Raheem Kassam returns to The War Room for a very special edition of the show, hosted by Stephen K. K. Broun, from outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Boxing Day.
00:02:36.000I've been away from most television interviews, and there are a couple of reasons for that.
00:02:40.000One is personal, health-wise, and I'm working through some of those things.
00:02:44.000And for those of you who know about them, thank you for your thoughts and your prayers throughout all of that.
00:02:48.000But the second one is I wanted to get back out there.
00:02:52.000You know, when we were doing the Brexit stuff back in 2014, 15, and into 2016, we were out there all day every day.
00:02:59.000The same thing happened in 2017 and 18.
00:03:01.000We were flying all over Europe, getting to see exactly what was going on on the ground.
00:03:07.000In the last couple of years, I found myself a little too tied to the desk, a little too tied to the screen.
00:03:15.000And so for the last year, I've been out there rebuilding a couple of things.
00:03:19.000And I want to take you, over the next couple of hours that we have together, on this very important Boxing Day, on that journey.
00:03:27.000On the journey of what's been going on in the media.
00:03:31.000What's been going on with the National Pulse.
00:03:33.000What's been going on with Butterworths.
00:03:35.000What's been going on, well, in our own movement.
00:03:39.000And I think a lot of you, while I hope you had a wonderful and restful and peaceful Christmas, I think a lot of you understand that we really do stand at a really, really strange and awkward and uncomfortable position in this movement right now.
00:03:57.000So I'm going to take you across the Atlantic for some of this episode to the Reform Party Conference.
00:04:01.000Show you how Nigel Farage is doing over there.
00:04:04.000Going to bring you some interviews from people I want you to hear from.
00:04:07.000Take you inside, behind the scenes at the Kennedy Center.
00:04:11.000You know, they don't really let that many people film in there.
00:04:14.000But I have some fantastic footage for you over the course of this show.
00:04:21.000So, I'll start off by telling you why Boxing Day is so important to me.
00:04:26.000And that's because the history of Boxing Day, I'm sure some of you will have learned it over the last couple of years of me doing this.
00:04:33.000It goes back to the idea of putting things together, boxing things together and giving them to charity.
00:04:40.000Being charitable about your time, about your efforts, especially after the Christmas period where so many people have a lot of excesses to actually think about the others who don't have so much.
00:04:51.000And Boxing Day stems from that tradition.
00:04:54.000And I think it's something that we should all remember today.
00:04:57.000The first thing in terms of when we think about charitable traditions and when we think about giving back that comes to my mind this year is precisely where I was and what I was doing and who I was around.
00:05:15.000When I heard the news that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated and I was coming back from the Reform Party conference in the United Kingdom.
00:05:27.000I was actually on the plane when I was actually on the plane when it happened.
00:05:30.000And thank goodness I had pretty good Wi-Fi because I had to run the news desk, jump into our live chat at the NationalPulse.com and actually run the news desk and get our team together so that we could actually do a very dignified send off for my friend Charlie Kirk.
00:05:47.000And I, before coming out here and doing this episode, I started to look back at some of the conversations that he and I had had over text message in the final months.
00:05:58.000And it started to occur to me that, you know, what he really wanted more than anything else, more than these fights that you see, more than this scrapping that you see, more than his own philosophy and ideology being out there and front and center was actually giving back.
00:06:16.000And so through this boxing day, I want to focus a little bit more on that.
00:06:21.000I think it's very important. I think a lot of the noise that we're hearing at the moment is a little undignified and a lot of you will have some problems with me saying that stuff.
00:06:33.000I didn't go to America Fest in Phoenix for that particular reason. I knew that the stage would be full of people sort of tussling and that's not what I think that conference was ever about.
00:06:47.000I don't think that was what Charlie was ever about. And so for me, rather than get involved in all of that,
00:06:54.000I wanted to bring you some of my thoughts and memories and some of the things that I think can help not make us fight, but move us forward.
00:07:04.000I think it's so important that we not lose sight of the grander issue at play here.
00:07:11.000There are demonic forces at work here in the world. There are demonic forces at work here behind me every single day.
00:07:20.000And Charlie would have wanted us to work together, not apart, not separately, not hating on each other, not screaming at each other to fix those things.
