The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - The Stone Zone ｜ 02-17-26

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00:00:39.200 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:00:42.940 Roger Stone, who's a very, very, one of the smartest political minds.

00:00:46.840 Roger Stone was persecuted.

00:00:48.060 People forget he's actually a brilliant, brilliant political analyst.

00:00:50.940 Now, get in the zone.

00:00:52.980 It's the Stone Zone.

00:00:54.480 Welcome. You are diving head first into the Stone Zone.

00:01:01.760 Well, Bill and Hillary Clinton are not very happy because for the first time in their long political careers, they're being held accountable and responsible.

00:01:12.100 They have been subpoenaed to appear next week before the House Oversight Committee that is probing their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

00:01:20.500 And Hillary Clinton is whining about it in an incredible interview with BBC.

00:01:26.620 Let's listen to this.

00:01:27.540 What we're seeing, I think it's fair to say, is a continuing cover-up by the Trump administration.

00:01:34.020 In fact, when the attorney general testified last week, it was quite a scene because she refused to answer questions.

00:01:43.420 She diverted attention away from the matters at hand. 0.87

00:01:48.000 She refused to look at the survivors. So there's something about this administration's attitude

00:01:56.180 toward this, which I think really leads us to conclude they have something to hide. We don't.

00:02:02.440 We have been willing to say whatever we know. We've even done it under oath. But they want us

00:02:11.420 to testify. Not everyone else who's mentioned many, many times, hundreds of thousands of times

00:02:18.180 in these files. So we've said, fine, let us do it in public. And we will appear in public and

00:02:24.400 we'll answer all your questions. And we'll get to that in just a moment. But just to be clear,

00:02:27.820 do you regret the links that there have been? You know, we have no links. We have a very clear

00:02:35.300 record that we've been willing to talk about, which my husband has said he took some rides on

00:02:42.600 the airplane for his charitable work. I don't recall ever meeting him. Did you ever meet Elaine

00:02:49.100 Maxwell? I did on a few occasions, and thousands of people go to the Clinton Global Initiative. So

00:02:55.600 it, to me, is not something that is really at the heart of what this matter is about.

00:03:04.780 They are accused and in both cases were convicted of horrific crimes against girls and women.

00:03:13.920 That should be the focus.

00:03:15.640 And we are more than happy to say what we know, which is very limited and totally unrelated to their behavior or their crimes.

00:03:25.520 And we want to do it in public because let's make this transparent.

00:03:29.840 The survivors deserve that.

00:03:31.680 The public deserves that.

00:03:33.000 But, you know, the Republican member of Congress who is running this hearing or this investigation is trying to protect the president.

00:03:42.000 So let's get to what's really at stake here.

00:03:45.780 That is an extraordinary act of dissembling and deflection.

00:03:50.660 I guess Hillary Clinton would like us to forget that after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted in Florida of sex crimes,

00:03:56.680 He provided the seed capital for the foundation of the Clinton Foundation, as well as the Clinton Global Initiative.

00:04:05.160 She said Bill was on his plane a few times. It's more like 27 times.

00:04:10.180 And until weeks ago, Bill Clinton had publicly denied ever being on Epstein's island.

00:04:16.000 But the sworn testimony of Virginia Roberts-Guffray, one of Epstein's victims, and two other victims whose testimony I read,

00:04:26.220 These are women who didn't settle with Epstein but went forward with their lawsuits against him.

00:04:33.080 Both insist that Bill was seen.

00:04:35.560 In fact, Virginia Giffray said that on this particular occasion,

00:04:43.140 Jeffrey Epstein had flown in two 17-year-old twin sisters for Bill's amusement.

00:04:50.820 Doug banned the president's chief of staff also on the island. 1.00

00:04:56.220 Look, Hillary Clinton is a short-tempered, foul-mouthed, entitled kleptocrat, and she's extraordinarily bitter about losing the election to Donald Trump, so bitter that she and her cohorts invented the Russian collusion hoax.

