Attorney General Jeff Landry: The Cajun Congressman Turned AG
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Welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks for joining us. I think you're really going to enjoy this because we're going to give a little riff on the news, highlight the stupid, because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to phone a friend, somebody I actually served with in the United States Congress, somebody who is now...

Very important person in our legal system because he's the Attorney General for Louisiana, Jeff Landry. Not supposed to be in that position, but boy, did he overcome the odds and impress a lot of people along the way. And we're going to give a call to Jeff Landry, the Louisiana Attorney General. But first, let's give a little kind of hot take on the news because...

Oh, good old Lord Fauci, as my friend Congressman Lee Zeldin likes to call him, is back in the news. I don't know if you saw this. It happened a week or two ago, but I really think it's worth highlighting because it's

Not only does it go to the arrogance that I think permeates some of those that have been in office too long or have been held a position of power for too long, but it really starts to highlight the attitude and approach that they're taking now.

And they've served in Republican administrations, Democratic administrations. But what Fauci said was, quote, we are concerned about that, about courts getting involved in things that are unequivocally public health decisions.

This is a CDC issue. It should not have been a court issue. You know, it's an interesting take because it only takes into account one particular position.

You know, it's interesting. If you look at the parallel, say, of the United States military, the United States military, even though we have a current former general who is heading up the Department of Defense, he had to get a waiver because there is a prohibition from active duty military people running the Pentagon.

There are lots of considerations, not just how do we fire weapons, how do we win wars, but there's a lot of other considerations at the Pentagon. How do you avoid war? How do you budget for things? It's very complex, and I think a lot of people for a long period of time envisioned the idea that we would have civilian leadership there.

The CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, has done a lot of good through the years, but it's become such a focus, obviously, with the pandemic that maybe some of the other considerations like mental health issues and other issues have gone to the wayside.

You know, as my friend and very talented doctor, Dr. Nicole Sapphire has pointed out, you know, at the pandemic more than two years old, how is it that they haven't done any studies on masks on airplanes? You know, we continue to have this debate. Should we mask indoors, not indoors? We know, we know, the scientists know that cloth masks do not work anymore.

So if you're going to have science prevail, I'm not suggesting we dismiss the science, but if science is going to be the main driving factor about masks on airplanes and for young five-year-olds on airplanes, yeah.

Why not do a study on that? They seem to have done a study and had billions of dollars for all kinds of things, but they didn't do those types of things. But I want to go back to my point about who gets to make these types of decisions. It shouldn't come down to the court. It probably should have been more of a congressional type of a decision that is made. One other example I want to give you is highways. You know, if you're in charge of making sure that the least number of people die on a highway,

What's the decision that you would make? You would decide that, hey, we're going to drive five miles an hour. If every freeway, every highway was only had a five mile an hour maximum speed limit, guess what? There wouldn't be any deaths, at least very few, probably some pedestrians getting in the way and whatnot. But

It'd be a lot different than maybe going to 80 on a freeway or 55 on a highway or 45 that, you know, that people are doing now. Go five miles an hour, then nobody will have a highway death. But you know what? We balance these types of decisions through a variety of different factors. You don't want anybody killed. You don't want anybody maimed. You don't want anybody. I guess we could all sit just in our homes and never go anywhere.

But these are the types of decisions we have to make. And what Lord Fauci fails to recognize is that there are other factors that come into this.

And there are other types of decisions. And ultimately, I think it comes down to the personal choice. Government, do your job. Figure out how to fight it. Figure out how to help provide a cure for it. Inform the public so they can make the best decision possible. Garner the science so that our doctors and scientists around the world really can look at these things. But ultimately, that decision as to whether or not to wear a mask, yeah, that ends up being one of personal choice in my book. All right, let's move on because we're

The other thing that I really want to highlight, you know, we bring on the stupid and we will in a moment, but it's been a week or two now. But this Bishop Evans from Arlington, Texas, he was the 22-year-old National Guardsman who's there serving for the Texas National Guard, sees somebody who's in trouble crossing the Rio Grande illegally.

And what do they do? They take off their equipment, they dive in, try to help save this person, and it ends up taking their own lives. Now, the allegation is that these people who are crossing were also carrying drugs into this country, potentially taking life or harming somebody else. This is the kind of person, allegedly, that was coming across. But far too many lives. Far too many lives. And they don't get the attention they deserve here.

have been taken because of this drug trafficking and human trafficking that is being

permitted and encouraged by the Biden and Harris administration. That's my take on it. It doesn't have to be this way. We could lock down that border. The border was close to getting locked down under the Trump administration, but there's a very conscious effort to allow tacitly invite these people to come across and it's only going to get worse before it gets better. It's a shame because we had the remain in Mexico policy. We were building a border wall. We were doing things

that were the opposite of catch and release. But no. And I guess what I want to try to do with this little segment here is just highlight the heroic bravery of the men and women who serve in a variety of capacities trying to secure our border, including the Texas National Guard. And Bishop Evans, may you rest in peace, and thank you for your service to this great country. All right. Now it's time to bring out the stupid, because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪

All right, we got to go back to the animal rights protesters that keep showing up at the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves games. This isn't the first time, but boy, I saw a video where this animal activist supposedly dressed like a referee started to bolt on the court, but the security personnel, boy, they had their number because...

moments after they got out of their seat, she was tackled and tackled hard. And that's the way it should be. You know, if you want to make your point about animal rights, this is not the way to do it. I think it makes people...

