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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready.
Welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for joining us. I think you're really going to enjoy this. I really do because we're going to talk to somebody who works hard behind the scenes. He accomplishes a lot and he's got a fascinating background. You wouldn't know it from the surface, but he's got a fascinating background.
But Representative Gary Palmer from the great state of Alabama, somebody I had the pleasure and honor of serving with, and we're going to have a good conversation. And I think you'll be surprised by his background and everything from playing football to growing up in Alabama. I just think you're really going to enjoy it. We're going to.
Talk about the news. We're going to highlight the stupid because, as you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere, and this week is no exception. And then, like I said, we'll get into the conversation with Gary Palmer. I got to tell you, there's something that I saw on the news that just scares me. I hadn't heard a whole lot about it. I want to learn more about it, and I don't know why there isn't
an immediate dragnet of people out there trying to figure this out.
Not just the immigration issue, but with this story that I'm reading on foxnews.com, here's the headline. Over 1,000 minors reported missing by Cleveland, Ohio this year, including almost 50 kids just this month. The Ohio Attorney General sounds alarm to depleted police resources, leaving missing children falling through the cracks. Now, this is...
A stunning amount of people. We're not talking about one or two or three or four. I can know in our own community if there was one child that was missing...
The whole community would be rallying behind this trying to figure this out. But according to the article, more than 1,000 children have been reported missing around Cleveland, Ohio this year, including 50 minors who have seemingly disappeared from the same area so far this month. According to the Ohio Attorney General's Office Missing Children website, a total of 1,072 children have been reported missing so far in 2023 from the Cleveland-Akron office.
Ohio area. I mean that, I just don't understand it. There is something really bizarre and weird going on. And then as you go and look through the picture, foxnews.com has a picture of eight children that are up and, and these are young kids. These aren't like, oh, okay. They're 17. They turned away. They're, you know, turning 18 and they didn't like mom. No, these are young kids. These are
These are of all ethnic persuasions that I can tell, at least in this picture, a wide variety of them. I shouldn't say all, but a wide variety of them. And why there isn't a national outrage and outcry on this, I'm telling you, this story needs a lot more discussion, a lot more attention, a lot more urgency than it's getting nationally and certainly from the good people of Ohio. What in the world is going on? How is this happening? Where are they going? Who is taking them away?
Where are they running and going to? Because you can't just hide over a thousand people that are minors. I just, this is scary, scary situation. All right. Next thing in the news, Senator Menendez. Senator Menendez from New Jersey. You probably have heard about this. He's been indicted again. Now on the first one, he was, there was a hung jury. He was not convicted.
The interesting part of the story that most people don't talk about, the reason I wanted to highlight this is there were some very serious allegations of inappropriately taking money, taking trips, doing those types of things. But after that...
They severely, the Senate Ethics Committee, by the way, let me stop. The Senate Ethics Committee is made up of a bipartisan group equal in number, the same number of Democratic senators as the same number of Republican senators. So when the Ethics Committee actually comes out and makes a definitive statement, when they actually come to a conclusion on how to categorize something, it is pretty newsworthy because it is bipartisan in its nature, whether it be the House or the Senate,
But the Senate Ethics Committee came out and severely, they quote, severely reprimanded Senator Menendez. They also called for some, I believe, if I read it right, the restitution of the money that was taken, the flights that were taken, they needed to reimburse. Question one is, did they do all of this? Did Senator Menendez do?
do this because even though he wasn't convicted in a court of these crimes, Senate Ethics Committee, it looks like they came to the conclusion that he did do these things and that he did need to reimburse for certain items. Now, if that's true, why didn't the majority leader, in this case, Senator Schumer,
Follow through on that. Did Senator Menendez actually reimburse? Maybe he did. I don't know. What I'm saying is this is a legitimate question. And because this question lingers out there, it begs the next question, which is,
Why did Senator Schumer go ahead and appoint him and allow him to ascend to be a chairman, which is a whole other level, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? That is a whole other step. Now, the allegations in this particular case, based on the indictment that happened, are
are very serious and there seems to be some very specific evidence. I think one of the things that I hear as I talk to people who have read the news and kind of seen, read through the indictment, saw the press conference, a couple of striking things about this. So one of the allegations is that he inappropriately was paid off and got these gold bars and
And what the prosecution is saying in their paperwork is that Senator Menendez Googled what is the, and I'm paraphrasing here, what is the value of a bar of gold or one kilo of gold?
Hmm. Interesting to go ahead and accept some gold, the allegation. Don't know if it's true, but the allegation. And then have a Google search there that is found by the prosecutors to be able, the investigators to be able to say, hmm, I wonder what the value of that thing is. Senator Menendez says that he took a portion of his salary that he was earned. Now, remember, this guy has been in public office since the 1970s, right? Yeah.
taken a portion of his salary and always because he had gone through this experience with his family in Cuba, he's a Cuban immigrant, he had taken a portion of his salary, set aside in cash. Of course, all these bills are neatly in an envelope, according to the government, have some DNA or some forensics that tie to the person that they allege made the payments to Senator Menendez, and they hid them in a suit coat pocket, all nice, neat stuff.
