The StoneZONE with Roger Stone

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00:00:30.000 The Stone Zone.

00:00:32.560 Entertaining and informative.

00:00:34.700 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:00:37.600 Welcome back.

00:00:39.240 You are in the Stone Zone.

00:00:41.320 And now entering the zone is John Phillips.

00:00:44.320 John Phillips hosts the John Phillips Show on 790k ABC in Los Angeles.

00:00:50.580 He is a shrewd analyst of both California and national politics.

00:00:56.160 Started in radio at 20 years old.

00:00:58.700 One of the youngest hosts in the country.

00:01:02.360 And he and I are the two, world's two largest fans of, well, anyway, I'm not going to go in there.

00:01:12.660 John Phillips, thanks for joining us in the Stone Zone.

00:01:16.160 Well, thank you for having me, Roger.

00:01:17.460 So I really want to get your take, not only on what's unfolding in Los Angeles, but also the politics of it.

00:01:27.760 To me, and I said this earlier, this is a golden opportunity for Gavin Newsom, whose prospects to be president prior to this were pretty dismal, given the condition of California.

00:01:42.460 And the fact that California may have another Californian ahead of him should she decide to run, Kamala Harris, who most polls show would lead as the first choice and who may be eyeing a bid to be governor of California and take his job anyway.

00:01:58.340 Well, it's really hard to look at Gavin Newsom on TV right now.

00:02:05.360 And not think that he's enjoying this, because he is the guy who I guess he calculated that the Democratic Party, after they lost the last election to Trump, would move to the right.

00:02:18.340 And that's why he started the podcast and invited Charlie Kirk and Michael Savage and Steve Bannon and others.

00:02:26.480 And that blew up in his face like a hillbillies rifle, because the Democratic Party isn't moving to the right.

00:02:32.060 They're digging in their heels.

00:02:33.740 And Trump derangement syndrome is real.

00:02:36.360 And and they're only they're only getting a stronger case of it right now.

00:02:41.320 And so this situation, these riots that are playing out right now in Los Angeles, give him an opportunity to recalibrate himself and to present himself to the nation as the chief foil of Donald Trump, which is why he challenged Trump on TV to arrest him.

00:02:59.780 And he's having these angry press conferences and angry interviews where he's blaming everything that's going on right now in the streets of Los Angeles on Trump, because he wants to turn this into a Gavin Newsom versus Donald Trump situation that lifts him up and puts him in a place where he thinks Democrats will rally around him.

00:03:23.980 Yeah, I actually had to go and check this out.

00:03:27.020 Well, Tom Homan never specifically threatened to arrest him.

00:03:31.400 He said he would arrest any public official who who assisted illegals from avoiding arrest or assaulted a law enforcement officer.

00:03:42.960 So this was clearly Gavin Newsom trying to bait Tom Homan and to give him the golden headline.

00:03:51.180 He he nothing could be better for Gavin Newsom than to be arrested.

00:03:56.360 But if he can't be arrested just for for defending a violent, quote unquote, protesters or extremists or terrorists, he could only be arrested if he acted in some way to impede an arrest or assault an officer and so on.

00:04:11.860 So so he's posturing.

00:04:13.500 It's drama, a drama that I think Tom Homan is not going to take him up on.

00:04:17.980 Yeah, it's definitely posturing.

00:04:21.440 And what's funny is Gavin Newsom is such a sociopath that getting as much publicity as possible and furthering his political career and keeping his political career alive is really the goal.

00:04:34.840 And he's willing to put people's safety at risk by doing that, because the position that Gavin Newsom has been taking is there's nothing wrong here.

00:04:44.820 There's nothing going on that's unsafe.

00:04:47.200 We have this under control.

00:04:49.280 We don't need any help from the feds.

00:04:51.720 The LAPD has all of this taken care of.

00:04:54.720 And Donald Trump is just trying to stir the pot.

00:04:58.200 And that same claim has been repeated by not just him, but other members of the political establishment, Democratic political establishment here in California over and over and over again.

00:05:11.260 But then last night, the police chief, police chief McDonnell, went on TV of the LAPD and said that none of that was true, that it was violent.

00:05:22.260 It's getting more violent.

00:05:24.260 The police are outnumbered.

00:05:26.240 They're overwhelmed.

00:05:27.640 They're being shot at with fireworks.

00:05:30.340 They're having bricks thrown at them.

00:05:32.260 They're having cinder blocks thrown at them.

00:05:34.580 And they need help.

00:05:35.780 And right now, because the police chief destroyed Gavin Newsom's narrative, there's trouble in paradise.

