The Path To Save America
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Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. Thrilled that you would spend some time with us. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for coming back. We've got a lot of loyal people. And if it's your first time, I hope you enjoy it. Because we have Will Cain who's going to join us. You know Will. He's got a show now on Fox, 4 p.m. Eastern on Fox News that's very worthy. It's a great time of day to have a show, right? Because there's always...

I mean, the news of the day at 4 p.m., it's just so volatile. There's always something happening there. But he's also got his Will Kane podcast. He's just a super smart, thoughtful guy. I love his take on sports. That's kind of his forte. But, you know, he's also an attorney. And he's got something not just to say, but something meaningful to say. And he's just amazing.

great thinker that way he i i like when he's on because i i stop and think about his perspective and we're gonna have some fun with him today now i did a previous podcast with will cain that you can check out um that's more about his history and growing up and going to school and what was life like as a kid this one's going to be a little different don't know exactly how it's going to turn out but we're going to have some fun and then we're going to talk about the world and politics and what's going on with the world because

you know, it's just never ending and there's so much interesting stuff out there and I just want to kind of pick his brain and

What I like about interacting with Will is he's not one of those people who says, hey, can you give me an outline ahead of time of what we need to talk about? I'm like, he's just like, hey, let it rip. Let's just have a discussion and do it in a raw format so that you get this, you know, this authenticity, which I think just exudes out of Will Cain. So I'm excited to have that. I think you're going to.

want to be part of that conversation. So I think this is just so good. Anyway, we're going to have Will Kane in a minute. I want to talk about a little bit more about what's going on in the news.

Highlight the stupid because as you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. But then, you know, let's get on and we'll have the conversation with Will. So right now, the big two stories, the biggest ones out there, and look, it could change at any moment, right? A lot of discussion about tariffs. Now, some of you can't get enough information about tariffs. Others of you are like your eyes are glazing over like, why are we still talking about tariffs?

No doubt it's a big, big story. Good news for those of you that are a little tired of it. We're not talking about that today. It is a big thing. And if you own a business, if you import business, you know, import things or components for your business, it affects you not to diminish it in any way, shape or form.

I'm just telling you the president feels strongly about this. He is made waves and I think at the end of the day, by the time we turn the corner and look at what's going on at the end of the year, I think we're going to say, boy, the United States is actually better than it was beforehand. That's my take on it in general. I think country by country will start to go down that list and things will get better. Another thing that's out there again, I'm not saying this is the biggest story,

But he is president. And I find this to be true with, I think, all the presidents get frustrated with the Federal Reserve.

They want the Federal Reserve to make the economy zoom even faster. The Federal Reserve is looking at things, monetary policy that's a little bit different. Now, earlier last week, Donald Trump was very critical of Jerome Powell as the Fed Chairman. Then he morphed over and said, and the headline in Fox is, "Trump takes Powell off the chopping block. Why it matters to markets."

Markets like stability, they like predictability, they don't like being surprised. That's where volatility in the markets happens. Now, I don't think you gauge an overall economy just based on the markets. That to me, I think is a misnomer. I don't think that's exactly where it should be going.

But I think the markets did react favorably when they thought the feud between a Donald Trump and a Jerome Powell was being diminished and that the president was not going to be as vocal, which was a change from where the president was even just days ago.

But I think that has a positive effect on the markets, whether or not you follow the markets. I'm just saying the markets are reacting to that very favorably, at least for the moment. Things can change at any moment, but that can change. The biggest story of our financial future, the future of the Republican Party, the future of our economy,

what's the number one thing that I think it should be on your list? It's reconciliation. Reconciliation, big word. Not a lot of people could sit down and write it out on a piece of paper to explain what it is. But basically when you have the house and you have the Senate and they have different plans at different budgets, then they have to reconcile those. And reconciliation is taking those two numbers and coming up with,

with a different or a bipartisan, I shouldn't say bipartisan, bicameral solution so that both the House and the Senate ultimately pass the same thing at the same bill. That is reconciliation. It comes with all these weird rules. In previous podcasts, I've gone through those different rules.

Nevertheless, what's most important is can we extend the so-called Trump tax cuts from the last time the president was in place? When the debt, when the so-called Trump tax cuts happened back in, I think it was 2017, 2018, right in there, the Democrats were yelling and screaming, oh, it's all these tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. They use those same old tropes, those same old bumper sticker politics today.

You hear that from them all the time, just for millionaires and billionaires. That's not true. Those tax cuts affected every single American in what you pay in your federal taxes.

