Roger Stone explains why President's Day is a federal holiday that honors multiple presidents, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and George H.W. And why Bill and Hillary Clinton chose not to honor their own birthday on the same day.
00:01:11.600Originally, George Washington's birthday was the federal holiday.
00:01:14.940That was February 22nd, 1732, originally.
00:01:19.220After his death, I think it was in 1799, Americans began celebrating his birthday to honor the first
00:01:25.580president and, of course, the Revolutionary War leader.
00:01:28.700By 1879, Washington's birthday officially became a federal holiday.
00:01:34.380But over time, Americans began to informally honor Abraham Lincoln, who was born on February 12th.
00:01:41.180This was particularly true in the northern states.
00:01:43.700Although Lincoln never got a separate federal holiday, his legacy blended into Washington's celebration to give us the modern-day President's Day.
00:02:51.500I wrote very extensively about their complicated relationship.
00:02:56.420I am convinced that Bill Clinton was both brilliant but somewhat lazy.
00:03:01.660And it was Hillary Clinton who provided the drive for him to both make a comeback after being elected governor of Arkansas, being defeated for re-election, largely because of what voters viewed as his arrogance, his return to the governor's mansion, and ultimately his successful drive for the presidency.
00:03:24.020I'm also convinced that they had a marriage of convenience, not unlike Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt.
00:03:31.700And in my book, The Clinton's War on Women, I clearly exposed the fact that, well, in my opinion, there was overwhelming evidence that Bill Clinton was a serial sexual assaulter and rapist of women.
00:03:43.960And I first pointed out that he had a strange relationship, they both did, with Jeffrey Epstein, all of which, of course, has now been documented in these most recent Epstein email file releases.
00:04:00.100I do think, however, that Bill Clinton probably never really wanted Hillary to be president.
00:04:05.260On the one hand, she did not use any of his advisers, the advisers who had successfully guided him first to the presidency, and then through to an uphill re-election in 1996.
00:04:21.960Then secondarily, of course, there's the fact that Hillary Clinton had her own cabal, John Podesta, Robbie Mook, and others.
00:04:31.100It always surprised me that they didn't use Bill Clinton more effectively in Hillary's campaign.0.88
00:04:37.140He was always much better liked, for example, in the African-American community.
00:04:42.960He was also much better liked, generally speaking, among independents.
00:04:46.940But they didn't utilize Bill, or I think, frankly, his advice in Hillary's presidential campaign.
00:04:53.580And they were shocked when they lost to Donald Trump.
00:04:59.880In the end, I think she ultimately got outworked and outfoxed by Donald J. Trump.
00:05:06.700She should have made late trips to Wisconsin and Michigan, but she thought those states were in the bag.
00:05:13.480Trump was barnstorming all of the swing states like a whirling dervish.
00:05:19.860It kind of reminded me of when Harry Truman, who was running behind in 1948, running against New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, one of the great upsets in American political history.
00:05:33.320And it was widely thought that Truman would lose.
00:05:36.800Truman got on a train in Washington, D.C. and headed west to California.
00:05:43.780Dewey had nominated California Governor Earl Warren as the candidate for vice president, whereas Truman refused to give in the national polls.
00:06:01.460But as Truman moved west, he was doing stops at virtually every major population center right on the train tracks.
00:06:11.980His attacks on Republicans got stronger and more vituperative.
00:06:16.140He accused Republicans of sticking a pitchfork in the back of America's farmers in a recent farm bill.
00:06:23.980He blamed all the problems of the country, not on his leadership as president, but on the do-nothing 89th Republican Congress.
00:06:33.680And by the time he got to California, his crowds were massive.
00:06:37.640He caught the public imagination and he won that election in an upset.
00:06:43.360He also carried California, even with Earl Warren, the incredibly popular governor, who would later become Supreme Court Justice, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as his running mate.
00:06:55.520So as it was with Trump, Trump in the final days, because there is a federal regulation about how many hours a private pilot can fly without rest.
00:07:06.540Trump was barnstorming Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin, all of them swing states, North Carolina, in the closing days of the 2016 campaign, long after Hillary Clinton had retired to her place in Chappaqua, where she was calmly looking at fabric swatches for the curtains in the Oval Office.