Take the opposite view and recognize how wild and crazy you actually are. There are a lot of people out there that believe that animals should have the same rights as human beings. I think of Cass Sunstein. Cass Sunstein was a Harvard professor. He was Obama's regulatory czar.

Now he's back in the Biden administration, and he believes that if you were, for instance, to shoot a deer, maybe to feed your family, that would be considered murder, and that the standing in the courts would be such that that deer has the same rights as a human being. That's how crazy and nutty some of these thoughts are, but you know what?

animal protesting at an NBA game. That ain't where it's supposed to be done. And the other thing I wanted to highlight happened in my own state of Utah. Westminster College introduced a film class, and it was about hardcore pornography. I want to keep this a family-friendly show, but I tell you what, for taxpayer dollars to be spent to offer a class where in the syllabus, or at least the synopsis of what's going to go on is...

that the group is going to get together and watch this type of material. Really? Like, what job is that preparing you for? It seems absurd. It seems flat out stupid. And that's the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right, now it's time to phone a friend. And this one actually is a friend, somebody who does amazing cooking. You know, I grew up primarily in the West, the Intermountain West, the Rocky Mountains, the West Coast.

i didn't get a lot of good cajun food and cooking in my life but then this guy jeff landry it was ended up being the congressman out of louisiana he had this um apartment or condo or something and boy i tell you from time to time you'd go over there and he'd be cooking up something and i don't even know what it is but dang it was good it was really good

Funny, funny guy. A lot really enjoyed his service. And then he decided to run for to become the attorney general there in Louisiana. And so he's been wildly popular, very successful and got a very interesting background. And so let's let's take some time and call Jeff Landry, the attorney general of Louisiana. Hello. Hey, this is Jason Chaffetz. Thanks so much for joining.

For answering, I'm so glad to be talking to you. Well, Jason, it's great to hear from you. I hadn't visited with you in a while. It's been exciting down here in Louisiana. How are you doing? Well, good, good. I mean, you've gone on and done some great things. You're now the Attorney General there in Louisiana. And I remember meeting you when you first got elected to Congress. And, man, you had that Cajun accent coming on thick.

Well, I tell people it's the one my mama gave me, right? You know, it's a hallmark down here in South Louisiana. You know, our family has been in South Louisiana for over 300 years. You know, it was basically, you know, we're remnants of the Acadians who were exiled out of Nova Scotia back in, you know, in the mid 1700s.

And, you know, and for a long, long time, people spoke, you know, only French down here all the way probably up until about the 1920s and 30s. In fact, when I grew up, you know, I had great grandparents and great uncles and aunts and they didn't speak much English at all. And so, you know, I guess the dialect, you know, kind of picks up and is somewhat passed on. But, you know, it's unfortunate. But that language is really important.

been killed. They started killing the French language in the 1950s and 60s here in South Louisiana. But it's a wonderful place to grow up. And it's interesting because I don't know that you can go to any place in the United States and not find a little bit of Cajun on any menu. Oh, well, OK. So that was the other thing about you being in Congress.

You knew how to cook. I'm telling you, I can't name a single other member of Congress that I would want to go actually share a meal with.

and that if they made it themselves, right. But you, I don't even know what I was eating. I just know that if we wandered over to your place, the food was going to be really good. You know, and that's two interesting dynamics. I think at play here, you know, in South Louisiana, again, part of Cajun culture, you see a lot of men that do a lot of cooking. You know, we spend a lot of time outdoors hunting and fishing. And of course, you know, we'll,

We've got to eat while we're out there. And so, you know, they've become great cooks. But I think what has complimented my cooking ability is really my aunt. So my mother's sister is a big food critic and chef. She worked in New Orleans for a long time for some of the most famous restaurant owners.

And she actually was nominated for a James Beard Award. She has several cookbooks out there. And so kind of growing up underneath her and my grandmother, you know, it's probably where I picked up some of the finer parts of cooking. And I enjoyed it. You know, when I got to Congress, it was interesting because I don't know if you knew this, but I never stepped foot

in the United States Capitol until I got elected to Congress. And so, you know, yeah, I had to bring my cooking skills to make sure y'all guys would, you know, at least let me stay.

Well, the other thing I think I really appreciated serving with you in the Congress is you're just perpetually happy. You know, people like to be around other people that are happy and upbeat, and you always had a smile on your face, always positive. And look, we were dealing with a lot of garbage, a lot of stuff that was going on. But to be able to, you know, lock arms and fight the good fight and kind of push those conservative values, you know, on our agenda, I think

It was you were just one of those guys who was willing to fight and was also happy about it. You weren't grumpy about it. Well, you know, it's funny you say that because I tell people all the time, you know, I go down on the floor and, you know, we did. We had a lot that we did in 24 months. I remember talking to I think it was former congressman.