00:07:37.000Let me take you now to where I went right after I landed back in the United States from the Reform Party conference.
00:07:47.000And that was inside Charlie Kirk's memorial.
00:08:07.000This is one of the biggest plague problems called Freddy 1951Views in China where 무ra f ponies were材 ق to church.
00:08:19.000To recall of my mother's physical jaoks and intentional disciples, they came back all the time, to make it soaps.
00:08:24.000I'm the only friend who we let her know, and came back to Charles Kirk's matthorough.
00:08:58.000Oh, good morning, world. It is the morning of the Charlie Kirk Memorial down here in Phoenix, Arizona. It's not a light-hearted occasion, not a joyous occasion, obviously.
00:09:19.060There's going to be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people in attendance. And it is currently 7 o'clock in the morning. We're already cutting it a bit fine.
00:27:47.700So, on the way out of Nigel Farage's speech, I met Alex, who is a viewer of the War Room from here in the United Kingdom, from Wales, in fact. Alex, thank you for being here. Your thoughts on the conference so far and the leader's speech?
00:28:00.960Yeah, big fan of the War Room. So, yeah, thanks, William. Good to meet you. Speech was fantastic. Very timely. Nigel brought it forward because of the announcement about Angela Rayner. So, I think that was very timely that he came on. Strike while the iron's hot, so to speak. But myself and a good friend came to this conference last year. I would say it's probably five, six times as big as it was last year. So, I think that shows the direction of travel. There's one kind of direction this country's going in at the minute.
00:28:38.740And it's where all the biggest voices in conservative media are speaking out.
00:28:41.740Download the Getter app right now. It's totally free. It's where I put up exclusively all of my content 24 hours a day. You want to know what Steve Bannon's thinking? Go to Getter.
00:28:50.740That's right. You can follow all of your favorites. Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobiec, and so many more.
00:28:58.740Sign up for free and be part of the movement.
00:29:02.740Well, I'm here in New York now. And for those of you who are listening to this, I should say, via a podcast, you really will want to get the visuals.
00:29:18.740Because I was in New York earlier this year as well.
00:29:22.740And like I've done for the past five years now, I ran the Tunnel to Towers 5K.
00:29:30.740And that starts in Brooklyn and it goes under the bridge into Manhattan and you emerge up at the World Trade Center.
00:29:40.740What was the World Trade Center now? The Freedom Tower.
00:29:43.740And every year I do that and raise money for originally it was the victims of 9-11 families.
00:29:53.740And now Tunnel to Towers as an organization has expanded their remit and now they raise money for military families, especially those of which have had limbs blown off and require special kinds of disability housing.
00:30:13.740They've even built a veterans village.
00:30:17.740And I can think of no better thing to spend some time on every year than running that race, bringing attention to it, helping Tunnel to Towers to charity.
00:30:28.740And this year I did it right after Charlie Cook's assassination, I did it wearing the Charlie Cook Freedom T-shirt.
00:30:38.740So I wanted to bring you some of my highlights from that day.
00:30:43.540I'm not in the best shape that I've been in my life.
00:30:46.440So even though it was just a 5K, some of it was still a struggle.
00:44:54.360Yeah, absolutely, Raheem. And really, it is an important issue for every American.
00:44:58.360So many of us rely on local television for things that we care about, local news, local
00:45:04.360sports, even if maybe we use a streaming service for our news, our national news like this.
00:45:10.360The reality is that more Americans tune in to the evening news at like five or six o'clock on their
00:45:17.360local TV news than any watch a big cable show like The Five, for instance. And so really,
00:45:24.360how Americans learn about what's happening in their communities, it starts with local news.
00:45:29.360You know, one of the interesting things, there's been polling out there, and it consistently says two
00:45:34.360things. It says Americans don't trust the national legacy media for good reason, right? They've been
00:45:41.360burned by the Hunter Biden laptop, by COVID-19, all these things, they've been burned. And so they
00:45:47.360don't trust the national media, but they still trust, especially local television news. And so it's
00:45:53.360important that our policymakers kind of encourage local TV. And the reality, as you point out, is that local
00:46:02.360TV is subject to these antiquated regulations that have been around for decades. And our media
00:46:08.360marketplace doesn't look the same as it did decades ago. Decades ago, there was no Google, there was no
00:46:12.360YouTube TV, there were no these Silicon Valley giants who were dominating the media landscape.
