The StoneZONE with Roger Stone


Stone Zone ｜ 06-23-25


Episode Stats


Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Trump's decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities and enriching centrifuges is not the end of MAGA. It's the beginning of a new era in American foreign policy, and it's a time to learn to live in the Stone Zone.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:25.520 We'd love to talk business.
00:00:30.000 The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:00:35.840 You are now entering the Stone Zone.
00:00:39.800 Well, as I've said here in the zone, the only thing predictable about Donald Trump is that he's completely and totally unpredictable.
00:00:49.620 So after the head fake of saying he would make a decision in two weeks on Sunday,
00:00:54.760 He launched a surgical strike against the three locations where American intelligence told him enriched uranium was stored and where the centrifuges existed to produce a nuclear weapon.
00:01:11.540 I stress for those who say this is the end of MAGA or that he's just another neocon.
00:01:17.980 And this is specifically not regime change.
00:01:22.020 First of all, there will be no boots on the ground.
00:01:25.300 There'll be no American troops.
00:01:27.340 The president did not hit the Iranians oil refinery capabilities.
00:01:32.860 That would be a direct challenge to the Chinese, their principal customer, indeed their patron.
00:01:39.940 He did not launch a Soleimani type drone attack on the Ayatollah because he is a religious leader.
00:01:48.860 And of course, immediately after the attack, which the president decided on, he called for talks yet again.
00:01:58.380 As for the report from the Iranians that we did no damage to their nuclear weapons development program, that they had cleverly moved everything out of those three locations, 0.96
00:02:12.860 no military or intelligence source that I trust tells me that's true.
00:02:18.620 I think that was a face saving statement with no basis in reality.
00:02:28.380 On the other hand, we cannot pretend that the president's historic decision will have no consequences.
00:02:36.340 Many military experts, Colonel John Mills, Colonel Douglas McGregor here in the Stone Zone,
00:02:43.620 predicted that there was a strong possibility that the Iranians would shut down the Strait of Hormuz,
00:02:51.240 where one out of every six barrels of oil in the world travels.
00:02:56.340 They have made noises about that, but have not yet done so.
00:03:01.260 To do so would also hit their clients, such as the Chinese. 0.51
00:03:07.200 Whether the Pakistanis or even the Russians or others choose to lend or give nuclear warheads to the Iranians,
00:03:18.120 well, that remains to be seen.
00:03:19.680 That would be a provocation that I don't think President Trump would react well to.
00:03:26.300 But this is a limited operation.
00:03:29.220 It is not endless foreign war.
00:03:32.100 And our inherent national interests, unlike the situation in Iraq or even Afghanistan, is absolutely clear.
00:03:41.620 This isn't even Libya.
00:03:43.540 You saw what happened there.
00:03:45.780 That was about regime change.
00:03:48.300 This is about a direct threat to the United States, whether that threat is tomorrow or it is a year from now.
00:03:56.200 It is very clear to anyone who listened to all of the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard's report.
00:04:04.680 They have record levels of enriched uranium.
00:04:09.980 And it was not a very short hop to their development of weapons.
00:04:15.920 I think the president made the right decision.
00:04:17.940 And I support him 100 percent.
00:04:20.960 He is the head of the MAGA movement.
00:04:23.140 And he decides what constitutes America first.
00:04:27.620 Meanwhile, of course, the Iranians have attacked a U.S. base in Qatar in what they say is retaliation for airstrikes on their facilities over the weekend.
00:04:38.260 Explosions were heard over the Qatari capital of Doha, while video shows air defense missiles being deployed following what Iran called blessings of victory.
00:04:48.880 A devastating and powerful missile was fired at the U.S.
00:04:54.440 Al-Uaid air base in Qatar, according to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in a statement put out by Iranian state media.
00:05:04.440 Some 10,000 U.S. troops are normally based there, which serves as the forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command.
00:05:12.140 Qatar has reported the Iranian missiles attack on our base was successfully intercepted with no reports of casualties and that Iran coordinated the attacks with Qatari officials, giving them advance notice.
00:05:27.400 You have to wonder to what extent all of this is for public consumption.
00:05:33.200 Why attack with no intent to damage?
00:05:37.400 It's kind of a kabuki act in a way.
