The Great America Show - Best Of Lou Dobbs： STONE： WHAT IS JOHNSON DOING？

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00:01:18.340 Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dimes. Welcome to The Great America Show. Great to have you with us and

00:01:27.520 Happy New Year. Well, it was quite the year for politics in America and actually around the world.

00:01:33.580 Ukraine in shambles. Israel fighting a war against Hamas and the Biden regime. Argentina electing a 0.59

00:01:40.340 conservative populist president. And here at home, we witnessed a president be removed from a

00:01:45.600 presidential ballot and a Speaker of the House removed from his position. For all things political,

00:01:51.620 we turn to political strategist Roger Stone. Roger is a great American, one of my favorite great

00:01:57.160 Americans, an advisor to President Trump, great bestselling author. Roger, great to have you back

00:02:02.800 on the show. Do you miss Kevin McCarthy yet? Well, you know, I've known Kevin McCarthy since the

00:02:08.900 young Republican days. It is always clear to me, it was always clear to me that his great interest was

00:02:15.400 always more in power than in principle. I was not happy about his becoming Speaker, although I thought

00:02:23.720 it was inevitable. I was fairly shocked that he believed that he could violate everything he agreed

00:02:32.520 to in order to get the votes to become Speaker and remain as Speaker, as if people were just going to have

00:02:38.820 immediate amnesia about the release of the January 6th defendant tapes, the budgeting process and the use of

00:02:50.200 continuing resolutions, billions more for Ukraine, slow rolling the Hunter Biden investigation. Once he got power,

00:03:02.240 he acted like a man who would never lose power. And, you know, frankly, I've said this, hats off to

00:03:10.380 Matt Gaetz, who I think stuck to principle at great personal cost to himself, but stuck to what he had said

00:03:19.220 from the beginning about the need for reform in the way the Republican majority in the House works.

00:03:29.000 So it's not surprising that Kevin McCarthy is leaving because he was always interested in power rather

00:03:37.180 than getting anything done. And now it has to be somewhat disheartening to be an ex-speaker, to say the

00:03:44.360 least. Now, I'm sure that he is going to try to salve his wounds, many wounds, as a result of his

00:03:50.620 experience as Speaker with money. It just seems to be the popular pathway for exiting leadership

00:03:58.980 members of either the Senate or the House. I expect that will happen. And I have to say, I'm not

00:04:07.000 sorry to see him go. As a matter of fact, I couldn't imagine that a man could walk into a debt ceiling

00:04:14.440 negotiation with the President of the United States and come out of it having negotiated himself out of a

00:04:20.600 debt ceiling. It wasn't even a matter of arithmetic. He just simply caved to the concept even of a debt

00:04:28.340 ceiling. Have you ever seen anything like that?

00:04:32.160 I really haven't. I mean, he was he just seemed to roll over to Biden on virtually everything.

00:04:38.900 It does point out, however, why we need to have laws that limit members of Congress from going back

00:04:47.500 and retiring and lobbying members of Congress. I mean, you do have that now in the executive branch,

00:04:55.020 which is a good idea. But it needs, along with term limits, it needs to be imposed on the legislative

00:05:02.740 branch as well, because all of these congressmen of both parties, they leave, but they don't really

00:05:09.680 leave. They never go back to Pocatello, in all honesty. They stay in Washington, D.C., and they,

00:05:17.040 you know, and the heavy duty special interest grifting begins.

00:05:23.040 And it is amazing how much money is involved, how much is changing hands. All of the groups that are

00:05:31.780 combination lobbyists, strategists, and I think in many cases, just outright grifters, as you were

00:05:39.060 discussing, I mean, it's a huge, huge industry without really, you know, it's really a substitute

00:05:47.680 for a knowledge base amongst the congressmen and senators. As long as they have their favorite

00:05:52.340 lobbyists and they're in some sort of conduit with them, they'll never have a problem and they'll not

00:05:58.000 have to think very hard about the subject matter of whatever the issue might be. Am I wrong?

