From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - John Roberts: The White House's Lurch To The Left

Episode Date: November 20, 2021

This week, Sean and Rachel bring co-Anchor of America Reports on the FOX News Channel John Roberts to the Kitchen Table to discuss some of the recent issues at the White House. John explains why President Joe Biden's progressive leading policies are not resonating well with the electorate and are the reason his approval rating is plummeting. He believes that unless the Biden Administration dramatically changes its course, the GOP will win back the House in 2022. Later,  John shares some of his Christmas traditions in honor of Sean & Rachel's new book, All American Christmas. Order their book! Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everybody, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast and my partner in life, Rachel

Campos Duffy. Thank you, Sean. It's been a great week here and I'm so glad that we have our next guest because our book has been doing great, All-American Christmas. It's gone all the way up to, I think, number five on Amazon. It might be higher by now. So it's doing really great. And we decided we're going to have my personal favorite Christmas story. And that's not to diminish any of the other stories, but there's a reason why I have a special affinity to our next guest's Christmas story in our All-American Christmas book, and that is John Roberts. John,

welcome to the show. I'm flattered that you enjoyed my story. It was one of heartache and sort of rebirth, and I guess we'll talk about that in just a little while. Yeah, we sure will. I want to get to it, and I'll explain why it really touched me in a special way, too. Let's get started because we're just so lucky to have someone with your professional reputation on our show talking about news of the day and particularly because there's a lot going on in the White House, which is sort of your expertise there. The poll numbers for the president have been dropping significantly over the last few months. And I think it's at a point where even the White House, I think,

can't ignore it anymore. So why don't we start with that? What are you seeing in these poll numbers? And do you think, as I do, that they're finally waking up over in the administration to the problems that they are going to have, not just this year, but in the midterms and beyond. Well, Rachel and Sean, I think we're seeing a real dissatisfaction among a good percentage of the electorate to the policies that this White House has been pursuing and to this lurch to the left that Biden has engaged in. It's what a lot of people suspected might happen, but Biden told us during the campaign would not happen.

But it would seem that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party really has the momentum and the pull and the influence here. And and Joe Biden is just sort of dutifully following along with this lurch to the left. But when you look at obviously republicans are not going to rate him very highly at all but when you look at the number of independents uh sean and rachel that he has lost in just the last few months that really is a warning sign for the democratic party at large not just the president that what he is pursuing in terms of all of these progressive-leaning policies is

not resonating well with the electorate and, in fact, is turning a lot of people off. What we saw at the beginning of November in Virginia and to a large degree in New Jersey, out on Long Island as well, is a real indication that voters are revolting against this. And I think unless this administration dramatically changes course and throws the progressive wing of the party overboard in favor of a swing back to the middle, what we saw in November of 2021 is just going to be a very small appetizer for the main course that will happen in November 8th, 2022. for the main course that'll happen in November 8th, 2022. Yeah, it's a little foreshadowing.

And, you know, just recently, a state representative in Texas who has been a 20-year Democrat representative just flipped parties and became a Republican. And so it's not just, you know, obviously Republicans are not going to like this administration. You're right, independents have started to fall away. But a lot of those, you know, long-term Democrats

are seeing the policies of the socialist or progressive wing of the party don't meet their values. Glenn Youngkin certainly wouldn't have won the governorship of the Commonwealth of Virginia had it not been for a number of Democrats who decided, you know what, I'm not going to vote for Terry McAuliffe. I'm going to vote for the Republican this time around. A hundred percent. Here's what I want to ask you about, though. You spent a lot of time reporting on the White House. You were there during the Trump years. You've seen how people behave with different administrations. And again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the press was pretty vicious with President Trump. There was a lot of pushback, a lot of talk over.

It seemed like there was a lot of disrespect. Maybe that's just my perception as an outside viewer. And it seems like the press now has been covering Joe Biden with somewhat of kid gloves on. Now they're getting a little bit more aggressive on inflation and calling him out and harder questions. We saw a recent article from CNN about the internal spat between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. What's your read as a longtime observer of White House politics of what's going on and how media treats different administrations differently? I think the real difference, Sean and Rachel, between the way that the Trump administration was viewed and treated by the media and the Biden administration is that a lot of people thought that by holding President Trump's feet to the fire,

by being combative with him as opposed to asking a legitimate question, was that they could become media superstars. There were a number of them that emerged and ascended during the early days of the Trump administration. To a large degree, they began to wane as the Trump administration went away. large degree. They began to wane as the Trump administration went away. It's funny because I told my colleagues, I said, you know, all these folks at MSNBC and CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and all of these other media organizations that were going after Trump with as much zeal as they could possibly muster and better be careful because if he doesn't win re-election, possibly muster, had better be careful.

