Jason Chaffetz on AI, Free Speech, and Why America Must Stay Engaged

our nation than ever, but some of it's very scary and I don't know that everybody

“fully appreciates it. It's not just Google, but better. It's, you know, I”

heard some people speak about this. It's more than just a tool. Like the example was used, like if you get a knife, you can use this to cut lettuce. You can also use it to, um, cut your, cut your knee, you know, or cut your, whatever, and haven't, you know, and start bleeding. It could be really bad, right? Or you can, or you can use it to cut lettuce. It's not that. AI can essentially think for itself. So, think of

it this way. If you take all of human intelligence, everything that's written, everything that has been said or uttered or published, it has the ability to almost instantaneously access that. Americans are capable of achieving extraordinary things when they have the

freedom and opportunity to do so. This is American Potential. Welcome to American Potential

Podcast. I'm your host, David from. For coming here, live from Springfield, Illinois, celebrating America's 250th anniversary. We're, we're celebrating the founding fathers

“and the founding principles that we're in trying the decoration. And we're really happy”

to have, uh, a guess that's maybe a familiar face to you. Not only because he's a Fox news contributor who's on all the time, but also a former Congressman from Utah, Jason Chaffetz, who was also the chair of the house oversight and reform committee, uh, and really did some wonderful stuff in Congress. So, we're really excited to have, uh, have you here Congressman that you're joining us on the podcast? That helps. Take sir. How many? I appreciate

it. Thanks. Yeah. And welcome to, uh, lovely Illinois. I know it's a lot flatter than where you're from. Hey, we are here on, on the birthday of, uh, President Lincoln. This is birthplace. So, come on, it doesn't get any better than that. That is. That's good. Actually, though, it's pretty close. One in round. I was like, man, how would you that? I guess there was some planning there. Um, so I want, you know, we have this

thing called, we call the one small set campaign that we've been talking about, uh, as in conjunction with America, as soon as 50th birthday. And it's about, you know, how do people, or, or, how did people in the past, like, and, and currently take that one small set to get involved in their community, getting involved in politics, getting involved in making their community a better place. And then, you know, with the ripple effect to just shape our

nation. So, there's a small thing. So, I mean, you're like, how did, you know, we always

interested in politics. So, like, how did you come to, um, not really, not really. It actually happened in part because, um, my mom passed away from cancer. And, uh, out in Utah, the biggest donor that to create the Huntsman Cancer Institute, poor hundreds of millions of dollars into fight to the disease that took my mom's life. Uh, that person was going to maybe run for governor. Oh, yeah. And so, I asked it to come meet with them. I thought, you

know, if they're going to fight cancer and poor hundreds of millions of dollars, I could probably help that person. I didn't even know what they believed in, but through, of course, the time I started to. And then I, then I realized, yeah, I'd, I'd like to do more with this. And it's amazing because the world is run by those who show up. And you realize really quickly that most people don't get involved. But if you do so with this sincere

heart, you do it in the right intention and the right way. You learn a lot about yourself because you start to figure out what you truly believe in. And then more importantly, why do you believe what you believe? And I just happen to be very conservative. I just believed in self-determination. And, um, I was an able-bodied American, and I shouldn't have government taken out, you know, taking, taking resources from somebody else's wallet and

giving them to me. And, um, I believed in freedom. I believe in liberty. I believed in those conservative values. And, voila, I got involved. Got engaged. Next day I know I run it for Congress. Yeah. I saw, you know, I, I know little of your history and, you know, you worked in the administration for the governor, then. Yeah. But in a short amount of time, that's a pretty pretty good. And it wasn't like an easy road in Congress. It wasn't

like they just tapped you and said, hey, go be congressman. Hey, look, I'm running against the 12 year incumbent Republican because I, I just thought, you know what, the way our founders set this up, we're supposed to revisit who represents us every 24 months, which is, it means it's a perpetual campaign. You're going to represent 800,000 people. Yeah. And so you've got to get out

