Will Cain On The Power Of His Law Degree
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Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks so much for joining us, allowing us to spend part of your day with you. I think you're really going to enjoy this because we're going to have a good discussion with Will Kane. You know Will from Fox News and Fox and Friends on the weekend and all the things that he's doing. I'm going to have a good discussion with him because I don't know a whole lot about his background, so I'm fascinated to do that.

We'll figure out how Will Kane became Will Kane. I want to give you some thoughts on the news. Highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then, of course, sit down with Will Kane. All right. So let's get right after it and talk a little bit about what's going on in the news. And I wanted to highlight this because...

With all the big news that's happening out there with the economy and the debt ceiling and Joe Biden and all of that, sometimes some of these other stories kind of slip through. And I think this one's interesting.

I really hope they go after these people if the allegations are true. So there was an evidently the allegation, and I got this from the Miami Herald. There were two nursing school operators in Fort Lauderdale who evidently have confessed to peddling fake diplomas to thousands of students who

who avoided the rigorous program that it would take in order to become nurses. Now, what I worry about here is,

Not only were they peddling these licensing and saying that they got through the exams and whatnot, but this is a multimillion-dollar racket. And what I worry about is where are all these people who didn't actually take the rigorous courses, that didn't take and pass these exams? Now, the two people that are being targeted in this could face up to 20 years in prison, right?

And they have to turn over about $1.3 million and $150,000 to the government. Now, I really do worry. It brings up another issue. Every time you see these fines, don't you wonder where did these go? Because I've never heard a story where the victim actually was replenished or was given this money back.

And so that's a whole other discussion for a whole other time about these slush funds that the Department of Justice brings up and then passes through to their own special not-for-profits. That's a whole other discussion. But this happened at the state level. And it said, according to one case, Sanin, who is one of those organizations that is targeted here,

with business associates in Broward County to sell about 2016, quote, false and fraudulent diplomas and educational transcripts to students that falsely represented they had completed the necessary courses and or clinical training to obtain nursing degrees from Siena.

So I think the bigger question here is what are they doing to claw this back and go after the 2,000 people who claim to have the types of degree and training because they know that they don't and then went out in the workforce. If they don't go after those people, then that type of law enforcement is incomplete.

And they should be prohibited forevermore from participating as a nurse. If you're willing to lie about your own education, your own training, imagine what are you going to be like when you're by yourself in some nursing home at 3 o'clock in the morning? Is that the kind of person you want to trust with grandma or grandpa? Is that the type of person you want to send your son or daughter to? Is that the person you want working and tending to you while you're under sedation? No. No.

And so this story is just the beginning. I think it's a bigger, broader story. And I want to know and follow up with what are they doing to go after those 2,000 people? You can't just dismiss this. If you don't have the training, you don't have the training. And how are you supposed to think through the complications of being a nurse, the first line of defense in working with somebody and way to disparage the nursing society in general? That is a big problem. All right.

Next thing I want to talk about is an opinion piece I saw on FoxNews.com. This was really a good one. Hit it right on the head. It was, the next battlefield with China is in the classroom. And I think that's so true on a variety of different ways. And I want to read you just a little bit from this. It was on FoxNews.com.

Communist China's Thousand Talents Program is a state-sponsored initiative to place scientists in highly sensitive American labs, only to lure them back via hefty checks in order to glean American research and intellectual property. So the scheme here is that China will go and get somebody who's really talented, educated, get them placed in the United States.

and say, hey, it doesn't matter how much money you make. It doesn't matter what you're doing. Go do that. And then guess what? We'll pay you an exorbitant amount of money. We can bring you back to China, and then you can teach us what you learned over there.

And one of the recent reports is that at least 154 Chinese scientists who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of our most important labs, by the way, this is where the nuclear weapons were first developed. They have been lured back to China to help make advances in their nuclear programs.

So again, we're talking about 154 Chinese scientists placed into America's deepest, most secretive labs. You have to have security clearances to go there. Now, I went to one of these labs. As a member of Congress, I had a very high security clearance there.

But I can tell you, they would only let me see bits and parts of this. I could not tour the full lab. I could not ask the scientists questions because I didn't have the need to know in the proper security clearance. But I got a really good sense of what some of these national labs are doing. And they're around the country in different areas. But Los Alamos is one of the most important that we have out there. And how big of an intelligence...

faux pas and problem is this that 154 of those scientists then went back to China why do we allow these Chinese nationals to come do this anyway I think that begs a bigger question all right time to move on let's uh let's talk about the stupid because you know what there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere

All right. This takes us, according to Fox News dot com, this takes us to Mayor Adams and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Mayor Adams and other city officials announced they would be cracking down on food production and consumption. Now, this is what concerns me. I don't really understand this.