00:06:04.220 No, I think you're absolutely right. They don't have to worry about it because the lobbyist has

00:06:08.080 already gotten to their legislative assistant with the talking points and the bulleted point memo so

00:06:14.640 everybody can go right to shorthand all the way to the suggested vote. I've seen this over many

00:06:23.940 decades in American politics where good men and women go to Washington, you know, as principal

00:06:30.800 conservatives, go there to get something done, but they immediately get caught in the money chase

00:06:36.420 and they immediately understand in order to go to rise in the Congress in terms of your committee

00:06:42.260 assignments, your influence, your power, you have to play the leadership game. So they end up trimming

00:06:49.540 their sails. I mean, I ended up not being a fan of John McCain, but I remember John McCain when he was

00:06:56.500 in the House, you know, he came back as a prisoner of war. He did polling in Southern California, Nevada,

00:07:04.820 and Colorado to decide where to run for Congress, ultimately landing in Nevada. And in the House,

00:07:11.620 he was a pretty principled Reagan conservative. But over time, all the while claiming to be the guy who

00:07:19.980 decried the role of money in politics, he was the guy pocketing more special interest money

00:07:25.820 for his political exploits than anyone. He ended up being completely and totally swallowed by the swamp

00:07:33.660 and signing on not with the peace through strength Reagan type conservatives, but signing on with the neocons.

00:07:40.620 It was I think it was a disappointing trajectory for his career. I respect his service to the country.

00:07:49.420 It's not about that. It's about what he became in Washington.

00:07:53.020 Yeah, I concur wholly about John McCain. He could have been so much more. He had he had mentors who

00:08:01.420 could have set him on a better path. And no matter what, you know, it's just a shame that it is the way it

00:08:08.700 ended in particular with his relationship to the to the national security apparatus that became,

00:08:16.140 I think, a feeding ground for them. And he was part of the menu. Let's let's take a quick break here.

00:08:23.820 If we may, Roger, I want to talk about what happens now. Gavin Newsom gets to hold a special election

00:08:31.020 because McCarthy is the ousted speaker is outed. And away we go. And we have a president who

00:08:38.540 is still under the most intense political persecution that we have ever witnessed in this country.

00:08:45.260 We're coming right back with a great Roger Stone. Stay with us.

00:08:54.140 We're back. We're talking with Roger Stone. And Roger, I'd like to turn to what these latest moves

00:09:00.140 are getting rid of George Santos. And I want to talk to you about the propriety of that and the

00:09:07.100 and the politics of that as well. Now, Kevin McCarthy leaving at the end of the year.

00:09:12.460 The arithmetic is getting, well, more elemental, isn't it?

00:09:16.540 Yeah. And the Republicans only had a five seat majority to begin with now with Mr. Santos leaving.

00:09:22.460 And my guess in a special election, particularly former Congressman Tom Swasey, who previously held

00:09:30.700 most of that seat, the area that now composes that seat would have to be considered the favorite.

00:09:36.780 Despite the political atmosphere, that would bring your majority to four.

00:09:42.220 I think McCarthy's district, which is basically the Bakersfield area is

00:09:46.300 pretty reliably Republican. But, you know, one never knows. Your majority could quickly become

00:09:53.580 three. In the case of Santos, I really think I'm not a fan of his, but I do think he's been denied due

00:10:00.300 process. They didn't kick Adam Clayton Powell out of the house until he was convicted of a crime.

00:10:06.940 I think Santos was due his day in court, should not have been expelled until he was convicted.

00:10:12.940 I think his conviction is a pretty much of a foregone conclusion based on what I've read.

00:10:19.100 But I still think we rushed him out of the door unnecessarily until he was proven guilty.

00:10:26.700 Yeah, I'm not a person who, well, I haven't, I didn't pay a lot of attention to him. But I think

00:10:33.180 that he got a he got a bum deal and was treated badly because I thought his votes and his stand with

00:10:40.140 the party while he was there certainly earned him the right to due process. If it's going to be

00:10:45.980 ignored, it shouldn't have been ignored for somebody who was at least trying to be faithful to the party

00:10:50.780 that he was a member of. The Republicans seem to be manic in their desire to to get rid of him.

00:10:57.980 It's really not clear to me why, because as I mentioned, they don't enjoy a broad majority.

00:11:04.940 I think they may come back to regret this. Recognize now that we'll have a special election

00:11:11.260 for his seat. But the seat will also be up again for contest next November. And those two results are

00:11:20.060 not necessarily the same. New York has a very much of a top down Republican Party. And therefore,

00:11:28.140 essentially, the Republican County chairman will make this decision, at least in the short term,

00:11:34.300 in terms of who the party nominates for this special election. And we'll have disproportionate

00:11:41.900 influence in who the party nominates for the next November election when this same seat will be up for

00:11:48.300 a contest. Yet again, that will not necessarily be the same candidate unless, of course, the Republican

00:11:55.100 wins the special. And all of this, of course, in the hands of a new speaker, Mike Johnson.

