Congressman Chris Stewart: From the Air Force To Capitol Hill
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Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and we got a lot this week to talk about. We're going to highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to phone a friend. We're going to phone Congressman Chris Stewart. And you may not know him, but I think you're going to want to know him because he's a

He's got a very unique, I think, insight into what's going on in Afghanistan. He served as a pilot in our United States Air Force. He holds the world record for the fastest flight around the planet. He's also on the Intel Committee. So, you know, you kind of want to have a lot of respect for the people who sit shoulder to shoulder with Devin Nunes and have to put up with the...

Adam Schiff's and Eric Swalwell's of the world. And he's got a unique perspective there. And he's also a very accomplished author along the way. But I bet you didn't even know that. So we're going to phone a friend and talk to Congressman Chris Stewart. But let's talk a little bit about a little riff on the news, if you will. And I want to give it a perspective because I wrote a book called They Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste.

the truth about disaster liberalism. And I think there's some tie-ins here, but more importantly, you know, my time there in the United States Congress, I was fortunate to serve on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee the entire time. And one of the reasons that I did it is because I always felt like there needed to be proper oversight, that sunlight was the best disinfectant. And the way you do that is you tap into these inspectors general guidelines

There are 72 inspectors general. They employ nearly 13,500 people, and they are the ones that go take the deep dives with the staff, the resources, badges, and guns to go in and see what's going on within our federal government. And so you always relied upon them. Now, my biggest fear is that as we did so, most people wouldn't actually go back and read the report.

A lot of good work done and then it just sits up on the shelf and we wouldn't learn the lesson. But I was one of those geeks that actually would go back and read these reports. I recalled this one report and with everything that's happening and not happening in Afghanistan, I went back and my memory was correct and I pulled up what's called the 2018 Stabilization Report.

This was put together with the leadership of John Sopko. John Sopko is the SIGAR. He's the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction. 52 quarters in a row, they have put together a quarterly report about what's going on and not going on in Afghanistan. And then they've done some specialized reports.

This is a good five paragraphs, but I want to read directly. I was going to try to summarize it, but I want to read directly from the 2018 stabilization report. If you care about Afghanistan, you care about the men and women who've served. If you care about how we did and didn't do things, how are we going to make sure that we never, ever do this again?

in such a disastrous extraction. I mean, look, I took a position in 2009 that I thought we should bring our troops home. Donald Trump took his same position. You can be in favor of the policy of bringing them home and be 110% opposed to how Biden and Harris executed on bringing these troops home. And we're going to talk some more about that with Congressman Chris Stewart

But I want to read to you what was going on in that pivotal time period. I entered the Congress. I was elected in 2008, same time as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, by the way. And listen to what happened during their years in tenure, according to the inspector general.

From the 2008 stabilization report, it says, quote,

During the 2009 Afghanistan Strategy Reviews, President Obama and his civilian and military advisers set in motion a series of events that fostered unrealistic expectations of what could be achieved. They also ensured the United States government's stabilization strategy would not succeed, first with the rapid surge and then the rapid transition.

Under immense pressure to quickly stabilize insecure districts, U.S. government agencies spent far too much money far too quickly in a country woefully underprepared to absorb it. Money spent was often the metric of success. As a result, programming sometimes exacerbated conflicts, enabled corruption, and bolstered support for insurgents.

Every organization and agency that worked on stabilization in Afghanistan suffered from personnel and programming deficits born from rapid scaling, short tours, and pressure to make quick progress. Even harder than finding available civilians and soldiers was finding qualified and experienced candidates who were trained and equipped to understand and navigate local political economies.

Stabilization is inherently political, but given DOD's size and resources, the military consistently determined priorities and chose to focus on the most insecure districts first.

These areas were often perpetually insecure and had to be cleared of insurgents again and again. Civilian agencies, particularly USAID, were compelled to establish stabilization programs in fiercely contested areas that were not ready for them.

Because the coalition focused on the most insecure areas and rarely provided an enduring sense of security after clearing them, Afghans had little faith their districts would remain in government hands when the coalition eventually withdrew and were often too afraid to serve in local government.

Implementing partners struggled to execute projects amid the violence. The coalition had very limited access to understanding of prioritized communities and U.S. government agencies were unable to adequately monitor and evaluate the projects that were implemented.

As a result, power brokers and predatory government officials with access to coalition projects became kings with patronage to sell fueling conflicts between and among communities. In turn, Afghans who were marginalized in this competition for access and resources found natural allies in the Taliban.

who used that support to divide and conquer communities the coalition was keen to win over. The report goes on. Ladies and gentlemen, the reason I highlight this to you is this was known years ago. Years ago. And it was because of the Obama policies that were implemented and the way they were implemented that it caused so much chaos. People could say, oh, well, we're going to blame all the presidents. We're going to blame everybody.

That's a little too convenient, folks. It's a little too convenient. There is a reason why the last 18 months up until Joe Biden and what happened with the 13 military personnel from the United States were killed. But the 18 months leading up to that, there was not a single United States person killed. And it's because of the way that Donald Trump and his administration handled it compared to the way Joe Biden dealt with it afterwards and the way he dealt with it beforehand.

And my evidence that I point to is John Sopko and the inspector general and the report issued back in 2018. I put that up there for your consideration, but there's a lot of other things we could talk about on the news, but you know what? It's time to bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right. So, uh, I got two that we're going to bring up today. Uh,

And I have to point to what I read about. Madeline S. Casey of Hartford, Connecticut. I saw this on foxnews.com. She stepped off the designated boardwalk there at Yellowstone. Now, if you can picture Yellowstone, it's one of the wild places, the Wild West. It's one of my favorite places on the planet. I have been to Yellowstone, I don't know, countless times. I love it. It's one of my favorite places to go, clear my head, see the wildlife like you can see nowhere else on the planet.

and get out, breathe fresh air. I just absolutely love it there. But there's some very unique features there. Well, this person out of Connecticut, she decided that she was going to step off the boardwalk and decided that she was going to go into one of the geysers. Now, through the years, there have been some 20 people

who've died from burns suffered after they entered or fell into Yellowstone's hot springs. You go along, whether it's the winter or just the heat of the summer, and you can see the steam rising up. That's because it is scalding hot water that is percolating from underneath the earth.