Because they want to crack down on consumption in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions and boost their climate agenda. So the idea is that if you eat certain things like meat and other things that, you know, these meat producing animals are going to have so much flatulence that methane is going to just destroy everything.

the ozone and everything else around it. Look, there are ways to curb the methane. There are ways to curb other gases out there. But for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, of all the things that are going on, all the things that are problematic in this world...

Trying to micromanage food consumption by the mayor is so intrusive. It's just another stupid thing by a stupid politician. My goodness, we don't need this in our country. I want to phone a friend and bring on Will Kane. Excited to have this conversation. So let's dial up Will Kane.

Hello. Hey, Will, Jason Chaffetz. What's up, man? I appreciate you answering the phone. You know, I thought with caller ID, it was like a 50-50 bet, but I appreciate you answering. That I'd see Chaffetz and hit end, decline? Yeah. There was one time I was driving down. I was chief of staff to the governor of Utah and I'm driving down the road and I see this lobbyist who'd been trying to talk to me for a while.

And so I thought, oh, there he is on the road. I thought, okay, I'll dial this guy. And I dial him. I see him pick up the phone, look at it, and then put it back down. And I thought, all right, I tried. I know. I still remember it. It's still a sore point if you can tell all these years later. That was like in 2005.

Man, you know how they say that you punish the people that are closest to you, that you are hardest on those that you love? I think that my cell phone and texting etiquette is a reflection of that. Like, I think that I'm the worst responder to actually the people that I care about the most. Right now, there's probably a lot of producers at Fox News going, wow, Will must really love me because I ghost him a lot. But you know what? Like a lot of my best friends and...

my brothers and they text me and then I feel like it kind of gets on my to-do list and I think to myself, oh, I want to give that a serious, you know, thoughtful response and then it just sort of fades into the background. I'm awful. Well, I'm a simplest. Like, I get in trouble with texting when I don't put the proper emojis or exclamation points.

And I find myself, I just said yes. Like, what else did you want from me? But I had to be, yes, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, happy face. Then I met the standard that my wife's looking for. You know, so you're a big emoji guy, huh? Well, not by choice, but out of necessity because I found that I offend some people. They don't know that I'm really happy to say yes unless I add all the emojis into it. I see. I see. Yes. Yes.

You know, my buddy Pete Hegseth's a big emoji guy. And I have evolved. It's funny, like the older I get, I guess I've become less mature because surely emojis are a sign of immaturity. But I'd say I have like a...

I'm probably six deep on my emojis. I've got in my, in my repertoire, I've got six clubs on the emoji, you know, and most of them are, uh, some face like mind blown face or whatever, you know, that's funny because if I really don't want to answer or be quoted as answering, I just do emojis. And, and that's, that's been my safe space to not having been quoted like,

people were asking me about some Utah political thing and I really didn't want to answer the question but I wanted to be polite and respond so I said just emojis and I figured oh that's awesome there's no way they're quoting that and it's some news story or bringing it up on you know the local television station that's it's true they've never done that like

Chaffetz's comment was, you know, crying eyes, mind-blown emojis. The eyeballs that look side to side that are just the eyeballs. Can you picture those white ones? Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good one because you can't decipher exactly what that gets calculated to. Yeah, no one knows what that one means, just that you are paying attention. All right, well, listen, I want to go back and talk about little things

Little Will Kane, because you're a great voice at Fox, and you understand issues in sports. And when you come on, seriously, I think, all right, I got to listen to this, because you'll offer a unique perspective. And it's obvious that you've thought this through. And that's a unique talent that not everybody has. But let's go back to I was born in...

and just kind of walk us a little bit through early life and those formative years and what it was like growing up in Texas primarily, right? Well, first of all, can I just say thank you? The compliment you just paid me is really all that I would ever ask for.

You know, there's different types of compliments that you receive in this business. And I think the most often or the most frequent one you might encounter is, man, I love everything you say. And it's really never been the one that does that much for me. And I don't know that's the one that I would set as my target. I just...

Life is a constant learning process for me and I am thinking, I probably overthink things, including stupid stuff like emojis or what my favorite fruit is. But if it makes someone think, okay, that I have something valuable to add to a conversation, it's the only compliment that I could ever hope to achieve.

