Governor Greg Gianforte: Creating A Sanctuary State For Freedom In The Free Market
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Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for joining us. We're going to give a little bit about what's going on in the world and then highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to talk to a fairly new governor, the governor of Montana, Governor Gianforte, who has done some amazing things, has incredible entrepreneurial background and

I think when you get a true business person like that, you get a different type of result and certainly a different approach to government. So we'll give him a shout and it's good to hear a fresh new voice on the political scene. But let's start about what's going on in the world and what's going on with the news. Well,

The debt ceiling. I want to talk about the debt ceiling because there are a lot of gyrations, things happening every hour about what's going on with the infrastructure bill, which looks like it's going to pass. And then what's called the reconciliation bill. Basically what has to happen, and I'm trying to oversimplify it here.

There has to be a budget resolution that's put in place by the House and the Senate. Inevitably, they don't agree and so they have what's called reconciliation. You have to reconcile the two bills. But there are limitations on what you can do and what you can't do. But part of the advantage of that is that the speed in which you can do it because you don't have to get to 60 votes in the Senate. You don't have to invoke that cloture and the cloture rule and all that. And so...

As long as you get to the simple majority in both the House and the Senate, you can get there. But the problem is Nancy Pelosi only has a four-seat majority in the House and over in the Senate. Well, you know, they have 50. It's a tie over there in the Senate. So they have to rely on the vice president to break that tie. And it means that everybody has to agree on one side of the aisle or they have to peel off some Republicans' seats.

But they have peeled off some of the Republicans on the infrastructure bill. And we can spend a whole hour talking about why I personally think that was the wrong bill and the wrong approach. But nevertheless, let's assume that that's going to pass.

One of the things that the Republicans did not do is they did not secure an understanding from the Democrats that they weren't just going to take the bipartisan bill of the infrastructure and then load up the whole rest of their Green New Deal approach with the budget reconciliation bill. So that's the concern is that how are they going to do that? Well, guess what?

Some moderates over there on the Democratic side of the aisle, they know they're going to all lose their elections based on what's going on here because they

It looks like this reconciliation bill is going to massively increase taxes. It's going to massively increase spending. And if you are a true moderate, these are not things that are helpful to your moving forward. Now, it looks like the squad, the AOCs of the world and these liberals, the Bernie Sanders of the world, if you think of them as in that realm of the political spectrum, they're going to pretty much get what they want. They have an insatiable desire for more.

but they don't act as if there is any sort of guardrail. Okay, so that's all the background to get you to a key point, which is about the debt ceiling. Now, it is the one thing that we have out there that pauses the country to say, how much debt are we going to accumulate?

It is exactly what it sounds like. It is a debt ceiling. It only allows the treasury to borrow up to a certain limit and then they run out of money. Now, there are all types of tricks and shenanigans and movement of money, but at some point you get closer and closer to that. And the prevailing thought in DC was they're going to take this budget process, this reconciliation process,

And because it's a must pass, have to have it bill, then guess what? We're going to throw a rise in the debt ceiling into that bill. But guess what? Some of the moderates over there in the Democratic side of the aisle saying, uh-uh, we're not doing that. Because what's going to happen is if they add, and I'm making up a number because they haven't pegged a number yet. If we're going to add $5 trillion, and by the way, let's understand what a trillion is.

If you spend a million dollars a day every day, it'll take you almost 3,000 years to get to 1 trillion. Okay, so that's how big that number is. We're paying, because we're roughly $28 trillion in debt right now, we pay about $1.5 billion per day. That's our daily interest payment on our current national debt.

Now, keep in mind, our national debt interest rate is near zero. So when you're paying $1.5 billion and you're at home saying, gosh, I really wish there was more infrastructure. I wish our roads worked better. I wish we could do more with NASA. I wish we could do more with whatever you pick from your whole plate there. Guess what? You can't do those things to the degree that you do because you've accumulated all this past debt.

