Best Of Lou Dobbs： STONE： WHAT IS JOHNSON DOING？
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Summary
The Great America Show with Lou Dimes and Roger Stone on the departure of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the impact it will have on the upcoming 2020 election cycle. Roger Stone talks about why members of Congress should have term limits.
Transcript
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Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dimes. Welcome to The Great America Show. Great to have you with us and
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Happy New Year. Well, it was quite the year for politics in America and actually around the world.
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Ukraine in shambles. Israel fighting a war against Hamas and the Biden regime. Argentina electing a
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conservative populist president. And here at home, we witnessed a president be removed from a
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presidential ballot and a Speaker of the House removed from his position. For all things political,
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we turn to political strategist Roger Stone. Roger is a great American, one of my favorite great
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Americans, an advisor to President Trump, great bestselling author. Roger, great to have you back
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on the show. Do you miss Kevin McCarthy yet? Well, you know, I've known Kevin McCarthy since the
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young Republican days. It is always clear to me, it was always clear to me that his great interest was
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always more in power than in principle. I was not happy about his becoming Speaker, although I thought
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it was inevitable. I was fairly shocked that he believed that he could violate everything he agreed
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to in order to get the votes to become Speaker and remain as Speaker, as if people were just going to have
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immediate amnesia about the release of the January 6th defendant tapes, the budgeting process and the use of
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continuing resolutions, billions more for Ukraine, slow rolling the Hunter Biden investigation. Once he got power,
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he acted like a man who would never lose power. And, you know, frankly, I've said this, hats off to
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Matt Gaetz, who I think stuck to principle at great personal cost to himself, but stuck to what he had said
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from the beginning about the need for reform in the way the Republican majority in the House works.
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So it's not surprising that Kevin McCarthy is leaving because he was always interested in power rather
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than getting anything done. And now it has to be somewhat disheartening to be an ex-speaker, to say the
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least. Now, I'm sure that he is going to try to salve his wounds, many wounds, as a result of his
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experience as Speaker with money. It just seems to be the popular pathway for exiting leadership
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members of either the Senate or the House. I expect that will happen. And I have to say, I'm not
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sorry to see him go. As a matter of fact, I couldn't imagine that a man could walk into a debt ceiling
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negotiation with the President of the United States and come out of it having negotiated himself out of a
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debt ceiling. It wasn't even a matter of arithmetic. He just simply caved to the concept even of a debt
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ceiling. Have you ever seen anything like that?
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I really haven't. I mean, he was he just seemed to roll over to Biden on virtually everything.
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It does point out, however, why we need to have laws that limit members of Congress from going back
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and retiring and lobbying members of Congress. I mean, you do have that now in the executive branch,
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which is a good idea. But it needs, along with term limits, it needs to be imposed on the legislative
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branch as well, because all of these congressmen of both parties, they leave, but they don't really
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leave. They never go back to Pocatello, in all honesty. They stay in Washington, D.C., and they,
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you know, and the heavy duty special interest grifting begins.
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And it is amazing how much money is involved, how much is changing hands. All of the groups that are
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combination lobbyists, strategists, and I think in many cases, just outright grifters, as you were
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discussing, I mean, it's a huge, huge industry without really, you know, it's really a substitute
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for a knowledge base amongst the congressmen and senators. As long as they have their favorite
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lobbyists and they're in some sort of conduit with them, they'll never have a problem and they'll not
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have to think very hard about the subject matter of whatever the issue might be. Am I wrong?
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No, I think you're absolutely right. They don't have to worry about it because the lobbyist has
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already gotten to their legislative assistant with the talking points and the bulleted point memo so
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everybody can go right to shorthand all the way to the suggested vote. I've seen this over many
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decades in American politics where good men and women go to Washington, you know, as principal
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conservatives, go there to get something done, but they immediately get caught in the money chase
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and they immediately understand in order to go to rise in the Congress in terms of your committee
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assignments, your influence, your power, you have to play the leadership game. So they end up trimming
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their sails. I mean, I ended up not being a fan of John McCain, but I remember John McCain when he was
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in the House, you know, he came back as a prisoner of war. He did polling in Southern California, Nevada,
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and Colorado to decide where to run for Congress, ultimately landing in Nevada. And in the House,
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he was a pretty principled Reagan conservative. But over time, all the while claiming to be the guy who
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decried the role of money in politics, he was the guy pocketing more special interest money
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for his political exploits than anyone. He ended up being completely and totally swallowed by the swamp
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and signing on not with the peace through strength Reagan type conservatives, but signing on with the neocons.
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It was I think it was a disappointing trajectory for his career. I respect his service to the country.
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It's not about that. It's about what he became in Washington.
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Yeah, I concur wholly about John McCain. He could have been so much more. He had he had mentors who
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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
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ended in particular with his relationship to the to the national security apparatus that became,
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I think, a feeding ground for them. And he was part of the menu. Let's let's take a quick break here.
