Inside The White House Briefing Room With Peter Doocy
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Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. Really do appreciate you joining us, giving us some time. You're going to enjoy this one. You know, it's very quickly becoming evident that Donald Trump is going to deal with things differently than the way Joe Biden did. Joe Biden, a little bit sleepy, a little bit predictable, didn't usually have much to say.

Policy wasn't just flying out the door. You could extract certain things and not extract others, but the podcast is going to take a little different turn. I think we're going to do a lot more policy because there's a lot more policy coming out the door. We're going to talk more about issues and policy and things that are happening. We're always going to highlight the stupid because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere, so we have to highlight that. And then we'll bring in a guest to help us decipher and understand and better understand how

and policy and everything else that's flowing is going along. And in part, how you get the news. So I am really, really pleased that Peter Doocy, you've seen him as the White House correspondent for Fox News. He's a friend. I know him. I know his dad. I know the Doocy family. But he's one of the best in the business. And, you know, you've seen him at the hearings or at the briefings,

Trying to ask a Jen Psaki or a Karine Jean-Pierre questions. And now with Caroline Leavitt as the White House spokesperson. And essentially his own spokesperson, President Donald Trump, who is unbelievable in terms of his transparency and his availability. And what's amazing to me about President Trump is you can ask him any question at any time and he'll tell you exactly what he's thinking.

And, you know, sometimes he says, hey, you know, that's a stupid question, but not to Peter Doocy. I think Peter has been very good at peppering a president with relevant questions and something that's going to make news. So we got a nice interview with Peter Doocy, but I want to kind of try to tackle the news. And I do this with some danger. There's some danger to this because

Oh, my goodness. At a moment's time, the president is out with a whole nother half hour plain side or outside Marine One or wherever he might be at the resolute desk there in the Oval Office sharing insight and information as things move so quickly.

But I want to kind of break down some of the things that are happening because there's so many things. But I do so at some risk because this podcast comes out on Sunday night. We record it before Sunday night. So inevitably things kind of change. But the same basic topics and what we're trying to get at and talk about for the president, I think, remains consistent. So let's go through some of that policy. Then we're going to get to the stupid. Then we're going to get to the interview with

with Peter Doocy. And so thanks for joining with us. I really do appreciate it. One of the things I'm really keen on is DOGE and DEI. So Department of Government Efficiency, not really government entity, but

But that being led by Elon Musk and a staff there that's able to peek in and see what's going on in our government, unlike we've ever been able to do before. Now, I can tell you, as the former chairman of the Oversight Committee, oh my gosh, we'd have to pull teeth for like a year to get information that they're able to extract out now very quickly because...

Donald Trump is paving the way with our Treasury Secretary and others to be able to allow access to this type of information. It's exactly what our country needs to maximize openness and transparency. You know, it always makes me laugh when the Democrats, they've started this drumbeat and complaints about Elon and how dare we uncover this information. What's wrong with being transparent?

I mean, they often forget that the number one thing, the number one principle here is that the government works for us. We don't work for the government. The government's not there to cover up and create this opaque layer over people so that you just say, oh, no, this is the department budget. You want to be able to break down those payments and be able to see who's getting what money where.

And there's nothing more inflammatory than having it go to these organizations called NGOs. You hear that term a lot, NGOs. What's an NGO? Non-government organization. But I would say that they morph into a government organization when their funding comes from the government.

I think what you're going to find over the course of time is that these NGOs have been a disguise to get around and circumvent laws, rules, transparency that are on the books because the government couldn't do it itself, but it wants it done so they'll give it to an NGO. I have a book coming up. It's going to expose this even more. I'm not here to do a big book unveil, but I'm going to talk a lot more about it. I have in the past and I will continue to.

But that is one of the big things that they have to do is expose what's happening, how it's happening, where it's happening, because it's our taxpayer dollars and they're big. They're really big. One of the other things that Doge is doing is tackling DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion. And again, I think this is so funny to me. So ironic, right?

What you hear the Democrats talking about is bifurcating all these different things into a direction where we aren't able to have exposure because they're giving money to certain groups, but not other groups. Does that sound like inclusion? No, it doesn't. It's the exact opposite of inclusion. They're trying to give it to the winners and losers as they see fit and at the exclusion of other people.

I thought Sean Duffy did the best job last Sunday on the Sunday talk shows. He's the new Secretary of Transportation. I served with him in Congress. I worked with him here at Fox News. He's the Secretary of Transportation, and he was asked,

How is it that you know that DEI may have contributed, as the president claims, to the crash of these airlines and the FAA? And he had this brilliant answer where he basically said, here are a number of expenditures that are gone out, which means they're not focused on our number one mission, which is safety. If it's not about safety, then we don't need to be doing it. The resources are precious and limited.