Because if he doesn't win re-election, their viewership, their readership is going to tank. And the people who became media stars by confronting President Trump, I don't know if they were engaging in journalism or just grandstanding, are going to rue the day because they're going to lose whatever it was that they had. Now, that's not to say that you should support or not support a person while they are in office. But CNN, MSNBC saw their ratings rise to record levels during the Trump administration and go down just as fast when he was out of office. And now they're trying to scramble to get back whatever audience they can, in large part by continuing their reporting on the Trump administration to a large degree, many people have left that behind to say, look, that may come back. But at the moment, we're on to something different. The way that they're treating the Biden administration is by asking mostly friendly, always polite questions of Jen Psaki and the president whenever they get a chance to do it.

You're right, Sean. Some of those questions have become a little more, little more pointed in recent weeks. But for my money, the only person who's really asking pertinent, difficult questions, speaking truth to power is our Peter Doocy. Everybody else is going to throw out softballs. I couldn't agree more. And he's become the superstar now. But also, he has been. And Chris Wallace said to Peter Doocy the other day

that he thinks that he has become, Chris thinks that Peter Doocy has become, the Sam Donaldson of this current generation. And I agree. And Donaldson made his bones by being aggressive, because you have to be aggressive when you're in the White House press corps, but asking difficult, uncomfortable questions that no one else would ask. Helen Thomas did exactly the same thing, and no one has ever accused Helen Thomas of being a conservative.

So it's just just it's a matter of doing it respectfully which peter always does but asking the difficult question that no one else is willing to ask and you get the best answers when you do that like the other day when peter said to the president mr president do you think that by offering up 450 000 per migrant that was separated from their family at the border, you're going to encourage more people to come across the border? And the president was dumbstruck by the question. He had no idea of what the developing policy of the Department of Justice was.

He shot it down, said that it was a garbage report, that it's not going to happen. The ACLU knocked on his door very loudly and said, Excuse me, Mr. President, but yes, this is what we're talking about, and we want this to happen. And then the White House came out the next loudly and said, excuse me, Mr. President, but yes, this is what we're talking about and we want this to happen. Then the White House came out the next day and said, yes, well, the president's comfortable with what the DOJ is doing. And it's just by asking a simple, straightforward, honest question that Peter got an incredible answer that showed that the president was completely out of touch with the policy that his administration was developing. I haven't served in Congress for almost 10 years. I was always aghast at how Republicans were.

I mean, listen, we're used to being asked tough questions. The media is not always very nice to us. And you actually get pretty good at people asking you aggressive, hard questions. And the more you get asked those questions, the better you get. A lot of my Democrat colleagues were always shocked if they got a tough question because they were never used to it. And you're always better. You're a better public servant when people hold you to account and ask you the hard question. It makes you better and more responsive. And that's why I think it's so important to have just a really robust and respectful press corps, especially in the White House. And you were part of that, John. And I

think Peter is extending what you did there as well. We'll have more of this conversation after this. It's really not important to me to have a lot of things to show off, fancy cars, you know, a giant home. Those things are just not part of who I am. But I've been coached and I've learned through my advisor that it's not one size fits all. Everyone has their own preferences. Everything that I do with Edward Jones is tailored to who I am. Edward Jones, we do money differently. Visit edwardjones.ca slash different. If you don't mind, I know you don't have a whole lot of time with us this morning. I would like to pivot to the book and give it to Rachel because she wants to tell you kind of why both of us love your story. And before we got onto

the podcast, I told you the same thing and I'll kick it to the better half. Yeah. John, I think that so many of us associate Christmas with wonderful memories and we should. I mean, most of us have beautiful memories around it. And yet you had a Christmas that was so formative. I know my mom lost her mom and her brother within a few weeks. I was probably 15 at the time. And I think she has lots of memories of wonderful Christmases. But I think a lot of it is colored by that. And also as she got older,

I think she could appreciate, she grew up very poor and she never understood how she believed in Santa until she was a teenager. Actually it was the three wise men because she's from Spain and that's, you know, they got their presents from the three wise men, but she believed in them for a really long time. She was well into her teens because she couldn teens because she knew how poor they were. There was no way her mother could have possibly

purchased the little gifts that they got. And it wasn't until she got older that she realized the sacrifices her mom made throughout the year to make sure that they did have this magical holiday and celebrated Christmas and Ep epiphany in such a nice way. But then when her mother passed away, her brother unexpectedly passed away a few weeks later, and it was just before the holidays. And I think that was really hard. And so when I read your story, and I want you to tell our listeners about it, it really touched me because I think it was so powerful, but also helped you appreciate the good times more because of it. Well, I'll tell you, Rachel, that moms really are amazing people. My story is that at the beginning of November 1962, my father, who had suffered from a congenital defect, it's called a coarctation of the aorta, which meant that the blood pressure in his upper body was very, very high, morbidly high.