Somehow that all has to be rectified. I don't know. And the other thing I heard from Senator Menendez is he rambled on and on and on and on and on and on and on about how much work and good work he's done on behalf of the people of Egypt. Now, I don't know. The breaking news, at least, is that Senator Cory Booker, his colleague, the other senator from the state of New Jersey, has come out saying,
and said you should resign but you know it's really bad when senator fetterman also says hey yeah you need to step aside that's when you've kind of gone over the precipice and yeah it's probably time to to hang up the cleats and and worry about your trial as senator fetter fetterman had said along the way all right last thing in the news t swift taylor swift showing up at that uh
Kansas City Chiefs game drove all the ratings. Number one watch show on Fox. Not Fox News, not Fox Business, but Fox, who's broadcasting the NFL game, drove them to one of the most watched NFL games there have been, certainly for that Sunday, driving the demographic of women in particular that were watching that game. The cutaways to Taylor Swift, they're up in the box with Kelsey's...
mother cheering the team on. One report even said she helped kind of bust the table, clean the tables at the end, that fame didn't get in her way. A lot of spotlight on Taylor Swift. No matter where she goes, what she does, but certainly at an NFL game wearing a Kansas City Chiefs
I can only imagine what the locker room is like in the teasing that his teammates go to one of the best tight ends in the country, certainly in the NFL, is what's going on in those locker rooms. But good on Taylor Swift for cheering on him.
evidently her boyfriend along the way, and making a good show of it. So anyway, I thought that was neat. Now it's time to bring on the stupid, because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And of course, that brings us to the aforementioned Senator Fetterman, who is driving standards as low as possible in his bid as a United States Senator. For Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats...
To rewrite the rules, in essence, and allow Senator Fetterman to continue to wear a hoodie, basketball shorts with some basketball shoes, wearing short pants. I mean, look, I used to be in Congress eight and a half years. If a staffer showed up like that and didn't have a really good excuse for an hour, I would just send them home.
That is not the standard by which the United States Senate should be operating. It is a total, complete embarrassment. This is not a drive and a quest to get to the lowest common denominator. This is the difference, I think, fundamentally, that Democrats take to the approach, let's make sure everybody's comfortable. Don't want to make sure anybody's out of their comfort zone.
I know he's had some mental health issues. I know he's got some health care issues. But that does not mean that you have to wear basketball shorts to the floor of the United States Senate or certainly, you know, with doing the press conference and using official resource resources. I said I saw him standing next to a few senators. Senator Welch, who I think is a really good guy, is a Democrat. I disagree with him on a lot of issues, but he's a very good person.
who's all dressed up, why do they allow Senator Fetterman to get away with this? It is just an absolute embarrassment, a distraction from the Senate. When they're supposed to be raising the bar, setting the example, it's exactly the wrong message at the wrong time. And of course, that is just bringing on the stupid.
All right, time to phone a friend. And Gary Palmer is the congressman from Alabama. He is an exceptionally good guy. And I know that because I've spent years side by side with him. I know his wife. I know his family. Traveled with him. Sat on committees with him. And I think we're going to have a good discussion and talk about, you know, his background. What he's done and the little, you know, it's pretty fascinating. And I'm telling you behind the scenes.
The guy is an influence, a huge influence for the conservative values that that he told the good people, Alabama, that he would pursue. So let's call up Gary Palmer. Hey, Jason. Hey, Gary, Jason Chaffetz. I really I'm thrilled you answered the phone. Oh, it was you. You're in my phone. I keep important people in my phone, Jason. You
You know, there is that episode I saw in the office and I don't know if you ever watched that show, The Office, but it's pretty funny because Michael is finds himself at a gas station and he he needs to call somebody to come pick him up and he doesn't have his phone. And and then he says, well, I don't know who to call because all the numbers are in my phone. I don't know how I don't memorize telephone numbers like we used to. Yeah.
my chief of staff and my wife would be probably the only two that I, that I can remember. Yeah. The, the country's in trouble if they lose their phone and they have to actually dial somebody because man, I just, I remember growing up and we had rotary dial phones and you know, the dial all the way around and yeah, the party lines and everything else. I remember that. Yeah. Um,
There is one other number that you and I both would remember, and that's 911. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, that actually started in the town that I was born in, in 1968, Haleyville, Alabama. No way. The first 911 test was done. And they did that just for the simplicity because nobody was remembering at the time only seven-digit code, a seven-digit number?
I'm not sure why they did it in Haloville, if it was something that Alabama's division of the phone company developed, but that's where it happened. That's an interesting little tidbit. That's a good...