Congressman Billy Tose, whose district I represented. And, and, you know, Billy was like, I think y'all dealt with more things in 24 months than we dealt with sometimes in 10 or 12 years. And, and you're right, you know, you'd go down there and it was just one struggle after another. But the way I looked at it was that I really wasn't supposed to be down there. And, you know, if you look at the, you know, if you look at political hierarchy, you know, a

many of those that came in in that big class were not inside of that political structure and belong. I mean, if you talk to the establishment, right, and I say that in quotes, we weren't supposed to be down there. So I said, you know what, I'm going to just go and make the most of it and try to change the direction of the country. It was a great time. There were great people like yourself and many, many others. And there's still a bunch of them that are still out there fighting that good fight.

There are. We talk and bemoan all those who make the headlines and say and do stupid stuff, but the 435 people really are a cross-section of America. I mean, you got people of all types, shapes, colors. I mean, you name it. Socioeconomic backgrounds. It really is a cross-section of America, which I think is really what the founders had envisioned. But

Let's go back to little Jeff Landry, the little kid who's growing up. What was life growing up? Do you have brothers, sisters? Because I want to do the lead up to kind of understand more because you're one of the most influential attorney generals out there and certainly rose up to be in Congress. But how did you get there? Like what was going on in your childhood that kind of prepared you for all this?

Well, you know, I grew up, like I said, you know, down in South Central Louisiana in a pretty middle class family in a very small town. What many people out there, you know, who grew up in rural America would envision their town. Right. But but but again, in the South, my mother was a school teacher. She was a coach. She played college basketball. She was a she coached.

She coached women's basketball. She was a pretty domineering figure. You know, she I think she stood at like five, nine, five, 10. My dad was an architect, mostly kind of a quieter fellow, kind of introverted. But, you know, we grew up at a time really when I was coming of age, probably I would think about 13, 12.

13 years old. I'm trying to remember exactly when during the oil bust in South Louisiana. So Louisiana had this big oil boom, which was brought on by, you know, the Mideast oil embargo of the 70s and the inflationary period that we had. And then all of a sudden the bottom dropped out from underneath us. So we went from kind of rich to poor pretty quick.

in a very, very short period of time. And so we learned to do without. In fact, I teach people. In fact, I was talking to one of our classmates, Christy Noem, the other day, and we were talking about being poor. And, and,

I remember you used to be able to tell, you know, who had a little money in town because their cereal box had Tony the Tiger on it instead of just black and white letters. Kroger's had an aisle under which it was like a generic food aisle. You know, and so we made the best of it. But, you know, I had some great friends.

My mother's father was, they owned newspapers in South Louisiana. He was an avid outdoorsman. So we had a camp out in a little fishing village called Catahoula, which is in the Atchafalaya Basin area. And so just grew up outdoors and happy. You know what I mean? Sure, we didn't have a lot, but we made do with what we had and we were just happy. I mean, we were happy.

We just went outdoors. We played a lot. It was back in that time period when your mama would kick you out of the house and say, don't come back until the streetlights come on. And so there was a tremendous amount of freedom. You know, Jason, and I tell people all the time, I think about today, and, you know, I've got a 17-year-old. If my mother would, when I'd have first gotten my bicycle, if my mom would have said, look, here's your bicycle, and I just want to let you know, I can tell everywhere that you go on that bicycle because of some chip I probably

probably would have returned it to and say look i'll just walk you know uh but but grew up in in that kind of of environment um you know went to my mother was you know we were devout catholics uh she grew up in a very faithful um family where it was you know it was god family and country and um

I just enjoyed life to a certain extent. Went to Catholic school from kindergarten to eighth grade and then went on to public school and played football, you know, like everyone else did in rural America in a public high school. That was interesting. It was about 55 or 60 percent black, you know, and so we had a very good cross section of people in the town. We all got along. We had a great football team.

seasoned for three or four years, made a lot of friends, really didn't enjoy. I really didn't like school. I liked to have fun. And when I graduated, I didn't want to go to college. I joined the National Guard at 17 years old. In fact, when my mom died,

found out you know when i found out that i could join the army and if you were 17 your parents had to sign off uh she was like okay where can i sign off you know what i mean like you know because she had four kids and she was ready to get the oldest out of the house and uh and so joined the national guard at 17 and and and then went to work instead when i graduated instead of

going to college, I just went to work and worked on the sugar on some sugar cane farms out, you know, plowing the fields, planting cane, harvesting sugar cane, because that's a predominant agriculture that's grown out where I grew up. But, you know, but an interesting dynamic happened, you know, as I was serving in the National Guard when

Of course, Desert Storm came up, you know, the first big turmoil in the Middle East. And it was right about the time where I finally decided that I would take a shot at going to college. And it's because I'd been working in the fields for so long, not making a whole lot of money. I was pretty happy, but I decided, okay, maybe I'll take a shot at going to college. Because the National Guard at the time, if you joined the Louisiana National Guard,

They would pay full college tuition in the state of Louisiana for anyone who was in the guard. So it was free. You go to any state university. Yeah, not a bad gig. And so I decided, I said, OK, well, I'll take a shot at it. And in my first semester, I didn't even get to finish because our unit got activated for Desert Storm. And so we spent I spent the next year on active duty during summer.