00:07:29.860We know that the Clinton campaign planned a massive fireworks display and a huge party in New York City in what was a truly incredible and historic night, the most improbable election in American history.
00:07:46.840So today, President's Day, we also celebrate our current president, Donald J. Trump.
00:07:53.200When observing the conservative media landscape, there are countless rivalries and always disputes between so-called influencers.
00:08:00.440But few have risen to the heat of the feud last year between the world's richest man, Elon Musk, and the now infamous Jeffrey Epstein associate, Steve Bannon of the War Room.
00:08:12.320Bannon and Musk had what some would label an Internet war last year after Musk began to publicly call for the release of all of the Epstein files, which have since now been released by the Trump administration.
00:08:26.960At least most of them have, a few with redactions.
00:08:30.180The files reveal the darkest side of American politics, implicating the likes of Democrat megadonors like Reid Hoffman, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and of course, Leslie Wexner of Scarlet's Secret, all in Epstein's sex trafficking operation.
00:08:51.980Back then, Steve Bannon objected to the release of the files, desperately flinging any attack he could at Musk.
00:08:58.020The podcast host even gave an interview to the New York Times in which he lied about Musk's immigration status.
00:09:04.740Bannon told the Times that they should initiate a formal investigation of Elon Musk's immigration status because, Bannon said, he was of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien and he should be deported from the country immediately.
00:09:18.420In addition to levying these false accusations, Bannon told additional lies, adding to false statements about Musk's illegal drug use, for which there is no proof whatsoever, and claiming that he was advising the president to cancel Musk's many federal contracts.
00:09:35.220For those without context, Bannon's attacks seemed in line with his public support for Donald Trump.
00:09:41.160Months later, since the files have been released, we now know the true reason why Steve Bannon so emphatically lied about Musk over the Epstein files.
00:09:50.000Also implicated in the Epstein files, perhaps in the worst way of anybody within the release, is Steve Bannon himself, the host of the War Room.
00:09:58.040Bannon and Epstein, it turns out, exchanged some 1,974 emails in the days leading up to Epstein's arrest on July 6, 2019, when he was indicted by the Trump administration for child sex trafficking, along with a second count of conspiring to engage in child sex trafficking.
00:10:19.880Anyone who will read these shocking emails will see that Bannon was advising Epstein in terms of the rehabilitation of his public image.
00:10:31.240This was after the time that Epstein had been arrested and prosecuted in Florida and the time he would be arrested and prosecuted in 2019 in New York.
00:10:42.200It's also very clear that there's discussion of 15 hours of footage that was recorded with Epstein, of which to date only two hours have been released.
00:10:57.960Portions of the interview were released within the DOJ files.
00:11:02.220What you'll see is Bannon fawning over Epstein, who he actually calls a god at one point.
00:11:08.120Throughout the email addresses, you can see that Epstein is being advised by Bannon, but together they continue to denigrate Trump, actually calling Trump stupid.
00:11:21.480I was shocked to see that Bannon actually advocated removal of Donald Trump from the presidency under the 25th Amendment in an email message with Jeffrey Epstein.
00:11:34.320That's why when Elon Musk brudged this topic of releasing the Epstein files in a very public fashion, Bannon so viciously attacked.
00:11:45.660In early June of 2025, Bannon and his cohorts in a live episode of The War Room echoed the statements from The New York Times calling for Musk to be deported, wrongly claiming that the billionaires not here legally.
00:11:59.380The Epstein associate went even further, claiming that the Trump administration should seize Musk's assets, that would be SpaceX and Tesla, over the billionaires' calls to release the Epstein files.
00:12:15.100Cornered by the prospect of facing justice and public scrutiny over his own relationship with a billionaire sex trafficker, Bannon lashed out at Elon Musk.
00:12:24.480But his attacks weren't based on truth, they were based on self-preservation.
00:12:28.880Only now, with the full release of the Epstein files, can we understand the extent of Bannon's relationship with Epstein.
00:12:38.260One, Bannon pled guilty to embezzling $15 million from the Build the Wall Foundation, charges for which his two co-conspirators serve long prison sentences.