There's a good little bet to win about that one. Listen, I got to know you because you won an election and you joined, I believe it's Alabama's sixth congressional district. And then we got to serve together and we were both on the oversight committee and we
And now you're not only, you know, doing so well in Congress, but you've now been elected a couple times by your peers to be the chairman of the policy committee. Well, you know, I ran a think tank for 24 years, so it was pretty much something that I'm really cut out for. And you don't have to have a great personality to be the chairman of the policy committee, so I'm a perfect fit. Yeah.
Well, here's the thing. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about. It's all about policy. And that's what I've always appreciated about you, the principles that you represent, the family values that you represent, but also just the idea that we're there, or I was there, but you're there to institute policy that's going to affect American lives. So
What I would love to do is better get to know you. So dive a little bit deeper. Let's go back when Gary was little Gary and they were just about starting, you know, the 911 test there in your hometown. But tell us about growing up, what life was like, and we'll kind of walk from there. Well, I am the, I guess what you would call the typical great American story. And it's wonderful to live in a country where,
where someone could grow up like I did and call it typical. My dad had maybe an eighth grade education. He was a logger. I grew up going to the woods every summer. I've got two brothers. One brother closest to me is about a year and a half younger than me. He and I spent every summer in the woods with my dad. My other brother's 12 years younger than us. But I grew up skidding logs with mules. My grandfather had...
a little 40 acre or so farm, raised cotton at times, corn, converted the fields to pasture and raised cattle. So I pretty much grew up dirt poor. The little town I grew up in, Hackleburg, Alabama, doesn't even have a traffic light. Maybe on its best day, 1,500 people lived there.
But it's a remarkable little town, Jason. A world-famous photographer grew up in Hackenberg, a guy named Charles Moore. He was considered the preeminent photographer of the Civil Rights Movement. He worked for Look magazine. A lot of your listeners may remember Look and Life magazines, but he traveled all over the world. And it also produced a Country Music Hall of Fame album,
recording artist named Sonny James, who co-hosted the first three CMA Awards, Country Music Awards shows on television, had 16 consecutive number one hits, and last and certainly least, produced a member of Congress. So for a little town like that made up of hardworking
blue collar, brown collar type people. I think that's rather remarkable. That is remarkable. But, you know, it is an American success story. It's interesting when you get to Congress, you know, 434, 35 members in the House of Representatives and you look around and it really is sort of a cross section of America. You do have people from big cities and big towns and big names. And then you have
People who grew up, you know, like you grew up. But were you playing sports? Were you, I mean, you probably learned to work pretty hard pretty early. But what else were you doing growing up? We hunted and fished. And we did play sports. I was really good in baseball. My dad would not let me play football in high school. So around the 10th grade, I wanted to play football. And he told me that he wouldn't allow that.
And I told him I'd go to college and play, and he laughed. Two reasons, actually. One was no one on either side of the family had ever gone to college. And at that point, I weighed about 125 pounds. But I went to a community college. They had a volleyball team. I walked on the volleyball team.
And not only made the team, but wound up starting. And the coach thought I was a good enough athlete that I could compete at the college level in football. He didn't know. I'd never played. So I transferred to the University of Alabama. I'd gained about 60 pounds, maybe 70 pounds. That's a lot. 190, 185, 190, somewhere in that range. And walked on. And I will confess, I
to the whole world now that I forged my parents names on the paperwork signed my eight-year-old brother's name made up a witness probably and but I caught six touchdown passes the first three weeks of practice against the first team defense and at the University of Alabama like the Bear Bryant University of Alabama
That's right. And we were getting ready to play Georgia Tech in a JV game. And it was a pretty big deal because Alabama-Georgia Tech had had a historic series that they had dropped because of a disagreement between Coach Bryant and the coach at Georgia Tech. And this was the first opportunity to start that series up again. And some of the coaches wanted me to play, but I had to meet with Coach Bryant
because i wasn't recruited they didn't even know if i was eligible they were scrambling around to make sure i was eligible and but i had to meet with coach bryant and he called me in his office he had this huge leather sofa that didn't have any legs uh coach bryant was six four he's a big guy
And he had this huge desk. And I'm not kidding, the desk was eye level to me. I felt like I was six years old. I'll never forget it. I bet that wasn't an accident. I bet that wasn't an accident. It was not an accident. That sofa's actually in the Bryant Museum. Oh. But I'll never forget it. He told me what was expected. And then he said, "Gary, you've worked hard. You've done a good job for us." He said, "I'm going to dress you, but I'm not going to guarantee you get in the game." And I got in the game. That's the first football game I ever played in. Wow.
