Guy Benson: Following His Passion For Politics
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It's time to take the quiz. Five questions, five minutes a day, five days a week. Take the quiz every weekday at thequiz.fox and then listen to the quiz podcast to find out how you did. Play, share, and of course, listen to the quiz at thequiz.fox. Hi, and welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks for joining us. We're going to have a good discussion today. We're going to call up a phone, a friend, a guy, Benson, who you've probably

seen heard and probably read some stuff along the way one of the smartest guys in politics i love the clarity in which he looks at things i look forward to dialing them up and we'll all get to know him a little bit better we're going to highlight the stupid because you know somebody's always doing something stupid somewhere and then of course uh we're gonna start and kick things off by talking about things in the news and a little riff on the news if we could

I'm still fascinated by what's going on or what went on in Virginia, in New Jersey, in other places around the country. Democrats act as if they have some sort of mandate, but they don't. They won by razor thin margins. And you would think that the Bernie Sanders of the world were crazy.

The Democrats were, you know, that are just so far to the left that they were the ones that were swept into power, that AOC and alike, that they were the ones that that propelled the Democrats to this massive victory and that the country had spoken. But it wasn't anything near that.

I find it interesting, actually, with Bernie Sanders. Bernie was, for a long time, the senator was not even a declared Democrat. He was an independent because, you know, Democrats were just far, far too centrist for his like. And yet...

He runs for president. He actually does pretty well on the left side of the aisle. But you know what? Now he's in charge of the Budget Committee for the Democrat, a non-registered member of the Democratic Party for so long.

And so you go back and you look at the news here and look at the analysis of what went on in Virginia. And I think there's a couple lessons to learn. One is you got to have a good candidate. And obviously, Mr. Youngkin was a very good candidate. He was articulate. He was compassionate. He loved Virginia. And he worked really, really hard. He's done good things in his life. I read that 40% of his income over the last, I don't know what period of time, but 40% he had earned

He had donated to charity along the way. He's obviously a good guy and got a beautiful family. That helps. Okay. But as important as anything was his ability to articulate and convince the voters of Virginia that his policies were better, smarter for Virginia, because that's ultimately what people want.

You know, the sleeper issue there, there was a lot of discussion about critical race theory. There was a lot about school choice, about the mask mandate, about the vaccine mandate, about the economy and jobs and infrastructure, all of that. The sleeper issue that I see out there is,

that I think played a major role that the Democrats just can't get away from is what was the perception of the United States military. If you look at Virginia, they have probably hundreds of thousands of people with direct ties to the United States military. You cannot convince me that these people went into the booth after a few months after what went on and didn't go on in Afghanistan.

The way Joe Biden and Kamala Harris absolutely bungled the withdrawal, it was such a national embarrassment, such a personal embarrassment, such an affront to those that had served and are serving in our United States military. I think with those hundreds of thousands of people there in Virginia, there's no way they're walking into the political booth and checking a box that says, yeah, we need more Democrats.

I just think when you blow and leave behind so many Americans in Afghanistan and the way we left Afghanistan, I think there's an awful lot of people that just say, you know what? I'm not voting for a Democrat again. I'm just not going to do that. And I think that was a sleeper issue. Now,

So they'll go back and they'll continue to study this. But I haven't, you know, to date, I hadn't really heard anybody talking about the military issue because by and large, a governor, they run the National Guard. They're the commander in chief of the National Guard. But it's not. But still, it's Democrats. And when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Barack Obama and all these people came into Virginia, Stacey Abrams trying to say, oh, Virginia, this is what's best for you.

I don't know that Virginians were having any of it. I think it goes to show yet again, I don't know that endorsements much matter. I think people understand it's one candidate or another candidate and they were tired of Tyree McAuliffe. They didn't want to retread.

But most importantly, they saw Mr. Youngkin as somebody who represented the issues, the policies that they want. And that's a problem for Democrats across the country going into the next election in 2022. All right. Now, somebody with elections a little bit differently. My guess is you haven't heard or seen this story. And I don't want to belabor it, but I saw it actually. And I wanted to talk about it. It was the reelection of President Daniel Ortega.

as the president of Nicaragua. Now...

You go back and look at what you know about Nicaragua and its history, and according to several sources here, especially the Organization of American States, the OAS, the Sandinista dictator, Daniel Ortega, had declared victory just a little while ago, but it was one of the most ugly, disgusting races that there could possibly be.

It was marred by an arrest of all other viable candidates, a ban on reputable election observers, and there was widespread reports of violence. This according to Breitbart. There were seven candidates that were running against Daniel Ortega, seven of which were arrested for treason, didn't even get there on the ballot.

And, I mean, they stopped counting the votes with only 75% of the vote in because Daniel Ortega declared victory and declared that, well, nobody else was going to win. Absolutely unbelievable that they could. Daniel Ortega handpicked victory.

his competitors, and then had them arrested for treason, according to what I've been reading here. It is one of the most dangerous places. It is not a place that you want to be. And talk about a dictatorship that is brutal, just ruthless, and an oppression of people, look no farther ahead.

Nicaragua. And then the last thing I wanted to mention in this about the news is the total opposite end of the spectrum. Okay. Totally opposite end of Daniel, uh,

Ortega, and that is Dr. Johnny Kim. I saw this online. Dr. Johnny Kim is a NASA astronaut. He was part of the class of 2017. And so just when you think, hey, you know, maybe I'm doing pretty well, or you're thinking,

I don't know. I mean, there's somebody out there to be proud of that's really accomplishing things. You look no further than Johnny Kim, because not only is he an astronaut, in April 2021, he was selected to serve as the International Space Station's increment lead for Expedition 65. But Mr. Kim, Dr. Kim, is also a lieutenant in the United States Navy, where he was a SEAL.

