Maria Bartiromo: Excellence Comes With Preparation
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Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. Thanks for your time. I do appreciate it. I think you're really, I think we're both all, we're all going to like this. This is Maria Bartiromo, for goodness sake. Never lacks for energy here. Expertise on financial matters just off the charts here.

She's been in the news business for a long time, but I just love her tenacity and the way she gets... I mean, she just gets after it. And I love that about her. I've known her for a few years now, more than a few years. And she's just a wonderful human being, away from the camera and the microphones and whatnot, too. But I'm really thrilled that Maria Bartiromo is going to join us. We're going to talk a little bit about...

The markets about President Trump and the effect there. And learn a little bit more about Maria and her background. And what makes her tick and what made Maria, Maria. So looking forward to that. Let's talk just briefly about the news. And then, of course, we're going to highlight the stupid because...

There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. So let's talk about the news again. You know, we're now about a month into the, the Trump presidency. It's moving at a rapid rate. Keep a, keep your eye on the calendar here for the first, uh, that first part of March, because, um, you know, a couple of days away here, depending on when you listen to this podcast, uh, we've got, uh, we've got the state of the union. Now they call it a joint address to Congress, uh,

Sometimes they call it State of the Union. You just never know. But anyway, this will be quite a moment. Donald Trump, the president, he loves a big stage. It's a big moment. I guarantee he's going to continue to use the same formula that he had used in the past. I think I'll touch on most subjects. I think he will...

He will highlight some of the big accomplishments that he's been able to do in less than two months in office. He will talk about the fundamental change in the structure in right-sizing government. I think he'll make some major announcements in terms of money and saving on waste, fraud, and abuse, but also some major players who are stepping up to invest heavily in the United States of America today.

Hopefully, he can talk about the end of the Ukraine-Russia war. I think he's going to talk a lot about that. And it's going to be also a great moment to see as they file in there. Look, I was a member of Congress. I went to all these. They were great meetings.

They see the cabinet filing in and having a seat with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and then you've got the Supreme Court. It's just quite a moment. It's a great moment for the country. I'm guessing the president will take over an hour to make these comments. I think it'll be widely viewed, and it'll be fascinating to see how the Democrats react. Now, having been on the floor...

during the Obama years and some of the Trump years, I can tell you, I think it's highly predictable what the Democrats are going to do. I don't think they're going to show much respect at all. There were moments when Donald Trump was president and he was recognizing ordinary Americans who had done extraordinary things, particularly our service members, first responders. Even then, even in that moment where you think, you know, you got to stand up as a nation and

Has nothing to do with politics or Donald Trump or anything else. Stand up and applaud these people. Now, I did that when I was a member of Congress and Barack Obama was highline. Of course, if I agreed with that, I stood up and applauded. And I was respectful. It's a time that is set up so that Congress can hear directly from the President of the United States.

He is the duly elected president. He was elected by an overwhelming majority. There is no doubt in my mind that...

though, that the Democrats are going to have some sort of show. I think there'll be a lot of no-shows. They'll wear some sort of button. You're not allowed to. You're not supposed to. They can enforce, if the Speaker so chose, to make sure that nobody has any sort of signs, banners, hats,

Some people have worn hats, but if they, you know, that's just part of their outfit, that's part of their outfit. But if they're wearing hats that have signage on them, that's not supposed to happen. It's happened on both sides of the aisle, quite frankly. People try to

take a little bit of spotlight away from the president and make some sort of issue of it. But I think you should watch for those moments because it's very telling how incredibly partisan they can be. And I'm proud of the fact that, look, at least when the Democrats were in charge and they were the ones highlighting, I would still stand and applaud, particularly those first responders, men and women serving overseas.

We should be able to do that. But it will be quite a moment. You have Senator John Thune, you know, who's leading the charge there with the Republicans. J.D. Vance will be sitting behind the president joining Mike Johnson. It really is a sea change in a different cast of characters and a different group of people. And that's a good segue to my second comment. I think now that the cabinet is fully in place,

We have the confirmation of Kash Patel. You have Dan Bongino coming in as the deputy FBI director.