00:05:40.180 On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said what happens next will depend on what Iran chooses to do next.
00:05:47.760 If they choose the path of diplomacy, we're ready.
00:05:51.000 We can do a deal that's good for them, the Iranian people, and good for the world.
00:05:56.720 If they choose another route, well, then there will be consequences.
00:06:01.320 I must say Marco Rubio is emerging as one of the stars of the Trump cabinet.
00:06:07.460 He represented me in the U.S. Senate.
00:06:10.580 I think he has sublimated his earlier neocon positioning to be one of the president's most effective appointees, carrying out the Trump doctrine rather than the doctrine of endless foreign war, where our inherent national interests were never clear.
00:06:31.060 Meanwhile, President Trump made a statement on True Social today regarding the fake news reports about the operation of midnight hammer strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.
00:06:42.540 Monumental damage was done to all nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images.
00:06:50.320 Obliteration is an accurate term, said the president.
00:06:53.780 The white structure shown in a photo that the president put up is deeply embedded into the rock, with even its roof well below ground level and completely shielded from flame.
00:07:05.860 The biggest damage took place far below ground level.
00:07:11.520 Bullseye, said the president, with no less than three exclamation points.
00:07:16.880 The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it, the president said.
00:07:23.400 Only the fake news would say anything different in order to try to demean as much as possible.
00:07:29.860 And even they say they were pretty well destroyed.
00:07:33.880 Working especially hard on this falsehood, the president called out Allison Cooper of Fake News CNN, his words, Brian Roberts, chairman of Comcast, who the president called dumb, Johnny Carl of ABC Fake News, and as always, the losers at Comcast's NBC Fake News.
00:07:59.200 It never ends with the sleazebanks in the media, and that's why their ratings are at an all-time low, said the president.
00:08:07.820 They have zero credibility.
00:08:10.040 As one who's been the target for their disinformation, someone they falsely labeled as a Russian intelligence asset for over two years, I know exactly how the president feels.
00:08:26.440 President Trump made a second statement regarding the idea of Russia giving Iran a nuclear weapon.
00:08:33.940 Did I hear that former President Medvedev from Russia casually throwing around the N-word and saying that he and other countries would supply nuclear warheads to Iran?
00:08:46.260 President Trump, President Trump wrote on social media, did he really say that, or is it a figment of my imagination?
00:08:53.020 If he did say that, and if confirmed, please let me know immediately.
00:08:57.760 The N-word, meaning nuclear, should not be treated so casually.
00:09:02.660 I guess that's why Putin's the boss.
00:09:05.420 By the way, if anyone thinks our hardware was great over the weekend, far and away the strongest and best equipment we have, 20 years advanced over the pack.
00:09:16.120 That describes our nuclear submarines, the president said.
00:09:20.620 They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built.
00:09:24.360 And we just launched 30 Tomahawks.
00:09:27.080 All 30 hit their mark perfectly.
00:09:29.120 So in addition to our great fighter pilots, thank you also to the captain and crew.
00:09:35.600 Now, regarding the idea of regime change, I think the president was trolling his critics when he said it's not politically correct to use the term regime change.
00:09:46.700 But if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change?
00:09:56.340 MIGA, he said.
00:09:58.020 M-I-G-A. 1.00
00:09:59.520 Another three exclamation points.
00:10:01.580 You can always tell when the president himself is posting these because he has an inimitable personal style.
00:10:08.740 Make Iran great again.
00:10:10.860 And again, Trump favors negotiation over confrontation, commerce over chaos.
00:10:18.940 We will be following the story.
00:10:21.600 But as someone whose life was saved by the president, I myself support him 100 percent in this decision.
00:10:30.660 But I also continue to differentiate this from decisions made by previous presidents.
00:10:36.460 It's kind of interesting that Joe Biden, Barack Obama and even Hillary Clinton all said that if the Iranians developed a weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear bomb, that they themselves would attack.
00:10:51.720 It's interesting now that Democrat lawmakers lawmakers are now saying that the president's actions violate the War Powers Act and that he needed the permission of Congress to do this.
00:11:05.980 That's wrong, by the way.
00:11:08.500 In the meantime, I'm happy to see that the U.S.'s chief administrative officer informed congressional staffers today that the messaging app WhatsApp is banned on their government devices.