What never happens is we never have a discussion in Washington about where to actually cut spending. You know, what happened under Donald Trump is they cut taxes and the Democrats said, oh, that was irresponsible. Well, guess what, folks? When the economy is zooming, when you cut taxes, when you get rid of some of these onerous regulations, the economy zooms. When the economy zooms, guess what? Revenue to the treasury goes up.

So it's an oversimplification to say, oh, we cut taxes. Oh, we hurt revenue to the treasury. Not true. Under Donald Trump, what happened was cut taxes, revenue to the treasury went up. The inverse is very similar. Increased taxes suppresses business activity. Revenue to the treasury often will go down.

And so that's the concern is that you're going to suppress the economic activity that could happen under a more responsible tax scheme. And people will yell and scream and say, oh, they need to pay their fair share. Fair share. Okay, let's talk about what fair share is. That's a whole other discussion, but under a quote-unquote fair share system,

then you again stifle economic activity, you stifle your ability to make investments, and you have people that do have money that even if you taxed them at 100%, even if you implemented a wealth tax, even if you implemented all these dreams that the liberals have, you don't solve the overall problem and achieve balance. You never get to the point where revenues exceed expenditures and you start to pay down that debt.

So that's a long-winded way of saying the debt ceiling is an important tool. It's an important moment. And you will have people on the Democratic side of the aisle in particular say, it's irresponsible. You have to pay for the government you already spent. Well, in order to have that discussion, you have to have a debt ceiling in place. Nobody wants to raise the debt ceiling because they politically know that

it's not compatible to go back to the American people and say, we're going to spend more of your money and put you further into debt. Well, as members of the House and the Senate, they're supposed to be reflective of their states and reflective of the people. I, for one, think the only solution to this is a balanced budget amendment. I think if we had to pay for the government that we actually spend on,

There would be an explosion of outrage in this country because we would say, no, no, no, no, cut this. We don't need that, which would ultimately be a good thing. There are some people out there that say, oh, we don't want to have a balanced budget amendment because that'll give the Democrats an excuse to raise taxes. Probably a bit of both.

But the debt ceiling is an important national conversation. How far in debt do we want to go? How much inflation do we want? How much do we want to devalue the dollar? How much do we want to straddle future generations with this debt?

And so I don't know what they're going to do. I think they're in a conundrum that they just don't know how to get out of, but it is a reality. It is going to happen. And everybody in DC is going to be, Oh, it's terribly irresponsible. No, they've been the one, the Nancy Pelosi's and Chuck Schumer's of the world. And remember,

Republicans are complicit in this too. They said it was all paid for. Then the Congressional Budget Office comes out and says, nah, not so fast. It's about $250 billion more to the debt. And so...

You got to look to the people in Washington, D.C. and say, folks, you're out of control. You just, you are spending like there is no tomorrow. And the problem is there is a tomorrow. And so I like the debt ceiling. I don't want to raise the debt ceiling. I want to start talking about what we're going to cut out of our bloated federal government. All right. That's me on the debt ceiling. Now it's time to bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.

All right, I'm looking at FoxNews.com. They're citing the Wall Street Journal. Here's a problem we have in our country, and I tell you, I put this in the category of stupid because it worries me because I just worry about this new generation of

that's coming up. You know, we, we've had a recent economic report where there's more job openings than ever. You've got a government that's competing, uh, by paying people too much to sit on the sidelines and not be fully engaged. Um, like if you got somebody who can't help themselves, um, of course we didn't want to be there as a backstop and help. But if you have an able-bodied American who really just needs to get up off the couch, um,

Rather than handing him a government check, we should be pointing to a job. And so one of the concerns here highlighted in the Wall Street Journal is, and I'm going to read this little paragraph that actually comes out of FoxNews.com.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some restaurants have reported issues with workers who haven't had to serve orders on trays before. New employees hired during the past year would likely have served primarily to-go orders, and transitioning back to trays is reportedly more difficult than expected.

Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. Are we in trouble if serving food on trays is that much more difficult than serving food in a bag? Yikes, that sounds stupid to me, but it's part of the problem that we're having in this country. ♪

From the Fox News Podcasts Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy Podcast. Former federal prosecutor and four-term U.S. congressman from South Carolina brings you a one-of-a-kind podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcasts.com. All right, let's get on and phone a friend because I got to serve in the United States Congress with the congressman. Remember, Montana only has one member of Congress. I served with Ryan Zinke, but then we had...

Greg Gianforte, who came to the scene, and he was the representative there. But then he went on to run for the governor of Montana, and he won. And so...

He was wildly successful as a business entrepreneur. I don't know. He's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He had great success, built one of the largest, if not the largest company there in Montana with over 1,100 employees. Oracle came in and purchased them. But a great entrepreneur, personally somebody I got to know, the governor of Montana. So let's dial up the governor of Montana. This is Greg.

Greg, hey, Jason Chaffetz, governor. So glad to have you on the phone. Thanks for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. My pleasure. It's good to speak to you again.

Well, we got to serve overlap at least a few months there in the House of Representatives. And you're the governor of Montana, one of my favorite states in the world to spend time in. I live in Utah, but I drive to Montana pretty regularly. That big sky country is real. Get out and breathe some real air and see some of the best wildlife in the world. So congratulations on becoming the new governor. I hope you're enjoying it. I am. And Jason, you're welcome here anytime.

Well, good, because I'm coming up more often than you know. So you've got kind of a remarkable story because you sort of conquered the business world. You did exceptionally well there. You've risen to pretty much the highest levels in politics. But let's go back to little Greg. Before you ever had dreamy eyes about politics or the business world, you grew up, I think you were born in California, but you spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania and

Tell us about what life was like early on because I'm fascinated by what people have done in their previous life that allowed them and things that they learned along the way that really propelled them later in life. Yeah, so my dad was an engineer and my mom was a math teacher. And they were –

in exile in California until they came back home. They both grown up on the East coast. I, by the time I was three, we were living near Valley forge, Pennsylvania. And I think one of the really pivotal spots in my upbringing was I got, I really wanted a dirt bike bad.

And I went to my dad and said, can I go get a dirt bike? And he said, sure. You just have to pay for it yourself. So in junior high school,

I started mowing lawns because I wanted this dirt bike. And I got it. And that started my career as an entrepreneur. I ended up studying electrical engineering. Me and my two brothers, we all became engineers. And in our family, my wife and I have been married 33 years. We have four kids. We told them they could study anything they want as long as it's engineering.

And we got three out of four. And then out of school, I went to Bell Laboratories during divestiture, which was really an interesting time putting businesses together. But I had this entrepreneurial itch. So I left after three years and started this career of starting technology businesses. And we exited one. And I was young. I was just 32 years.

And we had three boys in diapers. And we had this crazy idea that maybe the internet removes geography as a constraint in where you live and work. So we up and moved to Montana. And that was back in 1994. We've been here ever since. And we started this little business in our home in Bozeman, Montana, just my wife and I with $5,000.

And we grew to be one of the state's largest employers. We had 1,100 employees in 17 offices all over the world. We took the company public. I was the CEO and chairman of the company for eight years while it was public. And then it became part of Oracle in 2012. And there was a big question, what do you do next? And I just feel like our founding fathers always believed that

People in public service should have gained a lifetime of experiences in whatever they do, whether they're farmers or ranchers or mechanics or lawyers or business people. And I was in a spot. It was either go start a sixth business or go into public service. And I chose the latter. And that was back about seven years ago.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I have a number of young people along the way. You know, I spent eight and a half years in Congress. I was in the governor's office before that, the chief of staff. And it's interesting. They say, well, you know, I want to do a career in politics. And I just when I hear career politics, I just think those aren't compatible things.

And I tell him, I said, well, the most important thing you can do if you want to get into politics is don't go into politics. Go get some real life experience and then bring that to the equation so that you can actually bring something to the table other than, you know, maybe what you learned in grade school.

Yeah, I tell them the same thing. Young folks, they're bright. They want to contribute. And we need policy folks and we need young blood to help us. But when they say they want a career as a politician and they say, what advice would you offer? I say, well, go run a business for 30 years. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I did it for 16 years at various business levels. I mostly worked for other people, but had some success along the way. I had my own little business, but...