Most of the major, I can't think of the other. Now, there's still, we're going to be going on and on for like a year doing Senate confirmations with ambassadors. You have George Glass, for instance, the ambassador designate to Japan. You have other ones that are really, really important. But now that the president has got, you got to tip the hat and give some,

credit to John Thune for leading the charge there because there were some defections. There were some people who voted against some of the nominees, but in the end, it all turned out all right from the president's perspective. And I think the president has the people that he's chosen in place and

And you got to give credit to a Senate majority leader in ushering those people through. And so tip of the hat to John Thune for doing that. That will quickly be forgotten because the president, I think going back to the State of the Union, will make a good push. Do you do reconciliation with one bill or two bills? No, I guarantee you the overwhelming majority of you listening, if

If I had you write down a piece on a piece of paper, explain reconciliation to me. It's terribly confusing. Okay. You get but one opportunity per fiscal year to do a bill. Now, fiscal year runs till the end of September. And there's all these nuances. There's the bird rule. There's all these weird things about what you can and cannot do in a quote unquote reconciliation bill.

But if it's reconciling the budget and expenditures, revenues, then you can put it into this bill. If you're trying to legislate, just trying to say, oh, well, we want to do this that has no effect on the budget.

can't put it in there. And so the question is, do you bifurcate? Do you put part of it there with the border security, national security, those types of things? The Senate has thought, hey, let's do two different bills rather than trying to do reconciliation with the tax and all that. But the president, not too long ago, came out and said, no, we got to have one big, beautiful bill. Yeah.

It's the way he says it. And boy, this is going to be a heavy lift. I've joked along the way that, yeah, you know what? Here's what happens. House of Representatives, the majority, they get together in a room called HC5. It's down in the basement of the Capitol. That's where we all gather in this room with this blue carpet and a low ceiling. And they'd bring us in there. And the leaders would make all these presentations and

theoretically it was an opportunity where they could listen to what the members have to say.

Yeah, a little bit. But basically, they filled the time, so there wasn't a lot of time for member feedback and discussion. Although from their vantage point, they disagree with that. But from somebody who's in the rank and file then, and then chairman of a committee, I don't. That's not what would happen. But anyway, in the back of the room, there'd be snacks and foods. Usually there'd be some donuts. There'd be maybe some fruit.

But if it was a really important meeting, if it was something like, okay, we really need some help here, then there'd be Chick-fil-A. And if there is Chick-fil-A, it got to be a running joke that, uh-oh, leadership's really wanting us to do a hard thing.

Even in those meetings, they couldn't even get everybody in the room, let alone decide. And somebody would complain. Why isn't there Chick-fil-A? Then there'd be somebody complaining. How come the bananas are so green? It's just like, what would you do if you had 200 people at random come in? Somebody's going to complain about something, right? So for the president to try to get 218 people in the House...

And the 50 in the senators all agreeing on one thing on how this is going to work is really tough because you have people you could never cut enough money from the budget. You could just never cut enough. And you have others that are like, wait a sec, we have all these other programs that we do want to fund.

And it's exacerbated. One of the things that exacerbates this is all of the disaster relief, because those are big numbers. Those are a lot of numbers. And it's here, but here's I guarantee you, here's the direction that's going to go. We never have a discussion in this country about, well, we have a disaster in, say, North Carolina or Hawaii or California.

And instead of doing X, we need to allocate it towards Y because this is the greater need. That's the part that's missing. And that's part of what I want to talk about with Maria Bartiromo. So I don't want to ramble on. I want to get her perspective on those types of things. But first, I got to highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. Oh, well, we're going to go to...

China for this one. I've always kind of wondered how much they try to fake this. Do you remember when they faked the idea that these pandas, it was actually like somebody in a suit or something like that? Well, here's the headline in People Magazine because, you know, I'm a big People Magazine guy. Zoo accused of painting donkeys black and white to look like zebras. It's misleading and unethical.

The apparent animal dye job follows other instances of animals, including dogs and other donkeys, being passed off as other species at the zoo. And it goes on to say that... I can't pronounce it. It's like there's a version of TikTok on this Chinese website that...

Anyway, they have images and footage of animals that have surfed supposedly at the Zibo amusement park in the providence of Shandong. Sorry, can't tell you where that is. But they evidently have been taking horses and painting stripes on them and trying to pass them off as donkeys.

They also have been painting, evidently, painted dogs. Quote, we are called panda dogs, a pet dog that looks like a panda, dyed and dressed up by Chow Chow. We are gentle, smart, friendly, cute, and adorable. Anyway, somebody wrote a sign, and that was supposedly written up there. Kind of funny, but evidently continuing on.