How'd you do? Well, we ran the wishbone, so basically all a wide receiver did at that time was block. Block, yeah, exactly. I mean, what a moment. We won the game. That was the main thing. We won. Well, you must have been quite an athlete. I mean, that's your first real football game. Did they know, did Coach Bryant know that you had never actually played in a football game? No, they did not. And then after I graduated, I played one season for a semi-pro team and played
I made the team as a running back, wound up, then moved me to safety and I started at safety. And I did that for one season and then decided I needed to get a real job. Right, right, right, right. That's amazing. That's a great story. I mean, what a, I mean, the legend of college football. What did you learn through that experience?
Well, I speak to a lot of college kids, a lot of high school kids, and one of the things that I tell them is that you need to be willing to take risk. And one of the main reasons I did it is I knew I did not want to wake up one morning and be 40, 50 years old and regret not trying. And there's no shame in trying something that there's at least a reasonable expectation that you might be successful.
But trying it, and even if you fail it, at least you gave it a shot. So I tell young people all the time that you need to stretch yourself. You need to be willing to take some risks, but you also need to be willing to expose yourself to adversity. And you know this. You played football in college. There's two things that you can absolutely count, maybe three things you can absolutely count on. One, you're going to get knocked down. That's the nature of the game. Well, wait a second. Two decisions. Well, wait a second, Gary.
I was a place kicker. If they touch me, they throw a flag. So the idea that I'd get knocked down, I may miss a field goal, but there's no way they were knocking me down. Well, I'll amend that for place kickers. But the other two things that you learn is how to handle adversity and how to handle disappointment. And in many respects, it's great for being a member of Congress. But that's one of the things that concerns me about young people today is that
They're adversity averse. They're risk averse. And I really think that sports across the board, whatever sports you play, it's great training for life and in some respects, really great training for leadership. I think that's so true. You know, I have hired and managed a lot of people through my career and various jobs and tasks and whatever.
And I do find that, you know, I go through the interview process and, you know, I always ask people, you need to play sports. And some people played more individual sports, maybe like a tennis. Other people played like a team sport, basketball, football, soccer, whatever.
But what I found pretty much universally is those that played sports and they didn't even have to play at the college level. I mean, they didn't need to go through that. But if they just played something somewhere and sometimes I'd have to kind of dig it out of them, even if they played at a younger grade, you know, in grade school or something like that.
It does. It teaches you so many things about camaraderie, about communication, about sticking together, about winning, how to lose. There's untold number of things. And you interact with people that you would you wouldn't normally interact with.
Your coach may be an idiot. Your coach may be the most, you know, the Bear Bryant's of the world, you know, some of the smartest, most savvy people in the world. But all of that comes together and you process that. And I think you're a better, smarter person and certainly an employee. Well, there's another coach that had a big impact on me. And he was a guy that I hated his guts. Yeah.
I had really gotten frustrated with him. He was on me all the time. And I told him I wanted to talk with him. And we walked out of the dressing room. He had his hand on my shoulder and looked at me. And he said, Palmer, we have a lot of players that are more talented. He said, but there's nobody on the team that works harder than you do.
And it completely changed my attitude about him. And I got to see him almost 20 years later when Will Curry was the head coach at Alabama. So it was probably...
1989 and that range. So it was maybe 15 years later. And he was the recruiting coordinator. His office was directly across from Coach Curry's. And I saw him and I walked in and I said, there's something I've been wanting to tell you for all these years. And he said, what's that? And I said, I hated your guts.
And he looked kind of stunned and had a little sheepish grin. And I said, but then I told him what he had said to me and how it impacted me and completely changed my perspective. And one of the other things I tried to get across to people, I tried to tell my kids this, is when you go to work for somebody, you be the hardest working person there. You do more than they pay you for.
And I've always understood I might lose. You might you might beat me, but you're not going to outwork me. And that's another attitude I think we really need in our country right now. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Congressman Gary Palmer right after this.
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I think you're right. You know, I had a chance to talk to a number of employees at this group once and I said, you know, what you're going to find in your career is that you have to do the job before you get the job. You're going to do more than what they're going to pay you for. If you want to get the pay and the title and the responsibility, you're going to essentially have to do that job before you get it. And why should they think
think that, oh, well, you get a change in title or responsibility or pay, then you'll start working hard. No, they want to see you going flat out as hard as you can right now. Well, I learned a lot of that from football. I learned it from my dad. And my youngest brother, like I said, is 12 years younger than me. He wound up being recruited all over the country. And so in some respects, I opened a door for my other two brothers, my
not only for them, but for my mom. Both my brothers went to college. One of them has a master's. He teaches computer programming at a high school in Tennessee and is an assistant football coach. My sister had a great career in banking. She went to college. My youngest brother finished the top 10% of his civil engineering class. He also played football at Alabama. But my mom had finished high school and always wanted to be a nurse. And she had me, gave birth to me,
seven days before she turned 20. And she put everything on hold for us. But after the three older of us left the house, she went to school and got a nursing degree, Jason. And it just completely changed everything. Wow. Good for her. You know, what a great example. And I, you know, at what point did you kind of say, you know, I like this policy stuff because, you
You went to college, right? And then how did you make, I mean, because I know it was the, it started out as a different name, but the Think Tank that you talk about, you didn't just jump right in there, right? I mean, what did you do in between college and the Think Tank? I worked in the private sector for 12 years. I worked for two international engineering companies.
combustion engineering and their environmental systems division. Then I worked for another international company called Rust International. And I'm a person of faith, as you know. And I was at work one morning listening to a program called Focus on the Family, a guy named James Dobson. And we just had our first child. And he talked about a program he was hosting out in California. That's when Focus on the Family was still headquartered in Pomona.