Yeah, get in, serve, and then get out. I think it's great that they have a lot of young people get in, co-do interns, maybe spend a couple years in D.C., and then go do their business stuff. But let's go back and talk about that entrepreneurial itch because, you know, not everybody has that entrepreneurial itch. It's a little scary when you dive off into the deep end and say, all right, here we go. There's no life preserver here. You've got a young family, three kids. I mean –

That's a little scary, isn't it? Why would you do that? And a lot of people would never do that. Well, I think that the creation process of starting a business from nothing, there's few things that, I mean, it's,

a massive challenge, but it's just deeply rewarding too. In fact, Inc. Magazine did a story on our Montana startup. It's still up on the internet someplace and it's entitled Start With Nothing. And the picture that accompanies the article is me sitting in an office chair and

in the middle of a cut wheat field with a pad of paper. And it's that startup process. And I just, I think the number one issue here in Montana is we need more good paying jobs. And good paying jobs are,

are created by businesses and businesses are created by entrepreneurs. And that's why I'm such a strong advocate for getting entrepreneurial education into our schools and encouraging young folks. It's not the right thing for everybody because, as you know, having been in business, the highs are really high and the lows are really low and they come at a very high frequency.

And but as Winston Churchill said, you know, when you're when you're going through hell, keep going. It's the only people that fail are the ones that give up.

And I just I'd love the uncertainty of that and the potential to impact people's lives. And, you know, that was kind of our core mission at RightNow Technologies. The business we started here was to a reform the ethics of the software industry, but also to create livelihoods. And we did that by helping people.

large multinationals adopt best practices in customer service using technology and business practices. Now, I'm applying all that here in state government where we've kind of introduced this foreign concept of customer service to state government. And it's given our state employees purpose.

Yeah, there are a lot of good patriotic people I find that engage. They work for the federal government. They work for state government. I don't blame them for the big bad policies that are put into place or things that get funded that shouldn't and that sort of thing. But they want to do the right thing. But yeah, oftentimes I find that there are so many of them and that they're rudderless because they aren't really seeing and capturing the vision of –

look, you're not just here to get a paycheck, you know, week after week. You actually work for the people of the United States or the people of Montana or Utah, wherever it might be. So you spent a couple of years in Congress. What's the difference being the chief executive of a big state like Montana and being in the United States Congress as you were as the representative from Montana? What's the difference that you see? Well, here in this job,

in the governor's office, I have a chance to use all the leadership experience I acquired in the private sector. In Washington, I mean, to be honest, I got pretty good at voting no. I mastered that too when I was in the minority. I was really good at putting my heart in. Let me tell you a story from the first week I was in office here. I think this will put a point on it. I got sworn in on a Tuesday.

And I have a great team, but they really screwed up. They put nothing on my schedule Wednesday afternoon because they were so focused on the inauguration and everything that went along with that. So I'm like bouncing around like a caged animal Wednesday afternoon in the governor's office because I like I have nothing to do. So I said, oh, I just got 11,000 new employees. Let me go meet some. So I walked across the street from the Capitol to the labor and industry building, which is literally 100 yards from the Capitol.

And I started going cube to cube and I said, hi, my name's Greg. I just started across the street. And what's your name? How long you worked here? And what do you do? And I just wanted to meet some folks. And that's what we do in the private sector. And I met this guy and he told me he had worked in that building 100 yards from the Capitol for 29 years.

And he had never seen a governor in that building. I've now done that in all 14 agencies that are under our administrative leadership. And every single agency,

I met somebody like that. They worked there 20, 25, 30 years. They had never seen a governor in the building. And so to your point, this has been the biggest surprise to me here at the state of Montana. We have good state workers. They have a work ethic that doesn't stop. They want to do the right thing. No one's ever told them what their job is. So we now have one page strategic plans at every state agency. They understand how to score points. It's sort of like

We put 22 people on the football field and didn't tell them where the end zone was. And they end up focusing on self-preservation and empire building in the absence of a clear vision. We've now given them a vision and it's changing. I mean, they got more skip in their step because they have purpose.

