Kevin Roberts & Helping Further The Conservative Movement
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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. Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Javits, and thanks for joining us. I think you're really going to enjoy this. We're going to talk a little bit about the news. We're going to talk about the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.

And then we're going to have a conversation with Kevin Roberts. Kevin is the fairly new, he's been there for a while now, but he's the new leader of the Heritage Foundation. He's just been around for 50 years, one of the most important and largest think tanks in Washington, D.C., and consequently very influential with policy as we see it. And for those of you that are nerds and geeks like I am and about policy,

Heritage Foundation is just vital. It's really important, but it's got some fairly new leadership. Again, he's been there for a while now, but I really, I think this will be a good discussion and I hope you're able to enjoy it from somebody who's really going to be an impact player on all of our lives because of the policy that's being advocated and researched there at the Heritage Foundation. So, but first let's talk a little bit about the news.

Um, you know, I try to find things that just aren't the headlines and then just regurgitate them. There's a bigger backstory to a lot of these stories that I want to be able to share on this podcast. And the theme, I guess, for this week, the thing that I'm looking at that is very frustrating is that we never seem to learn the lesson of things that were dramatic in

And we were all promising we were going to change into the future, particularly the administrative state. You know, keep in mind, you had Barack Obama and Joe Biden leading 2.2 million people for four years. You had the disruption, which I would argue is a good thing, of Donald Trump coming in and trying to disrupt the status quo.

But I think what you saw was a frustration from President Trump in the ability to actually move and steer the ship in another direction. And it's not just going to be, you know, a couple of years of this and then we stop doing it. The problem is, as you start to move that ship and become more responsible, to start to become more accountable as to to do certain things, it's painful for us.

Keep in mind, more than 20% of our gross domestic product is spent by our federal government. It's closer to 25%, you know, of our federal government is being, of our economy is being spent by the federal government. So if you're trying to make them more accountable, more efficient, more effective, all of those types of things, you're going to have to spend more money.

it's very difficult and you have to just tenaciously never stop. But I guess what bothers me is we always take this money from the taxpayers, from you, from me, from our kids, and they just spend like crazy. That's why we're at $30+ trillion in debt. And yet we never learned the lessons of the past. The waste, the fraud, the abuse is so big.

You know, one of the things is we look at all these, you know, for instance, the inspector general looking at the pandemic spending and,

The head of the Secret Service looking at, keep in mind, they're in charge of money, financial transactions overseas. They have more to their mission at the Secret Service than I think most people realize. They think of it as just a protective detail. It's not. That's one thing that they do, but the integrity of our currency,

financial transactions, credit card transactions, money traveling overseas, that also is in the purview of the Secret Service and why they need to be fully functional in doing what they're doing. But we never seem to learn the lesson. I mean, those people, Secret Service and the Inspector General have estimated more than 100 and it may be a few hundred billion dollars was stolen

uh through the pandemic spending and so a record amount of money went out the door but when all that money is stolen and goes overseas and never even sees the light of day in the united states

you would think we would learn that lesson. But we didn't. Was anybody fired? Was anybody held accountable? No, not a single one. I guarantee you, every single one of those federal workers is going to get a cost of living adjustment, positive for them, moving up, and they're probably going to get a pay increase. And in addition to that,

Last time I looked and it's been a few years, last time I looked, 70% of federal workers got a bonus. What in the world are we doing? When you have that kind of waste, fraud and abuse and that kind of money, nobody is held accountable, not a single person is fired. That is, I mean, we never learned this. Remember when we went through TARP, the Troubled Assets Relief Program? Well, there was an inspector general there. And what did they tell us? Billions of dollars was wasted out the door.

Were there any adjustments, any changes, any lessons learned that were then applied next time we had the crisis, which was the pandemic? No, not a single one. Flint water. I did all kinds of hearings. We had people for more than a year drinking water with lead in it. And kids were affected. Cancer was prevalent.

and hundreds of millions of dollars went out the door. Do you think we learned any lessons? Flint Water, just last week, which is probably by the time this blog is aired, is going to be two weeks old. They had to shut down their system because they had another water line break. People have to boil their water in Flint, Michigan. Remember the, who remembers the gyrocopter? Now you may have to stretch and remember this one, but there was a

a former or may have been a current postal worker who got in essentially an ultralight. It didn't have the... It was what they called a gyrocopter. And he took off outside Washington, D.C., flew this thing over like the Lincoln Memorial, past the Washington Newman, and landed right in front of the Capitol. How does somebody do that? Well...

Believe me, because I was helping to lead these investigations, I had more military brass, more police in front of me talking about how they were going to take care of things and figure out a strategy on how to deal with gyrocopters and deal with ultralights and deal with drones.

And then suddenly we have this problem with balloons and other unidentified objects entering our airspace, and they still can't figure it out. Or did they figure it out? I don't know. But, you know, we had like 10 years to go figure this out.

