Pete Hegseth's 'Battle For The American Mind'
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Hello, this is Jason Chaffetz and welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. Appreciate you joining today. We're going to give you some, you know, hot takes on the news, highlight the stupid. And then, of course, we're going to call Pete Hegsa because Pete, we're going to phone a friend. He's a good friend. Good guy. You see him on Fox News. He's got another book, a second book, Battle for the American Mind.

It's off the charts in terms of its success. We'll talk a little bit about that. And Pete's just a fascinating guy with his military background, grown up in Minnesota. Look forward to a good conversation with Pete Hegseth. But I want to get right into some of the hot takes in the news. You know, we try to highlight some of the things that maybe don't get as much attention as they probably should. But

The administration continues to suffer from the idea that they claim they're out of answers on how to deal with the high price of gas. They continue, the president, to talk about the Putin price hike, which is such a facade. It's such a lie. It's such an excuse as if Vladimir Putin runs the world, not the president of the United States.

I mean, why do we need Joe Biden if Joe Biden can't solve these problems? I mean, he's just making the case of incompetence, which brings us back to the thoughts of Jimmy Carter and what went on in that administration. But evidently, the White House has told Fox Business they have not ruled out the distribution of gas rebate cards.

Now, talk about a ridiculous scheme. First of all, the scams that will go on with this will be out of control. Remember, it was the Biden administration, along with Kamala Harris, who implemented all of this cash. It was going to get us back on track after COVID. And yet the Secret Service came up and said there was about 100, 100 billion dollars in

that was scammed out of the American taxpayers' pockets into these scammers. That's just their estimate. $100 billion. You think if the government is handing out what would be ultimately probably billions of dollars worth of gas cards, that there wouldn't be just rampant fraud? It also exacerbates the problem, and it certainly doesn't fix the problem. So,

How do you think that this is going to work, Mr. President? And you've talked about some other

so-called fixes, but they're not fixes. One is to suspend the federal gasoline tax. Okay, that's 18 cents. I guess that'll help, but it's not a long-term solution to the problem. He's talked about getting or tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We've talked about that on this podcast. That's not the way to solve this problem. Strategic Petroleum Reserve was government being smart enough to say we should set aside

these barrels of oil in case of natural disaster, war, something unforeseen. But this is something that is highly predictable. When you

cut off from day one and you promise the American people that you're going to get rid of the fossil fuel industry, guess what? People stopped making investments. It's something you wanted and now it's coming to fruition and the American people saying, we hate it because there is no quote unquote green solution to backfill this and suddenly deal with the transition.

I understand the need to transition to renewables and the greens and all that kind of stuff. More power to them if they want to pursue wind and hydrothermal. I'm an all-of-the-above energy guy.

But don't think you're going to get there through gas cards and suspending the gas tax and, you know, suddenly just tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Those are simple little political tricks along the way. That is an absolute ridiculous, ridiculous thing to think that you're going to to solve that problem.

Second thing I want to talk about is something that I see more and more of, and it's a touchy subject, and it's something that is sensitive to a lot of people. But I fundamentally believe that when it comes to sexual preference or sexual desires or things like that, there's no place for that in the workplace. Right?

What you do when you don't work for the federal government, when you don't work for your private company, hey, that's up to you. But what I saw was FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is out now promoting, and I'm going to read you this tweet. It says, this Pride Month, meet Jamie Casterton.

Quote, as a bisexual woman at FEMA, Pride Month means celebrating our diversity, LGBTQIA plus community and what we contribute to our FEMA mission. End quote. Read more about Jamie. What is this like a solicitation for for dating? I mean, this is not the place to be talking about your sexual preferences. I don't care what they are. I don't care whether they are sexual.

You know, she is saying that, you know, whatever she is, that's up to her. But just like a heterosexual shouldn't be going out talking about their view of the world as it relates to these sexual connotations. There's no place for this in the workplace, folks, let alone spending federal funds and being using those to go out and promote somebody's personal sexuality.

Like, when did we turn the corner on that and say, hey, this is a good idea. Let's use taxpayer funds to promote Jamie and her approach to as a bisexual woman. That's like, that is just no place for that. I don't think FEMA should spend a dime on that type of stuff. I don't think it's anybody's business.

And how did they recruit her? Like, how did they go out and say, hey, looking for somebody who wants to go out and talk about their sexuality publicly and we'll keep you on the clock and pay you because, you know, it's just...

I really do feel strongly that there is just not a place for this. Whatever you want to do, okay, after work, go ahead and do it. But there should be none of that discussion at work on the taxpayer's dime. That's my take on it. All right, that didn't even make it to the list of the stupid. So there's always somebody doing something stupid. So let's bring on the stupid.

All right. I'm going to Fox News dot com on this. They've always got a good array of serious hard news, but then some other stuff. And they they highlighted this claim by The Washington Post, a guy named Max Boot and his his opinion in the opinion section there at The Washington Post.

was that conservatives should not celebrate Top Gun Maverick. Now, I've seen Top Gun Maverick. Seen it twice, actually. Great movie. Fun diversion. Doesn't get overtly political, but it does surge a pride through you. It's a fun movie. The cinematography is unbelievable. I happen to be a Tom Cruise movie fan. I think he's a great actor, one of the best certainly through my lifetime.

It's a good movie. I think it's way better than the first Top Gun. That's just my personal opinion.