And he completed more than 100 combat operations. He's the recipient of the Silver Star and the Bronze Star with a combat experience. He was commissioned as a naval officer through an enlisted to officer program, and he earned his degree in mathematics from

at the University of San Diego, and then he went on because, you know, he didn't have enough else to do other than being a SEAL and then going on to be an astronaut. But he also became a medical doctor, got his doctorate of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Talk about somebody who is inspirational, who is accomplishing a lot. Proud American, Dr. Johnny Kim.

there now as a NASA astronaut. I can't even imagine somebody growing up saying, you know, I think what I want to do is I want to be a Navy SEAL, and then I want to be a doctor, and no, by the way, then I'm going to be an astronaut, because this guy did it. That's a whole lot different than Daniel Ortega saying,

And, wow, somebody to emulate and somebody to look at because that guy has accomplished a lot. So let's look at the opposite of that. The opposite of Dr. Johnny Kim is probably somebody who's bringing on the stupid. Let's bring on the stupid because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. Now, the stupid this week is pretty short, sweet, and simple. I saw it at foxnews.com, and it was just the headline.

And you don't even have to get their article. You can just figure out that there's something stupid going on here. Okay? And we're talking about the Texas football team. I got great respect for Texas. Great respect for their football team. But here's the headline. You tell me if you need to read anything else to figure out there's something stupid going on here. Monkey...

belonging to Texas special teams coach stripper girlfriend bites child on Halloween. I don't think I need to read anything else. I think I know there's something stupid going on here and that's enough for me. So like I said, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. Monkey belonging to Texas special teams coach stripper girlfriend bites child on Halloween. There's probably nothing good going on there. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back right after this.

All right, time to move on. Time to talk to some... I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app or get the free podcast at GuyBensonShow.com. Somebody who's a little bit more reputable than that, somebody who I've gotten to know a little bit through my time at Fox News. I know him. I don't know him that well. I've been on his show before, The Guy Benson Show.

So let's dial up Guy Benson and have a little chat with Guy about his life and growing up. And he's a very conservative person. Let's have a discussion with him. Let's call up Guy Benson. Hello, this is Guy. Guy, this is Jason Chaffetz. Thanks so much for agreeing to join me on the Jason in the House podcast. I do appreciate it. What a pleasant surprise, Jason. I thought you'd never call. Well, you know, I can't say I've called a whole lot. You know, I did drop in on you yesterday.

and your studio. You got, of course, the Guy Benson radio program. And I've always enjoyed the few times that I've been on. And I love your commentary. You add such a clarity that I think is very difficult for a lot of people. It's one of the hardest things to do on radio and television. It's just...

be very crystal clear in what you believe. And I don't know where you got that talent, but boy, it's a talent. It's good. Well, that's very kind of you to say. And we're going to get you back on. I was actually talking to my producers, got to get Jason back on the Guy Benson show ASAP. Well, I'd love to do it. I really would. And I've enjoyed getting to know you because of my relationship with Fox News. And I've seen you from afar. But

I want to, you know, in this podcast here, we kind of dive back into early childhood. We kind of start with, I grew up in, and then, but, you know, I'd just be fascinated to know, you know,

in your life's journey, why, I mean, you're very conservative in your approach. And I just, I'd love to hear more about that and why you believe what you believe, because I've just found through the, you know, life's experiences that there are reasons why that happens and that you have life experiences and things that I think we'd all be fascinated to hear. So you grew up in

I grew up, so this is quite a story. Ready for this one? I was born 1985, March 1985. I was born in Saudi Arabia, in Dahran, Saudi Arabia. My dad was working over there. He worked in international finance and insurance for his whole career, almost 40 years. And my mother came over and then joined him in Saudi. And so I was the firstborn, the eldest son, and was born in Saudi Arabia. So that's always an interesting conversation starter right there. And when I've gone to Israel...

few times when they're checking my passport right there like oh here's this waspy white guy with an American passport everything's fine and then you see their eyes stop on you know country of birth and it's like wait here and I get more questions so that was how things started back in the mid 80s I was a Reagan baby and we moved from Saudi Arabia to Chappaqua New York home of the Clintons of course

When I was one or so, a little over one years old, we were there for a bit for dad's work. Then we moved back overseas on my third birthday. As a matter of fact, we landed and started the next seven years in Hong Kong, which is where my younger brother was born. He's four years younger than I am.

And I had formative early years in Hong Kong and real, you know, serious and special memories from Hong Kong, which is part of the reason I'm so passionate and angry about what's happening to Hong Kong right now with the Chinese Communist Party doing what they're doing to Hong Kong and crushing democracy there. It is personally infuriating in addition to just, you know, the human rights and civil liberties tragedy that's

unfolding in Hong Kong. But we were there, as I mentioned, for almost seven years. We then moved 1994, 95-ish back to the U.S. At that time, all four of my grandparents were alive, living in the New York City, New Jersey metro area. So we were choosing where we were going to settle. You know, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, we eventually selected by we, I mean, my parents, you know, we had a, you know, half a vote. They had the real vote.

And we settled in Ridgewood, New Jersey, in Bergen County, northeastern New Jersey. That is where I was in elementary school for the last couple of years and all of middle school, all of high school. Went to public school, a really good system in Ridgewood, and graduated as a Maroon 2003. And that is when I moved to Chicago and Evanston, Illinois, to attend college at Northwestern. I was there for four years, journalism major, loved journalism.

