Thank you. Book testify continues on cspan2, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. Welcome to heritage, thank you for joining us, we will have a fun discussion about Jason Chaffetz new book, power grab and introduce him senator mike lee, best friend of the constitution. Hello. Its a pleasure to be with you. This merges several of my interests, the constitution, conservative politics, books about those things at the Heritage Foundation and my friends jason and julie chaffetz. I first came to know the name Jason Chaffetz over 30 years ago when he became the place kicker at byu, hes really good, to this day he holds records including the most successful points after touchdown scored in a single game and i think in a single season and he was also famous for the fact that immediately after he kicked a field goal or pap, the helmet would come off and then he had this awesome slow jog to the sidelines and became famous for that, the chaffetz, something called the chaffetz rule. I actually think it played a key role in his success as a statesman in the state of utah, people came to know him and they knew who he was, i remember many years later long after he had played for byu and had a successful career as a businessman and met him in person for the first time and i was star struck and met him while he was running governors campaign, before he was governor huntsman, and he, Jason Chaffetz himself convinced me that huntsman was the next governor, we had conversation at Utah County Republican Convention and several months after that, after getting elected called me and informed me that i was in consideration for huntsman administration. So we hit it off and we ended up working together. I ended up serving as governor hutsman general counsel at the time when Jason Chaffetz was the chief of staff but my most Important Role during that time period was when i became Jason Chaffetz chauffeur. [laughter] he and i lived closer together than any other two members of the senior staff and at one point jason broke his foot, long story we wont get into that. Sounds like the punch line to a joke and it was actually quite serious but he fell and broke his foot and had to be in cast, elevated for several months at a time. I would go and pick him up in hope in utah, seat in backseat of the car to keep his foot elevated and i asked him to get a chauffeurs hat, i didnt charge him anything, the only thing subjected to lengthy rants on constitutional issues and listened to taperecorded supreme arguments which who wouldnt want to do that . But i digress, we are not to talk about any of that, we are here to talk that Jason Chaffetz is a hero when it comes to defending individual liberty and fighting against Big Government, hes someone who is willing to call out the left, both, those who identify as part of the left and also who want to build Big Government. Someone who understands the fact that there is something of a zerosome game and he understands the fact that government itself is not and never can be, never will be consistently benevolent, the government is collective force, organized force and its run by fallible mortal individuals, consequently we have to carefully constrain its power and we have to make sure that its not abused. In his latest book Jason Chaffetz describes how powers have been orchestrated in such a way to effectively weponized the threatening power of government in a way that advances the political agenda of the left or another way to describing it might be advancing the political agenda of those who you would expand government at the expense of individual liberty. He blows a whistle on how they have weponized the use criminal investigations in order to achieve a particular political outcome, now, to be clear, as Jason Chaffetz makes her in power grab, this isnt question of red team versus the blue team. This is a question of liberty versus centralized government power. We shouldnt be eager to go back to a system which government knows best and government holds all the power. We cant go back to a time where that is not the case. Thats why Jason Chaffetz book power grab is an important tool for those who want to live in a land where they are free. Whether you call yourself a conservative, or a liberal, or libertarian, or something else, it shouldnt matter, what should matter to you is the concept of liberty, the concept that government exist for certain limited purposes, to make sure that we are secure and to make sure that we have an enterprise that uses collective force for purpose of defending life, liberty and property. The more we deviate from that, the more we run into a real risk of power grab where we become less free and less secure in our lives, liberty and our property. Theres not a day that goes by that i dont mishaving Jason Chaffetz serving in the house of representatives, he was one who in addition to being trusted friend and colleague when we worked in governor huntsmans office, hes someone who came to trust and and love working with when he was serving in the house of representatives and during my time in office in the senate. Hard to remember an issue where we took opposing viewpoints. I take comfort in fact that hes able to do enormous amount of good where he is in informing the American People of risk of Big Government and keeping them informed of whats going on in washington and hes exercising a lot of books like power grab which i highly recommend, with that please join me in welcoming Jason Chaffetz, the author of power grab. [applause] i get to tell mike lee stories when hes not here, thats even better. I first met mike, we were at the utah county convention, literally a thousand plus people at this event and this gentleman comes up and we Start Talking and he introduces himself