But this guy, Max Boot, is saying that conservatives, Republicans, should not celebrate this. They can't celebrate it because Maverick is diversity-filled and that conservatives are opposed to diversity. That's not true. We're as pro-diversity as anybody. Just because we maybe don't believe that the color of your skin should predetermine that you get a certain job or a certain outcome...

doesn't mean that we don't celebrate and encourage and applaud diversity. I think that is a ridiculous claim. His misunderstanding, his total lack of understanding of what conservatives believe and why they're thriving...

shows an ignorance that is off the charts and just fills the checkbox, if you will, on bringing on the stupid. Max, I'm sorry, but you're bringing on the stupid by showing your ignorance on that one. All right, now I want to go next to FoxNews.com, where they highlighted that police in Chicago, much like following the lead in the state of Washington, state of Washington, if you recall, a couple weeks ago, we highlighted this stupid move

where police could not engage in vehicle pursuits unless they meet some certain standards. Yeah, there's got to be some standards, but basically if anybody took off, they believe that that is going to improve policing. So if you get stopped and you don't want to talk to a police officer, you can just keep going and they can't pursue you. And in Chicago, now they won't even allow foot chases anymore.

So they won't pursue suspects in many cases. They have certain cases that you can, certain cases that you can't, but they're not allowed to pursue anybody. So there's cause. There has to be some reason why the police pull you over or want to talk to you on foot. And now if you just say you blow it off and you walk away...

the police can't continue to pursue you. That is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. In a city that is just riddled with crime and guns and all kinds of things, you're tying the hands of police officers together.

from wanting to talk to potential suspects. That is just absolutely stupid. All right, and for our third one, I don't know if I properly categorized this as stupid because I'm actually, I really like Brad Pitt. Seems like a good guy. I'm sure he's done some stupid stuff along the way, but you know what? Seems like a good guy. Great actor, enjoys movies. But he finally admitted, he told GQ magazine that,

that he had spent a lot of money and a ridiculous amount of time on what he called a, quote, foolish dig for buried treasure. He was being pitched to be invested into a radar company, and he was told that there was millions of dollars buried on this kind of 1,000-acre estate in

And Pitt admitted to getting obsessed. Quote, like for a year, this was all I could think about. Just the excitement of it all, said the Missouri-raised actor in GQ. Quote, maybe it had something to do with where I grew up because in the Ozark Mountains, there were always stories of hidden caches of gold. End quote. Anyway, he got totally obsessed, spent all this time trying to dig for gold. Brother, you're one of the richest men in Hollywood. End quote.

All you need to do is show up somewhere and people throw money at you. You don't need to go digging for it. But I could see where he wanted some diversion. And you know, he's not always making movies. It's tough to just go out in public. I get that. But out there digging for gold, it just cracked me up. And I hesitate to put it in the stupid category. But he called himself foolish himself. That's just...

somebody doing something stupid somewhere. There are some of my three for this week. All right. So we highlighted the stupid, but on the other end of the spectrum, I got somebody here who's, uh, I got a lot of respect for perpetually happy guy served his nation. He's just a really good person. And, uh, somebody have, you know, when you cross paths there at Fox, uh, somebody I've gotten to know a little bit and, uh, just, uh, think the world of, and,

Just thrilled that he's got this second book out that's doing awesome. So let's phone a friend and let's get on the horn with Pete Hegseth. Hello. Pete. Hey, Jason Chaffetz. Jason, what's up? How you doing? Hey, thanks so much for joining me. I appreciate it. It's great to be here, man. Always. Well, no, this is good. I want to start by going back to third grade, Pete. You know, you're in third grade.

Did you ever think that those little books you were reading, that you would actually write those books? You never thought you'd be an author, did you?

No, no, no, absolutely not. Are you kidding me? You look at anything more than 10 pages and say, not only will I never read anything that long, I'll never write something that long. So, no, we all find ourselves, you know, this accidentally in the business of actually wanting to write something that long because you believe in it so much. So thankfully, a couple of books back then influenced me. And here we are. Well, what what influenced you?

To write? I mean, there were a few, there was a book called Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe. It was written by Jeffrey Hard. He was a, this was not, I didn't read it in third grade, but you know, later after college, yeah.

that was about the nexus of Athens and Jerusalem. And that was a book in a moment where a light bulb went off in my head. And a small part of what went off in my head was, how in the heck did I not learn any of this in high school or at college, both in college where it was supposed to be a liberal arts education, encountered none of the big arguments about the confluence of Athens and Jerusalem and Western civilizations and the great conversation and the great books and

And there was a lot that happened since then. And I went to, I went, I went to Iraq and did a couple of tours and felt like I had some things to say from that based on experiences in combat and, and watching the policy side of it. So it became just light bulbs going off and realizing, I don't know what I think I should have known. And,

I need to learn more about that. And I think if I didn't engage with that from a Nowhereville, you know, run of the mill public school in Minnesota and at a so-called elite university, then most people probably haven't encountered it either. And then the moment of COVID-19 came and all of this madness came into our homes and it became clear it was the right time to run.

Write it all down. Yeah, you know, it's funny because, you know, I got elected to Congress while I was sitting back in third grade. That's the last thing I ever thought about. You go forward to high school and college. I never thought I was going to do any of that. Gosh, I'm about getting ready to launch my fourth book, for goodness sake. My teachers, they would be laughing out loud like, are you kidding me? This kid's writing books?

And people are buying them. That's, I mean, it's, but it's an honor to do so. It really, it really focuses the mind and it takes a lot longer to do it than people realize. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially because you don't have it. You don't necessarily have a deadline looming over your head. Sure. You do from the publisher at some level, but it's not like a class where you hand that paper in. And so you really do have to be motivated to want to do it, to love the subject matter that you're writing about and,

And you know what? In third grade, you shouldn't have known that. All I cared about was getting out to the playground and playing some basketball in third grade. I was paying attention to probably nothing else. But it's because I, not to take it back to that, but it's worth drawing that comparison. It's because I assumed that what I was being taught by my teachers was gospel.