00:05:12.180 And let's remember, not long ago, Tulsi Gabbard declassified intelligence from the Russians who had learned that Hillary Clinton had to be heavily medicated because of her mental stability, because of her rages, mostly over losing the election. 0.58

00:05:30.960 It will be nice to see the Clintons held accountable.

00:05:33.860 It is not lost on me that I wrote probably the most important book exposing the Clintons' corruption, the Clintons' war on women, and that every single member of the Mueller prosecution team who came after me had previously worked for Hillary Clinton.

00:05:51.860 In the meantime, Steve Bannon has even more problems.

00:05:56.740 News today that Bannon was hit with an investor class class action lawsuit over his administration of a Bitcoin company, the Let's Go Brandon Coin LLC.

00:06:11.400 I think they also were the progenitors of the F Joe Biden coin.

00:06:16.460 Now, that is, of course, only an allegation, but this is the same Steve Bannon who pled guilty in New York to having built donors to the Build the Wall Foundation out of $15 million.

00:06:31.080 Bothers me is that Steve Bannon's co-conspirators served long prison sentences, while Steve pled guilty and served no jail time at all.

00:06:44.260 Here on the Stone Zone, we have meticulously analyzed the mountain of evidence that Stinky Steve Bannon's collaboration with Jeffrey Epstein has been incurred favor with Epstein, according to these shocking emails.

00:06:57.100 This first came to my attention in 2018 when I saw an item in the New York Post that said that Steve Bannon was seen entering Jeffrey Epstein's palatial home in Manhattan.

00:07:10.380 I believe it is the largest, most expensive single-family home in all of Manhattan.

00:07:17.680 Today, Bannon is out with his cover story.

00:07:20.040 It took him four days to come up with it, but it was all about his being a journalist. 1.00

00:07:24.180 So he, in emails with Jeffrey Epstein, he denigrates Trump as stupid. 1.00

00:07:30.120 He calls for Trump's removal under the 25th Amendment. 1.00

00:07:33.840 He brags about undermining President Trump's trade policies with China.

00:07:41.740 He says that he, Steve Bannon, is the center of the America First MAGA movement, not Donald Trump. 0.81

00:07:49.560 Now we're supposed to believe that he was sucking up to Epstein. 0.96

00:07:53.700 He was coaching Epstein on how to erase his public image as a pedophile, as a child sex trafficker, in an effort to cozy up to him in order to make a documentary. 0.66

00:08:07.880 Frankly, it just doesn't really fly when you see the text of these actual emails.

00:08:13.800 The emails show Bannon being offered favors by Epstein, including travel and medical services.

00:08:20.800 services. It is very, very odd, but anybody who reads these would recognize that Bannon is

00:08:27.280 coaching Epstein, supposedly, for what he says today, is some upcoming documentary. Now, there's

00:08:33.840 15 minutes of film between this disheveled, odorous, gin-soaked blob, Steve Bannon,

00:08:42.040 and Jeffrey Epstein. Only two hours have been released by the Department of Justice,

00:08:46.760 which I find curious. Why not release all 13 hours of the video? I suspect that Michael Wolff,

00:08:55.840 the author who is cozy with both Bannon and Epstein, is correct when he says that Bannon was

00:09:02.300 preparing Epstein for a 60 Minutes interview that was scheduled two days after Epstein was

00:09:10.220 arrested at Teterboro Airport while arriving on his private jet from Paris. Particularly

00:09:18.880 disturbing here to me is Bannon's advocacy of removing Donald Trump under the 25th Amendment.

00:09:25.860 So while he's on television or on his podcast claiming to be the last Trump loyalist, he's

00:09:33.720 undermining Trump, believing that he is somehow the centerpiece of this movement. When the

00:09:40.120 centerpiece of this movement is only one man. The man who elected Donald Trump is not Roger Stone.