Evanston, loved Chicago, started my career actually out in Chicago. Upon my graduation in 07, I was done at Northwestern. I actually came back to D.C., back east to D.C. for an internship at the White House under Bush for, what, four months or so, then moved back to Chicago, kicked off my career in media there, doing some radio stuff, doing some writing for National Review Online.

And then after three more years living in the city of Chicago, starting my career in the Chicago market, I was hired by still my current boss, Jonathan at townhall.com to move to D.C. and northern Virginia in particular.

but moved to the d_c_ area started working at town hall dot com in twenty ten i've been there ever since that's where i do all of my writing to this day and i joined fox on air as a contributor having been an intern back even further back in that history i joined on air as a contributor twenty thirteen and i've been at fox news on air

For eight years, which is kind of mind blowing to me that it's been eight years and I've lived in the D.C. area for that entire stretch. I keep feeling, Jason, like I'm new to town in Washington, D.C., but I'm not. It's been 11 years. I am not new to town anymore. It still kind of feels that way. But I guess I put down some roots and that's where I am now. That's the life story.

Well, you're making – see what I mean, everybody, by clarity? That's like the clearest, most concise bio I've ever heard. You didn't get off on some tangent. I can do that, though.

Go back to Hong Kong for a second. You know, back in my business travel days, I got to go to Hong Kong, I don't know, four or five times, I think. I can't remember the exact number. Wasn't it awesome? It was such an impressionable place. And it was a fascinating city. And it felt like, at least the parts I was going to, a very safe city. And with the hustle and bustle of

of world commerce was going on in Hong Kong. But when you're a little kid, what is it that like, is it just the sheer lights and life that's going on there? What was the impression that you left with it?

you were so little that causes you to have such an affinity for the place. Well, I mean, I think when some of your first real memories are in a place, you grow to care about it. And it was this amazing sort of city country at the time. It was under the control of the UK with the takeover looming from China under treaty. So that was a few years after we left. But I just had a great childhood there, really a fabulous education those early years at

Hong Kong International School, HKIS, and made some early friendships there. And Jason, I think what might be interesting to some of your listeners is this part of it, too, because my parents wanted to make sure, yes, I was being raised overseas. Yes, I was born overseas, but I was a U.S. citizen from birth.

So I'm a natural born citizen, even though I was born in Saudi. And in Hong Kong, they wanted me to understand the world and have my eyes open and be a really informed person and care about the world and be curious and enjoy travel. And that's all true. I still cherish international travel. It's one of my favorite things to do in life. But they also wanted me to be American. And so they, early, early days, would...

have me join for example boy scouts of america in hong kong so i was like a cub scout in hong kong that's where i learned the pledge of allegiance at age five we were pledging allegiance to the american flag while living in hong kong my dad was teaching me about you know the sports teams that i had to like and then later grew to love having then grown up in the new york area you know the new york yankees for example the new york giants

And one memory in particular was an annual tradition in our house, our apartment in Hong Kong,

which was around Thanksgiving. And this is one of my favorite things. Honestly, I get like goosebumps thinking about it. Around Thanksgiving, the U.S. Navy would have some of their ships come into port in Hong Kong and they would dock in Hong Kong. And our family would sign up with the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong ahead of time. And we would offer to host usually two to four members of the U.S. military, usually the Navy at

our house and we would cook the full American Thanksgiving meal and we would have these American service members join us. And leading into Thanksgiving week, when the ships would come across the South China Sea, they would actually pass, usually right in front of our apartment because we overlooked the water. And my dad bought the biggest American flag that he could find. And we would drape it off of our balcony and we would wave at

the ships as they came in and we had binoculars and sometimes they would be out on the deck and they'd wave back or they would flash morse code at us and it was just like a cool connection that i had to america and the flag and some of our values and then getting to spend the most american holiday with these american heroes total strangers year after year with you know turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and the whole nine yards

To me, that was really formative, where I could be this very profoundly and proudly American kid, even though I had spent not very long of my early, you know, not very much of my early years actually living in the United States. And my parents made sure that that was the case. Now, that is a very cool story. In fact...

The only thing I have to kind of relate to that is that I think the neatest thing, one of the certainly one of the most memorable things I got to do in Congress was I went out into the Arabian Sea there during and was on the USS San Jacinto during the.

during Thanksgiving, got to serve the troops a Thanksgiving meal. Oh, wow. And, you know, the ship is pitching from left to right. And, you know, it's a little slippery behind the, you know, where you serve the turkey and the gravy and the potatoes and all that. And I was sliding all over the place. Those guys just thought that was the funniest thing in the world that I ever

Could not keep my balance trying to serve up a little Thanksgiving meal. But what I would do so badly. Congress, I get seasick so easily. I'm almost seasick thinking about what you just described.

Oh, yeah. And there's no getting away from it, right? No, there's no escape. You go to sleep. Yeah. It's a big ship, but it's not a huge cruise liner either. This thing's built for war. It's not built for comfort. That's for sure. So that is fascinating. I did not know that about your background. So when you eventually get back in the United States and you're toggling between Chicago and Jersey and all that,

What did your parents do? What was your life experience like? Your parents were doing well. You weren't worried about a meal, right? Or shelter over your head. No, we are very blessed. Did you have to... Did they make you work? Did you... What were the things that were going on in your life that...

maybe everybody else wasn't doing or you thought they were but maybe they really weren't well I mean we were by no means like super wealthy or anything like that we had friends from school and from church who would do all this stuff that was just totally foreign to us I mean especially those early years because one of the things about being an expat which is you know which my parents were expats you know Americans stationed abroad for you know for a corporation American company

a lot of the benefits and the perks that they will offer you to incentivize going overseas, often leaving your family, living far away from home, they're pretty nice, right? So when we were living abroad, so much stuff was paid for by the company. You know, the apartment, our cars.

our education, our schooling, you know, homely vacations. It was a very generous package that my dad had. Then we moved back to the States and a lot of that went away. And we were living in a very expensive, very high tax state. And I remember especially those early years, I mean,

My friends who would even get pizza every Friday night, I was so jealous of that because I wish we could have pizza night. So, I mean, we were always comfortable. We never missed a meal. There was never anything like that. But I was not like a full blown, you know, silver spoon type situation either. And I think that gave me some appreciation for when my dad moved up in the ranks and started to get more comfortable and being able to do things independently.

it wasn't always that way, right? And so, and it's something that you never should, and I never have taken for granted. There were some interesting things along the way. So there was a period of time where my parents were trying to be good parents and trying to be good Christians and trying to figure out what the right thing was to do.

