John Roberts: A Degree of Creativity
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Well, welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and I want to give you some hot takes on the news. We're going to highlight the stupid because, hey, you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to phone a friend. This time we're going to get John Roberts, not the chief justice of the Supreme Court, but John Roberts from Fox News. He's got a rich history in the world of reporting the news and

I'm sure some very unique experiences. And so he's one of our favorites. He's just such a professional and so good at what he does. We're going to call John Roberts and get his take on life and go through his experiences and kind of what he's learned along the way. But let's start with what's going on in the news. And I want to highlight some of the things that are going on in the news that maybe don't reach the top of the food chain.

I had the honor and privilege last week to guest host for Brian Kilmeade in the Brian Kilmeade radio show. And when you're prepping for a three-hour radio show, you're writing down all the different things you need to talk about. And it was like two dozen things that were...

We're percolating to the top and making all kinds of news and I'm sure by the time you get to the next day, it's a whole other list and that there's just a lot being thrown at us. But there's some things that I think matter more than others in terms of their long-term and big, big impact. One thing I want to mention is what's called ESGs. Now, some of you may know what an ESG is and other people may not.

environmentally sensitive governance is something that the Democrats behind the scenes and those who really are passionate about changing the way we do business in this world are trying to force their will upon the individuals and corporations of this country. So ESG's environmentally sensitive governance plans

are being thrust upon corporate America in a way that doesn't allow them to operate as they see fit. It's a way for primarily the left and progressives to take their view of climate change and their view of the Green New Deal and force it into the system. And they do it in a couple of different ways.

One thing you need to know is background is that the Democrats learned a long time ago that, hey, you know what? It would be really much better if we didn't have to go to Congress every year and appropriate money for these government programs. Because that means that they'd have to be accountable. They have to go to hearings. There's more transparency. There's more ways to have conservatives vote.

manipulate. That's their view of the world. So they came up with this scheme, and that is, how do we create a government agency and not have it be accountable to the people, have it not be accountable to the Senate and to the House of Representatives? And so one of the big things that they did is they took these programs and made them mandatory programmatic and

They bypass Congress. They don't require funding. They're based on a formula. So think of Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. Well, it's about 75% of our budget is mandatory programmatic spending. Congress never touches it unless it changes the law.

The other thing that they did more recently during the Obama administration, when they, the Democrats, had the House and Senate, the presidency, they put together the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Oh, we're going to protect Americans from themselves with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB. The CFPB does not report to Congress. It is a subset of the Federal Reserve.

and being a subset of the Federal Reserve, guess what? There is no governance that has oversight with anybody who's elected. None. Zero. But they are appropriated money that we don't even know about. Now, initially, their budget was larger than the Securities and Exchange Commission, but nobody really knows how much money, how many employees, or what they do with that money. Because Congress, they could try to hold hearings, but they don't have to answer because they don't report to Congress because they don't get funding from Congress.

So part of the CFPB is to, and what the Securities Exchange Commission, the SEC, is doing is thrusting upon these banks a plan and a need to come up with these ESG plans so that a bank, for instance, may say, well, in order to meet our carbon neutral goals, we are not going to fund any oil or gas or petroleum developments.

so when you hear jen saki go up on the podium and say it is the policy of the united states of america to wean our way out of petroleum products but the president wants to do everything he can to get the price of gas down so what we're going to do is we're going to release the strategic petroleum reserve and hey by the way um all of you evil oil companies why don't you you know what you really should be doing is

Utilizing those permits. You're not utilizing all the permits. Well, the reason you can't utilize the permits is because these ESGs are in place with these banks who won't loan the money in order to develop the projects. I just want to give a bit of a primer and a highlight that ESGs are one of the biggest things that we should be concerned about.

It's a way to subvert the public transparency that is there through Congress and the normal appropriations process. And it is fundamentally behind the scenes changing the way we do business. I just need to highlight that. And the other thing that I want to get to on the hot talk, hot take on the news, and this may change before this podcast comes out because I think the blowback is severe and it should be.

is what's going on with mask mandates for toddlers in New York City. It is unbelievable, but a seven-year-old, they don't suddenly still have a mask mandate. But a four-year-old going to school, five-year-old who's maybe going to preschool or first grade or whatever, I can't remember what age first grade is, but it's about that, they do have a mask mandate. There's still a mask mandate to go on airplanes if you're a United States citizen, but if you come across the border illegally, no, you don't need that.

Don't worry about it. No mask necessary. Toddlers? Yes. Illegal alien? No. Somebody who's seven, no mask. Somebody who's five or four, yes, do have to have a mask. Is it rooted in science? No. These are political decisions made by some people who I just cannot understand why and how they're making these decisions. But that's the way it is.

Those are my hot takes on the news and things that are bugging me this week. So let's move on to the stupid, though, because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪

All right. You saw it last week, the Washington Post, New York Times and certain certainly social media suddenly had all these revelations about Hunter Biden. Whoa. Hey, that laptop might be real. It's not Russian disinformation. Never mind the 51 former senior intelligence officers who came out and said, oh, this must be Russian disinformation.

Never mind that social media shut down the Washington or Washington or the New York Post and said, you can't post stories about that. These stories can't be true, but something's a brewing. And again, by the time this podcast comes out, maybe they're doing something with Hunter Biden. There's an awful lot of activity going on for a laptop that's been out there for at least a year and a half. So what's going on there? Somebody is doing something really stupid.

And it's just hilarious for me to think that the Washington Post said that part of the reason that they didn't reveal this and didn't write about it and didn't give it credence earlier was because they, quote, aired on the side of setting aside questionable materials. Are you kidding me? That Donald Trump lived for, what, four, five years with them harping about all of this Russia, Russia, Russia, all of which turned out to be false?

They're winning awards and all kinds of things, patting themselves on the back, getting their viewership up, saying Russia, Russia, Russia. I haven't heard many apologies for how they treated Donald Trump. I haven't heard any apologies or giving back awards or corrections to the record. Are you kidding me? They made a living and milked millions of dollars out of saying Russia, Russia, Russia, Trump, Trump, Trump.

And yet none of it turned out to be true. And they say that, oh, well, we didn't give out the information about Hunter Biden because it was questionable. Yeah, they were offering great restraint. No, they were just in on the take and they had a political agenda that was just wrong.