Man, I'm from Sherman, Texas. When I grew up, population 30,000. I guess they would call it, it's either rural or an exurb of Dallas. Not a suburb. You went through a good half hour, 45 minutes of countryside before you, you know, with scattered towns dotting the map until you arrived at Sherman. County seat of Grayson County. Yeah.

you know, had its own television station, Jason. So not like Bumpkinville, but probably this, it might be the smallest market in the country that has its own two television stations. You know what I mean? Right. Um, like when people start out in TV and they get that one, they're like, well, I got the last available opportunity, you know, but, um, it's, it's awesome. I love the way I grew up. It's sort of like,

Small-town America my dad was a an attorney And he was primarily a plaintiff's attorney But when you're an attorney in in that kind of market you do a lot of in everything right family law a little bit of criminal law You'll do whatever but he was primarily a plaintiff's attorney And I'm the oldest of four kids and grew up on the outskirts of that town on about seven acres Not not cowboy or ranch or farm or anything like that just kind of in the country, and that's how I grew up and

Were you playing sports? Were you hunting? What were you doing when you were a little kid? I played sports. I mean, I'm not the athlete you are, and I mean that. I was a place kicker, Will. Let's be honest. They touch me, they throw a flag. Come on, man. That's a generous thing to say I was an athlete. But yeah, my soccer years, I was pretty athletic. Yeah, my soccer, I can count. But what were you playing when you were young?

Man, I did all the sports that everybody does. Right. And didn't excel or stand out at any of them. I mean, I played soccer. I played t-ball. I played tennis and whatever. I did everything. And the only sport that I ever stood out in was the one that actually when I went for the first time, my mom said, we're going to do this. I was probably six years old. I cried. I hated it.

it, hated it. And it's swimming. And my six-year-old self was right. It's not fun. Every sport has an amount of joy involved in it, even in the practice. You say, what do you play? Nobody says, I play swimming. It's because there's no playing to it, right? I've never thought of it like that. That's exactly, let's go play swimming. No, you race...

or you work out and that's it. And so like, you know, and you race like 10% of the time.

So and races are fun, but the vast majority of time you work out. So from the age of six, I was pretty good at it. And it's the sport that really carried me through into adulthood. I swam almost every day, which means I worked out swimming every day. And luckily, my best friend did it as well. Our parents took us together at the same age and we joined at the same time and we stayed together doing it, you know, until we were 18 and left high school.

And that was my primary. I did other stuff along the way, but a little bit like it is now where you specialize. I probably specialized pretty quickly where that took up the vast majority of my time. Well, you've got to be very athletic to swim. I got to tell you, I don't remember crying or complaining about it because I think the water, it really depended for me on the water temperature. I was even...

But I remember we were in Northern California. I was a little kid. It was Brookside was this club that we belong to. And I remember the guy who was like my swimming teacher, whatever. He told us, he told us, he said, now, come here. I want to show you. And there was like a drain on, you know, when you get out of the pool, there's this big manhole cover. And he told this, and I still remember this. And he said, that's where we keep the alligators.

So when I tell you, when I tell you to get out of the pool, you really have to get out of the pool because they let the alligators out to swim. I like it. It's frightened me to death. I was so convinced that there really were alligators that came into the pool. But Jason, your experience is one. I don't I can't speak for every swimmer out there, but it's like that. OK, so first of all, the water temperature is a huge deal.

I played water for after high school. I walked onto a water polo team, a very good one in California at Pepperdine University. And I can tell you, even through the age of 22, everyone hates jumping into a cold pool. Like it's the most miserable thing, especially if it's like five o'clock in the morning. It's terrible.

And when I was a kid, I saw Nightmare on Elm Street and I probably shouldn't have. And I was too young. And I remember thinking as I swam towards the deep end that that's where Freddie is. And like, and I was so scared of the deep end because Freddie was in the deep end. And swimming was like that, man. I remember going to swim camp at the University of Texas and I was laughing with my wife about it because she was a swimmer too. And I was like,

That's the worst. That sucks. Who sends their kid to swim camp? That's a one week workout of doing two days and three. It's like, hey, let's sign them up for hell week. Yeah, that'll be great. And I remember crying into my goggles as I swam. It's not fun, Jason. It's not.

fun. You know, along that same spirit, and I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but one of my favorite things about Rob O'Neill, you know, the guy who shot and killed Osama bin Laden. I was just with him. Yeah. He's a great guy. And that book, The Operator, there's a little, little paragraph or two in there about them going through all the training that it takes to become the SEAL that puts them in a position to make that kill.

But one of my favorite things that they did is he said one morning they woke us up super early. We were going on this big, long, you know, multi-mile swim out in the ocean. But he said they put them in a classroom and for two hours they watched the best of...