So we're big hockey fans and the New Jersey hockey team is the New Jersey Devils. We're huge Devils fans. And there was a brief moment there where my dad was sort of, first of all, I grew up a Rangers fan, the rival, but he was trying to figure out, should we really be fans of a team called the Devils where the mascot literally looks like a cartoon of Satan? And I think for a while he was sort of grappling with that. He decided, you know what, this is ultimately not that important. We're huge Devils fans.

There was also a few years in middle school, late elementary, middle school, where they felt like Halloween maybe wasn't something that we ought to celebrate. So they would take us on family trips instead. They would give us whatever candy we wanted, and we would do little trips to Cooperstown, to the Baseball Hall of Fame, or Gettysburg for a tour of the battlefield, which being a nerd forever I thought was great.

I've never been a huge Halloween guy, but we didn't do Halloween for a couple years, just kind of for not like a full-blown religious opposition to it, but just a little bit of discomfort with it. But I also feel like I'm the oldest kid. We have it the hardest. If you're the firstborn, all of the tough decisions and idiosyncrasies of parenting and these decisions that get made, you're the guinea pig. And by the time it was down to my sister, who's

the third and final in line. She could, I mean, they were so easy on her. It's not even fair. That's, that's still my biggest. Oh yeah. No, I'm still bitter about this. Like the one that, the one that ticked me off the most, and I've told this story before, um, it was throughout middle school and high school. We had not a huge yard, but we had a decent size back and front yard and the side yard and the sort of the front strip on the street. And my dad bought,

lawnmowers and we would cut the yard and in the summers you know you do it every week certainly every two weeks and it would take hours and it was sweaty and it was smelly and it was disgusting my dad would always have me help for a significant portion of that of that task and

and then I graduate from high school as I mentioned 2003 my brother was then entering high school so same age range coming in and I go into college and surprise surprise they decide to get landscapers what the hell like why doesn't he have to do all of this stuff every week my dad's like well

I was sort of tired of it too, and you know, I guess the point has been made. So, you know, it builds character. I guess they were only interested in building my character because they just abandoned it completely as soon as I left. And as you can tell, I'm a little grumpy about it to this day. You know, I hadn't thought about this for a while, but I kind of have the same grudge because, you know, my younger brother...

I mowed the lawn. I was the one doing it. Alex, not so much. You know, he was like, well, your older brother will do it. You know, he's bigger. And then when I got bigger and older, guess what?

We didn't have the same house and the same lawn, and he didn't have the same problems. So I'm going to have to go back and give him a hard time for that. You should. Yeah, I think so. I think that's right. I'm glad to be here on the podcast stirring familial grievance. Making me feel bad about my family. That's really good, Guy. I appreciate that. You're welcome.

What was the first job that you had? So I would say it was probably... So I did some volunteer work at the Red Cross in town, but that didn't pay. So the first real consistent paying job that I did was in high school. There was a little Italian restaurant on the west side of the train tracks in town, which is our side of the tracks. Pasta e Polo was the name of the restaurant. And

and it was run actually by this Lebanese family. And the patriarch, Al, was the chef and he was very talented. I still sometimes think about his linguine a la vodka, which was just amazing. And I was a host.

So I was the host usually once or twice a week, Thursday nights for sure, and it was a tiny little restaurant. So if I'm remembering correctly, it was 12 tables total, maybe 14 at the most. And so my job was to seat people and then also to deal with takeout orders.

And it was, you know, it was for a kid or 15 or whatever. It was kind of high pressure because people come in, they're hungry. They've made a reservation. They're hungry. And sometimes people linger, right? And you're kind of wanting them to leave, but you don't want to pressure them because that's not good business. But you don't want the people to wait that long. So I had little tricks along the way. I remember one day I was very stressed out about it. I went into Al, the chef. I was like,

these people won't leave i feel like these other people are getting really impatient i'm getting glares the guys come and talk to me a few times and he gave me the greatest solution to this he's like oh if this ever happens this is what we do if they're waiting for you know 10 or 15 minutes they're starting to get annoyed you come back you bring them bruschetta on the house he's like it's bread and tomatoes that's all it is but people feel like they've bro they think they've beaten the system if they get a free appetizer

So you bring them some free bruschetta. He's like, "That will buy you at least 15 more minutes." So all in, you know, you've bought yourself half an hour, they're feeling happy, and I ended up using that trick repeatedly. And it worked. Well, you know, I had heard these stories about how you got to Fox News, and now I'm really starting to... the clarity is coming through for me. I'm starting to understand.

one good dose of bruschetta and uh well done well played yeah just knocking on roger ale's door sir are you interested in bruschetta uh that actually that that could have uh it might have worked actually yeah yeah but the way that i ended up getting in the door at fox as an intern it was uh i was in my high school ridgewood high school i was in the hallway and there was a girl in my grade so i didn't really know her very well as a class of 400 people right so you know some people you kind of recognize people and you know names

And this girl, Kate, was just mentioning to her friend at a locker that her dad worked at Fox News. So my ears perked up. I was like, ooh, duly noted. And being me, I just, you know, went to the school directory. I don't know if they have those anymore. If there's like kids listening, like we used to have physical phone books for high school. Yeah. So I went to the school directory. I called, cold called the guy.