00:12:02.700 You're reading how well he's done to this point. Early days, certainly.

00:12:08.460 More mixed than I would have thought. I initially hailed his his elevation because he had been 1.00

00:12:14.700 one of the defenders of Donald Trump on the defense team in the Senate as a member of the House in the

00:12:21.740 in the impeachment of Trump, which was greatly unjust and unnecessary. And and I think

00:12:32.940 clearly a man who is very serious about his faith, which I liked said that he would release the January

00:12:39.500 6th government tapes appears to have at least begun to do that needs to finish it.

00:12:44.860 It we still seem to continue to go back to the same way we do our budgeting, which is disappointing.

00:12:52.380 And he seems to me, although he's I think he's going to unlike McCarthy, he's going to hold the Democrats up

00:12:58.940 for border funding in return, but seems to be committed to millions, if not billions more for Ukraine.

00:13:06.140 And I hope Andy and I'm a little mixed on this because I think he first said we didn't have enough

00:13:14.780 to impeach Joe Biden. Now he seems to have changed his mind and said, well, there is enough to impeach

00:13:20.060 Joe Biden, but we're going to do this, you know, very slowly and deliberately. I'm a little confused

00:13:25.820 by all of that. There's more enough evidence. There's far more evidence to justify articles of

00:13:31.900 impeachment against Joe Biden today than there ever was to justify articles of impeachment

00:13:37.740 against Donald Trump. Yet Nancy Pelosi and company got that done in five days flat. Yeah, I just I'm

00:13:45.100 not really clear. I think Comer's doing a good job. He's been very dogged. He keeps digging up more and

00:13:51.020 more bombshells. But Joe Biden's claim that he knew nothing about his son's business and he never profited

00:13:57.820 from it is now quite obviously an enormous lie. And there's more than enough evidence of foreign 0.98

00:14:05.100 payments to justify a vote of impeachment. Now, it is conceivable, and we would know this,

00:14:12.460 the Speaker Johnson doesn't have the votes in a vote count because of some of your weak need, lily

00:14:19.100 levered, white wine swelling, country club belonging establishment Republicans who just don't have the

00:14:28.780 guts for this. And the Speaker can only do things for which he can corral the votes. So there's no

00:14:36.620 question that there is a more robust radical caucus that favors impeachment. But I don't know that the

00:14:43.900 Speaker can get the votes. Funny, Nancy Pelosi never had this problem. It is funny, and it is 0.93

00:14:50.380 amazing. I think, well, I completely agree with what you're saying about the the appropriators,

00:14:58.140 the what would you what would you call them, that the recalcitrance, the 25 who stood against

00:15:05.820 Jim Jordan and his third round at Speaker. He could have well been the Speaker had it not been for the

00:15:11.180 pettiness of that group. And and what I suspect is also a craven corruption on the part of many of

00:15:18.700 them. And I'm talking about the appropriators, not all of them, but some of them. And so there

00:15:25.580 there is that he has to contend with as well. And like you, I heard the man say we don't have the

00:15:31.660 evidence at this moment, but we will. But we haven't. And now we're talking about what will be

00:15:39.340 talking with Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He says that this will

00:15:43.500 they vote on formalizing the inquiry will come next week. I can't imagine anyone, any reasonable

00:15:51.260 man or woman not understanding what the evidence is. It is it's in your face. It is weighty. It is more

00:15:59.580 than sufficient to bring impeachment. And I don't know what standard these Republicans that I'm talking

00:16:05.900 about. But Brie Johnson, as well as now, what standard do they repair to? Do they want to be holiest

00:16:13.180 of holy or do they want to just simply represent the American people and do the right thing? I think

00:16:19.900 it's a straightforward choice. They seem to think not your thoughts. Well, first of all, this there was no

00:16:25.900 intermediary step for Nancy Pelosi. They didn't open an inquiry and then vote articles of impeachment. 0.99

00:16:31.580 They just voted articles of impeachment. I don't understand why House Republicans can't do this.