But, yeah, that's a little stupid. Come on, folks. We can do better than that. So that's the stupid. There are plenty of other stupid. But I really want to get on to talking with Maria Bartiromo. Like I said, she's one of our favorites. So let's bring on Maria Bartiromo.

Well, Maria Bartiromo, thanks for joining us on the Jason and the House podcast. Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Jason. Great to talk with you. I'm a huge fan. I have been for a long time. I'm a huge fan of yours. Well, that's why I was hoping to hear you say that's why I threw out the compliment. I only wanted it to rebound back. That was the main goal. So thank you. I appreciate that. No, I was just saying on the podcast, I love your energy, your enthusiasm, your knowledge base.

I want to talk a little bit about what's going on in the world today with Donald Trump and all the upheaval and changes. But then I want to get into a little bit of how Maria became Maria. So if that's okay with you, we're going to talk about present day, what's happening here. Because, you know, we got the State of the Union coming up. The world's changing at lightning pace. Donald Trump, he never sleeps. He never rests. You know him. He's just amazing that way.

Set the table for us here a month after Donald Trump has been in office. Well, I think, you know, most people expected President Trump to do what he said he would do. But most people were not expecting this kind of lightning speed and the rapid pace with which he's doing it. And I think that's really the surprise here. President Trump is juggling, you know, trying to end two wars, shrink the size of government,

you know, put growth as a priority in terms of the economy and ensure that America is first across the world. It's an incredible endeavor. He's, I think, done incredibly well in the first month. Yeah, the trajectory and the velocity, I think it does put people back on the heels. They cannot respond. They just cannot keep it. First of all, I think the Democrats are

They're struggling for their identity. They don't know who they are. They don't have a leader. They don't have a policy message that resonates in mass. And so they have a hard time responding if you don't have those elements in place. Well, that's right. And I think, you know, for the first time in a long time, people have started to focus on politics.

on policy. And, you know, what they've realized was as much as there's been talk, talk, talk, talk about how bad the Republicans are or talk, talk, talk about how bad Donald Trump is from the Democrats, it's falling on deaf ears for voters now. It's no longer working because voters and citizens in general have been able to equate

their lives with the impact of policy. And what we've seen in the last four years and over a long period of time is bad policy coming out of the Democrat Party. And so for the first time in a long time, people are realizing, why am I voting this way and getting in line with this narrative when it's actually not benefiting me in any way?

Yeah, it's still I, you know, my my time in Congress was largely the Obama years. I was elected same time Barack Obama was elected.

And people kind of forget about that. This whole idea of America first and make America great again, that is so foreign and different and opposite of what Barack Obama and consequently Joe Biden, they were continuing to sort of appease people and apologize for the United States and almost were embarrassed of how prosperous and how strong the United States was. And so they kind of diminished that and

And it didn't work well. And Donald Trump has taken the exact opposite view. But I think it makes the world a safer, stronger, better, more secure place that helps the world economy as well.

Well, you're right. I mean, we all remember the apology tour that President Obama went on and bowing to our adversaries. And we all know at this point, you know, some of the bad behavior from our adversaries, Communist China sending a spy balloon to surveil American citizens and and investigate our military bases. I mean, you know, people are onto it at this point and they want to see toughness. They want to see leadership in the White House.

And so I think that after all that has been done in terms of, you know, globalization, people are recognizing that globalization actually did not help them very much. And in fact, it's about creating jobs in America and ensuring that American citizens are doing well before sending money and aid and resources to the rest of the world. Right.

What a radical idea, Maria. Exactly. We're going to have to live within our means? What do you mean we're going to do that? I did think it was pretty funny and entertaining, this idea that Elon Musk and Doge and the government, essentially Donald Trump, is taking credit for all this. He's leading the band here. Tell us what you did last week. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable ask, but oh my goodness, people went crazy saying, what do you mean you're going to ask us what we did?

Well, I think, look, I can understand some people being upset because of who's asking the questions. Right. I mean, Elon Musk wants to know he's an unelected official. But the fact is, is he's been, you know, named an advisor to President Trump and he's an advisor to the White House. So.

even though he's asking, these instructions come from President Trump. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to see accountability, you know, because we're seeing so much fraud, waste and abuse. It's just incredible. You know, the fact that you look at the Social Security rolls and there are millions of people who are apparently aged 100 to 150 or one person was 360 years old. I mean, this is just crazy.