00:09:45.780 It's not Steve Bannon, certainly, nor is it Paul Manafort. The man who elected Donald Trump,

00:09:50.900 well, that would be Donald J. Trump. He had his own way of going about this. The first

00:09:57.520 presidential campaign in American history not to spend hundreds of millions of dollars

00:10:02.040 on broadcast television and cable, but a one-man public relations machine who simply outworked

00:10:09.900 his Republican opponents for the nomination, and then outworked Hillary Clinton.

00:10:15.420 We will keep you up to date on the Bannon scandal as it appears to be get only deeper.

00:10:22.540 There are some questions about Bannon's very shady Chinese financier.

00:10:30.600 There's a fellow by the name of Miles Guo.

00:10:33.460 An interesting case in which he's under oath and pleads the fifth 55 times when asked where the source of his money is, the money that he is using to fund Steve Bannon.

00:10:47.060 And, of course, there are also reports, we believe credible, that Bannon was paying a very large number of so-called influencers, which is why you don't see everybody doing what I have done, which is to call Stephen Bannon out for his outright treachery against the president.

00:11:05.220 It's interesting, Bannon became a bit of a martyr because he went to prison rather than testify under subpoena for the January 6th committee.

00:11:15.620 This is a necessary theatrics.

00:11:18.000 I was subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee, so was General Michael Flynn.

00:11:21.840 I fulfilled my legal obligations by showing up and asserting my Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions.

00:11:29.580 Not because I had anything to hide, not because I particularly knew anything,

00:11:34.120 but because I had extensive experience of how House Democrats take innocuous things you say under oath

00:11:41.020 and twist those into a process crime.

00:11:43.860 So Steve Bannon, I don't know if he just got bad legal advice or if he was trying to position himself as some kind of martyr, he refused to testify, for which he was, not surprisingly, charged and sentenced.

00:11:58.300 Now the Department of Justice, very strangely, is trying to vacate Steve Bannon's conviction, to which I say, okay, that's great, but are you also going to vacate the conviction of Peter Navarro, who I think was rather brutally arrested in public for the same crime, alleged crime, of refusing to testify for a House committee?

00:12:22.940 Of course, when Eric Holder was the attorney general and he was sent a subpoena on the Fast and Furious scandal, he thumbed his nose to Congress and told them to stick it, and there was no effort to prosecute him.

00:12:35.800 We're going to be watching this issue very carefully. Bannon is out there today with his spin. It was all about journalism. It was all about my documentary. That's why I was unctuously sucking up to one of the greatest criminals and sex criminals and pedophiles of all time.

00:12:55.640 We'll have more on the other side about politics today. 0.97

00:12:58.980 Jesse Jackson, a giant in the civil rights movement, a good friend, oddly enough, of Donald Trump, dead at 84.

00:13:06.180 We'll talk about that on the other side.

00:13:08.820 Jackson and Trump had a very interesting relationship.

00:13:12.380 Donald Trump gave free office space to the Rainbow Project when Jesse Jackson was on his way to making history as the first black American to run for president of the United States.

00:13:23.500 We'll be right back with some memories about Jesse Jackson and more politics on the other side.

00:13:29.240 Thanks for tuning in to the Stone Zone right here on the Red Apple Audio Network.

00:13:34.200 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:13:38.020 He likes politics and he's a professional at the highest level.

00:13:42.760 Roger Stone.

00:13:43.900 Where's Roger?

00:13:53.500 this is the stone zone now get him his own it's the stone zone a man who's gone through hell

00:14:12.200 but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him not everybody but

00:14:18.540 People love him and respect him.

00:14:20.040 Roger Stone.

00:14:21.080 Where's Roger Stone?

00:14:22.340 Here's Roger Stone.

00:14:25.500 Civil rights activist and two-time presidential candidate Jesse Jackson has died at the age of 84.

