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45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979 we have been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced and unfiltered coverage of government, taking to you -- taking you to where the policy is debated and decided. c-span, 45 years and counting, powered by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: c-span viewers are familiar with christopher ruddy. welcome back. guest: glad to be back. it has been a while but i am a fan of c-span. host: what is your view of the media ecosystem and what is newsmax's place in that? guest: that is a big question that might take a few hours. i will say that the media is in a bad situation. you probably saw the gallup poll out about the trust in media and it again hit a record low.

in fact, it has never been lower in history. americans do not have confidence in major media at all. and it is disappointing because we used to have 70% confidence. it is interesting, when you look at the numbers, most of the erosion comes from republicans having no trust in the media. and then independents have little trust and democrats have a majority position in favor of the media. they showed because the media has become so democratic and left that over time it has left half the country behind. and i think newsmax give some balance. we see our role of providing americans with both sides, and not only do we get the side that is not heard on the major media, but also make an effort to include liberal and opposing viewpoints on newsmax.

we describe ourselves as independent media with conservative perspectives. that means we seek out conservative and liberal viewpoints on important issues facing america. host: what did you think of kamala harris going on fox news? guest: it was very smart. she is reaching out. that is a very positive sign. i think she is trying to reach out. some people see it as a little bit of a desperate move. i do not see it, that i have heard people say that she is doing it because she is behind trump. i think that is that there is probably 5% of independent voters who have not decided, and she needs to find them, wherever they are. i think it was clever. host: do you think it would have been different if kamala harris would have come on newsmax. would you have wanted that

interview to be different? guest: we have invited but she has not accepted. i think we would treat her very similarly. we have had a lot of democrats on. greta leads are nighttime news lineup. she read -- she often has john fetterman on and bernie sanders even came on. newsmax hosted a democratic forum back in the election in iowa. and we had five presidential candidates from the democratic party's show up. i think it would still be positive for any candidate to go on newsmax, and they would be treated fairly. i think that has been the experience of most democrats. host: have you ever met her yourself? guest: i have not. host: how far back does your relationship with donald trump go? guest: i met him 30 years ago.

we have been friends for many years. i have known him from back in the 90's and that relationship continues. host: do you talk to him on the campaign trail? guest: i talked to him quite a bit and i was just with him up in new york. but i do see and speak to him fairly regularly but not too much. he is very busy these days. we do keep in communication and we have a good relationship. we want to be clear, i was friends with donald trump when he was a liberal democrat, and last night he was joking about how much he helps chuck schumer in his political career. i remember when truck schumer was a regular visitor and donald trump was doing fundraisers. so, we have a friendship and i do support him. i am not a republican but and

independent and my sympathies are more with the republican party. i want to be truthful about that. but, we still strive at newsmax to have both sides. i encourage all of my staff and editorial staff both on the newsmax tv channels and the website to always reach out and get other opinions and views. host: if you go to newsmax.com, the headline is donald trump at the al smith dinner. what do you make up of the speech and appearance of kamala harris not showing up at sending a video presentation? guest: well, i was disappointed that she did not show up. she should have reached out. i do not know if it is her or the woke left do not want any association with the catholic church or being on stage with donald trump. you know that trump admitted in his speech that he was interesting that he was overly

harsh with hillary clinton when she came in 2016 and he indicated some regrets. although it was said in a rather humorous way. i do think that the democrats are a little frightened after that and she thought she would be skewered. i think that it was pretty good with his remarks and i think it was pretty funny without being too polarizing or being nasty in any way. was fine and did a good speech. i think her video was a little bit odd, the skit that she had with the satterlee light -- night live personality. in the catholic church. when it comes to religion you do not want to laugh about it. look what happened at the olympics, the last supper at the olympics. and sure enough making a reference to it being the last supper in the video. i thought it was very strange. and that when she ended the

video, if you've watched the whole thing and i'm sure you were because c-span was carrying it. the video was very good where she speaks in the end about the great things that the chat -- that the catholic church does for the education and health care and how she wants to bring people together. it was very positive. had she cap that shown -- tone it would be off the charts good. host: c-span.org is the -- is where the can go to watch it in its entirety. christopher ruddy with us for the next 22 minutes on the washington journal, taking your phone calls and comments. 202-748-8000 for democrats. republicans, 202-748-8001. independence, -- independents, 202-748-8002. no surprise the phone lines are all lit up for you. nick in miami, florida. line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning.