And you've got to be able to have them focus. And he gave a number of examples. I saw Pete Hegseth make similar statements saying, hey, we're no longer going to have all these different months that we're celebrating. It's a distraction. We're about lethality. That's what we got to do. We got to have the biggest, baddest fighting force on the planet. So Doge goes through and you can find this on X.com.

You can follow them at Doge. And Elon Musk put out this updated data on DEI-related contract consolations with full detail. Now, these are contracts that were in place that were canceled. Think about how much money this is. And I'm just going to name a couple of them because it's got a big list and it goes at something like $1.2 billion of our taxpayer money.

that isn't spent on roads, bridges, infrastructure, our fighting forces. It's just not. It's not going to further your kids' education or anything else. It's for diversity and diversity training, equity, and inclusion. For instance, $112 million at the Department of Agriculture. What does that have to do with making our food supply better, safer, more secure, healthier? It doesn't. It really doesn't.

Department of Health and Human Services, about $159 million. Homeland Security, $43 million. $43 million.

The FAA, right? Been in the news, unfortunately. $45 million at the FAA for DEI. That's what they're working on. Office of Personnel Management has one of the biggest expenditures at $516 million. And USAID, which was highlighted by Elon Musk.

The president has decided to essentially kind of put a pause on all of it, if not flat out shut it down. But USAID, which most people don't understand, is the United States Agency for International Development.

Usually we just say USAID or USAID and you think, oh, that's going to help people. We just make more water for people or give out bags of rice or help in a disaster, that sort of thing. Oh, no. Oh, no. $375 million in DEI.

What in the world is that? Now, I could tell you from my time on oversight, partly as the chairman, partly as the subcommittee chairman on oversight, USAID, I get so frustrated with them. Let me give you an example. I went and did a few trips to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, USAID had participated in helping to bring Western toilets to the Afghan people.

You can drive, at least I did, I saw this firsthand in Afghanistan in the streets of Kabul. And there are literally, as you drive down the road, piles. And I mean, there'll be 50 to 100 Western toilets all over.

lined up on the side of the road. And then you go a little bit further down the road and there'll be a whole nother slew of piles of these. Or you go out to these forward operating bases or down to Kandahar and that sort of thing and you see Western toilets. And finally, it begs the question, what are all these Western toilets doing out here? Because USAID thought it was a really good idea to give these people Western toilets. The problem is

The Afghans don't use Western toilets. It's not how they go to the bathroom. And by the way, when you stick up a toilet, you got to have a pipe that connects to a sewer system, which they don't have. So they found that it did nothing. And what they did is there was a building that they put in to accompany this toilet. They just kicked all that out there and they thought, oh, this is a great place to

to keep our goats. And I'm not trying to be demeaning. I'm just telling you practically, this is how the Afghan people dealt with this. Now, we have a guy named John Sopko, S-O-P-K-O. John Sopko is the head of what's called the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, the CIGAR, Special Inspector General, Afghan Reconstruction.

And he will tell you a percentage, probably less than half, actually got to the finish line. The waste, the fraud, the abuse. That's not just USAID. That's the war effort in general. That number is unbelievable. The waste, the fraud, the abuse. What they're calling out on DEI through Doge is the amount of money that they're spending there. And USAID, there was, I'll tell you one other quick story.

In Afghanistan, we were there to help build a bunch of schools. So I'm the chairman of the oversight. He said, okay, I want to see one. Oh, no, Congressman, we can't take you there. Why not? Oh, if you show up there, you'll be a big target. It's too dangerous. Okay, well, we have thousands of United States personnel here. I want to go see one. No, Congressman. I mean, it went back and forth like this.

And I said, okay, I want to see a map. Show me where you built all these schools. Oh, we don't produce such a map. We're afraid that if we produce such a map, it might get out and then become a target of the Taliban and that sort of thing. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm just not buying it. I want to see a satellite image. Can't we get a satellite image of where these schools are? How about a list of these schools? And they gave me sort of a partial list of these schools, but

And I started asking things like, does it say courtesy of the people of the United States of America, something to ingratiate our country in the willingness of the U.S. taxpayers to help and supplement them? Oh, no, none of that. I said, you got to have a Polaroid camera. Just a digital picture. I want to see a picture. I want to see a school, a list, and a picture. Never did do it. Never could come up with it. And just in my mind, I thought, oh, this is just waste material.

