris about what's going on in America.
hello hey chris this is jason jafetz it's good to hear you hey thanks so much i uh i appreciate you joining me i know you've got a good new book out it's doing really well america's cultural revolution how the radical left conquered everything uh you've been a really important voice in conservative
thoughts and whatnot. And so that's why I'm excited to chat with you. Awesome. Really appreciate it and look forward to discussing. All right. So I want to get into your background and kind of how you became you, but let's start with the book. Tell us why you wrote it, what's it all about, and why should people read it?
Absolutely. America's Cultural Revolution debuted last week as a New York Times bestseller, and it tells the story of the radical left's long march through the institutions. So it traces what you think of as maybe woke ideology back 50 years, shows exactly where it comes from, exactly where the ideologies originated, and then most importantly, how they attained power. And so as Americans are looking around and saying, what is happening with our institutions?
This book seeks to answer that question in this definitive historical account. Okay, so why did you tackle this? I mean, books take a long time to put together. I've done four books, and they do take a lot of time and effort. What was like the pivot point where you said, all right, this is the book I want to write, and this is what people don't know that I really want to share with them?
Yeah, I mean, it really all emerged from my reporting. Much of the reporting that I did on Fox over the last couple of years has been about critical race theory. Some of your listeners might know me having brought that issue to national attention, worked with President Trump, worked with legislators and governors around the country to fight CRT. But as I was doing that reporting and that activism, at the same time, I really wanted to understand in a very deep way the historical roots of this ideology. Where does it come from? How is it developed?
And so it started me on this process of research and then pouring into the archives and then looking at some of the key historical figures that advanced the ideology and really set up the conquest of CRT through our institutions. And that turned into this book. It's something that you can't do in a short TV news hit. But for those listeners that really wanted to learn more, that's exactly who this is for.
So, I mean, you get into the critical race theory. I haven't read the book yet. So you get into critical race theory, but what other things do you end up touching on? What are in close proximity that's also consistent with that theme and thesis?
Yeah, the book is divided into four sections: revolution, race, education, and power. And so I profile some of the key thinkers on the left over the last 50 years. I outline exactly how they have their theory of revolution, how it's supposed to work.
how they've used race as the kind of primary mechanism to achieve their political objectives, how they've taken over educational institutions and teaching their ideas to young people. And then, of course, power. This is where the CRT comes in. What do they want to do once they've attained institutional power? Where would they like to see our country go? Yeah, and it is about getting after the kids first, isn't it? I mean, start them young and they can make the changes, right?
That's right. I mean, that's been true of revolutionary movements throughout time. And even if you go back to Aristotle and Plato and the earliest Greek philosophers, they knew the importance of education because they believed that the kids should be shaped to the political regime, meaning that they should be taught the kind of habits and customs and values of their society. But in this case, they're actually being taught to hate the habits and customs of our society. It's something that I've reported on extensively.
And really, it's just shocking to most people what's passing for education in the United States today. Yeah, I think. How did you see COVID affect that? Because COVID, you know, it seemed like a lot of parents had to wake up to the idea that, hey, we got to crack open this book together and I get to see what our kids are seeing in real time. And wow, that teacher on the other end of that screen is a little different than I thought they were going to be.
Yeah, that's right. It gave parents a window into the classroom for the first time. But the left saw a very simple formula. They said that COVID plus George Floyd equals revolution. They really believed in that summer of 2020 that they could be putting full force behind their revolutionary principles. They could change all of the school curricula in accordance with Black Lives Matter ideology. And then parents saw what was happening and really went into revolt over the next
12 to 18 months subsequent to that. And so it kind of accelerated and revealed really what's been happening for decades. And I think that parents were rightly shocked, offended, horrified, and they've really sought answers ever since then. And that's the story that I'm really trying to tell, giving people answers like, if your kid is in a white privilege seminar, where did that come from? Why is it happening now? Right. Right.
The book is called America's Cultural Revolution, How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. You know, part of what's happened, too, which is just shocking to me, is the amount of time, effort and aggressiveness that the Department of Justice has taken on fighting back against families, parents who just simply want to be involved in engaged school board meetings, for goodness sake.
