The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - Rod Blagojevich

00:00:00.000 Rod Blagojevich has lived an interesting life, to say the least.

00:00:04.880 He, of course, was the governor of Illinois, the first Democrat elected to that office in 26 years.

00:00:10.580 He was also the first Illinois governor to be impeached.

00:00:13.440 Later, he was known as federal prisoner number 40892-424 after being convicted of public corruption charges having to do with the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he became president.

00:00:28.960 But there's a great deal more to that story, which we'll come back to in a moment.

00:00:34.180 Born to a blue-collar family in Chicago, Rod shined shoes, delivered pizzas, worked in a meatpacking plant when he was growing up.

00:00:42.060 He also worked for two summers on the Alaskan Pipeline.

00:00:45.320 Thanks to the sacrifice of his parents and his continued hard work, he attended and graduated from Northwestern University, went on to get a law degree from Pepperdine University.

00:00:55.340 He was an assistant state's attorney for Cook County.

00:00:58.740 He was a state House representative.

00:01:02.060 And then in 1996, he was elected to the U.S. Congress.

00:01:06.940 Politics was quite different in those days.

00:01:09.700 2002, his personal vision of the American dream continued.

00:01:13.300 He beat very long odds to become the 40th governor of the state of Illinois.

00:01:18.740 And that's a record as governor that I think deserves some focus.

00:01:23.640 up. He created historic access to affordable health care for children in Illinois. He provided

00:01:29.480 free mammograms and pap smears for tens of thousands of women without health insurance.

00:01:34.900 He established free public transportation for senior citizens, disabled people. But above all,

00:01:41.280 he fought his own party's constant attempts to raise taxes on the working families of Illinois.

00:01:48.860 Rod Blagojevich was something that no longer exists anymore,

00:01:52.900 a moderate Democrat and a very successful governor.

00:01:57.700 In 2008, it was when this American dream,

00:02:01.180 this success story came crashing down,

00:02:03.960 working to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the election of Barack Obama.

00:02:09.300 Rod Blagojevich was charged with corruption, impeached twice,

00:02:13.680 and finally convicted and sentenced to 14 years,

00:02:16.660 of which he's actually served eight years of a sentence for a crime that did not exist.

00:02:24.180 Recently released documents by the Department of Justice tell a very different story.

00:02:31.080 Now, Rob Blagojevich was initially had his sentence commuted by President Donald Trump on February 18th, 2020.

00:02:37.600 He would later have a full and unconditional presidential pardon.

00:02:42.000 It was only after that he was commuted that he and I became friends.

00:02:50.740 What's amazing about Rod Begojevich is after serving eight years, pretty hard time,

00:02:56.580 he's not bitter, he's not broken, he's sustained by his faith.

00:03:00.780 If anything, he is stronger, and he continues to speak out for the good of the country.

00:03:06.420 Rob Begojevich, welcome to the Stone Zone.

00:03:09.640 Thanks for having me, Roger, and thank you for those kind words.

00:03:13.220 This is a historic time, and these revelations from the Justice Department last week

00:03:18.800 kind of prove what you've been saying without the FBI 302s of Barack Obama

00:03:27.280 and Rahm Emanuel to prove it.

00:03:29.900 It really does prove, and the Fox News published these long-hidden documents,

00:03:36.100 that you did nothing wrong.

00:03:37.960 So I want to take this opportunity to walk our audience through exactly what these reports say about this Senate appointment.

00:03:45.160 I think you're guilty.

00:03:46.560 You're guilty of engaging in politics.

00:03:49.420 That's what you're guilty of.

00:03:51.320 Well, that's right.

00:03:52.300 And not only politics, but good government, which the first Mayor Daley used to say was good politics.

00:03:57.880 Good politics is good government.

00:03:59.140 Good government is good politics.