And they came back and swore to us, told us, testified that they probably have found a solution, that there was going to be a solution. But did we learn that lesson? I don't know. So whether it's the gyrocopter or the water problems or the spending of money as rapidly as possible, we never learned a lesson. And nobody is fired.

That's what just drives me nuts. And that's my view on the news is never learn these lessons. I mean, look at the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Did anybody learn a lesson through that? Was anybody fired for what they did and how they did it? Because Americans lost their lives doing it. And yet, where's the accountability? It just drives me nuts. All right, time to bring on the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪

And of course, you don't have to look very far. You bring up the name Don Lemon. You know, this story has been played again. If you pay attention to Fox, you undoubtedly have heard this story. But it's worth repeating yet again because it is so out of control. Where Don Lemon is there, you know, talking about Nikki Haley has put her hat in the ring to run for president. And

His comment is, a woman is considered to be in their prime in 20s, 30s, and maybe 40s. He basically said she's past her prime. And I really actually like this. The co-host, Poppy Harlow, remarked, prime for what? I mean, some of the most successful women out there, men too, they aren't necessarily in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. He said maybe 40s.

You know, one of the people maybe Don Lemon has to familiarize himself with is Safra Katz. She happens to be the CEO of Oracle, this little tech company that maybe he should familiarize himself with. She's the CEO. She's a multi-billionaire, for goodness sake.

And you know what? She educated herself. She worked hard. She worked her way up the ladder. She is a self-made billionaire and did amazing things. Yeah, she's like 60, 61 years old and one of the most successful women in the country. I dare him to say that in front of her that women are in their prime in their 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. I mean...

Prime of what, Don? It's just... And then he has the gall to dive deeper into it and say, well, Google it. And, you know, don't shoot the messenger. I mean, these are the kind of comments and the kind of things that CNN is continuing to put up with. Unbelievable how bad and how stupid that is. Thanks, Don Lemon. All right, time to make the call and get a hold of Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation...

one of, I think, the largest think tank of its kind in the nation, one of the most important think tanks out there. The University of Pennsylvania goes through and ranks them and had Heritage three years in a row.

We have a number of organizations that I think are very worthy in Washington, D.C. that can do a lot of good work, a lot of good thinking, a lot of good oversight type of work. But Heritage is somewhat unique. So they have a fairly new, it's not brand spanking new, but a fairly new president there. So let's dial up Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation. Hello, Jason.

Hey, Kevin, thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. I really do appreciate it. Man, it is a pleasure to be with you. I love everything you do and look forward to the conversation. Well, you know, you have taken the realm there. You've taken the leadership role there at the Heritage Foundation. I mean, it's one of the biggest, most important, I think it's the biggest, most important think tank there is. Now,

Full disclosure, I have a working relationship with the Heritage Foundation, but nonetheless, I wouldn't be involved and engaged there if I didn't think the world of it.

Well, thanks for that. You know, I was minding my business in Texas, running the Texas Public Policy Foundation a year and a half ago when Heritage called and they said, Kevin, we're looking for a president. Would you be interested in talking to us? And even though, Jason, I was really happy in Texas, my wife and I have four kids, Texas is our adopted home, because it's Heritage, to your point.

I said, of course, I'll talk to you. And it still is. You know, recently we celebrated the exact date of our 50th birthday. It still is surreal for me to walk into the building each day and know that I have the privilege of leading this this great, venerable institution that is also very much focused on the future. It's why we have this working relationship with you and so many people, ultimately, to sum up here.

even though there's a lot that we're engaged in and trying to fix a lot of problems we do so with smiles on our faces as cheerful warriors as i like to say and that's always been the case with heritage so it's a lot of fun to be there well look every time there's a change in leadership no matter the organization i think you need a an infusion of new energy new excitement new ideas

And you've certainly brought that because, I mean, you just walk into the room with you and things light up because you're just like, all right, hey, we're ready to go. Let's go. And that is infectious. And, you know, I saw you doing that. I visited the one time with the Texas Policy Association.

group that you were heading up down there. And there were so many people involved and engaged. And, you know, this is really important stuff. Like I'm a policy geek. I just, at the end of the day, we argue, we quibble, we tweet, we, you know, put something out on, you know, social media. But what really matters at the end of the day is the policy that ends up, you know, affecting real people's lives. And I sometimes think

in the shuffle of the sensational that gets lost in the weeds. It really does. And I'm often asked, you know, Kevin, what is it that causes you to be so energetic, to be so optimistic in spite of all of the problems? And it's because given how I was raised, you know, working class family on the Gulf Coast, I see policy, even as a policy geek myself,

through the lens of the everyday American. And I think heritage

over its 50 years has been at its best when it does that. As you know, Jason, when you were a member of Congress, you knew this, you know this now. Heritage is just a block away from the Capitol. We have tremendous access to those offices. But what makes us really effective when we're at our best is when we go in, not just talking about the policy solutions with an academic depth to them, but I would say equally important to that, to the very heart of your point,

is that we're doing so representing the everyday American. We like to call ourselves the outpost for the everyday American in the nation's capital. That's a real privilege, but it's also a real challenge for those of us who are working inside the city, because as you know better than anybody, all the incentives in Washington are just to represent the establishment, represent the swamp, if you will. And we're at our best when we're representing people out in flyover country.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, it is this ecosystem unto itself. There's a reason why they...