Yeah, that's absolutely shocking. I actually was the first person to kind of publish that scoop when it came up. And I had to reread the documents multiple times. I said, this can't possibly be true. They're mobilizing the FBI counterterrorism division against parents that are advocating at school board meetings. It's really dangerous, not just
because of the immediate intimidation towards parents. But the parents were following the process as it's supposed to be. If you're not happy with the direction of your local school, you show up at the school board meetings, you run for school board, you try to advocate for your ideas through the democratic process.
Biden's DOJ, however, doesn't want people participating in the democratic process. They want you to sit down and shut up and take what they're giving to you. It's a very scary thing that's happening. And it's not even just school boards, unfortunately. What else beyond school boards?
Well, you know, we've seen actually major medical associations writing letters to Biden's DOJ asking to suppress journalists that are critical of gender ideology and the transgender movement. It's not immediately clear if they've taken action, but it's certainly something that's being contemplated. Otherwise, they wouldn't have had
all of these major medical associations lobbying for this. And it really, I think, exposed itself also in the censorship of information around COVID. I mean, the Biden FBI, the Biden intelligence community was pressuring social media companies to suppress narratives that might be considered critical of his policies. So we're in a new world. I think that it's a difficult time to be a parent. It's a difficult time to be a journalist.
It's a difficult time just to be a citizen that wants to speak his or her mind. So we need to be very vigilant about these things because let loose. I just fear that we could be undermining some of those critical civil liberties that we've that we've come to rely on. Yeah, no, I think we've already kind of crossed that Rubicon. I think we're I think we're there in many ways. It's amazing. You're right. The counterterrorism.
you know, that's supposed to be there to fight terrorism. Maybe the Chinese and all the spying that's going on, the Russians, others. And it just feels like we've taken our eye off the ball. If we're going after parents showing up at school board meetings and they're even spending 10 minutes thinking about that, the opportunity costs, what they're saying is, hey, we're not spending time on, you know, again, I just listed several of them, types of threats that are true to America. And again,
I don't know. It feels like we're asleep at the wheel as it relates to true terrorism.
Yeah, I mean, you know, God forbid, I hope that they're doing a good job keeping us safe. Obviously, there's no way for us to know the inner workings of what's happening. But there's no doubt that we face many threats, many external threats. And I just find it such a violation of basic principles that they would be mobilizing the FBI against parents. I mean, it really is the crime. It's a travesty. You know, one of the things they really ought to follow up on is. All right. So how many people did you arrest?
If you're telling me that this is such a big, massive issue and you had to mobilize people, okay, how many arrests did we have? You know, same thing with like, I think the Department of Justice came out and said that the number one threat, according to Attorney General Garland, is white supremacy.
Okay. So how many people did you arrest last year on the whole white supremacy issue? And what were their violations of law? Because your definition of white supremacy, I don't know if we, I don't even know exactly how you define that. So I'd love to know the stats on how they think they improved the country and crimes that were prosecuted along the way, because I don't think they have very many.
Yeah, that could be very well. I mean, and I think, look, we want an FBI that doesn't put partisan political concerns as part of the decision-making process. If there are right-wing militias that are threatening violence, they should be absolutely shut down. If there are left-wing violent militias that are threatening violence, they should be shut down. And it's really a disservice to everyone when these issues become heavily politicized. And so I think most Americans just want to say, hey, look,
We're here to play by the rules. We have a democratic system. We're going to participate in the process. There should be no threats of violence. And I think the FBI is really undermining its own reputation and its own trustworthiness by clearly putting its thumb on the scales and clearly putting a partisan agenda behind some of their decisions. Yeah, that's what's so sad about it. My grandfather was a career FBI agent. And, you know, for a long time, he served primarily there in the Philadelphia area and
You know, I was proud of that. He was a G man. He was, you know, as somebody I, I just always admired and still do, even though he passed away a long time ago now. But yeah, it, they've fallen in terms of their reputation and their belief in
that Americans have in law enforcement at the federal level because it does seem so partisan. It doesn't seem like there's an equal application of prosecution, and we see that play out daily. All right, Chris, let's go. I want to step back a moment because we have seen you quite a bit. You've written some great stuff and done some amazing reporting. Let's go back to Chris.
