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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.
Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks for joining us. I'll talk briefly here about some of the things in the news. Highlight the stupid, because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to phone a friend. This time, an actual friend, somebody I've gotten to know a little bit better.
through my years at Fox and that is Trace Gallagher. He's the new host of Fox News at Night. Now he's been with Fox for a long time. You inevitably, if you watch Fox News, you have seen Trace Gallagher, particularly with breaking news and all the news that he's done through the years.
But a real talent, and they've named him the host of that late-night show, Fox News at Night. And we're going to give him a call, give him a shout, and learn a little bit more about Trace Gallagher. And we'll call him in a minute. So, all right. I wanted to highlight a little bit about the news. It's just not stopping. The inflation. And I want to go back to what I saw and heard last
with Milton Friedman. And I've talked about this on the podcast in the past, but it's really worth driving home. Milton Friedman, great economist back in the, I think, 60s or 70s, gave this great speech that was captured on video. You know, they weren't recording these things in the frequency that they do today where everything's on video. But Milton Friedman made a really good strong point. And his point was, only government creates inflation.
because only government can print more money. And when you have too much money chasing too few goods, guess what happens? You're going to have inflation. So you either need to increase the supply of what is out there, or you need to stop spending so much money that's being printed by the federal government. Now, we're spending close to 25% of our gross domestic product, which is the total sum of every financial transaction in this country.
Take everything from buying tacos at your local taco stand to going to the grocery store to military weapons to your paying teachers, whatever the financial transaction is, take the sum total of that. Nearly 25% or 25 cents out of every dollar spent in this country is spent by the federal government. And if you look at the massive spending that the Democrats have passed over the just under two years,
it exacerbates the problem of inflation because federal spending is going to record high levels. And so when you spend more money in the federal government and they're spending it by the trillions of dollars, even though you trim your own budget back a little bit and get less for what you're spending, the whole thing is eclipsed by a government that is far outspending what we should be spending. And if they trim that spending back,
then the economic situation of the country would be better. And it would also be better if they could increase the supply of, say, gasoline, oil. Because if there was more plentiful energy, guess what? Energy prices wouldn't go up. If energy prices go up the way they have under the Biden administration, it affects everything. Because of all the transportation, there's this great analysis of a salad. If you were to get a salad in Chicago...
and you had this salad delivered to you on a plate, and I'm not talking about just lettuce, something that has some tomatoes and some cucumbers and maybe some onions and maybe some salad dressing. You take the sum total of that, it's about 1,500 miles that all those ingredients have to travel in order to reach that salad that you order for lunch in Chicago.
Guess what? There's a huge, massive consumption of energy to do that in order to get there. So when energy doubles in its price, guess what happens? Your salad becomes more expensive. Now, for some of you, a lot of you, that may be too elementary, but I'm just trying to drive home the point that the federal government is the only one that creates inflation because they're the only ones that print too much money.
Now, the Federal Reserve and Congress are the culprits here. But the president has a way to help curb that back, and they don't. So we have massive spending. And then you have the Federal Reserve trying to tighten the markets by raising interest. And then they're working against each other. And now we're in this spiral that makes so many things so much worse.
All right, next thing I want to talk about is I saw this a couple weeks ago on the Yellowstone National Park Service Twitter. This is highlighting that the National Park Foundation is receiving a grant to help black people hike who hike. It says to help eliminate barriers and increase representation of black people in our national parks.
End quote. This grant supports their mission to empower, educate and re-engage black people to the outdoors. I'm sorry, folks, but I'm just not totally understanding this. OK, we have national parks across the country. More of them are out west. You know, in Utah, we've got five national parks. They're big national parks. You've got other parks that crisscross the country.
I want all people, no matter your gender, no matter your ethnicity, no matter your religion, no matter whatever, our national parks are open to everyone. Why there is money flowing to get certain groups to participate in accessing our national parks is,
I just don't totally understand this. Now, a lot of this is private money. In fact, all of this from the National Park Foundation might be private money. So be it. I just think you open up the national parks, you make these things available, you can have advertisements to let them know that this is available and out there. And I do think it would be good to have people from all across the country come and participate.
people from rural counties, people from inner cities, people from what, but to try to specify it and again, further divide us based on a particular attribute or the color of our skin in my mind is just wrong. And maybe it's just me, but that's the way I take it. And that's kind of my take on what's going on here in the news. Now, topic.
Time to bring on the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. Now, I don't know how to categorize this. I actually think this is a good thing. It's a healthy thing. It's kind of embarrassing to Governor Newsom. He's the governor of California. Well, it was brought to light a few weeks ago, probably more than a month ago, that Gavin Newsom's in-laws had donated $5,000 to Ron DeSantis' PAC.
Now, I'm sure if we took every family, you'd find that, hey, we got some Democrats. Hey, we got some Republicans. You have a bunch of people that aren't involved in the political system. But when your in-law is a governor of a state, that's a little bit embarrassing to
When they're donating to a governor of another state who, you know, in the case of Ron DeSantis, might be the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States of America. And obviously, Gavit probably wants to go out and take that job. He's certainly acting like he wants to.
Maybe there's a little bit of a signal there within the family that they're just trying to make a statement. If they thought they were going to get through and make a donation to Ron DeSantis in the tune of $5,000 and have it not be noticed, whoops. But interesting. We'll see how that plays out long term. But I thought that was a good qualifier for bringing on the stupid.