All right, and the last point I want to make on bringing on the stupid is the South Carolina women's basketball team. Congratulations for winning the national championship, but shame, shame, shame on the idea that for really the second half of the season, you sat out in the locker room, couldn't get it, couldn't muster enough to stand up, put your hand over your heart, and do something that I think everybody should be doing, which is...

Standing true for the United States of America. Putting your hand over your heart. That's what's supposed to transcend sports. So the coach got a little irate and thought that her team was being unfairly portrayed by saying, hey, we didn't kneel. We didn't do this. We stayed in the locker room. Well, not showing up for your country and being able to participate in the national anthem. I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. And I hope we call it out every time we see it. And that is bringing on the stupid.

All right. Now it's time to phone a friend and thrilled to call John Roberts. John Roberts, Fox News. He's just a wonderful human being. You know, I've been privileged to be part of the Fox family narrow for nearly five years and

get to know and interact with him certainly in uh as a member of congress but also part of being on the the fox news team and uh this is just a wonderful happy human being and i'm pleased to to know him and i look forward to kind of getting into home a little bit better and about his upbringing and everything else so let's call john roberts hello

John Roberts, this is Jason Chaffetz. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time. No, there's never a bad time to talk to you, Jason. Oh, come on. Listen, you've been in Washington. There's a political answer right there. No, listen, you are one of the hardest working guys, but you're also one of the nicest guys. And you're very kind of you to join me on the Jason in the House podcast. So thank you very much. Well, you're wrong on both of those counts, but I'm happy to join you.

hey do you know it was funny when you when you type in john roberts you know washington dc is a good-sized place a lot of famous faces and people who are impacting our country do you ever bump into that hey it's john roberts and they think it's maybe the other john roberts that's in town does that ever happen you know i used to um when he was first named the justice of the supreme court and then and then the chief justice

But it's kind of fallen off a bit. And I think it's because he has become so famous and me infamous that few people get us mixed up with each other anymore. You never showed up for a dinner reservation and they said, hey, it's John Roberts. And they said, oh, I thought it was going to be the other John Roberts. That actually happened, but it only happened once and it was a long, long time ago. Fair enough. But yeah.

You are actually a Canadian and a lot of people don't know that because you don't really bring on the thick accent. My guess is you could do that if you wanted to. Oh, hey, take off, eh? Like if I wanted to bring on the heavy Canadian accent and go sit on the couch around the house, I could definitely do it. The couch? Yeah, I left Canada in 1989.

Went to Miami, and it was in Miami that I really lost the Canadian accent. I went a little overboard. It became a Cuban accent for a while, so I had to sort of switch back and get that nice sort of flat Midwestern accent going, which is typical of most broadcasters in this country, at least at the time. But I became an American citizen two weeks after 9-11.

Oh, wow.

No harm, no foul. You can sit down. You can reapply at some point in the future. We won't hold it against you, as typically would happen. And not one person sat down. Everybody proudly put up their hands and took the oath of citizenship. It was really a moving ceremony. Why did you do that? Why did you say, hey, I want to change my citizenship and

No longer be, maybe have dual citizenship, but at least be an American citizen. Well, it's interesting because when I grew up, and this was back in the 1960s and 70s, most of the television that I watched came from across the border in Buffalo, because I grew up in Toronto.

So we would always see these advertisements of kids out in the sunshine, in the palm trees, on the beach, whatever, having fun. And I was there in snowbound Toronto. I'm thinking to myself, is this really where I want to spend the rest of my life? Or do I want to be with those kids on the beach and in the palm trees? And I always thought that it would be wonderful to live in the United States, even from my earliest recollections.

And when I finally had an opportunity to do it, I worked for a while on an H-1B visa and then I became a green card holder. And I just thought, you know what? I'm here to stay. I'm making my living in the United States. This is where I'm going to raise my family. And out of respect for the place that I'm living, I want to become an American citizen.

Now, go back to those early days growing up. I don't know, brothers, sisters? I mean, was it stereotypical? Hey, we played a lot of hockey. I mean, what was life like for the Roberts family back in the day? Well, I had a brother who unfortunately passed away in 1981 from cancer, a type of cancer now, lymphoma, which is eminently treatable. But back then, it was still pretty new. And unfortunately, he passed away.

fairly quickly because it was an advanced stage when they finally caught it. I've got a sister who's still around. She still lives up in Toronto. But mine was a fairly typical sort of lower middle class upbringing. My father passed away when I was five and my mother, God bless her, and I told this story in the Christmas book that the Duffeys put out just before Christmas last year.

My mom, who hadn't worked since she was in her early 20s, and she was probably 48 when my dad died, suddenly had to go back to work and become the breadwinner. Was working jobs where she was making $90 a week and still kept the roof over our heads. Taught me the value of hard work in a dollar, which is probably a lesson that lasted to this day.

But I was playing hockey in the wintertime, lacrosse and baseball in the summertime. It was a time when kids really were free range, right?

You know, we didn't have helicopter parents who were looking after us 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We would get home from school. I was a latchkey kid, by the way, from about the age of seven. I would come home from school by myself, go find my friends. We would go out. There was a big area of forest behind our house that led down to a big ravine where there was a river. And we would have adventures there.

all the day long and on the weekends. It really was an amazing place to grow up because we got in touch with adventure. We got in touch with creativity. We built things. We got in touch with nature. I would collect rocks and we would watch all the animals playing in the forest. It wasn't an idyllic experience.

upbringing, but it was a lot of fun. And I think I developed out of that a real sense of a love for life. And it's a love for life that stuck with me all of these years. I see so many kids today that are stuck on devices and they never go out and they spend all day on the couch and they look depressed. And if you take away their device, they have no clue what to do. But

But we'd be out riding bicycles. We'd make a track in the woods where we'd pretend that we were motocross racing. We'd build jumps. We'd put together like a circus sort of thing or a daredevil course where we would take an old slide, an old metal slide we'd set up in such a way where you could jump the bicycle and we'd jump over three or four kids.

And if you saw kids doing that today, you'd probably tell them to cut it out because somebody's going to get killed. But that's what we did. And it was just so much fun. Being a kid when I was growing up was just a tremendous amount of fun. And I think the real reason, Jason, is because we didn't have these electronic devices to poison our brain.