And I heard him talk about he wanted to bring all these Christian counselors in. He was only going to take 25 and take in applications from all over the country. And I didn't qualify, so I showed one off. I turned it off, went back to work. And a few minutes, the phone rang. It was my wife. And she asked me if I heard the broadcast. And I said I did. She said, are you going to apply? And I said, no, I'm not. And she said, why not? And I said, well, number one,
I'm not a counselor. I might need it, but I don't know anything about that. And number two, he's only taken 25 people. I wouldn't have a rat chance. And she said, well, you've been praying for God to open the door. Don't you think you could open that one? And, you know, when your wife tells you that, you know, you can't argue with that. That kind of hits you in the heart. Yeah. Yeah. I called them. They sent me an application. I waited a couple weeks, filled it out, sent it in. They called me and interviewed me.
And three weeks to a day later, I got a letter saying I'd been accepted and I knew it was what I had to do. And I knew nothing about public policy other than history. I've always, even as a kid, loved history. And I loved to read. And when I found out I was accepted, I went out there.
I really didn't get into all of the counseling stuff, but I found out while I was there that they were setting up these public policy groups, and I knew that's what it's supposed to do. And I came back home, immersed myself in studying policy. And the first time I ever went to our state capitol, I went down there and had a meeting with the governor.
And sure. Wait, how do you do that, Gary? Not everybody just calls up and say, hey, governor, I need to spend a few minutes with you and they get in. How did that happen? Well, a couple of representatives from Focus on the Family set up the meeting and and went down. And that was my introduction to the governor and really to the state capitol.
But that was in 1989, and by the end of 1991, we were considered the model organization. And in 1992, I was asked to attend a meeting in Colorado Springs,
where we set up a national network of state-based think tanks and and one of those is uh sutherland institute there in utah yeah and uh i they elected me to the board and elected me chairman of the board in the last two years on the board and we built out this national network of state of conservative libertarian state-based think tanks and i did that for 24 years so
So go back to the early days because it sounds like you turned the corner pretty quickly to come up with the model organization. I mean, we hear think tank. Let's get a bunch of smart people and I'll just start writing papers. But it's a lot more complex than that, isn't it? Or explain to me what makes a good one, what makes a bad one. Why was yours so successful?
I went down and spoke to the Alabama Policy Institute. The place was packed. You had so many people from the business community and the community at large. It was highly impressive. We...
were considered the preeminent policy group in Alabama. We had a national reputation that's, I did a lot of work in Washington, but what I understood at the very beginning was what I didn't know. And that I could spend the vast majority of my time trying to learn all the ins and outs of legislation and stuff, or I could go out and raise money and hire the right people.
And it kind of falls into that Dem Collins book, Good to Great. You got to get the right people on the bus and get them in the right places. So I understood that if I spent the first nine months or a year doing really nothing but fundraising so that I could hire the right people. And there was a guy who was involved with Newt Gingrich named Michael C. Amera.
that I hired and the guy was absolutely brilliant. And so that's how we started a very small shop and eventually got up to having for Alabama a very large budget, about a million, four million and a half. And I was really blessed to have been able to hire some brilliant people to work with us. What was the pitch that you were giving? I mean, you're a young guy, you're starting something new.
you probably had some ties, but it's not like, hey, your daddy had run the local bank down there in Birmingham and knows everybody in town. How did that young Gary Palmer make that pitch? And it obviously went well. So what were you telling them? I'd worked with a guy who was a very strong Christian and rather prominent family in Birmingham that I knew that if God was in this, he would be in it.
And so when I got back from California, he was the first guy I went to see. And I told him the vision that Focus had. And they'd already set up 10 or 11 of these around the country. And he said, well, I'll tell you what, if you can find 10 people who will give you $10,000 and be on your board, I'll do that. And his name was Tom Bradford. He's like a second dad to me.
And I said, well, Tom, 10 people, $10,000 could buy Hackleberg. I don't know people who have that kind of money. And he started giving me a list of people to go see. And it grew from that. I'd go see somebody. And I had a Chuck Colson book called Against the Night, The Coming New Dark Age. And I bought a case of them. And I'd go see people. And I'd literally go in and somebody would say, I just read the book. Or another guy would say, I just ordered it.