All right, now it's time to phone a friend, and I am excited to call Trace Gallagher. Trace does not lack energy and enthusiasm, and he has been doing a lot of great work at Fox for a very long period of time. So I'm excited to talk about his ability and his experience, if you will, and his hosting of this show, Fox News at Night. So let's give a ring to Trace Gallagher. Hello. Hello.
Trace, hey, Jason Chaffetz. Hey, Jason, good to hear from you. Hey, thanks for answering my call. You know, now that you've taken over this show, Fox News at Night, A, congratulations, and B, I'm honored that you still answer my phone calls.
Thank you, Jason. I very much appreciate that. And I didn't know it was you. I'm going to have to hang up now because I'm busy for the show tonight. Oh, you got to go. Got to go. Yeah. I got to go. I got no time for this. But I really, yeah, I really do appreciate it, Jason. And I think I've told you, a big fan of yours. I love having you on the show. We loved having you on the other night. Yeah.
One, because it keeps me honest and it keeps Leslie Marshall honest, which is really the most important part of you being on the show at night. It was really great fun and we hope to have you on every week.
Well, listen, you've got a pace and a style to you. And, you know, that comes with just such a great knowledge base of what's going on. And I think that plays really well. And there's so much to talk about at the end of the day, all the things that are that have happened and are about to happen. There's no shortage of news out there on any given day.
No. And you know, what's fascinating is that when you and another guest come on, you know, we really spend like 15 minutes trying to weed through some of the stuff. I mean, what do you cover? There's so much going on right now. And unfortunately, a lot of the stuff that's going on is negative. And a lot of the stuff that's going on is just really kind of self-imposed by this administration, whether it's
you know, whether it's crime, whether it's the economy, whether it's energy, there's just so many things that are going on right now that were avoidable that it's kind of hard to pick the subjects because you've just got, you know,
you know, sometimes it really is unfortunate that you've got so many things to pick from. And, you know, you spend half the time on these editorial calls trying to figure out exactly what subjects that people are most interested in, that are most affected by. And I mean, that's part of the fascination is that there's just too much information going on around us.
You know, look, big fans of Shannon Bream, so excited that she got the Fox News Sunday show. But, look, every person puts their own stamp, their own personality behind a show. When you get to an anchor show like that, what do you hope to do with this show? I mean, what do you think over the course of time people will see with a Trace Gallagher-hosted show? What should people expect? What do you want to do with it?
Well, you know, my background really is breaking news. You know, I've been with this network for 26 years now, and we have done in those years, we have done breaking news, you know, a lot of it. We have covered car chases that will go on.
hours and hours we've covered you know sadly school shootings and things that we will be on television for hour after hour just covering breaking news and trying to get you know trying to get the facts and you know the early the early going of all breaking news events regardless if it's 9 11 or a car chase or something else all breaking news events the information that comes out early is often wrong
So you really have to kind of navigate things correctly. You have to figure out, you know, what the best sources are, who's got the best information, what things you should go with and what things you shouldn't go with. And I think really this show, Fox News at Night, you know, I've said to everybody, I said, you know, I want this to be America's late news. I want everybody in America to think of this as America's late news because it's
That's what it is. We want to get you. And I was using the metaphor, the analogy of a hurricane, because when the show started, we were kind of right in the middle of Hurricane Ian. And I said, you know, the important part of a show like this is that you kind of chart it. You path it like a hurricane where you're going to have the initial strike of the hurricane. And that's important to cover. But you also have to kind of give people an idea of where it's going next.
You have to give them context and some perspective about exactly where the hurricane's going next, how powerful it's going to be, and what's it going to look like tomorrow morning. I mean, we are helping people recover who got hit by it, but yet there are still vast numbers of people who are still in harm's way, right, in the path of the storm. And even if it's news, if it's another subject, that's kind of where you want to go. You want to get people up to speed on the strike point.
on what is going to happen and who's vulnerable and who it's going to affect. And then you also want to give people an idea that this is kind of coming your way tomorrow, whether it's the economy, whether it's crime.
Whether you're talking about, you know, the latest sports team, whether you're talking about some funny bit, you want to give people an idea of what this could lead to. What's the fallout going to be and what they can look forward to kind of looking at in the morning and picking up the paper and saying, oh, they told me about this last night and they were pretty spot on.
about where this thing is headed. So that's kind of the direction of the show, Jason, just to give people an idea of, you know, get them caught up on current events and give them some context and perspective about how to look at this story going forward.
Yeah, you know, and you and I talked about this off air. I'm pretty excited about the time. You know, I think oftentimes out east, they kind of assume, well, you know, everybody's nodding off and going to bed. But for those of us out west, you know, I mean, California, Arizona, Salt Lake City, Seattle. I mean, these are some big markets and Chicago even. And these are some big markets. And this is prime time out west.
Right. And, you know, people don't realize, you know, they because the show is produced in D.C. because our production team out there, which our team is just spectacular. I mean, they're they're just so accommodating. They're so smart. There's a lot of young people on the team that really have some new ideas and
how they think news should be presented. And so, you know, you forget, yeah, you know, in the West Coast, it's nine o'clock. People are still outside having dinner when we're sitting here doing the newscast. And then in Denver, it's 10 o'clock. You know, the Rocky Mountain Zone, it's 10 o'clock.