There's so many different ways to refer to Washington, D.C. and inside the Beltway and the bubble that is Washington, D.C. And you get caught up in it, that Potomac fever. And it's about money. It's about power. It's about spending more money and having more power as opposed to freedom and liberty and getting government off the backs of ordinary people and getting

It's interesting to have, we need more organizations, quite frankly, but Heritage, when you actually want to dive deep into policy and think through and say, all right, you know, how should I think about this? There are such good researchers out there at, you know, that provide all these materials, not just for members of Congress, which we tapped into regularly, but the general public can go out and see this stuff and really dive deeper into an issue.

That's exactly right. In fact, really the best part of my job, although I enjoy meeting with members of the House and members of the Senate and their staffs, is to go out and be with regular people. I keep a really energetic schedule of speaking engagements, listening engagements, if you will. And the point is they invariably ask me, well, Kevin, how can I learn more? Well, you know, you go to our website, heritage.org, and we try to write these policy papers for

that strike a balance between the depth that's necessary for the policymakers to see the detail they need while also being accessible to the general public. And by saying accessible, I'm not saying the general public is dumb, quite the opposite. It's just the general public is going about their lives in their own areas of expertise and they don't necessarily need to have the vocabulary that a member of Congress does. And what Heritage does is try to bridge that gap. And so to the extent

that millions of everyday Americans can look at our policy solutions and then go to their members.

whether they be members of Congress or state legislators, and say, look at this heritage briefing, this two-pager on this issue. Let's help me help you figure this out so that we can take America back and have more self-governance, more common sense policy. That's really what we're trying to do in all of our research. It makes immense sense. And if you have a conservative bent, you think, you know, how should I think through this issue?

I think it's informative that way. Okay, but Kevin, we like to dive a little deeper. The guests that come and join us, how did you get from here to there? How did you get to the point where you were a conservative? I grew up, I wasn't necessarily that conservative, but I like to joke that once I learned to read and write and get a check and get married, then I ended up being very conservative. So

Walk us back here. Let's go back to I was born in and then kind of walk us through your life and maybe some of the inflection points that changed the trajectory of your life and got you to this mindset that you are a very conservative person.

Well, I tell you, as we record this, my mom's going to be visiting from Louisiana. She tells the story that she was rocking me when I was a baby in the summer of 1974, weeping when President Nixon announced his resignation, obviously because of mistakes he made. But she was weeping even though she was sitting there as a Democrat.

Because almost everybody in Louisiana at the time was a Democrat. But almost everybody in my hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana, who was a registered Democrat, was very conservative. And so I became the first Republican in my family. And the reason that I did is because of this huge political realignment that we saw in the country. Ronald Reagan really kind of personified that and led it.

But for us in Louisiana, my family, extended family, even though I was the first registered Republican, I was not by any stretch of the imagination the first conservative. I grew up in Acadiana, Cajun country. People, you know, there's a 92 percent chance when you come out of the womb, you're going to be a Roman Catholic and be conservative. And so it was no surprise that as the country was going through this realignment in the late 80s and 80s,

in early 90s. And we saw the shift of, or really the epicenter of American conservative

thinking move from the Northeast to the South, that I would be part of that. I was in college president of the College Republicans. All of that to say that I decided I really wanted to study early American history and became a history professor, college president, and obviously along the way fell in love with policy and politics, which led me to what I'm doing today as president of the Heritage Foundation. All right. So when you were growing up, brothers, sisters, were you playing sports? I mean, what was life like growing up?

Yeah, middle of five kids, typical 1970s, 1980s situation of divorced family. And that created some real financial difficulties for my mom as a single mom. And we moved around a lot as a result of that. And so today when I talk about asking the question,

What time is it in America, which comes from this deterioration of institutions, including the nuclear family? That's something that I grew up in and that really informs my conservatism as an everyday guy. The reason that I am not at all bitter about that is because of faith.

And because of great mentors along the way, but also to your question from playing a lot of sports, I loved and love football. I was not as accomplished as you were, my friend, but I was a necessary part of the football team being the offensive center. So I was good at snapping the ball and I didn't I didn't realize it at the time. But, you know, there's a little bit of a leadership role.

that you have as a center on a football team. And I learned to be vocal, but the real formative thing for me

up was two activities. First, Boy Scouts. I'm an Eagle Scout. And that really taught me how to be a leader, how to be more vocal, but also how to listen. And I did a lot of speech and debate in high school. And that gave me a confidence in public speaking that I didn't have. I mean, this surprises a lot of people when I say it. But when I was 10, 12, 14 years old, I was very shy and very introverted. And all of those things really helped me overcome that. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting how many people that become great speakers are so shy when they're small and young. And I hear that from actors, I hear that from people in politics, I hear that routinely, and it is amazing. And you mentioned the scouting program. I think our country is going to look back on that scouting program and the Boy Scouts of America and say, you know, with the demise of that, the retraction of that, we lost a lot.