Well, she managed to survive this. She was caught, and she was...

In a release put out by the U.S. Attorney's Office, she was convicted of this. She is 26 years old, and she was given a week-long sentence in order to pay a $1,000 fine, $40 in fees, and $1,000 as a community service payment to the Yellowstone Forever Geological Resource Fund.

as determined during her court appearance on August 18th. That is a woefully small pittance to pay for dealing with one of our national treasures. And why is it that they're having her give to the Geological Resource Fund to spend a week in jail? That's it? That's it? I thought it was terrible. I think it was absolutely stupid. It was stupid for her to do it.

But it was stupid to suggest that that's the maximum, that's the penalty that they're going to lay down there. I thought that was woefully just small. All right, time for number two. You know what? The Gavin Newsom recall effort. California's governor, Gavin Newsom, guess what? He's up for recall. The election is September 14th. Election voting is going on now, and the people of California have a chance to have their voices heard. Oh, my goodness.

I don't think it's going very well for Gavin Newsom. And you know why? Every celebrity that is involved in liberal politics, the liberal media that's out there, they're all chiming in on this.

The L.A. Times is actually calling Larry Elder, who is currently the Republican leader here. Now, the way the ballot comes out, the ballot comes out and the question as to whether or not to recall Gavin Newsom. If that passes, the second part of the ballot kicks in and then you vote for who you want to become governor. And Gavin Newsom's not on that list.

So the first question is a threshold question. The second question is, who do you want it to be? And the current leader, based on polling and based on how much you see, you actually have the Los Angeles Times. This is why I think this is so stupid. It's trying to paint a picture of Larry Elder as the black face of white supremacy. Now,

That is so offensive on a hundred different levels because Larry Elder could be the first black governor of California, but he happens to be a Republican. And so the media wants to just discount it. See, the people that say, oh, well, we have to have diversity. Does it get any more privileged than Gavin Newsom?

you got a list there, if you look them up, of a whole bunch of stupid policy positions. The people that are opposed to Gavin Newsom as governor are not opposed to him because of his ethnicity. They're opposed to him because his liberal, stupid policies are devastating to the people of California.

And his hypocrisy in the way he's dealt with things is just wholly, absolutely, totally offensive to people. That's why more than 2 million people signed on a document. That's why when the Democrats tried to get this before a federal court and make sure that this recall didn't happen, that the court had to let it happen.

It's because of his policies, not because of his skin color. So, of course, Larry Elder, who's got a more conservative approach, he's getting attacked on all levels, including his race. That is ridiculous. And I find it particularly ironic that it comes from people who preach the most diversity. And that is the point, right? The people who preach all this diversity are often the least diverse.

tolerant of diversity that we have. You have to look like them and you have to think like them. And if you don't, then you're the racist. And that is just so wrong. And that's why I think it's pretty darn stupid.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back right after this. Fox News Radio on demand on the Fox News app. Download the app and just click listen. When you swipe left, you can listen to your favorite Fox News talk shows live. Swipe right for the latest Fox News Radio newscasts on demand. Fox News Radio on the Fox News app. Download it today. All right. Time to bring on a story from the halls of Congress. And you know what? Just a quick short one here. I remember when I first got elected to Congress, the leader in the Republican Party was actually John Boehner.

And, you know, I didn't know what I didn't know. So I asked John Boehner. He said, I don't know what I don't know. So tell me what I need to know. And he said, you don't know anything. You know what? You got to be here six to 12 months. You'll figure out where all the bathrooms are. Then you're going to figure out what you want to do around here. So enjoy it. Get after it. Try a little bit of everything and then come back and talk to me. Sure enough, I went back and talked to John Boehner. I said, I got it. I want to be involved in the oversight committee. And after my first term,

He said, "Well, why don't you go on the Appropriations Committee?" And it was a so-called A Committee, top level committee. I said, "Well, hey, I'm happy to serve on that committee, but I also want to be on the Oversight Committee." He said, "No, it doesn't work like that, Jason. If you're going to be, if you want to eventually chair the Oversight Committee, then you got to focus on that." I said, "Well, I'm the only one to focus on that." And then he kind of leaned over with his kind of smoker voice and he said, "You're smart because you're the only one in this room focused on the Oversight Committee."

So keep after it. And I did. And I became, I think it was only the fifth time in 100 years, became the youngest chairman of the oversight committee. And it was an honor and privilege to serve in that committee. But I thought it was interesting. John Boehner disagreed with him on a lot of policy stuff, but he did know how D.C. worked and he did know how to pull the levers when he wanted to.

All right, time now to phone a friend. And we're going to dial up Congressman Chris Stewart. You may have not heard of him. You may have seen his photo here and there. But I got to tell you, behind the scenes, the guy gets a lot done because not only is he on armed services, but probably most importantly, he's on the Intel Committee. He's got an Air Force background. He's a very accomplished author with more than 20 books to his name.

his name. And he's on the Intel Committee, and he's just a great, wonderful, wonderful person with a great family. So let's dial up Congressman Chris Stewart. Hello. Hey, Chris Stewart. This is Jason Chaffetz. Jason, how are you, brother?

Hey, thank you so much. As we said, we have Congressman Chris Stewart on the phone with us. And since I was also a member of Congress from Utah, we served in the delegation together. We're pretty chummy and know each other pretty well. And it was an honor and a privilege to serve with Chris. He's got an amazing background. And so I kind of want to walk through that and talk

You don't have many people who've got a world record fastest flight around the earth who served in the United States Congress. A very accomplished author along the way. I just find Chris Stewart to be a fascinating person and somebody who's got a lot of trust from a lot of people serving on the Intel Committee. Somebody's got a lot of insight. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. We really do appreciate it.

Well, I consider you a great friend. It's an honor. I really mean that. Thank you. And, you know, there's so much going on in the world, Jason, as I know you know, because you comment on it almost daily or I suppose every day in one form or one medium or another. So we can't ignore the fact the world seems to be going crazy around us. But it would be fun to talk about some things other than that, too, and other than policy. So, again, thanks for the opportunity. Well, sure. Now, you were...