00:12:49.880He was pardoned by President Donald Trump for that, re-indicted in Manhattan for that crime, where he quietly pled guilty and then was sentenced to no jail time by one of the very same Tammany Hall judges who sat briefly on Donald Trump's own case.
00:13:08.280Then additionally, in another case in which the government sued Bannon's Chinese financial patron, Miles Guo, in a $1 billion fraud, Bannon was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in that case, but no charges were brought against Bannon himself.
00:13:27.880My beef with Bannon has always been clear.
00:13:29.840He perjured himself at my trial, saying one thing to the House Intelligence Committee under oath, and the direct opposite in front of the jury in my trial.
00:13:40.560But now the chickens have come home to roost for Steve Bannon, and people can read for themselves his various comments back and forth with Jeffrey Epstein.
00:13:50.280The idea of Steve Bannon, of the war room, holding himself out as a supporter of Donald Trump, at the same time calling for Trump's removal, shows you who he really is.
00:14:02.940There'll be a lot more about this, but we're going to be following it right here in the Stone Zone.
00:14:07.000Wherever you do, don't go away, because we'll be right back with more Politics on the Other Side.
00:14:11.880We're here, five days a week, talking news, history, politics, style, fashion, well, and sometimes food.
00:14:35.720Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our nation has to offer, especially health care.
00:14:44.640Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
00:14:53.720No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
00:14:56.800They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
00:15:01.860Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
00:15:14.680Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
00:15:23.260Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
00:15:25.380They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
00:15:27.940But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
00:15:31.620Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
00:15:38.940Rural Americans deserve access to the best our nation has to offer, especially when it comes to health care.
00:15:45.300Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
00:15:53.320No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
00:15:55.880They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
00:16:00.620Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
00:16:12.620Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
00:16:19.600Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
00:16:21.840They employ our neighbors and keep our families health.
00:16:25.440But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
00:16:28.460Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
00:16:35.260Rural Americans deserve access to the best our nation has to offer, especially when it comes to health care.
00:16:41.240Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
00:16:49.120No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
00:16:52.060They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
00:16:56.720Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
00:17:08.580Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
00:17:15.540Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
00:17:17.780They employ our neighbors and keep our families health.
00:17:21.380But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
00:17:24.380Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
00:18:03.620Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, who, make no mistake about it, is a highly likely candidate for president,0.73
00:18:12.800recently sparked controversy overseas this past weekend when she made remarks at the Munich Security Conference,
00:18:19.940showing her utter disdain for Western civilization while elevating the so-called Global South worldview.
00:18:26.180Speaking to German students, AOC described Western culture as thin and criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio's highly acclaimed speech,
00:18:39.340Rubio had reminded leaders that the United States and Europe are bound by centuries of history,
00:18:45.600Christianity, language, and sacrifice, calling them part of one Western civilization.
00:18:51.060AOC rejected that idea, framing our historic alliance instead around class politics and internationalism.
00:18:59.360She warned what she portrayed as nostalgia for tradition and argued that relationships should be built solely on democracy and international law,
00:19:13.340AOC's comments grew well-deserved ridicule after she mocked Rubio's reference to Spanish roots of the American cowboy,
00:19:21.060despite the well-documented fact that Spanish explorers introduced horses to the Americas back in the 15th century.
00:19:29.360The Congresswoman also called whiteness imaginary while simultaneously praising national identities such as German and Italian culture,
00:19:38.900demonstrating she doesn't know what she's talking about.
00:19:41.460The remarks come amid speculation about AOC's future presidential ambitions,
00:19:46.280raising questions about how her views would resonate with American voters who still broadly identify with our Western heritage and our values.
00:19:55.980Comparing Rubio's message delivered to Europe with AOC's words shows a massive intelligence gap,
00:20:03.340one that should be demonstrable to the voters if the two would square off for the U.S. presidency in 2028.
00:20:11.940Everybody seems to want to talk about the 2028 presidential contest,
00:20:16.740but in politics, a week is a lifetime, and 2028 is a lifetime away.
00:20:23.280All I have said is that AOC would be a viable candidate because she could raise millions and millions of dollars
00:20:29.100of small and medium-sized donations through the Internet and through ActBlue,
00:20:34.720which is currently under investigation.
00:20:36.720That's the Democrat payment processing company that has been accused of generating fake contributions,