Jim Jordan
Appearances
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
Well, first of all, I think look at his background. I appreciate the fact that here's a guy who went to night school while he had a family. He's, you know, the discipline, the hard work. I think he's run marathons. He's just, I appreciate all that. I think that kind of work ethic and intensity is always important, you know, when you think about these critical positions.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
And then he's seen it firsthand. I mean, he was President Trump's lawyer. He saw the weaponization of government firsthand because you can just look at what they did, whether it was Alvin Bragg, Bonnie Willis, Jack Smith, both in D.C. and Florida, total political operations against the president.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
And, of course, Todd Blanch was there defending the president and arguing for equal treatment under the law and for those principles that are so important. So he's exactly, exactly the kind of guy we need as the deputy attorney general, that key position that has so much influence on how the Justice Department operates.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
Pam's already been confirmed. I think Cash is going to be confirmed. Pam's off to a great start. They're going to go to the simple fundamental principle that our country is supposed to operate under. Equal treatment under the law. No political stuff. No, oh, our side gets treated one way, their side gets treated another attitude that we saw with the Biden-Garland Justice Department.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
Equal treatment under the law. No politics. And remember, it was Cash Patel who first told us about how bad this was eight years ago when we got the memo that said that the Clinton campaign was targeting President Trump's campaign.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
Clinton campaign paid the law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS, who hired a foreigner, Christopher Steele, put together the fake, false document, the dossier, and they used that dossier to go get warrants to spy on President Trump's campaign. We learned it from Cash. That's why the left is out to get him. But I think he's going to make it as well, just like Todd and like Pam already has.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
No, I think this is common sense. I think the American people view it this way. They're saying like, wow, we were spending our tax money on these stupid things. And of course, the left, instead of attacking the stupid things and stopping the stupid things that taxpayer money is being spent on, they attack the guy who's exposing it. So they're going after Elon Musk.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
But I think the country deep down appreciates, oh, wow, President Trump said he was going to do this. He's named Elon Musk and his team as the people he wants to do this. They're every bit as much federal employees as the bureaucrats, the career bureaucrats who the left always thinks actually runs the country. But that's not how it works.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
And in our system, it's not the career experts, the Dr. Fauci's of the world. It's not those guys who run the country. It's the people who put their name on a ballot and get elected. They make the decisions. And on November 5th, 77 million people said, we want President Trump making these decisions.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
And he has said he's going to use Elon Musk and his team, and God bless them for what they're exposing and showing. And the platform they have to really get that out there for the American people to see and understand, I think it's a good thing.
Morning Wire
Taliban Frees George Glezmann & Trump Gives Maine Deadline | Afternoon Update | 3.20.25
Well, normally, as Chief Justice Roberts has pointed out, the remedy for bad decisions is the appellate court. But it seems to me you may have something a little different here. I think you might have here a judge who's acting in a political fashion.
Morning Wire
Taliban Frees George Glezmann & Trump Gives Maine Deadline | Afternoon Update | 3.20.25
I mean, he basically said, wait, not basically, he did say, turn the plane around, bring back gang members, hardened criminals who've done all kinds of bad things, who are here illegally. Turn the plane around and bring those bad guys back to the country. I think just on its face, this is ridiculous.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
There is nothing you'll do in life that's more challenging, difficult and rewarding than being a parent. Nothing with greater highs or lower lows. You have little kids for a very short period of time. It is a major mistake not to notice that and not to appreciate it.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And so that's their world. vaguely disapproving people who don't want them around for reasons they don't exactly understand. Jesus, that's awful. That's awful. And so you're a proxy for the world as a parent. And so you want to be stringent about what you encourage your children to manifest and what you bring under control. And you can.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
If you're aware of that, you know that's your responsibility. You can do that.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Well, I hope they, first of all, see that the problems that they're having are shared by many people. and that they're real, and that there are solutions, and that the series describes some of the actual solutions, but it also describes the process by which solutions to many problems can be generated, which is even more useful. How do you identify a problem in the household?