They're lying to me. They can't come up with a picture. They can't come up with a location. They can't come up with satellite imagery. They couldn't come up with a drone survey where the drones would go. That doesn't put anybody at risk.

And I walked away thinking, I don't know how many hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted, but this is a waste. So I'm so glad to see President Trump moving forward on that. I just think that is so, so much better than where it has been before. Is there a place for aid when disaster strikes? Yes. The United States is going to be that nation. They're going to be the one that can help people.

But to do it in mass like this in perpetuity, I just don't see it. One other thing I wanted to talk about, and again, there may be news before this podcast comes out on Sunday, but is what's going on with these people. And I saw it was California. It was Idaho. It was Georgia. I'm sure it'll spark up in other parts of the country. Idaho kind of made me laugh.

But these people that are out there protesting that we're actually going to enforce the law in this country and that if you're here as a criminal illegal alien, that you're going to be deported out of this country. And who knows if you may end up in Guantanamo Bay, which is the president moving with 30,000 beds into Guantanamo Bay. I'll touch on that in a moment.

But here they are waving the American flag, burning the waving the Mexican flag, I should say, burning the American flag, protesting, shut out, shutting down in California, the one on one freeway, doing those types of things. Nothing screams, hey, Donald Trump's on the right path than that. Nothing about loving America and we want to stay. It's all about we want to turn this into Mexico, right?

which just highlights some of the problems and the challenges that the president's here, the president's against. Now, keep in mind, the target right now are people that are here illegally. That's illegal, right? You're here illegally. That's illegal.

People that have been ordered, departed out of this country by a federal judge, they've ignored those. People that are here and accused or have committed a crime, some of them are the most heinous crimes you can possibly imagine.

Why is it that the Democrats and on the left fight the idea that we're going to deport people that are here illegally and that are committing crimes? This is the criminal element. You had Selena Gomez. You had others crying about how bad it was at the Grammys. You had artists. I think it was Shakira saying, oh, you know, these are our people. No, they're not. Criminal element. Those are your people.

The criminal element. You've got to be kidding me. Look, if you want to come legally and lawfully to this country, there is a way to do that. We take in more people legally and lawfully than any other country. In fact, we take in more people than all other countries combined. And that's the legal lawful way to do it. We need people, they say, oh, to pick blueberries. I heard one liberal crying about, oh, I can't wait till the white women can't get their blueberries.

Well, you know what? There are worker programs where you can come in and work in the ag sector on a visa and do it in a legal, lawful way. Those programs are already in place.

You know what's interesting about this? The Democrats cry, oh, we have to have comprehensive immigration reform. No, we don't. And if you do, Democrats, you had the House and the Senate and the presidency. Why didn't you introduce a bill? They didn't even introduce a bill. Now, the President Biden would say, oh, I introduced a bill. I had a bill. It wasn't introduced into Congress and didn't move. And the Democrats had the House and Senate and the presidency. They could have moved it in the House. They had the majority. Right.

but they didn't do it. And Donald Trump's doing exactly what he talked about. He is enforcing the laws of the United States of America, and we are better for it. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this. I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto-friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger, so I can get in more squats anywhere I can. One, two, three.

Will that be cash or credit? Credit. Galaxy S25 Ultra, the AI companion that does the heavy lifting so you can do you. Get yours at Samsung.com. Compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account. Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy. All right, let's talk about East Palestine for a moment. East Palestine, Ohio, just over the border from Pennsylvania. After the horrific accident there with the chemical release that came out in the air with the train wreck,

I happened to be speaking in Pittsburgh, but my speaking engagement wasn't until the evening. So I got in my rental car and I drove there. And I can't remember, it's like less than two hours. Beautiful little drive. You're going through just this very scenic country. And then I got to East Palestine and it was so sad because there was nobody outside. Now it was cold, but there was literally not a single person outside.

And I went and got some ice cream right at the intersection there. There's this ice cream place that sells ice cream. I got some ice cream, got a little food for kind of my lunch. And then I drove by this little barber shop. There was the cutest barber shop with a barber just sitting in there. Nobody was in his little store there.

Um, and then I went by the fire department, but the doors were all closed and everything. And then I, I, I walked down, I was like the only person on the street, literally walked down pretty close to where the train derailment was. And, uh, I went into a gas station, bought some stuff out of the convenience store. Um, and then just walked back and got in my car and

And I drove around, I went by the school and the only people I saw outside were there taking air samples. And I said, how's it going? They said, oh, it's looking pretty good. And I, who knows what it was, but you know, I feel for people that are out there just working for the government, trying to do that. But I just felt like it was totally wrong how Biden and Pete Buttigieg had totally ignored these people.