i like watching newsmax. i like the entertainment and the lineup. i would like to see more democrats go back and forth with republicans. and to have more of that. guest: we are working every day. there is a democratic shyness going on and that is probably true with fox. we invite them on all the time. and we see that we treat them fairly. we are not out to ambush or do got you questions or embarrass people. we about -- we are about getting information to the public. caller: i would like to see the president, on and also the vice president. i would like to see the whole workup of all of the leaders, on and address the american people every day. without holding a press conference. guest: i think it speaks to

them. the history of donald trump was the most engaged president in history. he has a long track record of going on many shows of political opponents. he will go on cnn and has been on nbc and cnbc, many networks are critical of him. he does not get enough credit for that. but i think it is -- obama would go on fox news and bill o'reilly's show occasionally. that was a positive thing. we have to remember that the president is the head of the party, the country and the government. they represent all of the people. host: why do you think donald trump will refer to the media as the enemy of the people, as a friend, how do you take that? guest: i remind him that i am an enemy of the people that actually support him.

but, you know, the truth is that the media, he is trying to put it in a way that is interesting and memorable, a one-liner, the enemy of the people. but if you look at the numbers, the media research center which has done some fantastic work, it is undeniable. since kamala harris got the nomination, she has had almost 90% positive press coverage. meanwhile donald trump is 90% negative. i mean i remember the day when media was relatively fair. newsmax has been around since 1998, those of you who remember. we started a digital website. 2014, we launched the tv channel. that is relatively new and we are now on the cable systems and we just joined youtube in the past week or so. youtube tv.

so we have been subscribers forever. i used to feel that they were fair and balanced. in recent years they have gone off the charts. they take a very one-sided approach in all of the news reports. and they embrace a lot of the woke language and things like that. i am disappointed. the new york times to be liberal with a sensibility of finding some balance. now they have thrown out the balance. i think it is bad that they have done this. host: milford, new hampshire. noel, line for democrats, good morning. caller: you mentioned that the american people are losing confidence in the mainstream media. i am 73 years old, i have worked on different campaigns in new hampshire. very quickly i have much more confidence in mainstream when

you have 80 years or sometimes more going back to radio days with accurate and truthful news. you have bloggers these days and the right wing media, they are the ones who are losing hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits for lying. fox lost $780 million for lying about the voting machines. paul manafort, roger stone are in jail for lying. and it is just so prevalent on the far right. and it is insulting and incredibly insulting to any reasonably intelligent american to hear donald trump go through these stories and lies. host: we have your point. guest: i do not know, how do i answer that. first of all he is accusing us

of lying and saying that i have hundreds of millions dollars in lawsuits and settlements, that is not true. you know, fox did do a settlement in the dominion voting case. i thought the settlement was egregious. it has never happened before that i am aware of. i think it is a record amount for defamation. it is a huge setback to free speech in this country. there was a view that some people had and i did not agree with that, that the election in 2020 was stolen. i believe that people should be allowed to have that viewpoint. i remember in the 1960 election, nobody could say that the election was stolen until a very liberal journalist wrote a book saying of course it was stolen and now it is accepted that the 1960 election was stolen out of chicago.