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Well, something that's disruptive occurs with regularity. Here's another take. People often focus their attention on the exceptional happenings in their life, Christmas or vacation, some special occasion. But your life is what repeats. So I've had clients, for example, who had a war with their child for 25 minutes every night when they put them to bed for like five years.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
That's their whole relationship. So it repeats every day. You want to get everything that repeats every day right. Right. Smooth functioning. Right. Because that's your life. You know, one of the things you can do with your wife, for example, is negotiate how you greet each other when you come home. Because you come home.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
likely every day or even several times every day you know and if you're if the situation is that we'll do a stereotype here the mother's at home taking care of the kids the father comes home and the second he steps in he's met with a litany of complaints and an insane boatload of responsibility that's a pathway to associating home with resentment forever right Figure it out.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
It's like, how do you make the transition? Because you do it every day. You know, you can do the math. Maybe you come home, there's the transition to come home. Let's call that 20 minutes a day. So that's 105, let's say 120 minutes a week. That's two hours a week. That's eight hours a month. So that's a work day a year. That's 12 work days a year. That's the amount of time you're spending.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Half a month of days coming home, right? Okay, so half a month, you get 24 of those things, right? 24, that's all. Your life is in order. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Arithmetic, man, it's very useful.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And it also did provide her with mobility for several years and made a huge difference in her life, a hugely positive difference. It also gave her a kind of indomitable confidence to be able to do something that's dangerous like that and risky, even in the face of bone fragility, let's say. So that was good. There's been a lot of moments, mostly with my kids. I'm pretty damn happy with them.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Well, and you want to think, it's like, okay, what relationship do I want with my children? This is a lifelong relationship. Your children want more than anything to have the best relationship with you than anyone has ever had in their life. That's what they're offering. And you could have that.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And then you could think about what that would mean over the whole course of your life, right into your old age. And then you could think, okay, I'm going to start running my household on that principle today. And I'm going to be stringent about it because I want this to work. I want the world to open up to my kids. I want them to want to be around me when they leave and become adults.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
I want to see my grandkids. I want the household to thrive. And then you, having established that aim and thought it through, well, then you can detect deviations and negotiate with your wife and your kids to course correct. And your kids will love that. The kids will push against... interventionist attention, let's say. But that's mostly to test it.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
One of the things we learned with my son in particular, who was a more assertive and competitive person in some ways, especially when he was young than my daughter, was very easy child until she became ill. Julian would start to fray at the edges because he was a pushy little rat. And my wife and I would get together and say, okay, that kid, he's starting to like fray a bit.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
So like two weeks, he's not getting away with anything, right? And so we'd link arms and vow to be a united front. And every single time, it was quite shocking because I didn't really realize this would happen. Every single time he liked us better. It was market like he thrived with that attention because that discriminating attention is that's the capital that you offer your children.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
There's nothing they want more than your attention, your differentiated attention. And so.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Almost all the time. And that's been the case throughout their life. So, I mean, we've had our difficulties, most of them health related, you know, and if you have to have difficulties, well, those are sort of necessary in a way, you know what I mean? And maybe we can cope with necessary difficulties in life. I don't know how well we cope with unnecessary difficulties.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, it does. It really does. Life has enough instability, let's say, and uncertainty without adding uncertainty You're the additional overlay of unnecessary suffering and stupidity. Unnecessary suffering is really hard on people, you know. And so I suppose because there's an element of moral culpability to it that isn't there with with an illness. That's a rough division.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And I mean, one of the things that I'm trying to help parents be confident in is their moral right to parent, their moral right to run the household in a manner that... brings peace and abundance. There are obligation to do that. We're afraid of our children in the Western world. And that's partly a reflection of an overweening maternal love, I suppose.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