I'm just introduce myself on the phone at night like hey I'm a classmate of Kate's I hear that you work at Fox News and I would love to be an intern there be a great asset I'll do anything that it takes sorry to bother you at home but you know what can I do how can we make this happen and I think he was a little taken aback but he appreciated sort of the fact that I shot my shot what I did not know is that he was a senior vice president

at Fox news. So I was able to get an, uh, an interview shock of all shocks and, uh, did okay in the interview. And they ended up assigning me to, they asked me, do I have any preference? I did have a strong preference. I wanted to work back in the day on Hannity and Combs. Remember Hannity and Combs, Alan Combs, two right versus left. That's the show they put me on. And I did some intern stuff for them in the summer of 2002 and 2003. Uh,

And a lot of my duties actually involved helping Alan with show prep, even though I disagreed with Alan on almost everything. It was a good intellectual exercise, and he was always very nice to me. Sean was always incredibly nice to me and to the staff. And that was a really cool opportunity to be an intern for a primetime show, still in those pretty early days of Fox News, and got to meet some amazing people from –

Newt Gingrich to Charlie Daniels to Benjamin Netanyahu, right? You know, as a 17 or 18-year-old. That was awesome. Yeah, back when all the guests would actually come through the studios. I mean, it's really just been the last few years that so many of them are done remote, but a lot of those shows, you couldn't be on the show unless you were at the show, and

Sitting and being in that green room, it was just an amazing array of people who had come through. Totally. I'm ticked off, Jason. I took a photo because I had this little... This is, again, we're showing how old I am here for the younger audience. There was no such thing as smartphones. We didn't have digital cameras, really. I had one of those little cardboard throwaway cameras where you take the click and then you...

Then like the little round thing, you like spin it over to get the next photo ready. I had one of those in my little briefcase for the really big guests. And I would take little photos with them in the green room. You had no idea if they were any good until you got the film developed weeks later. This is how things used to work. There's a photo somewhere, I swear, of me wearing Charlie Daniels' hat. And I have no idea where that photo is and I regret it because I want that photo so badly.

I think I was, I got to guest host for Fox and Friends, and I think it was Charlie Daniels' last, I know it was his last Fox interview, but I think it may have been one of his last interviews before he passed away. And I was the one that got to do the interview. Oh, awesome. And it was such an honor, and he's such an icon, and what an experience. But

Like I said, you have a clarity not only in the spoken word, but also in the way you write. But where did that come from? I mean, look, a lot of people want to work...

at Fox, they want to, you know, it's got the biggest audience. A lot of people want to be on air. They want to write, they want to, but very few get to do it. What do you, what do you think it is about you and what you did and how you did it that maybe differentiated you? And what is that secret sauce that you found and how did you find it that others just quite frankly, quite frankly don't have?

I mean, it's very kind of you to say that. I'm trying to think about the best way to answer this. I think part of it might be genetic to a certain extent. So my grandfather on my dad's side was a filmmaker, incredibly smart guy. We never saw eye to eye on politics, to put it mildly. But he was...

at Yale leading up to World War II. And at Yale, he got recruited by Army Intelligence. And they said to him, his name was Guy, too. There's a lot of guys in my family on that side. And they recruited him and they said, we need you. Your country needs you. He joined the military on the intelligence side of things. And they said, OK, he was very good with languages, like incredibly gifted with foreign languages. And they said, Guy, you're going to learn Turkish. And he did.

I just crazy right so he was a very very smart guy and my grandmother his wife she was a journalist

She was raised in Australia, still have a lot of friends and family down in Australia. And back in a time where women really didn't do this sort of thing, she left home and she went to London. And then New York became a journalist, a sort of this single working female journalist in a world totally dominated by men. And she made her way. And that's where she met my my grandfather in New York.

And the rest is history there. So there's some journalism in my family as well. And it was just something that I sort of always knew that I wanted to do. I wanted to make my living writing and speaking.

And I think when did that happen? I mean, like when you clicked, it clicked in third grade, nine years old and giving speeches. And so what happened was it was third or fourth grade. We moved back from Hong Kong and I'm still, you know, they kept me up to date on all, you know, American culture and that sort of thing. But I'm still kind of a fish out of water getting used to living in America. And all these kids, you know, they've got their friend group already and I'm trying to fit in. So I just like became a huge, huge Yankees fan.

because it was something that people were into and i just got really passionate about it and one day i was listening to a yankees game on the radio because we didn't have cable my parents finally got cable when i was on it right like we we didn't have cable growing up they didn't want me you know watching my dad kept saying we don't want you to waste too much time watching sports of course as soon as they got cable

My dad watches so much sports, so I think I wonder if that was sort of him doing that for his own benefit or whatever. But I was listening to a Yankees game on the radio, and the play-by-play guy for the Yankees for a long time, John Sterling, and it just occurred to me, it dawned on me with this lightning bolt moment, oh my gosh, this guy gets paid probably a lot of money to talk to many, many people about the Yankees.

every day. This is a dream job. How on earth do I get this job? And that was my ambition, my career from that point. I wanted to be a sports broadcaster. I did sports broadcasting in high school. We had a TV station at the high school and my buddy Dan and I basically were able to raise some money and get cameras and all this equipment. And we put our football games and ice hockey, basketball, baseball, lacrosse. We put that on the air like cable access.

which was cool. And Dan is still a pro sports broadcaster to this day. Now, he's a NHL broadcaster for the Vegas Golden Knights. So he's really, really good. I did sports broadcasting in college as well. WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago for for Northwestern and covered

A number of those teams, football, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, lacrosse again. And that was sort of my whole objective with a political interest as well. And at some point there was a fork in the road, which direction do I end up?

heading on the broadcast side of things. And my first break came on the political side. And the decision was almost kind of made for me. And that was just after I graduated from college in 2007. But it started with a passionate pursuit of sports broadcasting with a heavy interest in politics. And then my career took the turn. And that's the direction that it's gone in. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Guy Benson right after this.