“there and talk about issues. And that's what I did for two years. I ran up and down the district”

was big. I had two counties in my congressional district, both of which were bigger than the state of New Jersey. So they're pretty big. You know, I got a big, a big, a big, a big, small, a land too much federal land out that way. Yeah. But, um, and I just started talking to people and listening and, and then offering ideas and principles. And it resonated and I beat

you had a lot of success in congress. Uh, you know, I can tell you, if I, as an observer,

prior to even looking at, you know, looking at this interview, uh, you know, you rose quickly. And, you know, eventually being the chairman of the house, oversight and government form committee, which really puts you in the spotlight. So before I get, I love to hear a little about that, because there's some pretty fascinating stuff. Well, what, what did, I mean, how did feel to serving congress? Like, well, you're a tremendous honor. I mean, you, you win. And then you

sort of have that, uh, there's a movie called the candidate that starred Robert Redford and he wins and he says, "Now what?" And you kind of feel like that. Even though you campaign and you talk about it every day, once you get there, you're on the floor of the house, you get the capital,

“you're interacting with the president. It's, it is surreal. Um, I, I think the lesson for me was,”

uh, somebody once said, "Focus determines reality." And when you focus on something,

and you work hard, sirs towards something, you can achieve whatever it is you want to achieve. I focused on becoming the chairman of that oversight committee, because when I ran for congress, I thought that adhering to the constitution, and I believed in fiscal discipline, limited government accountability and a strong national defense. Well, when I looked at accountability, it was pretty vague, right? And so how do you do that in the halls of congress? It ends up that

the oversight committee has the jurisdiction since 1814 to investigate anything any time, anywhere and oversee all the appropriations of that congress had made. So to me, that was a natural fit. But back then, I was like the only person. I mean, literally the only person who put oversight is number one. Now, it's like the most popular committee, because I think we showed that you can

“really get after things and hold people accountable. Now, they don't give us handcuffs.”

You know, a lot of people say, "Oh, but nobody went to jail." I said, "Well, Barack Obama was the president. The executive branch has the handcuffs." But I could point out the waste, the fraud, the abuse, and, you know, now that Donald Trump's there, things are going even better. Yeah. What? I mean, a lot of our listeners will be familiar with some of the things that you led the investigations on. Things like Benghazi and Frank Sinfurious and the number other things.

What? What were some of the things that stood out to you when there was such weighty, controversial, high-profile things going on? You start to realize, if not you, that nobody else is going to do it. You know, when we had the, you know, four dead Americans in Benghazi, including our U.S. ambassador, I did. I issued a letter to Secretary Clinton, making sure that she

did the preservation letter. I was the first person to go to Libya after the attack.

And that started down this whole thing. And then, you know, we had things with lowest learner. We had IRS problems. We had the targeting of the 300 conservative groups. Yeah. And so we got knee deep into that. And then Ron DeSantis and I, he was a subcommittee chair. I was the chairman, but he was my subcommittee chair. The two of us really wanted to hold him accountable, because he had a duly issued subpoena to provide these documents. And the IRS said, well,

well, it'll take years to get him. Then they said they didn't have them. Then they, it ends up that when the inspector general went through and looked at it, guess what? They did have them. And then they destroyed them after the fact, oh, well, that's against the law. If you did that to the IRS, right? Well, with the IRS, do you'd be in jail? So we were trying to hold the, the, the IRS accountable. And they, the 300 plus groups eventually settled the out of court.

“I don't know what that resolution was. But I'm glad we highlighted it, because I think it'll”

prevent a rogue IRS to doing so some of those things in the future. So, you know, we're talking about our founding principles here in the, um, the America's 25th anniversary. It's so fun to be able to have this occasion to celebrate American what's right on, you know, as you reflect on the founding principles. Where do you think we've done a pretty good job of, uh, you know, having fidelity to them? Where, where do we kind of wander it off? Well, look, the United States,

it's truly a miracle. I think it's, it was divinely created. I think there's divine inspiration and getting us to where we are. I think this, this later this year, celebrating 250 years, it, it, we should take time to celebrate. I guess we're, we're off the rails a little bit as what I went to Congress. I really did believe that we all wanted the same conclusion. We just had different ways of getting there. When I left Congress, I felt totally different. Really? I, I really

felt like there was, there were those of us that love the country. They love the red, white, and blue. We believed in, in freedom and liberty and prosperity. And, but there's a whole group out there that doesn't love the country. They, they, they, they're subversive in their efforts. They want

in, in prosperity. They think prosperity is bad and evil. And I, that's so foreign to me, something I still have a hard time comprehending, but they want us so division. And you look at where we are today, they're, they're taking every turn, every chance they can. And with social

media and the way our ability to communicate is changed, it, it's not always necessarily good.