Now, they would probably take issues. Oh, we didn't totally ignore them and say, yeah, but you didn't come there and offer your help, your support in person. Buttigieg eventually got there. Biden came more than a year, a year after it happened. And yet here we are, like two weeks into the Trump administration, J.D. Vance and the newly minted EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, who I served with in Congress,

He's there on the ground meeting with people telling them we are not going to forget you. What a stark contrast and difference. And I'm proud of the fact that they actually did that. That is really, really good. All right. One other topic I've got to address before we get to the stupid and then Peter Doocy has to do with the tariffs. Now, president has successfully said, hey, you know what?

We're going to use tariffs. In fact, I don't mind tariffs. I like tariffs. We used to have a time in this country where it was all tariffs and no income tax. And so he's going to go there, and he's not bluffing. And that's why you saw fundamental changes happen in Panama. You saw them happen in Colombia. You've seen them happen in Mexico. And Canada, I think, is coming around, too. So that threat is still out there. That threat is also out there for the European Union,

But let's understand why this was an issue because Democrats are, oh, they're, you know, I saw Chuck Schumer. Oh, Corona beer, which is actually made in Texas, I was told. I think San Antonio is where they make, produce that beer. And your guacamole, you know, avocados are going to get so expensive. It is amazing to me. Like Chuck Schumer, can't you promote U.S. products?

Like, I don't drink beer, okay? I'm not advocating drinking beer, but we have places like Anheuser-Busch, Coors Brewing. We have others, Samuel Adams, others that are produced here in the United States. You couldn't go so far as to say, hey, if you buy in America, then you have nothing to worry about in terms of these tariffs. Nothing. But the other big thing is the flow of drugs and illegal aliens. Now, in Canada, coming to the South...

Our apprehensions were in the range of like 37,000. Then they went up to close to 200,000. Mexico, you've seen the numbers. It's just literally over the course of years by the millions. And there has to be more done there. But the other is the scourge of these drugs. And that's a huge problem.

for instance. Now, I do some work with the Government Accountability Institute. This is Peter Schweitzer's group. He's written a number of books like Clinton Cash and those, but he has one called Blood Money. It's his most recent book. It's been out a year or so. And it talks about, in one part of that book, about how the Chinese are utilizing the Mexicans'

to flow illegal drugs into our country. And it works like this. They go into a port. They own the port.

They bring the drugs and the precursors and the pill presses and everything else, not just for fentanyl, by the way, folks. This is a wide array of drugs and counterfeit drugs. They'll bring them into this port. Then they ship them to this particular part of Mexico. In the book, it names the city. It highlights this as a Department of Homeland Security report that somehow he was able to get access to.

And there are thousands of Chinese nationals that are working in these labs to make, press, and distribute these pills. Then they give them to the coyotes and the drug cartels who have this network, who bring them north and ship them into the United States. Inevitably, Donald Trump and the Trump administration know this because it's been happening for a long time.

And at some point, somebody is going to take this out. And I think it will become bigger news at some point when this actually happens. But it's this type of thing that Donald Trump is trying to protect us against. And so he's saying to the Mexicans who have acquiesced, push back those tariffs for a month. If you don't help us with this stuff, hey, then we're going to put a 25 percent tariff on your goods. Well, suddenly we have 10,000 tariffs.

Mexican federales that are there helping us to do what we need to have done. Now, the specificity of that is probably highly classified and moving forward. I don't know what it is. I'm not trying to hold back on you. And I don't claim to know something. I've been out of Congress, so I'm not seeing a classified material like I used to. But this is what is so great about what the president's doing.

These are the things that are going to make the difference. This is but a fraction of what's happening. And ladies and gentlemen, we've only gone through, what, two weeks of the Trump administration? Woo! It'll keep on going. All right. Time to highlight the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right. Today is Super Bowl Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday is when this podcast is coming out. Earlier in the week, I heard Bill Belichick, the coach who was the coach of the New England Patriots,

Somehow on some podcast, they got to this idea that the Lombardi Trophy, which is what you get when you win the Super Bowl, his suggestion was that maybe it shouldn't be named after a coach. Coaches don't score touchdowns. They don't kick field goals. Coaches just, you know, to name it after a coach is ridiculous. Except it's Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest coaches there ever was. You want to get some inspirational quotes? Go to

Go type in Vince Lombardi quotes. You're going to see this man knew how to motivate and move people forward. I love that it's called the Lombardi trophy. I don't think they should ever change it. And by the way, if they do change it, yeah, they should probably name it after a kicker. If they're going to do a player, it is football. I used to kick footballs in college. I'm not, I'm not biased, but did you know that 23 of the top 25 scorers in the NFL this past season, they were kickers.