But why that conservative bent? I mean, you could have gone a lot of different directions. Look, a lot of young people go the Democratic way. They have a little bit more of a liberal voice and approach. You've got a degree of, at least as best I can tell, that isn't so – it's more libertarian, I think, than –

than some other people. But what informed that? Where did that come from growing up? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think part of it was starting to stumble upon political discourse. So my first...

introduction to it was the nineteen ninety six presidential election and it was uh... bill clinton and bob dole and we had uh... an assignment in our sixth grade class to join a fake or lean a virtual campaign for one of these guys were perot i guess right and you could choose which one you want to quote-unquote work for in the social studies project and a local newspaper new jersey had you know candidates on the issues and it was this uh... chart basically clinton and all

And it had maybe whatever, a dozen issues listed and then a brief summary of where they each stood. And I went through and I just circled which explanation I agreed with more than I tallied them up. And it was something like nine to three for Bob Dole. So I was like, OK, that's interesting. And I stumbled across conservative talk radio a few years after that.

I was trying to tune into a Yankees game on the radio, and I was confused. I thought it was a day game. It was a night game. And on during the day was this voice who eventually became very familiar, Sean Hannity. So I started listening to Hannity. I'm like, wait, this guy, this guy's conservative. He's Republican. This is really interesting. It's not really how the media usually is. So I started listening to Sean and talk radio. And I think that.

Those were the first embers of real interest. And then things got very serious and very personal on 9-11. Growing up in that area, I was a junior in high school. Our town lost a dozen people. Our next-door neighbor was in one of the towers. She got out, thank God. My dad worked in lower Manhattan. We couldn't contact him for a few hours. You know, that was...

a day that within a few months i realized oh well all this political stuff that i follow almost like it's a sport where you root for a team or whatever it actually matters a lot the leadership who's in charge what the policies are this really matters a lot so that talk i think uh... budding interest into something uh... more significant and i never really look back in terms of the the level of interest what did shift a little bit was i kind of you know as a younger guy memorized

all the conservative positions right this is what we believe on all these things i sort of memorize and learn and i would you know have debates with people who disagreed and that sort of thing and when i got to college really was when i started getting uh... tested and challenged in a consistent way by really smart people who disagree with me and

I wanted to be open-minded enough to recognize, oh wait, maybe I'm not a full-blown conservative on every single issue. Maybe some of these arguments that I've been spouting, I don't fully understand or fully agree with ultimately. Maybe they're a little bit weaker than I thought. So I became, over the course of maybe those four or five years, more heterodox, a little bit more left-leaning or libertarian on certain things, certain issues, got more conservative on other things, and...

I'd say to this day, I'm kind of a pragmatic center-right conservative with a few heterodoxies, and I try to be intellectually honest, intellectually consistent, fair, but I'm definitely on the right, not on the left. And, you know, I get grief for that all the time, but it is what it is. You know, I don't back down. I have no apologies for it. Yeah, I wish our country could have more of that open dialogue and that discussion and still be able to...

break bread and go out to dinner and put your arms around it. But boy, it just seems like you stake a position or talk about politics and that causes problems. And then on the other end, I see that everything is politics. It's like, wait a sec, baseball doesn't need to be politics. Going to the movies doesn't need to be politics. Everything doesn't need to be political.

And I hope we find our way in that regard. Yeah, and I hate the politicizing of everything. I resent it. That's part of the reason that some of the anthem kneeling and stuff bothered me. Not so much that I was screaming about anyone who kneels should lose their starting position or whatever. It was just like I wish politics were not infected.

this part of our society where we can usually just come together and unite and root for teams and we can leave some of that other baggage at the door, like at the gate to the stadium. We all just come in and we're fans of whatever team it is

And for those three hours, we can just enjoy and root and have something in common. And I resent it when people try to take it away from us and make it like a virtue, their own virtue. And it's privilege for us to want to have just a space where it's apolitical. I think that that's nonsense.

And like the all-star game thing with baseball really annoyed me this year, which is why I was rooting pretty hard for the Atlanta Braves just to stick it to the hypocrites in Major League Baseball and the commissioner in particular. And they did, of course. The one thing I will say, Jason, about being able to put some stuff aside –

The counterpoint is I think in real life a lot of people still can and do do that on a regular basis. So just recently my cousin got married. So this is my dad's sister's daughter, Emma. She married her husband, Max. And my father's side of the family, excluding my dad, but my dad's parents and his siblings and that whole side of the family is very, very liberal.