And it really put us to the test as, as we move forward as a nation. So there's, you know, when we look back at the founders, yeah, and we have a real look at like what they talked about, right, they argued. They had a, a lot of disagreements, like really substantial ones, you know,

“that they hashed out and independent of all their carpenters or whatever they were. And I think a”

lot of us, maybe lament are the discourse nowadays in politics, you know, do, do, do elective representatives, everyone else really talk, talk to each other or just talk at and sound bites or something. But so have you served in a deliberative body, but also you understand the founders. And now, being, you know, part of the Fox News, probably the biggest megaphone out there talking to it in the news world. I mean, how do you reflect on what it was like and what it's like now,

and maybe where we should go, in terms of political discourse. Oh, a couple things. First of all,

our founders set it up so that it was not an easy glide path. I mean, what's, I heard just as Scalia talk about this. And if you look up this talk is really good, but he said, our constitution is, and I'm, my words not his. He is much more eloquent. He talked about the miracle of our constitution is that it's not an easy glide path. It's not that if we wanted a quick, easy path, we'd have a king or a monarch or, you know, some do parlaments that are just, it's easy to pass things,

right? But not us. We have a bicameral legislature, you know, you've got a president who has a veto power. That makes it very difficult to run the gauntlet and actually get something past. To me, that meant, hey, that the founders are really, actually conservative. They don't want quick swift changes. They want to go lurching to the left or the right fast. You don't want to go like that. The other thing I thought I think is interesting, and I was reminded by that because we went to the

“president Lincoln's presidential library. They have a whole room that you should go visit”

and maybe how, but everybody should go through there. The media was just vilifying Lincoln. His entire presidency. I mean, we think a lot of the stuff the media does to President Trump is vile. Oh, you should see what they were doing to Lincoln with no social media, no ability to respond, making him to be like the devil himself and all that. Now, I recognize that he was not one of our founding fathers, but one of the most consequential president to ever, absolutely.

And yet, we survived because we had a free and open press. You don't have that in any other country. Yeah. You just don't have that. Well, we also have things like the second amendment, you know, their bill of rights all up and down, all of them. And so it's truly a miracle what we've been

able to accomplish, but those things are going to be tested. Like we've never had them tested before.

“Well, you know, I think it brings us to something that you've been looking into a lot of”

learning about, which is AI, artificial intelligence. And it does, it will impact our rights and our freedom. So they talked to me about what you see in the future. You're what you're excited about your concerns and how that intersection with policy and our rights happens. I'm really, like I want to embrace new technology and be able to use it to allow more prosperity for our nation than ever. But some of it's very scary. And I don't know that everybody fully

appreciates it. It's, it's not just Google, but better. It's, you know, I heard some people speak about this. It's more than just a tool. Like the example was used. Like if you get a knife, you can use this to cut lettuce. You can also use it to cut your, cut your knee, you know, or cut your, whatever. And having, you know, and start bleeding, it can be really bad, right? Or you can use it to cut lettuce. It's not that. AI can essentially think for itself. So think of it this way.

If you take all of human intelligence, everything that's written, everything that has been said or uttered or published, it has the ability to almost instantaneously access that and put it in such a form that it can do things faster than a human will ever be able to do. And so that opens up a world of possibilities. But it's also scary because a lot of people

Whether you're younger or old, I think are young people are scared of it because they don't know

what to to major in. We used to say in this country, hey, we need a, well, actually young people to be coders to make all this new technology. What wasn't that long ago? That wasn't that long ago. And now they're saying don't go into coding because AI can code itself. If you just explain and layman's terms, I want an app that does this, it'll do it for you in less than a minute. And that becomes scary. You can drive a car and go from point A to point B without ever touching a

pedal or a steering wheel. Those types of things are here today. So when everything's autonomous and there's no need for pilots or drivers or teachers or the what's everybody good to do, and that'll test our principles. Instead of just being protectionists, we got to figure out how