as mike and i said, do you have a card or something, whats your full name and he said mike lee, because i knew hes a spitting image of his father who was previous had been the president of university and any relationship to rex lee and he said, yeah, thats my dad. I could tell he was related to him, rex lee was the solicitor general for Ronald Reagan and he had argued some 100 plus cases i believe before the Supreme Court, fastforward when im chief of staff and hes general counsel, one of the best things i did while i was chief of staff and it is true, i broke my right foot. He would drive me to and from every day and what he didnt tell you is that he had a cassette tape player in his car and he would like to listen to his dad argue the Supreme Court cases so he would literally put the cassette tape in there, thats how much the guy loves the law and listen to oral presentations before the Supreme Court. I learned a lot but thats what mike does for fun, hes not listening to music or anything like that so you have to love a guy who is that committed to it. [laughter] mike is going to walk us through here a few things. I want to acknowledge my wife julie who is here with me. I appreciate her being here. I appreciate all of you being here. I want to thank the Heritage Foundation for making this all possible, the good that heritage does in terms of informing people, being a resource while i was in congress, even after i had been in congress is such a great resource and so many good minds thinking through tough issues, so, so helpful. The quick of why i wrote the book as i say at the beginning, steven who was from our congressional district, he wrote 7 basic habits, highly effective people need to understand than to be understood. I wholeheartedly believe that. I also believe what Margaret Thatcher said in she said, first you need to win the argument and then you can go out and win the vote and i had always felt even before i came to congress and before i ran and more evident once i was there that republicans, conservatives, we were very pathetic in our communication, first of all, we were getting no help from the mass media, the National Media was not going to be a conduit to which we could get our message out there and have the platform and the time to be able to do that. So it was compounded by that, but ive always felt that we as conservatives have the right message, we just didnt say it very well and we didnt say it enough and i remember when i was first in congress i met with eric canter who had a senior position at the time because i had been invited to be on fox news and i had i couldnt believe it until i called eric canter and i said are you all right if i go on fox news and hes like, jason, are you kidding me, you need to go out there as much as you possibly can to get out our message and get on any other network and talk about why you believe what you believe and more people that can get in front of the cameras to go on all networks to talk about what it is we believe and give that perspective. I dont buy into the idea that you just need to sit back and, oh, well, theyre not going to give us a fair shake so we will not go on there, i did probable write more interviews on msnbc and cnn, you probably didnt see them, not that many people saw them, then i did even on fox news, 8 and a half years in congress and i left and bless to have contributor relationship with box, but i always felt like, gosh, i can still contribute in the Public Square because now more than ever i can get out and talk about issues that matter, that matter more our country and at least from a conservative standpoint and its been very blessed to have this relationship with Harper Collins who did my first book, called the deep state, New York Times best seller and Just Launched this book, literally, like 7 days ago power grab which is sort of the bifurcates in two different areas, how is it that Democrats Use levers that they have that you all have not seen unless you have been in congress or really paying attention, you need somebody to draw your attention to them and then what are the things that they are doing outside of congress to change the dynamic and the narrative and those are the first two chapters of the book that should scare the living daylights out of you because they are doing some things on the left that will affect all of us whether you realize it or not, we as conservatives and republicans dont play often nearly enough. Democrats are always playing offense and thats why i articulate here, mike will walk us through and i think we will do q a, at least we hope we do. I worked for the former congressman when he was chairman of House Oversight committee and a lot of stuff in the book are memories of good times he had when he ran committee. I would like to start off with your final town hall after trump got elected, things got ugly, can you tell us about that and yes, i where about this, i had won fifth term in congress, blessed to get 73 of the vote, this was roughly 4 or 5 weeks after donald trump had been sworn in, the heart of winner in utah and all of a sudden im having town hall meeting, i have had i dont know how many town hall meetings, i love the town hall meeting, a group of this size and people can interact, its a good format, the quick of it is, democrats got a hold of this and they have this group called indivisible utah which had a national presentation, they had a specific manual about how to take over a town hall meeting, this thing blossomed and blew up into a thousand plus people that were showing up and they wanted to create this allusion, its a recurring theme, they wanted to create this allusion that a conservative republican in safe district who just happened to be the chairman of the Oversight Committee