Yeah, there's so much truth to that. I hear you kind of mention each of those little stories and it reminds me, I'm not that much younger than you. I'm a little bit younger, but not that much younger. You're a lot younger than I am. No, no, I really, I, but I think about that time and my

My parents. Yeah, we had free reign. I'd come home. I put that bologna in the little toaster oven and have the cooked bologna, slap some mayonnaise on it, and I'd be on my way until it got dark or I got hungry. And then I'd just come home. Nothing like a bologna and mayonnaise. Yeah. Don't even need the bread. You don't even need the bread. It's just I I figured it out. And then we'd go out and we would play. And I played a lot of soccer and I

played a lot of army men and I figured out that if I used a magnifying glass, I could burn ants. I mean, I was doing all kinds of things that little kids do and they're on dirt clods and, and finding frogs and tadpoles. I did all that. We would go to the construction sites and have dirt ball fights. Yeah. It was so much fun. What could go wrong? Yeah. And I wasn't, I wasn't burning ants with a magnifying glass, but I, I would start leaves on fire and, and, uh,

One day coming home from school, I accidentally set the forest on fire. And thankfully, a kid who lived in a house that backed onto the forest happened to be out hosing off his...

patio furniture and brought the hose over and put the fire out before the entire forest went up. I love that you say that you accidentally set a forest fire. Now, if it was California or Colorado or Utah, I probably would have burned 100,000 acres, but thankfully it was only about a 10 by 10 square foot patch of leaves.

But you're right. There was no electronic leash. There was no – it was nothing to distract. Now, later on, I got one of those little handheld football games that you could play where you have three slots and you go up or down or whatever.

But nothing like the today. You know, it's funny. Our kids are grown. My wife and I are blessed to have three kids and they're they're grown and a couple married. I'm even a grandpa at this point. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yes. Yes, I am. And, you know, another huge part of my life growing up was music as well. Now, I've seen this. I've seen this with your like your own son. But walk us through that, because you can actually really play. This is like not.

Like, when did that happen? Who taught you? Where did you get that bug and how did you learn how to do it? I got the bug when I heard the Beatles for the very first time. And I thought, oh, my God, this is the most incredible thing I've ever heard.

And I wanted to be one of those guys. And that was the same time that the Monkees television program was out. And you kind of felt like everybody's making music. Why aren't I doing it as well? So myself and the kid who lived across the street and a few others got together. I got an electric guitar for my birthday. He had a set of drums. We found a bass player and a keyboard player. And we played some not high school dances. We played some middle school dances together.

And it was a tremendous amount of fun. And this was at the same time where the famous Canadian band Rush was growing up. They were a little bit better than we were. So they became successful and we didn't. But it was a time in the 1960s when music was just exploding and everybody wanted to be a part of that scene. And I would recall going into downtown Toronto, we'd take the subway and we'd take the bus to the subway and then take the subway and we'd go to a place called

a music shop called Long & McQuaid. And we would just sit there in awe and look at all of the PA systems and the amplifiers and the guitars and the drums. And it was just this...

dream that maybe one day we could become rock stars. Unfortunately, we didn't have the talent to do it. Some of the other kids in the neighborhood did. One of my best friends is Gil Moore, who is the drummer for the Canadian rock band Triumph. To this day, he's still one of my best friends. And he lived just down the street from me.

But you would go through our neighborhood and four or five garages would be pounding from all of the music that was being made inside with all these garage bands. Kids would come home from school and they'd lay into their instruments and their drums. And it was just such a creative time. And I wish that kids these days...

could transport themselves back to the 1960s because that was such a seminal time when there was so much creativity and so many technological advances that were going on. And there was a lot of obvious social upheaval in a similar fashion to what we saw in the summer of 2020. It was, you know, a different nature.

But it was just such an amazing time where so many different things were happening. And we didn't, again, have the distraction of these little devices that we hold in our hands that fixate our brains and give us a dopamine boost. Our dopamine boost came from doing really creative things. And I just I wish kids could go back to those days.

Yeah, so you have aspirations to be Geddy Lee back in the day. No, he was a bass player. Alex Lifeson was who I wanted to be. Oh, you were? And Alex is a good friend of mine. Oh, right.

Because of the Canadian roots and you just got to know them earlier? How did you guys bump into each other? It's because it's sort of like those who can do, those who don't teach. Those who can play, those who don't become disc jockeys and play the music. So I became a disc jockey on Canada's biggest rock radio station, which then led to me doing a television program called

named The New Music, in which we interviewed all of these bands from around the world. And it was a great time to do it as well, because we had all these fabulous Canadian bands that were coming up. Canadian music until then, there wasn't much going on. There was Gordon Lightfoot and Anne Murray and a couple of other people. But then the Guess Who came along, Rush came along,

Loverboy, all of, I won't say Nickelback, all of these other bands came along who were making great music. And then all these bands were coming over from the UK. I interviewed the police when they played to 200 people. I interviewed U2 when they played to 400 people.

Wow. So it was an amazing, magical time to be a part of it. And I got to know a lot of these people. And I got to know Alex Lifeson really well. He and I played golf together a number of times, and we've remained friends all these years. So when you watch that movie, Almost Famous...

Is that a fair depiction of what was going down, or is that just a story off to the side that you don't relate to? In some ways, it was. It wasn't following one band around. It was following a whole bunch of bands around. But I became chummy with the guys from Iron Maiden. I interviewed Sting a number of times. He gave me a great recommendation for a fish and chip place in London. Yeah.

Hanging out with a lot of the Canadian bands. Lemmy and Filthy Phil from Motorhead. We'd pal around with them when they were in town. Bob Geldof and I went out for drinks one day. You know,

Terry Nunn from Berlin thought I was cute. Oh, and there was a great interview that I did. If I might say it was a great interview. And I think it was a really good interview that I did with Joan Jett. And I was on a plane heading for I think it was the summit that Biden had with Putin.