Born and raised in Utah, right? And you've got some brothers who are fairly accomplished as well. But tell us a little bit about your family and what it was like growing up. So I come from a large family and my dad was an Air Force pilot. And Jason, you probably know this because I wear my father's Air Force wings on my lapel. I wear them every day. He was a pilot in World War II. He and my mom truly were the greatest generation. I mean, everything good that we think about that generation, that was my mom and dad.

But my dad, at some point, he stayed in the military after the war and he had a large family. And at some point he looked at his kids and thought, you know, I got to teach my kids how to work. I got to teach my kids some lessons in life. So he and mom separated from active duty in the military. My dad stayed as a reservist, but he bought a farm.

up in a beautiful valley in northern uh northern utah actually goes across the idaho border where i grew up so i grew up milking cows and running a ranch but five of my brothers served in the military i got an opportunity to serve in the military as you mentioned jason i had a chance to do some kind of fun things flying and uh and i'll tell you when i'd be up flying jets

And doing, you know, combat maneuvers or, you know, I got to fly a combat rescue helicopter for a while. I mean, all of this really, really cool stuff. And I remember thinking, I can't believe they pay me to do this. And Jason, you'll appreciate this. Since I've been in Congress, I've never felt that way. It's a crazy time to be in Congress. Very different. Very different than, you know, the very direct mission we had in the military. Well,

Well, it's true. Talk about that because you're right. With the military, you've got a mission. You can go out. You can accomplish it. If you don't accomplish it, you learn from it. You got somebody right there to let you know that you didn't accomplish it.

But, I mean, you went so far within the military. Tell us a little bit more about that driving force. What was it your parents were doing when you were, I don't know how old. I mean, when you did have your first job, when you learned the value of work, what was the commonality there? Or what were those things that your parents were doing that maybe not every one of your neighbors was doing?

Yeah, and honestly, I don't know that my parents did anything very different from what their neighbors were doing for the day. I mean, it is different from the way it is now, but from when I was growing up, it was kind of a Norman Rockwell kind of environment. And so I think probably the best way to describe it, or at least the shortest way, is my mom had done a cross stitch, and she put it on the living room wall where I was growing up.

And I'll tell you what it says in just a second. But it was such a powerful reminder to all of us that all of my brothers and sisters eventually got one, and they put it in their living room. And now all of our children have got one, and they're putting it in their living rooms. It's gone down to the third generation now. But it says, this family's motto is duty, honor, service to God, family, and country. And I had the rich blessing of growing up in a family that actually believed that.

And, you know, I remember sitting around the dinner table and we would talk about the world. We would talk about politics. We would talk about what was happening in other places. And, you know, my parents' experience in the military that they had through the war and then after the war, they were stationed in Japan and were teaching military.

And, you know, some of the senior Japanese officers who helped plan and strategize the war against America. And they were now over there teaching some of these officers how to fly jets and became friends with them. And I mean, they just kind of opened our eyes to the world out there and made us realize this one thing. There's something extraordinary about this country.

And I remember my dad saying Abraham Lincoln called this the last best hope on earth. And we were kind of taught that we believed it. And I think that made it easier for us to to want to serve our country in whatever way. I mean, people can serve their country in many more ways than just being in the military. And, you know, it's been one of the most enriching experiences of my life having that background.

Now, your love of country, I know, is true. It's through and through. It's patriotism through your heart. But when you're out there trying to milk a cow in northern Utah, and it's like...

maybe five degrees. What's running through your mind there? Were you milking cows? Were you scooping the poop? What were you doing with the dairy or with the cows? I was milking cows from the time I was in first grade. And what I grew up with is a great appreciation for my parents and teach me to work, but a great hatred for cows. What's a life lesson from milking cows? Like what's a principle that you learned from

you know, getting up as a first grader and milking cows? Well, I mean, there's a lot of things to it once, actually, and I hate to, I don't want to be flipping about it either because, you know, to all the cow lovers out there, I don't truly hate cows, just so you know. But, look, you know, with my own kids, we taught them to mow the lawn and we taught them to make their bed. And, you know, those types of things, they each had to take their turn vacuuming.

the living room, but that's different than when you're a young person and the family depends on you doing your share of the work, whether it's milking cows or taking care of the cattle or moving sprinkler pipe. And I remember we had this family farm and one of our parcels of land was across from the small town cemetery.

that uh where i grew up and to get the water to run down the ditches and you know we would use deer gate i actually had to go to this head gate that was at the edge of the cemetery

And you had to do that when you were, when it was your turn to do the water, it didn't matter if it was 12 o'clock in the morning or 12 o'clock at night, you had to go do it. And I remember walking through the cemetery as you know, a seven, eight year old boy thinking, you know, I was scared to death, right. But you had to do it because the family depended on, you know, everyone kind of doing their share and in the world we live now and in the world, we all have to raise our children. Now it's hard to simulate that. It really is a different type of responsibility. And I think it,

It helps develop people in ways that is just much more difficult for most of us as we try to teach our children now. Yeah, I think the commonality of the successful people that we've had on this show, I think I've done, what, 21 podcasts now. But one of the common denominators is people going to work. They're going to work early. They're learning the value of the dollar, but they're learning to work hard, but they're also enjoying it. And, you know, it's one thing to have.

Parents kind of force you to do something you don't want to do, but then to learn that value. And I also think there's great value in doing things where your parents aren't there 24 seven and essentially doing the job for you. Were you involved in scouts? Did you do anything like that?

I reached the advanced rank of tenderfoot, which in case you don't know scouting, I think that's the very lowest rank. In fact, I'm sure whatever the lowest rank is, that's what I was. All right. So you weren't you. OK, so you didn't do the whole scouting program, but that's fine. You know, you're milking cows. You're getting a lot of badges for that one.

Well, that's the thing is, I mean, we were kind of doing those things anyway. I mean, we used to go camping with, you know, my friends when we were in fifth grade. I mean, we were 11 years old and we'd go out camping by ourselves. And I mean, not just in our backyard, we'd hike up to the mountains. So we were doing a lot of that anyway. But, you know, an interesting kind of side note there, Jason, is I remember I was assigned to the first fighter wing down at Langley Air Force Base. This is my first piloting.