00:16:36.140 Now, Lou, I think you and I have an advantage in that we read the New York Post and the New York

00:16:41.420 Post did a particularly good job of covering the Hunter Biden exploits and what the House committee

00:16:49.100 have uncovered. That's not true of the national media. So I can see how there is an impression in

00:16:55.740 the country that there's much less on the table than there has been. Well, that's again an absolute

00:17:04.140 concurrence. We're talking with Roger Stone. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back

00:17:09.660 and we're take up. Well, our favorite president, President Donald Trump. You know, he's actually,

00:17:17.820 frankly, I think I've decided he's also my very favorite candidate. We'll be talking with Roger

00:17:24.460 Stone as we continue. Stay with us. We're back now with Roger Stone and we're going to take up

00:17:35.020 President Trump and the man's remarkable strength and perseverance and righteousness as he contends

00:17:45.500 with the worst political persecution in history. I do want to just take a moment here, Roger, to ask

00:17:51.660 your views on the 702 Section 702 of the FISA and its reauthorization, which seems to be a fork,

00:17:59.660 a foregone conclusion. I I can't understand for the life of me why this corrupt government,

00:18:06.700 this corrupt administration and these corrupt agencies and the deep state are getting exactly

00:18:12.380 what they asked for to be further corrupt and act against the interests of the Republicans,

00:18:19.020 conservatives and American citizens. Look, we saw the abuse and the political use of the FISA warrants

00:18:26.300 against Donald Trump. The day that Donald Trump was sworn in as president, there was a front page

00:18:32.620 story in The New York Times that said I was among four people under government surveillance for my

00:18:39.980 contacts with the Russians. There's only one problem, Lou. I never had any contacts with any Russians.

00:18:45.180 The New York Times reporter to this day refuses to retract that story. They insisted they had multiple

00:18:52.380 sources that said that Carter Page, Paul Manafort, myself were under surveillance. And when I went to trial,

00:19:03.900 when I was framed for lying under oath about Russian collusion that never actually happened,

00:19:10.140 the government insisted that they had no that there was no evidence that I had been under surveillance,

00:19:16.060 despite the fact that The Times insisted that it was. Here's the point. If it can happen to me,

00:19:21.820 it can happen to you. And in fact, the FBI has admitted that there were as many as 278,000

00:19:30.300 warrantless surveillances of American citizens. This is part and parcel of a government that is seeking

00:19:40.220 to jail its principal political opponent, Donald Trump, and his supporters, that is subpoenaing

00:19:46.940 social media records so they can see who follows and who retweets and who reposts and who comments on

00:19:55.020 their chief political opponents on social media. This is a government that is leaning on social

00:20:01.180 media companies to censor the political opinions of anyone they don't agree with. This is an

00:20:08.380 administration that is now going to the FCC to pass regulations that allow them to regulate the

00:20:15.980 internet at its source. So if we can no longer lean on the social media companies, because we've

00:20:21.820 been outed over what we did at Twitter, we'll now just go above them so that through the FCC,

00:20:28.860 we can censor what's on the internet. The same people classifying parents who attend school board

00:20:36.540 meetings because they're concerned about the content of the curriculum being taught to their children as

00:20:41.420 domestic terrorists, harassing those who support the right to life while turning a blind eye to those

00:20:47.740 who burn down half the country in BLM or Antifa. I mean, they want to talk. They say Trump is going

00:20:54.780 to be a dictator. Trump is going to be authoritarian. This is Alinskyism. They're accusing Donald Trump of

00:21:02.060 potentially doing in the future that that they are exactly doing precisely today. It's shocking.

00:21:09.900 It is shocking. It's and it's institutionalized this level of opposition projection. It's become a

00:21:20.860 laughable tactic and go to a go to gambit on their part every time. Well, let's talk about quickly.

00:21:29.580 President Trump talked with him. I guess it was a week, week and a half ago. The man is is charged up.

00:21:37.980 He I know you speak with him regularly. He strikes me as a man with not a trouble in the world. He's

00:21:44.700 a man with great cares because he cares greatly about this country and it's in the future of all

00:21:51.020 Americans. Your sense right now of how well the left have organized their their persecution of him.

00:22:00.620 I see Fannie Willis with all sorts of troubles in Fulton County. I New York looks like it's just a

00:22:07.020 complete joke. It's going to whatever they do. It is to be mindless. And I cannot understand why

00:22:13.740 there isn't some sort of a pellet relief available to the president, whether it be his business

00:22:21.500 interest case or whether it be the Letitia James nonsense. I think the president, first of all, you're

00:22:29.260 right about his mood and his and his attitude. I saw him last Friday night and he's he's lost a little

00:22:35.980 weight. He looks great. He's in superb mood. He's optimistic. He's upbeat. He's a little angry,

00:22:42.060 but I think he has every right to be angry. But this, you know, he's he's resolute. He's determined.