Shark Week. And then they said, come on, get in. They took him out and they put him in the ocean. Now watch two hours of Shark Week, then go swim in the ocean for a couple hours. Oh my gosh. They were messing with those guys. I've got two stories for you based upon that. So I was just with O'Neill and Pete and I were in New York. Neither of us live in New York. I live in Texas and he lives in Tennessee and we fly up to Fox and Friends on the weekend. And then he said, hey, do you want to go to Yankee game? I was like, yeah, I'd love to go Yankee game. And so

He said, it turns out, hey, we're going to meet Rob O'Neill. And he got us into the box, the owner's box at the Yankee game. So Steinbrenner, right? There were no Steinbrenners there that day. But that's awesome. Okay, so we're there and I'm talking to Rob.

And I don't know Rob well, but I'm getting to know him. And I was asking him, hey, are you a swimmer? Because a lot of guys that I went to college with who played water polo, the water polo community is a little integrated into the Navy SEAL community. There's a lot of skills overlap. Right. And a lot of guys... So I was curious with Rob, were you a water guy? Were you a swimmer? Were you a water polo? He said no. To your story right there, he's like, I could barely swim at all going into...

to buds and tryouts. But,

The second part of that story is that you're sitting around the box at the Yankee game, and some people recognize you from Fox, some don't. And so Rob has a really interesting kind of fame. It goes like this. People say, hey, how'd you end up in this box? And I'm like, oh, well, my buddy and I, we host a TV show. Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, but is that how you got? No, my other friend, he got us in. Oh, really? What does he do? Oh, he killed Bin Laden. You know?

It's the ultimate dude mic drop. There's nothing better, right? He doesn't have the type of fame where it's like everyone looks at you and knows who you are, but the minute you find out who he is, everybody in the room has to go have a picture or a drink probably. Oh, yeah. Well, and you worry about somebody that might recognize him, right? He's got to be looking over his shoulder a little bit, because I'm sure there's a whole segment of people out there that maybe didn't like what he did, but...

He is fun that way. And I have, oh, I could go on and tell stories about Rob O'Neill that are really funny. I was with a member of Congress and the short, short version of that is he's telling the story about how this happened. And then this guy gets up and says, hey, I got to go. I got to meet my brother for dinner. I'm like, what are you doing? Nobody...

Nobody walks out on the guy who shot Osama bin Laden when he's telling you how it went down. It was so funny. It's so funny. All right, let's go back. So you have to be a good athlete to be a good swimmer. And certainly water polo is using all of those skills. How did you end up? What was the decision-making process? Hey, I'm in Sherman. I'm in Texas. But really, I ought to be in Pepperdine. That's a prestigious school, great school, right?

An incredible water polo team. I mean, they're right top of the heap out there. That's what they do How did you make that transition going out to California? Okay, this is part of me like being an overthinker I think that the answer to that question is interesting and applicable beyond like Will's personal story I feel like in Jason I think we're roughly the same age. I think when we grew up in the 80s and 90s and

I think that if you had polled Americans kind of about the coolest place in America, I do think you'd get, I think some significant percentage would have said California. I think California had this mystique and I don't know, it's like all the movies were in California, all the set, it was always set in California, all the coolest stuff seemed to be in California at that time. Yeah. So here I was.

small town Texas guy. And I mean, I had a natural draw to that. I'm like, oh, that seems to be where it's happening, man. That's what's cool. So I knew I wanted to in some way, I thought, I mean, I applied to Northwestern and I remember applying to University of Arizona and the Texas schools, UT, SMU, whatever. But

But like I did romanticize California and I applied to USC and Pepperdine. I never really thought about Pepperdine, but then you get the brochure and everybody talks about that. So you see it's on the ocean and you're like, Oh wow, I should apply here. And I went and visited USC and Pepperdine and I was a swimmer and I had kind of said to myself, I think I want to walk on a water polo team and see if I can translate some ball skills with this swimming ability. And, um,

And my parents and I went, and we visited USC and Pepperdine on the same day. Now, USC is in Watts. It's in Compton area, right? And it's a beautiful campus behind a gate. You know? Yeah. One block away is, yeah. My dad immediately was like, are you kidding me? Like, why would you want to go? I mean, it's nothing against USC. It's just not a great... And I can imagine now if my son wanted to, and you're like, but you got to stay behind these gates. You know, like...

And then that same day, we drove to Pepperdine. And to hit my dad, he was like, what are you talking about? This is a no-brainer. But for me, it wasn't the same thing because I wanted to be a part of what I envisioned the collegiate experience to be. And I'm a huge sports fan and always have been. And I watched USC. And I watched Rodney Peet as the quarterback at USC at the time. Sure, yeah.