My first assignment, I'm a young lieutenant. We had one of the flight surgeons was doing a presentation and he asked everyone in the wing who was a Eagle Scout to stand up. And it was nearly everyone. I mean, it was like 90 something percent.

And I don't know if the statistics, if I remember them correctly, I think it's right. Maybe it's changed over time. But I think you made the point about only about 4% of young men ever reach an Eagle Scout. And, of course, as I've already said, I wasn't one of those. But, I mean, it's kind of the same ethos as the military. You know, guys who want to go fly jets a lot of times, and girls too, I mean, in much the same way. There are a lot of times people who, when they were young,

they found kind of a sense of adventure and wanting to do something a little different. And, you know, being a scout and being advanced in scout is really common for a lot of those individuals. Yeah. And I've mentioned this previously, but Congressman Trey Gowdy, who you also served with, a congressman from South Carolina who is a 20 plus year prosecutor, both on the federal level, the local level.

Um, he, he said, it's an interesting, as he looked back at his career, as he said, you know what, there's only two categories of people that I've never, ever prosecuted. One is I've never had anybody who went on to become an Eagle scout, commit a crime that we needed to prosecute. And the second one, um, were people who'd gone through us, uh, being homeschooled. And he said, it's just fascinating that, uh,

All walks of life, didn't matter, background, history, color of skin. He said they're all comers. But if you did one of those two things, you probably weren't so backwards with the law that, at least in his experience, that he needed to go out and prosecute him.

Well, and look, you and I both have tremendous respect for Trey. He's one of the most unique people that I've had an opportunity to be around and one of the smartest, by the way, too. And I think he makes a great point there. His experience probably isn't outside the norm. I think that's probably reflective of our society broadly right now.

All right. So you're going along, you get to high school and then you decide, hey, I'm going to think I'm going to follow in the tradition of your father and whatnot, decide to go in the military. Do you give any consideration to any other branch or were you just all Air Force all the time?

Well, so there's a bit of a story there. When I was young, I was like a lot of young people. I was kind of dumb and I was rebellious and I went through kind of a swarthy period in my life where I was not doing what my mom and dad hoped I would do. And I remember when I was about 16, my dad once said to me, we were actually out on the farm together and I remember we were pairing a tractor and he said something about, hey, Chris, I think you ought to go in the Air Force. I think you'd love it and I think you'd be a good pilot.

And because I was 16 and rebellious and stupid and my dad made the suggestion, I immediately thought, well, that's a dumb idea. I'm never going to do that. And that kind of stuck in my mind. So when I'm going through high school and actually college, I didn't think I'd go into the Air Force. In fact, I was planning to go to law school. It was my senior year of college. I was already married and had kind of selected the law school that I wanted to go to and was preparing, you know, hoping to get into this law school.

And I lived in Utah and I one time was driving up to see my parents and I stopped at Hill Air Force Base and I watched the F-16s take off. And they were doing, you know, some landing patterns there. And it was just this moment of clarity to me. I said, dude, that's what you want to do. You want to go be a pilot. You want to join the military. And I really did. It was just like very, just an instant decision. And I went home and talked to my wife and I said, well,

Hey, you know, instead of instead of going to law school, how would you feel about going into the Air Force? And she's like, hey, that's a horrible idea. And, you know, she had never been exposed to the military, her family. I mean, they kind of had this idea of, you know, Gomer Pyle, which is, you know, we'd be driving around in Jeeps and living in Quonset huts and, you know, saluting people. And they really didn't know much about it. And she had been exposed to it.

But, you know, she was because she's a wonderful person. She said, if that's what you want to do, if that's where you're going to find success and satisfaction, let's do that. Interesting, though, Jason. I mean, she didn't love the idea at first, but both of us loved our time in the military. I served for 14 years. We traveled really all over the country. I had the chance to travel many places in the world myself.

And we both look back on that time with great memories of friends we made. Now, it was difficult. And it was hard for Evie, my wife, because we had children. And as a pilot, you're gone so much. And she took on that tremendous responsibility, as so many young mothers and spouses do now, to take on responsibility for family while their spouse is deployed, as we've seen over and over again.

But we both look on our time in the military as being so much fun and the incredible friends that we made. So, I mean, one of the most notable things, certainly for the history books, is that you hold the world record. But tell us a little bit about that, because I was actually surprised on how this works. And I wouldn't have guessed that.

You know, I think a lot of people will actually be surprised what plane you were flying that holds a world record for fastest. How do you say it? Fastest trip around the globe? Fastest nonstop flight around the world. Yep. Okay. So...

Yeah, there's a bit of a story there and I'll tell it kind of quickly. But I mean, we didn't set out to set the world's record. I was flying the B-1 at the time, which is, by the way, the coolest airplane ever made. And I hope all your listeners understand that, that it is the B-1 is the coolest airplane. But it's a big, fast, you know, bomber. We carry 84, 500 pound bombs and you could fly over target and spit them all out in 1.8 seconds and they'd all hit a target, a separate target. It's a great airplane.

It's very fast. And at the time we were doing these power projection missions, which is we would fly from the United States over to the Middle East and we'd do practice bomb runs over there. And then we'd often come home or maybe land in Europe somewhere. And these might be, you know, 15, 17, you know, 20 hour missions. And, you know, take enormous amount of preparation and time and planning. And as we're getting ready for these missions, you know, I thought, hey, we're going that's about a third of the way around the world.

What if we just kept going once and just flew around the world? And, you know, we kind of designed it as a power projection mission to test the aircraft, to test the crew, you know, to kind of show to the world that the B-1 is an incredible aircraft and it can fly anywhere in the world and drop bombs and do it successfully.

And as we started planning this, it occurred to me, I wonder how fast we're going to do this and what the world's record is. And we looked up the record and we realized we were going to destroy the record. There's no question we were going to beat it badly. I mean, the previous record is 52 hours and something. And we ended up flying around the world and we carried bombs with us and dropped bombs on three different ranges and actually in three different hemispheres and six air refuelings. And we did that in just over 36 hours.

So we knew we'd set the world's record. But again, that wasn't why the Air Force approved the mission. It was approved because it was a good way to test the crew and to demonstrate this power projection. So it's kind of funny when they tell you that sitting in an ejection seat aircraft for one hour, flying for one hour is the same stress on your body as sitting in rush hour traffic for four hours.