He had an aneurysm and he passed away just a little bit more than a month before Christmas. And it was clearly devastating to the family. And the biggest reason it was devastating to the family was because we're talking about the early 1960s. My mother, who had worked as a hairdresser when she was younger, did not have a job. She was a stay-at-home mom. She was a homemaker, as they called women back in the 1960s. And she was looking after myself, my sister, and my brother. My brother was about to go to college.

He was in his last grade in high school. And so she didn't have a job. She didn't have any way of bringing in any income. And a month before Christmas, she was left with the decision of how do I put one foot in front of the other and move forward? And it was my uncle who said to her, she was considering selling the house, which I think they bought in 1956 for about $19,000, selling the house and moving us into an apartment. And my uncle said to her, if it is at all possible, hang on to the house. They bought the house cash. So the only thing that they need to do is pay for utilities and taxes. So my mother got a very low

end job at the local pharmacy running the cash register. She was making about $90 a week, I think doing that. But through sheer force of will and tenacity and stubbornness to a great degree because my mother was a very stubborn person she managed to make it work and we we had um i don't have any particular memories of that christmas but i remember while we were sad about the passing of my father and he was only 47 years old at the time uh we had what i believe was a good Christmas. I don't have any bad memories from that year, though I don't have many. And it could be that, you know, the post-traumatic stress of losing a loved one at that time of year leads you to not form many long-lasting memories. But from then on, my mother did whatever she could to make sure that we had what we needed to have. We didn't have a lot, but we had what we needed.

And every Christmas after that was a lovely affair. The presents were modest, but the time with family and having meals together and spending time together, that was the memorable part of it. And it was, again, just by saying that she had to survive and she had to survive to pull her family along, that my mother was able to do that every year at Christmas. And she taught me so many things. She taught me her tenacity. She taught me the value of a dollar. She taught me to be kind to people. She taught me to be independent, to stand up for myself and really chase what I believed in. And those were lessons that sat with me for the rest of my life. Interesting, though, that even to this day, as we head into November, and my birthday

happens to be in November, it's November 15th, a certain sense of ennui sort of sets in. And I think that it's just the lingering memories of my father passing. By the time Christmas comes along, I'm in the spirit, but there's sort of a little cloud that hangs over my head every year at this time, even to this day. That's how I feel my mom feels as well. I mean, I know she's, my mom has always been the one who kind of gets everything going and does all the preparation, but it wasn't until I got a bit older that I really could see that. I'm so fascinated by your mom. She just sounds like an amazing woman. And you said that

she lived in that house until the very end or until she had to go to the nursing home because she had dementia. Is that right? She died at the age of 96 from Alzheimer's disease. And I swear, she was in such great health that if she didn't have Alzheimer's disease, she'd probably still be alive now. She was born in 1913. So that would make her, what, 108 at this point? But I think she probably would have lived

because the doctor said the night before she passed, he said, it's, it's not her heart. It's nothing physical. She's got the heart of a 30 year old because she, she lived a clean life.

She didn't smoke. She didn't drink. She ate really well, but she had, she had Alzheimer's. But here's, but here's the story of, of,

of my mom. She always used to clean the leaves out of the gutters on our bungalow by herself. She would never pay anybody to do it because it was a job that she could do. My sister came to visit her one day, and she was on a six-foot ladder teetering on tiptoe, reaching into the gutters to pull the leaves out. And my sister was mortified. And she said, Mom, you can't do that anymore.

I'm taking away your ladder. The ladder's too short. You're going to fall. You're going to kill yourself. And my mother was very upset by this whole thing. My sister put the ladder in her SUV and took it away. So what did my mom do? The next day, she got on a bus because she couldn't drive anymore. So she got on the local bus. She took the local bus to the Canadian version of Home Depot. They have Home Depot there now, but back then it was a company called Canadian Tire,

which is so Canadian, it's perfect. And she bought an eight-foot ladder and brought it home on the bus. She had a ladder that would reach the gutters so she could clean the leaves. And my sister came back the next weekend and there was my mom up on her brand new ladder cleaning out the gutters. And my sister said, I told weekend and there was my mom up on her brand new ladder cleaning out the gutters.