And everything just fell into place. But the most interesting one was literally one of the first guys I went to see was a guy whose father was a general in the South Pacific.
a guy named Pete Hanna. I mean, he's no nonsense, straight-laced guy. And I start trying to explain this and he stopped me in the middle of my little presentation. He said, "Did you read this morning's Wall Street Journal?" And I said, "Well, actually, I haven't." And I'm thinking the market crashed or something. He's going to say he doesn't have any money.
and he said we need to read it and there was an article in there where they'd interviewed some of the guys who had started these groups and the gist of it was the conclusion of the article was this is the way it should be done and i said man that's great can i get a copy he said i thought you'd like it what do you want and i start trying to wrap up my presentation he literally got up turned his back on me wrote something turn around handed to him as a check for ten thousand dollars not not even asking for that i hadn't even told him that's what i needed
And it was at that point that I realized this wasn't about me at all. I'm just an instrument. My biggest responsibility was to not screw it up.
And within just three months, we had 10 people that we needed. And like I say, grew the organization into what it became. And, and then 2014, the Spencer Bacchus, whom you served with briefly announced he wasn't running again. And I had a ton of people come to me and say, you got to run, you got to run. And, and,
And so I initially said I would, and then about two weeks after I got in, I decided I wouldn't. And again, my wife challenged me. It was on a Friday. I came home and told her I decided not to run. And you've met her. And Anne looks at me and says, well, for years I've heard you say what's wrong with the country is you can't get good people to run. She said, I've even heard you compare it to having to go to war. She said, how can you expect someone else to go if you won't?
And she said, I know this is not what we want, but I don't think it's about what we want. I think it's about what we're supposed to do. And she said, I think we're supposed to do this. So I'd never run for office at any level. And the local media said that I would finish fifth, maybe fourth. There was a poll six months before the primary. My name ID was at 4%. Half the people who thought they knew my name thought I was a golfer. Yeah, Gary Palmer plays well, doesn't it?
But and then you ended up winning. I did. And by how much? Well, I made the runoff and then I won the runoff 64-36. And another cool aspect of this, my running back coach at Alabama did a little video talking about having me as a player. And after I won the general, he gave me a game ball with the percentages from the general election on one side and the percentages from the
um, runoff on the other. And, uh, I've got that picture in my office. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Congressman Gary Palmer right after this. You know, when I, when I first ran for office, I was going up against a 12 year incumbent Republican. I was kind of eating one of our own. This is sort of the front wave of the so-called tea party movement. And, uh,
I remember in March of this was 2008, they did a poll and I forget the exact numbers. I'm getting the exact numbers wrong, but it was something like I was pulling at 3.5% plus or minus 4.7%. I mean, it was like I was statistically nothing. In fact, they wouldn't even allow me on the radio debate. But, you know, by the time we rolled around to the primary, I ended up winning 60-40.
And, you know, it just gives me a great belief in the process and the voters and,
And you do. You've got to work hard, and you've got to keep talking and going all over. My congressional district, I don't know how big Alabama's 6th is, but Utah's 3rd district, it was a good seven and a half hours top to bottom as a one-way drive. It was a big swatch of land. Mine might be an hour and a half. Oh, jealous of guys like you. Basically five counties. Yeah.
Jealous of you. You can go there and back. And I live right in the middle of it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But that brought us together and we got to serve. And let's just transition for a moment here about Congress because it has such a bad reputation. But at the same time, you know, our framers set it up. You know, passing legislation is not supposed to be an easy glide path. I mean, my...
My whole perception of the founders is that they are very conservative. They wanted to make it very difficult to pass legislation, that if we were going to have three equal, co-equal branches of government, they didn't – they were conservative in their bent, that they didn't want legislation just flying through. If they wanted a glide path –
For the easiness of passing legislation, they would have had a totally different system, not 435 here and 100 there and a president and vetoes and all that. That makes it very difficult to run the gauntlet and actually pass meaningful legislation.
You're absolutely right. And I'm very concerned about where we are right now, because people have this idea that we want efficient government. And our founders never intended for us to have efficient government. That's right. And what we've had is an abuse of executive orders and an abuse of the regulatory and rulemaking apparatus through the federal democracies that deny people representative government. And I honestly believe this. And I'm not trying to
exaggerate here at all, but I think particularly with President Obama, we entered a period that I think was created a constitutional crisis when he said that he didn't care what Congress did or didn't do. He had a phone and a pen. And he set a record for executive orders and for guidance that
And it literally has denied people their right to representative government. And I actually think it's wrong to say that we have three equal branches, because I think the legislative branch is superior to the others because it is the closest to the people, particularly the House. And I'm very concerned about where we're going.