with the newly minted president of the United States, donald trump, was that his voters were mad, they needed to do his job and he needs to hold the president accountable and he needed to do this and do that and they had this long list of demands of things that they wanted me to do, much of which i didnt think were in the purview of the United States congress. And so much so that it got out of control, police officers, people openly carrying weapons with masks in the parking lot, we had swat team, it was it turned into quite a fiasco. The highlight of which i will give you is that there were two members to have National Media that had shown up. I dont remember ever having National Media show up to my town hall after i won my fifth election with 73 of the vote, you know, we are weeks into the 115th congress, really . Well, this one reporter she insisted that she interview me and i said, well, let me talk to her on the phone first and i said to her, why are you here, like why are you here, well, we have a source in San Francisco that says theres going to be a riot and perhaps a fire and i said, really . Did you ever think that maybe you should did you tell Law Enforcement about that . Did you did you call my office about that . Youre only telling me because i asked you why you are here and she said, no. And i said, youre going to literally put a thousand plus people in danger if you think theres going to be a riot and a fire potentially youre telling me that people might die, you believe theres enough credibility, thats why you are here and these people are doing live shots from my town hall meeting and it just i call the last town hall because thats the last one that i ended up doing but this is how these people play, recurring theme in here that they really do you believe on the radical far left side, they throw all the labels like fascist and all these really negative terms on donald trump, but what i see them doing is exactly what they claim the president was doing. That in order to protect our freedom they need to take it away, they need to take away our rights under the First Amendment, its just a recurring theme but i could go on and on about this particular town hall meeting but it was used as tool and prop, they paid people to come in, people from all kinds of states there, but they we wanted to create this media allusion that it was an organic utah phenomena in a conservative republican district, look how much problems donald trump is creating for everyone, which was not true. In your book you get to double standards and hypocrisy, the most telling is when you first came to Congress Republicans were referred to as the party of no. Right. Obstruction, but now the media and toaster like the call the left the resistance, name that can note positive justification, what do you make of that . Think about it, houston have you heard the republicans, the party of no because we are somehow opposed to a Public Policy position that barack obama and the democrats were championing that we were the party of no, but if all of a sudden now you dont wear the liberal credentials unless you are antitrump no matter what, no matter what position he possibly takes, theyre going to take the opposite one. I did that when i was like in third grade. No you didnt. Im very proud that they were part of the resistance movement. We disagree, we disagree. Lets have that debate but i do believe that the more conservative actually have the debate, we win that debate and ive been going around the country telling people and i want to show share this message with you, lets talk from our hearts, im tired of conceding the compassion card to the democrats, they are not the more compassionate caring group and what i worry about sometimes when we have the debate and the discussion we want to smoother people with statistics and numbers and the study, i think we also as conservatives, i got my campaign and also need to talk about why we believe what we believe. I think we are in part successful because we talk about the principles, my guess if youre here at the meeting this day you have a set of principles that you believe in but i think that a lot of conservatives forget to step one, lets talk about why you believe what you believe, then we can argue about how we get there and the individual policy position. Democrats want to cut down the debate and create this evil appearance that how dare you, thats why all the polling that we do day after day on television and newspapers, its just a bunch of hogwash. People dont want to admit they will vote to donald trump as opposed Hillary Clinton because they dont want neighbors or somebody else to beat them over the head with it and try to embarrass, thats part of their strategy, they want to embarrass people. One of my favorite parts of the book when you put investigator hat on and dig through tax returns of bunch of big nonprofits from the left, what did you discover in how operations are discovered and shading accounting tricks and full disclosure as nonprofit at heritage, im glad i learned about the tricks in the book, we dont do any of that. So this is what i think people need to understand, if you look at the priorities that they have put forward in congress and you look through any poll thats out there about what are the most important issues, youre going to hear about the economy, youre going to hear about immigration, well, why is it that nancy pelosi has hr1, House Resolution 1, what is her first bill . Does it have anything to do with top 20 or top 50 issues . No, it doesnt, hr1 is how to reconfigure elections, she wants to reconstitute how we do elections in this country because its their calculus, my theory that i have on the book, that they have to reconfigure how we do voting in this count