00:04:00.640 I was on the verge of potentially making a political deal for the Senate seat

00:04:05.080 In exchange for appointing the Attorney General of Illinois, Lisa Madigan, who I did not like, because her father was my political nemesis of the two of them, leading Democrats who were obstructing my efforts as governor to do things for the people, in spite of that, I was willing to hold my nose and make her senator on one condition if her father, the powerful House Speaker who had been there for 43 years, Chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois, would pass legislation that would further expand health care to working families, affordable health care,

00:04:32.840 invest in infrastructure highways schools hospitals create tens of thousands of jobs

00:04:40.120 and had put in writing a memorandum of understanding not to raise the income tax

00:04:44.760 of the people of illinois because i was fearful of that because for six years when i was governor

00:04:48.700 all the leading democrats kept pushing for that income tax increase and i was fearful they could

00:04:53.500 override my veto so i wanted that deal i'd hold my nose and i would make her lisa madigan the 0.83

00:04:59.020 senator the night before, the day before the arrest. I instructed my chief of staff to reach

00:05:03.780 out to Rahm Emanuel. They'd been talking about this deal and ask him to begin the process to

00:05:09.480 see if we can make it happen. The FBI was listening and the next morning at six o'clock

00:05:14.960 with 24 members of a SWAT team, very much like what they did to you, Roger.

00:05:19.860 They came to my house to arrest me. They didn't want the day to start and the business day to

00:05:24.320 start because they were afraid that that deal was going to happen. It was legal and good for

00:05:28.620 the people of Illinois, and if they did that, they could never lie and say they were stopping

00:05:32.820 a crime spree before it happened, because that's what the U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald

00:05:36.420 said when I was locked up in a jail cell. Now, I write about this in detail in my book,

00:05:41.640 Frame, Deft, and Freed, which is coming out November 10th. A lot more detail there. But

00:05:45.940 the bottom line, Roger, was this was the biggest frame-up in American history. They hijacked a

00:05:49.640 twice-elected governor. They were emboldened by what they did to me. They got away with it,

00:05:53.920 two trials and a judge that was pretty much their guy. It was very much their guy. And they were

00:05:59.160 emboldened to go after people like you, Roger, because they were determined to go after President

00:06:02.300 Trump. And this kind of weaponization, I think, really began with me at the AAA level to a

00:06:07.160 Democrat governor. And then he took it to the major league level to go after President Trump

00:06:10.900 and you and others who we all know what happened there. And this is a very dangerous thing for our

00:06:16.760 country. This is the greatest country in the world. And it's the last best hope on earth.

00:06:20.140 That's what Lincoln said. He's right. And if we lose the rule of law, we lose our democracy.

00:06:25.460 Correct me if I'm wrong. You were the first governor in the country to endorse Barack Obama for president.

00:06:30.420 Isn't that correct? Right. And look, for that, maybe I deserve going to prison, but you are correct.

00:06:37.380 I endorsed him back in 2007. He was from Illinois. I have known Obama since 1995.

00:06:42.340 We had a friendly relationship, a pretty good relationship, actually.

00:06:46.500 He was from the south side of town. I was from the north side of town.

00:06:49.080 He was a Sox fan. I was a Cubs fan. And we came up together and we both were, you know, had success statewide.

00:06:56.240 And he then skyrocketed. He gave that speech in Boston in 2004.

00:07:01.160 And then he announced for president he was running against Hillary Clinton.

00:07:04.140 So in some respects, Roger, that wasn't a hard decision for me as a Democratic governor to choose between the two of them.

00:07:10.780 But looking back, of course, I regret that very much. And, you know, Obama made a deal.

00:07:14.840 I write I write about this in my book as well. I write that, you know, when they arrested me on the 8th of December, 9th of December, 2008, on a Tuesday, nine days later, they interviewed Obama and those documents that you talked about.

00:07:27.200 And thank you very much for all the help you've given me, Roger. Those documents are Obama's FBI interview, which they would not allow me to have to defend myself at trial.

00:07:36.240 And they've covered them up for 17 years.

00:07:38.540 And finally, because the Trump administration is interested in transparency and letting the truth come out, they finally came out.