They're in Idaho. In Texas, it's 11 o'clock. It's the 11 o'clock news for Texas. It's just the eastern seaboard that it's midnight. And so, you know, for two thirds of the country, it is their primetime news. And so that's kind of the point we're trying to convey. And you go through some of these analytical things and you also realize that even on the East Coast,
There is a significant audience, significant numbers of people who are constantly looking for information, whether it's midnight or whatever time it is. And so you want to play to all those markets, which is why I say it's America's late news. I mean, I get that it's late, later in some areas than it is on the West Coast, but it's also America's late news and we want you to play to all those markets.
you to kind of to understand and look at this as a resource that you can use that's going to kind of is going to get you caught up and give you something else to take away from it.
Yeah, you know, you're right, because, you know, out east, it is a bit later, but they probably kind of finally got the kids to bed, and they're just taking a deep breath and maybe brushing their teeth or whatnot. But for those of us out west, the Pacific time zone, the mountain time zone, hey, we're not in bed yet. It's not bedtime yet. It's
It's still an active night. So let's go back for a second. You've been with the network for 26 years, but let's go back to Trace Gallagher like little kid, little kid Trace. I don't know if they called you Trace when you were a little squirt, but tell us about growing up, where you were, what life was like, brothers, sisters. I don't know, and I'd love to know.
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that you asked about the name because it's my name is actually Tracy. I was born Tracy. I've never gone by Tracy because my dad always called me Trace. So but officially my name was Tracy. So even when I was even when I was like playing sports when I was younger and in high school, you know, they would call me Tracy, though no one ever called me Tracy except for like newspapers and things like that.
I married a woman named Tracy and I can get into that a little bit. Tracy and Tracy, right? So, but it's interesting because when I was growing up, my dad called me Tracy. I was born in San Diego, San Diego boy, and lived the first decade of my life down there and played youth football and stuff. And then I moved to a ski town in, in North central California and,
uh called Mammoth Mountain Mammoth Lakes California hey man that's right that's where I learned to ski Mammoth so it was like yeah that was fun which is a big compliment for you know a Utah guy going to Mama to uh to go to ski but you know it's it's interesting Jason because Mammoth was a then like 3 000 people there's like 7 500 now
But Mammoth was just this ski town. And, you know, people kind of forgot about it for half the year because it really wasn't it wasn't much. There wasn't much happening up there. But I went to high school up in Mammoth and I played football and I played basketball and I played baseball and I was really a crappy basketball player. And I tell the story. In fact, it's going to be in my book. It's funny because I said if I could just go and you'll know the statements.
as well as anybody, you know, if I could just go to the John Wooden basketball camp, oh man, I'd be a great basketball player. I just need a week at the Wooden basketball camp. But back then,
Back in the late 70s, you know, when I was 16, 17 years old, it was 500 bucks. That was real money back then, right? And so I would say to my dad, listen, I want to go to the Wood basketball camp. And he's like, well, you come up with half the money and I'll kick in the other half. So I worked construction and I got half the money and I went down to Los Angeles where the camp was. And John Wooden walks out, right? We weren't there for five minutes, J.J.
John Wooden walks out and he goes up to the microphone and he says, and I literally, I'm 30 feet from him thinking, this is the best day of my life. And John Wooden taps on the microphone and he says, okay, everybody sit down. He says, thank you for coming. You should have two pairs of socks. Take your shoes and socks off. You put your first pair of socks on inside out and you put the second pair on the right way. And then you tighten up your shoes nice and tight. If you do that, you will not have blisters.
And then John Wooden turned. He walked off stage. We never saw him again. It's a true story. Never saw him again. Paid 500 bucks for the Wooden basketball camp, and it was taught by high school coaches. It was a great camp, and I enjoyed it. But it's just fascinating where, you know, the marketing that goes into these things. I still, to this day, when I play racquetball or something, I wear two pair of socks because you won't get blisters. And John Wooden was right. Can't play basketball.
if you have blisters. So anyway, I played, I still was by the way, a crappy basketball player. It was always crappy. When I went to college, I went to, I was accepted to the University of San Francisco and they notified us about two months before we were going to college. I had a roommate, the whole thing. And they notified us that they were canceling the football program. And so I was kind of scrambling. So I played a couple of years at Antelope Valley College and
which is in Los Angeles County. And then I went to the University of San Diego and played football there. I was a quarterback for the University of San Diego Catholic School. I played quarterback at Antelope Valley College. And in between all these times, Jason, I was a professional water skier. I was a show skier. So things like SeaWorld and Cypress Gardens and Marine World and
I was involved in that type of stuff where you'd build the big pyramids and the back there. Yeah. And so that's kind of how I, how I made my way. And that's how I got into broadcasting because I, uh, I got hurt and, uh,
the show director of the ski show said, well, you've got two choices. You can either pick up skis or you can announce the ski show. So I said, well, I'll try to announce the ski shows. And it was actually kind of fun. And I did that for a part of the summer that I was hurt. And then I went back
to San Diego, took some classes in broadcasting and got an internship and then went to Yuma, Arizona, my first job, and then to Boise, Idaho. The locals, of course, call it, as you know, it's Boise, right? Yeah. The whole world calls it Boise, but...
I was in Boise for two and a half years, went to Vegas. And I mentioned my wife's name is Tracy. And I have a very good buddy of mine. His name is Colin Calvert. Very famous now, sports broadcaster, radio personality. But Colin and I are very good friends. I've been in all three of his weddings. I told him maybe the third one I should skip because it's not working out. But he introduced me because he was dating a girl when we were in Vegas 30 years ago. He said, listen, I have friends.