And two things come to mind. One is our own son got his Eagle Scout and just so proud of what him, and quite frankly, his mom did in order to help get that because there's so many skills. And our son went out and served a mission for our church and it happened to be in Ghana. And he wrote back to us about, I don't know, three, four weeks into it. And he was out in rural Ghana.

And he said, I got to tell you, I have used every skill, every badge I ever earned in Eagle Scouts. I have actually used here on my mission just to survive and get through day to day. And the second part of that is I remember talking to Trey Gowdy, you know, former member of Congress, friend of ours, part of the Fox family. And, and, um,

And it was interesting, we were talking about his life as a prosecutor, 20 plus years at the local level, federal level, state level. I mean, kind of all levels. And he said, you know, upon reflection, I've never ever prosecuted or needed to prosecute somebody who was an Eagle Scout or was homeschooled. And I thought that was very interesting about how people who go through those

those programs the right way end up being very good and productive citizens. That's fascinating. What a great comment from Trey. I would say on the point of scouting that some of the finest men I have ever known

were the scoutmasters in the two troops that I was in. I was in a troop in my hometown in Louisiana, and we lived up here in Oregon, Virginia for two years, and the same thing with those guys. And I remain lifelong friends with those scoutmasters and with their sons, and they're just some of my best friends. And then on the point of homeschooling,

It's interesting too. You know, I'm a homeschool dad. Of course, my wife deserves almost all the credit for that. We're in year 10 of homeschooling and still have three kids at home. And I can see that. I mean, obviously our kids are imperfect like any humans, but there's a certain, to your point, there's a certain stability. There's a certain order that comes from that. And I relish now when people ask me,

well, how is it that you, that you homeschool? The underlying question is, you know, are your kids normal? Right, right, right. Yeah. And so, and so Trey Gowdy's comments, I think answer that question really well. No, I think that's true. And, and I look at, you know, maybe homeschooling 30 years ago is a bit different than it is today. I mean, the resources, the tools, the,

the experiences that are then shared and passed along, I think it's very viable. And I do still think one of the seminal issues of our day is about schooling and school choice and the ability for a parent and a family to find the best solution for their own child. Because the first few months of life, it's pretty evident that each child has their own personality and their own direction. I mean, that's the miracle of life.

That is exactly right. And as I tell people who are contemplating homeschooling,

It's not for everyone, but if it is for you, then it will probably feel like a calling. I mean, that's what my wife would say. But also say this, Jason, that you may not know this about me, but along the way, I opened the K-12 school, John Paul, the Great Academy in Louisiana. And it was start from scratch, K-12. I mean, the success of that came only from the Holy Spirit. And the school is now flourishing in year 17. But in the first year, we attracted a lot of homeschoolers.

And moms would come in and they would say, we just don't know. We've been homeschooling for a while. We're thinking about this private school. We don't know about the public schools. And I would always say, look,

i believe in an all of the above approach we need every kind of school charter schools other kinds of public schools private schools homeschooling we need all of them to succeed because ultimately if we have all of those options as parents for our kids then our kids will be better off and therefore the american republic will be better off amen to that no it's true so so you're going through you're playing some football you go to high school and then you've got some choices for college and look you

looking at your bio, you've done some, you've done some schooling along the way. Yeah.

Yeah, that's my grandfather, who was an old Cajun guy, used to tell me is my biggest life mentor and hero. He only had a seventh or eighth grade education and served in World War II as a Marine. He said, boy, you got a lot of book learning. I mean, for a while there, you were sort of a professional student, weren't you? I mean, that's what my wife called me. Yeah, we were first married and we got married on a

Saturday morning and literally the next Monday I started graduate school at Virginia Tech. And for the next several years, her parents would call and say, well, how's Kevin doing? And my wife, Michelle, said he still has his nose in a book. Yeah. Well, it's paying off now that. But what was it? I mean,

What attracted you? You got a degree in history, right? I can't even remember all the degrees you got, but what attracted you that direction? I mean, were you that kind of nerdy guy when you were six years old and you were just fascinated by history? Or what kind of drove or informed that or created that passion and decided, hey, I'm going to pursue this and I'm going to love it? Jason, from my earliest memories from reading, you know, whatever grade that was, I gravitated to history and biographies.