In Geneva and I watched this Joan Jett documentary and boom there. I was interviewing 1979 or 1980 So it was a lot of fun I got to meet so many people when they were just really getting going and now so many of them are icons of the music business Well between Gutfeld and Kennedy who I thought were really into this I've seen like Instagram or something like that of you. Maybe it's Facebook. I don't know and

playing and playing with your son and whatnot. But I didn't know it was that in-depth and that core to what you were doing. And where did that initial, I mean, okay, so neighbors are playing and it seemed like the thing to do, but was your mom pushing you to this? I mean, those instruments were not cheap along the way either. They weren't. My brother had an old Hohner archtop guitar that I tried to play and

And could never get it to make the sound that I wanted to. And for a birthday, my mother, who, again, made $90 a week, saved up a bunch of money and from a fellow that she worked with, bought a 1964. Now, this was 1968, so it wasn't that old. It's only four years old. 1964 Fender Telecaster.

And I loved that guitar, except I didn't know much about it. I had flat-wound strings on it, which would be good for playing country. I didn't have round-wound strings on it, so I never really learned how to play lead guitar. I played a lot of rhythm guitar. And then the most stupid, idiotic, dumb thing I ever did was when I was 18. I was working at a radio station outside of Toronto, and every Tuesday night we'd get together for a bluegrass night.

We'd get together in a guy's kitchen, drink beer, because the drinking age at that time was 18 in Canada. And I didn't have a guitar to play. But I did have a guitar. I just needed to get...

acoustic guitar. So I took this Fender Telecaster to a local music shop in Oakville, Ontario, and the guy totally ripped me off. He gave me $200 for it, and he gave me some cheap 12-string guitar that didn't last very long. The neck went boing on it, and

I eventually had to trash it. That guitar, that Fender Telecaster that I traded for that $200 piece of junk is now worth about $18,000. I can tell you're still upset about it, too. Oh, I am. I am. I'm still upset about it. I still kick myself in the rear every time I think about it. And I've actually tried to trace it down.

and see if I can find it. I have no idea where it went. But I did kind of replace it. I replaced it with a 1966, which is not as good because the 1964 was before CBS bought Fender, and that was kind of the year for the Fender Telecaster. So I wish I could get it back, but I likely never will.

So you're real. I mean, it obviously impacted your life. I can tell just the passion that enters into your voice when you start talking about this and

You know, I've thought we need to learn reading. We need to learn writing. We need to learn arithmetic. But I really do think we're selling kids short if we don't also inject a degree of creativity in their education. In music, my wife's very musical. Our kids are musical. I'm really not. I'm the guy that actually listens to the music. I just never grew up playing it, and I wish I really had. I think I took a couple piano lessons, but...

I convinced mom that that wasn't my future and I certainly can't sing. So,

Let me ask you this question. Do you now kick yourself and wish that you had continued with your piano lessons? Oh, yeah. No, I don't. I think I really missed out on something that would be fun and creative and engaging. Join the 195 million other people who say exactly the same thing. I agree. And this is what I say to my kids. My son's a great drummer, but he never practices. He hates practicing.

But he's got so much innate talent. My daughter likes to play the piano but hates to practice. And my older daughter...

Try to make her take piano lessons. Daddy, I don't want to take piano lessons. Okay. To a person, they're all saying, I wish that I had stuck with piano lessons. So I'm not giving the kids a break. Our daughter at my mother-in-law's memorial service in San Diego in February, as part of the memorial service, played and sang Let It Be on this grand piano in this beautiful church with the sun shining through. And she nailed it.

And she blew the place away. And yet she doesn't want to practice. And I just, you've got so much talent. Use it. I'd rather play Roblox on my iPad. Well, I do. I think our country, and I'll add Canada into that as well, but any society I think is missing out without...

kind of forcing the issue and say, you know, it's part of what I think makes America great is that we are able to take some highly technical issues, but add a degree of creativity to it to come up with that next whatever it is. But it's that combination, this is my take on it, of creativity that gets mixed with the technical side that then creates the next whatever great thing that comes out.

And that's why I think school curriculum has to change. And you're not well-rounded enough unless you go through that as well. Yeah, and you know, until recently, that's sort of almost been the sole purview of the United States, the way that we mixed creativity with learning. But now other countries...

are doing it and they're doing it really, really well. Take a look at South Korea. Kids are into music. They're into sports. Their score, their test scores are off the charts. You look at Chinese kids who play musical instruments. They are so disciplined that they're becoming the best instrumentalists in the world and they're getting terrific marks.

And we need to, as a society, remember where we came from and not let the narcissism of social media override everything else. Because it is, Jason, and I am so terrified for the future of America's children. Because it's all about instant fame without putting in any work effort.

to get it done. You make a TikTok video, it goes viral, suddenly you're a huge star and you've contributed absolutely nothing to society. You've contributed nothing to your own development. You've just, you've suddenly become famous. And every kid in this country now wants to become famous without putting in Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours to do it.

Yeah, it's like, oh, I'm going to be an influencer. And I just I think, oh, my goodness. No, no, you're you're really not. And I get a lot of younger people who say, all right, hey, look, I really want to get in to politics and I really want to, you know, I want to run for office. And so what do I do? And my advice to them inevitably is politics.

Don't go into politics. If you want to actually contribute to the world of politics and public policy, you need to go out and have another experience that has absolutely nothing to do with politics and then draw upon that experience.

that experience and then bring that to the table. That's what you go do it for 10 or 20 years, then go run for public office. Don't think you're going to be the youngest person ever. And I see some politicians today and I think you have nothing to lean on. You've been in public policy in public office or in a supporting role for too long. And you have no perspective of how things actually work. It's the same thing in our business. You talk to most young people who come out of these, um,

journalism schools, with rare exception. There's still some journalism schools that really teach good journalism. But for the most part, the kids come out, what do you want to do? I want to be a news anchor. Oh, well, what experience do you have in being a news anchor? Well, nothing, but I want to be on TV and I want to read scripts and I want to be a news anchor. Well, why don't you try going and covering City Hall?

for a couple of years, and then why don't you go cover your state capital or whatever, and then why don't you go cover three or four wars, and then maybe be a foreign correspondent for a while, get a wealth of experience so that when you're sitting on the anchor desk, you know what the heck you're talking about, and then we'll talk about you becoming an anchor.

Yeah. You know, I interviewed Sandra Smith, your colleague there, and her background in terms of financial markets and business markets and what her dad did in their early education and

It's unbelievable. I mean, she was as honed and as talented and as experienced by the age of, say, 30 as most people are in their 50s. It was unbelievable the experiences she had that she can lean on. She's got a tremendous amount of experience. She's got a facility with economics that I could only hope to have.