I have this girl I'm dating and she has this friend and you want to go out on a double date? And I said, sure, why not? So he hooked me up. And on that Friday night, my date, Tracy, uh,
uh, sees me on television, doesn't really like what she sees and then wants to cancel the date. I'm thinking, I didn't know this until. So she, she literally tries to cancel the date, but this is, you know, there's no cell phone. Somebody has cell phone. Colin had a cell phone cause he was making good money. Nobody else had cell phones. So she couldn't get ahold of anybody and she had to go on the date.
And we went on the date. And, you know, here we are 30 years later. We've been married for 28 years. But that was the thing is we went from Vegas to Orlando, Florida, where I was there. And then Roger Ailes called me a couple of years later and said, hey, come work for us. And, you know, we don't love you. We don't love your style, but come work for us. We think you're great.
That's a great way to try to recruit somebody. We're not really, but we think, you know, you remind us of this other kid. We just hired his name. You're Shepard Smith.
So and I knew Shep because I worked with him on local news and I thought, huh, well, this is probably worth it. And 26 years later, I think it was worth it. Turned out to be turned out to be a great job. Wow. Now, that's that's quite a tale. That's, you know, from injured water skier to get you into broadcasting, to get you to Yuma.
to all the way around the horn. But you're based in Los Angeles now, right? Based in Los Angeles for the time being. I mean, you know, listen, I started in Chicago. I was in Chicago for a cup of coffee, like nine months, ten months. And then I was in San Francisco for three years because Fox really liked a lot of the interesting stories coming out of San Francisco.
Yeah, so now Tracy must really love you to follow you all across the country there with a job that's
you're not really settling in, but now, her last name wasn't Gallagher, was it? No, it wasn't, but
Our names are spelled exactly the same way. Our birth names are spelled exactly the same way. And, you know, it's just interesting because we actually over the years have gathered friends with similar names like Don and Don, you know, D-A-W-N. You're like, well, this is kind of a bizarre crowd, you people all with the same names. I don't quite get it. But, yeah, the name thing has been kind of fascinating.
Especially now because this show that I'm with now, Fox News at Night, the senior executive producer's name is Trace.
So it's, you know, I'm picking up the phone or I get a message from Tracy and I'm like, oh my God, I need last names on these things. So it's, you know, it's very fun and it's very interesting. And yes, she apparently is fond of me because she really has kind of been along in this journey all across the country for a lot of years now. But she's great. And I have two daughters and they are both at the University of Alabama. Both of them roll tide. One is a senior. They're both studying media. The other is a freshman and
And they're both just flourishing there. And it's one of those schools that they're immediately
I'm so strong, Jason, because primarily there's so much money coming into the University of Alabama because of football. It's like the University of Oregon, all the Nike money, right? And football money. Same thing. Alabama is just the whole campus looks brand new. The brand new stadium is just spectacular because they have so much money coming in from football. And whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing, it is.
has benefited, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats and it really benefited that university and turned out some really spectacular programs. No, look, they got a great academic program there too at the University of Alabama. Our daughter-in-law is getting her master's at the University of Alabama and they got a great program, which is one of the better in the country. So,
Good football, good academics, powerful, potent combination. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Trace Gallagher right after this.
So, Trace, let's talk about this because, you know, a lot of people want to do what you do. You make it, you're just graceful and quick. But where did that come from? Like,
Not everybody can do breaking news. That's a whole different skill set. Now, where did that come from? And were you the kid that was like always talking in class? I mean, not everybody can speak in public. That's also not a skill set everybody has. Did that start when you were like 12 years old and your parents are saying, hey, Trace, let's just eat our food at dinner? And you pipe down, right? Well, I used to always say that.
I have, you know, I'm one of five, and it's kind of this Irish family, and when you gather around for dinner, everybody likes to talk. And you have to wait until somebody either takes a drink or takes a breath before you can get in there. And when you get in there, you need to be good. You need to be captivating because they'll cut you off. If you're dull, you're cut off. You're done. So you have to kind of be captivating, I bet.
I'm partly teasing on that, but the truth is, is that, you know, when you, when you cover breaking news, it really is kind of an acquired art. I mean, the whole speaking thing is great, but, but the truth is, is that you have to cover a lot of it because it's, it's one of those things where you have to learn kind of a system, you know, it,
checklist of what you're going down. And as I said, some of the information, in fact, a lot of the information in the early going is often wrong. And so you need to have a certain check checkpoint. And for me, you know, in television, it's great because it's almost like covering any other sporting event or something like that, because you're kind of describing the scene and
what's interesting about the scene and what's not, and what people aren't seeing, what they're not looking at, but we've been looking at for 26 years, the way the police position themselves, the way that certain scenarios lay out tells you a lot about what's going on in different scenarios, like a school shooting. You can tell right away if this thing is active, if they're freaking out by just the
the body language and the positions of police officers and the calls they're making. And you're listening to a variety of different things that give you information and give you hints on what you're looking at and what to expect. And like we said, kind of leading people forward. And here's what's going to transpire. And it always does. I mean, the Uvalde thing was the first time, the school shooting, Jason, that we were a little bit off the mark because, you know, the protocols have been
really in place since after Columbine. They put these protocols in. This is the way it is. You go in, you attack the shooter, and that's the end of it. And we got these different signals in Uvaldean. We're thinking, what's going on here that there are police still milling outside the building, and yet they still believe there's an active shooter situation going on. So even during it, you're kind of questioning, what is going on?
is the deal here and why is this scene look like it is and yet the information is either so badly false coming out of there or the situation outside is not being handled properly. So these are two big clues and of course it turned out that the police didn't go in for almost an hour and 17 minutes in fact for an
and 17 minutes. So it was a scenario we had never covered before. And it was interesting to watch that the same common denominators were true, except people's behavior was different and that changed the outcome. So when you cover breaking news like we do a lot of the time,
It is, you know, it becomes second nature to be able to look at these things. And it's like any other thing. It's like if you're a sports broadcaster, you know what to look like. Vin Scully knows exactly what to look at when he's watching a game. And he's going to tell you all.