00:11:19.860 The ban, which censors on the vulnerability of staffers' data, comes as Congress is also taking steps to limit the use of AI programs it deems similarly risky.
00:11:33.380 AI, artificial intelligence, is one of the greatest dangers in the world.
00:11:39.140 I know I have been a target of it.
00:11:41.860 You can see dozens of videos of me online saying things, appearing to say things, that I never actually said.
00:11:51.940 Some of them are really pretty rough around the edges and can be easily detected as fraud, while others, you need to use an AI software detection program.
00:12:04.820 There are several good ones out there to prove that these are fraudulent.
00:12:10.140 This is the real danger to democracy, because for a very little amount of money and not much technical skill, one can produce a video of making it appear that, oh, I don't know, Joe Biden said something that he never said, or perhaps Donald Trump.
00:12:27.500 So we're now to the point where you cannot necessarily believe what you see with your own eyes.
00:12:35.180 It's interesting that there in recent days are banning on Congress a number of AI technologies.
00:12:44.560 It has also heavily restricted the use of chat GPT, instructing offices to only use the paid version, chat GPT+.
00:12:53.360 The Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.
00:13:09.260 That's what the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives said.
00:13:15.040 House staff are not allowed to download or keep the WhatsApp application on any house device, including any mobile, desktop, or web browser version of its products.
00:13:27.200 The email added, if you have a WhatsApp application on your house-managed device, you will be contacted to remove it immediately.
00:13:34.800 Andy Stone, a spokesman for WhatsApp, no relative of mine, said in a statement,
00:13:40.620 we disagree with the House's Chief Administrative Officer and their characterization in the strongest possible terms.
00:13:47.460 We know members and their staff regularly use WhatsApp, and we look forward to ensuring members of the House can join their Senate counterparts in doing so officially.
00:13:58.340 I'm Roger Stone. You're in the Stone Zone.
00:14:01.020 Whatever you do, don't go away, because we'll be right back.
00:14:04.800 The Stone Zone.
00:14:06.540 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:14:09.960 This shrimp and coconut sauce is divine.
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00:14:41.880 The Stone Zone.
00:14:43.520 Entertaining and informative.
00:14:45.640 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:14:47.560 And we're back in the Stone Zone.
00:14:51.120 President Donald Trump announced last week that he was seriously considering the appointment of a special counsel to study the 2020 election results.
00:15:02.000 I think that is a good way to proceed, particularly in the wake of reports from FBI Director Cash Patel, that there were 20,000 fraudulent driver's licenses sent from China to Chicago, intercepted prior to the 2020 election.
00:15:21.280 Unfortunately, this fact was buried, and FBI Director Christopher Wray clearly perjured himself before the Congress when he said that he was aware of no efforts of foreign interference in our 2020 election.
00:15:37.240 Add that to the fact that the Secretary of State in the state of Colorado posted the passcodes for their entire election system online prior to the 2020 election.
00:15:53.200 And now an explosive new story where veteran and former Hillsborough County, Florida, Supervisors of Election Candidate William Billy Christensen has come forward blowing the whistle on what he calls a coordinated internal manipulation of democracy.
00:16:12.200 Armed with damning evidence, Christensen submitted a formal criminal complaint to state authorities calling for immediate investigation into doctored official election results, statistical anomalies, and digital tampering surrounding the 2024 general election in Hillsborough County, one of the largest counties in Florida.
00:16:33.560 This isn't just administrative negligence, it's systematic corruption, and it threatens every Floridian's right to a free and fair election.
00:16:40.680 At the center of Christensen's complaint is the final certified election results report from the Hillsborough County Board of Elections, helmed by incumbent Craig Latimer and Dee Foran.
00:16:56.180 A forensic review of the publicly released PDF report reveals clear digital tampering, visibly editing marks, and graphical layering embedded directly into the final version.
00:17:08.020 Those anomalies, which bear all the hallmarks of post-processing tools like Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word, are suspiciously concentrated in the race for supervisor of elections.
00:17:23.280 How convenient.
00:17:24.760 The report appears altered and the artifacts weren't scrubbed.
00:17:28.500 This isn't just sloppy, it's fraudulent.