And I remember going in, I was in second grade or first grade, whatever this was, you first go into the library. And at my public school, Broadmoor Elementary in Lafayette, Louisiana. And I went straight to a biography of Abraham Lincoln. And then over the subsequent months, I read all of the age appropriate biographies of Lincoln. And therefore, as long as I can remember, my biggest passion

has been American history, especially early American history. And so when I was in high school, I was thinking about going to law school, like so many people who also love politics do. And I remember thinking,

trying to decide, well, what will I major in? And actually, one of my assistant scoutmasters, who is a liberal arts guy, said, well, you love history, major in history. If in fact, you want to go to law school, it's a great foundation. And so I pursued that. And then when I became a junior in college, I became convinced that pursuing the law as noble as that can be,

wasn't something that I wanted to do. And my mentor, a history professor who's still at that school, he's now a donor to Heritage, believe it or not, a conservative history professor. He said that, Kevin, just go all the way through. He said, just become a history professor. And that's what I did. And obviously also developed a love for leadership and politics and policy. I always sort of knew that I might not stay in the classroom forever. But following, this is the lesson, Jason. Following my passion

was something that has served me extraordinarily well. And I think that's true for any young person, whatever the passion may be in terms of passion being a particular academic discipline. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Kevin Roberts right after this.

From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Janice Dean, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janice Dean Podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine. Yeah, I can't remember exactly what the specific quote was, but somebody's really smart said something like that, right? Where they said, follow your passion, then it's not a job, it's your life. And you just so much more satisfying and

the kind of thing where you go off and you dive into it and you look up and you have no idea how much time went by because you're enjoying it as opposed to watching the clock every 10 minutes and saying, oh gosh, I can't wait to just get through this. There's a difference between those two things. And so you go do a bunch of schooling, then you start a school. I mean, how does that conversation go down? Hey, honey, I got an idea.

Yeah, well, I'll tell you, man, I was doing really well as a young history professor at a public university in the Southwest.

And I realized I really wanted to get into school leadership and that I might be willing to do that at the high school level rather than at the university level. And so I took this job as a history teacher at a really elite college prep school in Alabama. And it was during that year to swerve just a moment into our faith, which is important that my wife and I became real serious about our faith. And it's the fruit that came from that. We're

We're sitting in church one day and our finance minister, finance chairman guy said, you know, you need to tithe $5 more. We get in our van to go home. We had two kids at the time. And of course, my wife being very reasonable and prudent said, yeah, we can tithe $5 more. And I said, well, Michelle, I heard a different message because this is about the parable of the talents.

And what I heard was, yes, we need to tithe more, but we also need to tithe more from our talents. And here I am at a very fine school, but one that's secular. And we're growing in our faith and serious about American history and serious about being conservatives. And that led us to reconnect with one of my great high school friends who's now a Catholic priest. And Jason, a year later, we started a school totally from scratch with no money.

that was K through 12 in the first year. And we almost had to close so many times because of the hubris we had that I had.

that, oh, we're going to make this work, right? And the school is now not only debt-free and flourishing and the most beautiful property in my hometown, but it's been so successful in spite of its founder that it's now franchising. There are going to be schools modeled on that curriculum from California to Idaho to across the country. Okay, but at some point you make a leap from there. Tell us about that transition and where you went and why you did it.

Well, this is a theme. You know, I was just minding my business on the Gulf Coast and Wyoming Catholic College had been founded several years prior and their first president, a Catholic priest, was retiring. They were doing a national search. And as it turns out, they were looking for someone who had an academic background but knew something about

expanding institutions. You know, I'm an academic, but I'm really someone who focuses on the external, on marketing and all of that. And they wanted someone who had sort of a network into Catholic high school so that we

we could recruit. And so I ended up becoming the second president of Wyoming Catholic College. And that's really important. In fact, it's the most important aspect of how I made the transition into politics and policy. Because while there, one facet of the Obamacare law, the contraceptive mandate, was not something that I, as president of a faithful Catholic college, could sign. And so we sued them, along with Little Sisters of the Poor.

And we won. We beat the Obama administration. And then that was so much fun, you know, spiking the football in their faces, that we then became eligible for federal student loans and grants. And I decided, like Hillsdale, like Grove City, like Christendom College in Virginia, we weren't going to do it. And the college is now 10 years into that decision. It does not accept federal student loans and grants. The point is,

That was so much fun. And I realized I liked that so much that I was going to step out of that role and take the job in Texas and do politics and policy for the rest of my life. And I really thought we would be in Texas forever. But obviously, Heritage had some other plans. And that's, you know, moving the family around is kind of tough. But let's go back to this idea not to take the federal funds. What...

Because this is a really interesting point in a difficult, difficult decision, right? Oh, it's huge. Look, we were to paint the picture. The college was only seven years old. We were in a wonderful town, Lander, Wyoming. Most people listening to this, however, would think that it's the middle of nowhere. You've got a sense of Lander because of where you're from. But a great, great town, great people. The point is, we had everything to lose.

by standing up for what we thought was right. We were leaving a million dollars on the table each year by foregoing federal support.

out of a budget for the college of just four or $5 million. So, I mean, huge. Our faculty members knew that rejecting loans and grants from the government meant that the pace of their salary growth would slow. It meant that I, with a young family of four, in the middle of nowhere, would have to increase my fundraising travel. And yet, I would just say the Holy Spirit guided us. And it ended up being that it wasn't the federal government that gave us so much friction about that.