Almost to the T of exactly what is going to happen. Here's the scenario. Here's the thing. And I know within 98.9% chance that this guy's going to steal second base. So we cover enough of these things, which by the way, Vince got one of the great losses ever. He, he was just, he was,
perfection when it came to broadcast, right? And you think that's kind of the goal that television news broadcasters, everybody kind of goes for this whole concept of being able to tell a story based on what you're seeing is that you're seeing the images.
So tell a story based on what you are seeing, not necessarily the information that you're getting. And I think it's I think it's a you know, it's it's an art that is, you know, well worth practicing for some of these younger journalists who who, quite frankly, Jason, don't get a lot of opportunity to cover breaking news now because, you know, there are more of them when we first started with Fox News.
channels 26 years ago, there were five or six correspondents. We covered the whole country. So you got to be pretty good at it. And now the whole dynamic has changed, which changes, you know, the performance levels of a lot of these young correspondents when it comes to breaking news. Yeah, no, that is, you're right about Vince Cully, by the way. I mean, he had, he had the right voice. He had this incredible knowledge base. He had a smile on his face and you could tell he just loved the game and
And it is one of the great losses. And he was such a great voice and provided so much to so many people for so long. My experience on breaking news is a couple of different scenarios. I do remember once Judge Jeanine had her program. And for whatever reason, it was like a Saturday afternoon or something. And I was the guest and Donald Trump was landing in Japan.
And right before we were going to go to it, Judge Jeanine says to me, I hope you know something about this because I've never been there. So I said, well, yeah, I've been to Japan several times and I understand sort of presidential protocol. And she said, all right, well, get ready to go because I think they're going to keep rolling this without going to commercials. And I don't know how long we went, Trace, but we went a long time. And there's only so many times you can say, well, the president is shaking another hand.
Um, I mean, but I was trying to give some color to everything else that was going on behind the scenes and that's tougher to do than it, than it, uh, that maybe it looks, especially for a long period of time. Well, you're very glib and you're very well spoken. So I, I would not worry about you at all. We've seen you anchor hand in a show. I mean, you, you, you're, you are becoming an exceptional broadcaster, which is why I love having you on. Uh,
the show because you know, you're, you're make your point. That's the whole thing. You get in, you make your point. It is clear. It is precise and you move on. And that's kind of, that's kind of the game. And it's funny, Jason, that I, you know, I work with these kids. I mentor a lot of kids because my girls are in broadcasting, but they're in Alabama. So we have interns that roll through here and I mentor these kids.
And sometimes you put them in front of a teleprompter and they just kind of become different people. It's kind of a different thing, right? They just become these different people.
people you talk to and they're normal and then they get in front of a teleprompter and they try to become a news name wrong on me and they're and they speed up and they just don't sound like themselves and i i stop them and i always ask the same thing i said you know you really need to be yourself because nobody can do you as well as you can do you and i said for example tell me tell me a joke
And it's amazing that kids, they don't have a joke. None of these kids have a joke. None of these kids know a joke. And so I say, you know, you have to learn a joke and tomorrow come back and tell me a joke and they'll come back. So I've started saying, forget about it. I give them a joke and I give them this joke and I'm going to tell it to you, Jason, if we have time. So this woman goes to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and she's so struck by
that she has to go to the Holy Land, Israel, and she walks the stations of the Christ, and she goes to the Temple on the mountain. She goes to all the holy places. And then, you know, unfortunately, she passed away. And the Israeli consulate calls her only daughter
and says to the daughter, "We're so sorry to say this, but your mother has passed away." And the daughter is so distraught that she hands the phone to her husband. So the son-in-law gets on the phone and the Israeli consulate says, "So sorry to hear about your mother-in-law, but we have two ways we can do this. We can either send her home, send the body home,
for $25,000. Or we can bury her right here in the Holy Land that she clearly loved for $2,000. And the son-in-law says, send her home. And the Israeli consulate has taken it back a little and said, listen, we can bury her here. $2,000, beautiful ceremony for $25,000 to send her home. And the son-in-law says, listen, 2,000 years ago, you buried somebody and three days later, he rose from the dead and I cannot take that. That's
That's terrible. Terrible son-in-law joke, right? But I first told her, I know it was like, because I first told it to my mother-in-law years ago and she loved it. She loved it. It is funny. It is funny. And I,
I tell this when I go on these public speaking things, I tell this thing and I tell these kids and I say, listen, tell me, learn how to tell a joke. And when you get on the teleprompter, then you need to think about that. This is your chance to tell people's story, to give them a little bit of information about what's going on in the world and tell them the way that you think is important for them to know.
You know, don't just read words and stuff. Give it to them. Explain it to them in a way that you think is important and compelling. And use your eyes. Use your hands if you have to. And just tell a story. And invariably, it always helps them. It always helps people to be able to tell a story in a way that they find compelling. You know, whether you...