I always feel bad when a game doesn't come down to a field goal or an extra point because I think that's what the fans are there for. I think the fans are there to really, like, they want to see a good kicking game. They want to see the guy kick the extra point. I mean, they want to see him punt. This is why it's called football. And this is why they're the leading scorers on the team. And if you're going to name it after a player, maybe we should name it after, I don't know, Vinatieri, somebody like that.

Somebody who actually knows how to win games and score points. That's my take on it. But I think it's pretty stupid to suggest we're going to call it anything other than the Lombardi Trophy. All right, time to bring on Peter Doocy because I love Peter. He's a huge success. Really excited for him. I love seeing him on the network. Bring on Peter Doocy.

Peter Doocy, thanks so much for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. Thanks for having me. I can promise you it won't be as dynamic as working at the White House. I can promise you that. Well, it just depends on the day over here, you know. Well, your days have changed. Just from an outside observer, the Biden White House seemed a little bit more sleepy and the Trump White House, well, they never go to sleep.

Yeah, I would say that there are a lot of presidential statements coming out after I go to bed and before I wake up. And that's different. That is different. I mean, do you wake up in the morning and think, all right, here we go? We have no idea where we're going, but here we go. Yeah, no, totally. And the Biden White House was structured. They kind of structured the day a little bit different where they would advise us.

basically on Sunday night, like this is the upcoming five days. And on this day, we'll have a briefing at this time. And on this day, the president's going to have a meeting at the auditorium at this time. Whereas the Trump team so far, it is kind of just show up and stand by because a lot is changing and they have been very organized with the executive orders in the beginning and with,

A few of the events, but it is just kind of just be here and we will we will let you know when something big is about to happen. So that's what we know. How much notice is that? Is that like three minutes or is it like a few hours? But it's just a it's a slightly different approach, slightly different than the way that the Biden people did it.

When you go to approach, say, President Biden as opposed to a President Trump, I mean, you just kind of let it rip. You've got to come prepared with more than one or two questions when it's President Trump because you may get a bunch. Yeah. And I think the art of getting questions to Joe Biden was figure out how to

boil something down to eight, maybe 10 seconds. It's got to get his attention. It's got to be delivered quickly enough that he can respond, even if it's just a one word answer, because we got a lot of one word answers while he was just exiting the room. Whereas with Trump, at least in the beginning, my experience has been he wants to sit and take all all in.

And the first day, like inauguration day, I was in the Oval Office with him as the TV pool. And I had two pages of questions, double spaced, but two pages, various topics. And I got to everything. And I remember I was in there thinking, it's good that this just ended because I'm kind of out. We covered everything. That is what's amazing. Compare and contrast for me, though.

The briefing room and how that's kind of changed through the years, because I mean, watching the briefing room now, first of all, it seems packed. You got different people in there and the way the questions, you know, with Caroline Leavitt, it's just it's just different. So compare and contrast that for us.

Well, it's tough to do a direct comparison. It's kind of apples and oranges because for the first couple months of the Biden White House with COVID social distancing, there were like only 10 or 12 of us in the briefing room at a time. And so every day, if you were... And you could only be in, I think it was three days a week. Every outlet could only be in there like a max three days a week, the way that they rotated. And so...

Every chance that you had in there, it was like interviewing the press secretary for 10 minutes. It's like, OK, well, here's our here's our five things with follow ups. Whereas and then it did become more of Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre trying to deliver a very carefully, almost corporately message.

structured message on behalf of the president. They wanted to, to set the agenda. Whereas with the Trump white house in the beginning, at least they, they know that they've all been here before. They know that Trump wants to, Trump is his own best messenger and he wants to talk about everything. So in addition to putting together, uh,

materials and be being prepared for questions about X, Y, Z from the outlets. They also have to keep track of everything that Trump says so that they can they can know that's the official position. And that's probably really hard because the day that he flew out to the wildfires, I think it was he took questions 11 different times.