00:17:31.000 Yet another example of why the president should go ahead and appoint a special counsel to examine the integrity of our elections.
00:17:40.820 We should have these questions, and only a thorough investigation and full disclosure to the American people is going to satisfy our democracy.
00:17:51.960 By the way, we don't live in a democracy, we live in a democratic republic, as people like to remind me on social media every single day.
00:18:01.000 You're in the Stone Zone.
00:18:02.800 I'm Roger Stone.
00:18:03.680 When we come back, Pat Garandi, one of the leaders when it comes to the field of rare diseases and their cures, is going to join us to talk about the fight to find an applicable treatment for sickle cell disease.
00:18:21.820 Whatever you do, don't go away.
00:18:23.600 Stick with us right here in the Stone Zone.
00:18:25.860 The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:18:31.000 The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:18:39.000 And we're back in the Stone Zone.
00:18:41.840 Joining me now is Patrick Garandi.
00:18:44.740 Now, if you met Patrick Garandi, you would not know that he is a biomedical company executive who has spent a life trying to find the cures and treatments for rare diseases.
00:18:56.960 You might think that he was a very hip jazz musician or an A-list celebrity, but Pat Garandi is a respected, well-known leader in the field of rare diseases.
00:19:07.640 He's traveled all over the world counseling medical centers on the strategies to be most effective when it comes to rare diseases.
00:19:14.980 He's devoted his life to curing sickle cell disease and thalassemia after his own son, Rocco, was diagnosed with thalassemia as a child.
00:19:26.900 An early pioneer in the field of gene therapy, Pat Garandi has fought big pharma corruption every step of the way in the court of public opinion, as well as in the courts, to save his own son and others from these debilitating conditions.
00:19:43.660 It's an honor to have this courageous fighter with us today.
00:19:47.380 In the stone zone, Patrick, welcome.
00:19:50.980 Oh, thank you very much.
00:19:52.060 I appreciate it.
00:19:53.260 So let's kind of start from the beginning.
00:19:55.680 Explain to folks exactly what gene therapy is.
00:19:59.860 Sure.
00:20:00.420 So once you identify the therapy that creates a genetic disease, once you know what that gene is, then there's a possibility of delivering that gene to enough stem cells in a patient's body to where the patient defeats the disease or is no longer symptomatic.
00:20:21.060 And you can do that either by changing the gene, which is called gene replacement, which is what we do, or you can edit the gene, which is what CRISPR does.
00:20:36.340 So your company, San Rocco Therapeutics, developed a superior gene therapy for the treatment of sickle cell disease.
00:20:47.120 You would think that this would be greeted as great news, but instead it landed you in court and in the front pages of the New York Times.
00:20:58.380 So tell us what happened.
00:21:00.900 Sure.
00:21:01.760 So my son was diagnosed with thalassemia, which is a cousin disease, a sickle cell disease.
00:21:07.060 Both of them are created by a defective beta-globin gene.
00:21:10.820 And I was told that my son wouldn't make it to be a teenager.
00:21:13.900 I dedicated, I was a trader at that time, and Oprah Winfrey Show, I was an American success story, very fortunate.
00:21:22.240 And I dropped everything and decided that I needed to cure the disease.
00:21:26.900 In 2010, my company delivered to the world the first commercial batch of gene therapy.
00:21:36.880 Up until then, it cost about a million dollars per patient to produce it, and it took about 18 months' time.
00:21:41.800 Instead, we made enough gene therapy to cure sickle cell disease or thalassemic patients.
00:21:49.440 We basically made the vector for $150,000 per patient.
00:21:55.340 At that time, we were sabotaged by Third Rock Ventures and a company called Bluebird Bio.
00:22:02.560 Bluebird Bio became a high flyer at about $12 billion market cap in 2018.
00:22:07.920 So, this is an extraordinary story.
00:22:13.520 Big Pharma, basically with a more expensive treatment, blocked this breakthrough technology that you put together, no?
00:22:25.860 Yes, it's exactly true.
00:22:27.320 So, Bluebird Bio said, you know, in 2013, after they had sabotaged our product, basically, we weren't aware of that yet.
00:22:38.600 But they said that they would treat patients for around $750,000 per patient.