You change your voice or not, whatever you need to do is fine, but you need to be able to tell a story that's compelling. And I think, I think a lot of people, you know, are, are fairly captivated by, by that kind of storytelling. Yeah. I once heard Bill Clinton, President Clinton was talking about how to talk.
And I was just fascinated by it. I disagree with him politically on a lot of things, but he was talking about how you need to be able to talk about, you know, 30 minutes of substance, three minutes of substance, but that the hardest thing to do is in 30 seconds.
to try to tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them in with a smile on your face and in such a way that they walk out and understand the nub of the issue. And he's so right. I mean, you can you can take away a lot of things from Bill Clinton, but he did know how to communicate and connect with people.
And Ronald Reagan too. I mean, I studied like what Ronald Reagan did and how he did it and how he crisscrossed the country for General Electric, talking to all these groups. And that's really kind of how he honed that art of being able to put that little smile and that little twist in his voice that just made him real homey and connect with people. And there are a lot of good communicators out there, but those are two of our best.
They really are two of our best. And I agree with you. I remember and not only was Bill Clinton a great speaker and, you know, you think about his policies and him as a human being. Not only was he a great speaker, but he had this memory where he could literally just roll off facts, regardless of what you're talking about, whether you're talking about the Yankees or you're
or you're talking about the constitution he could roll through these facts in just this astounding way where your head would kind of tilt as he's doing it you think either this is and that you know it was all either this is just total bs or this guy's got a memory that i've never seen and you kind of follow up this was all legit not to say he didn't you know he didn't
He didn't tell a few, you know, it wasn't his own fabulous at certain points in time, but the stuff where he's running off the cuff and he's just, he's just riffing. Yeah. Giving you this information, fairly astounding to watch. Yeah. And, and he did into your point trace, he could always tell a story. Like he had a story to inject that actually made sense to illustrate the point that he was trying to get across. Yeah.
And, um, and that, that's no, and that for the young people, it comes across, I mean, that's just comes with experience and doing it and getting out and doing it. And, uh, you know, everybody falls down on their face and makes mistakes and whoops, that was a little bit long and, or what? I don't think I said what I wanted to say there. And I'm sure that happens along the way. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back with more right after this.
Hey, I am really, really excited about your new role. You've been such a steady face at Fox for a long time, covering amazing stories. But to anchor a show like that, I think we're going to see a whole other side of you and your personality. And I think it's just, it's worked so far, but this show is just going to continue to develop. It's Fox News at Night. It's on at Fox.
midnight East Coast time, but more importantly, nine o'clock out on the West Coast and here. And I'm in mountain time zone at 10 and 11 p.m. Central time. You've got a great opportunity, a great show ahead of you. Yeah, and I'm really looking forward to it. I mean, the team, as I said, is great. And, you know, they're exciting. They have new ideas they want to present. I have some new ideas. The way that I do the news is kind of different. I like it. I like a faster pace. You know, I get more information in it.
And then slow things down when you have the chance to kind of talk about some specific issues that I think are important to people. But overall, I'm very excited about it, Jason. I'm excited to have you on every week. And I think overall, what we're trying to do is just to give people information that's valuable to them, that they can utilize information.
and that they can, you know, believe is presented to them in kind of a compelling way. And that's really all our goal is. But I thank you for having me on your show. Hey, now, Trace, before you go, you know, I don't care how many breaking news stories you've covered. I've got some rapid questions I need to ask you because, you know, if we're going to get to know you a little bit better, I've got to ask you a few more questions.
Okay, let's do it. Is that all right? Okay. Yeah, of course. Um, first concert you attended. First concert was, uh,
Journey and Fleetwood Mac played in Los Angeles. It was like 1974 or 5? Yes. I mean, you know, yeah. With Fleetwood Mac. By the way, great concert. Great concert. I saw Journey, by the way, with the new guy who sounds just like Steve Perry not too long ago. I mean, I just, I like seeing the original guy, so it wasn't great for me, but I saw Fleetwood Mac, the originals at the Forum about Fleetwood
five years ago and it was fantastic. I mean, it was the Rolling Stones at SoFi stadium last year and Mick Jagger at 78 years old. What is he? 79 now was unbelievable. I mean, it was absolutely unbelievable. He sounded great. He was sliding on his knees on this. The guy is amazing. Hey, I remember in high school, I think it was maybe, I think it was in high school, uh,
I think it was called the Start Me Up Tour. And this is supposedly going to be their last concert tour ever. This is in the 80s, and they're still doing this stuff. I didn't see that. My first concert was Michael Jackson in Mile High Stadium in Denver. That's huge. Yeah, that was a long time ago, Trace. It's like two months. All right, what was your high school mascot?
The Huskies, the Mammoth Huskies. Now that makes sense. See, most of these mascots don't make sense. But if you're in Mammoth, California, the Huskies makes a whole lot of sense.