No, it's so true. I had a very similar experience. Fairly new chief of staff. Governor Huntsman's taken office. We talked to the equivalent of the Health and Human Services cabinet member. And she said, well, I'll come over. What time do you want me to come over? I said, no, no, no. The governor will come over to your building and come over and see you.

And I tell you, we showed up and didn't really put up with the security at the front desk. We said, no, we're just going to walk through. Unbelievable how many cubicles were empty. How many were people reading the newspaper? How many people were just literally like taking a nap at their desk?

They'd never had a governor go walk through that building before. Very similar experience. Tell me, though, the difference between the frustration that you see, because it seems like, and you saw this up close and personal in Washington, everything was all Washington all the time. They think they have to have their tentacles and that they have to micromanage everything at the federal level to

How do we overcome that and allow states like the more entrepreneurial, innovative states like Utah and Montana and some others, Governor Ducey's doing in Arizona? How do you let them thrive without the far reach of the federal bureaucracy? Well, our Tenth Amendment is pretty clear. It's any right not explicitly granted to the state.

federal government is reserved for the state and the people and yet we seem to have forgotten that in washington so i mean one of the big issues we're facing across the west right now utah montana idaho is the the health of our forests this is probably the one of the most urgent needs and this whole emphasis of the biden administration on this 30 by 30 plan

is really a confiscation of property rights. So I think we have to be extremely vigilant. And when I was in Congress, I worked extensively, and you and I served together on natural resources, I think, for a period, to get more tools in the toolbox to allow Western states to

to be good stewards of the land. And so much of it in the West is controlled by the federal government and all their dollars,

have been sucked up into firefighting and the consequences we have tinderboxes and we're in the middle of it right now i mean we have about 90 active fires burning in montana as we speak we've had homes destroyed uh we've burned almost 600 000 acres all so far this year a normal fire year for us is about 70 000 acres so we're almost at 10x what we normally see and yet uh

So I think we just have to take the bull by the horns and exert our constitutional rights for states' rights. And I'm starting with lands. I'm concerned about overreach and Endangered Species Act, equal access to justice. These are all efforts by the federal and election law changes. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. We just need to stay out of the way.

Yeah, you know, for the people out on the East Coast that are listening to this, they don't really understand that, you know, a state like Utah, 70% of our land is owned by the state or federal government. And so when they implement some bad forestry policies, don't allow the underbrush, don't allow the clearing out with the logging and that sort of thing, then you end up with a tinderbox with fuel, so to speak, that ignites these wildfires that you just...

And people start to say, oh, well, it's just all global warming. Well, I'm sorry, folks, but it's also 30 years of bad Democratic policies that have created this tinderbox so that they just explode with wildfires when they get a lightning strike or a camper who didn't put out his little campsite fire outright. But it's such a big, weighty issue out West. And for our...

Folks that are very concerned about the environment and the climate. There is no larger carbon source than wildfires. Right. Right. When we manage our forest, I mean, just just to put a point on it, we we have a forest health crisis right now because of a lack of stewardship. When we thin forests.

We have better wildlife habitat. There's more opportunities for recreation. We have increased wildfire resiliency and we create some jobs along the way. And when a fire hits a managed forest, it burns the forest floor and cleans it up. And a year later, it's healthier than it was before. When we've done no management, it burns into the crown. And I drove through a wildfire devastation this morning on the way to the Capitol and

And just the whole landscape has been sterilized. Nothing will burn there. I mean, no trees will grow there for 20 years. Every seed has been killed. It's just, it's devastated. And that's because we haven't been good stewards. So,

I just invite folks to come out and learn about this. Let's apply the science and let's be better stewards of the lands that we've been given. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with the governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte, right after this. All right. Before we get to our rapid questions, I just want to talk about political philosophy for a second, because I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast know

they're really trying to think through the principles that we should be adhering to and i think our country is going through this massive whether they realize it or not this real philosophical approach do we move more towards socialism more central government more government all the time everywhere or is it more about freedom and liberty and and allowing uh self-determination and that radiates down to the state where we make decisions the 10th amendment as you mentioned

But kind of give us your philosophy. I mean, look, you had wild success there in Montana as a bringing jobs. But you weren't probably the most likely candidate to rise to become the governor, be the representative from the state.