And so they had us hooked up to these monitors to kind of see, you know, how physiologically, how we responded to it and stuff. Because for us, it felt like sitting in a car for like 120 hours, right? A long time. But it really was a lot of fun. And it's kind of fun to be able to talk, you know, talk to people or talk to my kids and say, yeah, I have this world's record. And it's kind of fun. So why do you think you, I mean, a lot of people would look at that plane, look at the power that it has.

that it projects, but not many people actually get to pilot the thing and actually be part of that crew. What differentiated you from the sea of other people that were trying to do that? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of hard to answer that question without sounding like

You know, I'm just telling everyone how cool I am. But I mean, honestly, it was because I did really well in pilot training. I graduated first in my class, actually volunteered to go fly combat rescue helicopters for a while. Then the Air Force allows a couple of guys a year to cross train back

And they only do a few because it's just so expensive. Once they train you in an aircraft, it's so expensive to, you know, have it train you in something else and cost, you know, millions of dollars. But they allow a few guys to do it. And I did, you know, again, really well in the program. So I got to select any aircraft I wanted. And I said I wanted to go fly the B-1.

And part of it was I liked working with a crew, unlike flying a fighter, which I had some experience doing, but not a lot. But I knew I liked the mission, and it was just such a big, fast airplane. I was kind of attracted to that. But again, I hate to repeat myself, but I'd be flying. I'd go, God, I can't believe they pay me. This is just so much fun.

So you're going along, but I mean, look, you've authored some books that have been wildly successful. And you also decided to run for Congress. I mean, not a lot of people sit down and say, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the Air Force and then I'll write these like bestselling books. And then, you know, what I'll do is I'll go to Congress and then

And then I'll be on the Jason in the House podcast. How many people lay out their career that direction? Well, and what happens is you got to start at where you want to be and work your way back. And I said to myself, one day I dream of being on the Jason Chaffetz podcast. And I thought, what do I have to do to do that? It's a nightmare for most. Wait till we get to the end and we have to ask you the rapid questions. You're going to be questioning that dream, but yes. Oh, man.

Uh, yeah, I mean, so look, it's an honor. It's an honor to be in that and to have those experience. I guess, you know, my wife, Abby will tell you that she thinks I'm, you know, I have the shortest attention span in the world because I'll do something for, you know, a few years and then I want to go do something else. And tell us about writing because, uh, your name's on, uh, just tell us about that experience and what, how'd you first get the bug and, and, and some of the things that you've written along the way.

Well, okay, so I got to back up before I do that, because I did not ever imagine myself as the great American author. I took a creative writing class in college. And as I said, I was trying to get into law school at the time, and I was trying to get good grades. And I struggled with this creative writing class. And when I got my final grade, I got an incomplete grade.

which is kind of like a nice way of saying you failed and not a great outcome, right? And I called the professor and said, hey, what's going on? And he said, come in and talk to me. And I went in and he said, look, our final grade was based on a short story we had to write. And he said, okay.

here's a deal that you wrote this short story submitted it but i don't think you wrote it i think you had someone write it for you or at least help you because this story is actually pretty good and you're not that good of an author

So he's accusing you of cheating. It wasn't just it was bad. It was you're a cheat. He was. And I was able to show him some previous drafts that I'd written and, you know, kind of, you know, prove to him that I'd actually written this. But, you know, that was my first real feedback on creative writing. It wasn't real positive. So years went by. I went in the Air Force. I'm flying to be one. And I remember I had a little girl. I was rocking her to sleep one night and I just had this idea. And I thought, you know, that would be a great movie.

That'd be a great story. It had to do with the military and as a Tom Clancy kind of a book, kind of an idea. And I thought on it for a while. And then one time I just sat down and started writing. And it really wasn't until a couple of months later, my wife came in and I was in our office. She goes, you know, what are you doing staying up? What are you working on all the time? And I said, well, I think I'm writing a book. And that was the first time when I said that to her was the first time I thought, yeah, I'm going to write a book.

But, I mean, I just finished, I think it's my 21st book or something like that. I just finished it. It'll be out in December. And interesting, I'm one of the few authors who has New York Times bestsellers on both the fiction and the nonfiction list. It's kind of hard to break across the genres. So, you know, I've loved writing and have had, you know, pretty reasonable amount of success with it.

Tell those listening some of the titles you've written along the way. Well, I think maybe for the audience here, I'd talk about some of the non... I started out writing novels. Again, they were Tom Clancy kind of novels. But at one point, I wanted to write something a little different. And I ended up writing it with my brother, who's one of my best friends. And he's a federal judge who's a brilliant writer and researcher. And it's called Seven Miracles That Saved America.

And the point of it is that, you know, if you believe in our country, if you really think there is something exceptional about our country, why is that? And we kind of put on before the idea that it's, you know, God cares about our country and he's provided miracles to protect us in times of really crucial times in our history. Another one is called the miracle of freedom, which is looking at world history and kind of the march to where we can live in a day where so many people have this incredibly rare opportunity.

blessing of being in a world, living in a world where so many people have access to freedom. And by the way, it's extraordinarily rare. I mean, we are like a tiny percentage of people in the history of the world have ever lived under circumstances that we would consider free.

And so, you know, I've been able to write, you know, about flying and, you know, combat and war in a fiction kind of way. But then, you know, sometimes the more serious books about, you know, what is America and why does America matter? And does America still matter? Well, you've had great success there. And we had Elizabeth Smart on recently. And I know you...

Helped her write that book and you got your name on the cover of that one too. But she's just an amazing woman and an incredible story of strength and perseverance. And it's just miraculous what she went through and to have the courage to step forward and then be able to tell her story is just amazing.

It truly is. And, you know, Jason, you and I, because of the work that you do and the work we've both been able to do in Congress, we've both been able to meet some extraordinary people and some of the strongest leaders in the world. But I'm telling you, I've never met anyone who has impressed me more than Elizabeth. That core character, that attitude that she has, that she is going to win and that she is going to prevail in life, despite everything.

circumstances that would have destroyed so many of us. I mean, that was a real honor to work with her. It was kind of hard at the same time because the story is so painful to tell. But it was, I mean, look, she is just an incredible example to anyone who knows her story and then sees the person that she is now. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Congressman Chris Stewart right after this.