It was it was they were the authority. They knew things I didn't know things. And so I was going to take what they did and dutifully recite it and get the homework done. And then I'll do the stuff I really want to do and have fun. And when the innocent instruction of the 80s turns into the indoctrination of today, that's when our third graders are a lot more vulnerable. They're not their their minds of innocence are being shaped in ways we could never have conceived.

All right. So let's go back. Young little Petey. Or what did they call it? What did they call you? What did they call you when you were a little kid? It was a little bit of pistol in there back in the day. Yeah. A little basketball reference. Yeah. You know, Maverick, the Pete Maravich movie had just come out, Birth of a Dream. And so there was a bit, you know, it was but it was Pete. It was always Pete. My mom wanted to be Peter, but I liked Pete.

So it's in Minnesota, right? And I partly I know this because your buddy, Brian Brenberg, I did a podcast with him and we talked about you guys growing up in this sort of idyllic, you know, street playing basketball outside.

Yeah, I mean, Brian was one of my best buds, and he lived two doors down, and our other good buddy lived in between us. And it was I mean, I look back on it, and I didn't have a care in the world. First of all, Brian and I were both children of privilege, because we had parents that were married and loved each other and brought us to church and

at a community that reinforced those values. And so we didn't think twice about, you know, these big grappling of other things. We got home off the bus and man, we were in each other's homes within 10 minutes, unless we had some homework to do, you know what it was. And then what was the sport? We were playing football today. Are we, are we playing with a ball today? Are we playing basketball today? And of course, you know how this goes. It was all based on the season. So football season, it was automatic football, basketball season. It was just,

and and it was you stay out and play until one of the parents called for dinner and and then you you went back and did your thing it was and then you're mad you're still disappointed you're like oh come on i want to keep come on just a little bit longer it's not even dark yet i mean what are you doing and brian's parents haven't called yet what are we doing i mean come on so yeah those were the grievances of young and what about now it gets cold in the winter was what was the what was the sport of choice in the winter

Well, I mean, my dad was a high school basketball coach. So for me, I lived in a gym and, and Brian would come and other friends would come to his high school basketball practices. So a lot of times I would come home from my elementary school and then my mom would drive me a mile up the road to the public high school. And I'd go spend two and a half hours in the gym with my dad playing hoops. So I, I,

I should have played hockey because I'm a short, slow guy, you know, who can't jump. Instead, my dad and I'm doing the same thing to my kids, Jason. Of course, I'm turning them into basketball players when they should be anything. But it's it's what we it's it's what we impose on them. But yeah, so we or we play snow football, put a lot of snow football, which doesn't sound fun. But you got that additional foot of padding in the snow. You can hit pretty hard.

Kids don't care what the temperature is. That's the thing. It's amazing. Like I was in part of my childhood. I was in Southern California. Well, that water there in LA, it's pretty darn cold.

I remember going out with my, my brother on boogie boards and looking around thinking, how come everybody else isn't out here? We were the only ones out there because the water was like freezing cold. But you know, when you're like 10, it doesn't matter. And I'm sure the same is true with snow. It doesn't matter. Same thing with boot hockey. We didn't play hockey, but we played boot hockey all the time out on the,

out in the lake, we had a lake right near us and it just wasn't a factor. It was life. Now, now I have an amazing aversion to it. Like I want to stay away from cold in any way possible. Yeah, exactly. Yes. So, um, amazing how that changes the older you get, the less cold do you want to actually be? Um, always, but, uh, okay. So let's talk about growing up because, you know, I, I felt like I had an idyllic, uh, you know, growing up.

I didn't have a care in the world. I never worried about where the food was going to come, if I had shelter in my head, if I was going to be safe. And it was just a matter of how much sports I could play and how fast I could do my homework so I could get back out and play. But life started changing for me. You know, we went through some hard, difficult things. And, you know, I wasn't totally prepared for that. But the reason I bring that up is because I think every person goes through this.

Nobody goes through it unscathed. Nobody goes through it without the hardships and the difficulties. And I don't know what those were for Pete growing up or at what point, but life gets hard at some point. Oh, it does. You get mugged by reality for sure. I'll tell you, I almost say that, and I don't fault my parents for this, but I almost had too much of a bubble. It was, you know, I was every...

no cares, no fears, um, total encouragement, um, very little exposure to hardship. And it took, you know, failing at, I thought I was going to be an NBA player, right? I mean, I, that's what I thought. Cause I practiced six hours a day and I went to, I went to Princeton to play basketball and that's what, you know, when, when I played four years and never sniffed the court for four years and, and then you joined the, I joined the military and, you know, going to combat for me was the ultimate, um,

crucible of reality, of human nature, of depravity, of evil, of brotherhood, of sort of shedding aside a lot of the frivolous things that I thought were important for a really long time. And that sent me when I came home into a, you know, people call it post-traumatic stress. I'm sure that's what it was of just

drinking too much and doing nothing and, you know, wasting time and thinking over, you know, what does it all mean? And, and it took a while to bounce back from that. A lot of people don't. And,

And that's a tragedy of our system and what you come back to. But I had a pillow of a childhood, let's put it that way. I can't actually look back and find something. And I think it took a while to realize a lot of people don't have that. And what that leads to is a lot of challenges in life that policymakers and policy can't change or correct. And that's so unfortunate.

Okay, so let's go back to that, because that was a pivotal decision to go in the military. Why?