“work and what work looks like. Because I think work is a good thing. I think it propels people,”

creates prosperity. It gives you a self-worth. It does a lot of things. But there's some that believe, oh, we won't need to work anymore. Well, how's that going to work? It doesn't work. It's pretty scary. It's pretty mind-blowing when you get to it. And these things are going to take place over the next two, three, four years. And I think it'll be probably the top three or four issues going into the presidential election in 2021. You know, I feel like there's a tension between

innovation, which in progress through innovation. I mean, that's super important to group like ours, or anybody who cares about our country and knows the story of our country. But at the same time, if it's innovation or that is going to take away jobs or could it erode our freedom, you know, that I think trying to figure out, what do you think about, when you think about AI that way, how do you think about it? And then also should Congress play a role here? Congress should play a

role. The problem is there are a bunch of idiots. When it comes to technology, I'm just saying,

you got 535 people there. There's maybe four, maybe on a good day. The know anything about technology or how it works. And so you're asking a group to set the guardrails of something,

“they can't even speak the language of, they don't even comprehend it. And that's why you have”

the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, you know, come before Congress and just run circles around because they don't know, Congress doesn't even know what questions to ask. Okay? I think one of the biggest problems and challenges for people, particularly young people, but old people too, everybody is privacy. You know, it used to be that you could live your life in anonymity. And I think you have a right to privacy as an American, but everywhere you go, there's going to be a

camera and facial recognition. You have meta, combining with with the Rayman to come up with the glasses. So you can walk down the street, they just look like reading glasses. And is it going down the street? It's peppering. It's able to look at that person and identify all that's Kathy. She worked at the University of Illinois. And she studied his botany. And you could just come up to and say, oh, Kathy, hey, didn't we work together on that? I mean, you could fake your way through

something instantaneously. And you would never know because it's a one way glass. Those types of

things. And I, I worry that everything that are, I have six grandkids at this point. So out. Yes, I see you. They're going to grow up in a world where there is no intellectual property. There is no personal privacy that those things can do that technology can do some very perverted things.

“I think bullying and those types of things are really going to get out of hand. And it's all,”

this is technology that we already have here today. I'm not talking about, oh, at some point, this is technology that's right here today. And we got to deal with it. And Congress, better get their act together and put some guardrails on it. Yeah, it really is the big thing. And we can talk in about it. It impacts everything. We talk a lot about energy. Yeah, I'll see, we end up talking about privacy rights. It's, it's ubiquitous, you know, and jobs, job training.

I mean, it really, it really affects how you learn. I mean, I think teachers will totally displace. I think the teachers will all be online, you know, or you'll wear a headset and be able to go visit a volcano or go dive into the heart and see how it works. And you don't need to teach her for that. You just need some AI and you can get there. It's going to be interesting. Yeah, I want to go back a little bit to, you know, the campaign,

there were the one small step campaign and talking about people getting involved, civically. Yeah. Um, would you say to somebody who, maybe they're sitting there watching you on Fox News, they're like, yeah, he's all right. Or I just totally disagree with him. He's, he's full of it, but they just sit there, they're slapping their couch, they're telling their spouse, you know, but would you tell them like, how should they take action and act on

a role and you can get involved. And it's true. That's what I did. You got to take that first step

that first small step and then it'll blossom from there. The advice I'd give is it's not enough to be a keyboard warrior. It's not enough to get out just on Facebook or Instagram or whatever you want to do. X or whatever. I mean, look, I do that in part for a living. Okay. So don't get me wrong. There's a place for it. But when you speak from your heart and explain to people, not just what you believe, but why you believe it? And you laugh and you do so with this sincere open heart,

then you're going to attract a lot more than you will repel. And if you help your neighbor and, you know, I tell a story about this member of the United States military and I he's out in Afghanistan and I was able to visit him and I said, what's what's your number one worry? And you know what

he said? I don't, I don't have a somebody to help my wife mow the lawn. Just breaks your heart, you know?