and mayor daley's machine played a role at. some of the things that we think are lies at the time -- hunter biden's laptop. newsmax had a major effort and we were being censored by major advertising groups and others and we basically initially reported it, but stayed away from the story. the story sounded a little insane. that hunter biden shows up at a computer store, drops up his laptop with every personal data, phone call and voicemail, things going back for years, personal stop that -- stuff that you would not believe and never shows up to pick it up. it turns out that the owner know certain people in the conservative movement and passes the laptop off. and the white house at the time and the biden campaign said it

was russian disinformation. they had all of the intelligence chiefs who had served in the government and well respected people saying it was russian disinformation. that sounded more plausible than -- that the russians had put the laptop into the ecosystem rather than hunter biden accidentally dropping off and then never showing up to pick it up. if he had picked it up it never would've gotten anywhere because the store owner would've had to return it. you have this crazy situation with the laptop but we were told not to report it by the institutional existence of media and all of these groups like ap and others. news guard said it was russian information and they said that he could not report it. so you have all of these groups. it turned out it was his laptop and he did drop it off. the u.s. government used it as

part of their prosecution against him. these so-called lies that our friend just talked about turned out to be quite true. and you know what? when news breaks we do not know if it is a lie or not. our job is to give the information to the public and then update you with the latest as the news unfolds. that is how it works. there is no one true or untrue statement. the sensibility is imagine going online and there are 100 books to the kennedy assassination. are you going to start burning books because you disagree with the warren commission or you think that it was the be all and end all? it would be ridiculous to think of this. and there are books that are quite inaccurate but have useful information in them. my point is and i think that most people get it. the whole idea of free speech in a rational society is that we

learn things and understand that the truth evolves from the information we are receiving. host: west palm beach florida. roy, republican. you are on. caller: good morning, how are you and i appreciate what you have been doing with your network. and i have come to believe that you guys are really giving the truth of what is actually taking place. maybe not on everything, but i have come to the point where i basically watch your network 80% of the time during the day and i watch a lot of news because i am disabled. so going back to what is going on on abc, cs -- cbs, "the new york times" and others, even the local -- the local news is getting so disgusting that you cannot watch it. i have come to the point where i

have very few networks or stations or shows that i watch on fox and that is like the five and hannity and that is about it. in the majority of the time i am watching newsmax. i just wanted to let you know that you appreciate that. guest: we try. there should be some balance in the media and we are playing a vital role. fox for a long time played the role of in conservative leaning media and they held that role without anyone else. i think that is a mistake. there are multiple voices on the left and there should be multiple voices on the conservative side. i think it is good. the more voices it is better. i do not like it when a liberal media organization gets closed down. i think there should be more media organizations but i do not -- but there is an efforts to censor conservatives and close it down and we are seeing it in a variety of ways.

it is a danger to democracy. i think we are seeing during the presidential election with trump, the media is not being fair and maybe he has had an uphill battle for that. host: you made an ipo offering earlier this year, what is behind it? guest: good question. we made a filing to do a public offering, which we need sec approval and we are going to that process and we are expecting that to happen in january and february of next year. and we are planning to be listed on the new york stock exchange and we are very excited. and we have been a private company and we think we have been successful through the years and have had tremendous ratings growth and the reuters institute said that there are 12 top news brands in the united states and newsmax is one of them. we are reaching 25 million americans and that number comes

out with the digital platforms of 40 million people. that is a big number. we thought that we should partner with hundreds of thousands of americans who are -- by becoming a public company. that has gotten a huge response and it has been reported in the wall street journal. people who want more information we have a website called newsmaxinvest.com. that is all one word. they can read about it and all of our public disclosures are on there. host: how much do you think you will raise and how much did you put in when you started newsmax back in the late 90's? guest: we are expecting to raise the maximum amount under the particular law firm we are doing this called regulation a, $75 million. we are allowed to raise early a considerable amount of money and we are expecting $150 million in the pre-ipo preferred share

offering that is ongoing. people interested in that can go to newsmaxinvest.com. we are expecting 200 to 250 million as part of the process which is good for us. we are exciting -- excited and expected to build out our cable channel which has been growing. newsmax streaming and the newsmax+ which is doing well with over 270,000 subscribers where people can go on to the apps. it is exciting. getting back into your initial question about the amount. i started newsmax in 1998 with $25,000 and then i raise a few hundred thousand. we raised 15 million the first three years. i burn through 13 million in lawsuits. and then we turned our cash flow profit in 2001 and we have been