And so the fact that those people are all on the Social Security rolls begs the question, are they actually getting checks in the mail every month? And how much are they getting? And who's using this money since we know the oldest person in America is 114 years old? So God bless her.

But there are not these millions of people, 150 and up in our country. But for some reason, they're still on the Social Security roll. So it's kind of it's things like that that that make people question the

Who's watching the store? And I don't really know. But now we know Donald Trump is watching the store and he's making serious corrections. So I'm not uncomfortable with it. But I think getting Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, to be able to look at the books and ensure that he's finding efficiencies is just a positive. Yeah, I think it's almost comical to say, well, nobody elected him.

Well, all you federal employees, nobody elected you. You know, you have all these Senate-confirmed people, and you have special government employees. Nobody elected John Kerry when he was the climate czar, right? But he was in there in that office. It's just ridiculous to note that. Look, the one person, the one person who's elected by everybody, actually two people,

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, they're the ones that are elected by everybody. They can designate who they want to do this kind of work for them. And it's it's absurd to suggest anything else, especially from coming somebody who's taking a government salary and was not elected either. Right. And I think the upset is coming from Democrats who are really seething still over a massive loss on November 5th. Yeah. I mean, you know, America voted for this.

They did. They did. But let's talk a little bit more about Elon Musk. Why, you know, to hear the greenies or the far left or the Democrats, whatever you want to call them, they were so ecstatic and so excited.

just demanding that we move away from gas-powered vehicles. Elon Musk goes out, not only creates Neuralink, not only does PayPal, not only can parallel park a spaceship, which we weren't able to do as NASA, but he has gone out there and he created the world's biggest automotive company that runs electric vehicles. I happen to have one. It's an amazing car.

Yeah, but unfortunately, he got no respect from the Democrats because he wasn't in line with their narrative on other things. So here you have all these subsidies being given out to companies like Ford and GM, but none to Tesla. Why not? Because Tesla and Elon Musk were never on the side of the Biden administration and the Democrats to push what they were trying to push, like, for example, censorship on Twitter.

Yeah, they, you know, the amazing thing to me is they had this meeting, evidently, at least what I read at the White House with EV makers, and they didn't even invite Elon Musk. How could they not even invite him to sit in on the meeting? That was so offensive. Yeah.

And it's the largest EV maker. It is offensive. But that's the that was the M.O. of the Biden administration. And many Democrats, they do things for politics, not necessarily for the people. But it's all about holding on to their grip on power.

And we've seen this over and over again. You know, why did Joe Biden bury $2 billion in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act to be sent to a climate group tied to Stacey Abrams, his good friend and the gubernatorial candidate in Georgia? I mean, why did American taxpayers have to pay the bill for this friendship between Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams? $2 billion to a climate agency that got $100 a year earlier.

OK, so that's how important it was that it got one hundred dollars a year earlier. But under Joe Biden in the Inflation Reduction Act, it got two billion dollars. Not one billion. One billion wouldn't be enough, Maria. That'd be two billion. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Maria Bartiromo right after this.

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All right, let's talk a little bit more about you. Okay, I want to put you in the uncomfortable zone here a little bit. Let's go back for a second. Like, I want to know, like, let's go start at the beginning. Take it slow here. We got a few minutes. I was born in not what year, but like where? And tell me about growing up, life growing up and how you got in this crazy news business.

Well, thank you for that. I was I was born in Brooklyn and to a middle class family. My father had a business. He had a restaurant. And I will take you even farther back than that. My grandfather, Carmine Bartiromo, came to this country in 1906.

And like many of our stories, we have similar stories of our ancestors. Mine is very similar. My grandfather had $13 in his pocket or $12 in his pocket when he arrived into America. And the first thing he did was go and serve in World War I. Then he came back and in the 30s,

He built a restaurant and literally he did it with his cousin, with his bare hands, because in Italy he was a bricklayer or a construction worker. So he built a restaurant. He named it the Rex Manor after the Rex, which was a ship, an ocean liner, which was a ship which was transporting Italians to America at the time. It was one of the leading ships transporting Italians from Italy to America in the 1930s.