00:05:44.140 And the last time that this happened, it was right after the L.A. fires, when the fire chief came out and said that the budget cuts that the city imposed on the fire department prevented them from being able to fully respond to the fires.

00:05:57.720 The moment she said that she was a dead man walking because she destroyed the narrative that the mayor was putting out, and then the mayor's poll number started to crater.

00:06:08.340 The fact that the police chief went out there last night and destroyed Gavin Newsom's narrative, I think, makes that man a dead man walking.

00:06:17.020 I think Newsom is going to target him.

00:06:19.360 I think the mayor is going to target him because that man has turned their framing upside down.

00:06:25.120 Well, of course, they continue to insist these are peaceful demonstrations.

00:06:29.600 But the actual numbers that we see coming back, protesters hurling rocks, bottles, Molotov-style cocktails, fireworks, bags of urine and feces, chunks of concrete rocks at law enforcement and ICE officers.

00:06:47.680 We're not imagining it.

00:06:49.400 We're seeing this before our very eyes.

00:06:52.420 These cars set on fire, both police cars and these driverless cars.

00:06:59.720 I mean, it is to say that there's no violence here.

00:07:03.100 Don't believe what you're seeing on video.

00:07:05.180 Believe what Cory Booker and Gavin Newsom tell you.

00:07:09.740 In the wake of the fires and the horrific mishandling of the fires by Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, I would have to believe that their standing in California is weakened.

00:07:22.540 I think here, by going to the most radical left position, perhaps they feel they can rebuild their political strength on the left within the state.

00:07:32.440 Yeah, don't forget, when Gavin Newsom was being recalled and the focus was on his performance as governor, there were a series of polls that showed him losing the recall.

00:07:43.700 And that Larry Elder would be elected governor and that Larry Elder would be elected governor of California.

00:07:48.000 It wasn't until he recalibrated that and nationalized that election where he was able to win.

00:07:56.380 Because California is a deep blue state.

00:07:58.520 If you get the Democrats to vote for the Democratic candidate, that's all she wrote.

00:08:02.480 The election's over.

00:08:03.440 And by federalizing the recall election and making it all about Donald Trump and making it about abortion and other federal subjects that really have nothing to do with the state of California, he was able to divert attention away from his failures, whether it's with the homeless, the crime, the budget, the bullet train, the insurance crisis, you name it.

00:08:27.480 So, President Trump called the rioters paid insurrectionists.

00:08:33.320 I just saw that Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna got very specific in identifying those funding the riots.

00:08:40.640 I mean, John, these pallets of bricks, these pallets of cement blocks, these flatbed trucks who are delivering them, they didn't just come from nowhere.

00:08:50.080 This is not an indigenous uprising.

00:08:52.360 Who do you think is funding this insurrection?

00:08:54.740 Well, I think it's probably the usual suspects.

00:08:59.820 If I had to bet money on it, I would say that you're going to find some Soros money somewhere in there, although that's just my opinion.

00:09:06.420 But I spoke with someone at the FBI today who said that it's a different ballgame now.

00:09:12.660 Because when you had George Gascon as the district attorney, who essentially was pro-criminal and was a Soros DA, he didn't have any interest in ever prosecuting anyone for assaulting a police officer, destroying police property, all the things that you saw happen on television.

00:09:31.020 But there's a new U.S. attorney that President Trump just appointed for the Central District of California, Bill Shaley, who came from the California State Legislature and is really a shining star in the Trump administration as U.S. attorney.

00:09:46.060 And he has been very aggressive at saying that he is going to go after these people, these looters, these people who have been attacking federal police officers at federal property, and he's going to hit them with everything he can.

00:09:59.880 And when you start leaning on these people in a federal sort of way, you can find out just exactly who was supporting them, who was putting them up to it, and figure out who are the important players in the social network.

00:10:14.680 And the fact that arrests have been made, and prosecutions will commence, and a U.S. attorney is very interested in getting to the bottom of it, leads you to believe that they'll figure this out, and we'll know exactly who was funding what you saw play out over the weekend.

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00:11:02.980 It seems to me the other real question is to see whether these outbreaks of violence begin to spread.

00:11:09.740 Remember, in the beginning, it was Minneapolis, St. Paul, before long, Chicago was burning, and other cities.

00:11:18.240 General Flynn has outlined that he thinks this is a much broader strategy to destabilize the Trump administration and the country.

00:11:26.860 I will be very interested to see whether there is a further effort to create chaos, to mobilize the dissenters, disrupt law enforcement operations, and incite even more violence.