It affected everybody. And if you average it out and you look at the average person, nobody's average, right? Everybody's just not average. But when you average it out, it ends up being a very significant number. And there were all sorts of cries from Democrats that what was going to happen is

The rich were just going to get richer, the poor were going to have to pay all these taxes on the backs. It just didn't turn out that way. They also predicted through what's called the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, that because of these tax cuts, that revenue to the Treasury would go down. And this is where the CBO is wrong. They are wrong in their structure and their analysis because they do not do what is called dynamic scoring.

What happened with the Trump tax cuts is people felt better and the economy was better and the rising ship, you know, rising tides raise all ships. Guess what? Revenue to the treasury went up. So they put tax cuts in place.

Revenue to the treasury went up. Why? Because the economy got better. More people were participating. More people were making more money. Your life was getting better. And when you have more, your life is getting better. You have more discretionary income. You spend more. You do more. You go out and do things. And guess what? That helps the United States treasury. That is incredible.

in essence, where a lot of supply-siders have been and Republicans have been in saying, no, tax cuts help. They don't hurt. Now, with the reconciliation, why it's the biggest story, not only do they have to extend the tax cuts, but I think there have to be more tax cuts. And then the number one thing where most administrations, most Congresses fail is

is that you have to have tax cuts, but you also have to cut spending. If you don't cut spending, guess what? You make the problem worse, not better. So there's two things that are floating out there that concern me. Number one, there's talk of a tax increase

Now, supposedly it's been put to bed, but until it's actually, reconciliation's passed, I don't know, I worry about it, that there would be a new tax bracket at 40% for people making more than a million dollars per year. Now, supposedly, at least on paper, the CBO thinks that that's going to raise $400 billion. By the way, they look at this over 10 years.

that when they CBO, the Congressional Budget Office scores things, that's what they call it, it's over 10 years. It's not just one year, it's over 10 years. Not 11 years, not nine years, it's 10 years. That's what they predict. That nothing will change, nothing dynamic will happen. That's how they come up with the quote unquote score. That's what always creates fear is because people know that if you cut taxes, revenue goes up. But if you raise taxes, what do you think happens to the revenue to the treasury?

It goes down because people have less money. They aren't able to spend more. They feel less optimistic. They don't make the investments in their businesses or their families. Maybe they maybe don't buy that lawnmower that they were going to get. They decide, oh, we're going to put that off for a year. That's the problem by not having dynamic scoring.

It is the biggest economic story of the year. It will affect you and your family more than anything else that happens. Now, there are certainly gyrations. There are certainly individuals that are dealing with, oh my gosh, I own a business and 100% of my product comes in from China. That's a problem, right? Your situation is going to be a little bit different. But those are the types of things that I'm worried about, that I'm optimistic about.

But I also know that Donald Trump, President Trump understands this. Next thing I want to mention is I really want to keep my eye on what Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services Secretary, is doing.

Because at least so far, I've been highly impressed, right? He has to deal with some big things like Texas. I'm reading this thing from the Houston Chronicle. Texas measles outbreak surpasses 600 cases and spreads to another county. That's a big deal.

Um, measles are tough and, um, the secretary has got to be on top of that. He is, he has been monitoring. I've heard him speak on it, but it is a big deal. Getting rid of food dyes, another big deal. I mean, it's just like, I'm impressed that he is really serious and trying to do this systematically in a way that is responsible, uh,

but really will make a change because as they've heard me talk about it before, I feel like the federal government over the course of time, it's just lied to us. You know, all these things that I thought, oh, I'm having a sandwich. You know, it's got protein on it. It's got lettuce on it. It's got tomatoes on it.

This is all good for me. Yeah, well, when you slap it between two big pieces of bread, evidently not. And I feel lied to. Now, especially now that I'm getting older and I got to get my like A1C score back and I'm like, dang it.

I don't want to get rid of carbs. I mean, they even joke about carb loading, you know, before exercise. Load up your carbs. Like, you know, that's kind of how I live my life. But now that I'm, you know, in my mid to late 50s, I got to deal with it differently. So I feel lied to. But I think that Health and Human Services Secretary is doing things differently. And I think that's a healthy, healthy thing. All right. Time to move on this stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.

These headlines, sometimes they come at us and I just have to read them like two or three times and say, did that really happen? That sounds incredibly stupid, but they come from credible sources. This one from the New York Post. Here's the headline. David Proper wrote it. Ex-girlfriend.

posed as ICE agent to kidnap former Bo's wife at job, according to Florida authorities. An unhinged ex-girlfriend allegedly posed as an immigration officer to kidnap her former Bo's wife at work. Even wearing a shirt with the words ICE across it, carrying a handheld radio is part of the ruse.