Yeah, the Mammoth Huskies, man. And we were our colors were cardinal and gold, just like the USC Trojans, because we had we had coaches who went to USC and they kind of wanted our colors to be. And the school was brand new. When I went when I moved up to Mammoth, they didn't have high school. We went to we went to school at the ski lift where the ski lodge is, where people now go in and out to have lunch. That's where we went.
high school for the first part. They finally opened the high school. We had some coaches from USC who said, Hey, what if we, what if we take on the Trojan colors? Good, fine. Man with Huskies, Trojan colors. Done. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. What was your first job? And I mean, like not mom and dad saying, Hey, mow the lawn trace. What was your first job? Like,
working for somebody else? Ooh, that's a good one. I was a couple of temporary jobs. I was a fitness instructor for a month or something. And then I did construction for a couple of months to get my 250 bucks so I could go to the John Wooden camp. But I think my field job
was as a bar back, a busboy bar back for this restaurant in San Diego when I was still in college and I needed some cash. And then that turned into a bartender's job. And I was literally tending bar at like the busiest place in San Diego. And that was quite an experience. It's quite an experience. And then I started water skiing. And from there, the rest, you know.
Hey, I was a busboy for a while. Tough job, man. I hate it. It was so disgusting. But I did it. Supposedly, I was told when I got hired they were going to share the tips with me. Nah, that never happened. I got tips. Never happened. Never happened. All right. So let's say you got a chance to interview Bigfoot on Fox News at Night. What are you going to ask him? Hmm. Bigfoot. I think the first question is, are you real?
Is this legit? I mean, that's the whole thing is that there's so many great pictures that came out of these Bigfoot sightings. And for some reason, they're all in Oregon. And you think, are these really all in Oregon? I mean, you can't tell me there's not a Bigfoot in Canada or something else.
over the years roll up to Canada or roll somewhere else. And I was always in Oregon for some reason. I think that is the, that is the funniest thing I've ever heard. How Bigfoot is always in Oregon. So yeah, my first question, come here. Is this legit? I want to show, I think I want to show him a slideshow and say, is this one you, is this one you?
are there more of you because there's a lot of pictures over a hundred years and they all kind of look the same so i'd like if you could gather the whole family up and we could uh you know we could move on from there yeah is there a mrs bigfoot and and you know i heard this comedian once i'm not doing it any justice but he was pretty funny talking about yeah bigfoot's real he's just he's just blurry when you finally act as she see him in person he's going to be out of focus
I love that. And that is classic because that's exactly what it is. It's kind of like a lot of these UFO pictures are like, oh, yeah. Well, no, it was. So it's every UFO picture taker throughout history is just crap. Just a crappy photographer. Just out of focus. Yeah, it's just out of focus. I just I know it was legit. They came down and I went on the ship and I and when I got the pictures, I was just a crappy picture. Every single one of them are just crappy.
I talked to a guy who did UFOs one time and he said, listen, here's the deal. He goes, I want you to remember this. And now you see some compelling evidence about UFOs. I'm not kidding. It's not a joke. I'm not kidding. But you really see some of these things now and you take a second look like, huh, that looks legit. And some of these pilots that are spot on, I mean, ace guys are like, oh,
This was weird. And I have no idea what it was, but I had a guy at SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Tell me, you know, trace the truth is, is that we never had a UFO set a sighting ever in the history of this country until the early 1900s after, uh, and now I can't even think of his name. Who was the early space guy? Was it Jeff? Uh,
shoot the cartoon guy who uh george judson no not george yes he was like in the 60s this was uh ah shoot i can't think of his name but but when they started doing the comic books of the guy going in outer space that was the guy and i'll think of his name in a second but then they started seeing extra triti they started seeing a lot of these ufo kind of things right before that
the only report was they saw angels people reported seeing angels in the sky so until you know until the uh the comic book came out in the late 1800s early 1900s then people started seeing these ufos so it's kind of kind of an interesting tip all right a couple more quick questions so you you say you call up tracy and you say guess what honey
going to have a special guest over for dinner tonight. Who would you invite? It could be anybody dead or alive, like anybody you want anybody in history. Come break bread with the Gallagher family one night. Who would that be? That's a good one. I think, uh,
You know, growing up, I was always a huge sports fan. But I got to tell you, when I started reading, I was a big fan of Pat Conroy, who was a novelist who lived in South Carolina. And I was thought because, you know, I always wanted to be a great writer and would kind of pattern myself after Pat Conroy because he, I thought, was one of the greatest writers.
that we have had in this country. Just his books were just, I mean, to me, they were kind of, they were poetic. They were just, the prose was just so incredible that I loved reading from the great Santini to, you know, the Prince of Tides and stuff and not the topics and subjects, although the great Santini was great. It's just the writing style. So I always, I always thought, man, if I could just have one guy I could sit down with and
it would be Pat Conroy and find out where he got this, you know, Citadel graduate. Where did you get this? So that would be my thing. And, and, and quite frankly, you know, I think if it was today and you were talking about somebody who's alive, I'm, you know, I'm just fascinated by a guy like George Clooney, who, who has, you know, who's a huge liberal, right.
But he's just got some knack for touching gold. Everything he touches turns to gold. And everything he tries and everything he does is just so...
Spot on. Perfect. And so you think, I just love to be able to sit down with him, maybe play some poker, have a couple other guys, talk to him, have dinner and learn how he processes things and what he thinks is important and what he thinks is, is value. Well, sometime I hope to see him on your show. You know, his dad, Nick Clooney was a longtime broadcaster. In fact, he was, I think his last gig, he was in Salt Lake city on, on, on the Fox affiliate here in Salt Lake city.
I don't know if you ever crossed paths with them, but, uh,
He did work at Fox for a while. I do love him, but I didn't know him. I know, you know, everybody knows that Rosemary Clooney was his aunt. And I know that he's a broadcaster and a very good broadcaster. And I just think, I don't know if there's, I don't know if a lot of that kind of contributed to where George is and where he got his ideas. And some of the stuff he says, I think is a little bit, is a little bit off.