During the first Gulf War,

And then kind of got out. So when we got out, I was a military police officer in the Guard. And so when I got out, I decided, I said, okay, well, maybe I'll kind of go back to college and look for a job in law enforcement. And then I went to work for a small town police department. And, you know, I'd work nights and go to school during the day and kind of just was just kind of trugging along through college. And then I went from

a police department to sheriff's department um you know still kind of going back and forth so i worked the whole time i was in college uh and then and then interestingly i um i decided

to start up, no, I had a job opportunity to go work in the environmental field. A guy had approached me, said, "Look, you know, you should come to work for me, get out of law enforcement, that's a dangerous profession, and come to work for me." And the money he offered was so enticing, I quit both law enforcement and school, right? And so went to work for a couple of years in the environmental field, and then he sold the company,

And then I decided, I said, you know, I could do this myself. And so with a friend of mine, we started our own company. And so we began the opportunity of building a company, which really was interesting and trying, you know, going into debt, having to pay payroll taxes, insurance, dealing with lawyers. And so I did that and decided, you know what? I think I'll finish my degree as the company director.

you know, became successful, I started going back to school and I ended up finishing in environmental science. And then and so while I was in there, I took a liking to politics. A friend of mine, I got elected to the state Senate. I'd go down to the state capitol and work with him during the session and kind of watch how the machines of government would would operate.

right and and so i that was kind of like a dipping your toe in into politics and then got an opportunity to sell the business um in in the late 90s uh and i graduate i had gotten my degree uh sold the business and and here i am i think i was like 28 29 years old still single um trying to decide what exactly i was going to do i didn't have like

uber wealth right but when you're 28 29 you don't have a bill and you got you know

several hundred thousand dollars in the bank. I mean, you really, I mean, you think you're like Elon Musk, right? But, and so, you know, I was just about mature enough to realize that if I didn't go do something productive, I was probably going to end up with nothing in the bank. And so I decided to go to law school. It was something that

My father's father had kind of always said, you know, that boy should go to law school. He had actually left me some money to go to college, which I'd used to buy my first vehicle. Part of it, they used to buy my first vehicle. He always believed in education and wanted me to get a law degree for whatever that meant. Wait, wait, wait. What was that first car? What tickled your fancy? What was your first car?

Oh, it was a truck, of course. It was a four-wheel drive Toyota. Toyota had come out with those little four-wheel drives. It was great. Yeah, yeah. All right. That's good. That's good, Louisiana. All right. Sorry. Keep going. And so, you know, so I decided I would go to law school. And so went, took the LSAT, and I started Southern University, which is a historically black college.

in Louisiana has a great law school. And, and Mike Foss at the time who I knew he was the governor of the state from Franklin. So he was from my area of the state. He had risen from the state Senate to go on to the governor's mansion. And he had worked with Southern to start a part-time program. The only other part-time program at the time was at Loyola in new Orleans and

And I was still...

tying up the ends of the business that we had sold. I still had some commitments left. And so I said, well, you know what? Maybe I'll go over to Southern with Mike, with the governor and do it part time. And so I did that as well. And as you can tell, there's a pattern that's evolving here, Jason. It's like having ADD with no medicine, right? And that's kind of how I grew up. And so, you know, I started over at Southern, had a great time there.

But my godfather was a lawyer

from New Orleans and he had gone to Loyola and he had been trying to get me to go to that law school. You need to come to New Orleans. You need to go to law school in New Orleans. You need to really go to Loyola. Of course, it was a Catholic university. So my mom was like, you should go over there and get a degree from Loyola. And so I did that. I ended up transferring after my first year at Southern. And that was also at the time

when I met my wife, uh, she was crazy enough to stick with me through, you know, two years of law school. And, and, you know, by that time I was 31, I guess I'm trying to remember. Um,

And I figured I said, you know, if she's if she's committed enough to stay with me through law school, I probably better marry her. You know, it should take me in, which we did. So we got married while I was in law school and and then I finished up. We had a child. And then when I got my degree, I really wasn't interested in being a lawyer. That's that's some kind of funny thing. I remember

graduating from law school and I was like, okay, I'm going to just go back into business. My brother and I started another business while I was in law school and I said, I'm just going to go work in the business. And my wife was like, you're not going to take the bar? I'm like, no, not really. She's like, oh yes, you are going to take the bar. I'm not, I didn't go through all of this for you to not go get licensed. And so here I was like, all right. I mean, probably the most painful thing

I'd go back to law school before taking the bar again. That was the most miserable time. No, it was tough. Yeah. It's tough. Yeah. Yeah. It was terrible. And so,

So I ended up going, I took the bar, passed, got licensed, still didn't want to go practice law, but had gotten offered from a friend to go work in a mid-sized law firm as an of-counsel doing, you know, corporate commercial transactions. And I kind of, I was kind of interested in that. So I said, okay, I'll just go do it and do a little bit of that. And then in 2007, I,

I decided to run for the Louisiana Senate. And of course, you know, to kind of bring you back, you know, Louisiana South was predominantly a Democratic area, right? Everybody in the South was a Democrat. And of course, that started to evolve after Reagan. And so when I went to register to vote in 1988 at the courthouse in St. Martinville, and I filled out my registration paper,

And I turned it in. The lady actually gave it back to me and told me that I had made a mistake. And I said, well, what's wrong? She said, well, you you you you filled out that you want to be a Republican. And I said, yeah, that's what the president is. She said, well, you know, you won't be able to vote. I said, what do you mean? I won't be able to vote. I said, I'm not about a vote.