And if you really talk to people on a human level with a sincere heart, then you open up the door to have a discussion about something you care about. Maybe it's the military, maybe it's ice, maybe it's healthcare, maybe it's the economy. Maybe it's a particular candidate that you're trying to champion that that opens up the world. And I want everybody to be involved and engaged everything from your homeowner's association to your city council to your, you know,

the county council or wherever you're structured, your state, Congress, national politics, you know, some of us get to do it full time, but most people do it, you know,

“an hour here 30 minutes there. And that's that's about right. And that's that's what our founders,”

I think relied upon our founders relied upon that the idea that people would get involved and engage its your government. It's our government. And you got to remember all those representatives and senators, they'll work for us. Yeah. It's not the other way around. That's what makes the United States unique, but that's also what's required to take that small step and get involved in engaged. I think back to the founders. I mean, they were part-time founders, really. I mean, they had

other lives and even the militias, so much of the military were, you know, that you read back to the revolution and the crisis that would come at the end of the year when Washington's like, "Oh my, guys, you're going to leave to go attend their crops or something." And you know, they want to be gone. And it's like, wow. And it really is kind of a fascinating thing. And it but it speaks to like the organic bottom-up nature of our, of the birth of our nation and what

to how it should continue. And I think that one of these, I'll leave by this campaign and I will appreciate work with for Merrick's prosperity for, you want to have 15 years, is, you know, we could take that person who's slapping their cows or, you know, complaining about their cows and take their voice and try to aggregate it with other voices, because I mean, as you know, somebody who's in the congressional office and worked in Governor's office is those aggregate

voice together, start to have a lot more impact and can affect public policy in the direction

“of a state or a nation. And so that's what we're trying to do and I'm excited to hopefully do it.”

But yeah, I think it's a, it's a challenge because there's so many ways to check out and be apathetic and go ahead and be upset about stuff. I mean, there's the distraction in your day is very real. It's, it's easy to just do. But if you decide, hey, look, I want to put part of my time towards this and it's an investment, sometimes of time, sometimes of money and people can do what they can do. They start with their neighborhood and their friends and their networks and their family,

then then you come to an event and you realize, wow, there's a lot of people believe what I believe and that's a good thing. That's, that's, that's the miracle of the United States of America. So, finally, as, as a frequent Fox News contributor. Yes. How has it, has that change your perspective on anything or your, obviously, changes your experience for me and member of Congress? Like, what do you hear from people? Does it give you a different perspective on the conversation?

Um, very blessed to do it. I think a lot of people want to do it. Not many get to do it. So I'm very grateful to be able to continue to, I, I, I like to think that I continue to learn about things

that I never thought I'd get involved and engaged with, you know, Fox still kind of generally tell

you the topic, but it's up to you to go do the research. And so, because of my Fox, I'm able to pick up the phone and call people say, all right, we're talking about whatever XYZ, you're this subject

“matter expert, help me understand and learn. And that's what kind of lights my fire day after”

day after day. There are things I know because I have had lots of experience. I love talking about those. But then, you know, like artificial intelligence right now is really got me thinking. Yeah.

But I've never had to think about what is a post-labor economy look like. That sounds

“crazy to me. And you got to Elon Musk over there telling us we're going to colonize the moon and”

Mars and like, what does that look like? You know, and so there's always, there's always somebody

doing some stupid somewhere, right? But then there's also new horizons, new things that make you think.

“And I love that. That keeps me involved and engaged and on my toes. Oh, I'll make sure you”

interesting to listen to, too. That's great. Hi, Paul. I really appreciate you joining us. Thank you. Sharon, I really wish you'd be being part of this event. You're the chair. You're a cleanup hitter on the in this event. Oh, I'm excited. Oh, pressure there. The good people of

“central Illinois will love it. I know that that different from the good people of Utah. I think it's”

so much. Thank you. If you folks, if you like this episode, please like and subscribe our channel to our

channel and look us up on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. And always remember Liberty freedom

we're easily taken for granted. Don't take for granted. Go out there and defend Liberty freedom. Thanks for joining us. I'm still an exception. Thank you for listening to American Potential. You may listen to more stories from Americans working every day to expand freedom and opportunity in their communities by visiting americanpotential.com.