But I think overall, when you look at his career and, you know, you look at kind of the way he has lived his life, it's just interesting that he decided to go into tequila and made billions of dollars. And he decided that he was going to do this with this organization.
a little bit of help. They made all kinds of money and he decided we're going to do this. It turned out to be great. He was just going to retouch this script and have these few ideas. And it turned out to be great. You think whatever he's doing, he's doing his homework and I'd love to know the process he goes through to get to where he wants to be. Oh, and, and some of the pranks that he does on, on Brad Pitt and, and,
Right. And some of these other they're they're very that would be a fascinating. I'd love to see you interview him at some point. He's in L.A. He should be able to do that. Don't say let's try to pull that off. That would be great. I would fly to Lake Como, Italy, if you would. I don't have a budget. You can blow it all on that one. That's good.
All right. Unique talent. Unique talent that Trace Gallagher has. Something that you can do that nobody knows you can do. Oh, shoot. I mean, can you juggle? Can you play the banjo with your toes? I mean, what is it? I actually can juggle. I can ride a one. I can ride a unicycle.
You can ride a unicycle. Where in the world did you want to learn to do that? Because my brother-in-law, one year when we were water skiing together, said, hey, we need to learn a unicycle and we need to learn to juggle. So I learned how to ride a unicycle and juggle. Juggle pins, you know, like bowling pins. Yeah. So I did that. And I've got the video to prove it if you ever need it. All right. Just a couple more quick ones. Pineapple on pizza. Yes or no?
Yes. Oh, absolutely. I'm a pineapple. Are you kidding me? I'm all in. Love it. I'm sorely disappointed. Everything up to this point was really on track, but that one, I don't know.
Have you ever had it, Jason? I mean, have you really ever had it? You don't put wet fruit on a pizza. You just don't do it. Oh, you've got to crisp up the pineapple. The pineapple can't go on. The pineapple has to be kind of crisped up. I'm telling you, pineapple on pizza is really good. There's a place in New York that used to do pizza, slices of pizza in Grand Central Station called Taboot, and it's no longer there. But fantastic pineapple and ham pizza. Well, there you go. The rest of my case, they went out of business. That makes sense to me.
All right. The last question, last question. Best advice you ever got?
You know, best advice I ever got really was for my dad who said, you know what, you know, use common sense and listen to everybody and listen to everybody because, you know, robust debate is where you end up getting somewhere. It's where you end up solving things. And that's really, honestly, I think could be for everybody because there's not enough robust debate. There's a certain side of the spectrum, the political spectrum that does not want debate. They
They don't want to debate. And and, you know, people have always said and coaches have always said to me, you know, you will always know the people who are against competition are those who are ill equipped to compete. And so it's the same thing. Those who don't really have a compelling argument don't really want to debate. They don't really want to. They just want to be able to end the debate. So that's what my dad said. Hey, listen.
It's the whole concept of listen to other people, listen to what they have to say. You may not agree with them, but listen to them because it gives you a chance to hear some other perspective. And that in the end will help kind of turn your perspective a certain way because sometimes you don't want to hear them, but they might be right.
And I think I've learned that a lot of times, which is why I listen to you every time you're on the show, Jason. I listen and I think, you know what? He's absolutely dead wrong on this, but I'm glad I listened to him on that. No, I'm kidding. It's the whole concept of being able to understand
And, you know, maybe adopt some things or not. But everybody deserves a right. Like everybody deserves due process. Everybody deserves to have an opinion. Everybody deserves to be heard. And, you know, this country in politics would go a long way if everybody played by those rules.
No, it's so true. There's something to be learned from everyone. And even just challenging yourself to think through why you believe what you believe and challenge the status quo, I think, is a healthy thing. The moment you sit back and say, yeah, I got it all figured out, that's not healthy. That's why...
Some of these people that get involved in politics and sit there too long, it's, they start defending the fort instead of coming up with new creative ideas and solutions. And, and that's a problem, but that's a further discussion for another time. And, uh, trace Gallagher, uh,
the host of Fox News at Night. Thank you so much for spending so much time with us, Tracy. You're very generous with your time and very interesting to kind of get to know you a little bit better. I appreciate you joining us. Thank you, Jason. I appreciate you having me on. It was great, great fun. I'll come on anytime. And in the meantime, we'll see you next week on Fox News at Night. Very good. Trace Gallagher, everybody.
Again, I can't thank Trace enough for his generosity of time. We could have gone for another hour, two hours. I mean, he's got a lot to talk about. Great experience.
And I think you'll have a great experience watching Fox News at night because he does an exceptional job. And if there's breaking news, there's nobody better in the business. So, again, thanks to Trace Gallagher. Hope you're able to rate this podcast. I hope you're able to subscribe to the podcast because you're going to want to join us next week when we have another exciting guest. If you have a chance, go over to foxnewspodcast.com. There's some other people here at Fox that have some wonderful, wonderful podcasts.
Podcasts, Will Kane and Trey, what's Trey's last name? Trey, oh yeah, that Trey Gowdy guy. He's kind of an up-and-comer. You might want to listen to his. Lots of fun stuff over there at foxnewspodcast.com. Again, rate it, review it, like it, subscribe to it, and we'll be back with more next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.
This is Jimmy Fallon inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com.