Well, you know what I say. Republicans, there's not a lot of Republicans. You won't have anybody to vote for is what she meant. Right? I'm like, listen, I want to be what Ronald Reagan is. This was at 18. And so I registered. So I've been a Republican my entire life. And my parents were very conservative people. Right? My dad hated politicians and lawyers.

You know, it's a I got to work extra hard to get back in the House, you know, but so, you know, kind of jumping back. So in 2007, as a Republican, I decided to run for the state Senate in a district that had never elected.

a Republican and I ran because term limits had come into effect. Louisianians had changed their constitution and limited the number of terms for state legislators. And so I ran against two Democrat former state representatives. And here I was like a neophyte. You know, I just like nobody, you know, which no one gave me a chance running for the state Senate.

And and then it made the end, of course, Louisiana's this open system, open jungle primary dismissive disaster. And so I make the runoff. I'm not the biggest Democrat out. And and and then in the runoff, of course, they piled on to me and I ended up losing that race by like three.

100 votes and i tell people sometimes i think it's better to lose by like 30 000 and then 0.05 exactly i totally agree with you yeah you know like i guess like in in a boxing match it's better to be knocked out then go all the way to the end and then lose but you know a decision uh and so um

So that was kind of my stint. And it was, I was like, you know what, I'm done with politics. I'm gonna just go back into business, go back to practicing law. And so that's what I was doing. And then, you know, then of course in 2008, Barack Obama gets elected. And then you see the country, you start to see a fundamental transition of the country.

towards a more bigger government, socialistic mentality. And it was concerning. And of course we had, at that point we had been, I mean, you know, we don't think about it, but we had been at war for some seven years. The war in the Middle East had been raging on us. You know, even though we had gone into Iraq, we had killed Saddam, you know, it was supposed to be over. We still had boys fighting and dying in the Middle East. And, and,

And so I'm watching all of this, and I don't know if you remember this, but, you know, there was a time when the Joint Chiefs, I believe, had asked Obama. They wanted to do a surge in Afghanistan. I guess it was. I guess that's what it was. And they had asked the president to commit to, like, I don't remember, 75,000 troops or something like that. And he told them no.

And I think he ended up giving them half. And I remember watching the news and watching that series of events unfold. And as a veteran, it sickened me because to me, it was remnants of the Vietnam era under which if we don't have total support,

OK, if the command in chief in the country is not fully committed towards winning a war, we should never engage in one. Right. Because because people are fighting and dying. And if you're not willing to bring enough forces to bear to keep that from happening and to actually win and to end the conflict, then we should be there. And so I got so mad. I said, you know what? I'm going to run for I'm going to run for Congress because there was a congressional seat coming up.

And then, of course, we had the big banking failure. We had the recession, you know, the big 2000. And then I ran for Congress and I won. And that's kind of like a brief. It's kind of like the chronology of it, which brought me to Congress. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Attorney General Jeff Landry right after this.

Over 25 years ago, on September 29th, 1998, we watched a brainy girl with curly hair drop everything to follow a guy she only kind of knew all the way to college. And so began Felicity. My name is Juliette Littman, and I'm a Felicity superfan.

Join me, Amanda Foreman, who you may know better as Megan, the roommate, and Greg Grunberg, who you may also know as Sean Blundberg, as the three of us revisit our favorite moments from the show and talk to the people who helped shape it. Listen to Dear Felicity on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. So you get to Congress, but why, how, when did you sit down and say, you know what, honey?

I think what I really want to do is become the attorney general because that's the spot for me. I know I didn't even want to take the bar, but since I did and I passed, I really want to become the attorney general.

How'd that conversation go down? Well, look, the first conversation was trying to get to Congress. She didn't speak to me for two weeks when I thought I was going to go to Congress because, remember, I'd run for the Senate. And so I won, but I didn't... The reason I ended up as the Attorney General was not because I had my eye on it. It was because Louisiana... Because when I got to Congress, Louisiana had gone through redistricting. And because of Hurricane Katrina, which had infected the state in 2005, we had a big...