So then you had a crazy idea because along the way you decided that, hey, maybe politics was the way for you. And quite honestly, watching Utah politics, you are not supposed to win the congressional race that you did, but you won in a pretty big way. Yeah. And I think the reason I wasn't supposed to win because I'd never been in politics before. You know, I didn't know anyone. I didn't know one. No one knew me. It was.

But I kind of like that experience where I would drove by Hill Air Force Base in Utah and stopped and watched the F-16s take off and thought, that's what I want to do.

I had a similar experience with politics. And, you know, as I said, I grew up in a family where we talked current affairs and politics. And I had some of my members of my family who have worked in kind of politics. They've been a chief of staff to to a governor and to a member of Congress. And so I was aware of, you know, Washington, D.C., obviously, but I'd never thought, well, I'm going to run.

But this is in the middle of the Obama administration and the Tea Party was rising up. And this is back when everyone was so angry over the debt that we had, more than a trillion dollars debt, which seems so cute now, doesn't it? Just a trillion dollars.

We should scare the life out of all of us if we took a moment to talk about that. But I mean, like a lot of Americans, I was really angry about it. I was really frustrated. And I thought, this is insane. And honestly, Jason, I was watching people like you. You were a new member of Congress. And yet you had a real voice. And you had a lot of influence. Even at the time, I think you'd only been in for three years or so when I made this decision. And

And, you know, a friend of mine called me on it. I remember on a Thursday morning, he said they just redo the boundaries because they were redistricting in Utah because of the census. And he said, you're in a Democrat seat, Jim Matheson seat, you should run for Congress. And

My wife, Evie, kind of teases me. She tells people that, you know, I decided to run without even telling her because she said that one of my sons called and said, well, yeah, I hear dad's going to run for Congress. And she says, well, I don't think so. I mean, he never told anything to me. And he says, yeah, he just announced it to his work that he's returning for Congress. So I don't think it happened quite that fast, but we really did decide very quickly, I'm going to do this. And

And so we entered a race that, you know, had already, I think 11 or 10 or 11 people already in it. And, and we entered kind of late, but you know, we ended up winning and I've been had the great honor to be here ever since. Well, and now that you're there, uh, you've done an incredible work. You have an amazing work ethic and, um,

But you are also selected. You see, in Congress, there are some 22 committees, I think 18 authorizing committees. But there's only one Intel committee, which is literally handpicked by the leader of the party,

So either the minority leader or the Speaker of the House, depending on which party. And that pairs you with some great guys like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell. How do you just not wake up and just want to smack them every day? Well, I appreciate your sarcasm. Well, look – Now that I'm not in Congress, I can say those things. But, I mean, it just –

When I was there, the Intel Committee, quite frankly, was just not the place for politics. And it had a deep, long, rich history of not being a place where you played with the political footballs. Yeah, you could do some political stuff and others. It is politics. That's why they call it politics. But not on the Intel Committee. It's too serious, too much on the line. And yet now it seems as if

you all get a briefing and you walk out and the two sides heard two totally different briefings. Yeah. You know, when I came to Congress, it's a little bit like,

Being back in high school, honestly, and I think you can appreciate this. I mean, you come to Congress, you're a new guy, you're like the freshman, you kind of look around and you see all the cool kids and you see the kids who, you know, people like you, Jason, who are real successful and really good on television, doing media. You saw some guys like Paul Ryan who are really good at policy management.

you know, you saw some guys who were kind of out on the fringe and, you know, they were messaging, but it was not mainstream and whatever. And you kind of look at yourself and go, well, where do I fit in? What can I do? And for me, it was always, I knew I wanted to work in national security because of my background in the military. I knew I wanted to work in the intel and I wanted to be on the intel committee. And so, but at the time, intelligence was a very serious effort. I mean, we have access to literally every, the most sensitive intelligence

information in the entire US government. We have access to the president's daily brief every day. And it was incredibly fascinating work, but it wasn't political. It was, we did it down in the skiff. We intentionally didn't spend a lot of time talking to the media. We just were serious about the work. And then boom, President Trump came along and the Russia

which we know was an absolute farce from the beginning that was thrown on our plate. And we saw early that this was absolute nonsense that every one of these accusations were absolute nonsense. And we had to defend against that. And then we had impeachment and then we had impeachment. And so, you know, you talk about, you know, people like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, well, that's not why most of us want to be on the committee, but on the flip side, even though we had,

You've got guys like Trey Gowdy, who was on the committee with me. You got guys like Devin Nunes, who was the chairman and the ranking member. You got my good friends like Brad Winstrip and others. Rick Crawford, people who are really serious about, you know, serving in Congress and protecting our own security. And and they kind of balance out some of the other goofballs and and make it so still, in my opinion, the greatest committee in all of Congress.

Yeah, there's so much important work that does need to be done in a proactive way. And part of my criticism from afar, I've never sat in on an Intel committee meeting because I was never actually invited to be on that committee. But, you know, you had good people that I greatly respected who were in those positions. And, you know, my criticism along the way was, well,

with some of the antics that I saw happening with Nancy Pelosi and Swalwell and Schiff and doing some things that just made no sense to me is what were the opportunity costs? What were the things that they weren't doing that they should have been doing as a precursor to avoid things, learn about things, allocate resources to things because

there's a role, a proper role for Congress to play. And it's not just a second guess every decision that a White House makes, but to make sure that we're allocating resources, appropriating money and doing things that will prevent the next 9-11. And so with that sort of background, I know because you're on the committee and it's so much of this is classified, you can't comment directly on it, but

You know, we're just now having seen the withdrawal from Afghanistan in a way that I think most reasonable people look at it and say, that was just so poorly executed that people wanted to bring our troops home. We shouldn't be bashful about that. We want to bring our Americans home, but we didn't bring them all home. We lost even more and we left those behind and

And it's such a frustrating thing because how we left under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was just one of the biggest national embarrassments I personally have ever seen. Well, it is. And, you know, if you're going to get me started on this, you've got to give me another 12 hours because it takes that long to go through. The number of ways this is just a catastrophe for our country. And it will literally take us a generation to rebuild our credibility if we're ever able to.