00:22:43.920 In 2017, when we realized what had happened through discovery in the court system, we went after them.
00:22:51.920 And in 2020, we finally settled out of court, and we were getting back into the business of curing patients.
00:23:00.960 We were the first, actually, in patients in 2012 in a clinical trial in the United States.
00:23:07.340 Bluebird Bio, however, got approved in December of 2023.
00:23:13.740 And instead of charging $750,000 because they didn't have any competition, which was us at one time, so they charged $3.1 million per patient.
00:23:25.400 We can treat the patients for $800,000.
00:23:29.140 These are both large sums of money.
00:23:32.020 To what extent are taxpayers picking up the tab for these treatments?
00:23:36.160 So, there's basically 90% of all thalassemic and sickle cell disease patients are on some form of Medicare or Medicaid.
00:23:47.580 To treat a patient with gene therapy costs the company, costs my company, excuse me, costs my company somewhere around $500,000.
00:24:00.820 Just for hospital costs and for the creation of the product.
00:24:06.720 So, after you add overhead for the company, et cetera, et cetera, like I said, I promised Bobby Kennedy that we'd keep the price under $1 million per patient for the next 10 years.
00:24:18.260 But, however, like I said, Bluebird Bio for gene replacement charges $3.1 million.
00:24:24.980 And CRISPR, which is gene editing, and it cures the exact same patients, is charging $2.2 million per patient.
00:24:32.920 So, if you multiply the difference between $3.1 million per patient and $800,000 per patient, which we believe is the fair price, is the right price, times 100,000 patients,
00:24:45.520 the taxpayers, the taxpayers basically theoretically defrauded out of about $230 billion.
00:24:51.940 Yeah, that's the back of the envelope number I came up with.
00:24:55.240 At some point, you notified New York Attorney General Letitia James about this precarious situation regarding children in New York State with sickle cell anemia.
00:25:05.180 I believe you met with her.
00:25:07.940 What were the results of that?
00:25:10.420 Yeah, so, in 2018, we basically, after we did discovery in our court case, we realized that there was this horrible criminal sabotage that happened, including insider trading.
00:25:24.740 So, Bluebird Bio traded up to a $12 billion market cap that has raised a total of $4.2 billion in the marketplace.
00:25:34.220 And they were getting ready to treat patients with what we believe was a less safe drug because they were using our first generation of our drug, and since then, we have improved it.
00:25:46.740 And so, we went to Letitia James' office, excuse me, one of our guys actually met with her, but I met with her office probably 10 times.
00:26:00.520 We brought her everything.
00:26:02.920 We brought her all of the emails.
00:26:04.660 We brought her all of the court evidence, which pointed to criminal activity to sabotage our product and to boost the cost of gene therapy for sickle cell disease.
00:26:16.740 We went to her first in May of 2019.
00:26:22.440 We recently were pushing back and forth all the way until 2024, and the answer was always the same, that she didn't have the resources to go after the people who were costing the lives of sickle cell disease children. 0.98
00:26:43.720 This is an incredible story.
00:26:46.220 I have to ask you, as a high school dropout, how did you assemble a team to take on Big Pharma in the way you have?
00:26:54.780 Well, initially, I started investing all of my own family money.
00:26:58.380 Like I said, I was a rags to riches story on Oprah Winfrey.
00:27:01.200 I was in Playgirl magazine as one of America's most overall bachelors with Magic Johnson and Sylvester Stallone.
00:27:08.140 So once my son was diagnosed, I stuck all my own money.
00:27:12.140 I stopped trading, and I stuck all my own money into curing the disease.
00:27:17.600 And by doing that, I won a lot of heroes or a lot of people who thought that I was a hero and a lot of people who wanted to collaborate, including some of the top researchers in the United States, including the head of gene and cell therapy at the NIH, Dr. John Tisdale, an incredible person.
00:27:35.780 And I also attracted the Walton family.
00:27:39.060 The Walton family, meaning John Walton, they have son Lucas.
00:27:44.660 Lucas had a rare disease.
00:27:47.060 We got involved in 1995, and he was partners all the way to 2004.
00:27:52.620 And the Walton family, over the last 20-some years, have also put in about $23 million into the project.