big population loss. We lost the congressional seat. And so my district was cut into thirds, you know, and I ended up losing the race against the incumbent, the neighboring congressman. And so I ended up out of Congress because of redistricting. And so for two years, I'd gone back to work and some people had

told me that we needed i needed to run for attorney general i i was like attorney general i mean i had clerked for the attorney general when i was in law school but i was like like what can i do i just came from the united states house of representatives again how could it be any better and the more i started looking at what attorney generals were doing i actually realized that as the attorney general you had more influence

on the national stage in being able to push back on then President Barack Obama's policies, okay, then I could as a United States president

congressmen because of this federalism issues that AGs had taken. And so, you know, and this was at the time, you might remember, you had Scott Pruitt, you had Craig Abbott, you had J.B. Van Hollen. I mean, these guys were taking on Barack Obama's executive orders and Obamacare and all of the things that you see today. And they were like the

the front line and so you know what this is going to be interesting so i did so i ran i ran actually against an incumbent republican he was a democrat at swish to republican he really wasn't a republican and so we beat him and so here i sit you know i mean yeah to take on an incumbent like that is i think i took on an incumbent in one and nobody expects you to do it but when they're ready for a change they're ready for a change and they make that change and

I want to talk specifically, if I can, for a little bit, because I know a big part of your fight has been on the energy side of the equation, right? Louisiana produces a lot of energy for this country. And yet, I mean, what people are going through right now, just trying to get their basic energy products and the expense of that is just nuts. And it doesn't have to be that way. That's the thing. It's a conscious decision. So tell us about that fight in the energy sector.

Yeah, you know, let me start off by saying this, because this is an important statement that's not made enough. There is no industry in the world that has lifted more people out of poverty than the oil and gas industry.

I mean, you have to think about that and let it sink in. I mean, when you bring energy and electricity to poor countries and you get clean water and you get sewage, you get all of the things that electricity brings you, you lift those people out of poverty.

I saw how the energy industry could lift people out of poverty right here in Louisiana. We built the middle class extremely well and strong because, you know, Louisiana is not only just a predominantly oil producer. You know, it has down what they call downstream refineries. Right. So so we have it from nuts to bolts. You know, we mine it.

produce it, and then we refine it just right here in Louisiana. And so energy was easy to me. What shocked me is that when I got to Washington, the amount of people that really didn't have a grip on

on number one how important it was and number two how it got literally to the gas station you know it reminded me it's like it's like people believe that they wake up in the morning and there's like this little gas ferry that comes by and sprinkles the gas into the tank or like the gas just comes right out the ground the same ferry goes over to costco and sprinkles the the shelves

you know, with food. And like people really don't have an appreciation on what it takes to get those products to market and they demonize it. But it's so vitally important. And we're seeing it today because the price that Americans are paying at the pump is a self-inflicted one. It is a man-made crisis. You can't go from energy independent five years ago

okay to energy dependent without some act of man creating that problem and that's exactly where we are i mean you're never going to replace fossil fuels in the near future unless you find a very clean reliable and that's the key the underlining the underlying and the boat is reliable it can't be

It can't be energy that comes on when the wind's on or the sun's shining. You know, it has to be reliable. And so I took that fight. I took it. And another thing that was interesting, you know, Jason, when I got to Congress, you remember the Macondo incident, the deep water horizon that blew up? That was ground zero for my district. Oh, that's right. That happened during your time. Yeah, yeah.

Right, right. And what I saw was an injustice in the way that the oil and gas industry was being demonized because of one accident. They were painting the whole industry with this big brush and said, everyone who drills for oil and gas is bad. When simply it was BP and the failures that BP made at the time. And yet they were punishing Shell or Independence or Exxon and they just wanted to shut everything down.

And that's unfair and it's unfortunate. And so I made energy kind of like, you know, like that's that's that's my that's my scene. That's that's the direction that I run, because I know that when we bring Americans affordable, reliable energy, our economic engine runs. The middle class is built bigger, better, stronger, and the country is safer, more secure and certainly happier.

And one other one I want to touch on before I get to the rapid questions, which are the toughest part of your day here. So I don't want you to get too nervous about that. But talk about federalism and the overreach issue.

as you see it by the federal government, because it just seemed like when I got to Congress, it seemed like we were seven miles wide and a half inch deep on like everything. There wasn't a topic. There wasn't a thing that wasn't before Congress and it shouldn't be that way. Congress has some limitations, right? They should be focused on certain core things, but it seemed like the Congress, the federal government was touching everything all the time, everywhere. And it was just,

It's just never ending. And and that's a that's a that's a fight that states have to to to wage is to get their control, their authority and their autonomy back. Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's not only limits to Congress, there's limits that entire federal structure due to the Constitution. You know, I tell people you got to realize this. The Constitution, if you look at the Constitution as a contract.

right? So people engage, every American, okay, every citizen, everyone engages in contracts. I mean, hell, you engage in a contract with your kids, probably. You do chores, you get a reward. You know, there's a contractual relationship that binds us. The Constitution is a contract. The parties to that contract, because in every contract, there's parties to it, right? The parties to that contract are the people, right? And the states, right?

Not the federal government. The federal government is a product of the Constitution. It's not a controlling party. And it's important to understand because when we built that contract, we said that both states and people are sovereign and that the federal government was to have limitations.