00:14:32.720 Jackson, of course, rose to national prominence in the 1960s, first as an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King,

00:14:38.980 and later became one of the most recognizable figures in modern liberal politics.

00:14:43.660 Over decades, he organized protests, voter drives, and corporate pressure campaigns through his Operation Push and the Rainbow Push Coalition.

00:14:54.720 Jackson, of course, historically ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, being the first African-American to do so,

00:15:04.100 helping reshape the party's coalition politics and emphasizing identity-based organizing that would later define modern progressive activism.

00:15:13.560 Supporters credit him with expanding political participation among minority voters,

00:15:18.220 while critics argue his confrontational tactics and racial rhetoric deepened the divisions rather than healed them.

00:15:25.100 President Trump, very graciously writing on True Social,

00:15:28.680 The Reverend Jesse Jackson is dead at 84. I knew him well, long before becoming president.

00:15:33.780 He was a good man with a lot of personality, grit, and street smarts.

00:15:37.880 He was very gregarious, someone who truly loved people.

00:15:40.580 Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a racist by the scoundrels and lunatics on the radical left, all Democrats, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way.

00:15:51.820 I provided office space for him at 40 Wall Street, responded to his request for help in getting criminal justice reform passed, that's the First Step Act and the Second Chance Act, and signed it when no other president would even try.

00:16:06.500 I also single-handedly pushed and passed long-term funding for historical black colleges and universities, which Jesse loved, but also with other presidents would not do.

00:16:18.660 I also responded to Jesse's support for Opportunity Zones, the single most successful economic development package yet approved for minority business, men and women, and much, much more.

00:16:30.380 Jesse was a force of nature like few others before him.

00:16:34.080 He had much to do with the election of a man he didn't particularly like, Barack Obama.

00:16:40.120 He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my greatest sympathies and condolences.

00:16:44.960 Jesse Jackson will be missed, signed President Donald Trump.

00:16:48.360 What he says is true.

00:16:49.600 Jackson tended within the Democratic Party to be aligned with the Clintons,

00:16:53.720 where his arch rival, the Reverend Al Sharpton,

00:16:56.640 tended to be much more closely aligned with Barack and Michelle Obama.

00:17:02.320 It's amazing how all of these civil rights leaders loved Donald Trump

00:17:07.900 until he climbed into the political arena and decided to make America great again.

00:17:14.920 Yet he was the president who gave us criminal justice reform when Democrats talked about it.

00:17:20.780 He is the one to sign that bill.

00:17:23.160 We'll talk about it when we come back right here in the Stone Zone.

00:17:26.640 The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:17:29.580 And he's a great, great person, Roger Stone.

00:17:33.400 The Stone Zone.

00:17:56.640 This is the Stone Zone. Now, get him a zone. It's the Stone Zone.

00:18:03.640 A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him.

00:18:10.560 Not everybody, but people love him and respect him. Roger Stone. Where's Roger Stone?

00:18:15.460 Here's Roger Stone.

00:18:18.220 Now, while it's true that President Richard Nixon launched the war on drugs,

00:18:22.920 The war on drugs under Nixon was aimed at drug traffickers and drug kingpins.

00:18:28.300 It was Joe Biden, his chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and President Bill Clinton, who weaponized the 1994 crime bill to go after the end user.

00:18:40.960 In other words, to prosecute people for the first time, nonviolent crime of possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use.

00:18:49.980 Now, for many decades, the House Black Caucus objected to that and wanted it changed, wanted it reformed. It was not until President Donald Trump became president that you did change that, the First Step Act and the Second Chance Act, changing this rubric in which people convicted of first-time nonviolent crimes are sentenced to these harsh mandatory penalties where a judge has no ability to take into consideration other factors.

00:19:19.260 So the single mother of three who gets caught with a small amount of weed in her purse is not looking at a 10-year sentence.