And that's why I think one of the reasons why she and I complement each other so well is I've spent a lot of time covering politics. She's covered politics. I've been a White House correspondent. She has been in business. I've been to a number of wars around the world. So I get that part of it. And we both bring our individual experiences to the table. And, you know, it's sort of the you know, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which for a news program, I think is a great thing to have.

You're listening to Jason and the House. We'll be back with more of a conversation with John Roberts right after this. Precise, personal, powerful. It's America's weather team in the palm of your hands. Get Fox weather updates throughout your busy day every day. Subscribe and listen now at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so early on, you become a DJ. What did you go by? What was your... Did you have a handle that was... Or was it just like...

J.D. Roberts. What did you go by? Well, initially it was just John Roberts. And then I joined this rock radio station and they said, you've got a choice because we want to shorten your name. We want to make it a little snappier. So you could either be J.D. Roberts because we like the initials or you can be Long John Roberts. And I said, I'll take the J.D., please. Well,

All right. So we were moments away from going live to the White House with Long John Roberts. We were that almost happened. You know, I'm wondering if, you know, there's a certain pirate aspect might have had some cachet. Yeah. OK, so you do that. And then what was your kind of bigger break? What what kind of made you jump?

And kind of, okay, wow, I have made a leap here that most don't make. And why do you think that happened? Well, initially, you see, I always wanted to be a disc jockey. And when I was in college, there was a radio station. And I was playing records on the radio station. Then I thought, you know what? I was going to go to medical school. And I thought, I really like this broadcasting thing. Let me try it out. So I sent a bunch of letters to radio stations saying,

around southern Ontario and I got on my motorcycle and sort of did a circuit of doing auditions and they always had me reading news and I said to them I don't want to do news I want to be a disc jockey well we don't have any openings for disc jockeys right now but you've got a great voice and a great style why don't we get you to read the news so my first jobs in radio

We're as a newsman and I would go out and I cover City Hall or, you know, whatever happened. I remember a plane crashed, a small plane crashed. I covered that. I would cover the issue of the big ferry that goes between Tobermory and Manitoulin Island. There was some controversy with that. I covered that when I was in Owen Sound. And then I finally got a chance to be a disc jockey.

Got to the biggest rock radio station, which would have been Canada's version of WABC or WLS. And I did that for a number of years, a couple of years, and then started this music program, which then led to Canada's version of MTV. And I sort of saw the clock ticking. I was in my mid-20s, and I thought, you know, I know that this music thing is not going to last forever. Right.

Because, remember, that was in the days when Pete Townsend said, hope I die before I get old.

And now you see the Who's going back out on tour again. I knew that they'd last that long. For their final reunion tour, yes. Maybe I was going to get premature. But I thought that there was a finite window with this music thing. So I thought, you know what? I started in news. Let me come full circle and go back to that. And so the television station that had the music channel also had a fairly substantial news division. I went back into that, anchored the late evening news,

And then I got a call from an agent in New York who said, you know, really like your stuff. People have been talking about you'd like to shop a tape around in the States. And I said, I thought, let me just find out what people think of me. So I got a call back about three months later after I thought, oh, this is going nowhere.

And they said, CBS just bought a television station. It's an owned and operated station in Miami, and they'd like to make you their main anchor. And I thought, wow, this is great. Miami, the palm trees that you were dreaming of. The palm trees and the beach. There it was. Yes. So I jumped, and I went down to Miami. I had a couple of bad experiences. My ex-wife got robbed at gunpoint in our garage after being there for about 10 days. Oh, my goodness.

Ten days? She left in ten days. So then I moved back up to Canada, did a morning show in Canada, and moved back to New York at CBS Network, and then became chief White House correspondent, and then left CBS, went to CNN, and then ended up at Fox. And this is the best place I've ever worked. I just love it here. It's fantastic. Why do you... I mean...

the voice is one thing, reading is one thing. But there are a lot of people that want to do what you're doing. It's an enthusiasm for the stories. And it's an enthusiasm for wanting to keep people informed. I think that's what really drives me. Whether it's politics...

Whether it's covering a war. You know, I went to the war in Israel in 2006, and that was an unbelievable experience. You know, I nearly died five or six times, but it was just incredible to be there during that time. I went to Iraq three times. I was in Belgrade during the Kosovo War, so I was getting bombs dropped on me. I was there the night the Chinese embassy got bombed.

So I did the war thing. I've done the politics thing. I just I love the stories and the storytelling. And one of my favorite things, and I think this is one of your favorite things, too, is to expose the hypocrisy.

in our system. Yeah. When people say one thing and they do another, or they try to tell you how to live your life. Those are the stories that I really love. And I think those are the stories that the Fox news audience really gets into as well. No, I, I do. And I, I feel like, Hey, look, they, when I served in Congress that they empowered me to go spend all of my time, which they would have probably done themselves if they had had a chance to get elected.

and use those resources and all that time and then be able to expose it because the number of people who go out and say one thing and you just know that they're not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, you know, that's something that, you know, between myself and Trey Gowdy and John Radcliffe and a whole bunch of others, James Langford, that we all kind of had a passion for and gets you fired up to get up and get after it every single day because you feel like, gosh, you know,

The world's out there against you, but there are a lot of people rooting for you and counting on you to get it and to get it right. You know, in my business, there are a lot of people who want to be on TV because they want to be famous. But the reason I want to be on TV is because I think we've got a lot of information to impart to our viewers.

and a lot of things to tell them. And I've got a lot of great contacts, and our contributors are always emailing me ideas. For example, I'll see Nicole Sapphire tweet something. And I love Nicole because she's got a great...

unfiltered point of view. She really says what she believes. She doesn't care what anybody thinks. And I love having her on TV to talk about it. And she really does believe that there's a tremendous amount of hypocrisy in public policy when it comes to coronavirus. And I, because I was pre-med in college, I

really appreciate the fact that she's willing to go out on a limb and say things like that. So I'll see a tweet from her in the morning and she and I'll start chatting and we'll work up a segment and get her on TV. I just, I love the work from that perspective where you can impart information to people and

Where they say, oh, my gosh, I didn't know that. Wow, I really learned something today. Wolf Blitzer from CNN is a former colleague of mine. I love Wolf to death. He's a great guy. And his mantra, and I really think it's a great one, is learn something new every day. Come home from work smarter than when you went into work. And that's how I live my life.