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If we may, Roger, I want to talk about what happens now. Gavin Newsom gets to hold a special election
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because McCarthy is the ousted speaker is outed. And away we go. And we have a president who
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is still under the most intense political persecution that we have ever witnessed in this country.
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We're coming right back with a great Roger Stone. Stay with us.
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We're back. We're talking with Roger Stone. And Roger, I'd like to turn to what these latest moves
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are getting rid of George Santos. And I want to talk to you about the propriety of that and the
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and the politics of that as well. Now, Kevin McCarthy leaving at the end of the year.
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The arithmetic is getting, well, more elemental, isn't it?
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Yeah. And the Republicans only had a five seat majority to begin with now with Mr. Santos leaving.
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And my guess in a special election, particularly former Congressman Tom Swasey, who previously held
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most of that seat, the area that now composes that seat would have to be considered the favorite.
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Despite the political atmosphere, that would bring your majority to four.
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I think McCarthy's district, which is basically the Bakersfield area is
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pretty reliably Republican. But, you know, one never knows. Your majority could quickly become
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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
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process. They didn't kick Adam Clayton Powell out of the house until he was convicted of a crime.
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I think Santos was due his day in court, should not have been expelled until he was convicted.
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I think his conviction is a pretty much of a foregone conclusion based on what I've read.
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But I still think we rushed him out of the door unnecessarily until he was proven guilty.
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Yeah, I'm not a person who, well, I haven't, I didn't pay a lot of attention to him. But I think
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that he got a he got a bum deal and was treated badly because I thought his votes and his stand with
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the party while he was there certainly earned him the right to due process. If it's going to be
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ignored, it shouldn't have been ignored for somebody who was at least trying to be faithful to the party
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that he was a member of. The Republicans seem to be manic in their desire to to get rid of him.
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It's really not clear to me why, because as I mentioned, they don't enjoy a broad majority.
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I think they may come back to regret this. Recognize now that we'll have a special election
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for his seat. But the seat will also be up again for contest next November. And those two results are
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not necessarily the same. New York has a very much of a top down Republican Party. And therefore,
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essentially, the Republican County chairman will make this decision, at least in the short term,
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in terms of who the party nominates for this special election. And we'll have disproportionate
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influence in who the party nominates for the next November election when this same seat will be up for
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a contest. Yet again, that will not necessarily be the same candidate unless, of course, the Republican
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wins the special. And all of this, of course, in the hands of a new speaker, Mike Johnson.
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You're reading how well he's done to this point. Early days, certainly.
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More mixed than I would have thought. I initially hailed his his elevation because he had been
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one of the defenders of Donald Trump on the defense team in the Senate as a member of the House in the
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in the impeachment of Trump, which was greatly unjust and unnecessary. And and I think
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clearly a man who is very serious about his faith, which I liked said that he would release the January
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6th government tapes appears to have at least begun to do that needs to finish it.
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It we still seem to continue to go back to the same way we do our budgeting, which is disappointing.
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And he seems to me, although he's I think he's going to unlike McCarthy, he's going to hold the Democrats up
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for border funding in return, but seems to be committed to millions, if not billions more for Ukraine.
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And I hope Andy and I'm a little mixed on this because I think he first said we didn't have enough
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to impeach Joe Biden. Now he seems to have changed his mind and said, well, there is enough to impeach
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Joe Biden, but we're going to do this, you know, very slowly and deliberately. I'm a little confused
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by all of that. There's more enough evidence. There's far more evidence to justify articles of
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impeachment against Joe Biden today than there ever was to justify articles of impeachment
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against Donald Trump. Yet Nancy Pelosi and company got that done in five days flat. Yeah, I just I'm
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not really clear. I think Comer's doing a good job. He's been very dogged. He keeps digging up more and
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more bombshells. But Joe Biden's claim that he knew nothing about his son's business and he never profited
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from it is now quite obviously an enormous lie. And there's more than enough evidence of foreign
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payments to justify a vote of impeachment. Now, it is conceivable, and we would know this,
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the Speaker Johnson doesn't have the votes in a vote count because of some of your weak need, lily
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levered, white wine swelling, country club belonging establishment Republicans who just don't have the
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guts for this. And the Speaker can only do things for which he can corral the votes. So there's no
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question that there is a more robust radical caucus that favors impeachment. But I don't know that the
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Speaker can get the votes. Funny, Nancy Pelosi never had this problem. It is funny, and it is
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amazing. I think, well, I completely agree with what you're saying about the the appropriators,
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the what would you what would you call them, that the recalcitrance, the 25 who stood against
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Jim Jordan and his third round at Speaker. He could have well been the Speaker had it not been for the
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pettiness of that group. And and what I suspect is also a craven corruption on the part of many of
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them. And I'm talking about the appropriators, not all of them, but some of them. And so there
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there is that he has to contend with as well. And like you, I heard the man say we don't have the
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evidence at this moment, but we will. But we haven't. And now we're talking about what will be
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talking with Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He says that this will
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they vote on formalizing the inquiry will come next week. I can't imagine anyone, any reasonable
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man or woman not understanding what the evidence is. It is it's in your face. It is weighty. It is more
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than sufficient to bring impeachment. And I don't know what standard these Republicans that I'm talking
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about. But Brie Johnson, as well as now, what standard do they repair to? Do they want to be holiest
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of holy or do they want to just simply represent the American people and do the right thing? I think
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it's a straightforward choice. They seem to think not your thoughts. Well, first of all, this there was no
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intermediary step for Nancy Pelosi. They didn't open an inquiry and then vote articles of impeachment.