00:28:01.600 But by being the father of a sick patient, being very serious about all of this, and not chasing the money, just chasing the cure, it actually won me tons of wonderful allies, including Dan O'Connor of Trial Site News, Professor Frank Park, Dr. Lucho Lusato.
00:28:21.040 So it goes on and on and on, all of the wonderful people who are helping us.
00:28:26.420 Because this is obviously, for some people, not about a cure or treatment, but about making money.
00:28:33.720 Are you concerned that these powerful, big pharma corporations will move to try to stop you again?
00:28:39.760 That's always a possibility and always a concern.
00:28:46.160 We know how these huge, you know, multinational corporations work.
00:28:50.820 You know, for them to knock somebody off is not a big deal.
00:28:54.260 You know, somebody dies of a heart attack or gets hit by a car and something like that.
00:28:58.160 However, you know, I've met President Trump, I've met Vice President Vance, I'm very close to Robert Kennedy, and him, Senator Tim Scott from North Carolina, have all pledged to make a gene therapy for sickle cell disease and thalassemia, my own son's disease, accessible.
00:29:21.660 So at this time, if they decide to do something against me, I think they'd have a lot of, they'd have to think about a real lot before they would do something.
00:29:33.260 But of course, it's always a concern.
00:29:34.960 Well, we obviously not only pray for your safety, but we pray for anybody who's afflicted with these horrific diseases.
00:29:44.420 I really think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is one of the standout appointees by President Trump.
00:29:51.300 I knew him casually before he himself ran for president, had a high regard for him then.
00:29:58.320 What impresses me most about him is when you watch him prior to his appointment, even prior to his candidacy, running first as a Democrat, then as an Independent, and ultimately putting his own personal ambitions aside to endorse President Donald Trump, forming a powerful new political realignment.
00:30:20.060 Because I think millions of common sense-minded Democrats and independents followed him in the last election.
00:30:29.620 But what impresses me the most about him is that in any format, whether in a panel or whether questioned about his beliefs,
00:30:41.300 he never makes any statement that he can't back up with solid research from a credible source, whether it's a trial or whether it is a study.
00:30:53.160 And that, to me, earned my respect.
00:30:57.760 I also think it was disgusting the way that big media tried to just erase him, just to try to censor him entirely.
00:31:07.580 So even when he did get on, say, CNN or one of the three networks, they would severely edit his interviews, never allowing him to fully and completely express himself.
00:31:22.240 It was a news blackout that this administration opposes.
00:31:28.320 I think one of the three pillars of this new coalition is free speech.
00:31:33.860 And the fact that he's changed the vaccination advisory board makeup, the fact that he is outlawing certain toxic additives, dyes, and other chemicals in our food,
00:31:50.100 things that have already happened long ago in Europe that will now happen now,
00:31:54.140 shows me that his commitment to make America healthy again is very serious, very much on target.
00:32:01.360 I notice that he is relentless in his efforts.
00:32:06.400 I admire him tremendously.
00:32:08.100 I don't know him as well as you do, Pat, but I think he's among the president's very, very best appointees.
00:32:15.780 Folks, if you're just tuning in, this is The Stone Zone.
00:32:19.220 I'm Roger Stone, and we're talking to Patrick Garandi,
00:32:22.960 one of the most respected leaders in the field of rare disease,
00:32:27.020 is a man who's fighting big pharma to bring a less expensive treatment for those with sickle cell disease.
00:32:35.920 Don't go away, because we'll be right back to talk about this David and Goliath struggle
00:32:42.060 and how Pat Garandi has given everything he has for his own son and for others afflicted with this horrific disease.
00:32:53.920 You're in The Stone Zone.
00:32:55.180 I'm Roger Stone.
00:32:56.660 Whatever you do, please don't touch that dial.
00:32:59.200 The Stone Zone, on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:33:05.380 The Stone Zone, on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:33:11.480 And we're back in The Stone Zone.
00:33:14.240 We're talking to Patrick Garandi.
00:33:16.640 He is one of the most respected and well-known leaders in the field of rare diseases.
00:33:21.600 He has put his entire fortune and future into the fight against big pharma corruption
00:33:29.320 and an effort to find a less expensive and more effective treatment for sickle cell disease.