Which in the one trip he took 11 different days in the one day. I don't think he I don't think that Joe Biden took I can definitively say he never, ever took questions 11 different times in a day. But I, I would have to look to see when he took 11 different questions in a week. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

But Caroline Levitt's new. I mean, she's young. She's the youngest spokesperson ever. She's doing, in my opinion, like she's highly accessible. She doesn't have to look at her binder all day long. And she kind of speaks with authority. How is that –

I mean, she wasn't there before with Trump, but she was there throughout the campaign. She was here in a much more in a junior role. She was like what they call a wrangler, where basically your whole job is to

wrangle the press, figure out who the pool is, who's supposed to be in a room. And, you know, she's the one with the credential to tell the Secret Service, OK, all these guys are good to come. These guys are not. And so that was her job. And then she did catch on with Trump during the campaign. And look, something that I think gives her a lot more authority than probably any other 27 year old who would have that job is that it does seem like she is in the room with the principal, with

President Trump a lot, whereas before, Karine Jean-Pierre, it did not seem like she was in the room with Joe Biden a lot. And we can come to that conclusion after three years of her getting asked about various topics and saying, I don't know, haven't talked to the president. And I don't think that that was just deflecting. I think she really didn't. And I think Joe Biden also had such a more limited media diet that

he would need staff to explain stuff to him. Whereas Trump, it's like, you know, he's up in the morning watching the morning shows. You know, he reads the New York Post basically cover to cover. And you know that he's on his phone seeing what the new memes are that day. So he kind of has...

As much of an awareness of what's going on in the world as anybody that would be in the briefing room writing these stories and then asking them questions about them. You're listening to Jason in the House. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Every day, thousands of Comcast engineers and technologists like Kunle put people at the heart of everything they create. In the average household, there are dozens of connected devices. Here in the Comcast family, we're building an integrated in-home Wi-Fi solution for millions of families like my own.

It brings people together in meaningful ways. Kunle and his team are building a Wi-Fi experience that connects one billion devices every year. Learn more about how Comcast is redefining the future of connectivity at comcastcorporation.com slash Wi-Fi.

So when the two social posts come up on rapid fire, I was once sitting next to Wright's previous when he was chief of staff and he was in the cloakroom there at the House of Representatives. I happen to be in Congress back then. And he's sitting there talking to me. And all of a sudden some tweet came out. He reads it, jumps up. He had to go like, I didn't know this was coming. I got to deal with it. And I just thought, wow, OK, this is this is different than presidents of the past who

But he seems to use social media as also kind of his official statement as opposed to some White House press release, right? Yes. And I think and it's interesting because now official White House press releases come out from the White House dot gov email server. And it's just a copy paste of his truth. Right, right, right.

Right. That is definitely different, but it is also reflective of the world we live in. And it's fascinating that way. What's it like going back to the Biden years? I think it was one of the fancy black tie dinners. I happen to be sitting at a table with you. And then the president calls you out, you know, usually one of the jokes or one of the things, certainly with Biden. What's that like when you get called out by the president? You kind of go into that expecting it a little bit, right? Yeah.

Yeah, a little bit. It's, you know, it's as long as he's not going to like order a drone strike on my house. I think I think a joke is OK. Yeah, I think that I mean, it's OK.

Comes with the territory. I think you've got a good, good, fun nature to it. I mean, look, I'm and especially with Biden. I know that I gave him a hard time about a lot of subjects because he's the president and that's my job. So if he wants to give me a hard time right back, that's that's OK. Yeah. I mean, doing it in jest with the president to have that sort of interaction is pretty surreal. Let's go back in the way back machine. Little Peter Doocy.

Growing up, I mean, your dad's been at Fox News for, I don't know, 80 years or something like that, whenever they started this network? The whole time. The whole time? About 30 years. Yeah, almost 30 years. So when, like those early memories, you just kind of grew up with it, but what are some of those early memories that you kind of realized, oh, dad's on TV now?

You know, he was just always on from the time, as long as I can remember, first on NBC and then on the Fox affiliate here in Washington and then this network called America's Talking and then on Fox. And it's just kind of always been something, you know, he never...

Was home not once for breakfast before school, but he was there. Right. No, I mean, look, he's used to doing the mornings and going to bed awfully early so he can get up really early. And so much of America wakes up to him commenting and talking about things. It just seems like one of the happiest warriors out there because he's always got a smile on his face.

Absolutely. Yeah. And he is as good as it gets at doing a morning show and telling people what they need to know in a way that they want to hear it first thing in the morning. Because sometimes, you know, it's a delicate balance. The news is not always good. Yeah. But people first thing when they wake up want to hear it a certain way. Can you keep up with him on Pickleball?

No, no. I'm terrible at pickleball. Why? I am not good. I don't know. He's down there. He's got regular games. He's got a game. I think it's every Friday at 3 o'clock. He's playing.

No matter the weather. He sent me he sent us a picture the other day of him all bundled up playing pickleball on the on the Doocy family thread. And I think I've only played like three times, four times ever. But that is something it is harder to do with a two year old at home because. How is it being a dad?