00:07:45.480 And they are corroborating everything I've been saying for all those years.

00:07:49.080 The next step is they've got to release now the 98 percent of the FBI tapes they've covered up, particularly the tape from the night before, the day before, when I made a substantial step to start the process of picking a senator.

00:08:01.500 Because that will prove that they lied, and I've been telling the truth, that they arrested me to stop that.

00:08:06.240 not to stop their fake crime spree that they claimed they were stopping.

00:08:10.220 I give Attorney General Todd Blanche enormous credit for releasing these documents,

00:08:15.680 which have been controversial for some time.

00:08:19.060 The record seems to show that initially Barack Obama wanted Valerie Jarrett to fill his Senate seat,

00:08:25.800 then changed his mind, decided that she should go to the White House.

00:08:30.120 But this is the earliest example of weaponization.

00:08:33.800 I mean, Franklin Roosevelt used the IRS, frankly, to harass his political enemies.

00:08:40.060 That's a documented fact.

00:08:41.680 The Kennedys also used the IRS quite aggressively.

00:08:44.820 It's funny.

00:08:45.640 Richard Nixon lost the presidency in 1960.

00:08:48.260 I wonder how he got up a random audit in 61 and 62 and no audit after 1963.

00:08:58.080 He always wondered about that.

00:09:00.260 I didn't wonder about it.

00:09:01.280 The Kennedys used the IRS very aggressively against their political enemies.

00:09:06.820 It is the most amazing thing, Rod, in all honesty,

00:09:11.440 is the way you have not only survived but thrived.

00:09:16.200 You're not bitter.

00:09:17.640 You're not angry.

00:09:18.640 You're not broken.

00:09:19.660 I mean, a lesser man would be all of those things.

00:09:22.400 And, you know, I've talked about this in the way in which your faith sustained you

00:09:27.040 for eight long years when there was no crime.

00:09:31.280 And one of the things I want to stress, you outlined the elements of a political deal.

00:09:37.840 No part of that deal put a penny in the pocket of Rob Blagojevich.

00:09:43.460 No part of that deal put a penny in the campaign of Rob Blagojevich.

00:09:49.340 The benefit would have been solely and completely for the working families and the citizens of Illinois.

00:09:56.100 Boy, yet they conjured this up as a crime.

00:10:01.180 It's really quite extraordinary.

00:10:04.200 Look, I could never have imagined it like that could have happened in America.

00:10:07.580 You know, I trusted the system.

00:10:08.740 I thought those guys, the U.S. attorney's office, they were the best and the brightest.

00:10:12.520 They went to the best law schools, law schools I couldn't get into.

00:10:15.920 They were being able to be hired in the U.S. attorney's office.

00:10:18.720 I had no chance of getting hired in the U.S. attorney's office when I came out of law school.

00:10:22.060 I was a prosecutor at the state level.

00:10:23.860 But I imagine that not only were they smart and intelligent, but that they were honest and had integrity.

00:10:31.960 And I miscalculated.

00:10:33.060 Now, I'm not saying most U.S. attorneys are those things.

00:10:35.700 I think most of them are good people.

00:10:37.240 But I do believe a cabal, a cancer, was in that office during those years.

00:10:42.860 And you can identify who they were, Patrick Fitzgerald, James Comey, Robert Mueller.

00:10:48.240 These were the same people that were doing to me what they went on to do to President Trump.

00:10:52.840 and they are a great threat to our democracy and our freedoms and to our constitution but no you

00:11:00.020 you asked me what got me through it you know i write about this in my book too my first night

00:11:04.240 in prison roger i'm facing 14 years and i just have to say goodbye to my little girls my little

00:11:08.940 one annie but annie was eight years old and my older daughter amy was 15 they were young children

00:11:13.600 i'm about to now miss you know their years growing up which i did but i'm facing 14 years and i just

00:11:20.920 got done saying goodbye to them and my wife and you know i then walk into a prison that was the

00:11:26.420 higher prison i spent my first nearly three years in a prison with murderers i had access to a 50