He named the restaurant first Rex Tavern and then changed it to the Rex Manor. And it was a restaurant, a bar, a brick oven pizza and a catering hall. We had two catering halls where we would have weddings and bar mitzvah and things like that. And I was the co-check girl at the Rex Manor. And that was my first job. And so I was born in Brooklyn to a very hardworking family. My parents always stressed that we needed to work, that nothing came easy, that there were no shortcuts.

Kept us on the straight and narrow. Myself, my sister and my brother, we had a beautiful family in Brooklyn and my dad had a great restaurant. I'm now in my office looking at my sign, my original sign that says, coat check, 50 cents a coat, please pay in advance. And that was what I did.

And so from there, I had lots of jobs and eventually got to NYU, studied business and economics at NYU, not for any reason other than I was watching my father run a business. And I thought, well, maybe I can run a business, too, and I'll and I'll do that. And I would go to the recs with my dad on Mondays when he would do the books and I would watch him do the books as a little girl.

And eventually my mother said to me, you know, Marie, I think you should take journalism. I think you would be good at it. And I was at NYU in my junior year in college. Let's go back. Wait, wait, wait. I want to. What made her think that? Like, I don't know. Well, I was always a ham. I love to be on.

What did you, I mean, and look, I've had other people on Fox on this as well. It's one thing to have a curiosity. It's another thing to have an expertise. It's another thing to have a skill set in writing, but then to be able to articulate it and speak. I mean, were you doing things where you were speaking in public or in front of a camera early on in those years? Like,

Oh, my goodness, Maria. She's seven years old. And look at her. She's like born for this. Were you doing things like that? Yes. I was always impersonating Cher. I would always want to impersonate Cher. And I would like to be I always like to be on stage and I would sing and dance and for everyone. So, yes. And have you ever met her? Have you ever met Cher? No, but my you know, we used to watch Sonny and Cher.

And then, you know, as I got older, then I watched Mary Tyler Moore. I mean, I have my own, you know, icons that I grew up with and Carol Burnett. And so I would watch the Carol Burnett show with my mom. I would watch Mary Tyler Moore with my sister and brother. And I would watch the Sonny and Cher show with my mom. And so I just liked Cher's outfits and how she had long hair and she would flip her hair. And so I was always impersonating Cher. Yeah.

And then when I got to school, I was a good writer. I ended up having a knack for writing. And so I don't know what it was out of all of those things that caused my mom to say that to me. But when she said that to me in my junior year, I thought, well, let me try that. And so I took journalism. I absolutely loved it. I had a great professor there.

It was a class called, it was called the written article. And so I would, you know, we would come up with things to write and I would just sit there and write. And eventually I loved it so much that I switched my major and I had so much business background. I was already a junior when I switched it. So I had a lot of business classes already under my belt. And then I was switching to journalism as my major and I made business my minor. And at this moment in time, when I was graduating NYU,

The idea of a business television network or business TV industry was in its infancy. I mean, there was one channel that was CNN. There was CNN Business News and then there was FNN. And these were the channels. And it wasn't like a big industry, you know, business television. But when I when I was graduating, I got an internship before graduation. I got an internship at CNN.

And I it was for four points. So I needed to take the four point, get the four points to graduate. And I became an intern there and they hired me as an intern in the entertainment division. And so my job as a production assistant and a P.A. in entertainment was I would find videos of people singing and we would bump in and out of blocks with them. So I would find the bump music. And so that's what I did as an intern.

And then I decided to go all over the company and introduce myself to all the bosses and say, look, I'd love to have a job here when I graduate. And because of my business background, they said, well, we may be hiring in business news. And again, business news really was in its infancy. There wasn't any specific industry called business news. It just we just did business stories.

And so then I got a job in business news at CNN. They hired me as a PA, production assistant. This was in Atlanta. No, no, this was in New York because business was based in New York. Okay. So I stayed there five years. I got promoted. And by the time I left CNN...

I was what's called, I was a field producer. And so I would go out in the field and I would interview people and then come back, write a script, and somebody else would go on camera with it. So I was behind the scenes. I was the producer. And so then at the end of my time at CNN, the reason that I left CNN was because

My boss promoted me. It was actually Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs was my boss. Really? He was running the department and I was a PA. Stuart Varney was on the air. I was Stuart's PA as well. Stuart Varney and Lou Dobbs both were at CNN Business News. And so Lou decided that he wanted to shake up the department. And that shakeup included me. He was taking me out of the field.

and giving me a promotion to become the senior producer on the morning show. So at this point I had done the morning show several times and that would mean that at one point I got up at midnight, I was in at midnight, I finished at 7:00, another time I was in at 2:00 a.m., I finished at 9:00 a.m. I was working on the morning shows, there were two morning shows, one aired at 6:30, one aired at 7:30, so you had to be in real early to plan for those shows.