00:11:39.720 One thing is clear, and that is President Trump's very quick move to send 2,000 National Guardsmen, and the statement by the Secretary of Defense that he's prepared to send in the Marines, if necessary, shows the president will not repeat the mistakes of 2020 when his advisors urged him to let the governors handle it.

00:12:01.580 And governors like Tim Walsh, well, they couldn't handle it.

00:12:04.980 The governor of Illinois could not handle it.

00:12:07.700 There was $2 billion worth of public and private property destroyed, 54 people murdered, thousands of people injured.

00:12:16.800 He's not going to make that mistake again.

00:12:20.160 Yeah, I think that's right.

00:12:21.100 You're seeing that not only, as you mentioned, with the National Guard, but with the Marines as well.

00:12:27.720 He wants to make an example out of Los Angeles where civil unrest, rioting, looting won't be tolerated.

00:12:34.980 That Grampy Joe is no longer in the White House where he's not aware of what's going on in the world around him.

00:12:42.000 Donald Trump is keeping a very close eye on what's going on here, and he's not going to let it get out of hand.

00:12:47.860 And the other thing that's different this time than in civil unrest or riots in the past is that Elon owns Twitter.

00:12:57.180 So you can see what's going on in Los Angeles on Twitter or X whenever you want, and it's not going to be censored, and it's not going to be shadow banned, and it's not going to be pulled down.

00:13:10.520 You're going to see what's happening with your own two eyes.

00:13:13.360 And before, when the other side controlled X, they were able to censor all of that content.

00:13:21.140 So if Gavin Newsom and Maxine Waters and Karen Bass go on TV and say, there's no violence going on, everything is peaceful,

00:13:30.180 and you just make sure that no one sees the actual evidence of what's going on on the streets,

00:13:36.300 then a certain number of people will buy into it.

00:13:39.000 But when you can see what's going on in real time at all points, everywhere, you know that what they're saying is not true,

00:13:48.780 and they look like buffoons going out and making the claim that everything is peaceful and anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

00:13:56.600 No one believes them.

00:13:57.520 Folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to John Phillips.

00:14:01.840 He hosts the John Phillips Show at 790K ABC in Los Angeles.

00:14:06.020 He's also a columnist for the Orange County Register, a keen observer of the California and the national political scene.

00:14:17.300 I was going to say earlier that you and I were the two greatest admirers of Assemblyman Joe Schell,

00:14:22.840 who ran for governor in 1962, but I wanted to get to the Newsom stuff.

00:14:31.400 I also want to talk to you about this rift between Elon and the president, which seems to be beginning to be healing.

00:14:41.200 It appears to be there's a cooling at a minimum, but what do you make of all that?

00:14:46.380 I'm not surprised.

00:14:47.620 In fact, I assume that they would probably bump head sooner.

00:14:52.140 The fact that their bromance lasted as long as it did kind of shocked me.

00:14:58.900 But I'm also not surprised that they made up as quickly as they ended up fighting,

00:15:04.700 because ultimately they're on the same page.

00:15:07.640 I mean, you pay attention to what Musk's beefs are with Trump,

00:15:12.940 and Musk is basically attacking them from the right.

00:15:15.480 So I don't think there's any threat at all that he's going to start funding

00:15:20.400 Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of them,

00:15:25.900 because those aren't the arguments that he's making.

00:15:29.620 I think as soon as these hotheads cool down,

00:15:33.180 and Trump has already cooled way down from where he was when the fight first started,

00:15:37.900 and based on what I saw today, it looks like Elon's doing the same thing,

00:15:41.920 I don't know if they'll ever be as close as they once were, probably not.

00:15:46.060 Certain things were said that you can't go back on.

00:15:49.180 But I think that their fighting will cool off,

00:15:54.600 and they will recognize that they're more powerful together than they are apart,

00:15:59.100 because they're essentially fighting for many of the same things.

00:16:02.200 Well, the sad truth of it is that after he bought Twitter,

00:16:06.100 changed it to X, and made it a free speech site,

00:16:09.080 he found himself under nine separate federal investigations by the Biden administration.

00:16:14.120 Had Kamala Harris won, they would have taken all of his federal contracts,

00:16:18.200 destroyed his companies, and probably put him in jail.

00:16:20.400 And I think he figured that out.

00:16:22.300 So we are on the right side.

00:16:24.000 I think he's a free speech hero.

00:16:25.740 I told him that when I met him at Mar-a-Lago.

00:16:28.500 I told him he was the most important voice for free speech since the founding fathers themselves.

00:16:33.900 And Donald Trump was standing there, and he agreed.