00:22:49.180 And above all, Lou, he's exceedingly confident about ultimate victory. It's it is really inspiring.

00:22:55.260 I think that that he's winning. The war in terms of the public relations and public attitudes surrounding

00:23:05.580 his various prosecutions, but that's because they are all so ridiculously transparent,

00:23:11.740 whether he will win in court at the end of the day in very stacked and I think biased proceedings,

00:23:18.700 particularly in D.C. I have a little experience in that particular meat grinder. Yes.

00:23:23.260 You know, that's a different question. But the fact that he's leading Biden now in all the swing

00:23:30.460 states and continuing to lead him nationally shows that everything they're doing to him is

00:23:35.900 transparent to the American people. People are seeing through it. What's his crime? What did he

00:23:41.580 steal? He didn't steal anything. He questioned the outcome of an election. If that were a crime,

00:23:46.940 well, then Hillary Clinton should be in prison. John Podesta should be in prison. Howard Dean should be

00:23:51.980 in prison. Stacey Abrams would be in prison. It's not a crime. He's a right to do that. But they've

00:23:58.220 criminalized, you know, constitutionally protected political activity and tried to make it a crime.

00:24:05.420 Here's the fundamental question. In all of these trials where the election is the principal issue,

00:24:11.180 will he be allowed by the judges to enter in his defense proof that he won the election? Because

00:24:18.860 it undermines the underlying premise of the cases against him. If he is, then it will be the first

00:24:26.940 time in any court where the merits of that argument will be heard. I watched this great interview with

00:24:34.300 Bill Maher, who's kind of a pompous ass, and Oliver Stone. And Maher, who's very funny when he's working

00:24:43.500 with the phalanx of comedy writers, but not so funny when he's on his own two feet, repeats this canard

00:24:50.540 that 63 courts rejected the claim that the election was stolen. No, sorry, Bill. 63 courts refused to hear

00:24:59.180 the merits for purposes of standing. No court has weighed the actual evidence of fraud or discrepancies

00:25:08.700 or inconsistencies and ruled on it. So the real question is, will the judges, particularly in

00:25:14.460 Atlanta and in DC, allow Trump to enter as a part of his defense, proof that the election was in fact

00:25:22.460 not on the up and up. If they do, then I think that he comes out okay, at the end of the day, even if he is

00:25:30.460 ultimately convicted. Finally, he will get his day in court on the question of the election. On the other hand,

00:25:37.240 since I was not allowed at my trial to use expert witnesses and forensic evidence to prove that no one ever hacked

00:25:44.840 the DNC, never mind the Russians, I don't have a high degree of confidence that Trump will be able to,

00:25:53.000 will be allowed to introduce in his defense, the very best possible defense, which undermines their

00:26:00.760 entire case, i.e. proving that the last election was indeed stolen. And to that point, there is, I think,

00:26:09.720 a very hopeful sign in full and I won't get carried away with what I would would prefer not become mass

00:26:17.720 optimism about this. But Amy Totenberg, the federal judge there on a separate case, will be hearing

00:26:26.840 evidence against electronic voting machines. And they have found serious irregularities. And there will

00:26:34.840 be a ruling in January, says a federal judge. That could be a moment of extraordinary reversals for

00:26:45.320 the left, because it would be, it might be the thread that would pull all of this, unwind all of this.

00:26:54.360 But as I said, I'm hopeful, but not optimistic. Roger Stone, thanks for being with us. You are

00:27:00.680 a great American, a great friend, and a great supporter of the president. All good things to me.

00:27:07.880 And thank you for being with us here today. God bless you.

00:27:11.160 Thank you, Lou, and God bless you.

00:27:13.160 Thanks, everybody, for being with us here today. Our guest here tomorrow on The Great America Show,

00:27:17.380 the former NSA senior intelligence analyst and whistleblower, Russ Tice. Please join us for that.

00:27:23.780 Join us each and every day for The Great America Show. Follow me on Twitter and true social

00:27:28.540 at Lou Dobbs. Thanks, everybody. God bless you, and may God bless America.

The Great America Show - December 27, 2023

Best Of Lou Dobbs： STONE： WHAT IS JOHNSON DOING？

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