Yeah, I had a great experience with Wolf Blitzer as well. I gravitate, I guess, to the people who just, like Nicole Sapphire. Nicole's a great example of somebody who's highly talented, done their homework, understand it infinitely better than I ever would, but just call balls and strikes as they see them. And that's what I think of Bear Grylls. I think that's what the... I think the reason why people say, oh, the Fox audience is...

So big. And they never understand it and they never take time to try to understand it. But I think what they appreciate is that they do really try to give a balanced view and say, hey, here's what people are saying on both sides.

But that they find those people that just call balls and strikes as they see them coming across the plate. And they're straight with people. They don't sugarcoat it. They say, this is what I think and this is what's going on from my perspective. And what an amazing example of that this Hunter Biden stuff is.

Year and a half ago, people were calling me a conspiracy theorist, you know, a faux journalist, you know, whatever, because we were chasing the story that Miranda Devine so amazingly broke regarding this laptop and everything that was on it. We were denigrated. We were we were.

told that we were not journalists, that we were just floating conspiracy theories. And now, of course, it turns out it's true.

And the Washington Post and the New York Times have suddenly acknowledged that. And I think what they're trying to do is they're playing a little CYA here, because if the Justice Department comes up with something, they're now on record as saying, oh, there's some there there. Whereas before they were saying, oh, no, this is Russian disinformation. You know, I kind of departed and Trey Gowdy, and I don't want to put too many words in his mouth, but we both talked publicly about this. I mean, I spent more time with Trey Gowdy along the way than anyone.

i did my wife sadly i he and i were on judiciary committee together we were on the oversight committee together i played golf with him he's a good golfer oh he's he's a way good golfer he's like a what is he a one that's handicapped like a one yeah um and um but you know he had a passion for for truth and justice and and and all of that and i'd say the same about john radcliffe too but

I think one of the biggest frustrations I had leaving Congress is the lack of intellectual curiosity by the so-called mainstream media. It's just I had stories and insight and had done things at the Oversight Committee that I know were newsworthy, but the lack of enthusiasm. But the moment Donald Trump became the president, oh, my goodness, they suddenly had all this enthusiasm for.

And it just drove me absolutely nuts. It just was so unbalanced and unfair and so obvious that they had a political agenda. I think to some degree it's subconscious. Among many people who work at these organizations, it's subconscious. Among some, it's very overt and it's very agenda-driven.

Because I can remember when I worked at other news organizations, it was kind of a subtle thing that if a Democrat said something, oh, well, they they they it must be legitimate because they're telling the truth about this. Whereas if a Republican said something, oh, they have a political agenda and be skeptical of everything that they say. It was just kind of ingrained in the culture.

And I was too naive at the time because I was fairly new to American politics. I was giving people the benefit of the doubt at that point and didn't really realize the inherent bias that was in these news organizations. And it wasn't until I came to Fox and saw the other side of it that I looked and I said, some of these people who work in these organizations are actively working against Trump.

an entire wing of American politics and American ideology. When you look at how closely split this country is, you're working against half the country, whereas we're trying to work for the entire country and say, look, this is what's being said on one side, this is what's being said on the other side. You make up your own mind about who's right. And we get dinged sometimes for...

holding Democrats' feet to the fire when the other mainstream media won't do it.

But I think that's the way to do it is you've got to look at both sides and be skeptical. Now, I had a little bit of a back and forth with Rick Scott on Fox News Sunday the other day when I read to him parts of his plan, his Republican plan for the midterms. And he said, oh, those are just Democratic talking points. And I said, well, forgive me, Senator, with all due respect, but I just read two parts of your plan. Those aren't talking points. So, you know, I equally hold both sides feet to the fire.

Well, and that's what it takes. I mean, it takes good people on both sides of the aisle. I don't think one party has a monopoly on good ideas or the smarts in order to get it done. But, you know, you do sort of it's an interesting phenomenon because I I just really do believe that we need good people on both sides who earnestly go out there and participate and are willing to take some pain. You know, it just bothers me, for instance, in the United States Senate elections.

And in the House as well. Nancy Pelosi once said something where she said, I'll never bring a vote to the floor unless I already know the outcome. And I'm not going to ever lose a vote. And I'm thinking, no, that's just wrong. It's not the job of a speaker or the majority leader to bring a bill to the floor of the House or the Senate.

And always win. There's something to let's vote. And if we lose, we lose. But let's have the vote. That's what drove me nuts is it was all predetermined. I remember a time in American politics, and it wasn't that long ago, where the two sides had their own ideas about how things should go. But they found...

enough common ground that they could actually get things done. I think most people would actually. Working together with Bill Clinton, they actually got things done. But we don't do that anymore. It's become such a zero-sum game. And I think social media has driven a lot of it as well. I mean, I don't mean to be down on social media, but I am down on social media. I think social media is ruining the fabric of this country. I really do.

People are yelling at each other all the time. It's insane. The best thing that Elon Musk could do is up his 15% share in Twitter to 100%, put the whole thing on a rocket and fire it into space. Put it on one of those SpaceX vehicles and shoot it off into outer space and say, no, all takers, we're done here. I'm serious, Jason. Social media is ruining America.

No, they look that the colleagues that I used to work with and spend time with said it's just unbelievable. People are more concerned in Congress on how they look on Instagram and Facebook than they are in actually reaching out their hand and working hard on both sides to get stuff done. And I think there's a lot of truth. I think there's a lot of truth. And it's not a problem. The Problem Solvers Caucus should be a model for American politics. Instead, it's seen as some fringe organization of a bunch of wackos who actually want to work together.

I mean, come on. Yeah, there's a whole other podcast we could do about how to fix Congress. That's for sure. But the social media and finding the right balance, it goes full circle to what we talked about at the beginning here with our kids. We happen to live in Utah, so we can get up in the mountains and our kids will say, oh, we don't have any reception up here. Yeah.