What was going on? Why did you suddenly go from maybe playing army men when you're a little kid to saying, hey, yeah, I think I actually want to sign up and join? What was that decision like? What was the inflection point where you said, hey, mom, dad, I think I'm going to go do this? Well, I appreciate that question because I can't point to a specific point. I didn't grow up in a military family. I got to know a couple of my dad's friends who were in the military, and they were these –

crazy dudes who would tell stories. And it was, it was, it was interesting, but I honestly point to, and I mean this, I,

The Memorial Day parade and the 4th of July parades in my parents' small town in southern Minnesota, we used to go every year. It was a blink and you miss it town, no stoplights. But the whole town comes out. All the vets walk down Main Street. Everyone's clapping. And I just remember sitting – and then, of course, it ends at Memorial Park because it's a memorial ceremony for the people that were not there. And over the course of years, it sunk in that –

This is really important. Like what these guys did was really special and everyone universally recognizes that they stepped up. And if they hadn't stepped up, then, you know, and I kind of started, you know, as I still loved basketball and did all that, had this reality of like, man, I think I can do that. And if I think I can do that, then I, then I should do that. And I feel like that's, I was a very driven kid in that sense. And so that a creeping sense of duty came in and this was all before basketball

9-11. And then I joined ROTC in college and did that while doing everything else. And then 9-11 happened and it was the ultimate validator of it. But it was just kind of the osmosis of patriotism and a recognition that I should do my part is all it really took. And that's why I'm a big believer in civic ritual, you know, parades, ceremonies, bringing kids to them because they may not appreciate in the moment, but the cumulative effect of them seeing what a society values is

I think does have an impact. Yeah. I, you know, those types of, it's like, I would still remember my parents bringing me every time they went to go vote. Like I'm sure it would have been easier to just kind of leave little Jason and Alex at home. But they brought me with the, and we stood in line and then we got there and we stood in this little booth and my mom,

my mom or my dad would show me what they're doing. And then you're right. We would go to parades. We would see the patriotic things. I remember my dad taking me to an air show and watching these, these planes and just being in awe of the, of the military and, and having a respect for somebody who is in uniform, whether it be a police officer or firefighter or somebody in the military and, and showing an extra degree of, of respect. In

In fact, one of the things that like really touched my heart and probably nobody will get this except me. But I found myself in Congress and do all kinds of parades. Right. And I would run. Oh, yeah. You do parades. Yeah, I do the parades and I'd run back and forth. I'd shake hands and I'd try to, you know, you know, I didn't want to be that guy sitting in the back of the of the vehicle just waiting. It's like I will never ride in a parade. I'm always going to walk. I'm always going to.

And I still remember, like I will remember the rest of my life.

I'm just Jason Chaffetz, but I was in a role where I was the member of Congress. And I look over, and it was a huge parade, the Provo Freedom Festival. Sorry to wax on about this, but it's a huge parade. I mean, like over 100,000 people are on this parade route, right? It's unbelievably big, one of the nation's largest parades. Anyway, so we're on this parade route, and I look over.

And this dad and his son, he sees me and he, he, you could see he's talking to his son and they stand up and it touched my heart. And I thought, okay, that has nothing to do with Jason Chaffin, but everything to do with kind of the respect, the office. And I, and I, and I think how many of these kids are throwing the candy back at me thinking it's a game. And this kid, I'm just, I just know that.

He's on the right direction with the right dad teaching him the right things. I get it. I've been a moment like that. I just had a moment yesterday at a party where a very person I respect greatly, you know, walked up to my kids who are over on the side. And one of my kids is lounging in the back of a chair and doesn't stand up. And I'm,

went over there right away. And I said, man, when an adult comes up to you to talk to you, you stand on your feet and you shake their hand and you look them in the eye. And that can't be replicated what that dad did on that parade route. And that's it's kind of demoralizing, Jason, when you think about it, because that's

That is so central to the perpetuation of the respect and the values and the love and appreciation of our country. And what we have is that dad or that mom emphasizing and hammering that point home every single day. And if you don't have that, and then you're hoping on a system to create that, man, we're failing. We're failing those kids. And we're lucky to have had it. And that's why you get older. You know this. We've talked about this.

Being a dad and being a good dad becomes the most important thing to you. And there's a lot of other important things in the world that I spend a lot of time on and you do too, writing books and stuff. But I'm ultimately writing that in the hopes that someday they'll read that and affect how they think. And then throwing in on just the small stuff you do every day. It's the coolest job. Well, it is. But it is, you know, it sometimes gets you. I have people all the time come up and say, hey, you know, you're on Fox News. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or when I was in Congress and we talk about it for a second and like, doesn't it get to you? Like every day you're talking about something that's wrong. Like, you know, and, and it is, it, it hurts at some point because you're just like every day you're on Fox, I'm on Fox, we're doing different things and we're talking about,

People disrespecting just a total lack of respect for not just authority, right? There's a way to protest and petition your government and do it the right way and disagree without being disagreeable. But people taking it to the extreme. I saw it.

unhinged when Donald Trump got elected. That's why I was just like, wait a second, what in the world turned, you just flipped a switch in millions of people that they suddenly thought they could just do anything to any win in any way.

You're right. And I think, you know, Hemingway once wrote that he was talking about bankruptcy, but he said it happens gradually until it happens quickly. And I think in our in our culture and in that's what we're seeing. It happened very gradually. We barely noticed it. And now.

Why should we be surprised when generations of young kids come out with a view antithetical to our country and our institutions? They really do believe that we live in a democracy and not a constitutional republic.

really don't know that our rights come from God as enshrined in our constitution and declaration. They really don't know that there is wall of separation of church and state is not in the constitution. It was something, you know, like just basic stuff like that. It's just,

So there is a level of cultural and governmental ignorance that I don't say that in a, uh, haughty tauty way, but just a, a reality that we're having debates and talking way past each other. And, and that's why I landed on education because parenting is more important. Uh,

And raising your kids with faith is more important than education. But if you believe in equal opportunity, if those two are failed through ways that no fault of a kid, then we better have a system that teaches kids the way they used to be taught to think critically and think freely, to identify demagoguery and fallacies and terrible arguments so they can make better arguments and convince other people of these timeless truths.