00:46:18.360And so it's really important for the Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory authority
00:46:23.360over these issues, to look at these rules and I think provide greater free markets for local
00:46:29.360broadcasters to grow and survive in the coming years.
00:46:33.360Yeah, so all makes sense. I mean, all checks out, no fake news there.
00:46:38.360But what is the current policy? Like what is this 39% cap that I keep hearing of?
00:46:45.360And who really serves to benefit from what you call these antiquated rules?
00:46:50.360Yeah, I'll tell you who benefits. It's Silicon Valley and the national networks, right?
00:46:55.360It's the people, frankly, who don't share our values as conservatives. It's the people who aren't fans of
00:47:00.360President Trump. They're the ones who are benefiting from the current rules
00:47:04.360because it's essentially handicapping the competition, right?
00:47:07.360It's the government coming in and putting a huge thumb on the scale in favor of streamers
00:47:13.360and in favor of Silicon Valley and in favor of the national networks like ABC and NBC.
00:47:18.360President Trump has said over and over again that we need to push back on the power of the national networks.
00:47:24.360One way to do that is for the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC,
00:47:29.360to repeal these rules that have been around for decades that are hampering local broadcasters
00:47:35.360so they can be a more effective counterbalance to these national networks and to Silicon Valley.
00:47:40.360So the question I always get asked, I'll throw it your way, is what do you mean?
00:47:47.360We're in charge. We should be able to do whatever we want.
00:47:49.360Why hasn't this been fixed already? And Daniel, this is an activist audience.
00:47:54.360These are not people who sort of just sit and listen to this stuff and go,
00:47:58.360oh, OK, really interesting, and then kick their feet up.
00:48:01.360They will want to know what they can do, where they can go, how they can take action to stop this, I imagine.
00:48:08.360And I think, firstly, they want to learn more. They're not the kind of audience that will just take mine and your word for it.
00:48:14.360So where can they go and learn more about this issue?
00:48:18.360And then I'm going to ask you a little difficult question.
00:48:21.360You know, there are people on the, presumptively, on the political right in the media world
00:48:27.360who appear to be in favor of the way that these things have been for so long.
00:48:31.360So how do we address that? And then where can people go to learn more and take some action?
00:48:36.360Yeah, absolutely. So you're right. There are isolated voices that are conservatives who have come down on this differently than I have.
00:48:43.360I would say the vast majority of conservatives.
00:48:45.360There's a coalition letter of 18 major conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and Center for Renewing America
00:48:53.360who've come out in favor of reforming this.
00:48:55.360But you're right. There are isolated voices who disagree with that consensus.
00:48:59.360Frankly, I think it's often a matter of business interest that empowering local broadcasters creates more competition for the networks,
00:49:07.360but it also creates more competition for cable.
00:49:09.360And so if there are folks who are heavily invested in the cable industry, you know, maybe this isn't good for them in that they like having rules,
00:49:18.360having government regulations that hamper the competition. Right.
00:49:22.360And really the point here is that we want to open up a free market.
00:49:25.360We want to open up greater room for capitalism, frankly, to stop these government interventions in the market and instead allow broadcasters to grow in a natural way in line with what capitalism dictates.
00:49:40.360That's all we're asking for. And so if you agree with that, if your viewers agree with that,
00:49:44.360I'd encourage them to visit our website. It's americanrights.org backslash lift the cap.
00:49:50.360And you'll find their fans of this show will know people like Mike Davis from Article Three Project, people like Sean Spicer,
00:49:57.360other important MAGA leaders who have aligned with us and joined with us in this fight to provide greater flexibility and freedom for local broadcast.
00:50:07.360So it's americanrights.org backslash lift the cap and a bunch of great resources from, as I say,
00:50:13.360MAGA leaders like Mike Davis and Sean Spicer and others that your folks can tap into.
00:50:19.360Well, Daniel, I really appreciate that. And as somebody who's only sort of recently come to get to grips with this issue,
00:50:25.360I will happily declare myself on your side as well.