I mean, my grandfather donated to every Democrat you could think of, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, all of them. And I obviously went a very different direction. But, you know, Emma's family and that side of the family, very, very liberal. Her now husband, that family is more Republican and conservative. And we were just at this beautiful wedding with...

i would say close to probably in the ballpark of a 50 50 ideological split if i had to guess right and it was occasionally joked about or referenced in you know the toasts and the speeches and that that kind of thing but ultimately it didn't matter and everyone there had a spectacular time as a beautiful fall day the venue was great these two people you know are starting their life together they love each other they're a wonderful open-minded young couple and

We all knew, you know, there were huge disagreements. We had just had a big election in Virginia. There was all sorts of disagreements. And it just it didn't matter because other things mattered more. And it was just it was just a great, great experience. And I think that that is still the norm in a lot of America, even though there are people who seem to be dedicated to making it not the norm and trying to force us into politics all the time. And I think a lot of people don't want anything to do with that.

And in their real lives, in their friendships and families, they actually reject it. Yeah. Well, I think that's the case. I think it gets to be exhausting sometimes. Yes. Every single thing has to be political. But I hope that's – I mean, I hope that that glimpse into that is more prevalent than –

Sometimes I feel like I sometimes I feel so immersed in politics. Maybe it's, you know, like Pigpen on Snoopy. You know, this cloud just follows me around and I sometimes can't get away from that cloud. It's just a dust storm. This is the life that we've chosen to write. You were you ran for Congress. You work at Fox News. I'm in the political media. I kind of did ask for it, didn't I? Yeah, we did.

We did. Sometimes I regret it, but usually not. Usually not. All right, guys, I've got to ask you some rapid questions. These are things I don't care how many foreign countries you've been visited or whatever. You can't properly prepare for this, but we'll give it a go. All right? All right. First concert you attended. Billy Joel in Elton John, Philadelphia, four hours. Unbelievable. Billy Joel is my favorite. That's impressive.

You know, is he still doing those monthly concerts at Madison Square Garden? Yeah, they just started back up again. I've never seen him at the Garden. I've seen him five times, never at the Garden, but I resolved to... Yeah, you've got to. Jason, you've got to see Billy Joel. It is... I met him once. You know, in my previous life, my previous life here, truth be told, I was kind of, for lack of a better word, the wrangler for a corporation that was... We had a working relationship with Christie Brinkley.

Oh, his ex-wife.

It was really pretty cool. But he is such an entertainer. And I'd love to. That's something I really want to do in New York City. All right. What was your high school mascot? The Maroons. Yeah. So what is a Maroon? I mean, like, what is the actual mascot? It is a good. We didn't have an actual mascot.

We were maroon and white. Ridgewood, let's fight. Those were our colors. I did ask about this because it's an odd mascot or an odd nickname. And our dean of students told me a maroon is an escaped slave. Ridgewood, my hometown in New Jersey, apparently was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Wow. Isn't that cool? All right. Now, that's more legit than being like a Viking that never set foot in some place in New Jersey or something. That

That's got some real history to it. Yeah. All right. That sounds pretty cool. Do you ever have any pets growing up? We, I mean...

They would give us, like, turtles and that kind of thing to prove that we could be... Turtles? Yeah, that we could be, you know, responsible. And, of course, you know, a turtle's not going to get you out of bed in the morning. I wanted a dog. We all wanted dogs. We don't have to take it out on a snowy day to go, you know, do its business. True, but it also does nothing. It just sits in this little tank and does nothing. So, I mean, with all due respect to the turtles, but we wanted a dog.

And finally, we got a dog. Again, it was towards the end of my time at home. So I begged for a dog my whole life. And then what, junior or senior year of high school, you know, Christmas. Oh, we're getting a dog finally. Well, that's great. Thanks. Thanks for jumping on this as soon as I'm about to leave town. But yes, LB, Elberon, a gold, soft-haired Wheaton Terrier. Great, great dog. He passed away a few years ago. I do have a dog.

at home, a Bedlington Terrier named Roy, and he's the greatest. Roy. Roy's not a common name for a dog, but Roy, that's good. Well, it's short for Corduroy. His name is Corduroy, but we call him Roy. All right, that is cute. You know, my family, they always want to have just a common name for a dog, which is pretty funny. Anyway, all right, so life's most embarrassing moment for Guy Benson.

Hmm. Trying to think. One that comes to mind was I mentioned much earlier in the interview that I was a Cub Scout, a U.S. Boy Scout. I was in Hong Kong. Right. So we went on it. We went on a hike in Hong Kong and there was this there's like a little hill and we were sliding down the hill because we thought it was cool, like like a slide. And I did not realize that in this process of sliding down the hill, I had just worn a few holes in.

into the back of my pants. I did not know that until I was walking ahead on the hike and people started making fun of me. And I remember they were saying, I see London, I see France, I see guys underpants. And my, I believe, DuckTales underwear was showing through my shorts and I was so embarrassed. I remember going to the back

of the line of the hike because I didn't want anyone behind me because I was so embarrassed that people could see my underwear. These are little kid problems. Little kid problems, but you still...

evidently wake up at night that worried about him too. I, I, I understand. All right. So if you can meet one person dead or alive, have them over for dinner, who would that person be? I think it'd be pretty hard to answer anything other than Jesus Christ. That would be fun. That would be legitimate. That would be a conversation you wouldn't want to end. I totally get it. Right. Good. I think that that's probably my answer. There's, there's a few others that I think would be fascinating, but I don't know if they can compete. Uh,

I did ask Brett Baer. I think Brett Baer said, look, you know, mine's going to be a party. I'm not going to have just one person. Then he just rattled off a whole bunch. Well, that's cheating. That's not allowed. I mean, maybe for the anchor of Special Report, you have your own special set of rules. Special Report, special rules. But here at the Guy Benson Show, we answer the question.

Well, tell Brett you said that. Good. I think he'll appreciate it. Yeah, I think he will. Although he'd probably have everyone from his books, and he'd plug all of his books. Well, he did talk about that, and he did plug all of his books. Smart. Always be closing. Brett knows what he's doing. Ulysses S. Grant is not usually somebody that would be on that list, but it was on Brett's list. So, yeah. Unique talent that nobody knows about. What can you do that most people, they have no idea that you can do that.