But it's scary. What we're what we're seeing right now is the the young and I know it's like, oh, the old people cranking about the young people. No, this is different. This is different in that.

We have taken entire institutions and flushed them down the toilet and then expected the same outcome amongst young people who were never fortified that way. And now it's ideology and Marxist thinking and anti-American thinking. 20 years from now, Comrade Cortez, one of your colleagues,

The socialist will not be an outlier. And that's a scary, scary thing. I'm hopeful when I see so many great kids, too. But this divide in conversation and reality is going to get wider. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Pete Hegg, Seth, right after this.

Pull up a chair and join me, Rachel Campos Duffy, and me, former U.S. Congressman Sean Duffy, as we share our perspective on the discussions happening at kitchen tables across America. Download From the Kitchen Table, The Duffys, at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you download podcasts. Your book, and I haven't read it yet, but I love the title of it, right? A Battle for the American Mind. It's so true. I got myself into trouble, Pete, when I was in Congress.

Shocking. Shocking.

It was all it was Barack Obama's eight years. Right. So he was the president that whole time. I was there for six months of Donald Trump, but but eight years of Barack Obama and Democrats time and time and time and time and time again kept doing all this recognition of all of these athletes and celebrities. And I remember it was like.

The something to I'm not kidding you like the 247th anniversary of Confucius's birthday or so. I mean, it was it was. Yeah, yeah. It was so that's so ridiculous, you know, and Pi Day and everything else.

And so I finally, there was some celebrity and I said, I will not vote for any more of these resolutions. I am not going to celebrate celebrities until we recognize kids for science and math and finance. And, you know, you do some of those, then I'll go ahead and start voting for, you know, Michael Jackson Recognition Day or whatever it is that was up. Yes.

Then John Boehner was the speaker. And John Boehner brought one up to recognize, I think it was Arnold Palmer.

And that vote, you know, there's 435 members in the House, was 434 to 1. I voted against it. And the Speaker came up to me and said, Jason, how can you vote against Arnold Palmer? I said, look, I made a pledge. You show me one scientist. You show me one. And he didn't do it. He just looked at me, and he was so mad at me that he could not get a unanimous vote on Arnold Palmer. And it got me in a lot of trouble.

Really interesting. I can, I had forgotten that you did most, almost all of your time in under the clove of Obama. All of my time, like I was in jail. Yeah. You did time, hard time. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's,

The amount of time we spend on vapid things is unbelievable. And you know it. The system reinforces itself. You honor me. I honor you. We all get along. Everything floats along. We do just fine. So talk to us about the Battle for the American Mind. It's a great title.

It's doing off the charts great. But what was the, was there like a singular event or was it just sort of the culmination? You, you know, washing your armpits in the shower and said, hey, I should write a book called this. I mean, how did that come about?

It was kind of both. I've always wanted to write about education. I've always been passionate about it and felt like it's the, it's, it is the, is the key to unlocking equal opportunity, not equity, not what the left talks about. Equal opportunity is the opportunity for kids to get

the type of education they deserve. So I, it had been ruminating in me for a long time. And then I, I was introduced to classical Christian schools and I met David Goodwin through, actually it was a Fox and friends diner that I was at where a young couple came up to me and said, Hey, have you, have you heard of the association of classical Christian schools? You got to hear about it. They're building schools. It's amazing. And they gave me, they introduced me to David Goodwin and he, he had a partial, um,

He had some research that he had done, some partial thoughts written down, and we started going back and forth on it. And I had questions and he had answers. And then he had things, he had questions for me about what was happening, you know, more in a more modern context. And there...

First, we collaborated on the film for Fox Nation, Miseducation of America, which was a five-part series about the state of education. And then quickly, we realized this has got to be a book. Like, we need to write a book together. And so it was a total book project.

partnership between it doesn't happen without him. He's an amazing guy. And, and yeah, he basically started the research on the early progressives. And I started with a lot of the modern manifestations and then I moved backwards and he moved forwards and we kind of met in the

and 60s, which is where we both had fought from the beginning. All this madness came from. And and we the reason we went with the title Battle for the American Mind is this is not a this wasn't meant to be, you know, a nice history book or oh, here's how bad the problem is. No, this is a battle. And the left has been treating it as such for 100 years, specifically targeting K through 12. And we've been mostly AWOL, except for this wonderful movement of parents in the last 40 years to abolish

both homeschooling and classical Christian schooling and other forms of classical education that is giving us a fighting chance, but nobody knows about it. And so the book is really about raising awareness of the depth of the problem and also that there is a solution out there.

You know, Trey Gowdy, who, you know, I served with in Congress, a congressman from South Carolina. It's got a Fox News show on Sunday night with the Sunday night in America. Trey Gowdy. Yep. But, you know, he and I were on judiciary together. We were on the Oversight Committee together. We served together for about six years there. I spent more time with him than my wife. It was a ridiculous amount of time. I spent with Trey Gowdy.

And one time I was sitting there and I said, Trey, tell me, like, okay, so you did it. You were a federal prosecutor. You're a local prosecutor. You learned some things along the way. Like, what was the culmination? What did you learn? And he had something really insightful. He said, you know, I never, ever had to prosecute somebody who was homeschooled or somebody who was an Eagle Scout. If you did one of those two things, you never got sideways in life. It's just they never showed up as somebody I needed to prosecute.

which I thought was very insightful to the direction of where people went. And, you know, in his 20-plus years of prosecuting, never had any of them show up in his court.