Kind of combine those two for me, your philosophical approach to it and why you think that radiates with Montanans that have put you in this office. Well, it's an incredible honor to be the 25th governor of Montana, and I take it really seriously. We have an expression in our business, the bigger something gets, the farther you are from the truth.

So I'm in my office here in Helen in the Capitol today. It's the only day I'm in my office this week. The remainder of the time I travel the state. I've done that for six years now. I get to, I mean, to give people a perspective of how big Montana is, we're the fourth largest state in the country. We can fit Washington, D.C. in the southeast corner and Chicago fits in the northwest corner. So it's a lot of territory to cover.

But every town I go into, because I've been doing this for six years, it's like coming home. We have friends and they call me, they email me. I think a leader has to be out with the people. I also believe that our free market system is the best way to create prosperity. I was heavily influenced by

writing by Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus in their book, Poverty of Nations, which analyzed the governmental systems down through the ages. And they make a very compelling case that the only way to lift people out of poverty is by giving them opportunity and allowing them to work hard. That's why we were the first state in the country to get rid of these supplemental unemployment benefits, because we were incenting people to stay home. There's not enough money

on the earth to help people lift them out of poverty if they aren't actually engaged in helping themselves. So that influences me deeply. I also believe that our founding fathers gave us such a tremendous gift in our Constitution. I think it's the best document ever written by man for the purpose of government.

And we need to hold fast to it, but it's at risk. I've been also influenced by Oz Guinness and his writing and his golden trinity where we hold on to freedom very tightly, but absolute freedom

in the absence of self-restraint is chaos and we saw some of that in the black live matter movement the antifa so so the question becomes if we want to preserve this experiment in freedom how do we do it well oz guinness would argue that freedom is only possible when people have virtue it's virtue that respects the rights of others but virtue is impossible without faith

But faith cannot exist without freedom. So you're back to where you started again. So if we're going to continue this experiment in freedom, we need to rely on the self-restraint of the people. We have to respect their rights, our God-given rights as they're embodied in our Constitution. And at the point we lose virtue,

uh, this experiment in freedom is over. Yeah, no, great words. I mean, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the right for self-determination. There's some guardrails up there that government needs to be involved in, engaged in, but, uh, it's really to help protect those rights. But boy, I tell you every day I wake up and just see an overreach by our government. But, uh,

All right. I know you've written and produced and sold an awful lot of software in your time, and you've done well politically, but nothing's prepared you for the rapid questions we're about to ask you on Jason in the House. I hope you're ready for them. I'm bracing myself. All right, Governor. Here we go. Best James Bond. I think...

Casino Royale. Yeah, that was good. That was a good one. I love it in the holidays when they start playing. That was my COVID thing. My wife and I went back and we watched all the James Bond movies again. It's fun. When you watch them in order, it really... Anyway. I love it. All right. Ideal vacation destination?

Any place in the woods. This weekend, my wife and I, we just packed our inflatable kayak. We're going to put on a Montana river with three days of food, sleeping bags and tents, and we're going to paddle. Good for you. There's nothing like breathing the clean outdoor air of Montana. I'm just telling you, it is a special, special place. All right. If you weren't in politics, if you didn't get that political bug, what would you be doing right about now?

I'd be starting another business or playing with my grandkids. How many grandkids do you have? One and a half. Well, our son and daughter-in-law are expecting their first, the first week of September. So I'd say it's one in seven eighths. All right. Well, that's good. Good for you. All right. First concert you ever attended. Oh, that would have been a long time ago. I think my favorite concert was probably Lyle Lovett or

Wiley in the Wild West and just full disclosure, Wiley, the Montanan, if people aren't familiar with their music, I definitely encourage you to get. He's also the brother of the lieutenant governor and he's a yodeling cowboy. He played at our inauguration. He's also the one that recorded the yodel for Yahoo.