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They just voted articles of impeachment. I don't understand why House Republicans can't do this.
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Now, Lou, I think you and I have an advantage in that we read the New York Post and the New York
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Post did a particularly good job of covering the Hunter Biden exploits and what the House committee
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have uncovered. That's not true of the national media. So I can see how there is an impression in
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the country that there's much less on the table than there has been. Well, that's again an absolute
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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,
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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
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President Trump and the man's remarkable strength and perseverance and righteousness as he contends
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with the worst political persecution in history. I do want to just take a moment here, Roger, to ask
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your views on the 702 Section 702 of the FISA and its reauthorization, which seems to be a fork,
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a foregone conclusion. I I can't understand for the life of me why this corrupt government,
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this corrupt administration and these corrupt agencies and the deep state are getting exactly
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what they asked for to be further corrupt and act against the interests of the Republicans,
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conservatives and American citizens. Look, we saw the abuse and the political use of the FISA warrants
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against Donald Trump. The day that Donald Trump was sworn in as president, there was a front page
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story in The New York Times that said I was among four people under government surveillance for my
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contacts with the Russians. There's only one problem, Lou. I never had any contacts with any Russians.
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The New York Times reporter to this day refuses to retract that story. They insisted they had multiple
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sources that said that Carter Page, Paul Manafort, myself were under surveillance. And when I went to trial,
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when I was framed for lying under oath about Russian collusion that never actually happened,
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the government insisted that they had no that there was no evidence that I had been under surveillance,
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despite the fact that The Times insisted that it was. Here's the point. If it can happen to me,
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it can happen to you. And in fact, the FBI has admitted that there were as many as 278,000
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warrantless surveillances of American citizens. This is part and parcel of a government that is seeking
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to jail its principal political opponent, Donald Trump, and his supporters, that is subpoenaing
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social media records so they can see who follows and who retweets and who reposts and who comments on
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their chief political opponents on social media. This is a government that is leaning on social
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media companies to censor the political opinions of anyone they don't agree with. This is an
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administration that is now going to the FCC to pass regulations that allow them to regulate the
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internet at its source. So if we can no longer lean on the social media companies, because we've
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been outed over what we did at Twitter, we'll now just go above them so that through the FCC,
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we can censor what's on the internet. The same people classifying parents who attend school board
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meetings because they're concerned about the content of the curriculum being taught to their children as
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domestic terrorists, harassing those who support the right to life while turning a blind eye to those
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who burn down half the country in BLM or Antifa. I mean, they want to talk. They say Trump is going
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to be a dictator. Trump is going to be authoritarian. This is Alinskyism. They're accusing Donald Trump of
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potentially doing in the future that that they are exactly doing precisely today. It's shocking.
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It is shocking. It's and it's institutionalized this level of opposition projection. It's become a
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laughable tactic and go to a go to gambit on their part every time. Well, let's talk about quickly.
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President Trump talked with him. I guess it was a week, week and a half ago. The man is is charged up.
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He I know you speak with him regularly. He strikes me as a man with not a trouble in the world. He's
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a man with great cares because he cares greatly about this country and it's in the future of all
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Americans. Your sense right now of how well the left have organized their their persecution of him.
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I see Fannie Willis with all sorts of troubles in Fulton County. I New York looks like it's just a
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complete joke. It's going to whatever they do. It is to be mindless. And I cannot understand why
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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
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right about his mood and his and his attitude. I saw him last Friday night and he's he's lost a little
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weight. He looks great. He's in superb mood. He's optimistic. He's upbeat. He's a little angry,
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but I think he has every right to be angry. But this, you know, he's he's resolute. He's determined.
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And above all, Lou, he's exceedingly confident about ultimate victory. It's it is really inspiring.
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I think that that he's winning. The war in terms of the public relations and public attitudes surrounding
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his various prosecutions, but that's because they are all so ridiculously transparent,
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whether he will win in court at the end of the day in very stacked and I think biased proceedings,
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particularly in D.C. I have a little experience in that particular meat grinder. Yes.
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You know, that's a different question. But the fact that he's leading Biden now in all the swing
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states and continuing to lead him nationally shows that everything they're doing to him is
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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
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criminalized, you know, constitutionally protected political activity and tried to make it a crime.
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Here's the fundamental question. In all of these trials where the election is the principal issue,
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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.
00:27:13.160
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.