Troy Aikman, I think, was the quarterback at that time. No, he was already gone. So it was somebody, whoever after Aikman at UCLA, you know. And so all these things mattered to me and I wanted to be part of that experience. And Pepperdine didn't have that. It only had it in two ways. They had just won when I was applying the national championship in baseball.

And I watched that. I cared about the College World Series and all that stuff. And that was really cool to see a school I was applying to win a big-time sport, right? And then when I visited that day, I knew I wanted to walk on the water polo team. And I went to the pool. And Pepperdine's campus was so dead as compared to USC. It was probably on a weekend. It's so much smaller than USC. It's 3,000 kids. But I was like, okay, guess what? Pepperdine's playing USC in water polo today. What a fortuitous thing. Let's go down and watch them.

And I went to the pool and I remember seeing these guys. And one thing people don't realize about water polo, two things. My co-host, Rachel Campos Duffy thinks it's a country club sport. She thinks it's like lacrosse. That is not what water polo is. And I don't know if you know, this is Californian, Jason. They're all, they're like blue collar. Most of them like grungy dudes. They just happen to be huge and they can swim. They look like NFL tight ends. A lot of them are like, you know, 230 pounds, six, four.

So they're all there playing. And at the pool that day was the national championship Pepperdine baseball team in lawn chairs.

moving their lawn chairs end to end at the pool, heckling the USC goalie. And something about that. So it just resonated for me, Jason. I'm like, whoa, that's like a community and a spirit. And here's one sport supporting the other. And what more? It's the guys that just won the national championship. I don't know. I just found that very attractive in whatever I read into it.

And then ultimately I got an academic scholarship to Pepperdine and that was the deal breaker meaning, or that was the difference maker. Right. I might've gone to USC. If I'd gone to USC, the water polo team probably would not have been as easy for me to walk on to. Um, but that's how I ended up going to Pepperdine and, and going and walk on the water polo team. And just to make this, to bring us home, Jason, I think now I don't think California is so cool. Like,

I see California. Oh, it's changed. It's changed. Yeah, like all the Californians I know, they go to TCU. They're all going to Fort Worth, Texas. It's crazy, man. Like, no one aspires...

In Texans, like they don't aspire to go to California. They aspire to go to the SEC now. I can't tell you how many Texans I know. They're going to Georgia or Clemson or whatever. It's not cool to go West, young man, anymore. You know? No, it's true. Look, I lived in California until I was about 11, northern and southern. And then we went to Arizona, Colorado, ended up in Utah and Texas.

But I couldn't live in California again. I mean, it's even tough to visit parts. It's just changed so fundamentally. And I don't want to get off on that tangent, but you're right. But back when I was growing up, when you were growing up, yeah, California is the place to be. It had the weather. It had, you know, the people I wanted to hang out with and get a tan. And it was fun. Yeah. But it has fundamentally changed. So you got your degree in California.

Broadcast journalism. And amazingly, you actually are doing that because it's amazing how many people get their degree in that and are doing that. But you also got your JD, didn't you?

Yeah. So the truth is the broadcast journalism degree, I forget I have it, to be honest. I want to be in sports. I want to be a sports broadcaster. You know, at that time, I looked at guys like, you know, I always say this. I think that my career and who I am was formed by, you know, equal parts, my mom and my dad. My dad was the attorney and we debated and argued at the dinner table. And I remember just being so proud of him in the courtroom. And I've always just loved that process of thinking and debating and persuading and arguing. I love it.

And then my mom, you know, it sounds like I'm like making it like insignificant. She sometimes thinks I am when I say it, but like every morning she would have the Today Show on as we were getting ready for school. And I just remember watching the news with her and thinking, wow, Matt Lauer has like a big job, you know, like that's amazing. And so, you know, I go to Pepperdine and I'm like, I think I want to do like sports broadcasting. And so I mentioned broadcast journalism and I just didn't like it, Jason. I felt like,

they were teaching me how to be an actor. And it's almost like trade school. They're teaching you skills that are almost worthless the minute you graduate. What I mean is because technology has developed, right? So like whatever I'm learning to actually make TV isn't what you end up using when you get into TV because it's changed.

And if anybody wants to go into journalism, I tell them, go get a JD. Like, I think be a critical thinker. That's just the bottom line. Be a critical thinker. And I do think a law degree helps you or did. I don't know how much it's indoctrinating now, but it did help you learn how to be a critical thinker. So I didn't want to go into it. I thought they were teaching me how to be an actor and I didn't want to be an actor. I didn't like when we were on campus and we did our tests and I had to feel like I was performing. I just wanted to be real.