Oh, really? Oh, yes. I can hear it when you say that. I can hear that yodel. That's it. And his name again is? Wiley Gustafson, but his band is Wiley and the Wild West. Wiley and the Wild West. I haven't heard. I haven't listened to him. I love it. You haven't lived. All right. All right. What was your high school mascot? A Viking.

All right, that's good. What does Congress not understand about technology? This is, I, you know, when I was the chairman of the oversight committee, we started a subcommittee on technology because people, they didn't understand emerging technologies. They didn't understand the existing technologies. They, but then sure enough, Democrats came in charge and they got rid of it. But what, what do you want Congress to understand about technology? Because it scares me that 90 plus percent of the body has no idea how it works.

Well, technology is a tool. I think it's too often viewed as a destination as opposed. Cause so if you have a terrible process and you automate it, you're going to have a faster, terrible process. So what you need to do is you need to get the business process right first. And then, uh, technology is a tremendous tool for improving quality of service, uh,

eliminating repetitive tasks, improving quality of outcomes. But, you know, if you need a hammer, you don't pull out a screwdriver. It's just you need to pick out the right tool for the right job.

Yeah, it is scary to me. Having been on the House Judiciary Committee when they tried to put in this, what they call the DNS redirect, which is a domain name server redirect tool for the Homeland Security, where essentially if you type something in, Homeland Security could unilaterally move it over to a different destination. And they say, oh, we're doing this all for the right reasons. But I'm like, yeah.

Yeah, I just happen to not trust you. So you can imagine if that had passed what they'd be doing now, trying to correct the record and not allowing people their First Amendment rights. But I digress. We could do a whole thing on that. What's the worst thing you did as a child? Hmm.

I was on a, well, I don't know if I could admit this, but... You're the governor now. You've already won, so you could say it. Yeah, the statute of limitations has run out. I was at Annapolis one year, and I was young, and Army had beaten Navy that year. So we snuck out at night, took a bed sheet, put the score of the game on the flagpole, and ran it up the flagpole. Yeah.

That's probably not a good idea on a military base or military installation. All right, that wasn't a good idea, was it? No. It's pretty funny, though. What's your favorite sport? Oh, probably big game hunting. And this is the thing in Montana. We have so much public land, and if you switch –

and species, you can hunt big game 11 out of 12 months. In fact, I'm sitting in my office here in the Capitol. I've got 18 species of animals taxidermied and hanging on the wall.

You know, I figured out how to solve that and just got into wildlife photography because I figured you don't need a tag and you don't need to be in season and you also don't need to gut it at the end. If I was eating it, if I was doing what Cameron Haynes and some of these other guys do all the time, I think it would be a different thing for me personally. But I really respect the idea that people get out and do it and love it and it's actually good. I think most people forget and they don't understand that

that people involved in the hunting and fishing communities and whatnot, they're the biggest advocates for the environment that there are. They want big, plentiful herds. They want to manage the forests. And they want to make sure that they leave it better than how they found it. It's one of these philosophical things that people who don't hunt don't understand.

And if you, well, if you come to my house for dinner, guaranteed you're going to have game meat. Well, I'm just asking, you know, I'll just assume I get an invite and hope that maybe I do. That would be fun. That'd be great. You'd be welcome. All right. Last question. If you could meet one person dead or alive, who would it be? That's a good question. Somebody you could have over and serve a little, maybe a little, some bison burgers or something. Dead or alive. Dead or alive.

You know, I would have over for dinner. I think one of the most fascinating guys was Michelangelo. He was an early, early scientist. He was an inventor.

And just a big thinker. And I like those sorts of stimulating conversations. There's nothing better than spending a day or an afternoon preparing a meal and then filling a table with fascinating people that can talk about

continue, let's say, the great conversation. I'm an engineer. I'm kind of a nerd, but I was chairman of a classical Christian school for 14 years, and I had a little renaissance, and then went back and read the classics, and I think a lot of younger folks are missing out. I missed out on that growing up, and I'm glad I rediscovered the classics.