Oh my goodness. They figured it out. It's a crazy story, but those are the allegations. I'm just reading the allegations. Don't know if it's true, but that's the allegation. We'll see what happens. All right. This one comes from WTRF.com. Ghost hunter ends up in a shootout. That's pretty dramatic when you're having a shootout with a resident of the neighborhood he was hunting in.

Three kids end up in the mix. Now, look, hunting's important in a lot of communities. But when you're out in West Virginia, this happened in Raleigh County, West Virginia, evidently, on this ghost hunting trip. This happened back in February. They had this verbal altercation and, oh my goodness, ends up with a ghost hunter in a shootout. Again, it's just an allegation, but that's the headline that we're reading about.

And then last one I want to read about. This one is just... I would expect more. The former First Lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama...

revealed an additional reason she skipped the President Trump's inauguration. Now, it's hard. It's got to be difficult. You lose an election, you've got somebody from the other party. In this case, the Obamas didn't lose to Trump, right? But you would expect that the former First Lady, the former President, they show up at these things. It's not comfortable. You lose an election. I remember Hillary Clinton showed up at Trump's inauguration.

could not have been a happy day, right? Had to be pretty bad. So the question is, why did she skip Donald Trump's second inauguration? And according to FoxNews.com, this was on a podcast. It's called IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson. Here's what she said. Quote,

End quote. I mean, I had affirmatively, because I'm always prepared for any funeral, anything. I walk around with the right dress. I travel with clothes just in case something pops off. So I was like, if I'm not going to do this thing, I got to tell my team. I don't even want to have a dress ready, right? Because it's so easy to just say, let me do the right thing. Oh my goodness. She says she didn't have the right dress.

That is about the stupidest thing I've ever heard. That is such the lamest excuse for not attending inauguration of a president of the United States I've ever heard of. But Michelle Obama, congratulations. That may be the stupidest thing all week.

All right, time to bring on our guest because, you know, he's one of our favorites around here, and we do like him. And I think it'll be interesting, and we'll kick things off and see what direction we take it. But let's bring in Will Kane. Will Kane, thanks for joining us on the Jason House Podcast. What's up, Jason? Glad to be here. Hey, no, I love chatting with you because, you know what, you can talk about anything. That's what I love. That's what I think is...

It's fun about podcasts. You get a little extra time, a little extra... You know, you can talk about anything. So I want to talk literally about a whole lot of different things. And wherever you want to take this, this will be fun. All right, cool. Let's do it. Okay, so there's... I want to find out what your thoughts are and perspectives about landing on the moon. So...

We I'm pretty convinced that we did land on the moon, but my goodness, my reels, at least on Instagram, keep lighting up with skepticism about the broadcast that was supposedly happening simultaneously with our landing. Where are you at on that?

Well, I'm fascinated by your Instagram algorithm because I don't get those feeds. I don't get... I think I clicked on one and now I get them all. Yeah. If you ever want to know somebody's deepest, darkest secrets and what they're actually into, just pick up their phone and open up their Instagram, head on over to the search page, and then you find out, oh, I

I know a lot more about you, Will. And I'm not going to let you do that on my Instagram. I can promise you that because it's not full of moon landing theories. Have you seen one of these videos? Have you seen the skepticism about moon landings? Well, I mean, over time, like over my life, I have. I have not seen any of the new 30-second edited videos that probably are pretty compelling and convincing yet.

but i mean i've heard over time okay this was done in a warehouse somewhere in probably utah or nevada and i think my kids have all said look you know point out the inconsistencies in the videos like why is there wind if there's no gravity i don't know weird stuff like that but i can't kind of goes in one ear and out the other it's okay i do not i don't want to sound like at all i'm snooty towards quote unquote conspiracies because i'm not i'm interested

I want to hear about UFOs. I want to consider that Lee Harvey Oswald had deeper connections within the American intelligence community. I want to hear all of these things. But there are some that I just haven't invested in at all. And this is one of them, man. Like, you have to lay out for me the case. Why did we fake the moon landing? Well, I think that the race to space was such an important emotional moment.

fight with Russia at the time that we had to do it. We had to prevail and we were actually doing it, but the, maybe the technology to simultaneously broadcast and have Nixon have a telephone call and do all this stuff.

Like, I don't know. I got some skepticism here about the shadows. The one that really kind of got me was video of the shadows because the guy's jumping along and then he, all of a sudden the shadows are changing. And it's like, wait a sec, how'd they even put that camera there? And how did they turn on the camera for, for that space capsule to leave the moon and then be able to go up and simultaneously watch it go up into space? Like,

Seriously? Like at the time, you couldn't even make a phone call from one place to another across the country without having an operator plugging in, you know, wires. It just has me thinking. I didn't mean to make this a conspiracy theory podcast. I'm just saying it's what popped in my brain when we got on the horn together.