And so I'm like, well, this isn't for me. So I'm going to go to law school. And I went to law school and I really loved it. I loved law school, man. Now I'm like, my endorphins are firing. I'm thinking hard about issues. And if you're, if you'd asked me, when did I form who I am? Like, uh, philosophically in worldview, I'd give you two moments and one of them would be law school. That's when I became a conservative. Um, at that time I might've said libertarian. Um,

yeah i just remember learning about the constitution um at the same time i probably read some ayn rand and i just started i had a great constitutional law professor and you start seeing the way this thing is built and supposed to work

and not really empowering your ego. I think that's the problem, and we don't need to do deep politics and philosophy, but that's what I understood. No, this isn't about judges or me or you or just all of us signing up for what it is my personal opinion of the world should be. We have principles and ideas and boundaries and checks and balances, and it's beautiful. The whole thing is beautiful, right? And I fell in love with that. And so...

That's where law school led me down the path of who I am today, of how I think about the world. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Will Kane right after this.

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have a son who we're real proud of, proud of our other kids as well. But our son, you know, he, he majored in English, but he really got into debate in high school. And then he went on to law school and it really, he just had a passion for it. He just loved it. And he loved thinking through both sides of an issue. And I,

You know, as a parent, you just can't ask for anything more than that. I mean, however he forms his own decisions. But to be able to think through and be accepting of another side and try to understand their point of view and argument is about as good as it gets, I think. Yeah. And I think that if you do that, I think you'll probably end up where I am. Yeah. It's kind of what I feel like I ended up. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think that you also be well grounded. You'll understand why it is you believe what you believe. Well, and you get along with people better. You don't take it so offensively, not so personally. It's just, and that's where, you know, in today's day and age, you and I both see it in a big, big way. People just like take a deep breath. It's okay if somebody disagrees with you. You don't have, you know, they're not evil necessarily. Some are, but not all of them are. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, I mean, I don't know, just in, I will tell you to kind of complete that thought though, the other big change in my worldview has probably happened in the last five years. And, and I really, I really, Jason do try to be self-aware and self-critical and ask myself, cause like,

I don't want to harden myself. I don't, Jason. And I'm listening to you, and I think you have maybe even a better, you're in a better place than I am on extending goodwill to those with whom you have disagreement. Because I've always been really good about that, but it's harder for me lately. And I say, why? Is it because you joined Fox and before you were at ESPN and places where you were engaging with people of different worldviews more often? I don't think so.

I do think that in the last five years, I have understood the need for a populist push within the country. I do think there is an elite, self-reverential, self-proud group of people in this country who think they know the best for everyone else. And on the path of pursuing that – and by the way, some personal enrichment –

They did leave behind a big swath of the country, which is ultimately a threat to the republic. Like you cannot have a society where a massive chunk of people feel like not only do you not care about me, but you revile me. And I don't think you're allowing me to have my my my my voice, which is my right. And I think that I have sort of embraced this idea of how do we re engage with that populist ideology?

that populist base in a way that is important. And I feel like those that

deride it, Jason, I'm not sure their motivations are pure. It's not simply a matter of disagreement anymore. Evil is a strong word, but maybe it's arrogance and hubris and these things that are really ugly personality characteristics that have been fully embraced in a real strong segment of our country. I think I agree with all of that. Well, I really do. And I

I worry about this country more than I ever have. And I think back, too. I kind of ponder, you know, is it just because I'm getting older? You know, and you kind of take on that mindset. But I don't think so. I think you're right. Over the last five years, there's a big swatch of people and money and effort to try to divide this country. And there is no true, sincere reason.

ability or desire to come together because there were things that unified us in the past, whether it be a support of our military or our police. And I think, how can you not- Or even reason, Jason, how about even reason? Like, I don't think reason is a common ground anymore. And patriotism, really? We can't support the flag? Like you, I remember sitting on the House of Representatives and I sat there for eight years while Barack Obama gave his State of the Union speech and

And you know what? There were parts of it I liked, and I stood up and I applauded. But whenever we applaud, and there was parts I didn't, and I didn't stand up. But whenever we were recognizing a citizen or a patriot or somebody who was in our military,

Of course I stood up and applauded them. And we were united. And then I watched as Donald Trump became the president, and I watched Democrats who, even when he was recognizing somebody who had done something unbelievable, an ordinary citizen doing something extraordinary, which inspires me, they couldn't do so much as stand up and put their hands together. And I just, I thought, what is going on with these people? Like, I could not relate to them.