Yeah, that's a fascinating answer. His impact on the world and just our continued understanding of the world and his incredible talents. You're right. That would be a fascinating dinner. So a great, great choice. Governor, we have been thrilled to have you. Governor Gianforte is the great governor of the state of Montana. Congratulations on your victory. It's been a few months now.

but we expect big things and some great leadership out of Montana taking the lead on some weighty issues that are facing our whole nation. So congratulations to you on that, and thank you for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. Well, it's my pleasure. We still have a few rocks in the rock pile, so we have some work to do. All right. Well, keep after it, and thanks for joining us. Okay. Thank you.

Can't thank the good governor enough. Very kind of him to spend time. And I can't wait to get back up to Montana and get out there and photograph some of those bear and elk and moose. They got great moose up in Montana. But thanks again to Greg Gianforte and the governor. I really do appreciate it. All right, time for a little prediction. I don't think this is too bold, but we'll play back the tape at some point because I think the Democrats are on a glide path and a trajectory to lose big and

in 2022 now it all ends up being about one person versus another each congressional district each senate seat um and 2022 is still a long ways away a year from now a lot of things will change but the trajectory the democrats are on right now i just don't think is sustainable i think law and order is going to be a major issue it already is a big issue but it will continue to be a big issue

the border, the lack of a cohesive policy, something that's working, something that is respectful, something that locks down the border.

Kamala Harris has just absolutely proven to be one of the worst vice presidents in the history of the country. She takes on this big assignment, and she basically did an airport stop by and then glide by El Paso, Texas. Like El Paso, had a good experience in El Paso.

but you got to get over to the Rio Grande Valley, get over to Nogales, Arizona, go to the Yuma sector. You'd go to places like that and then you'll start to better understand what's going on in the governor. But she has no interest in that. And I think people are understanding what a human person,

trafficking problem, COVID problem, terrorist problem, drug problem. I mean, you name it, the border is just going to be a big issue. Taxes, Democrats are going to insist on raising taxes.

Of course, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris promised not to raise taxes on any middle class American. I don't think that that's going to be true. The spending's getting out of control. When you're throwing so much government spending into the system, guess what? Inflation, inflation, inflation. Some have called it an inflation bomb. I think that's going to hurt them. Masks, they have been all over the place. I don't think they're respecting people in what they do.

Their ability to make their own self-determination, and I think that will continue to divide the country. And I think most people want to be able to make their own decisions about how this works. And then right at the heart of where I think the Democrats are going to spin out of control is going to be on hypocrisy and their total lack of compassion. I just, you see everything from...

the Obama party to Gavin Newsom to, I mean, you name it, you can point to so many Democrats that are just hypocrites in, in how, what they're saying and what they're actually doing. Um, and so I just think that's going to catch up to them. And then foreign affairs, uh, foreign affairs does affect a lot of people. If you have a member of the military who's serving overseas, if you care about the world, uh,

the world's going worse. I mean, Russia got what it wanted with its pipeline. You have China on the march and on the move. No pushback there. Iran is being able to fund its nuclear ambitions. John Kerry is out there running around the world trying to tie our hands about what he wants us to do unilaterally to address global warming. I'm concerned about what we throw up into our air and

and in our waters and streams. I think that affects our environment. I care about the environment. I'm a conservative for goodness sake, but their policies, they're just not compatible with, I think, where most of America wants to be. That's a big long list. That's why I'm telling you, I think Democrats lose big in 2022 because the list is so big and they're moving in a trajectory that I just don't think the majority of America likes.

All right, that's it for the Jason in the House podcast. I want to thank you for listening. You can go over to Fox News Podcast Network at foxnewspodcast.com to find more. And we would hope that if you would rate this thing, hit the little stars, that would be nice and kind of you. Join us next week. We'll have another great, exciting guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

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