That's where it starts. And we know that intuitively. We've been talking about it now, about the role of parents and all that. The left also knew it, and they wrote about it openly 100 years ago in progressive publications like The New Republic, where they said, you know, what chance do the theists, the Christians, have with their one hour on Sunday to counteract our 40 hours of secular education? And they specifically knew that the most malleable minds were the most

were the most with the highest prize. You mentioned third grade. I thought you were going in another direction. It's perfect though, because it was actually a third grade curriculum put in the 1870s. It was an anti-alcohol curriculum put in by a suffragette socialist. Um,

that led to 40 to 50 years later, a constitutional amendment of prohibition banning the sale and consumption of alcohol. The progressives wrote about how effective that third grade curriculum had been in changing and shaping the minds of young people who later were voters. They said that this is the key, it's paideia is what we talk about in the book,

to changing the enculturation and the development of our youngest kids to shape what they value and what's significant to them. And if you teach the basics, then the kids don't go sideways. But if you don't teach the basics, and that's in an educational context, they could go in any direction. And so he's exactly right.

Wow. Wow. All right. Let's go through. I just want to go through a little bit more of Pete Hegseth life, and then you got to do the rapid questions because nobody gets through this. So you go into the military. You come out of the military. You're a little bit like, hey, what should I do? But...

I saw this thing a few weeks ago where you took your Harvard diploma, right? Returned to Sender? Yes. What's been the aftermath of doing that? Did you go to Harvard before or after the military?

during actually, I went to, it was a master's in public policy at the Kennedy school of government at Harvard. I did it in, I went there first in 2009, I think, but I, I did a, I did a year and one semester, and then I deployed to Afghanistan for a year. And so it actually took me four years to get the two year degree with a deployment to Afghanistan in the middle. Um, so I was still in the guard at the time and my guard unit got mobilized. Uh,

It was a no brainer, Jason. I wrote about it in my book before this one, American crusade that I want to, I want to send back my degree when the time is right, because the perpetuation of the elevation of these institutions is a huge part of the problem. The fact that going to Harvard is what makes you credible or substantive really is something we have to break down if we want to create our own ecosystem and, and, and,

systems that reinforce the things that we believe in. I mean, Harvard is teaching critical theory and pumping out Marxists and social justice warriors. That's why do I want to hold that up as, wow, you're really impressive. You went to Harvard. No, it should be you went to Harvard. So you're probably a Marxist or at best, at best, a Democrat. And you've been taught to think one particular way about our country and certainly about faith. Undone holding. So I don't I've long stopped, you know,

touting it or talking about it, but I felt like, Hey, if I can go on air and, you know, pop it out of the frame and, and write return to sender and mail. I know they, we got the, uh, confirmation. They received it. I, I, I'm sure they are delighting in that. Uh,

Is it going to make some big change? No. Was it a stunt? No. I mean, it was truly a reflection of I don't want to be a part of this anymore. I'm ashamed of this institution. And I don't want others to think that it's the impromptu of what makes you credible. So that was the hope. Response was very positive from our folks for all the right reasons. And, you know, my Harvard buddies, who knows? I haven't heard from any of them about it. Yeah.

Well, okay, so you do that. What was the break? What was the time where you first got on Fox? Because all of a sudden, I mean, you were on Fox, then you were on Fox again, and now you're hosting Fox and Friends weekend. You're doing all these things with Fox Nation. I mean, you're doing a little bit of everything, quite frankly. But how did that start? Where was the...

It's not like you had been doing television for 15 years and then you did, you know, it made the transition over to Fox. How'd that all come about? Um,

Very much accidentally. It came from being a vets advocate. So I ran a vets group called Vets for Freedom. And then after Afghanistan, I ran a group called Concerned Vets for America, which advocated for reform at the VA. And we were a part of exposing the Phoenix VA scandal when the 40 vets died on the wait list. So I was on TV a lot talking about that. And then it

And I had been on TV talking about the Iraq war at the height of the surge and the controversy. We were big advocates for the surge. So I'd done different TV here and there. My first TV appearance ever was Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC in 2007. And I got advice from a Marine friend of mine who'd done TV twice. So he was an expert. And he said, this is how it works. He said, lean forward because then your posture looks better. And don't let him cut you off.

And I did lean forward and I've done it ever since. And he cut me off 46 times in the course of the interview. And it was a total train wreck. But I just ended up doing more from there. I did a quick stint at the blaze actually with a kind of a five type. Yeah. About six months. I rotated in twice a week as a guest host of what was called real news. And ironically, you know who the other, one of the other hosts was Will Kane. So that's where I met Will for the first time. Yes. Yeah.

Buck Sexton was a host on that. Um, you,

S E cup before she, you know, went in some different directions was, so I did that for a couple of months. And then one day I, I had been a guest on Fox and friends a lot. You know how this works. They just, uh, haven't you, you do, you do a little bit of everything, a lot of everything all over the channel too. They just said, Hey, have you ever thought about asking the questions instead of answering? Would you be willing to give it a shot? I'm like, Hey, I'll try anything one time. Sure. Great. Um, it turns out that first weekend, uh, hosting was the weekend that I hit someone with an ax on live TV. Um, but we don't need to talk about that.