But I want to try. I want to try. You know, I still want, I still have the desire to do that. I think it's innate in me. I think I, you know, I smile at most things and think, all right, we can figure this out. But boy, and you're right, in the last five years, it's so disheartening. It scares me.

I am a, I think I'm an optimist, Jason. Like if you just, again, like, okay, is this will navel gazing? I just try to be self-aware. Okay. I think I'm an optimist. And I also think that people are, I do think people are inherently good. So like, I think there is a point and a need to think we can sit down and reason together and we can agree on some base level, um,

beliefs but I also think that human beings have shallow emotions that are very powerful and I think that if you play to those emotions you can guide people away from our base instincts and our inherent goodness and between the reaction to Donald Trump um and covid what I saw is there's an ability it's interesting because both sides accuse each other Jason of the same exact thing right like

Like, I think fear, COVID taught me that fear may be the most powerful thing. I think it might be the most, it doesn't mean it's who we are. We can be good, but the most powerful vice that we fight is fear. I think that's probably what I learned from COVID. And so if you scare people constantly, like, you're going to catch this virus, right? It's going to kill you. It's going to kill everybody around you.

you can now actually do anything you want with somebody. Once they are scared, you can lead them in any direction that you want.

And so then the other way you do it is you scare them that there's somebody who wants to tear down democracy or that there is a fascist. Everybody's always a fascist. Or you scare them that everybody's a racist and there's a hidden KKK. And that leads you away from the ability to reason and to see each other as inherently good. And I think we've arrived at this moment where those people I talk about, those elite people,

divisive, arrogant, hubristic people gain self reverential power. You know, I think they get their own like, you know, endorphins firing and pat themselves on the back. I'm the hero. I'm actually the modern day Martin Luther King, even though I'm white and I'm that guy because look, all these people think and they're scared that the country is going to go to hell in a handbasket unless I do something. And then,

I think that's just really gross and really dangerous. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Will Kane right after this. I totally 100% agree. And I just, there are people racing through my mind like John Kerry and others. I think, yeah, that's who they think they are. They think they're above it all because anyway, I totally agree.

The internet has only so much space, and I only get you for so much time. I got to transition because I could talk about the philosophy and the approach and want to learn more about kind of how you got to Fox and all that. But I got to ask you some rapid questions as we kind of get to this. And I love this discussion. Again, you're proving my point about why...

when you talk at Fox and others, it's really worth listening to. I won't always agree with you, but I think it's really worth listening because I know you think it through. When you don't, by the way, in the future, when you don't agree with me, I actually am super interested in hearing about that. Yeah. I'm not too bashful. I'll let you know.

I'll let you know. But yeah. All right. So I have some rapid questions for you. So I don't care how many balls you threw into the net there in water polo. One. One. Oh, you did score one. Okay, good. Yeah. At Pepperdine. Oh, good. Yeah. Against UC Santa Barbara. There you go. That's my one. Santa Barbara is pretty good at water polo as well. Yeah. Good for you. All right. First concert you attended.

Okay, I don't know the answer to that with certainty, but I think I'm going to go with the Beach Boys. I think I was at a Texas Rangers game, and they played after the game, and we stayed and listened to the Beach Boys. No, that's legit. Beach Boys in Texas. All right. What was your high school mascot? Bearcats. Bearcats. What colors were you? Whatever that is. Maroon and white. Yeah. Maroon and white. First celebrity crush?

Probably, oh, okay, it's a tie. It's either Winnie Cooper on Danica McKellar, Wonder Years, right, or Tiffany Amber Thiessen on Saved by the Bell. Yeah, I'm not going to disagree with you on either one of those. I'm not going to disagree with you at all. What was your first job? I'm not talking like mom and dad saying, hey, Will, take out the garbage. No, no, no, I'm talking get a check from somebody else. You had a boss. What was that job?

Oh my gosh. What was that job? Like I'm trying to not rewrite history. Did I do any landscaping in high school? Like that'll work for a landscaper? Oh, I did. That was my first job in Arizona. Thank you very much. I was so excited. I was so excited because my dad told me, he said, you got to get a job. And so I went and he's back then he had newspapers, right? And they had want ads. And so I was so excited because I found this one.

And it was done. I got a job. It was done. I got a job at college. I remember this all of a sudden. Sorry, I interrupted your blue collar working story. Yes. Boy, you just focused on your, I was trying to give you some time to think about this and go back to the archives. But I was excited because it was done at noon, but I didn't know that it started at 4 a.m. I didn't last very long in that job. Oh, you worked from 4 a.m. to noon? Yeah. That's terrible. As a gardener. You got to beat the heat. Yeah.