And then Congress, I just think Congress got lazy. You know, I can remember, you know, and boy, I tell you what, it was certainly sorely missing him. But I remember sitting down with Don Young from Alaska, who recently just passed. Just what a great man and what a wealth of knowledge. And I remember him telling me, he said, you know, Jeff, when Congress started

abrogating and delegating their authority to agencies instead of instructing the agencies through law. Like the EPA shall do this and this is the way they shall do it. Instead went and said, the EPA shall do this and shall promulgate regulations to do that. Congress then abrogated, they delegated the authority to these agencies and these agencies grew. And so the only thing that puts them back in the can is

It's really the Constitution and the states as a party to the Constitution have standing to be able to try to shove that responsibility back into the agencies and the branches on which it belongs. And so it's been really exciting. I got to tell you, it's been being the attorney general is one of the greatest jobs I've ever had.

I think it's one of the best jobs in government. I really do, because you can do so much from there. And it's unfortunate because policymaking is being created more in the courts than it is in Congress. Now, that's wrong. And we can have a discussion. We can do a whole podcast on that later. But that's where we are. That's just reality. I mean, that is the whole point, right, is that

I think you're absolutely right that Congress has gotten lazy because how many times were bills put up that says,

the secretary shall or the secretary may or whatever. It just gave all this authority to rulemaking and just allowing them to create what it is. When Nancy Pelosi said, hey, we're going to have to pass this bill in order to find out what's in it, she was speaking a lot of truth. I mean, she was saying the secret part out loud, which is we don't really have the details in this bill. We're just going to pass it and then

we get to make it up whoever's in charge and that's why this pendulum swings you know back and forth and back and forth depending on what uh who's uh who the president is and it shouldn't be that way you know capital requires consistency to make it proper investments you know they they go to to make these types of investments long-term investments where

where there's a degree of certainty, but there's so much uncertainty with all the regulations that are coming this way. It really does end up being the attorneys generals across the country that have to fight and say, no states get to make that decision, not the federal government. Right. I mean, you know, Congress has basically become like a cheerleading squad. Right. And then you cheer. Yeah. I mean, they like they cheer. OK, they're

They're real happy when their man or woman's in the presidency. And we're, you know, if you're a Republican or a Democrat, it just depends on who's the president and who's in control. And then Congress is just like the cheerleader. Like, go do this, go do this. Write an executive order, create law about fiat. And it creates destabilization. And so what attorney generals are trying to do is they're trying to put the genie kind of back in the jar, right?

We try to say, no, no, no, no, no. You can't do it that particular way. And what we're hoping is

What we're hoping and of course, this is what's really exciting, because, you know, after four years, which is amazing. In just four years under President Trump, the judiciary has taken a more constructive constitutional approach because of the people that they put inside of those seats. And so it's going to be interesting. And the way that they did it.

was what I think is going to be generational. So we'll see. We'll see how it works out. No, I think one of the biggest lasting legacies of Donald Trump will be all the judicial appointments that he made along the way, not just the Supreme Court, but throughout the system as a whole. I think you're absolutely right. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back right after this.

All right. I have got to transition here to the rapid questions. Now, you may be the attorney general of a really important state, and you may make some of the best Cajun food I've ever tasted. Now, granted, I'm out west, and we don't get a lot of good Cajun food, but from what I can tell, you make some great stuff. But I got to ask you these rapid questions. I want to get to know you a little bit better, and we'll see how you fare. Okay. All right. First concert you attended.

First concert I attended, Zebra. Zebra? All right. Yeah. What was your high school mascot? Tiger. These are all going to be animal answers because there were a lot of tigers in Louisiana, evidently. All right. Who was your first celebrity crush? You know, when you're kind of growing up thinking, oh, yeah, I have a little crush on that person.

Oh, my word. Suzanne Summers. Yeah. All right. She was on a lot of people's list. I get that. Favorite vegetable? Favorite? Cucumbers. Oh, all right. What was your very first job? I'm not talking about mom saying, hey, go set the table or, you know, we need to sweep or mow the lawn. I'm talking about first job where you worked for somebody else. What was that first job for you?

Well, swimming lessons. But of course, I worked for my mom. My mom taught swimming lessons for years and years. She taught like 30,000 kids in her lifetime how to swim. Oh, really? Wow. Oh, yeah. So like every summer we had a pool in our yard. She'd fill it and you were working. She'd pay you minimum wage and everything.

She might have paid us a little less than minimum wage, but everybody else, I guess. But yeah, that's what grew up for three or four years. We did that, that and folding papers. We worked at the paper. That would be, you know, my wife and I with two little kids, we had an opportunity to go live in Australia for a year. And we did that. And you know what? Every single kid in Australia has to take swimming lessons.

because it's such a, you know, so many people go out into the ocean and in pools. That was like mandatory. And it's kind of, I mean, it really is such a useful skill, right? Because I would think in Louisiana, it's hot, right? A lot of people want to get in the water. And that's a great skill set. Glad you did that. That's good. Not only hot, but we got a lot of water. You do have a lot of water. Do you have pets growing up? Yes. Well, like what were they?