As a little kid, like I was start with, I was born in and kind of walk us through the
the early years and how you got to be where you and I are chatting on this podcast here today sure I'll give you the the CliffsNotes version you know I was born in Sacramento California my father's Italian my mother's American they're both lawyers and they told me very early on you can be anything you want to be but don't be a lawyer there's enough in the family already and I really had a passion for politics I think coming
predominantly through my father who was involved in politics when he immigrated to the US a little bit, has a deep knowledge of Italian politics. We come from a very political family at a small scale. And I went to Georgetown and got involved in documentary filmmaking. Chris, let's go back for a second because this is a podcast. I got a little bit more time. So, okay, brothers, sisters, were you playing soccer growing up? I mean, what was life like growing up? What were you doing? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I played some soccer. My dad was the soccer coach of the local team. Oh, good. When he came to, yeah, he was a good soccer player. He played semi-pro in the US after he moved. He was good. I was never very good. I kind of did a little bit of high school soccer and then dropped it. But yeah, I had a passion for music, had a passion for foreign languages and literature and arts. And so it was kind of,
tacked onto that track in addition to having a love for politics. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Chris Ruffo right after this.
So what was your first job? I mean, not your mom or dad saying, hey, Chris, take out the garbage. I'm not that job. I mean, like first working job, like where you got a check from somebody else.
Yeah, I was actually a soccer referee. And so I was, you know, I think I did like the FIFA certification, maybe in like eighth grade, ninth grade. And I just started, you know, refereeing the young kids and then the older kids and doing tournaments. And it's a great way to make some money as a kid and get out there and run and enjoy it. Okay, so you're doing that. But there has to be a pivot point, right? Because
As you turn the corner into high school and then you get turned the corner into, hey, where am I going to go and what am I going to do? You know, life takes on some focus. But what experiences or what led you to believe that, like, hey, this is the direction I want to go? You know, I followed the political news. I subscribed to the political magazines, left, right and center. OK, but why? That's a pretty geeky thing to do in high school. Not a whole lot of high schoolers are doing that, Chris.
That's true. Probably just me of all the people that I graduated with. But I just loved it. I loved the drama. I loved the conflict. I loved the personalities. I loved the kind of policy and the more wonky side of it. And it was just a world that was foreign to me. I was growing up in Sacramento, kind of outer suburb of Sacramento. There was not much politicking happening. And
And so I really wanted to see it up close and personal. And, you know, I knew that Georgetown was a great college. And so that was kind of the college that I applied to and wanted to get out there. And once I was accepted, it was all in from there. So what was your major? What did you start out as?
School of Foreign Service. So Georgetown has a kind of elite school of foreign service. Just, I think, 150 kids get in per year. And so you're going to classes with...
you know the the sons and daughters of you know diplomats world leaders corporate titans politicos um professors from all over the world uh you know really stimulating place um and very different than than what i had grown up and uh experiencing so were you picturing that you were going to be like a foreign service officer you want to get into the foreign service or what or did you what what was the what was the thought process at the beginning versus how it turned out
Yeah, exactly. I thought at the beginning I would want to get involved in foreign service, serving as a diplomat, traveling overseas and that kind of capacity. I remember attending some kind of very interesting closed door, no device recruiting meetings with the CIA officers that dropped into the campus every so often. So I was kind of thinking some form of service, but
the time i graduated i felt uh very much disillusioned with politics i i i felt the kind of aversion to joining a big bureaucracy i wanted to do something more entrepreneurial more public more immediately exciting and so um i would say you know by the time i was wrapping up my senior year i was looking for something quite different than government service now not everybody can speak
Not everybody can write. I mean, you've got a unique skill set, and you've kind of got the
the blend of the two. I mean, I remember Bill Clinton actually is president of Bill Clinton. I heard him say, you know, for every discussion, every policy, you have to be able to explain it in two minutes, 30 seconds and five or 10 minutes. You got to be able to do that and then get in deep and go, you can do that, but also articulate, you know, articulate it smoothly, but also write it out. So how did you get that combination? Cause it is unique.
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. It's just something that comes naturally. And, you know, I, I, I,
After I graduated from college, I worked as a documentary filmmaker, which I think was good training in writing, speaking, channeling different emotions, playing with language and images. But, you know, you get older and you try a lot of different things and then you realize that you're maybe only good at a few things. And the two that you identified are pretty much my skills.