And so I was a field producer at CNN when Lou promoted me to senior producer on the morning show. So I was going back to the overnights. But even more important to me was that I was being taken out of the field. At that point, I realized what I was good at. I was good at interacting with people, gaining sources, knowing who to call for what information, writing a script, and then –

handing it off to someone who would take it on air. And I loved my job. I did not have any aspiration to go on air. I loved what I was doing. But when Lou took me out of that role, and then I would be in the control room, I would be only in the studio. I wouldn't be able to go out in the field with the camera crew. Then I realized my life was about to change. So I was in the ladies room crying. I felt that, you know, my, this promotion was not a good move for me. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to be in the field.

And Kitty Pilgrim, who was one of the on-air reporters, came into the ladies' room. She saw me crying. I said, "Oh, you're kidding. I'm so upset. Lou promoted me, but it's not what I wanted. I don't want to go back to the overnights, and I don't want to be in this studio. I want to be in the field where I'm coming up with story ideas and meeting sources." And she said to me, "Maria, you have to think about where you see yourself in five years, and you need to go get that job today.

You need to go pursue the job that you see yourself in five years. And that forced me to start thinking, well, what is my next move? Have I hit ceilings here at CNN Business News after five years? Because, you know, I was a PA and then a producer and then associate producer and then field producer for five years. So that's when I said to myself, OK, well, I'm going to put my own tape together. So I went back to Lou and I said, Lou, is it possible that

Even though you're promoting me to senior producer on the morning shows, can I at 830 when my shift is over, go out and interview people for the economic day of economic data of the day? Because at this time, it wasn't like every trading desk had a camera in it. We actually would physically get in the car with a camera crew, go to Goldman Sachs, interview the chief economist. What did you think about the jobs numbers? What did you think about the inflation numbers? Blah, blah, blah. Put them on camera. Get back in the car. Take the tape back.

and cut sound bites and put it into a reporter package. So Lou said to me, Maria, why are you making your day longer? He said, you're done at 8.30 in the morning. Go home and go sleep and then come back the next night. I said, no, no, no. I want to be in the field. I love being in the field. And I would appreciate it if I could just make my day a little longer and I'll go get the economic data from the economists with the camera crew and come back. He said, okay, you want to make your life harder? Fine, do it. I said, okay, thank you. So then...

I set out to put my tape together. And so every time I would go out with the crew to interview an economist for something else, I would have a little script for myself. And then after I was done, I would ask the camera crew, can you please just shoot me standing in front of this building? I have a script. Okay. So then I started collecting tapes. I was horrible initially. And I said, okay, I gotta fix that. I've got to be better here. I've got to do this differently. Finally, I set up a tape of me doing the pieces that I had written for others.

And I put myself on camera and CNBC called me. I sent it to CNBC. CNBC was the only place I wanted to work because they were the only other network that really respected business news. And I really liked business news. Right. I had studied business at NYU and I and I knew it. I was comfortable with it. So sure enough.

So the NBC calls me and the president, a guy named Peter Sturtevant, said to me, "Maria, we got your tape, we liked your tape, but I have to wait because we're getting a new president and I need to have you meet the new president. I can't hire anyone new until you meet the new president." And his name is Roger Ailes. And I said, "Oh, okay. Well, you call me back whenever the president starts and I'll meet him."

Sure enough, I was sleeping one afternoon, getting ready for my midnight shift to go back to CNN at midnight. And I get the call from CNBC and they say, we want you to come and meet Roger. Come tomorrow. OK, I got in my car. I went to New Jersey where they were headquartered to meet Roger Ailes. And I knew that we we we hit it off immediately.

In fact, so much so that I left the interview. I went to New York City and I bought three new dresses. And I said, I need new dresses because they're going to put me on TV. Wow.

You were confident later that day. I got the call that I was hired as a reporter. And then I stayed at CNBC for 20 years. I became the first person to broadcast live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange every day. And I learned lots about business and markets and the trading desk being on the floor of the exchange, interviewed so many people.