00:33:36.480 He was motivated by the illness of his own son.
00:33:41.340 If your son Rocco could join us now, Patrick, what would he say?
00:33:45.060 Well, you know, Rocco has thalassemia, but I mean, he's never been a thalassemic patient.
00:33:53.220 He's always been a boy and then a man with thalassemia.
00:33:58.680 I think he's kind of tired of waiting because since 2010, I've been saying, son, you're going to be cured next year.
00:34:06.340 You're going to be cured next year.
00:34:07.620 And these criminals, I don't know what else to call them, have actually cost years of my son's life
00:34:16.640 and the lives and years of many children with sickle cell disease and people with thalassemia and sickle cell disease.
00:34:27.300 But Rocco is a fighter and he just says, you know, Dad, just keep it up.
00:34:34.460 Just keep it up.
00:34:35.500 I'll hold on.
00:34:36.180 You just keep it up.
00:34:38.620 It is a riveting and I think highly motivational story.
00:34:43.620 You can read about the famous San Rocco Therapeutics Bluebird Bio Memorial Sloan Kettering court case.
00:34:50.860 It was very well covered in the New York Times.
00:34:54.660 I also want to thank you, Patrick, for that audio clip that you sent me.
00:34:59.200 Very, very cool.
00:35:02.060 What is next for your company?
00:35:04.880 What happens next?
00:35:06.260 Yeah, so we have now produced enough vector for 60 patients.
00:35:15.080 We are amending the clinical trial, IND.
00:35:20.540 Like I said, we were the first, ours was the first vector in patients in the world in 2012.
00:35:27.000 And then again, it was sabotaged by Bluebird Bio and Third Rock Ventures.
00:35:31.600 But we now are going to start recruiting patients.
00:35:37.420 The product is 30% more efficient than the approved Bluebird product, which is called Zinteglo.
00:35:45.000 It's much more patient-friendly than the CRISPR product, which is called Caskervi.
00:35:51.120 And we're working with Bobby Kennedy.
00:35:55.040 He's hired, like you said, some incredible people.
00:35:58.520 His chief of staff, Stephanie Spear, Prasad, Macri, Bhattaric Sheerah.
00:36:04.680 They're all incredible people.
00:36:06.280 And we're working basically with all of them.
00:36:10.040 We made the promise, and Bobby made the promise, and Senator Tim Scott made the promise.
00:36:15.900 President Trump knows about it and is committed, as well as Vice President Vance, that we're
00:36:22.680 going to, in President Trump's administration, bring forward an accessible gene therapy for
00:36:30.520 sickle cell disease and thalassemia.
00:36:33.320 And we're right on target to do that.
00:36:36.380 We should be treating patients again, the latest, by the beginning of 2026.
00:36:43.000 Well, it is an inspiring story of one man's struggle against Big Pharma.
00:36:48.860 Of course, our greatest interest is in the children, praying for the children afflicted with
00:36:54.720 this horrific disease.
00:36:55.840 Patrick, thank you for bringing your story here into the Stone Zone.
00:37:00.520 For this inspiring discussion.
00:37:03.760 God bless you, my friend, and good luck in your struggle to bring a more affordable treatment
00:37:09.620 to the American people.
00:37:11.700 And I share your high regard for Robert Kennedy and his mission to make all Americans healthy
00:37:19.420 again.
00:37:20.560 Pat, thanks for joining us.
00:37:22.640 Thank you.
00:37:23.040 And, you know, I know how influential you were getting Bobby to support President Trump.
00:37:31.380 And I really do believe that that's what put us over the top.
00:37:35.360 So I want to thank you because I was involved in some of those conversations and back then.
00:37:41.240 So thank you.
00:37:42.900 You're an incredible patriot, Mr. Stone.
00:37:45.260 And I'm a huge admirer of you and your books.
00:37:49.000 Thank you.
00:37:49.760 And God bless you.
00:37:50.860 It is really a realignment.
00:37:52.700 It's changed the face of American politics.
00:37:54.680 Thanks for joining us today on the Stone Zone.
00:37:57.080 Until tomorrow.
00:37:58.300 God bless you.
00:37:59.220 And God speak.
00:38:00.340 Thanks for listening to the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
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00:38:32.080 What the heck is going on here?