And so I'm not good at many, many things. But certainly, you know, language is something that I have a gift for and very much appreciate it. What, so, okay, so you get done with Georgetown. You start doing the documentary film, but where does that take you? Where do you go?
it actually takes me all around the world and that was one of the great things about doing that line of work as a you know person in my early 20s and until i was about 30. um i traveled to you know dozens of countries around the world i was directing films producing films uh writing films you know selling and distributing actually making any money chris i mean those things they all all that sounds fun but it doesn't necessarily sound lucrative
Yeah, I mean, I had some very lean years, certainly, especially at the beginning. You know, wasn't making a lot of money, although I did have one very successful film, you know, really one of the most successful films financially of that period. What was it? It was a film, actually, actually a really fun film called Age of Champions, and it profiled
um, uh, athletes up to 100 years old that competed in Olympic sports. Um, and then, you know, we like crossed the million dollar mark and revenues on that movie. And, uh, and so that was a big, uh, a big kind of leg up for me and was able to save some money and reinvest it. And then, um,
Unfortunately, though, after like 10 years, I was just totally burned out on that line of work, partially because of what you're saying, the kind of business prospects are quite bleak in the documentary world. But also, you know, I got married, had a family, didn't want to travel as much, and then felt some dissatisfaction with the documentaries. And that's when I circled all the way back, you know, 360, kind of a 180 rather, circling all the way back to politics. Yeah.
And so how did you make that transition? What did you do?
You know, I had a great mentor here in the Seattle area, a guy named Bruce Chapman, who was a politician, a civil servant, ran the Census Bureau for Ronald Reagan. And, you know, I'd become friendly with Bruce and he said, hey, you know, you've been doing these great films, but what about writing a policy report on homelessness policy in Seattle? I'll commission it. I'll pay you for it. You know, write this report for me and we'll see what it does. And
That report ended up changing hands with a few different people, got connected to the Manhattan Institute, and then that one thing kind of set me on this path of doing writing and doing some policy work in a more professional capacity. Now, the number of conservatives in Seattle that I know, at least I can count on, well, pretty much one hand. So what's it like being a conservative in Seattle?
You know, it's tough. It's brutal. It is not easy. You're in the extreme minority numerically. Yeah. But I'll tell you the advantage. You see what the left is doing maybe five or ten years before all of your friends on the East Coast see what the left is doing. It's really the hothouse of left-wing ideology. Yeah.
And also you get very tough and you get kind of the battle scars very quickly. And so as I was first getting involved in Seattle, I went through this rough and tumble period of getting, you know, really run through the ringer of left wing politics.
you know, in the media, within the institutions, getting, you know, criticized, you know, personally getting, you know, doxed, you know, getting threatened, you know, getting followed and harassed in public settings. Sounds fun.
And so, yeah, it's not fun at the beginning. It's actually very frightening at the beginning. Yeah. But then you learn the bag of tricks. You learn where you really stand. You're tested through experience and then you can come out on the other side with much greater strength and confidence. And I think that
That early experience getting tossed around and beat up in Seattle politics has served me very well because, you know, playing on the national stage. I tell people this quite often, actually. It's like, yeah, you know, playing national politics and debating CRT and getting in the scrums with The New York Times and The Washington Post and NPR.
is much easier than getting in the trenches in Seattle. So I think I had kind of a very good training and preparation period here in the Emerald City. You know, it does kind of force you to think, all right, who am I? What is my core? What do I really believe in?
But also just following the facts. I mean, that's the thing is you often get beat up for the idea that, no, look, I actually did my research. I actually do know how this works. I did go to these meetings. I have read the materials. And so you're not going to be able to snooker me or try to intimidate me, you know, just because you don't like what I'm saying, because I know what I'm saying is true. And that's where, you know, good reporters, good people like yourself are.
That's where they, I think, prevail and excel and become somebody that lots of people want to hear from because they've actually done the homework. And surprise, surprise, that's what people want to see is people that know their stuff. Yeah, that's right. You have to do the homework. You have to get the evidence. You have to have the documentation to back up your claims and everything.