00:19:29.240 This is the hypocrisy of the Democratic left because members of the House Black Caucus voted against President Trump's reforms,

00:19:38.580 not because they were opposed to them in concept, but simply because President Trump himself proposed them.

00:19:45.220 It is among his greatest accomplishments.

00:19:47.580 Meanwhile, newly released Justice Department records are tying Jeffrey Epstein to fresh questions about the Obama administration's handling of a 2012 Secret Service prostitution scandal in Cartagena, Colombia.

00:20:02.780 The documents reveal extensive communications between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Catherine Rummler, who was President Obama's former White House counsel, who would later become Goldman Sachs' top lawyer.

00:20:17.800 Rummler would step down this week after questions regarding her relationship with Epstein emerged from these emails.

00:20:24.780 The emails reportedly show that she maintained a long-term relationship with Epstein, calling him Uncle Jeffrey, accepting gifts, and even seeking his advice on legal and reputational crises.

00:20:37.540 The controversy traces back to the Summit of the Americas in 2012, when Secret Service agents and personnel were caught hiring prostitutes to entertain them.

00:20:47.460 Investigators also uncovered hotel records indicating a White House advance team volunteer had a prostitute checked into his room.

00:20:56.620 The White House later declared there was no indication of misconduct by any of its personnel.

00:21:01.740 But in 2014, a Washington Post investigative story revived the entire thing, reporting officials possessed evidence at the time that they did not fully disclose.

00:21:12.460 According to the new emails, Epstein advised the White House counsel on how to respond to reporters and contain the fallout from this prostitution scandal.

00:21:25.160 She even shared a draft response with him before publicly pushing back on the allegations.

00:21:31.200 Shortly afterward, Rumler withdrew from consideration to be attorney general.

00:21:35.980 The revelations come as she stepped down this week from her role at Goldman Sachs following the release of the Epstein files by the U.S. Department of Justice.

00:21:46.420 Critics say the issue goes well beyond scandal.

00:21:49.840 It raises serious ethical concerns about a top White House lawyer consulting a notorious convicted criminal while managing a politically damaging investigation.

00:22:00.940 Epstein's influence was seen in Democrat presidential administrations spanning decades.

00:22:06.580 Look at the number of times he visited the Obama White House.

00:22:10.720 I believe it is more than 12 times.

00:22:13.520 More must be uncovered about all of those who colluded with Epstein.

00:22:17.340 That's why I'm in favor of full and complete disclosure.

00:22:20.760 I'm sick of reading online about reports on 4chan that some chauffeur saw Roger Stone on Epstein's Island.

00:22:30.820 We knew it was him because he had his shirt off and we could see his Nixon tattoo.

00:22:35.220 That is completely and totally false. It's defamatory.

00:22:40.020 I'd be laughing about it, except for it gets repeated with such irregularity.

00:22:44.920 In fact, I'm the first American journalist, I think, or the second, to expose Epstein and his relationships with the powered elite like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the billionaire Bill Gates, the Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, and others.

00:23:09.320 All of this in my 2014 book.

00:23:14.120 I'm in favor of full disclosure.

00:23:15.940 I want the U.S. Justice Department to release all of the emails.

00:23:19.460 The only thing I want to see redacted are the names of the victims.

00:23:22.820 I do think the victims should be protected.

00:23:25.280 But beyond that, there's no reason to, for example,

00:23:28.860 release two hours of Jeffrey Epstein's interview with Steve Bannon

00:23:32.680 and sit on the other 13 hours.

00:23:35.720 Full disclosure, I have nothing to be concerned about either, just President Donald Trump.

00:23:42.200 So I would like to see everything released, and I have been stalwart about that from the beginning.

00:23:47.580 Meanwhile, Kentucky Republicans are preparing for a major turning point as their longtime senator,

00:23:54.240 former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, plans his retirement after four decades in Washington.

00:24:00.620 The primary to replace him has quickly become a referendum on the direction of the party, establishment conservatism against the newer America First movement shaped by President Donald Trump.