That's long been litigated on the internet, thankfully. So it was not a smooth path by any means, but it's just, you know what? I think everything else prepared me just like you. I mean, think about all those committee hearings you've been in, all the cross-examination and all the things that you did at such a high level. You know, having a camera turn on and talk about how,

how you, what you believe on issues is not tough when you truly believe it. And you've been through some things and you say, in my case, it's, Hey, no one's shooting at me here. It's going to be fine. Worst thing I can do is make myself look like a fool. And I do that on occasion. And I get, we get access to this amazing platform. So it's been a rollercoaster ever since. And then when, when Tucker went to primetime after the 2016 election, then I kind of filled his seat. That's been great. I mean, the energy and the,

enthusiasm that you bring to it i and i've been fortunate enough to guest host every once in a while usually the i'm really popular like on the weekends when it's a holiday because that's when everybody wants to take off i'm really popular like a christmas uh you know fourth of july you know times like that i get i get kind of popular oh man you and me both do it he's around he doesn't have a life

But you also know that's, I did the same thing. I've did the same thing for years and years. And you also know, that's how, that's how you punch through. I say with the big smile, I say with the big smile on my face, but yeah, you know, you do enough television, you make some mistakes and you have some embarrassing moments. Once I was on CNN and I was passionately talking, I mean, really passionate, it's fired up. Cause I was talking about Benghazi, you know, I mean that whole investigation, I, I was leading that thing. And, um,

And I got on with Wesley Clark, you know, who was the Supreme Commander of NATO. And he didn't have a clue about what he was talking about. And I had been to Libya. I had actually been there and talked to the people. I was so fired up. And I was talking about, well, they were in this firefight. And I meant to say fight, but I said fart. And...

I tried to keep a straight face. I think I kept a straight face, but instantly my phone in my pocket just goes bzzz, bzzz, bzzz. And of course it was the likes of Trey Gowdy and my brother and everybody saying, I think he just said fart on television. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's CNN. Nobody was watching. But I'm Googling it now. So if it lives on the internet, I'm going to find it.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back right after this. All right, Pete. Listen, you've had a fascinating career, and there's a lot more to come from you. You've done these incredible books and the specials on Fox Nation. They really are good. They're so well done and thought through. Just keep doing them because people are watching them. They love it.

But I do have to ask you some rapid questions just to get to know you a little bit better. Everybody goes through this. Oh, boy. It's a trap. All right. First concert you attended.

First concert I ever attended. Oh my goodness. It might be Everclear, but I don't know. Everclear. All right. It was probably Christian. It was probably Christian music though. I'm sure it was a Christian concert, but I can't think of it as a young kid, but otherwise Everclear. I love them. I don't know why they're a bunch of lefties from Portland, but I I've always liked them. High school mascot.

Rangers force like Rangers. He's a, you know, it's legit. Although like everything else, they're trying to ruin it. It was a, like a Ranger, like of the lone Ranger type on a horse, you know, with a cowboy hat. And that's what we grew up with. Now it's like a forest Ranger and it's a, it's a gender non-specific forest Ranger. You know, it's like, Oh my gosh.

So ridiculous. Oh, my gosh. You know, it's funny. When I was growing up, speaking of the education and getting to the third-grade mind, you know, and the second-graders...

I remember growing up and reading the Ranger Rick, like the magazines and stuff, and just being fascinated with animals. In fact, today, still, when I want to go out and clear my head, I do wildlife photography. That's what I like to do. I get out there, and I just love it. And that was part of it. I'd go and grab every Ranger Rick I could when I was a little kid.

Now, I go back and look at similar types of publications. They are so disgusting, like all this stuff about climate change and everything. And look, it's just an indoctrination as opposed to, hey, let's just let these kids explore that. Anyway, that's just my little tangent there. Oh, yeah, you're exactly right. It all matters. First celebrity crush.

Celebrity crush. I think it would probably be Britney Spears. I mean, I was right in the sweet spot. We even had a Britney wall in my college dorm with my roommates where, you know, anytime she appeared in a magazine, it appeared on her wall. I think that's pretty fair. I remember being on Fox and Friends with you and us having this discussion about Britney Spears. And I hope she does well. But she was obviously an integral part of your story.

young life. She was, and I never abandoned her. I just want that for the record. I have never met her. I would very much like to. That would be interesting. All right. Favorite, favorite, favorite vegetable.

Favorite vegetable. Oh boy. I mean, none is my, is still my answer to this, to this day. I'd say probably I like asparagus. It's pretty good. I don't know. I don't mind spinach these days. If you, if you, if you put a lot of salt on a lot of olive oil. Yeah. The solution I have with my wife, Julie is just blend it. Unlike Julie, you put every vegetable and throw in some fruit there that you want me to eat for the day.

blend it up, pour some cinnamon on it, and I will drink it and I will have more than my share. But I do not like eating them. I don't like eating a salad. I don't like eating the vegetables. Blend it and I will drink it. And I don't care how disgusting it is.

I will suffer the 20 seconds that it takes to drink it. That tells me a lot about, that tells me, I learned, that tells me a lot about Jason Chaffetz through that. Like I'm willing to take the temporary pain, like a man, boom, boom. I know it's good for me. It's a good attribute. I, um, you should just take balance of nature, Jason. You see it on the channel. I do see how a lot, it's a smart product. It makes sense, right? It is broccoli. Give me a pill. I'll swallow me a bill. All right.

First job. I'm not talking about mom saying, hey, Pete, take out the garbage. Not that one. What's the first job you had where somebody else was your boss? First job, Maplewood Mall at the Gap. I was a stock boy at the Gap. You worked at the Gap? Yes. Yes.

You know why? Because my real good buddy's mom was the manager at that Gap, and I wanted some money, and so she hired me. I was also a lifeguard. I got fired from being a lifeguard at the local indoor pool for falling asleep in the chair once during lap swim. But it was, yeah, the Gap is where I cut my teeth. You got fired for falling asleep. Correct. I picture you as a lifeguard. I can see that. I think that's legit, but I can also see you falling asleep at the Gap.