And it's going to take a Ronald Reagan kind of leader to come back and rebuild our credibility. And Jason, I could give you so many examples. In the last seven days of me having opportunity to talk with people from the Ukraine, with ambassadors from the Middle East, and with people in Asia, and they're all saying the same thing.

And that is, you know, we don't know if we can align with you. We don't know if we can trust you. I mean, an ambassador from the Middle East said, this is the way we look at it here. Jihad won and you guys lost. And it's, as I said, it's a catastrophe. And that's to speak nothing of the 13 soldiers that we lost last week, including one from Utah, where we had the vigil for him last night. It's to speak nothing of the potentially thousands of Americans we're going to leave behind in

And potentially thousands more of Afghanis who had the courage in the last 20 years to say, we will help U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan because we promised them we would not leave them behind. We would not abandon them. And yet we're doing that.

And I agree with President Biden and I pushed President Trump. It's time to bring our soldiers home. We shouldn't be there any longer other than a base of twenty five hundred to protect the embassy and to do basic intelligence. But the policy could be right. The implementation of it be a catastrophe. And that's what we're watching here. And this president should never be forgiven for it.

You can't do what he's done in the last couple months and just brush it off like they're trying to do and say, oh, what a great job we did evacuating 100,000 people and ignoring the mess they left behind and the people we've left behind. It breaks my heart to see this. Well, listen, we're coming up on the 20th anniversary of 9-11. And so many people sacrificed, gave their lives for

Lost a limb, came back with PTSD, just were flat out away from their family serving this country to root out the terrorist activity that would take us down and allow another 9-11 to happen. I hope they're able to hold their heads high and understand that there is a reason why we never had a terrorism attack before.

at that level because of so much good work that happens behind the scenes that we never hear about. The heroes that uncover something or take out a threat and we never hear about it. That has to happen. I don't know how often, but there's a reason why. It's not just coincidence that, oh, hey, does nothing happen again? There are too many factors, too many factions that want to see death and destruction to the United States.

Well, you said it perfectly, and I'm not going to restate it because all I'll do is say I agree with you 100 percent. And talking with Gold Star families, talking with people who've served there who maybe didn't, they themselves didn't lose their lives, but they were injured or in other ways sacrificed, as I have talked about through my entire career. But talk about talking with them more, more potently in the last two weeks. And some of them do wonder. But I got to tell you, Jason, most of them don't.

Most of them don't ask this existential question about, well, was my sacrifice worth it? But most of them know the vast majority of them know it was worth it. We did protect America. We've gone 21 years without the Taliban or without Al Qaeda attacking U.S. interests in any way.

And that was worth it. And that's to speak nothing of the other untold good that often aren't known in the public or the lives that were saved by them being in that country and bringing stability and hope to that country.

So, you know, God bless those families. God bless every one of them. And I would never question the commitment of what we did in the last 21 years. And I think most of the veterans that I know feel much the same way. They know that they were doing a good work there. Well, I hope they do. You know, and I wish, you know, I had the chance. Look, I'm not in Congress anymore, but...

And I was able to speak with the father of the Marine from Utah who was killed. And, you know, to hear the emotion in their voice and just say, you know what, I come across a lot of people. And, you know, I have this position on Fox News where I get to go out and talk to millions of people on a pretty much daily basis. And I just told him, I said, I hope you feel the love of God.

millions of people who love your son because they love what he did and the flag that he was flying on his uniform and that he was he was serving our country and the great honor that he did in doing that and just so sorry that he had you know had to go through this and

But to hear his emotion, I hope he felt that love from the rest of the country. Yeah. Well, and I think they do, having spent a little time with the family last night. And I think that they will. And I think that honestly is going to sustain them for the future in some way, or at least help to sustain them.

On the flip side to that, Jason, if you talk about emotion in people's voices, I have on my phone a recording from an Afghani in Afghanistan who worked with U.S. forces, and he's begging us, please don't leave me here. Please don't leave my family. If you can't get me out, can you get my wife out? Can you get my children out? Please help me. And then the message cuts off.

That's a heartbreaking message to hear as well. And again, to the president, how in the world could you have made these types of decisions? It did not have to be this way. He presents this as if it was inevitable. Of course, this was going to be this way. It did not have to be this way. And it's heartbreaking to see both individually and

And from a national standing of our presence in the world and our respect in the world has just been cratered in the last 10 days. And it's going to take so much work to rebuild that. But that's what we got to do. We got to focus on the future and try to figure out how do we get back America's standing so we can be that light to the rest of the world that's so critical.

Well, and that's why it's important. We have good, smart, patriotic men and women like yourself who are actually out there serving and go into those meetings and going behind closed doors. And we're of course talking to Congressman Chris Stewart from Utah and Chris, you've just, I mean, it's amazing what you've done, your service with the country. And it is a big sacrifice to be away from your family. And again,

I just, I can't thank you enough. And so those Intel meetings and those other meetings that you're involved in engaged in, I hope you continue after it because the country it's so impivotal to our country and I can't thank you enough for, for the service that you're engaged with.

Well, you're very kind. I really mean that. You are kind. So thank you. And as you know, Jason, because you've served with me and you were a leader in Congress when you sat as a chairman of one of the most visible and one of the most important committees in all Congress. You understand what we go through here and it is an honor. I thank my family for letting me do it, especially my wife. But I always, always feel like it's an honor and I'm glad to do it.

Well, all right. So with that said, and the pat on the back, you know, we're going to put you through the ringer here because we do have some questions for you that I don't know how many times you've flown around the earth as fast as you have. You're not properly prepared for these questions. Hey, someone's at the door, Jason. I got to go, man. I'm sorry. No, no, no. Yeah.

It's Adam Schiff. You can wait. I promise you can wait. So, all right, here we go. We'll get right after it. First concert you ever attended? Van Halen. Van Halen? Van Halen. Now that's pretty cool. Where was he playing? At the Spectrum in Logan, Utah.