Well, I'll tell you this. Having done diners for years for Fox and Friends, and we can sometimes barely get a live shot out of Moe's Diner in somewhere in North Carolina. It is, and that's 2025. It is pretty amazing. Now, I'm going to guess that NASA in 1960, what was it, 69? When was it? 67? 69? 69. In 1969, NASA had better technology, we're going to presume, than CBS. But

But was it better than what Fox News has in 2025? Because our live shots sometimes are not reliable. And they were live shot from the moon. Was it live, by the way? Did they do live? Yeah, I think they were showing it, like, in real time. It was like, ooh, this just happened. That's pretty crazy. All right, let's move on. Real quick, Jason, I love that you have something in your mind that's a rabbit hole. And, um...

This is how I operate. This is one of my favorite leisure activities is falling down a rabbit hole. Uh, and it's usually predicated by a good show, a movie that I've watched like last week, late last week, there was no basketball on and I was sitting around and I did something I haven't done in years, which is,

Put it on cable, which cable for me now is YouTube TV, but meaning it literally has the cable menu. You know what I mean? There's live TV shows on. I didn't go to Netflix. I didn't go to Prime. I didn't like self-select something. And I just started scrolling through the live menu, which I never do anymore. I was like, let's just put something on in the background.

And there was National Treasure, probably on like TBS or something like that. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to put on National Treasure again. And, you know, I just kind of started watching, you know, not sucked in, but kind of watching National Treasure. And then I got to thinking, I want to learn more about Freemasons. You know, I know a little bit about Freemasons, but I need to learn more about Freemasons. And then I just start going down the rabbit hole. And it's my favorite thing in the world. Oh, and then I start learning about, you know, this or that.

It's actually one of the most relaxing things I do to spend time, like, instead of, I don't know, golf. Well, don't pick on golf because I love golf, and golf is great. But there is a method to this madness, and why bring this up? Okay. It's amazing to me. No, it is amazing to me because I'm like you. I like...

Yeah, I can only go to Netflix and look at my list so many times or Peacock or whatever it is and watch the same thing over and over. There is something relieving and relaxing about just, all right, let's see what pops up, particularly when you're in a hotel. Like, oh my gosh, I got nothing else to do. The weather's bad. It's freezing. I'm by myself. All right, let's put on something. My default is the golf channel, but if not, you know, hey, let's see what else is on.

But the national media, like I think you're a very curious person. I think that's part of the talent and the success of your shows, both TV, the podcast, like everything is you have an intellectual curiosity that it just sparks your day. I'd like to think I have that too. Like I ask questions about everything and I do jump down those rabbit holes like,

I want to learn more. Maybe they have a point about this space landing. But their national media has morphed into a body that by and large does not have intellectual curiosity. I wonder when we made that change. Are we just more aware of it now because of the social media and technology? Or has it always been that way and we've just been sorely disappointed?

That's really interesting, man. I think I spend too much time thinking about the media. We all do. Whenever you're in something, you want to analyze it and think about it and see its failings. And that's what led me into this career is seeing what I thought were the failings of the national media and thinking,

you could do it better. Lately, I've been doing a lot of interviews, Jason, people asking me about my show and what I want to be and how I want to be different. And the thing that I talk about the most, and I believe this, this is still true, is I want my differentiating factor to be not that I'm always right,

um, not that I can avoid being wrong. It's, it's that I'm real, that I'm going to be authentic, that this is who I am. And because I think in a world where you're inundated with information at all times as the audience, even me as a host, like, like what's real, what's true. You, you started this show today with like, is this true? Like this thing that we learned in textbooks for half a century, is it even real? And, and,

I mean, imagine the consumer's mind today when you've got Instagram, X, Facebook, CNN, Fox, New York Times, whatever you're reading online, FoxNews.com, Citizen Free Press, just bombarded with information. And you're going, but what's real?

And I want to be a voice that they can turn to on a day-to-day basis and go, you know, I don't know if Will's going to be 100% right, but I know he's trying to be right. And I know his values. And he's open to who he is. He owns his biases. And I think there's a currency in the honesty and trust in that on a day-to-day basis. But that's what I've been saying and thinking for a long time. Intellectual curiosity, that's a really interesting way to bring about a differentiating factor, which I'm humbled that you said I have that, but I'm flattered.

But you're 100% right that they have none of it. No intellectual curiosity. I do think they're fake. I do think they lack authenticity.

But man, every subject is a gaze down the bridge of your nose at the audience or a guest and telling them the way that it is. And anytime there's a question, the question is designed. They're bad cross-examiners, Jason. You know what I mean? Like they never follow up. And I consider myself a cross-examiner. Obviously, if I'm with somebody I disagree with, they're bad at it. But it's their that's what they think. Interviews are designed to catch someone in a lie.