And my sister said, I told you not to do that anymore. And my mom said, you told me not to do it on the six foot ladder. So I bought a bigger one. You got an eight foot ladder. She sounds awesome. I like her. But she brought it home on the bus. Can you imagine what the bus driver was thinking?

There's another story too. Didn't she actually go get a Christmas tree and bring the Christmas tree home on the bus as well to go save some money at a store that was like 10 miles away yes yes she did that her the bus was her favorite way of getting around you know she didn't have a lot to do during the day so a three-hour bus ride was sort of recreation to her so yeah she would do everything in the bus but the ladder is an even better story because the tree was only about five feet high but the the ladder was eight feet. I think when you tell the story about kind of the sadness that happens and just Rachel talked about her mom, my mom's father died when she was like 15 and like a couple of days before Christmas. And there was always a sadness for her. And I think it took her

a while to realize why she was sad at Christmas in her forties, the light went on and says, Oh, of course I'm sad because this is, you know because this was kind of this traumatic loss that we had in our family. And I think a lot of people deal with that. It is a joyous time. We celebrate the birth of Christ with family and friends and food and these wonderful memories. But if something happens, it can be really hard to feel that joy. And I think to share stories like that, John, are meaningful to a lot of people who may not be willing to go deep like that and share their own kind of anxiety during Christmas. And that's why I was so happy that you did that. Yeah. I mean, sometimes you go to the grocery store and you're in a great mood and it's around

Christmas time and maybe the person that's checking you out is a little sad. It's just good to remember that we all have our own stories. We all have our own journeys and people are going through different things at different times. But also I think that in the end, some of those sad moments help us appreciate the good times as well. I know you got to go on a sec. Go ahead. I was just going to say it is the most wonderful time of the year, but it's also the time of the year when we think about family more than I think we do any other time of the year. And when you think about family, you are thankful for the ones that you have around you, but you really do miss the ones who are no longer there. That's so true.

That is true. Would you give us one, just one other story for us before you have to go? There's just one other story for us before you have to go. And again, I hope this book is out now in bookstores across the country and people can still order it online. And you get all of these stories from some of your favorite Fox News talent like John Roberts that share stories like this about their youth and how they celebrate Christmas right now. And I mean, it's interesting because we see you on TV and you're very professional and

very smart. And you get this side of John Roberts and a lot of Fox talent. But you get to know people in a different way when you share these kind of stories with us. And one of the other stories that I liked was, again, your mom and the Christmas stockings. That were not the red Christmas stockings with the white layer on top with your name on it. Tell us the story of your Christmases growing up in Christmas stockings and what your mom would do. We have a great tradition now, as so many families across America do,

of hanging the traditional red faux fur-trimmed stocking in front of the fireplace. But back in the day, when I was a kid, of the fireplace. But back in the day when I was a kid, my mom didn't have enough money to buy decorative Christmas stockings. Plus, she always had too many things that she wanted to put in them. And those decorative Christmas stockings, as you know, don't hold a whole lot. So she wore hose at that time, real stockings in which you would use a garter to pin them up, that time, real stockings in which you would use a garter to pin them up, and she would wear those every day to work. And at Christmas, one of those stockings would become a Christmas stocking. Now, here was the bad thing about it, because you would end up Christmas morning with one

of your mom's stockings on your bed. But here's the great part about it. You could fit an entire leg in those stockings. You could never fit an entire leg in a traditional Christmas stocking that you hang in front of the fireplace. So that stocking would hold a lot of stuff. And Christmas morning, there would be some socks and pair of gloves and a baseball, you know, tennis ball, hockey pucks, because I played hockey when I was a kid, a couple of rolls of hockey tape as you dig your way down this three-foot-long stocking. And every year, and it only would happen at Christmas,

my mother would go to the store and she would splurge and she would buy a box of mandarin oranges. And I always remember the mandarin oranges because they came in a, it almost seemed like a balsa wood box but it was so cool because you actually had a wooden box of oranges and down in the very toe of the stocking she would always put the mandarin orange so i would dig through the stocking opening up the presents taking out the hockey pucks and you know the skate laces and the athletic tape and whatever else was in there digging down to to get that little Mandarin orange.