00:24:12.840 It's odd because Mitch McConnell headed off the impeachment of Donald Trump in the U.S. Senate, but today he refuses to vote for the SAVE Act.

00:24:24.660 The SAVE Act is not complicated. It's a federal law that says you must be a U.S. citizen in order to vote for a federal election, and you must have an ID in order to prove it. No big deal, right? Well, except for Senator Mitch McConnell is against it, former Republican Senate Majority Leader.

00:24:43.220 The candidates vying for his seat in Kentucky include former Attorney General Daniel Cameron, Congressman Andy Barr, and a wealthy businessman, Nate Morris, but they're all trying to distance themselves from McConnell, who denied any election fraud, who constantly spoke out against the MAGA agenda during his time as the Senate Majority Leader.

00:25:06.380 It appears that Morris, the businessman, has positioned himself more aggressively as a break from the past while Congressman Barr highlights his work for Trump's campaign, and Cameron stresses his independence from party power brokers despite being seen as McConnell's hand-picked successor.

00:25:25.620 The shift reflects broader changes going inside the Republican Party, where loyalty to the American First agenda increasingly outweighs seniority and institutional influence.

00:25:38.080 Despite declining approval rating among some conservatives, McConnell's allies argue that his overall results, judges, tax policy victors, and funding for military bases and law enforcement strengthens both Kentucky and the nation.

00:25:52.840 And certainly there were some accomplishments by McConnell, but he joined the U.S. Senate as a county judge with nothing to his name.

00:26:01.180 He leaves the Senate worth tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

00:26:06.580 So I have an obvious question as to how that could possibly be true.

00:26:13.080 We will see in Kentucky where this party is headed, whether we're going to be a country of endless debt, countless war, and repeated violations of the Constitution, meanwhile outsourcing our best jobs, or whether we're going to put America first.

00:26:29.580 America became much weaker under Mitch McConnell's watch

00:26:33.940 And as such, his legacy is considered toxic

00:26:36.520 To those candidates who want his seat

00:26:39.760 Nobody wants to identify as Mitch McConnell's candidate

00:26:44.140 Whoever wins the primary will almost certainly win the seat

00:26:47.160 In this deep red state

00:26:48.340 And hopefully the Kentucky voters will choose real MAGA

00:26:51.600 Over fake MAGA when they're making decisions

00:26:54.360 As who to support to be their nominee

00:26:58.460 Meanwhile, Russia is signaling it would pause airstrikes on Ukraine if Kyiv agrees to hold national elections, a proposal that is putting fresh scrutiny on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky,'s continued suspension of voting under martial law.

00:27:16.600 So when those on the left tell you the war between Russia and Ukraine is about democracy, with a small d, point out that Zelensky has not allowed there to be any general election, that he prosecutes journalists, that he shuts down newspapers, radio stations, that he's even outlawed the largest church in the country.

00:27:39.460 No, this is not in any way about democracy.

00:27:45.280 Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said Moscow would ensure no strikes would be allowed to occur on an election day, echoing similar comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin suggesting the Ukrainians should be allowed to determine their leadership despite the ongoing war.

00:28:06.060 After all, we had multiple elections during World War II.

00:28:11.320 We re-elected Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 during the middle of World War II.

00:28:19.160 So why hasn't Ukraine scheduled an election?

00:28:22.660 Zelensky has repeatedly delayed elections since this conflict began, citing security concerns.

00:28:29.020 But the truth is, democratic governments are defined precisely by holding elections during hardship, not suspending them indefinitely.

00:28:37.980 Seems pretty hypocritical to me that the U.S. and the West are giving aid to Ukraine, billions of dollars, while they openly flout the concept of a free and fair election.

00:28:48.780 Perhaps Zelensky realizes that if he had an election, well, he would probably lose.

00:28:53.640 Ukraine claims a parliamentary committee is still reviewing whether security guarantees could make a vote possible today.