What's different than what you thought it was going to be like? What is different? That's a great question. You know, I would say the biggest thing, everybody tells you beforehand that like, oh, you're going to be on diaper duty. The diaper is like nothing. It's everything else that is very hard. But it's great. It's very rewarding. And we have another one coming in April.

Oh, I did not know that. That may have been out there, but you know, I was gonna, I was about to give you some unsolicited advice that two are easier than one, but you got another one coming. Congratulations. We do. As we speak, his room is being painted. Uh, and so, so you got a gender reveal as well. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it'll be a baby boy. Um,

come in end of April. Wow. Just the all-American family there. That's, that's congratulations to you. That that's, that's great. Now, when you were, go back to being young and growing up with your dad on television, when did you think, yeah, you know, I kind of want to do that? You know, maybe it's just me defying my parents. My rebellious streak continues because the one job that they said I could not do was anything in TV. Really? Why was that?

You know, it's a tough business. And I think they just were worried that it would be... That it's just a tough life that my mom and dad both...

worked a lot and they saw a lot. They would have preferred me go work on Wall Street, I think, in the beginning. Well, a lot of young people who want to get involved in TV or radio or whatever it might be, they got to bounce around from market to market. And it's tough because you don't make much money if all of a sudden you're going to work in

in Duluth or you're going to go work in Yuma, Arizona. I mean, it's just, it's hard that way. Right. And I was, I was on the track to go to law school. I had some LSAT books that I had purchased at the Barnes and Noble in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, sitting on my desk when, uh, during my junior year in college, John McCain came to Villanova's campus when I was, uh, where I was studying and,

And they were taping an MSNBC show with Chris Matthews, who I have talked to about this, and he has no memory of it, which is kind of funny because it basically changed the whole trajectory of my life. But I asked John McCain a question about like basically whether or not he wanted to go out for shots with me, something silly. And the Fox bosses saw it and they were like, they call my dad. They were like, Steve, that's your son. Does he want to do some campaign kind of stuff for us?

And I went to both conventions that summer, which were in St. Paul and Denver, just doing like man on the street stuff. Go talk to protesters with their faces covered about Dick Cheney, something like that. And then I went to Obama's first inauguration. And then they asked if I wanted to work there after college. And so I basically owe my whole entire career to John McCain laughing at my question about

It was kind of a stupid question. Well, it probably would have got me in big trouble because I wasn't 21. So if he said, yeah, let's go for the shot, I probably would have been excited. Yeah. And mom and dad would always say, what are you doing asking to have shots with a senator? Give me a break. Yeah, that was quite interesting that you would do that. So you broke into it. What do you like about it? What are you frustrated about when you –

doing what you do? I don't have anything to be frustrated about, really. It's something different every day. And, you know, it's all stuff that I would be interested in talking about with people that I know or my family if I wasn't here having a chance to talk to the president about it or his top staff. And so I think if you are interested in

or like stuff going on in the news. It's just the ultimate thrill every day. How do you work on formulating the questions? Because, you know, the world's your canvas. With somebody like a Donald Trump, boy, you could ask, you know, there's so much going on. How do you prioritize, formulate those questions? And you've got a lot of people around you that help support you and make suggestions as well, right? Yeah, I think the main thing is just

Figuring out what has already been asked and that's all out. Right. And what might be helpful to a story tomorrow that we're covering or the next day. And especially with Trump, like you can pretty much ask him about anything like the first day.

I'd already asked him probably 10 different subjects. And I was thinking, well, I could get him on anything. And I just asked him because I was curious about it, about these drones in New Jersey. Like, hey, what can you do now to tell us about these drones in New Jersey? A couple of weeks ago, he ordered the chief of staff. Then it's the only thing that he turned to her for and said, let's get a report out about that. And then at the first briefing, Caroline Levitt read off the top that

These drones were FAA authorized. They were not the enemy, which definitely does not answer all of the questions about them. But it answers a big question. It rules a lot of stuff out. And, you know, so I think with this president and his team, it's going to be a lot about just what what is not being talked about, what is not being covered, what haven't they answered yet and just kind of go fishing.

Yeah, no, that's what's amazing about this president. And I,

Um, sometimes I share this story. Um, but the first time I got to sit with president Donald Trump, it was his first term. He'd been there like two months. I mean, not very long at all. I asked for a meeting with the president. I'm the chairman of the oversight committee. And I said, look, there are seven things I'd like to talk to the president, which I'm sure nobody's ever talked to him about. And I went down my list of seven different topics, seven different things. He knew something about all of them.