Certainly, as I was starting in Seattle, you get attacked by hundreds of people at all angles. They try to poke holes in your story. They try to call into question the arguments that you're making. And this is actually very good. It's very healthy because you see all the different ways that people will push back. You make adjustments. You learn. You make your arguments stronger. You bolster it with even more incontrovertible evidence.
And so it is a really good training to be attacked and attacked and attacked because ultimately in order to prevail in the public square, in order to win those public debates,
you have to have evidence and argument and persuasive capacities that are far and above your opponents who are at a tremendous advantage. And so all of those skills, all of that pressure just turns you into a more effective political debater, a more effective political communicator. Yeah. No, I think that's why you're excelling. And you know,
I find that to be very similar to my experience in Congress is that, you know, it's a whole other level of hand-to-hand combat. And the ones that did really well were the ones that knew the material better than everybody else. And that's why...
You know, we did these oversight hearings when I was chairman of the Oversight Committee and I'm like, go ahead. I know more about this than you do. So go ahead. Say what you want to say. We'll have that discussion. And, you know, it helps when you're holding the gavel and have the ability to issue a subpoena. But, you know, that that, you know, just trying to get to the truth. That's all. Don't expect to win every argument, but I do expect the truth will prevail.
And that's what I think most people are looking for. Yeah, that's right. And look, you're not going to win every point, but you have to be ready to argue and ready to go toe-to-toe with some very smart people. And I never underestimate my opponents. I know that many on the left are very smart, very sophisticated people.
They have high kind of verbal capacity. They have a big megaphone in the mainstream media that helps them even where their arguments are a little questionable. And so it's just a challenge for all of us conservatives to be smarter, better, faster, stronger, more dedicated, more dogged,
better sourced and better educated on these issues. And that's really the ethos that I brought to writing this book, which was, you know, I want it to be rigorously documented. I don't want to be on it to be sourced in a scholarly manner. And I want to unfold this hidden history for people to truly understand what we're up against and to truly understand what's been happening to our country. Yeah, you can't solve it. You can't fix it. You can't get to the right place unless you understand all of that.
You know, it is interesting as you kind of, as you were saying that I was thinking, you know, I used to think naively when I went into this, we were all fighting for the same thing. We just had maybe different ways of getting there, but I don't believe that anymore. I, it was really interesting. I had this experience at one point in my life, I was the chief of staff to the governor of Utah for John Huntsman. And there was this thing called legacy highway. And we were trying to figure out how to get this highway done because these environmentalists were.
against its very existence. But the governor took a strong position that, no, we're going to get this done. But we were very adamant in listening to what these Democrats and these environmentalists wanted.
And we got to a point where we were debating the speed limit of what this was going to be. And they were arguing for a slower speed limit. I was arguing for a higher speed limit. The governor wasn't in the room at this point. I wanted to be freeway speed. And as we went through this experience.
They kept saying, you know, it needs to be quieter. And I'm like, look, there's no residents here. It's up against the Great Salt Lake. It's, you know, and I just didn't understand. And finally, they said, listen, we're trying to keep it as quiet as possible. And I said, but there's no residents here. There's just other traffic. And they said, no, we're trying to keep it as quiet as possible for the birds. And I'm like, the birds?
And like, I totally didn't understand that point. Now I do. They were much more adamant in making sure everybody slowed down because, and then it got to the next level. The core was they didn't want people to ever drive. They just thought you should live and walk to work. They didn't like cars and they certainly didn't want to destroy the birds. And I just think, okay, we're actually not on the same page. We're actually fighting for two different things.
Yeah, and that's a kind of a funny anecdote that resembles a very serious point. And look, I mean, the left has a very different conception of where they want to take the country. And in the cases that I document, they're, you know,
anti-family, anti-capitalism, anti-free speech, anti-equal protection as individuals. And their conception of the ideal society is something that I think has never worked historically and would actually horrify most Americans who take for granted some of the rights and liberties that we enjoy. And so we have to get that argument out if they want
It's prioritized the birds and the trees. I mean, they're free to do so, but we should have that open debate. And the more that we can correctly identify their positions and make our case in distinction to those positions, the more I think that we'll be successful in bringing over the average citizen to our side and showing those folks exactly what we're up against. Yeah, that's what needs to be exposed.