00:29:01.680 Russia also insists millions of displaced Ukrainians living in Russian-controlled regions should be allowed to participate if there is a vote.

00:29:11.240 Kiev, that's the capital of Ukraine, has rejected some of the proposals in the past over alleged concerns of voter manipulation.

00:29:19.080 The Kremlin claims it held voting near combat zones during its own 2024 election.

00:29:25.680 Despite Ukrainian sabotage attempts, Ukrainian officials counter that safety and international monitoring must be assured before any vote can proceed.

00:29:35.120 The deeper issue, I guess, here is legitimacy.

00:29:38.640 More evidence is mounting that the Ukrainian people are sick of Zelensky and his corruption.

00:29:43.000 Members of his administration are dropping like flies as his cronies are exposed for embezzling.

00:29:49.080 No doubt, much more of the aid has gone up Zelensky's nose as well.

00:29:53.400 The time for excuses is over.

00:29:54.920 We deserve free and fair elections in Ukraine.

00:29:58.720 Most Americans still don't understand that when East and West Germany were allowed to unify,

00:30:04.400 and the Russians agreed to that, we, the United States, agreed in return not to push Ukraine into NATO.

00:30:12.860 Ukraine is, of course, on Russia's borders.

00:30:14.900 That means we agreed not to put NATO-based missiles paid for by American taxpayers on the ground in Ukraine pointed at Russia.

00:30:24.940 We actually codified this in the Budapest Memorandum signed by Secretary of State James Baker on behalf of the United States.

00:30:33.320 And again, later in the Minsk Accords, another set of agreements.

00:30:37.600 But Joe Biden violated that pledge.

00:30:40.040 This is very much like the situation in 1962 when Nikita Khrushchev, the Russian dictator, put Russian thermonuclear missiles on the little island of Cuba.

00:30:54.100 President John F. Kennedy did not react well, and we were told America came closer to nuclear war than any time in our recent history.

00:31:02.600 You can understand that this has always been Putin's line in the sand, and that if we continue to push for the inclusion of Ukraine and NATO, this war will never end.

00:31:18.140 The U.S. media has done a pretty good job of trying to convince us that Ukraine can still win this war, but that does not seem likely, according to any of the military experts that I respect.

00:31:31.080 In the meantime, the NATO nations, who Donald Trump had to call to account for not paying their fair share for their own protection, continue to goad Zelensky on in ignoring the peace overtures of both Donald Trump, who seems to get the Russians lined up and then Zelensky falls up.

00:31:50.720 Then he seems to get Zelensky lined up, and the Russians fall away.

00:31:55.240 Trump is, above all, a dealmaker, and he understands that history has no higher position.

00:32:03.700 There is no greater honor, no greater title in history than that of peacemaker.

00:32:09.960 He is intended to end this strife, and I thought he handled it very well during the debates

00:32:16.700 when he was asked in a town meeting whether he wanted Russia to win.

00:32:20.720 and or whether he wanted Ukraine to win.

00:32:23.680 And he said, I want the killing to stop.

00:32:26.980 And there you have it.

00:32:28.140 There you have Donald Trump, the man, peacemaker.

00:32:30.340 Still think he will reach an agreement here.

00:32:32.840 He's certainly trying.

00:32:34.300 I pray for peace every day, as I know you do.

00:32:37.060 The president understands the importance of his record on the foreign affairs,

00:32:42.980 whether it is Venezuela, what is the new pressure he's now putting on Cuba.

00:32:47.100 But he also recognizes that the 2026 elections will be about the economy, dropping food prices, dropping gas prices, greater availability and affordability of housing, a record stock market, record low unemployment, record low inflation.

00:33:06.600 These are the conditions that will oversee the 2026 election.

00:33:12.760 And those who say the Republicans have already lost don't understand that in American politics, with the volatility of our electorate being the way it is today, a week is a lifetime.