Not, hey, and it can be. That's one part of an interview, right? Potentially. Sure. But there's no sense of there's something to learn here. And I don't know what that is because they read in all day because they got producers telling them this is the facts. This is the way it is. Now he's going to spin it. But you're 100% right. They come off in the end so arrogant, condescending, and with no curiosity. Well.

Well, and that's the thing is I think we're totally in agreement here on this. The lack of intellectual curiosity limits their ability to see outside the blinders that, you know, you see those horses walking down and

Down in New York City and they got the blinders on. All they can do is look straight ahead with that tunnel vision. And this is why they don't understand America, because their job is to report what the Trump administration is doing or the Biden administration is doing or whatever it is that they're reporting on.

It's to inform us of that, but also give different perspectives. And they just, they lack this carry. That's why you're exactly right. The follow-up questions are always the best questions. And, you know, when I was chairman of the oversight committee. Your first question is not your best question ever. It's just not. It may be clever. It may be, you know, but you've, but I tell these guys, particularly when I was chairman of the oversight committee,

These freshmen members of Congress would get there and say, look, I know it's going to be an hour and a half until you even get to ask a question. If you really listen to the first hour and a half, you get the best set of questions because you get the follow-up. It's going to be answers two and three where you're going to really make a difference in

And say, why did you say this? Because previously you said this. Like, I'm not trying to play gotcha. Explain that to me. And then you're right. Authenticity wins the day. People smell it out. They sniff it out. It's true in politics. It's true in the media. It's true. You can only be successful with an authenticity mindset.

that I think you bring to the table and others that have just, you know. When you watch Dana Perino, for instance, you just know she's just calling balls and strikes exactly the way she sees them.

By the way, have you worked at someplace like, have you ever been, yes, you have. You were a contributor at CNN, weren't you? No. I remember when I was there. No, I didn't. Oh, but you were a guest. I remember one time you had orange juice. Oh, I was a guest a lot, yes. Yeah, you had orange juice. I took a picture of myself. You had orange juice, like, in the fridge with your name on it. And I took it out and took a picture, like, I've got Jason Chaffee's orange juice, you know.

If you were around enough to mark your and label your orange juice. I was a contributor at CNN for five years. And look, I wouldn't go so far to say they're all dumb, but they're not the smartest people in the world. In other words, what I'm getting at is there's a huge unearned arrogance and lack of intellectual curiosity. Like,

If I ran into Ray Dalio, you know, who's like, you know, economist, investor, deep thinker, and he lacked intellectual curiosity, which he wouldn't, by the way, he just simply wouldn't. But if he did, I'd be like, OK, well, I'm dealing with a really smart dude here. You know, what is you know, he's he's on a different plane. This is not your CNN host. You know, this is not a person who deserves to not be curious. Like you have a lot left to learn in life.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Will Kane right after this.

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And I had two things that and the other thing is back to your hearing an hour and a half. Jason, that's 100 percent what I would do. I would listen and I would use my five minutes or whatever my time allotment is to build on what had already been done. Yeah. And I would assume politicians are also not the most impressive people in the world. Some, some not. And they use that five minutes for performance. Right. And then the whole thing. I think I've talked to Gowdy about this.

The whole thing becomes a waste because it becomes a series five-minute performances instead of a coherent cross-examination. Imagine what you could get out of somebody over an hour and a half cross-examination. Yeah, the ability to get members to show up at a pre-planning meeting is like zero to none. Unless it's a super high-profile hearing, they just do not. They show up, they've got a list of potential questions posted,

And then they just kind of wing it and it shows and it's an embarrassment and it's a waste of a lot of people's time, but not all of them. Certainly not. I mean, there's, there were some really good ones. I think of the people that were on our committee at the time. I mean, it was, it was amazing because it was myself, Trey Gowdy, Ron DeSantis, Mark Meadows, uh,

I mean, we just went down the list of, you know, John Ratcliffe. These people were... Ratcliffe wasn't on our committee, but he's on judiciary. I mean, we had some people who actually did know how to ask really good questions and were paying a lot of attention. All right, I got a couple different rabbit holes I want to go through with you. So can I just, like, put it hard and reverse and shift hard into another gear here? Yeah. I want to get your take on...

just America and where they are today. Because elections, I think, galvanize people in weird ways. But then I think America takes a collective breath. They're like, all right, we're through that election. And now there's tumultuous times with the economy, tumultuous times with tariffs and what are we doing?

Um, there is legitimate debate about lots of different issues, but where do you see America in general? Like we feel better about life, not good about life, optimistic, and it's hard to make us make a sweeping generalization. But when I say that, what comes to mind?

One word, revolutionary. So I didn't bring up Ray Dalio sort of out of the blue. Right. Ray Dalio is an investor. And, you know, I don't know if he's an economist, but he thinks about economies on big grand scales. He thinks about long term empires and these types of things. I watched a video. He did a five minute video the other day. I don't know if you saw it. It's pretty fascinating.

He's like, I've studied the history of empires over a 500 year period. I've studied the Dutch, the French, the Chinese, the British, the American. And he also put time into Spanish and several others. He looked at the life cycle of an empire. OK, now I'm not here to tell you whether we should or shouldn't be an empire, but we certainly are the American in the middle of the American empire. And he said, what's fascinating when you break down the rise and fall of an empire is the commonalities of the sequence of events that occurs.

And he says, by the way, I want to tell you how I measure an empire. Like, what is their apex? How do they achieve the status of the empire? And he talked about innovation and economy and education, all different things that that helps a civilization rise to the apex civilization on the planet.

And he talks about that life cycle. And it's fascinating how common it is. And it's not unlike, by the way, Jason, the life cycle of a corporation, a company. You have your startup phase, your investment phase. You have, at that point, some irrational exuberance. People start printing money. They start borrowing money. You rack up huge levels of debt and deficit in company departments you leverage up because nothing could be brighter than the future. It's always going to be something like it is today. And then when you start doing that, you have...

And now this is where I had this conversation with Batia Unger Sargon, who is a former Democrat. She's pretty fascinating voice now. This is where I sound a little bit like a Democrat of 10 years ago. I don't think I would have said this 10 years ago, Jason.

you start having this big income inequality um issue where you know the rich get super rich and although ronald reagan is right that rising tide lifts all boats and poverty becomes something new from the previous generation the poorest among us today have obesity problems in iphones that's not to dismiss poverty and that's not to dismiss income inequality we have real income inequality right and so what i'm getting at is

That's late stage stuff. Once you have that measure of income inequality, that level of debt and deficit, you begin your decline. Then you get civil conflict, at least division, internal problems, and the rise of external places that are in their startup phase. And when those two overlap, you have conflict, possibly war. And then you have the decline of that civilization. I think we're on the back end or we're on the sloping downward side of the apex of the American empire.

And we are I mean, if we just sit by with business as usual, we will go the same way of the British, the French and every other empire before us. We just will. I mean, why would we thwart history there? You know, you could make a case why we would. But I think the Chinese are on the rise. And by the way, they've been around long enough. They've already had a rise in a fall and their own rise again. Right. Right.

So what I think this tariff regime, which would have been something that 10 years ago, I also would have been very skeptical of. I think it's an attempt. And I think what Donald Trump is doing, because I think Trump, I think he values popularity. He wants to be popular. And he knows he is doing something that is unpopular right now. It's going to hurt the stock market. It's going to it's going to disrupt, you know, our economy for a bit. But I think it has a long term vision in hand.

And I think it's an attempt to arrest the fall of the American empire. Now, I don't know if they think about it in those terms, but I think they think about it like if we stay on the path that we're on, we will not be sustainable. Our society will have big problems and the Chinese will rise. And if we want to stay as the apex civilization, and again, maybe there's people that don't want to just, but I don't want to go the way the British, you know, what happens now?

after a civilization declines. It's not fantastic. It's more sad. It just decays. You lose your sense of identity. You lose your culture. You import people from across the world. You become something different. You cease to innovate. You cease to be interesting. And by the way, never underestimate how powerful the British were. I love reading stories of the age of exploration and the way the British dominated everything.

And think about who they are now compared to who they were then. And then their character. Like, if you grew up in England in, like, 1770, there was a sense of spirit in I'm going to go for it that exists in America today. But I'm afraid we're headed to the path of losing it and going down that path of decay. And I do think we need to be in this moment of revolution. That is one of the best synopsis I've heard. I think you're absolutely right because I do think Donald Trump –

sees the future of the country and understands the gravity of a 30, almost $37 trillion debt. Look, when I ran for office in 2008, we were, I was running ads complaining about an $8 trillion debt. Now it's $37 trillion and it's eating us alive.

And so to try to right size and get us towards balance and make those difficult adjustments. Secretary Besant has been so impressive to me in his ability to say his synopsis is just very coherent to me. It just makes a lot of sense.

but we have to do some difficult things and and you're right donald trump he really does value popularity right but in this case he i think he's been talking about this for decades you know i watched that old video of him talking on on uh oprah and and right this is not some new scheme he came up with in the last 90 days

He's been chewing on this for probably 40 years. And, Jason, I don't know if it will work or if it won't. I have that humility. I don't know who does. You can't have economies are the individual decisions in America of 350 million people. And we all each individually make those decisions hundreds of times a day.

What you're going to buy, where you're going to go to get food, where you're going to fill up your gas. You're making all those decisions all day long. And that's what an economy is. A global economy is times, you know, 10 that. And so I don't know how all of this is going to impact those individual decisions. And I don't think anybody does. But that doesn't mean I think the diagnosis is wrong. The diagnosis, I think,

is right is the prescription right we'll see yeah well this is where I think the Democrats are in the wilderness and have no answers because if they had a policy um alternative um or a policy perspective it can't just be ah resist uh you know we they've had two right their two policy prescriptions have been a wealth redistribution they're consistent on that that they think that's a path to save America

And then probably something around climate, like top-down guided climate economic policy. We're going to invest in this and we're going to pivot to this. Messing around with oil and gas is a big deal. That's a real big fundamental economic thing. Those seem to be the two things they're dedicated toward. Yeah, but they kind of abandoned that whole second one. I mean, they're going after Tesla and electric vehicles. I still, I just cannot get over...

The United States Senator, former astronaut, right? In Arizona, he decides, oh, I'm going to cut this video and I'm going to show you how I got rid of my Tesla and bought a Tahoe, a Chevy Tahoe. Great vehicle. I mean, if you can afford it, it's a great vehicle. But for him to just shift gears like that is just unbelievable to me.

Well, that's because right now the Democratic Party is only guided by really even only one light, more than wealth redistribution, and that is anti-Trumpism. And so whatever Trump is, and Musk is a proxy for Trump, whatever Trump is, they're anti. I mean, everybody's heard that, but like Donald Trump is arguing for policies that the left argued for 10 years ago, you know, and now they are opposed to them. You know, he could he could come out tomorrow in favor of, you know, how about this?

If he came out tomorrow in favor of a higher marginal tax rate on the rich, they probably would oppose it. I know. It's almost comical to that degree. And I love the videos, the sort of man on the street asking them what. They can't even tell you what they're actually striving for or what they're opposed to or what they're in favor of. And it's okay to disagree. There are arguments on both sides. They just don't do a very good job of articulating them.

You're listening to Jason in the House. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Tax day is always a pain. Next year could be a nightmare. If Congress fails to extend Trump's tax cuts, middle class families will get hit with a huge tax increase. That means less money for groceries, less money to pay your mortgage, less money for school supplies and less money for family vacations.

A $1,500 tax increase? That's enough to give families the cold sweats. Avoid the nightmare. Save Trump's tax cuts. Learn more at protectprosperity.com. Paid for by Americans for Prosperity. All right, last question. I guess I'm going to lose you here. But tell me about the state of sport in America, too. Because, you know, we just had the March Madness. You know, those are always a fun tournament. Yeah.

But when I talk about state of the sport, I really want to talk about so-called amateur sports. Yeah. You know more about this. You've studied it. You're passionate about it more than I am. And look, I played, you know, I went to school on an athletic grant in aid, you know, being a place kicker at, you know, Division I school. So, I mean, we've kind of gotten rid of amateur sports. Do we even pretend that there are –

I mean, I don't understand why they're not signing these kids to four or five-year contracts. Why you can just go in the portal and just switch teams every year. Did you watch Game of Thrones? Did you watch that show? Part of it. I didn't watch a whole lot of it. There was a character in there called Littlefinger, okay? And he was always messing with the political process, and he was just sort of a behind-the-scenes meddler. And they were talking about chaos, and he has a famous line there. He said, chaos is a ladder.

And interestingly, just like we were talking about America, I think everything right now is in chaos. Everything is revolutionary. Like we're on the verge, Jason, of within five to 10 years of having robots in our house. Right. AI. We're in an economic revolution, a political revolution, everything. And in some ways you have to be because because the speed of change is so rapid that I don't know what tomorrow will look like.

Sports, amateur sports is no different. It is pure chaos. So I'd say a week or two ago on my Friday edition of the Will Kane show, I did an hour with Gabe Feldman, who is a sports law professor at Tulane. He's also their NCAA compliance provost. And this is what we talked about. The house settlement is close for the NCAA, right? On what's going to happen because they have to start paying players.

And I'm going to try to do this quickly for you because I did an hour on this. And I would encourage anyone to go listen to this if you want to get some sense. It's got three parts to it, Jason. So first of all, well, one part is I'm going to set aside. There's like a $2.8 billion settlement they'll disperse to the athletes. But then there's three big changes. Number one, each university is going to have a salary cap of $20.5 million.

So you can pay your players $20.5 million. You can apportion that however you want. You can give it all to football. You can decide you're a basketball school. You can decide you're a lacrosse school. You can pay lacrosse players. You can divvy it up however you want. The vast majority will give 75% to the football team because that's the revenue generator. By the way, that bucket, Jason, will be chock full of lawsuits. We're

We're going to get the settlement and then we're going to get more lawsuits. Here's two groups that are going to sue the women. They're going to say, well, we should get half the money. You know why? And then the football players in in reverse will sue because they'll be like, but we bring in 100 percent of the revenue or 95 percent. Basketball brings in five. We bring in 95 percent revenue. We should be getting 95 percent of the money. So get ready for those suits.

Second, after you get the salary cap, you're going to have an attempt to make NIL real. Right now it's fake. It's the back door of paying players, right? So now they're going to try to bring a third party in to vet NIL deals to say, is this a real marketing deal? Is it real market value? That seems like a fool's enterprise to me. I don't know how you're ever going to do that.

but they're going to try to make it real name, image, and likeness marketing deals. And then the third bucket, and this is weird, nobody knows why this bucket got in there, but it is, is they are going to expand scholarship opportunities for athletes. So let's say you play gymnastics, swimming, water polo, lacrosse, a non-revenue generating sport. You probably know you get like every

Every sport's different, but water polo has four and a half scholarships, but it has a roster of 20 guys, right? And every sport's like that. Baseball even has less than the roster. Well, now you can give everybody on roster a scholarship, but you have roster caps. So they're going to say, this is the number of players you can have on the team for that given sport.

Now, not every school can afford to do that. So what you're going to see is a massive divergence with wealthy schools like the University of Texas saying, we're giving 68 women's rowing scholarships, right? Other ones are going to be like, we're giving two. So you're going to totally change everything.

the college amateur sports landscape within a matter of a couple of years. And I have no idea what it will do. It'll probably to some extent destroy our Olympic feeder system because that is how we create Olympians. And in that conversation, Gabe Feldman told me, the Tulane expert,

You probably have like Stanford, Texas, maybe Ohio State, some rich schools become our Olympic feeder system. Those schools by themselves will become our feeder system. But my point is amateur college athletics is in the middle of absolute chaos. And what we grew up with is basically over. It's over. Football becomes semi-pro. Everything else might die at the collegiate level or at least be scaled back with a few like

Maybe Virginia says we're going to be all in on lacrosse, and maybe Pepperdine says we're going to be all in on water polo. Whatever. You'll have these outlier schools that decide they want to dominate one sport. Well, again, see, this is – you're right. We could go an hour on just this. The one question I would just leave you with, I don't even want you to respond to it necessarily, but it just seems to me if you're going to sign a contract –

to participate in that sport. I don't know why they transfer. Yeah. You're talking about transfer portal, right? Yeah. To get rid of the transfers and just, because I think it's, it's so hard to follow a team. It's impossible to be a coach.

and do recruiting. And if you're going to give up this, you know, have this benefit, I don't see why schools can't go in and sign a four-year deal and say, no, you're committing to... And they might, Jason. They might. Senator Tommy Tuberville, I've had a lot of conversation with him about this. He thinks the same as you. He's like, this is now like a professional contract. So you should have to abide by your end of the contract. Yeah. You can't just go fishing every moment of the day and...

You know, you hear these stories about kids who go to the – they're already committed to transferring, so they don't want to play in a bowl game. And they're like, sorry, I don't want to get injured, you know. It's just – it's too expensive for me. Or universities lose 100% of their players. They're leaving. And it's just – anyway. Yeah.

Will Kane, you're the best. I do appreciate it. Congrats on the show. The TV show is awesome. The podcast has been great and fantastic. You have wonderful guests. And just keep going with that intellectual curiosity because I think you're aware of America, why they tune in and why they tape it, why they record it. I said tape the other day on air and I got lit up. Who tapes a show anymore? You know what I mean. They record it because...

they want to hear what you're going to ask and what you're going to talk about and it's so well done well done well i'm flattered thank you so much jason i've enjoyed being on your show love where the conversation goes all right i can't thank will enough you can listen to him watch it look four o'clock eastern fox news okay and then you can check out the will kane podcast he's got a radio show i mean the guy's got a lot of stuff so you just type in will kane podcast you'll find it just like you type in jason in the house podcast you can find it

But also watch him on Fox News because that is live at 4 o'clock Eastern. Could have chatted with him for another hour and a half. But I appreciate you taking your time. Please rate this podcast. Subscribe to it. We come out once a week. I also want to remind people you can listen to 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. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for joining us. 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.