But we're afraid that we'll damage our children by parenting them. But, you know, you damage your children by not parenting them as well. And the parenting that you should be doing is the establishment of a relationship. And if the relationship is solid, you don't allow and certainly don't encourage your children to do anything that is counter to their best interest, especially socially.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
So I'm trying to fortify parents to understand that they can do that and it is their responsibility and not something harmful.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
reluctance fear of of heavy-handed uh parenting or really um embracing the parenting role well i would say it's got it's got its roots in a philosophical doctrine and that would be the doctrine of jean-jacques rousseau that the natural state of man is noble savage that we're all good and that all culture does is corrupt us which is an insane doctrine we're rife with possibility for good and evil.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
That's our essential nature. And proper cultural intermediation, which is at least in part the role of a parent, fortifies the good and puts what could otherwise be pathological and even malevolent in its proper place. So if you have an aggressive child, for example, and you socialize that child properly, which can be a
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
because an aggressive child, especially one that's extroverted, will push the boundaries hard. If you can socialize them effectively, they can become extremely sophisticated competitors. And that's a pretty high level of achievement.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
So there's the philosophical element, which is a child is perfect and good until they're warped by culture, which is completely one-sided, insane, progressive, naive argument. And then I think the other thing that likely happened was that after World War II, We became wealthy enough in the Western world so that our children and teenagers had disposable income.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
When a disciplinary issue arises, you need to make space to master it. I have to not do what I thought I was going to do for 10 minutes to set this right.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And then they were heavily targeted by corporations, which have a right to market, but heavily targeted by corporations. And their narcissism, their self-centered narcissism was enormous. encouraged and exaggerated. And that's kind of where the permissive consumerist culture of the 1960s emerged.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
That was when, you know, at the beginning of the 60s, you still saw shows like My Three Sons or Father Knows Best. Can you Oh, yeah. Well, one of the few positive examples I've seen of a man in recent comedic history is Ted Lasso. You know, and even Ted is divorced and has his problems, but he's a very good mentor. That's quite rare. Saw another good man in Landman. Billy Bob Thornton.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Yeah, yeah. And so that's more of dramatic. And so some of that's starting to make a comeback. But a lot of that dissolved in the hyper permissive 60s. And all that 60s culture, including its progressivism, was a form of politicized immaturity and a mindless hedonism. It's not useful and not sustainable.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
It depended on the parent. Some of the people I talked to had parents Genuine problems, let's say. I'm not trying to make a distinction exactly between the kinds of problems I dealt with, but some of the parents I saw had a very ill child, for example. And that's just a whole rat's nest of insane, inevitable problems. trouble and conflict. It's certainly something that can split a marriage apart.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
There are other parents whose problems were very much likely a consequence of the disciplinary strategies they imposed or failed to impose. And so part of what I did with the former people was to strategize about management approaches to degenerating illness, which is the worst kind of illness, obviously, to having a child. With the disciplinary issues, well, we talked strategy and also goal.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
You know, you want to have a sense in your household of how you would want the relationships and the household to operate. You need a vision of that. And that's what allows you to detect deviations from that. And then you have to negotiate disciplinary strategies when that isn't making itself manifest. It's not helpful to have children who are whiny and miserable. It's not pleasant for you.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
It's not pleasant for them. Parents often use intermittent reinforcement when their children are whiny and miserable. So here's how to have a terrible child. Imagine your child will whine and complain when they want something. Okay, if you want to have that happen all the time, then vary the amount that they have to whine and complain before you capitulate unpredictably.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