00:33:23.700 We'll be right back with the Roger Stone portion of the Stone Zone right here on the Red Apple Audio Networks.

00:33:32.600 It's the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:33:35.740 And he's a great, great person, Roger Stone.

00:33:39.620 The Stone Zone.

00:34:01.600 This is the Stone Zone.

00:34:04.260 Now, get him a zone.

00:34:06.200 It's the Stone Zone.

00:34:08.180 A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going, and he's smart, and he's strong, and people love him.

00:34:15.260 Not everybody, but people love him and respect him.

00:34:17.700 Roger Stone. Where's Roger Stone?

00:34:20.020 Here's Roger Stone.

00:34:23.120 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.

00:34:25.440 Well, New York City homeowners are about to learn that elections have consequences.

00:34:30.080 Socialist Mayor Zoran Mamdami is proposing the city's first property tax hike in more than 20 years to close a roughly $5 billion budget gap, even after Albany already pledged billions in additional aid to New York City.

00:34:44.860 City officials say that the plan relies not only on higher taxes, but also on extremely optimistic revenue projections and reserve spending.

00:34:53.980 The mayor has also pushed for higher income tax on top earners and increased corporate taxes, part of a broader agenda that includes rent controls, universal child care, free transit, and a $30 minimum wage.

00:35:07.420 Mamdami makes all of these lofty promises. Just as weeks ago, the administration warned of a $12.6 billion deficit.

00:35:17.380 Then rising Wall Street bonuses and tax receipts suddenly shrank that shortfall, yet taxpayers are still being asked to pay more.

00:35:25.880 Homeowners already saw assessed property values jump over 5%, generating additional revenues before any rate increase even takes effect.

00:35:35.020 Critics say this reflects a familiar pattern in big city governance, expanding spending first, then look to taxpayers to cover the difference.

00:35:43.340 Socialists like Mamdami argue that the wealthy should shoulder the burden, but property taxes rarely stay targeted.

00:35:50.020 They cascade through rents, housing costs, and down to small businesses, hitting middle class residents actually the hardest.

00:35:57.960 This will then lead to more socialist solutions and will only lead to more problems and more unintended consequences.

00:36:04.460 It will also lead to capital and businesses leaving New York to go to more business-favor locations.

00:36:13.080 They don't seem to understand that higher taxes merely give people the opportunity to leave.

00:36:19.180 After many years of socialist promising affordability, New York will instead get higher living costs and slower economic growth.

00:36:27.640 Americans need to look at this mess in New York City as a template for what we do not want to do in the nation.

00:36:33.320 Particularly troubling is a new law pushed by the mayor that says if you're a private property owner and you choose to sell your property, you must first offer that property for sale to the city government.

00:36:47.480 Only after the city government elects not to buy your property are you allowed to put it on the open market.

00:36:54.060 But if you do put it on the open market and you get an offer, you must now give the city of New York kind of a second look.

00:37:04.700 I think this is unconstitutional, a violation of private property rights.

00:37:11.920 But many, many people in this most recent election voted for hope and change without really focusing on what Mamdami's policies would really mean for the average New Yorker.

00:37:23.340 The combination of high tax policies and soft on crime policies are going to continue the mass exodus of what's left of the middle class in New York City as they move to the suburbs or even out of state, many of them coming to my home state of Florida. 0.89

00:37:41.880 I said when Ma'am Dami was elected that there would be a silver lining, and that silver lining is that the entire country will be able to see what happens when you elect a radical Muslim jihadist socialist as mayor. 0.88

00:37:59.400 This can only help boaster the Republicans in the 2026 election. 0.87

00:38:04.540 Thanks for joining us today on The Stone Zone.

00:38:06.540 I'm Roger Stone.

00:38:07.700 We're right here on the Red Apple Audio Networks.

00:38:09.540 networks. Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.

The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - February 17, 2026

The Stone Zone ｜ 02-17-26

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