a upward trajectory. we had years of significant growth after that. host: chris with us for the next seven or eight minutes. thomas in texas. independent. good morning. caller: how are you doing. listen, i see you use the term woke agenda and all of that. the meaning of woke is nothing more than the investigation of how blacks were treated throughout the history of america. it has nothing to do with this and the other. it is just to look within. i do not know if you have people who are black and your family and you can ask them about it. that being said. i wanted to ask you about have you seen the cnn documentary about ukraine and what is it called, something about the russians. and are you familiar with the lawsuit against the producers of

2000 news which they are being sued for defamation? guest: yes. there is a lot. i have never perceived woke as being defensive of black americans. i think they are very traditional in their culture to be conservative. there is racism in america and we have a long history of racism in america. it is a problem but one that we are confronting in dealing with. and i think we made big gains in improvement. president trump was the one and i helped support that a little bit and played a role in trying to do judicial prison reform during his administration. he is the first president to really address that. that is an issue that directly affects african-americans. i am not aware of the 2000 booms. i did hear about all of the details. ukraine -- newsmax is very supportive of ukraine. we won the highest civilian

reward from the ukrainian government because of our coverage on the conflict with russia. we very much support the zelenskyy government. i traveled during the war and i was the first head of any media organization to travel and see president zelenskyy. he has done a couple of interviews with us and we believe that it is vitally important for the west and our own security, when i saw president zelenskyy in his office and i said to him i am here because i believe you are fighting for us and dying for us. and president putin has made very clear that this war is not about ukraine. he says if you read his speeches on the kremlin website in english and you should read them someday that this is a war on the west and nato and he wants to ends america's hegemony over the west and europe. host: scott in hutchinson,

kansas. line for democrat. that morning. are you with us? caller: yes. i am here. can you hear me? host: yes. caller: thank you for taking my call and good morning, gentlemen. you know, i am a firm believer in the first amendment and i really appreciate -- i and -- and i want to say the press is not the enemy of the people. president trump has called it out as the enemy of the people. i do not like that. but i really wanted to talk about equivocating. the news that we have today, my personal story is that i was pretty much right wing believer and i listen to rush limbaugh a lot and he trolled -- told the truth but it was not the truth when you got the rest of the story. one time it was an environmental

wacko that wanted to make flush toilets illegal and a bit later that night on the bbc there was a world health conference and a woman said in bangladesh or wherever it was western toilets were being installed without a sewer sister -- system and there was an epidemic of waterborne disease and she thought these toilet should be illegal in less there is a sewer system. so what the white -- the right wing told me had an element of truth. but when i found out the rest of what it was, i felt it was a lie. and it is really difficult today , with all of the equivocating that goes on. host: we are going to end it there. i will give you the final two minutes. guest: you know, i believe that the press is not the enemy of the people and i disagree on using that phrase. what i think what it means --

what he means is the one-sided presses the enemy of the people. i think a model of the press that does not allow for a diversity of voices is an enemy of democracy and the constitution and where there is an effort to count -- to close down and where you might find that inaccurate it is not the right to take away his radio license and stop the advertising and boycott. that is an effort of censorship. what we are seeing from the woke democratic left in america is that they are trying to close down conservative voices and they are actually very few of them. i would rather have rush limbaugh to make inaccurate statements about toilet systems in bangladesh than to close him down because i thought he lied to me. put it in perspective what you are saying and understand that the founders of this country

made freedom of speech and freedom of the press. press is only industry in the constitution that is actually protected. the only one, because they understood it was critical to everything. if we don't have free speech or a free press do not have a democracy. unfortunately, when they have been closing down so many conservative outlets, i think it is allowing for this real polarization in society where people are angry about the media and angry about the political situation. i think that we have to reawaken and reignite the principles and the founding documents of this country. host: chris ruddy is the ceo of newsmax. we always appreciate your time so let's not make it so long until the next time. guest: i am the great admirer ever since the start of c-span. you truly