It was an indoor pool in the summer, Jason. So, I mean, first of all, it's tragic. It's in Minnesota. We have three months of actual warmth and I'm inside at a pool being a lifeguard, which is not cool at all. There were only two people in the pool, both, you know, quite capable swimming laps. And I just, yeah, I fell asleep in the chair in the deep end and I got a tap on the shoulder from the shift manager. And I was told I was fired immediately. I got to find a picture of you working at the gap. I hope that's.

My parents probably have one. Yeah. We're going to make some contact. I thought it was a big moment. I wanted to be out on the floor. Like I was in the back unboxing everything and everything. And every once in a while I get to come out and like put it out on display. And I thought that was so cool. Yeah. And it was there, Pete. Yeah, that was pretty cool. All right. Do you have a pet growing up? I did. Uh, uh,

a Cocker Spaniel named Hooper that shows you how much basketball was central to who we are. - He was all about basketball. - Yeah, all about basketball. So, and Hooper was horribly behaved and always ran away and we had to run around the neighborhood and find him.

Um, that's it. Yeah. That's why I have cats. Well, somebody else we interviewed, I guess who was, who was it? I interviewed and he said, did you have a pet? And they said, yeah. Well, and what was this dog's name? It was called squirt because it just could not learn to hold its bowels. It was just, that was the name. All right. Uh, just a couple more life's most embarrassing moment other than working at the gap, but go ahead. Yeah. Life's most embarrassing moment. I do remember, uh,

As a child at a family gathering, when I was maybe 13, our whole family was in a circle. I don't know what we were, maybe we were praying or something before dinner and,

But standing up, I distinctly remember being in my grandmother's living room and I had a new uncle. My dad's sister had just remarried and he decided that was the moment to pants me in front of the entire family. And I was wearing a crop type shirt and no underwear. And I, for some reason-

It sticks because it was my aunts and uncles and I kind of had a crush on one of my aunts, you know, and there's all it was just all it was so embarrassing. It sticks with me to this day. Pretty minor thing in the grand scheme of things. And, you know, it's it's that was the first and I've had plenty of embarrassing experiences.

moments on TV, but that's the prime. Everybody's got an uncle like that. Everybody, there's an uncle out there that, yeah, time to stand up, say a prayer and, oh, this is a good time to pants. Pete, this is, that's fine.

One more thing real quick. I actually have a better story that was actually not embarrassing, but the story's better. We're at Guantanamo Bay. We're almost done with our year-long rotation. I'm the platoon leader. And one of my guys, same situation. I'm wearing like a short shirt for some reason and sweatpants and definitely no underwear. And they, you know, we've had this long deployment. I got a great rapport with them. We're all brothers. It's great. One of them's got a disposable camera and they...

I turn around and we're having a couple of beers and one of them pants as me and they take the picture and it's a disposable, you know, this is before digital cameras. And so I chased him down and, and tackled him to the ground and got this disposable camera. And I went and developed the film and had I allowed that film to be developed, it would have been the most embarrassing photograph ever taken of man. It

It must have been a cold day. All right. And it was, yeah. You got a lot of credibility on that one coming out of Guantanamo Bay. Yeah. It was the coldest day. Oh my. Cause it, it caught me right at the moment where I had not yet reacted to being pants, but my pants were on the ground.

And I, you know what I mean? So it looked like I was just standing there like that. I wish I had saved at least the micro fish of it or the backup film, but I didn't, I destroyed it all. Better to destroy that piece of evidence. Yeah. That's funny. Pineapple on pizza. No, never. No. Why? Good answer. Last one. Best advice you ever got. Best advice I ever got. I think it would probably be, it was, it was, it was,

and I've had not lived it ever as well as I should. And I'm fighting to get closer to it every single day. Sincerely. It's probably James four, eight. It was written on the wall of my church as a kid. And I would read it cause I would be bored in the pews and I would look up at it and there it is again, it was drawn near to God and he will draw near to you. And, and I just think as you get older, the more you realize that the law, God's perfect law is actually a law of liberty and, and,

and liberates you as a person from all the anxieties and guilt and, and mistakes that you, many of which I've made spades over. Um, it's coming, getting closer to that ideal, um, makes life much more livable and certainly more, uh,

more fruitful. So I've got a lot of, I mean, the other one would be my dad. He used to say to me, it's all how you respond. It's, it's not whether bad things are going to happen to you. It's how you respond to those bad things that will define whether you succeed or fail. And I've never forgotten. It's all how you respond. Those are great. Both of those are very insightful. I like the way you said that about the gospel being liberating, because I think too many people look at it from afar and,

maybe don't fully understand it and just think that it's inhibiting. It just, but it's, it's empowering and it's liberating. That's been my. Absolutely. And, and you know what, it, it, it helps to, when you go through a phases in life full of a lot of sinful nature, it's,

Which I have, which everyone does, but I certainly, you know, everyone knows in their own personal conduct, those things are what weigh you down, not what liberate you. And ultimately it's when you're, when you, when you're, when you surrender yourself that you are most free and it's couldn't be more true.

Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind is the latest book. You've been very generous with your time. Thanks so much for kind of sharing some insight and literally not holding back on anything. I learned a lot about you. And anyway, I appreciate the time and the discussion. Thanks for the phone call. I appreciate it. And I hope to see you in person soon. So Pete Hegseth, thank you very much. You got it, brother. Thank you.

all right i can't thank pete enough uh as you see he's a good guy and uh congratulations with such a a successful book there and um i hope you can go through and subscribe to this podcast rate it um go look at foxnewspodcast.com for other podcasts and stay with us because next week we'll have another great interview i'm jason chaffetz this has been jason in the house

I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app or get the free podcast at Guy Benson show dot com.