It was our creditors. They thought that we would no longer be a going concern financially without the money. And I wouldn't say that they were wrong as much as what they discounted was the power of perseverance rooted ultimately in humility. We were willing to stand up for what was right, even if that meant we had to work harder and even if that meant that it increased the chances of failure. I'm very happy to report

after my departure from, from Wyoming in order to go to the Texas group, that the board multiple times unanimously has reaffirmed that decision and the college is now flourishing. You know, and that's a good, solid example. And, and, um,

I think I told this story last week on this podcast, as Trey Gowdy and I were chatting about what Justice Scalia said to us. You know, the late Justice Scalia, Trey Gowdy and I and a number of other members, Peter Roskam, a congressman from Illinois, had arranged this dinner. And it was so nice to sit down and break bread and then have a discussion with the

one of the greatest Supreme Court justices there have been. And so it got turned to be, uh, it was my turn to ask a question. And my question was about no child left behind. I was trying to get the state of Utah to get out from under the, the federal mandates of no child left behind. And, and, um,

It was interesting as we did that, he had a very simple answer. He said, stop taking the federal money and you don't have to live by the federal mandates. He said, guys like me are going to tell you that if you take the federal money, you're going to have to play by the federal rules. And I think that's one of the big challenges for the states.

is that they take all this money, whether it be for highways and roads and bridges and infrastructure. Well, guess what? If you take the federal money, then you got to pay Davis-Bacon wages. You've got to do the federal environmental impact studies. You got to do all these things that cost a lot of money, slow down your project and do things differently than you would otherwise. And

And the temptation from the federal government is to, hey, let's just take everything we can get. But it comes with all of these strings. And that's why these bureaucracies, these puppeteers, if you will, get to dictate how you do things. And it's not healthy. And it's not...

It's not wise. It's very short-sighted. Oh, let's just grab the money. Now, I wish you could tie it to, well, I wish we didn't have to pay that much in taxes because if our taxes are going to this and I'm not taking that money, I don't want to have to pay the taxes. But boy, this is a big discussion I think this country has to have.

We do. And not surprisingly, you encapsulated all that so well. This, to me, is the biggest policy question facing the country. That is the extent, the influence of the federal government, but namely federal money.

into the states and, as you know, also into the localities. And I mean, that's difficult enough if you're a state legislator in Utah or Texas or wherever, trying to make sure you're making a responsible budget and trying to do that with as little federal money as possible. But it's even worse. I mean, the influence is even worse when it comes to private institutions, namely colleges. And so I'm gratified to say that I get calls routinely

from presidents and board members of other private colleges, most of them colleges of faith, asking if I can help them out as they try to extricate themselves from federal money. But to your point, Jason, so the good news is there's a trend there. The bad news is not a single one of them has done it yet.

So we have not added to the ranks of the colleges, just to use that industry as an example, that are rejecting federal student loans and grants because they are so dependent on that revenue. And until and unless conservatively minded people and conservatively oriented institutions develop the courage to say, this is what we're going to do and we're going to chart our own path, then it's going to remain very difficult

to expect our elected officials to have that courage, right? This is a dilemma that de Tocqueville posed. He said, you know, you think your elected officials lack courage? Look in the mirror. They reflect us. That's why I'm fascinated by your decision there in Wyoming, because when you're talking, it's by rough calculation, 25, 30% of your budget, 20% of your budget, whatever it is, it was a huge amount, right? And the temptation is, oh, let's just grab the money.

Um, but it creates so many other problems. I, I, I, I am just proud that somebody did that and then made a great success out of it. So before I get to some more personal questions, um, let's wrap up the full circle. So you're in Texas, you go to the heritage foundation. One of the projects I'm really excited about is the oversight project. Um, and the idea that, um, you know, I, I,

I was so excited when I got elected to Congress. I had four principles, fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability, and a strong national defense. And I thought, oh, if we do all those four, adhere to the Constitution, that's going to be the prism by which I look at the decision-making process as to where I should spend my time. But the accountability part of it, I was really struggling with. Like,

How is this done? And it really took some research to go figure out because we talk about accountability. But, you know, they don't give members of Congress handcuffs. Sometimes I wish they did, but the legislative branch doesn't get handcuffs, but they can illuminate the problems and challenges. And again, we talked about this on my podcast with Trey Gowdy, but

It's one of the great challenges out there. But not only we can't just rely on a committee that has 60 staff to do it, it's going to be a more full-throated approach. When you have 2.2 million federal employees, we like to say on the show, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And there's such a waste and fraud and abuse of the system. It takes everybody. So I'm glad that Heritage is moving forward with this oversight project as well.