I just finished a book a month or so ago written by David Bernhardt. I think you know Bernhardt. He was Secretary of the Interior. I called You Report to Me, and it's the best insights that I have read about how the administrative state has taken over legislation.
And we've got to address it. And people need to know who is making the law. They need to have the ability to hold them responsible. But the way things are set up right now with this massive federal bureaucracy and with the president, particularly President Biden, completely ignoring legislative process. They're even trying to ignore the court.
I'm really concerned about where we are right now and we have to address it. I totally agree. You know, I wrote a book, my latest book, it's called The Puppeteers, The People Who Control, The People Who Control America. And in it, I tell a story, and maybe you heard this while you've been in D.C. as well, but about the B team. And it's when a member of Congress goes to meet with a cabinet secretary. Unfortunately, the cabinet secretary was not there.
But senior staff was there. And when it became painfully obvious that the cabinet secretary wasn't going to be there, the member of Congress got up to leave and little disgusted that
scheduled this appointment and the cabinet secretary's right there. And the senior staff said, oh, no, no, sir, stay here. We'd love to meet with you and have a discussion. We want to talk to you. And the member of Congress kind of legendarily says, look, I'm not meeting with you. I don't want to meet with a B team. I want to meet with the cabinet secretary. And finally, the senior most person of the senior staff says, well,
It is true. We're the B team. We be here before you, we be here after you, and we be the ones to actually make the decisions. So you're meeting with the right people. That's...
And that's what I try to tell people. They look at us and think I was here before you got here. I'll be here when, when you're gone. And I hadn't been there in Congress three months and I was on the budget committee. And as you recall, I was on the oversight committee under you and I was on science space and technology. They, they try to put freshmen on three committees, I guess, to keep us out of trouble. But, um,
I had figured out that we were sending out somewhere between $150 and $200 billion a year in improper payments, and it had never been reflected in the budget. And I don't know how you solve budget issues if you're not taking into account all of your expenditures, but
And so I sent my budget staffer from my personal committee down to meet with a permanent staffer on the budget committee to tell them that I wanted to take that into account and start working toward eliminating the improper payments. And my guy came back to me and I said, well, what did he tell you? And he said he won't do it. And I said, wait a minute. He said he can't do it.
Or he shouldn't do it. And he said, no, sir. He said he will not do it. And this guy's name was Johnny. I said, Johnny, you go back down there and tell him that I said he didn't get elected. Yeah. And Johnny's eyes got big.
And he said, you want me to do that? And I said, I want you to leave my office right now. I don't care what the guy's doing. I don't care if he's in a meeting. You walk right into wherever he is. You walk up to him and look him in the eye and you tell him that I sent you there to tell him he did not get elected. And so Johnny went down, did exactly what I asked. They put it in the budget. We had another one where a staff director chewed out
a budget committee congressional members staffer and literally told the staffer that their job was to make sure that their bosses did everything that the budget committee staff told them. And we got that individual fired. And you probably had some of the same experiences where you had staffers who are career staffers telling members of Congress what they could and couldn't do. Yeah. And
We have got to. It's not for our own benefit. It's not so that we have power. It's because people elected us to represent them so that they can hold us accountable for what happens in our government. And it's completely backwards now. The administrative state runs everything.
Yeah, this is, and it's so true, you know, they talk about all the lobbyists in D.C., what people don't understand when they get to D.C., or they don't really see and have visibility on is so many of those lobbyists, they don't bother with members of Congress. They just go talk to the administration because they know they have such latitude and they're going to be there and they can actually make these decisions. And then you look at the
the revolving door of people who move between the different bodies and it just gets really depressing. So, you know, one last question before we kind of get into the rapid questions here. How do you
What do you tell people now that you've been there for a while and have the closest perspective? I've been out for a little bit, but what do you tell those people who get so demoralized, so concerned? They love their country. They don't want to see waste, fraud, and abuse. But every time they turn on the TV or go online, that's all they see. That's all they hear about. What do you tell those people? Well, I tell them they can't give up.
That's what the folks who are creating all this chaos and all this waste and abuse want. They want to wear you down so that you will give up. And it goes back. It's almost a cliche. And I've been sharing this with a lot of groups. But Edmund Burke said, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. And I modernize that, say, for good people to do nothing. And that's
We've become so caught up in our private lives, and we look at the abuse that people take when they run for office. Right, right. But compared to those young 19- and 20-year-old men who, when they had to hit the beaches at Normandy or Iwo Jima, that even though bullets were flying all around them, they did their duty.
Running for office is nothing compared to that. Yeah. And we need people that realize what's the sacrifices that have been made for us and not just running for Congress. And I'd be
exuberant if we sent some high quality people to Congress. I need reinforcements. But we need them at the school board level and the city council and county commission, the mayor's office. And we really have to take this seriously. And it is a public service and it is difficult, but you don't accomplish greatness doing easy things. And you understand that, Jason, you understand it from a sports perspective.