And dad is over there driving the car just with a big, huge smile. I think, yeah, this looks like the perfect spot, doesn't it? Isn't that great? Yeah. My son and I went on a retreat for the Catholic church that we go to. And

We had to leave our devices in our cars and we couldn't use them for the entire weekend. And he and I had the best time. It was amazing. Yeah. I think the best trip I took with our son, Max is grown in an attorney now and the whole bit, but yeah,

When he was a teenager, I took him fishing in Alaska and there was no phone. And it was, you know, six, seven days of uninterrupted fishing, looking at bears, finding moose and just having a good time. So six or seven days. Wow. I did it for I did it for like 36 hours. And couldn't figure out how to order a pizza. I appreciate your discipline in doing it for the entire week. That's amazing.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this. All right. We're almost done here, but I got to ask you the rapid questions. So I don't care how many people, how many wars you've been in and covered and done all that. You have not properly prepared for these rapid questions. Are you ready? Yeah. What was your high school mascot?

We didn't have a mascot. You didn't have a mascot? Is that a Canadian thing? You didn't have a mascot? Yeah, we did not have a mascot. Oh, wow. All right. That's interesting. Okay. At least not that I can remember. Who was your first celebrity crush? Young John Roberts growing up saying, oh, my goodness. Oh, of course. It was Marsha from the Brady Bunch. Oh, yeah. Well, she was very worthy.

I think one of my favorite things I got to do in Congress when I went to some fancy black tie event and I got to meet Florence Henderson and my wife and I were just starstruck that Mrs. Brady was at this event and she could not believe

She spent time with us. I gave her my card. She sent us scripts and photos for all of our kids, and I was so starstruck. But Marsha was... Isn't that nice when you meet somebody that you've looked up to and they're actually nice? Yeah, you know, I've met a lot of people that aren't so cool, but she was just perfect. I remember meeting James Caan once, and he was such a jerk to me. Oh, man.

But that was his character. Was he in character or was he just kind of a jerk? No, he wasn't. He was just a jerk. All right. The other one was we went to this thing and it was the same event, actually. And I sat down, my wife and I, again, black tie event, turn over to my right shoulder and there's Julia Roberts. And my wife's name is Julie.

And so I said, I can't miss this. So I stood up. The show hadn't started yet. I introduced myself and I said, this is my wife, Julie. And she stood up, Julie Andrews, the Julie Andrews. And she said, oh, my name is Julie. Oh, my gosh. My wife thinks that is like of all the things in Congress. That was the coolest moment that she ever had. That was there was I had a moment like that with my ex-wife. I was hosting the United Nations Association event where they were honoring women.

Muhammad Ali and Paul McCartney. And my ex-wife's name was Michelle. And I met Paul McCartney and I said, and this is my wife, Michelle. He goes, oh, I wrote a song about you. Now that would, if I had to come up with a list of 10 people I'd love to hang out with, I think he'd be definitely on that list. He was, yeah, he was a cool guy. I'm a big fan. Favorite vegetable? Favorite vegetable? Vegetable.

I love cauliflower. Cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. You have passed a test that most of the people I interview, most of them can't name a vegetable. So that's impressive that you actually came up with two. Yeah, I just think that I cook a lot of cauliflower and I love...

cooking Brussels sprouts with heavy balsamic reduction. They're delicious. I actually am a fan of the Brussels sprout. I love it. And my 11-year-old daughter's a fan of Brussels sprouts. She loves them too. Oh, yeah. She likes her dad. So if you met Bigfoot, what would you ask him? Is he real?

You just ask him, are you real? Is that what you do? Well, my assumption would be that Bigfoot wouldn't speak English, so I don't know why I'd ask him. All right. That's fair enough. Do you have pets growing up? I did. Yeah, I had dogs. Your dog guy. And a cat once. Yeah, that's about what I did. I was so allergic to cats. We had an outdoor cat named Flower, but longtime dog. I'm definitely a dog guy. All right. Life's most embarrassing moment.

Life's most embarrassing moment.

Life's most embarrassing moment for me was during the 2008 campaign when I was doing the morning show on CNN and I was so sleep deprived and so exhausted. I forgot Hillary Clinton's name. Couldn't come up with the title or anything. Nothing. It was just. There's a video we got to go find somebody at Fox. Let's find this video. Yeah.

I think my favorite is Tucker Carlson falling asleep during a Fox and Friends interview. I don't know if you've seen that video, but it's pretty funny. I have not. What's so great about it is he just owns it. He just says he doesn't try to cover it up or he's like, I'm so sorry. I'm just really tired. Yeah.

Because he was doing the weekend. He was doing work all week, but he was doing Fox & Friends weekend, and he actually fell asleep for a moment. It's pretty funny. It is frightening what happens to the human brain when you're asleep. I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't remember Hillary Clinton's name. Those signs you see on the highway, you know, pull over if you're drowsy. That's so true. That is absolutely true. We should have had those in the studio. Yes, exactly. All right, so if you could meet one person and you say, hey, you know what? We're going to hang out. We're going to have a little dinner and bring the family. We've got one guest coming tonight, dead or alive. Who's that one person you'd love to come over and just break bread with and have a conversation? George Washington. Oh.

Very good. Yeah. I'd like to find out how you start, how you win a war and start a country. He's amazing to me at the height of the power. He just walks away and says, look, it's now it's yours. Now take care of it. And he's amazing that way. Unique talent nobody knows about. We know about your musical prowess, but there's got to be something else that John Roberts can do that not many people know. I can string a lacrosse stick. Really? Wow. Yes.

All right, that's impressive. In many different ways. Is there a wrong ways and right ways? I don't know. There are horrible ways to string a lacrosse stick. To get a pocket that is just right, that's got just enough hold, just enough whip. My wife says to me, you're obsessed. And I said, some people knit.

I string lacrosse sticks. All right. That is a unique talent. And nobody did know about that. And I appreciate you sharing that. Big question. Yes, if anybody needs a lacrosse stick, look out. They're going to start coming. Pineapple on pizza. Yes or no? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I love Hawaiian pizza. John.

We were on a roll here. Don't judge. It's got to be a Canadian thing. I can understand the ham or the back bacon. No, it's a Hawaiian thing. Hawaii is in the United States. I know, but you don't put a wet fruit on a piece of pizza. You just don't do that.