I worked in the admissions department at Pepperdine. I had to get a job to help support, like, not that I, you get loans or grants and those types of things and paychecks. So I worked there. And then I remember wanting to work like outside like you did. And I went and worked at a plant nursery in California. And that job I held for two days. That's a hard job. But he found out I was in college. And at the end of the summer, I would go back to college. And I guess he was hoping I'd make a career switch. So he let me go.

The 48-hour turnaround? Well done. Do you have pets growing up? Always had dogs. Had some rabbits. Hated those damn rabbits. Yeah, what do you do with rabbits? Nothing. They sit in a cage and they poop, and all the poop doesn't go through those little grates that they have that they sit on, so then you have to take it and hose it out. I hated those pets. Always had dogs. Usually they were Labradors.

Yeah, I always had a dog growing up. And I remember when we had young kids, we got a cute little bunny and it was so cute. We thought, oh, this is in Arizona. You know, we'll let him run around the backyard. And then we could never catch the darn thing. And it started digging these massive holes all around our yard. Like, get that rabbit. So one time Julie caught it and like it scratched her so bad. She let go of a big gash down the forearm. Yeah, rabbits are not good pets.

No. What's the Will Kane superpower? You know what I mean by superpower? Like, yeah, I'm pretty good at that. I feel like you want a more interesting answer than the one I would give you. What is my superpower? Well, what first came to mind? Listening. Well, that's not always...

I mean, that's that's somewhat unique. Well, so I'm curious and I could I'm I'm insatiably curious. Like, I just love I fall down the Wikipedia rabbit hole all the time, all the time. And but, you know, people always say to me when they know me from ESPN and I did first take like, oh, man, you debate. And, you know, this whatever I do, like I and most people, what we do, Jason, what we do.

And the reason I say it's my superpower is it's not very common. So I know you asked my superpower, how do you say that with humility? But people

people don't listen and so i just listen it's like when you ask me a question i try to answer that question directly if you make a debate point i try to listen closely so that i can respond to that debate point directly you know what i'm saying and and it's how i learn but also how i respond and i think that most people speak past each other i think that's what we do in the world even in our casual relationships and because we're not really truly listening to one another

And I'm not talking about in the way that BLM says, no, listen to me, which just means sit quietly. I'm not going to tell you at the end of this, I don't have a rebuttal. I'm going to have a rebuttal, but it's because I listened. Well, a good interview, it's always the second and third question that are the most important questions. It's like when we did a congressional hearing.

They had me come in and speak to the new oversight committee. And I went in and I said, look, the most important thing you can do is listen to all the questions beforehand because you're going to want to follow up on something. Those are the most poignant questions because these people come in prepared to testify and they practice testimony.

But then you want to ask them the follow-up. That's the best question. And on TV, it's the same thing too. And you do do that exceptionally well. So I'm buying that. Two other quick questions. Pineapple and pizza, yes or no? No. Okay, good. I'll eat it, but I would never order it. Good, good answer. The judges really like that answer. Well, appreciate that. Best advice you ever got? Um...

I don't know if it's the best advice I ever got, but at my age, I know it's the best advice I have that I've either, I don't know if somebody ever told me it, but I just, I've lived it. And that is just get up, just get up. Like be resilient, take failure, get up. Failure ain't that big a deal. It's not that big a deal. Go, go fail. In fact, it's a good thing. Failure is a good thing.

And I would just add to that, never take no from somebody who is not empowered to say yes. I've always believed that. I like that. I like that. When I got my job at CNN, which was one of my first media jobs, it's because I emailed the president of CNN. And I guessed at his email address, right? And I just, there's a lot of people in a lot of levels of management in every walk of life. And the truth is their only power is saying no. They don't have the power to say yes.

So you're playing a game you can't win if you're asking for yeses from them. That's interesting. That's a great way of saying it. I loved it.

Will Kane, everybody, thank you so much for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. I truly appreciate it. No, it's fun interacting with you, getting to know you, and thanks for all you do. I appreciate it. Thanks, Jason. Wasn't that a great discussion with Will Kane? Fun guy, amazing guy, a great talent, good mind, deep thinker. I really like him. When he starts talking at Fox, I really like him.

listen it it's really good i hope you enjoyed it i hope you can take time to rate this podcast subscribe to the podcast would be even better but rate it if you could

I want to remind listeners that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Again, appreciate your time and listening and hearing us out. And I hope you join us next week. Go over to foxnewspodcast.com. You can check out some of the others, like Will Cain, who has his own podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

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