And it was a gift from the tropics. And when you live in Toronto, you know that anything associated with sunshine and warmth is welcome. So anytime Christmas came along and I would dig down and I would grab that Mandarin orange, I would think that it came from a very exotic place with palm trees and sunshine. And I would sit in my bed on Christmas morning with the snow falling all around, just transporting myself to someplace magical as I ate that orange before we went out and we opened what Christmas presents were in the tree. That was always very special to get my mom's hosiery on my bed in the morning. Do you have oranges now for Christmas? Do you get the mandarin orange?

Do you celebrate the same way? We get them all year round. I know, right? I was just thinking how special. My mom also remembers how special it was to get a mandarin orange and some of these fruits from the tropics. And it was only on special occasions. And now we all just take it for granted. Although maybe this Christmas with the supply chain, we might get a little bit of that feeling again. Exactly. Yeah. Your piece

of fruit is going to be much more special. A tradition that we didn't follow on was my mother used to make this fabulous Christmas pudding. Many people didn't think it was so fabulous, but I loved it. But she would make it with, I think, a pound of suet, which is what gave it its extraordinary flavor. What is that? Well, you know what lard is? Yeah. Yeah, well, suet is like really bad for you lard. And that gave the texture and the flavor to the pudding.

But that stuff was literally heart attack in a bowl. I mean, I think the reason why I have three stamps in my heart was from my mom's Christmas pudding. But, John, she would put coins in the pudding, right? She would put coins, yeah. You'd have a little treasure hunt at Christmas dinner. She would obviously boil and sanitize the money and make sure she didn't use pennies because they would corrode. Ended up with some corroded pennies and had to throw the whole thing out.

But you would dig around and you get a nickel or you get a dime. And everybody was after the quarter. There would be one quarter in the entire pudding and we'd all fight for that. You get a heart attack and a quarter all in one day. All in the same bite. It's good. It's a heart attack and a quarter all in one day. All in the same bite. It's good to be young, right? It's good to be young.

Well, listen, John, thank you for joining us with the book and sharing your stories. Yeah, we're so honored you would be part of it. Thank you so much for asking. Fox, I appreciate all you have done to bring the news to the American people. And you two have asked hard questions of both sides, but always respectful. And as a viewer, I think that's what it's that kind of tenacity that makes our network so great. And yeah, John, you give journalism a good name.

You do. Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. And just, you know, just a parting thought at Christmas. The one thing that the childhood that I went through taught me was less is very often more. So many kids ask for the moon on Christmas, and so many parents are just only too happy to indulge and give them the moon and beyond. But when you don't have very much, that's when things really count. And so I believe in a frugal Christmas.

I believe in a giving Christmas where you help people who are less fortunate than you are. And just remember what's really important in life. Your mom really left you with some powerful, valuable lessons. And you just hear it. It just comes right through who you are. And it's really beautiful. And you're right. who you are. And that's, it's really beautiful. And you're right. It is too commercialized. And it really does come down to, to relationships and memories. And they don't have to do with a lot of consumerism. In the end, that's not what it's about. And so your your story is powerful. It's it is as much as I love Jesse's story about the squirrel and the tree and the fight with the cat. It was great. But I just, I was really,

I had a tear in my eye when I, as I was reading yours, cause it brought back so many thoughts for me as well. So thank you, John, so much for joining us. Thanks for all you do at Fox as well. Rachel and Sean,

great to be with you. Thanks for inviting me on. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving. And a Merry Christmas. And you too. And a Merry Christmas. By the too. And a Merry Christmas. By the way, John, happy birthday. Your birthday was yesterday? Oh, yes.

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. If it was a birthday, I would rather not acknowledge it. I'll go to the mailbox and see what my invitation was to that huge bashing party that you had. I'm kidding. We just turned 50 and we had no party. We let it slide by. So, happy birthday to you. I just turned 50 and we had no party. We let it slide by. So happy birthday to you.

I remember turning 50. And maybe one time we'll do an actual cup of coffee instead of a virtual cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Around the kitchen table. Thanks so much, John. We'd love to do it. You bet. Good to be with you. Thanks so much, John, for joining us at the kitchen table. We've enjoyed the conversation. And if you too do let us know, subscribe, rate and review this podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you download

podcasts. We hope to see you for a virtual cup of coffee around our kitchen table next week. Bye, everybody. The world of business moves fast. Stay on top of it with the Fox Business Rundown. Listen to the Fox Business Rundown every Monday and Friday at foxbusinesspodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.