Oh, our first pet was a dog, a Doberman pitcher. Yeah. You wouldn't want to mess with the Landry family coming over there. Go see that Doberman pitcher. It was to keep people out of the pool. It probably worked. What was life's most embarrassing moment? Life's most embarrassing moment. Oh my word. Now you got me. You're going to stump me. I've been embarrassed a lot of times. Um,

one of my most embarrassing moments you know i i guess probably some of my most embarrassing moments was when when you was when you realized economic disparity right you know when you go to places and people have more than you got um and you can't get any of it or you you don't have access to to some of the shiny objects that they particularly have in it you know it can have an effect on you when you you know when you're younger and and i mean

To me, that was something that was, to me, kind of embarrassing, but drove me to making sure that I had enough to provide.

Interesting. Interesting. All right. So you call up your wife one day and say, hey, honey, guess what? You know, I'm going to have somebody over for dinner tonight. I hope you're right with it. If you could pick any person dead or alive to come over and kind of share a meal with the Landry family, who would that person be? Jason Chavis. I'm showing up whether or not you invite me. So don't even tell me that.

Who would that person be? It can be anybody in history. Who would you want to say, you know what? Come break bread with us. We'd love to chat with you. Oh, like somebody dead or alive. Yeah, dead or alive. Oh, Thomas Jefferson. Why Thomas Jefferson?

You know, just I mean, you know, what amazes me about some of those, the forefathers is the intellect that these people possess. You know, he was such a states rights person. I'm just a big history. I mean, you know, honestly, I'd really like that, too. I'd love to have dinner with him and Hamilton.

which would be great. I mean, I tell you what, if you could do a podcast, those are the two you definitely want to have a rapid fire, but really truly like, I just love to sit there. You know what I mean? I'm, I'm, I'm kind of a geek of history. I really do. You know, I just enjoy so much deep history. And I, I mean, I'd love to, you know, this is a guy that I think, and he loved books. He loved reading. You know, I just was, I was, I was like,

Just in awe when I went into the Congressional Library, into the Jefferson Library, right? I mean, it's just like, wow. You know, just so much knowledge. Yeah, his ability to foresee the principles. That's the thing is...

If you get the principles right, then the policy will fall in behind. And he was such a man of principle saying, hey, if we get these principles right, then things will take care of themselves because the world has changed. I mean, so much in just my lifetime. Imagine that.

From the time of Thomas Jefferson, I think you're right. I think that would be a fascinating conversation. That would be interesting. All right. For Jeff Landy, what's a unique talent that nobody knows about? What can you do that, like, nobody knows you can do? What can I do that nobody knows?

You know, I think one of the things that shocks people is like, like I'm, I'm kind of like a, um, I'm kind of like a gadget geek, like an, uh, an IT geek, like I mess around with software and computers and can kind of fix them, you know, and when I have problems can kind of work my way through, you know, glitches, uh, issues. Yeah.

I would not have guessed if I had a – I would not have guessed that. Based on my limited knowledge in our interaction, I would not have guessed that. So, yeah, that's probably right. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no? No. Okay, good. All right, that was a simple one, but it's amazing how some people fail that question. So just a couple quick more. Favorite childhood toy?

Oh, I used to love the little plastic army men. Yeah, those were good. I'd throw dirt clods at them. I'd blow them up. I did everything with them. I'm totally with you. I liked Stretch Armstrong. I talk a lot about Stretch Armstrong, which I miss. Oh, yeah. And my army men. Yeah, I think the army men were great. You get the big bag, and then you'd find a grenader, and then you'd find a rifleman. Yeah. World War II army men. Yeah, they were great. You know, they'd stand up little.

Wax or plastic. It was the greatest. Oh, I must've had a thousand of them. Yeah, exactly. All right. Last one. Best advice you ever got. The best advice I ever got was, was that if you were going to work for someone, be loyal to them. And if you couldn't be loyal to them, it was time not to work for them. Yeah. That's a good, good advice. Good advice. Well, you certainly been an impact player for somebody who didn't, wasn't quite sure they were even going to law school and then didn't even know if they wanted to take the bar or,

Yeah, I think you represent what America is all about. You know, it's a variety of people that came together and that are serving their nation. Thank you for your service with the National Guard. Not everybody does that, and you did that. And your service in Congress, but also as the Attorney General. So, yeah.

Jeff Landry, Louisiana attorney general. Thanks for joining us on the Jason and house podcast. I do appreciate it. Well, thank you, Jason. Thank you for everything you do as well. It was an honor to serve with you. Look forward to seeing you again. Well, Hey, if I find myself in Louisiana, don't be surprised if I come knocking. Well, I'm not going to with the Doberman pincher. I probably going to call first, but I would love to come break some more bread and have some of that good Cajun cooking with you. So appreciate it. Oh,

Okay. All right. Listen, I want to thank Jeff Landry for his time and his service. And, you know, he served...

uh also in a variety of different uh aspects and uh just a good guy we need good quality people who care and love for their country and come from a variety of backgrounds and i appreciate jeff landry joining us today on the jason and house podcast hope you can rate it i hope you can subscribe to it and if you want to check out other podcasts from fox news go to foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to this podcast you can find them

I hope you'll join us again next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House.