I didn't know Van Halen played in Logan. That's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said Sammy. I meant to say David Lee Roth. I think I messed up the name. But, yeah, that was back in the David Lee Roth days. Yeah, Van Halen running with the devil, baby. All right. That's pretty funny. All right. What was your high school mascot? Oh, man. Something blue. Blue Devils? Yeah.

Skyview. Vikings. Vikings. No, no, that's Vuma. I can't remember. Sorry. Bobcats. It's the Bobcats.

Vikings and Bobcats are very similar. I could totally understand the confusion. Vikings are my, that was my kid's high school. I was a senior class president and I haven't been back since. All right. All right. Okay. So I, I don't know if this is kind of a joke question, but it's really kind of a serious question.

Give us your kind of top line on UFOs.

They're absolutely real. And I'm giving this only like 30 days, maybe 28 days till they just come and show us what power they have. That's from someone who sits on the Intel committee and is briefed on this like hourly. So there's my take. Briefed hourly, briefed hourly. All right. So 28 days. Come on, man. Well, you know what? I,

I see some of these videos and I see this one pyramid going to supposedly mock something and then it just dives into the ocean. And I'm like, you probably can't talk about this stuff. But man, if all the questions I want to go peek under the hood on, that's the one I want to know about. I actually can talk a little bit about this. We had a briefing on this down in the skip, a classified briefing.

sometime this summer. It was probably first week in July, first couple weeks in July. And this was like the briefing. We're going to reveal all this information. And they came in and they took an hour. And at the end of it, I go, dude, are you serious? Is that all you have? And we got into a bit of a heated exchange because they kept saying that they had more video and more evidence. And I said, well, why in the world didn't you bring it?

why wouldn't you show it to us? And so I left there unimpressed and my time clock of an alien invasion was pushed back a couple generations after that briefing. But that's just me. So frustrating. You know, I've tried to crack John Radcliffe and yourself and it's just not happening. You guys keep secrets too well. All right. So if you had a chance to meet Bigfoot though, what would you ask him?

Where have you been all these years, man? We've been looking for you. How do you hide in a day when everyone's got a cell phone with a camera? Yeah, no kidding. That's pretty impressive, isn't it? All right. And that and who does his hair because it's pretty groovy. Dude, yeah, Daryl does it right. All right. So growing up, who was your first celebrity crush? Oh, Farrah Fawcett.

Yeah. Remember that famous poster? You're too young. No, I had it. I had it. It was up on my wall. And I don't think my dad minded my having it up on the wall. Well, I'm not going to admit if I had it or not. But if I did, I had to hide it from mom. All right. I was going to ask you about your first job. But you know what? Milk and cows. Milk and cows is pretty legit. Yeah.

Yeah. Other than that, I worked at Burger King. You worked at Burger King? Burger King. That was my first outside of the family farm job. 16 years old, Burger King. You know, I've had like, as I said, 21. I think we've had three that worked at McDonald's. You may be the first Burger King. I did Kentucky Fried Chicken.

So there's a commonality there. I guess if you want to get to Congress, you might want to start working at a fast food restaurant. Well, you know, I dreamed of McDonald's one day when I was a Burger King employee, but it just never happened. You know, it's funny. I work the drive-thru every once in a while, and I didn't work there very long. Let's be honest. I didn't work there very long. My dad actually owned it for a brief period of time.

But I would work the drive-thru and, you know, you have the little headset on and I'm a teenager and a little awkward. And it was always funny because at least once a week, and I wonder if this is still true. I'll have to get a KFC person on that. We'd have somebody pull up at the drive-thru. This is in Frazier, Colorado. But they would say, so asking about the menu, they'd say, so how many pieces of chicken in that nine-piece box?

And for those of you at home that don't know the answer to this question, I'm telling you, I had to give really creative. Well, you know, it comes with eight, but then we'll throw in an extra one for you. What piece do you want? Because we gave them sort of one of every piece. And so they would be like,

Yeah, can you give me an extra drumstick? Yeah, I'll make sure there's a drumstick in there for you. Like I'm doing them a favor. How many pieces of chicken in the nine-piece box?

I'm just glad you didn't have to say, hey, I got a check. Let me ask the manager. It's just unbelievable the questions you get to drive through. Oh, my goodness. All right. Last question. You've been very generous with your time. Who is your favorite former chairman of the Oversight Committee from Utah's third congressional district who's a Fox News contributor who lives in Alpine, Utah?

Jason Javits. Good answer. Of course. The good answer, I got to tell you, the judges liked your answer on all those, but there is one bonus question. And you can win it all or you can blow it all on this one question. All right. I want to go for it. I want to go for it.

No checking with Clay White. None of that. Just you. Let me understand the rules. I can take my winnings and go home or I can bet it all double or nothing on this one. No, it's double or nothing. You have to answer this question. But you can lose it all. You've scored perfectly. Serving our military, serving on Intel. That's all pluses. But you can lose it all with this one question. Pineapple on pizza.

No. Yes or no? No, no, no.

No, and if I lose, I can accept that. No, the answer is no, obviously. No, that is – we're going to have to come up with some ringing bell because, you know what, that is the right and only answer. So congratulations. Thank you. Congressman Chris Stewart, and I got to tell you, the work that he's put in, the stuff that he's accomplished –

It really is truly amazing. I see all the time. You do a lot of hits over there on some of those other networks. You're willing to answer questions from just about anybody. And you just care and love for your country. And you know what? That's what we need first and foremost. And so thank you for your service. Thanks for joining us today on the Jason in the House podcast.

Thank you, Jason. It's been an honor. Appreciate your friendship and let's do it again sometime. I can't thank Chris Stewart enough. Just great, wonderful person. If you get to know his wife, she's just awesome as well. And a very accomplished family in so many ways. And just good, hardworking, patriotic family. That's what you ask for. And that's what you get in Chris Stewart. So I thank him and he's got a,

Got a great staff there, too, there in D.C. and here in Utah. We're just very fortunate to have him serving. Thank you so much for listening to the Jason in the House podcast. You can find more from the Fox News Podcast Network over at

FoxNewsPodcast.com. Aptly named, isn't it? FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. We need you to like it, rate it, review it, and we'll be back with more next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

Listen to the all-new Brett Baer podcast featuring Common Ground. In-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Baer favorites like his all-star panel and much more. Available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.