00:11:31.980 000 square foot governor's mansion when i was governor now i found myself in a six foot by

00:11:35.940 eight foot prison cell just like in the movies and that first night i described this first night

00:11:41.500 in my book how all of a sudden the gates slammed shut these powerful big iron gates slammed shut

00:11:47.740 and then the lights went off and were swallowed up in darkness and the realization hit me

00:11:51.940 good lord man i am really here this is really happening i can't get out of this place and i

00:11:58.260 have 14 years of this and i am so afraid for my children and my wife they're home alone

00:12:02.880 knowing they're to protect them not i'm not there to provide for them what's going to happen to them

00:12:08.780 and i reached for the bible that my wife patty gave me the only thing to let you bring into

00:12:13.040 prison rogers the bible couldn't even bring my running shoes in and i i had a reading light that

00:12:19.420 was given to me by inmates they gave me a welcome basket you know these tough guys gangbangers and

00:12:24.180 even some of them you know committed homicides right these guys gathered together a welcome

00:12:29.920 basket for me and it was a reading light that you can use late at night on your book and read

00:12:35.340 the light just goes down on the book and i went to the bible and i went to the psalms and i went

00:12:40.760 the 23rd Psalm first and then kept reading the Psalms because I needed something to give me hope

00:12:45.520 and strength. And for every day, for every day, 2,896 days that I spent in prison, I would read

00:12:52.540 the Bible over and over again. And faith, hope, and love, which is what St. Paul writes in the

00:12:57.880 first letter to Corinthians chapter 13. That's what got me home, above all the excellence of

00:13:02.480 love. And the purpose I had in my life at that point was to live for my children and for my wife.

00:13:07.700 And no matter how bad it was, no matter how despair might creep in, I had to keep it away.

00:13:14.680 I had to be strong.

00:13:15.980 I had to somehow survive and make my way back home, not so much for me, but for my little girls.

00:13:21.640 And here's why I love Donald Trump.

00:13:23.440 I support him on so much of what he does as president.

00:13:26.840 But as a person who I got to know a little bit on his television show, just a little bit, but Trump saved me and rescued me from that.

00:13:33.420 And, you know, Roger, what he did for my daughters, he gave my daughters the best gift they've ever received.

00:13:37.520 in their lives. He gave them their father back.

00:13:40.780 Well, I completely

00:13:41.660 identify with that. I was redeemed

00:13:43.680 in the blood of the cross. I returned

00:13:45.500 to the church. We're going through the same kind of

00:13:47.520 similar crucible.

00:13:49.380 See, I was so naive that I thought that when they

00:13:51.420 charged me with things I knew I wasn't guilty of

00:13:53.600 that I'd get a fair trial.

00:13:55.420 I'd have a chance to prove

00:13:57.340 my innocence, even though technically

00:13:58.940 it's the government's obligation to prove your guilt.

00:14:01.680 That's not really how it works.

00:14:03.380 You have to prove your innocence. I didn't know

00:14:05.460 that the judge would withhold

00:14:07.140 exculpatory evidence against me.

00:14:09.260 I didn't know that there were certain items, videos, audios, text messages,

00:14:13.480 emails that I would not, my lawyers would not be allowed to enter into

00:14:17.820 evidence in my own defense.

00:14:19.780 I didn't know that I would be gagged.

00:14:22.360 How come the folks at CNN and MSNOW and the Politico so concerned about the

00:14:29.120 First Amendment and free speech today?

00:14:30.720 They didn't seem too upset when I had a broad gag placed upon me by a federal judge.

00:14:37.680 Nowhere in the Constitution does it say when you're charged with a crime, you lose your free speech rights.

00:14:42.920 But I was not allowed to defend myself.

00:14:47.460 And it is only, frankly, because a chance meeting, an opportunity to meet with Franklin Graham,

00:14:53.860 who gave me the best possible advice in this crucible that I was going through.

00:14:58.880 He said, look, turn your burden over to the Lord, put your faith in God, and he will lift you up and he will deliver you from your persecutors.