It applies to the governance of our country. If we want greatness again, we've got to elect the right people. And that's at every level. Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. Look at...
I think everybody's getting a glimpse of why I'm such a big Gary Palmer fan. You know, work hard, work smart, patriotic, care about your country, love your family. It's just, you're the whole package there, and it gives me good confidence, and you're one of the people I point to, and people say, oh, we're going to give up, and we don't like this, and it's crazy, and all this silly talk. And I said, yeah, but...
There are good people like Gary Palmer who are actually willing to take their time, their talent, their efforts, and pour them into something good. And you may not see him on TV as much as he should or anything else, but you know what? Behind the scenes, he's doing good stuff and doing it for all the right reasons. So I'm glad you're still there, but...
You know, with all the policy thinking you've done along the way, I do have some rapid questions I need to ask you. All right. I hope that's okay. That's perfect. It's not. I'm going to ask you anyway. So what was the first concert you attended? Elvis Presley. No way. I just started at the University of Alabama. Seriously? I've never had that answer. How cool is that? Yeah, I was not an Elvis fan.
And this is pre-cell phone and someone had asked me to get them a ticket. They were driving in from out of town. I couldn't find them. And finally, I thought, well, I'll just go on then and watch the concert. And I was blown away. I became an Elvis fan that day. And the good news is the lady that I'd got the ticket for convinced someone in security that she couldn't find me either. And they let her in. So, yeah.
It all ended well. That's the best answer I've ever heard. Elvis Presley, you've beaten everybody else that has ever answered that question. That is the coolest one yet. So congratulations. I shouldn't even ask you any of the other questions, but I'm going to. I'm going to ask you a few more. All right. What was your high school mascot?
All right. That's legit. I was a middle park Panther up in Granby, Colorado, my senior year in high school. So Panthers is legit.
I actually had a cool mascot. Whoever drew the mascot really did a good job. It was pretty fierce looking. That's good. That's good. Let me ask you, this is a tough one and you got to make sure you get it right. But pineapple on pizza, yes or no? I actually like pineapple on pizza. Okay.
But you got to understand, Jason, I grew up dirt poor. I did not have pizza, spaghetti, a Mexican, any of that until I went to college. Okay. But that doesn't explain putting a wet fruit on your pizza. Well, I like the pineapple to be cooked. Yeah. And I like the ham topping with it and
When my mom did Thanksgiving, she baked the best baked ham I've ever had in my life, and she always had pineapple on it. So maybe that explains it. Well, maybe. I'll give you a little pass because of Elvis Presley. That's it. Okay. If you said to Ann, hey, guess what, honey? We got somebody special coming over tonight, and you could invite anybody, anybody in the history of
of the world, dead or alive, to come over, break bread, and have dinner with the Palmers, who would you invite? Well, you know, most people expect me to say Jesus Christ, but I believe He's a living being already. And if you're living right, He's in your house. Yeah. But I think it'd be Winston Churchill. The guy, one of the underappreciated things about Churchill was all the difficulties and impediments he had to overcome.
A lot of people don't realize that his mother was pregnant out of wedlock. I think she was three months into the pregnancy before Churchill's father married her.
He had a speech impediment, a very serious speech impediment. They sent him to the top oral surgeon in England, and he advised them that their son should not pursue a career in which public speaking was required. He fought in the Boer Wars. He participated in the last cavalry charge in
of the English military in India. I did not know that. He would be one of the most fascinating people that you could possibly sit and have a discussion with, and particularly with what we're facing right now. I'd love to have his perspective. Yeah, that would be interesting. That would be fascinating. Last question. Best advice you ever got? Well, when I was in the 11th grade, and I told you my dad had an 8th grade education and wanted my family to ever go to college, and outside of spiritual advice, but
My high school science teacher, David Thomas, who was a World War II vet, fought at Guadalcanal, walked up and stopped by my desk, and he looked down at me and said, Gary, you should go to college. No one had ever even come close to planting that seed in my head until Mr. Thomas did that, and it changed everything. Wow.
You've had an amazing life and touched and seen some amazing things. And like I said before, I'm just thrilled that you're still in Congress and doing the good work. And we owe a lot to Alabama's 6th Congressional District Congressman Gary Palmer. Thanks for joining us on the podcast. I really do appreciate it.
Jason, I thoroughly enjoyed serving with you and I consider you a dear friend. Thanks for having me on. All right. I can't thank Gary Palmer enough. Like I said, super nice guy. Isn't that fascinating? When you meet him,
He's just a nice, polite gentleman, but you had no idea about his background. But there's a reason why he's such a popular figure and continues to get such an overwhelming swarm of support from the good people of Alabama. Soft-spoken in his approach, but very effective behind the scenes. Just the kind of person that you want to be around, and he's just an all-around good guy. I can't thank him enough.
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