And I had a great career at CNBC for 20 years. And then finally, after 20 years, my boss wanted me to sign another five-year contract. And at that point, I was watching the winds shift. And I realized that a lot of the CEOs that I was interviewing and that I was talking with felt that everything was too much of a sport, quote unquote. They felt that it was too much near-term knee-jerk reactions.

And rather than saying, oh, Maria, you know, what are you going to earn in three months? And what's the stock going to do? And what's the trade? What's the trade? What's the trade? It was everything. What's the trade? It was always that. I realized that I didn't know a lot of stuff. I knew a lot about business. I knew a lot about the trading desk and I knew a lot about the New York Stock Exchange. But I didn't know other things like national security issues and policy and politics.

And I was interested in that. So I decided to at this point, Roger Ailes was no longer at CNBC and he went to Fox. He started Fox News Channel. And so I used to see Roger a lot at dinners. I saw him at the Al Smith dinner. We sat next to each other on the dais. And he would always ask me, when are you coming to Fox?

And I would say, oh, I don't know, Roger. I really love CNBC. You know, you hired me there. I'm still having fun there. Finally, after my 20th year anniversary at CNBC, I said, you know, I should actually see what else is out there just to check because I don't think I want to be. I thought about my next five years. I thought I said, I don't think I want to be that person on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in five years. So I went to Fox and Roger wanted to hire me again.

And so I moved to Fox and I've been at Fox for 11 years. That's awesome. That is absolutely awesome. Thank you. You're listening to Jason in the House. Stay with us. We're going to 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. No, I remember seeing you on the floor, you know, on the trading floor, just thinking, hey, she's right in the thick of the action there. And I've just been, like I said, a huge fan ever since. And you've done an amazing job. Yeah.

I could talk to you for hours, but I've got to ask you a couple rapid questions before we wrap up, okay? Okay. All right. This is just more about Maria. You're going to do all right. I promise. First concert you ever attended? Madonna. Oh, that's good. All right. That's good. What was your high school mascot? Ooh. The Bonnie. Yeah.

Fun Fun Hall Academy. I don't know. I'm not sure. That's right. Pineapple on pizza. Yes or no? No. Good. Well, see, yeah, I can hear legit. Is this restaurant still going, by the way, or did it? My dad sold it. We had such a fantastic brick oven for pizza and they knocked first thing they did is knock down the coal oven, which was so dumb because the pizza we had the best pizza in Brooklyn, really.

It really, I mean, it sounds delicious. You make me hungry when you were talking about it. So I keep going back to it. So, all right. Best advice you ever got? Best advice I ever got was from my mother. And that is excellence comes through preparation. It's good because, you know, it's so true. And, you know, you're kind of walking through your story here. And I'm thinking nobody has any idea. I mean, you make it look

So easy and so exciting. And so, but boy, the years of preparation and, and, and getting ready for it and having the experience and waking up at waking up at midnight to get things done. I mean, that's, that's what it takes. And not every mate buddy makes it to that finish line. And yet you were tenacious and made all the right moves at the right time. So,

Hats off to you. Thank you. I'm very grateful. I'm grateful to live in America, to have the opportunities that I've had. And I always want to be humble and grateful about it and give back.

Well, you've been wonderful. And we'll look for you on Fox Business. And then, of course, you're on like every single day. You can watch. And so it's Sunday Morning Futures. You've been kind enough to let me fill in for you every once in a while there.

a great show on, on Fox as well. And, uh, 10 AM on Sunday mornings, but six to 9 AM on Fox business every single day. Well, Monday through Friday and, uh, anything else I'm missing? I should talk about. No, I really appreciate you having me, Jason. And I love being able to have you do the show when I'm unable. And I want to thank you so much for doing that. Oh, it's, are you kidding? What an opportunity and, and, uh, honor. And I love doing it. So, uh,

But thank you. And thanks for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. Thank you so much. See, I told you Maria is just awesome. Love her time. Love her energy. She's got a great grasp on what's going on in this country and a great story. I mean, just a great story. So.

Please rate the podcast if you can. That would be really helpful, and I would appreciate it if you could do that. I also want to remind people 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.

But thanks for listening to the Jason in the House podcast. Hope you join us back next week. Things are moving at lightning speed. We want you to come join us to be part of the conversation about what's going on in our world. And again, thank you for joining us. And we'll be back again with another good episode of Jason in the House. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

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