You put it on with bacon and ham and -- Put it in a bowl off to the side, fresh in your palate after you eat the pepperoni pizza. I get that. But together? Doesn't make sense. I love pineapple on pizza. I'm sorry, but we're very disappointed here. The judges do not like this answer. What's your take on the UFOs? Yes? No? What's going on there? I hope that they're real. So do I. I can't imagine. I cannot imagine.

that in this universe of Carl Sagan's billions and billions of stars, that we're the only ones. I mean, you can believe in creationism, you can believe in evolution, but whether it's creationism or evolution, I can't believe that God only made one of us, or that if you believe in evolution, that only one of us evolved. There's got to be other life out there in the universe.

And hopefully they're not screwing it up as badly as we are. No kidding. I think I'm with you. Hopefully they don't have social media. They figured out how to get past that. John Ratcliffe, who is the director of national intelligence, our senior most intel person in the country, is a very good friend. And after he left, I said, John, look, I don't want you to break any confidences. And you got classified information.

but the UFOs, I know you've seen all this stuff. What's going on there? And he's like, can't say. And I'm like, Oh, come on. You got to tell me something. And he's like, no, I cannot say anything. And I'm like, Oh really? Like, can you give me a hint? He's like, no, I can't. Do I believe that UFOs, do I believe that life from another planet has visited this planet? No, I don't. But I do believe that there's life elsewhere in the universe. Yeah. I,

I just don't know. And that's what's fascinating. There's too many unexplained things, things that make you go with all the sensors and the one thing going under the water and like going. It's just it's fascinating to me. I think if I think if UFOs were actually visiting us, they would have let us know.

But when you look over history, and I remember as a kid watching the movie Chariots of the Gods, and when you look over history of some of the things that were built in this world, the technology to do it didn't exist at the time. Yeah, like the pyramids? The technology didn't exist to build the pyramids. Yeah. I visited the pyramids. I actually, maybe I shouldn't admit this, but I actually took a piece of the pyramid with me when I left when I was...

have it somewhere in close proximity of where I sit. Why don't you go to Smithsonian and take a piece of a moon rock, too, while you're at it? Yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that. But I was in my teens, you know, discretion for a little teenage indiscretion. Anyway, but the pyramids, you get there and you see them and you understand that there are something like a million of these stones. You're like, what?

how did that happen nobody can explain it how do they get the stone up to the top what about the plains of nasca and peru why why were those images made what about stonehenge nobody's been able to fully explain stonehenge yeah it's it does make you think it does make you go things that make you go hmm it's a good song like like pineapple on pizza yeah exactly i don't know that would have to be an accident nobody did that on purpose

I got two more big questions. Actually, three. Favorite menu item at Taco Bell? I've never been to Taco Bell. What?

Okay. There's something. I mean, Washington, D.C. does not have a lot of Taco Bells. I'll give you that. And maybe they're not that big in Toronto. But you've traveled the world. Taco Bell. I'm sorry. All right. Well, I'll work to help solve that. Ask me my favorite menu item at Chick-fil-A. I can tell you that. What is John Roberts' favorite menu item at Chick-fil-A? I like the spicy chicken sandwich with the waffle fries and a medium vanilla milkshake. Okay.

and i like the peach milkshake during the month of may very good we're gonna have to take you to taco bell we're gonna solve this because i can't wait to get it on my social media which i know you can't wait for i don't like chihuahuas i'm a golden retriever guy yeah but a chalupa is there's something special about it we'll get you there chipotle i'm good at chipotle i've just i've never been to taco bell all right uh

I may have lied. There may be more than two questions. Favorite childhood toy? You mean like really young child? Mine was Stretch Armstrong, so that's the one I came up with. I had a plastic fire truck when I was three years old. That was my favorite toy. Did it shoot water? No, it didn't, but it had a ladder on it that would extend. Yeah, that's cool. Then my favorite toy as a six, seven, eight years old was a slingshot.

I always think, yes, I loved those things. And dirt clods, I just couldn't get enough of dirt clods. Yeah, I mean, you know, a dirt clod was better than any toy you could ever find in any toy store anywhere. Exactly. All right, last question. If you throw it, it would explode when it hit in a cloud of dust. It was the perfect thing. Oh, especially if it hit your buddy. And if it hit your friend square in the forehead with it. Awesome. All the better. Best advice you ever got?

uh best advice i ever got was from my mother who said look after the pennies and the dollars will look after themselves wise words from somebody who was working hard and probably gave more sacrifice to you and your family than you'll ever know and um you know the generations to go before us i i really the older i got the more i wish i had spent time with those people you know the

my grandfather and all these people that really impacted my life. But I wish I just had a little bit more time with. You know why all those people were so great? Because they didn't have social media. There's a common denominator in all of this. If there's one thing we've learned today...

It's that Brussels sprouts are good. That's a universal truth. The Taco Bell is underrated because you haven't tried it. And that social media, not such a good thing. John Roberts, can't thank you enough. Thanks for the great work and all the reporting that you have done for so, so long. It's been my honor, privilege to get to know you a little bit. And thanks for just being so candid today on the Jason and Al's podcast and sharing your

you know, what you've gone through in life and your experiences. And it's been a lot of fun. So thanks for joining us. I'm honored to have you as a colleague. Oh, thank you again. I can't thank John Roberts enough. Very generous with this time. Fun guy to hang out with and certainly knows an awful lot of music musicians along the way. What a great time to just be hanging out. I can't even imagine.

interviewing the police when they played in a concert with 200 people in the arena or, or you too. And they had like 400 people. I would a cool time and, uh, just a great guy that can see why he's so successful and everything that he does. And certainly on Fox news. So John Roberts, can't thank him enough. And, uh, thanks for joining us on the Jason and the house podcast. You go over to Fox news podcast.com, find the other podcasts, but I hope you rate it. I hope you subscribe to it. I hope you like it. Uh, I hope we give you a little different perspective, uh,

then just the drumbeat on everything that's happening in news, get to know people a little bit better and why they believe what they believe. So hope you join us again next week and look back at the podcast we've been doing over the last, I don't know, almost a year now. So, and I hope you enjoy it. I hope you join us next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the house.

Put the power of over 100 meteorologists and the worldwide resources of Fox in your hands with the Fox Weather Podcast. Precise, personal, powerful. Subscribe and listen now at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts.