The Importance of Asking the Right Questions
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The NBA playoffs are here, and I'm getting my bets in on FanDuel. Talk to me, Chuck GPT. What do you know? All sorts of interesting stuff. Even Charles Barkley's greatest fear. Hey, nobody needs to know that. New customers bet $5 to get 200 in bonus bets if you win. FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.

21 plus and present in Illinois. Must be first online real money wager. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus pass that expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. Do appreciate it. Oh, we got a good one today. One of my favorites.

One of my new favorites, one of the guys that's in Congress. I mean, you're really going to get to know this guy because I think he's got the talent. He's got the energy. He's got the aptitude. I've spent some time with him, had lunch with him. And I'm really looking forward to the discussion with him today. But Brandon Gill is a freshman congressman out of

Texas. And good old Texas. You got to count on Texas to send us a good conservative to Congress. This guy's the real deal and fascinated to learn a little bit more about him, his philosophy, his approach. And I just think if you saw the hearings, for instance, on National Public Radio, some of the others, you're going to learn real quickly. The guy knows how to ask questions and follow up. Now, you would think that members of Congress would

If you're elected, this would be like a skill set. But I promise you, having been the former chairman of the oversight committee, it is not a skill set that everybody has, even though they want to have it.

It is a talent to question people in five minutes. And sometimes you get former prosecutors who are really good at this. Think of like, I don't know, Trey Gowdy, John Ratcliffe, somebody like that, Ron DeSantis. These people have a law degrees and know how to ask probing questions. Other people, no.

Not so much, even though they may want to. But Brandon Gill is one of those guys, one of those members who's actually really good at it. And like Lisa McClain out of Michigan, she's really good at it. And so, I don't know. I gravitate towards those because I think it's one of the core functions of what Congress should be doing is providing oversight. And whether you're on the Oversight Committee or not on the Oversight Committee, you still...

This is what Congress should be doing with their hearings and probing deep. So we're going to talk to him. We're going to talk a little bit about the news, and then we're going to highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. But let me start with the news first. All right. So we are right in the thick of it, right? We are right in the thick of it. Two things I want to mention. One is the reconciliation package. You

You see the tumultuousness of going back and forth and up and down and it's not conservative enough. Oh, we're cutting too much. And, you know, this is the process. This is the sausage making process. This is what Congress should be doing is having these vigorous debates and

Now, again, hats off to Speaker Johnson for getting the ball over to the United States Senate. But now the Senate's got to do that tough job and they've got to have these discussions. And it's a small room, right? You just have to get the 50s.

Because it's reconciliation, you don't have to go through what's called cloture, where you'd normally have to get to 60 votes just to decide whether or not to move the bill forward. Because it's reconciliation, you only have to get to 50. But 50 is a little harder than everybody thought. And there is nobody but nobody but nobody who has a plan to balance the budget in the first year or even in the first two years.

So understand and recognize that the debt is going to grow before it grows, gets to the point where it shrinks. But we got to be able to get there. So tax cuts are imperative because tax cuts are the things that help drive an economy forward. What the Congressional Budget Office does not do in their quote unquote scoring of a bill is they don't consider that if the economy is moving forward, guess what?

then more revenue goes to the treasury. And I've said this multiple times on this podcast, the so-called Trump tax cuts, you know, from his first term, guess what? Democrats said, oh, that increases the deficit. No, it didn't. That's not what happened. We made the tax cuts, revenue to the treasury went up.

But what has to happen this time is they actually have to cut some spending. Now, there are other priorities and things that the president and I think Republicans have a mandate to do, which was secure the border and re-infuse the United States military to protect us in a very, very dangerous world.

So that has got to happen. But reconciliation, tumultuous. That's the word of the day. That's what's going to be out there. Understand it, but ultimately it'll come to a vote. Can it happen by July 4th?

I don't know if it'll get there. But, boy, there's going to be some wrangling and some hand-wringing until then. But Donald Trump, I think, has the mandate and will have to play a heavy, heavy role in pushing this bill up and over the edge. And he'll do so. He'll do so very publicly. He'll do so behind the scenes. He will bring people in individually. But he is the most popular political figure ever.

in the United States, and certainly with Republicans. If they want any future, they're going to be listening to the president. And I do ultimately think that they will be able to get it done. Second thing I want to just address is this anti-Semitism. These attacks, horrific attacks, it goes without saying we have to enforce our immigration laws.

It's just we have to. And if you come here illegally, if you've overstayed a visa, part of the process of restitution is to make things right. You got to go out. You got to come through the front door.

And the other thing we have to address is what's going on in college campuses. We've had this discussion for months now, but now we actually have to do something about it. Because what these kids, as they're coming out of college, have learned from somewhere in their process, whether it's social media and or in the classroom, it is just unacceptable. It is unbelievable to me that a religion, the Jewish faith, is under such attack that

Literally, physically, people getting killed, people trying to kill other people because of their religion. Well, I thought we were so past that. That should be intolerable for 100% of the political spectrum. Did we see a unanimous group of people come together and say this is no longer tolerable?

I'll let you look at that and decide for yourself. Are we really going to be united in calling this out and not giving excuses? You don't like what's going on with Israel and Gaza. That's a subject you can debate. But does that mean you have the right to kill and maim a Jewish person in the United States of America? No, no. And that ought to be met with the harshest, harshest of penalties. Absolutely. That's what has to happen.

All right, so it's time to bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right, story one. This comes out of North Elba, New York. Can't say I know where that is. But according to the Associated Press, two hikers in New York's mountains, they called emergency. I mean, that's pretty serious, right? You're dialing 911 because they were going to report a third member of their party had died.

That's pretty serious. You get a 911 operator. Call comes across the radio. Got two hikers. Somebody's died. Somebody died. But when they got there, got it all figured out, guess what? Just turned out they had taken some hallucinogenic mushrooms and were mistaken. Whoops. We just tripped out and thought that somebody had died.

Oh, my gosh. It ends up that those it goes on to say the two hikers were who called 9-1-1 were also told a steward on the mountain summit that they were lost. Anyway, come on. Come on. You can't be going out doing a hike.

taking the magic mushrooms and dialing 911. That's pretty stupid. And then to top it off, according to People Magazine, you know, people.com. I'm a huge fan of people. Everybody who knows me knows that. A woman is accused of smacking a boy who called her fat at an airport. Now she faces felony child abuse charges. Oh my gosh.

Okay, let's teach the kids some manners. Let's teach them a lesson. But you don't start smacking them. That's kind of stupid. Don't be doing that. Come on, folks. We can be smarter than that. All right. That's the stupid. Now it's time to bring on the opposite of this. Somebody who I'm really learning to admire very quickly. Somebody who's a rising star within the Republican Party. Brandon Gill of Texas.

So joining me right now is Congressman Brandon Gill. Congratulations, by the way, you are making waves. That's what I like to see. You know, I used to be the chairman of the oversight committee. I love seeing somebody who's like not afraid to jump in the fray and start mixing up the pot. I love it. Well, that's what we're here for. You know, we're having a great time doing it, too. And thanks for having me on. No, I really do appreciate it. I've been highly impressed. I've watched clips.

from various hearings. And it's obvious that you've done your homework. And it's amazing to me how witnesses are surprised when they go up against a congressman who's actually got the receipts and you say, well, no, this is actually what you said. You know, the amazing thing to me about it

Take the NPR hearing, for instance. You know, Catherine Marr, head of NPR, had an army of lawyers sitting right behind her that whole time. They prepped her extensively. Here's what you should say if they ask about how you're funded, why you're funded, blah, blah, blah.

And they didn't prep her clearly about her own crazy lunatic tweets that she had put out. And that, to me, seemed like the first thing we would go to or one of the first things. So, you know, we've been able to take a similar strategy with multiple people. The NPR one was a lot of fun. We've done, you know, we've had hearings on USAID and all kinds of other things. And, you know, it takes a lot of work to prep for some of these things.

But the payoff is huge. I think with that NPR hearing, for instance, we helped build the political momentum to actually get this thing defunded. We should get a rescission bill, I believe sometime today, in fact. Well, and that's what's exciting about it. So let's go back here. Well, let me ask you this. I mean, you haven't been in Congress that long. So how is it different than what you anticipated it would be like?

You know, it's hard to know what you're getting yourself into for something like this. You always read about how Congress works and how crazy D.C. is. But it's another thing to actually get into this world and realize that D.C. is just its own sort of unique ecosystem. It's just it's its own world there. And seeing how

how legislation actually gets made i mean the reconciliation bill was a good example of um you know constant negotiations that get pretty tense and pretty heated frequently um lots of back and forth a lot of different people trying to to influence how the process works

from outside of Washington and everywhere else. But seeing how really the sausage is made has been fascinating to me and all of the different players who come in. So let's talk about that because the appropriations, the reconciliation bill, all of that, the budget, that's its own monster as opposed to say oversight in the hearings and whatnot. So let's maybe separate those two. So

So the budget fight, they're different, right? Budget's different than reconciliation, which is different than appropriations. I know it kind of gets to be a mess there, but –

At least when I was there, you'd get into the room, HC5, which is down in the basement. And then they'd have leadership would come in and try to push you one direction. And then the mics would open up. And then who knows what was going to happen. What's been your experience with that so far?

You know, I will say one thing that's been really surprising, especially with a bill as big as this reconciliation bill, just to use that as an example. And you go into conference, to your point, and all of the members of Congress are in the room together. And you have leadership sitting up front. You have Mike Johnson there and Steve Scalise and Tom Emmer and Lisa McClain and maybe Kevin Hearn, head of the policy committee as well.

And they kind of give their spiel. And after that, they give you a chance. They open up the mic and they let everybody ask questions, give their views on whatever, you know, whatever they want to.

And with reconciliation, there's a lot to talk about because it's a massive piece of legislation. I think one thing that I've been surprised by and really impressed by is with somebody like Speaker Johnson, who actually listens to everybody, not only actually listens, but follows up. I found that whether it's in those meetings, he'll follow up with me afterwards if I have a question, if I call him.

He'll either pick up the phone or he'll call me back, usually within a day, sometimes the same day. That's impressive. It actually is extraordinarily impressive for somebody like that who is

it's really just having his phone blown up all day every day going on media all the time um talking with different members on top you know raising money all the time and somebody whose schedule is as wildly packed as his is to be as responsive um

that's been sort of a pleasant surprise. But at the same time, it's good to see that sort of interaction with leadership to actually be able to shape the reconciliation bill. But it does get pretty tense in those meetings as well at times. You've got a lot of different

factions within our own party, people who just look at the world differently, even though we're all Republicans. You've got the libertarians and then you've got the paleo conservatives and then the Reagan fusionists and then, you know, everything in between. Well, that's that's the way our founders envisioned it. Right. I mean, if they wanted a glide path for something easy, they would have designed something different.

And, you know, it is supposed to be complicated. There is supposed to be debate. There is supposed to be contention. I don't think there's anything too wrong with that. As long as you actually come up to a conclusion. My beef has always been, look, put it up for a vote, an actual vote. Because people, they got a lot of big muscles down in HC5, but when they actually got to the floor, they would act differently than

When their vote has to go up on the board and they have to answer to constituents. And you know what? If it's a tough vote, it's a tough vote. That's what you signed up for. I just don't think they vote enough in Congress. And I don't think it's all the speaker's responsibility to get everything passed. And there's nothing to say if something fails that you can't go back and work on it and put it up again for another vote.

Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, you see something like that. Take NPR funding to go back to that example again. Right. In a lot of this waste with USAID, which is both of those are going to be part of the rescission bill that we should get, like I said today. You know, both of those candidly are things that most Republicans have voted to fund as part of big, big spending bills for a long time.

So I think one thing we can do is to start breaking out, have a regular appropriations process so that we can actually, you know, pull, you know, actually use the power of the purse. Congress's main constitutional authority and start putting up, you know, if you're a Republican and you think that we should be funding NPR and PBS, why don't you vote on that? And why don't you explain to your voters why you think that that's an appropriate use of their tax dollars?

I certainly don't want to make that case and don't think we should be funding. But if you do, go for it. I mean, I think that we would have a much more rational budgeting process if that were the case. And I also think that you would see less funding

You would see congressmen start to vote with with their district and with their constituents a lot more than than is sometimes the case. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Let's talk a little bit, though, about my favorite subject about oversight and those hearings, because like we kicked things off just a moment ago.

I mean, you've done exceptionally well. It is amazing to me how many members, quite frankly, don't do their homework. You don't need to comment on that. But I'm just telling you, I know, and it's painfully obvious, but it's also obvious when somebody does do their homework and does think this through. And especially somebody who's younger in seniority, I think part of the key here is to listen to what's already been said.

Because those are usually the best things to do is to follow up and say, hey, you said this, but you know you actually tweeted this. And that's what you did so exceptionally well. You know, the way I think about these hearings is – and we have these hearings frequently. I have three of them this week –

Is there huge opportunities to be able to highlight political things that we're working on or to just shift the frame of debate?

You know, and I think that's one of the things that we did with NPR is we helped build the political momentum to actually defund them by highlighting how crazy she was. It takes a lot of prep for those hearings, as you know, to do them well. And that's another part. You know, we had for that hearing, for instance, I, my team, all of us went through

everything we could find that Catherine Moore had said publicly. We thought of different angles to attack this. Do we go after the funding, which is they have a bizarre funding structure? Do we go after the wild things she said publicly? Do we go after things that have happened at local radio stations? And then you kind of come up with a thesis for the hearing of here's what we want to highlight.

and then try to drill down on it as simply and effectively as possible.

And then to your point, whenever the hearing is happening, you've got to pay attention to what she's saying, even in the room. I found that some of the best hearing prep comes actually during the hearing as I'm listening to her answer questions from other congressmen. I always have to go last because I'm a freshman. And as you know, you know, it's done by seniority.

which makes it harder because then all the good questions oftentimes have been asked. But it's also a there's a benefit to it, too, because you get to hear how she interacts with other congressmen and you can really get a lot of prep time. Yeah. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Brandon Gill right after this.

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That's the key because inevitably they'll say something or take a position on something and think, wait a second, is that true? Or, no, I want to dive. Let's go two layers deeper. And oftentimes people at home would say, why do you do this? Nothing ever happens.

you didn't arrest them. And I'm like, wait a sec. Okay. So first of all, they don't give members of Congress handcuffs, nor should they. But you got to illuminate the problem in order to get it highlighted, to make effective change. And that's the beauty of it. Because in the United States of America, we are self-critical. We're different than every other nation in that we go through this process of

And it's amazing how people of power have to be subjected to questions that their representative from the public gets to ask them. That's the beauty of the system.

That's exactly. You know, imagine trying to do an impeachment of anybody, whether it's a judge, president or whoever, without running an impeachment inquiry, a big, you know, holding massive hearings. I mean, this is sort of an extreme example, but making the case to the public that here's what we're what we'd like to accomplish and why or here's what we're trying to learn.

You know, whenever you whenever you hold these hearings, they're highly public. There's a lot of publicity to them. And you're able to make the case not just to other members of Congress, but to the American public that here's why we should be defunding NPR and PBS, because they're left wing propaganda outlets, because they regularly spew.

vile, racist thing directly from their founder because they actually are promoting wild transgender propaganda to little children.

And without going through that process and showing here's why we're doing what we're doing, it makes it a lot more difficult politically to build the support. I mean, this is a, as the speaker says a lot, this is a consensus building operation. You know, you don't just put a bill forward. You have to argue and debate and make the case. And these hearings are a huge part of that process.

So, yes, you're right. They don't immediately lead to to change, but they do. But they are a core and initial process to part of the process, excuse me, to creating that change. Yeah. And again, that's what we're seeing here. Yeah. This rescission bill. I think that's what I think it was Margaret Thatcher. And I'm going to get her quote, not verbatim, but essentially was first you have to win the argument. Then you got to go win the vote. And again,

That's that part of the process. All right, let's go back to, because you're exceptionally good at this. You're going to be a rock star doing this. You already have been making great inroads.

Let's go back to, you know, how you got involved, how you got engaged in this. But start with I was born in like not a year, but like where and tell me what life was like. Little kid, brother, sisters. Were you playing sports? I mean, what was tell us about early years in your life?

Sure. So I was born on an Air Force base in Clovis, New Mexico. My dad was a fighter pilot in Desert Storm and was finishing up his time in the Air Force. So born there. Don't have a whole lot of memories of living in Clovis because we moved to Texas when I was about two or three years old.

So my dad left the Air Force, got a ranch outside of Abilene, Texas, which is West Texas, about 30 hours west of Dallas. And we lived in Abilene and lived on the ranch for my whole life growing up. So I grew up on a cattle ranch. It's about a thousand acres. We raised Angus and beef cows there.

And so grew up doing everything you would expect to do on a cattle ranch, hauling hay, building fence, driving tractors and backhoes from the time I was very little, actually.

um working cows you know do it doing a lot of hunting of course that's the fun part yeah um and everything else you would did you have brothers sisters what were you i had one one younger brother have one younger brother who is uh who's an engineer not in politics um but uh but enjoys it i think and um you know so he and i would you know my dad was an airline pilot so whenever my dad was gone he and i would kind of take care of the ranch together um

growing up. So I went to a very small public high school out there. I graduated in a class of 24. 24? 24. Wow. I mean, I had a graduating class of 49, but 24, that's, you know, wow. I can even do that math. Yes.

We were probably the only school in Texas or one of the only ones who was too small to have a high school football team. I was going to say, would you play four man football? I mean, how do you do that with such a small crew? I mean, you barely have room for a basketball team. Hello. Yeah. Right. So the story was they had a football team until World War Two. And then all the guys got drafted and they didn't have enough to field a field anymore. So it just never came back.

All right. So, I mean, hunting, you're out in the West Desert, right? I mean, it's a lot of desert out there, but, you know, also in the cattle business, which is, it's fun business, but it's tough business too, right? I mean, that's, you learn to work. What chores were you doing?

You learn to work and you learn to work hard. So, you know, we do all kinds of stuff from building fence, which is, you know, pounding T-posts into the ground and stringing up barbed wire to bail and hay. That's either, you know, driving a tractor and cutting, mowing the hay and then bailing it or slinging square bales into the back trailer, which is very, very difficult work.

Do a lot of mechanical work, you know, working on tractors and other heavy machinery and then just working cows, making sure that they have vaccines if they need to, that they're healthy, that they're being fed, watered, everything in between. So, okay, so you're going through school, then you get into high school, you're small, 24, graduating class. Yeah.

But when did you kind of decide, okay, boy, I'm going to have to fly away from this nest at some point. What did you decide you were going to do? What direction were you going? Yeah.

You know, I loved growing up on a cattle ranch, loved West Texas. But I think I realized that I'd like to make a living with my mind instead of doing manual labor, as great as that was. So I wanted to go to the best school that I could. And I was a pretty serious athlete in high school.

I ran track and I got into a sport called pole vaulting, which is kind of a very neat, unusual sport and ended up being pretty good at it. And I was recruited to a couple of different schools. And one of them was Dartmouth, which is in New Hampshire.

the exact opposite of west texas in in every single way you can imagine from the weather to the culture and everything in between um so ended up going to to college in hanover new hampshire at dartmouth which is uh where i met my wife uh we've been married for seven and a half years now we have two children um just had a baby about two weeks ago a little son

And, you know, have, you know, that really put put my life on a very different kind of a unique trajectory since then. That's awesome. That's how it how it got there. OK, so what did you like? OK, so you go to Dartmouth, you're running around with a pole, jumping over, vaulting over things. And you met you met your wife, what ends up being your wife. But career wise, what did you end up doing?

So after college, I left and I worked in finance for several years. First as an investment banker, we lived in New York for a little while. And then I was a stock analyst for a hedge fund. We would...

do something, a trading strategy called merger arbitrage, which is where you're betting on the probability of large mergers consummating or not. So loved being in the financial world. It's a very exciting place to be. You learn a lot all the time. And it's a very intense place to work. Very, very competitive. So I worked in the financial world for several years, but

As much as I loved it, I wanted to get back into the political fight. When I was in college, I was a part of a college newspaper called the Dartmouth Review, which is the sort of rabble-rousing conservatives. There was a small group of us. As you know, Dartmouth's extraordinarily liberal.

And we were not. So we were constantly going against the grain and I really enjoyed that. So I wanted to get back into that. So I left the financial world and started a conservative media business.

And initially it was to help distribute conservative content. And then I launched a news website called DC Inquirer, which is kind of a pro-Trump America first news outlet that I started just to sort of go to bat for President Trump in the public sphere and defend him and to defend good conservative fighters in Congress and in the Senate.

So ran that for several years and again, loved it, had a great time. And then pretty quickly ended up surprisingly jumping into a congressional race here in Texas where we live and kind of went on from there. Now, what time did you wake up and say, hey, honey, I got an idea. Tell you what I'm going to do. We're going to run for Congress. Like when did that happen? Yes.

What was the impetus? What was the driver? Was it an open seat? Did you take on somebody? It was an open seat, and it was totally unexpected. So we moved down to Texas, building a life here. We're just north of Dallas. I live in a town called Flower Mound. Beautiful, idyllic place. It was just ranked, and it's actually regularly ranked.

one of the best places to live in the country. It's a town where crime feels like it doesn't exist. Very clean, good schools. Really just a great place to raise a family. So we had already had Marigold and were ready to build, have many more kids here and to build a life and

What happened was the sitting congressman, a guy by the name of Dr. Michael Burgess, who had been in office for about 20 years. Yeah, served with him for a while. Yeah, yeah. Very, very sharp guy. Great health care mind. He's a former doctor. Yeah. He kind of he announced that he was retiring and he did it, at least from my standpoint. And I think from just about everybody else's standpoint, really out of the blue. And he he'd.

announced or sort of towards the end of the filing window to jump into a primary. So it was very last minute. So once he announced he was retiring, it was kind of we saw it on Twitter and was thinking, well, I never thought I'd be doing this. But we look it's certainly not right now. Well, it's probably best not to think it through. Probably just best to jump right in.

You kind of have to, because if you think, think through what you're about to go through in a campaign, you're not going to do it. Yeah. If you think too much about it. Well, how many people ended up in that race? We had 11, 11 of us in that primary. Wow. And, um, you know, lots of people had been in the community for, uh, sort of well-established in the community, good people, um, and,

but the race was actually only about 90 days so it started late november almost to the end of november and the primary was march 5th right so once we decided we're going to jump in say want to make sure we get good conservative representation somebody who's going to fight somebody who realizes what time it is somebody who knows that

In an R plus 13 district like mine, a conservative place, it's not good enough anymore to just be a good vote. You've got to be a leader and fight hard. And that's what I wanted to do. And that's why I jumped in. You think that's why you won? I mean, 11 people, you're fairly young. You're not getting ready for social security. So, you know, what? I mean, you had ties, right? But still...

What do you think made the difference? You know, I think that that's that is a big part of it. So we jumped in. I was endorsed by the president, by Senator Cruz. And this is a district that has, I think, is hungry for for somebody who's going to fight for them in Washington, somebody who's going to stand up and be bold and straightforward and loud. So we did.

You're delivering on all three of those. I can tell you that. Yeah. Well, well, I, I appreciate that. And we, um, I will say during this campaign, we're, we got it up and running. We're feeling really good about it going into March 5th. Um, you know, had, had a lot of grassroots support. The grassroots really rallied behind me and about three weeks out from election day. And this is where it got wild. We, uh,

got news that some massive super packs from DC were coming in and were gonna just try to annihilate me um and remember they ended up spending about 2.2 million dollars in straight negative ads against me running ads on TV broadcast cable mailers texts phone calls I mean everything just

absolutely flooding our district with nasty things about me. And they only, remember this is in an 11 person race. They only went negative on me. They didn't go positive or negative on anybody else. So everybody in the district, I mean, we were on March 5th, we were out at the polls, you know, greeting people.

And just about every single person who came up, who talked to us, had heard one of these nasty things that were said about me. But what they realized, I think, and it was really extraordinary what happened. Because whenever these negative attack ads came in, the grassroots really rallied behind me. I mean, they really rose up. And you saw hundreds of people. I mean, people that I had never...

Honestly, some people that I'd never met or talked to start going door to door and talking to their friends and their coworkers and their church, church family and knocking on doors and getting the message out that a lot of the all of these nasty things that are being said about me were lies. And here's who this guy actually is.

And it really was kind of the grassroots rising up. And we ended up winning the election March 5th with 11 people in there with millions of dollars spent against me. We won with 58 percent of the vote. That's really extraordinary. And it was just a testament to the grassroots and how much power they have.

whenever they come together and rally behind someone. Yeah, I mean, I had a different path getting there, but I was taking on a 12-year incumbent Republican in a very conservative district. I think we're

are plus, I don't know, 170% or something. So, being Utah, the one state where Bill Clinton came in third. And so, you know, but that we basically won just about 60-40, you know, nearly 20 percentage points.

But I was far outspent and I was not the incumbent. But I think you're right. The more the outside influence, because the guy I was running against, you know, he's since passed away. I want to be as respectful as I can, but...

You know, you had all the sitting politicians endorse him from George W. Bush to Orrin Hatch to Senator Bennett. Like every time they got an endorsement, I swear I got more votes because people are like, no, that's not it's not what's going to influence our vote here. So you're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be right back. Stay with us. All right. I've got to ask you. I got to ask you a couple personal questions to get to know you more.

because this is always the more illuminating part because you're going to be a player there. You've already demonstrated that, yeah, you know how to conduct yourself and represent your district well and be that loud voice and challenge the status quo. And I think that's probably what the good people at Texas want, just like they wanted it in Utah. So what's the first concert you ever went to?

concert i ever went to that's a great question you know i i think it would have to be it would have to be a country concert at one of the the dance halls in west texas and i couldn't tell you which one but we used to go out um and go two-stepping growing up so it'd have to be one of the and you'd have these these texas country bands who would kind of travel around the state yeah um

Okay, fair enough. And play live performances, and it would be in kind of a little dance hall or a bar or something. Sounds fun. It would actually probably be real fun. What was your high school mascot? This big school with 24 graduates? How many...

We were the pirates, and I have no idea what the back story is or why this little West Texas school was the pirates. The Eula pirates. The pirates. All right. Well, because, you know, there are a lot of pirate activities going out there in West Abilene, right? Yep. Way out there. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah.

Um, so you told me a little bit about your job, but, um, what do you think your superpower is? I maintain that everybody has a superpower. They're like, okay, I'm pretty good at this. So take off the humble hat here. What, what's, what's Brandon Gill's superpower? Well, I would say that I think that a lot of, uh, political issues, um, and you, you see this in the hearings can be boiled down to, to really simple questions, um,

And they're actually not as complicated as we like to make things. And I'll just go back to NPR as an example. But, you know, whenever you question somebody, there's a lot of things you can do. There's a million ways you can approach it. But sometimes just the simplest is the best. And it's, you know, you said that America is addicted to white supremacy. Do you believe that?

You know, it's a yes or no question. I think a lot of the political issues that we deal with now, take immigration, you know,

Should we have open borders? Yes or no? Is it okay for illegal aliens to be on Medicaid? Yes or no? Is it okay for illegal aliens to be on food stamps? Most of these questions are very black and white, and I think that what I try to do is to boil it down into the really simple essence of what we're dealing with. And I think we've tried to do that in hearings, and I think it's been effective. No, it is effective. It got right to the nub of the issue. You've only got five minutes for questioning.

and it illuminates where they really stand on things because they've got to take a position. It's not a complicated question. They try to wiggle out of it. You do a good job of reining it back in. I was going to say, I think another example of that is we've had hearings with sanctuary city mayors

And you can get into the weeds of the legality of sanctuary cities and how they interact with law enforcement and all of that's really important. But another way to approach it is just to ask – these are raging liberals, I mean just deranged people.

you know do you think it's okay for illegal aliens to be on welfare should illegal aliens be able to vote yes or no should we pay for transgender surgeries for illegal aliens i mean these are really basic simple questions that most people can give a straightforward answer to and it's extremely illuminating whenever you see somebody get uncomfortable being asked that question or not be able to answer the question so i think

Just boiling things down to the basics really goes a long ways. Absolutely. Absolutely. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no? No, absolutely not. I can't imagine out there in the West Desert that they'd say, hey, give me that.

Give me that Hawaiian pizza. Nothing against Hawaii, but I'm just saying pineapple on pizza, that's a bad move. So judges like your answer. I appreciate that. If you went home and said, hey, honey, we have a guest coming over tonight. If you could invite anybody, dead or alive, anybody you wanted to come break bread with you, come over, have dinner, who would that be?

I think, and I'm assuming I can't choose Jesus, so I'm going to skip that answer. All right. That would be the ultimate, yes. But other than Jesus or a biblical figure, I would say somebody like, maybe he's top of mind because it's the name of my son, but Winston Churchill would be somebody who would be

absolutely fascinating to sit around a dinner table with, brilliant, brilliant mind, you know, the most gifted speech writer and deliverer of the 20th century, and somebody who would just be enormously interesting to just pick his brain. No, I think it would be a fabulous choice, and it would be fascinating to just kind of

Sit out there on the porch, let him smoke his cigar and just, you know, just have a discussion with him about life and what he's seen. And yeah, that would be interesting. All right. Last question. Best advice you ever got? Best advice I ever got? Probably the best thing was to read as much as possible. I know it sounds kind of simple or trite.

Um, but whenever you're able to read, you're able to get into somebody else's mind and, um, hear, hear thoughts that you, you can be transported into worlds that you otherwise wouldn't be able to. Um, you can expand your mind. I think reading more than, than anything else. And you build sort of a repository of hopefully knowledge or wisdom, um, that you can draw on later and, uh,

I think I, you know, from a young age, I've tried to follow that as much as possible. No, I think it's great advice. You know, one of the most, you know, in terms of what helps you the most long term, that's been one of the most effective things. Yeah, it's probably not reels on Instagram, which I'm very guilty of. But yeah, reading because...

I think part of what the magic of the United States, among many things, is not only the knowledge base, but it's also the creativity that comes with it. Because a lot of countries have some knowledge, but they don't have the creativity. They can't think creatively. And it gets to sort of my philosophy of schooling, but also making sure your life long term is

that you're challenging yourself and thinking creatively, which to me means a lot of different things. And you get that through reading. So it can be fiction. It can be nonfiction. It can be a biography. It can be, you know. But learning that joy of reading, I think, is one of the best gifts that my parents gave to me when I was young because they kind of had to force me to do it.

where like literally I had to have a log. Like my dad went summertime and said, all right, you got to read 30 minutes. And I had to write down when I started, when I finished, what page I started, what page I finished on.

So it was very, but I think there is accountability. There's accountability. But I, I, cause I, I thought, I think left my own device. I'd just be out in the swimming pool or go, you know, kicking a soccer ball around or sleeping in watching TV. And so, you know, I had to get that done if I wanted to do anything else. And then I learned to love it and kind of had to get there the hard way, but man, that worked for us.

That's incredible. I never had that level of accountability. Oh, I had this big chart for the whole summer. I mean, it was like unbelievable. Anyway, Brandon Gill, the congressman out of Texas, you've been very generous with your time. You're one of the bright stars there on Capitol Hill to watch for. And we wish you nothing, nothing but the best. And thank you for taking time with us on the Jason and I's podcast.

So, Brandon Gill, I told you, he is awesome. I'm just really thrilled about this guy. Keep your eye on him. You'll be seeing him. He'll be popping up on your screen. And I'm really glad he spent the time. Just the nicest guy in person as well.

Hoping you can rate the podcast. That would be helpful. Subscribe to it. Comes out once a week. It'll just show up in your box. 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 the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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But thank you so much. Again, review it, rate it, subscribe to it. Join us again. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been the Jason in the House podcast. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gowdy podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com.