And he wasn't just like faking his way through it. Like one of them was about the postal service and the postmaster. And he's like, yeah, remind me her name. And I'm like, just the fact that he knew that much was like amazing to me. And then we got into this discussion about the postal service. It's like, there's no way anybody ever asked him about the postal service on his campaign page.

stops everywhere around the country. He's amazing in how he receives and digests information. Well, those Chairman Chaffetz era oversight investigations were like the golden age of the genre. Those hearings were all must-see TV. So, of course, Trump would know about that. Yeah, I know. I had a lot of fun, but that's a whole other topic.

All right, Peter, we got it. We asked some rapid questions here to better get to know you. And we see a lot. You do an amazing job. You do it with a smile on a face on your face, which I think is it's just infectious. It's just like it just everybody likes it. You're obviously doing great at what you do. But we want to know a little bit more about, you know, you and your background. OK, let's do it. All right. First concert you ever went to.

Christina Aguilera. Really? That's right. And her opening act was Destiny's Child. Wow. That's quite the honor. The lead singer of that group is now the top country artist, apparently, according to the Grammys. Yeah, the number one country artist, according to the Grammys. Yes. Going out on a tour with their cowboy hat. Yeah. That's interesting. What was your high school mascot? The Raider. Raider.

No, that's legit. That's better than most. Yeah. And for some reason, the Raider was like a big cat and I was the class president. So if the normal mascot who could do backflips was sick, I would have to put on the cat suit. Oh, you did? How tall are you?

I'm like 6'5". Too big. Too intimidating to be wearing a 55-foot suit. Did it have a Shakira belly? It didn't quite fit showing your belly button when you put that thing on? It was big, but I'm too big to be a mascot. Way too big. That's awesome. That's awesome. So, Bigfoot. If you had a chance to interview Bigfoot, what would you ask him? That's a great question. Where have you been?

See, I think I'd show him some video and say, is that you? Is this one you or is that one? Is this a real one or a fake one? I think I'd go down the video reel and show it to him. I didn't know I had multimedia capabilities. Oh, of course. This is, come on, this is 2025, Peter. I wonder how he's adapted to the whole social media thing because we haven't seen much of him lately.

I bet that he's on Truth Social just trying to keep track of where various people are. I like that people call him Daryl. I just think that's like the funniest thing in the world. Like, I just think that's like really makes me smile. Anything Bigfoot, it gets my attention. I really dig it. So I have to ask questions about that. Pineapple on pizza? Yes or no?

No. No. You know, I like the judges like your definitive answer on that. No hesitating. No, no questions. I'm from New Jersey. You can't you get run out of town if you ask for a pineapple on your pizza. What is your favorite food?

Chicken parm. Oh, that sounds good. If someplace has chicken parm on the menu, like anywhere in the world, I will get it. Well, it's lunchtime when we're recording this. You're making me hungry. All right, Peter, last question. Best advice you ever got?

Best advice I ever got, my first day of work at 12-11, which is the headquarters for Fox. My dad was showing me the whole layout of everything. And the newsroom used to be in the basement. And we were just standing there. This would have been in 2009. So 16 years ago, if you believe that. And he said, I should roll up my sleeves. And I said, why? Why?

And he said, if you just walk around with your sleeves rolled up, people will just assume that you're busy. And that's like half of any job, right? Just making people think that you're busy. So that's the best advice that I ever got. And I live it now every day. That is great advice. That is so totally true. You roll up your sleeves, you're obviously doing something. It's like if you want to sneak in somewhere or do something, just carry some cones.

Nobody's stopping you. Nobody's stopping you. Put on, I had a guy who snuck into NFL games. He wore one of those X's on the, you know, the sideline, you know, the chain gang X's. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the other one to do is throw a bag of ice over your shoulder because you obviously got to get somewhere and nobody's going to slow you down. You're dripping water. So there's plenty of things to do, but at work, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Peter Doocy, one of the best in the business. Honored to call you a friend and to have you join us on the Jason House podcast. I appreciate you spending a few minutes giving us a little insight. Thanks, Jason. I'll talk to you soon. Very good. And congratulations, Papa. You're going to be a great dad times two. Unbelievable. Thank you. Thanks again for joining us. Of course. Talk to you soon.

Well, I want to thank Peter for joining us. He gives and illuminates some things. I just absolutely love it. I love the way he does it, how he does it. It's just, I love it. If you could rate this podcast, I'd appreciate it. Subscribe to it so you don't miss one. We've got another one coming out next week.

I want to remind people that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Thanks again for listening. And again, rate it, review it, subscribe to it and join us again. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

I'm Dana Perino. This week on Perino on Politics, I'm joined by former GOP strategist and host of The Rich Zioli Show, Rich Zioli. Available now on FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Must listen to podcasts from Fox News Audio.