Chris Ruffo's book is a brand new New York Times bestseller, America's Cultural Revolution, How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. Before I let you go, Chris, everybody's got to go through these rapid questions. Are you ready for this? I don't care how many times you've been to the... Let's do it. Yeah. I'm ready. All right. First concert you attended.
Oh, it was Pat Metheny, the jazz guitar player. Wow. Never had that answer before. Very cool. What was your high school mascot? The Raider, although I think it was some kind of Hispanic-looking character. So when I was there, they had painted a yellow smiley face over all of the logos. It was like a racist logo, apparently. So now it's politically correct as a smiley face. Okay, that's good. What's your favorite vegetable?
You know, I don't know. Maybe I'm a broccoli guy. Maybe I'm a kale guy. It depends on the season, but I'm a green veggies kind of guy. Well, that's good. Is kale a vegetable? But I will count it. It's green. Yeah. We talked about your first job. So you've got this inquisitive mind. If you met Bigfoot, what would you ask him?
Well, Bigfoot, you know, I'm in Washington state. And so I think Bigfoot is supposedly here. So Sasquatch, I mean, I don't know. I'd ask him, you know, what he's up to and what his thoughts are. And maybe if he's more of a Biden voter or a Trump voter, that would be kind of an interesting conversation. Yeah. I wonder if he actually believes in voter identification or if he can just show up and vote.
He does it by mail. I mean, he just posts, he just dial it in. That's a, that's a really good question. Um, do you have a pet growing up?
Yeah, I had a dog, and actually now we have a dog again for my family and my kids. We just got a little Australian Shepherd puppy this week. Oh, nice. So it's been a little wild and crazy in the household trying to get the little dog all trained up. They have energy, but they are wicked smart dogs. I mean, they are beautiful, fun. That's a good dog. Yeah, if you take the time to train it, I think that can pay off well.
What's a unique talent that Chris Ruffo has that nobody knows about?
You know, I was a pretty good guitar player back in my day. I won some awards when I was a teenager. And so, you know, in politics, you don't think of, you know, people kind of wonks being also musicians or creative. And so that's a hidden talent. I wish more people knew of my former glory. If you're winning awards, well done. All right, quick, because we're trying to wrap up here. But pineapple on pizza, yes or no?
Absolutely not. I'm an Italian citizen. I'm an Italian speaker. I spent a lot of time in Italy. And I'll tell you that Italians, when they hear about the pineapple on the pizza, are just, I mean, the level of, you never felt a disgust ripple through a crowd faster and more deeply than when you tell an Italian that you're putting pineapple on your pizza. Yeah.
Amen, brother. I'm just telling you, that is where America's at. And we get some people who get this wrong, but that is the right answer. And judges do like that. Last question. Best advice you ever got?
You know, the best advice I ever got is to actually to embrace failure and to use it to move forward. And I try to instinctively avoid failure like we all do, but it's one of your greatest teachers. Yeah, it is. That's exactly right. Chris, I've really enjoyed chatting with you and getting to know you a little bit better. The book that he's got out, the latest one, America's Cultural Revolution, How the Radical Left...
conquered everything. It's a New York Times bestseller. It's new. It's out fresh. And I appreciate you joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. Thanks, Jason. Great to chat. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Chris Ruffo right after this.
All right. Again, I can't thank Chris enough. Real guy. Good message. Works hard. And if you listen to his commentary, I haven't read his book, but based on what he said, I think it's something if you want to learn what's really going on, this would be a good one for you. Also want to tout my puppeteer's book, of course.
The People Who Control America. That book is also out there. But Chris seems like a really good guy, and he's there in the lion's den.
sorting out truth from fiction and exposing what's really going on and i appreciate him joining us he won awards for guitar being a soccer referee i like this guy and uh i appreciate him joining us on the jason in the house podcast would appreciate it if you could rate the podcast would love it if you subscribe to the podcast i want to remind people that
that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. I appreciate you listening. You can also invite you to go over to foxnewspodcast.com. You can find others from my colleagues, some good podcasts out there. And again, rate this thing, subscribe to it, and we'll be back next week with another great guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House.
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