00:15:08.740 And that's precisely what I did.

00:15:10.660 In the beginning, you know, I was reading the Bibles, the Psalms, the Proverbs, and so on.

00:15:15.040 I wasn't feeling it.

00:15:16.840 And then ultimately the day came when the Lord began to sustain me.

00:15:22.420 And I knew I came home and I told my wife, you know, it's all going to be okay.

00:15:27.740 It's actually all going to be okay, and the cards, as you know, are stacked against you.

00:15:33.780 Federal prosecutors win 99% of their cases, and I think at the time you and I were sitting

00:15:40.780 at Mar-a-Lago at a table together, we'd both been pardoned, and the president, you know,

00:15:46.060 kind of spins tunes on his iPad, and he sent an aide over to ask us what song we wanted

00:15:53.900 to hear and you said

00:15:55.880 with a smile

00:15:57.080 jailhouse rock

00:15:58.880 it was one of the high points of my career

00:16:01.960 folks you're listening to Rob Blagojevich

00:16:04.180 one of the greatest governors in Illinois

00:16:06.040 history and a true American patriot

00:16:07.860 Rob I have to ask you this question

00:16:09.680 what happened to the once

00:16:11.920 great democrat party of John

00:16:13.960 F. Kennedy and Harry Truman

00:16:15.760 and Richard J. Daly

00:16:17.540 the father a party that believed

00:16:20.100 in free enterprise

00:16:21.980 capitalism, strong national defense, God.

00:16:26.160 That Democrat Party does not seem to exist to me anymore.

00:16:29.480 It appears to have been taken captive by a radical Marxist clique.

00:16:34.840 It's very hard to understand.

00:16:36.200 What's your analysis?

00:16:38.280 My analysis is that party doesn't exist.

00:16:40.840 You're exactly right.

00:16:41.800 I mean, the Democratic Party I was in, the Democratic Party that I believed in,

00:16:46.800 doesn't exist anymore.

00:16:48.140 You know, one of the best things about the Democratic Party when I was in it was we were not that unlike sort of the, in some respects, like the new Republican Party that President Trump has built.

00:16:58.660 And that is, you know, fundamentally made up of working people who loved our country, who believed in God, who supported the police, who thought, you know, America was a place where if you work real hard, you can improve your lot in life, build a better life for your family.

00:17:16.580 You can get ahead. You can leave the working class and become part of the middle class and maybe even upper class and maybe even become super rich.

00:17:24.520 That's the beauty of America. That's why people from all over the world to this day still want to come to this country.

00:17:29.200 But that is not the party anymore. The socialists have hijacked the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party is really a socialist party.

00:17:36.780 Even the so-called moderate Democrats or those who used to be moderate or reasonable Democrats are so afraid of the socialists that they – if they win elections, they'll govern as socialists.

00:17:49.400 Look at Illinois, our governor, J.B. Pritzker, inherited $3 billion, the Hyatt Hotel fortune.

00:17:54.880 And what he does is spend all his time as governor not looking out for the interests of American citizens in Illinois and the hardworking people of this state or even the black community that's facing every year high crime rates and murder rates.

00:18:07.720 He panders to illegal immigrants because that's the stuff that pleases the socialists. 0.52

00:18:12.400 We have a, well, we have a netball baby billionaire Bolshevik governor in Illinois 0.64

00:18:19.000 who's raised taxes on people and fees more than 51 times. 0.74

00:18:23.540 More than 1,000 businesses have left our state.

00:18:26.720 Over 400,000 people have left our state, 1.00

00:18:29.260 and they're being replaced by, you know, illegal immigrants

00:18:32.240 who have found sanctuary in Illinois and in Chicago because it's a sanctuary city and a sanctuary state.

00:18:37.840 All right, Rod, I'm afraid we have to wrap it there.

00:18:39.800 I want to thank my guest, Rod Begojevich.

The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - September 24, 2026

Rod Blagojevich

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