Thanks for that compliment. Thanks for helping us. And in fact, as I sit here, this had occurred to me, even though I've seen you a few times in person the last several months, that you mentioned you quickly a little while ago in our conversation. Several years ago, you spoke at an event in Texas, the first time you and I met. And as you and I were chatting before your talk and then during your talk,

I learned something. I mean, keep in mind, as we've been discussing, I made this transition from the academic world and the policy. And so I'm probably a little more of a novice now, but I don't I don't have your understanding of that. And so I'm sitting here thinking, oh, my gosh.

The conservative movement is not prepared for this. We've got great former members of Congress like Chaffetz who gets it, people like Jim Jordan who get it, people who are on the oversight committee in the House now. But therefore, fast forward several years to my being at Heritage, and I'm telling my colleagues, guys, we have to be on offense.

I think we're going to prevail. I think the conservative movement will prevail. I think we're going to save the republic, but only if we're on offense. And one of our mutual friends, Mike Howell, a Heritage colleague, he heard in that a message that developed into the oversight project at Heritage. And the design of that, or the purpose of that rather, is to give the intellectual legal ammunition to our friends in Congress, especially on the Oversight Committee, to

Take your metaphor of handcuffs, put handcuffs on the administrative state. And hopefully by 2025, when we have a conservative president, we can really accelerate the pace. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Kevin Roberts right after this.

Yeah, I think there have been some valiant efforts, but they need to be sustained. They need to be from top to bottom. They need to be fighting on every level because, you know, the so-called liberal democratic machine. Oh, my goodness. They they do so many things to put people in power and people in place and.

and make decisions and push forward their policy agenda that I mean, that's what they that's what they want to do. That's what they want to pursue. But there needs to be a balance here. There needs to be an approach because I do believe this is a center right country and that it is very conservative by its very nature. And I and I think these younger generation is much more conservative than than people give it credit for. And but it takes talking through the issues.

Because there may be a reflexive response that says, oh, I don't like Republicans. But then when you start talking about individual issues, people light up and they say, well, yeah, that's what I'm, freedom? Liberty? Self-direction? Yeah, I actually believe in that. Young people do believe in that. They just don't know that they're more conservative in their approach than what they've been told.

It's so true. And now we just in the last couple of weeks, we have some

some data that suggests that, you know, some of these longitudinal studies about the evolution of thought among each generation of Americans. And the data bears out what you just said about younger Americans being more conservative than we might think they are, at least how the media portrays them. And I think the key to your point is they have a distrust in institutions, which is a real tragedy.

I mean, Americans 30 and younger, the first generation,

who a minority of whom have a trust in institutions. And so the conservative project, remember, isn't just what's going on in politics and elections, but upstream from that is revitalizing institutions, schools, families, Rotary clubs, so on. And young people, especially after the experience of COVID, are they're longing for that, you know, what sociologists would call belonging.

belonging to something, belonging to something local, belonging to the nation state, which we all used to believe, even left of center Americans. And so the point is there's an opportunity there for those of us who are in leadership positions in the conservative movement, if we can do a good job of closing the sale.

Yeah, I think, at any rate, there are institutions that we have to have that should be worthy, but they're out of balance. I mean, my grandfather was an FBI agent for decades, and I grew up revering the FBI. And now I'm to the point of, really, guys, come on, what are you doing?

And just sheer disappointment time and time and time again. No doubt a number of them do the right thing for the right reason. But I'm not at the point anymore where I say, well, it's just the upper echelon. It's just a handful of people. I know it's something is seeped in there that's much deeper and much more troublesome and much more political in its nature rather than Lady Justice, you know.

having that blindfold up. I just, we can go down that rabbit hole and have hours of discussion about just that. But I think most people would say, yes, we need a good, quality, trustworthy, independent, you know, somebody that doesn't look at things through the political blinders to be engaged in the law enforcement of this country. And, but that's not where we are today.

No, I lament deeply, as you do, what's happened to the FBI. You and I both have some mutual friends who are former agents. And we know that, as they have told us, the disease has seeped into the rank and file. It's no longer just the upper echelon, which has been a problem for a long time. And so I don't say this lightly and certainly with no disrespect to heroic agents, former agents of the FBI agents.

The only way to fix it is to end it and to recreate, to your point, a proper, independent, judicious, objective federal agency that does what the FBI used to do. What I have seen a little bit firsthand, not as much as you, is that it is irredeemable. It is that bad. And that's the reason, Jason, that

Among the many agencies that Heritage is calling for the overhaul of, the FBI is at the top of the list. Sadly, that's where we are today because, again, some of the functionality that they do and they engage with, we need. We do. And again, I'm going to be careful here because I got to transition to the next part of our topic here. But the question I keep asking with this whole thing

interaction that they're having with all these social media companies is what law do you think was being broken other than infringing upon people's First Amendment rights what law was being broken how many charges did you bring how many people were prosecuted like what what were they doing wrong you know what was the New York Post doing wrong by producing a story that you knew was true

And that's why these hearings and what Jim Jordan and James Comer and these other chairmen are doing are so vital. But all right, I want to transition. Otherwise, we're going to go for another two hours because you get a couple of policy geeks talking and we could have we could just keep running the gambit here. All right. I got some quick questions for Kevin.