00:16:37.600 Folks, if you're listening to The Stone Zone,

00:16:39.860 we're talking to John Phillips,

00:16:41.880 the host of The John Phillips Show at 790K ABC in Los Angeles,

00:16:46.260 and we'll be right back.

00:16:48.500 The Stone Zone.

00:16:50.600 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:16:55.540 The Stone Zone.

00:16:57.180 Entertaining and informative.

00:16:59.560 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:17:02.700 And we're back in the Zoom Zone.

00:17:05.380 We're talking to John Phillips of 790K ABC in Los Angeles.

00:17:10.120 John, I noticed that former Vice President Kamala Harris put out a statement attacking Donald Trump,

00:17:15.440 essentially backing the left progressive line.

00:17:18.480 You had a great column recently on Her Future,

00:17:21.660 which I think has a lot to do with the country's political future choices.

00:17:25.160 in the little time we have left.

00:17:27.380 Tell us about that.

00:17:29.300 Yeah, well, I read the book Fight about the 2024 presidential election,

00:17:34.300 and the authors of the book essentially concluded that the main reason that she lost

00:17:39.340 was she never really had a reason for running.

00:17:42.160 She was just a candidate because Biden had to drop out,

00:17:45.520 and she was the vice president.

00:17:46.680 But outside of that, she didn't really have a reason.

00:17:48.780 And based on everything I've seen and heard out of Kamala Harris,

00:17:54.680 if she runs for governor of California,

00:17:56.980 she's prepared to make all of those same mistakes a second time.

00:18:01.380 California has a million and one problems.

00:18:04.380 And when you read the articles about her as a potential candidate,

00:18:08.400 it talks about what it will do for her resume.

00:18:11.160 It talks about what it will do for her legacy.

00:18:13.160 It talks about how it would make her the chief loyal to Donald Trump,

00:18:17.380 how it could position her to run for president again.

00:18:20.580 It's all about her.

00:18:21.940 It doesn't have much to do with what she would do for the state of California.

00:18:25.980 And if you're going to be a strong candidate for governor in California,

00:18:30.060 you probably should have thought through some of our problems

00:18:33.780 and have solutions to offer.

00:18:36.340 And she doesn't have any of that.

00:18:37.980 So in a weird sort of way,

00:18:39.920 even though they just spent over a billion dollars promoting her nationally

00:18:43.500 and her name ID is higher than all the other candidates,

00:18:46.640 if there's a strong Republican candidate in that race,

00:18:50.040 she might actually be the most beatable. 0.99

00:18:53.300 Wow.

00:18:54.620 That's extraordinary.

00:18:57.700 I just operate on the assumption because between the voter fraud

00:19:01.220 and the demographic changes that California cannot go red.

00:19:04.720 Am I wrong?

00:19:05.160 Well, what you just described is all true,

00:19:09.580 and any Democrat would be an overwhelming favorite against any Republican.

00:19:15.040 But you can push people too far.

00:19:17.580 I mean, look at the insurance crisis in California right now.

00:19:21.240 That race for insurance commissioner last time around was closer than

00:19:25.380 any of the other statewide constitutional offices.

00:19:29.460 And with a strong candidate this next time around, who knows?

00:19:33.260 Maybe that's doable.

00:19:34.180 The last time a Republican won a statewide race in California was Arnold

00:19:38.380 Schwarzenegger in 2010 for governor and Steve Poizner in 2010 for insurance

00:19:43.640 commissioner.

00:19:44.740 So it is possible for California to elect a Republican.

00:19:48.820 It's unlikely.

00:19:49.900 But with the way that the Democrats are running the state,

00:19:52.740 treating the state like it's a spring break rental car,

00:19:55.880 if there's any time that they could lose, it's now.

00:19:58.540 I'm afraid we have to wrap it there.

00:20:01.100 I want to thank my guest, John Phillips,

00:20:02.940 who is the host of the John Phillips Show at 790k ABC in Los Angeles.

00:20:07.960 Also, check out his columns at the Orange County Register.

00:20:12.100 John, thank you for joining us today in the Stone Zone.

00:20:15.740 Thanks for having me.

00:20:16.820 And for our Stone Zone regulars out there,

00:20:20.980 thanks for tuning in.

00:20:21.940 Until tomorrow, God bless you and God speak.

00:20:24.960 We'll see you next time.

00:20:54.960 Thanks for listening to the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:21:00.020 You can hear the Stone Zone with Roger Stone weeknights at 8 on 77 WABC.

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00:21:23.920 See you next time for a new episode so you never have to wonder.

00:21:27.760 What the heck is going on here?

John Phillips ｜ 06-09-25

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