I would say, now this is a tough one. I think usually people are sort of taken aback just by some of my life story and growing up and that sort of thing, but that's not really a talent. I did win the geography B in fifth grade. It's something I'm very proud of. So I know more than the average person about international geography.

I'm like conversation rate at that grade level. That's pretty impressive now. You were traveling you but still that's true Yeah, so my winning answer was Indonesia. I'm like basically conversational ish in Spanish I remember one of my friends had no idea and we were we were somewhere where Spanish needed to be spoken I just did it and they were like whoa what but again. I don't think that's terribly unusual I wish I had some sort of like crazy party trick

talent just to blow people away. I don't. I kind of have an okay Trump impression. That's not really that good. Do you care to do it? No, I mean, many people are saying it's tremendous. It's so good. It's just...

Many people are saying impeccable, actually. It's so true. And you did the hand gestures with it. It helps more. It's better in person because of the gestures. So I'd say my Trump impression is probably like a six or seven out of ten. Not a ten out of ten, but some people think they can do it. It's not great. I'm still working on my Biden, which involves a lot of sort of outbursts and then whispering and then nodding off. I'm working on it. A little drooling maybe in between. Yeah.

You said that's coming next. So what? OK, what's that other thing for Guy Benson? Here's what I mean by the other thing. If you want to get away from it all, just clear your head like me. I like to go out and do wildlife photography. I go out and do that. Guess what? I don't think about the world, the world's problems and work and all that. I don't even think about things for four hours on end.

But if you want to kind of get out, get away from it all, what would you do? Probably watch sports. I'm a huge sports fan. That's a big, big deal. Attending sporting events, big deal. Big into food and wine. So like dining out, trying new restaurants, and then definitely international travel, which I try to do as often as I can, you know, within reason. And I

I just love that. Exploring different cultures, different foods. Oh, yeah. Bringing my husband along and sometimes groups of friends. That does it. And I also, this is the other thing, when I'm done with work or like I'm on vacation or it's the holidays, my in-laws are huge Fox viewers. Huge. They have often various Fox News networks on different TVs all at the same time all over their house. Right.

And if I go there after Christmas or something, with all love and respect for all of our colleagues, and I think we do a great job here when there's big news, I turn it on. But if I'm trying to unplug from any of this stuff, I just can't have –

i can't have it on in the background although what i hate even more is at the airports where they're like forcing you into cnn oh not only on the screen but they pipe it in like that you have to listen to it i remember i was trying to go on vacation once trying to unplug and there was some big political controversy happening i was like i don't want to think about it i don't want to get stressed out about it i don't want to get angry about it and they had like brian stelter's voice screaming at me at the airport

I was like, come on, man. I know. You can't sit anywhere. That's where headphones come in really, really good. Yes, earbuds. Get me some earbuds. Exactly. Noise canceling, please. All right. Two last questions. Don't blow this one. Pineapple on pizza. Yes or no?

Oh, thank goodness. We knew you liked it. We liked you, Guy. And that is the only acceptable answer. The judges really do appreciate the no answer. My producer, producer Christine, who's from New Jersey and allegedly Italian, can't be that self-respecting because she's a pineapple on pizza person. And it's just it's a hard no for me.

That's good. This is a crystal clear choice. You got to be definitive. So good for you for putting your stake in the ground and saying, no, that's just not going to happen on my pizza. I agree with you. All right, last question. Best advice you ever got? I would say that was years ago, starting out my career. And it's trite and it's simple, but I think it's good. And I share it with younger audiences all the time. Work hard and be nice.

and it's not original, it's not groundbreaking, but it's true. If you work hard and you're nice to the people around you and people that you work with, I think that gives you, it's the right thing, first of all. It also gives you an advantage because there are a lot of people who either work hard but aren't nice or they're very nice but they're not terribly hard workers. You can have a leg up on all of those folks through that combination and that's what I try to do. Well,

Well, you know, I think you do an exceptional job at it. You're a great talent and, like I said, with great clarity. And I think that's right. People want to work with who they like.

And you don't want to go out. There's always somebody at work somewhere. You're just like, I don't want to deal with that person. And pretty quickly over the course of time, people figure out, yeah, that person knows what they're doing because they really do work hard at it. And then that garners respect. And with respect comes more opportunities and more respect. And so totally agree with you on that one. And congratulations on your success.

I'm glad to work with you at Fox. Likewise. And you're doing your stuff with Town Hall, too, as well, like you have for years. Busy. I'm busy. That's for sure. That's good. That's good. And the host of The Guy Benson Show. So listen to that on Fox Radio. And we'll see you on all kinds of things at Fox. And I hope our paths continue to cross. So, Guy Benson, thanks for joining the Jason in the House podcast.

Absolutely. I hear the ad for the Jason in the House podcast all the time on my radio show, so it's really cool to be here on the program with you. Thank you for thinking of me. Thanks for making this work. Hope people enjoyed it, and we'll have you back on the radio soon, Jason. Oh, very good. Thanks for taking the time. You bet.

Can't thank Guy Benson enough. You know, they're good people in the world who do a lot of good things and, and the ability to articulate and be able to put a cogent argument before people, uh, is really quite a talent. And I'm glad we had a chance to chat with, uh, with Guy Benson. I hope you enjoyed the discussion. So thanks for listening to the Jason and the house podcast. There's more podcasts over at Fox news podcast.com. Uh,

I'd love it if you'd rate it and subscribe to it, and we'll be back with more next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.