That's what a slot machine does. It rewards intermittently and variably. And that's impossible to eradicate because what the child learns is if they're persistent enough, you will cave. And you do that 30 times around bedtime, for example, you'll have a problem that might take years to resolve.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Yeah, well, you know, people... It's hard. A few times, it is hard. But generally, especially with things that repeat every day, you know, mealtimes, bedtimes, these little islands of stability and routine, it's very good to be pretty rigorous around those events, even during times of illness and strife. Because otherwise you get regression in the child.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And then, well, and then you have to deal with the consequences of the schedule, let's say, falling apart. It's good to have a vision of household peace and prosperity and abundance. Like your household is a walled garden. That's what paradise means, by the way. Paradise means walled garden. And the walls are there because they protect you from the outside and they circumscribe a space.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And a garden is a place where nature can flourish. And if you set up a walled garden properly in your household, the children will play. And that will give you an opportunity to play house with your wife, which you want, if you have any sense. So the emergence of play in your household is an index of optimized harmony. That's an extremely useful thing to know.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Same applies in the context of a marriage.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Well, look, boundary is an impediment to exploration, but it's also an enclosure that produces security. So boundary as fence reduces anxiety. And that's the same thing with stable household rules. You might say, well, the rules are restrictions. It's like, yeah, but partly what they're restricting is the chaos that produces anxiety.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
So now you want to adjust the boundary so the child can expand his or her exploration. But boundaries of the abstract sort, so the principles by which you run the household, produce the kind of predictable stability within which play and exploration can take place, and they quell anxiety. So you're doing your child and you and your wife a great favor by imposing that regularity.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Now, there's another way of thinking about boundaries that the Rousseauian types and the progressives miss completely, right? So you might say, if you're playing basketball, that the rules are boundaries and they're restrictions. You can't do this. You can't do that. It's like, yeah, but they're also enabling principles. So good rules are enabling principles in that they're game rules.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And so it's a misapprehension to only think about a regulated environment as fences and enclosures and restrictions. It's like, well, you can't play... Football, when you're playing basketball, and I suppose that's a boundary, but without the rules, there's no game, right? And there's something that should be burnt into your psyche. Without the rules, there is no game.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Now, if the rules are well-formulated, minimal, right, but enforced, like a good referee, then not only can the game be played... It can be played with multiple people and it can improve as it plays. Right. And then it can generalize to other games.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
And that's the purpose of sports, for example, is to teach you to be skilled, but to be a good sport so that you're invited to play many games across the course of your life. That's a very good conceptual schemata for what you're doing as a parent.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Well, I think you actually put your finger on it. Like, your role as a parent... There's two that are fundamental. One is to encourage your child to be maximally socially acceptable. And you want to have that more or less in place by the age of four or there'll be trouble and it'll be severe and it will be hard to fix. And then your household should be a proxy for the real world.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Which means that it's your responsibility as a parent to encourage behavior in the household that would translate well to the real world. So your children roughly should conduct themselves at mealtimes as they would conduct themselves in the house of a potentially welcoming stranger or a restaurant. Now, maybe that's a little bit too high a bar for the typical domestic meal, but I don't know.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
Do you want to raise barbarians who aren't welcome wherever they go? We had children come over to our house at one point. Their parents were completely, they were very permissive. And we're tyrants because of it. These kids were quite young. They had to follow the kids around every second in our household because they couldn't be trusted not to destroy something.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
My kids at that point, they knew what they could play with and what they couldn't. And so I could just leave them be. They had maximal freedom because they mastered a few simple rules. When we sat down to dinner, the children immediately ate all the centers out of the bread bowl. It's like, well, we didn't invite them back. And now you've got to think about what that means.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
My daughter, after she had surgery to replace one of her joints in her leg, I don't remember if it was her ankle or her hip. I think it was her hip. She decided to take a motorcycle course because her mobility was impaired and that wouldn't enable her to drive a scooter. And that was a risky endeavor and it was challenging for her and frightening. That was good. in many ways.
Morning Wire
Jordan Peterson Interview: “Parenting as Sacred Duty”
It means that their poor disciplinary interventions, which were based on either lack of skill or lack of courage, made their children socially undesirable, right? That's a terrible thing to allow to have happen because look, most people, terrible consequences, because that means that when the children go out, they face disapproval and frowns that are often hidden behind a mask.