Kevin Roberts here from the Heritage Foundation. Just to illuminate a little bit more who you are and what you believe in, and just kind of a fun thing. So nothing to get too much trouble in, but I don't care how many history books you've read, you're probably not prepared for all these questions. All right, you ready? I'm ready. First concert you attended? Alabama, the country music band. Yeah. Oh, sweet. I love Alabama. Great group, and certainly...

I'm a little bit older and yeah, they were right in the heart of things for so, so long. What was your high school mascot? I guess you were doing homeschool stuff too, but high school. No, I was not. I was not homeschooled. My, my, my high school mascot was the lions, Blackfield high school. Because there were a lot of lions in, in Louisiana. In the swamps. Yeah. Completely. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I understand that. What was your very first job? Not the,

You know, mom telling you, hey, Kevin, take out the garbage. I'm not talking that garbage. I'm talking first where you got an actual paycheck from somebody else. Well, this tells you a little bit about me. It was two things about me. First, you know that I'm a nerd. So at Walden Books, now defunct national retail bookstore, some of your audience will know the way I got that.

was I wanted the job, but I was six months or a year younger than when they hired people. And so I wrote a letter to the CEO and lobbied for myself to be hired. And I was hired. And the manager of that local store was not very grateful, but I proved my worth. And it was a great first job. That's good. Yeah.

What's your superpower? You got to take off the modest hat there, but what can you do that like, yeah, I'm actually really pretty good at that?

I synthesize information really well. And so consuming the information, understanding quickly what's actionable and putting together a plan over months or years. If I have a superpower, that's it. Some people struggle with that. They can have that at their fingertips. When I was hired a number of people throughout the years, and I've always said that it's much easier to tear something apart

But it's very difficult to build something back up and create something new and better and more energetic and everything else, all the positives, right? And that is a skill set. So I can see why you've been so successful in so many different organizations that way. Do you have a pet growing up?

I did. I had a wonderful dog, a Cocker Spaniel named Bo, after General Beauregard, a great Louisiana native in the Civil War. And I'm a big dog guy. I raise bird dogs. I've got a German Shorthair Pointer and a Brittany. And

One of my passions, if not addictions, is bird hunting, but especially raising those dogs. Oh, that would be fun. I would love to go out and do that with you at some point. Well, let's do it. Absolutely. Hint, hint. Yeah. Awake the invitation. But you have to get this next question right, which is pineapple on pizza, yes or no? Yes.

Kevin, seriously? Absolutely. You know why? Because I had never had pineapple on pizza. And, you know, my then girlfriend, now my wife of 26 years, we were on our fourth or fifth date. And, you know, this is Southern hospitality, Jason. She said, let's get pizza. Well, she orders Canadian bacon and pineapple on a pizza. And I'm thinking, this girl is crazy. And so I ate it politely, but then I kind of liked it. And so even if I disliked it,

I've been successful in marriage because I always tell Michelle. Yeah. Okay. So you words. Yes, dear. Yes. Okay. I, you, you got the most legitimate, um, excellent explanation I've ever heard, which is you just had starry eye. You were just starry eyed for your wife. I girlfriend at the time. That's so you have all these positive vibes flowing through this pizza. Okay. That's your good excuse. I, I buy that. Thanks for accepting it. Yeah.

I'm very judgmental on this one topic. Everything else, I'm pretty liberal. And, you know, hey, you can be you. But pineapple on pizza, that just doesn't work for me. So, all right. Last question. Best advice you ever got? Follow your passion. We actually talked about that in that one conversation where this assistant scoutmaster of my Boy Scout troop said, you like history, go do it.

Well, you can tell that it just radiates from you that energy and enthusiasm and passion for policy and passion.

It's why the Heritage Foundation has been around for 50 years. It's going to continue to flourish under your leadership. And it's thanks for letting me be involved and engaged in it. But thanks for joining us on the podcast and wishing nothing but the greatest success. Thanks, Kevin. Jason, this was a lot of fun. Thanks. It's been great to become a friend and look forward to working with you for many years. All right. I can't thank Kevin enough. You can see his energy is infectious and he's got energy.

He's rooted in policy and principle, and that's what you want in a leader.

Anyway, I appreciate him joining us on the podcast. Hope you can rate this podcast, please. We'd love to get the ratings. We need to have you do that. That would be really helpful. Subscribe to it so you can get it every week. I would remind people that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

Fox produces a number of podcasts. You go to foxnewspodcast.com to see other podcasts like it. But again, rate it, review it. We'd appreciate it. And come back next week because we will have another dynamic guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

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