The StoneZONE with Roger Stone

00:00:00.000 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:00:03.700 People love him and respect him. Roger Stone.

00:00:06.440 Now, get in the zone. It's the Stone Zone.

00:00:10.400 Here's Roger Stone.

00:00:14.440 Welcome. You are entering the Stone Zone.

00:00:18.240 Here we eat, sleep, and breathe politics.

00:00:21.920 In fact, I think if I cut myself, I'd probably breathe politics.

00:00:25.480 I'm a hard-nosed veteran of 13 national presidential campaigns from Nixon to Reagan to Trump,

00:00:34.800 but I'm also a bipartisan critic of both parties and hypocrisy whenever I see it.

00:00:41.460 It was 53 years ago today that President Richard Milhouse Nixon ended his historic meeting in Beijing

00:00:49.360 with communist dictator Mao Zedong.

00:00:52.900 I'd point out to you, however, that the time that Nixon decided to bring China in out of the cold

00:00:59.300 in order to play them off against the Soviet Union,

00:01:03.300 who had a long mutual border and a great history of mistrust of each other,

00:01:09.540 despite both of them being communist states,

00:01:12.380 China was a poor, backward, largely agrarian society.

00:01:17.600 Few had indoor plumbing, and, well, the rural areas didn't even have electricity.

00:01:23.960 It was not until President Bill Clinton gave them most favored nation trading status

00:01:31.080 and sold them our most sensitive military secrets in return for illegal campaign contributions

00:01:38.820 in the Laurel scandal that they became the dangerous world power that they are today. 0.85

00:01:46.280 If you listen to the critics of President Donald Trump,

00:01:50.920 his poll numbers are collapsing in the face of his efforts to work with Elon Musk and Doge

00:01:59.120 to wipe out waste, fraud, and corruption from our system,

00:02:05.740 uncovering not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of questionable expenditures.

00:02:12.940 At the same time, the president is working to clean up the politicized criminal of justice system,

00:02:19.740 to clean out our intelligence agencies that have been used as politicized weapons against the president's opponents.

00:02:28.700 I can tell you all about that.

00:02:31.000 Also, to close our borders and expel the most dangerous criminals and terrorists and have them deported.

00:02:40.240 Unfortunately, those who say the president's poll numbers are collapsing are entirely wrong.

00:02:45.540 The Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, in conjunction with the Harris Poll,

00:02:52.500 also often called the Harvard-Harris Poll, actually shows that 48% of Americans say the country is on the right track

00:03:00.420 versus 42% who say it's on the wrong track.

00:03:04.300 Overall, 52% say they approve of the job that Trump is doing compared to only 43% who disapprove.

00:03:11.400 But more importantly, you see that President Trump is outperforming former President Joe Biden

00:03:17.800 in people's perceptions on the handling of key issues with the majority approving of his actions

00:03:23.560 relating to immigration, reducing government costs, and returning America to its original values.

00:03:30.640 So, in other words, looking at both Trump and Biden at this exact same point in the beginning of their term,

00:03:37.580 the numbers are stark. When it comes to the economy, 49% approve of the job Trump is doing,

00:03:43.940 when only 37% agreed with the job that Biden was doing.

00:03:48.660 When it looks at immigration, 56% say Trump is doing a good job,

00:03:54.160 while only 34% said Biden was performing well.

00:03:58.040 When it comes to foreign affairs,

00:03:59.900 Trump has a 48% approval rating.

00:04:03.420 Perhaps that's because of his efforts to end the war in Ukraine,

00:04:07.920 as opposed to only 38% for Joe Biden's handling of foreign affairs.

00:04:13.480 In the issue of government administration,

00:04:16.480 Trump outpoints Biden by nine points, 49% to 40%.

00:04:21.480 And in handling inflation,

00:04:24.220 Trump leads 45% to 34%.

00:04:26.900 53% said they approve of Trump's work to reduce the cost of government.

00:04:32.780 And the same percentage thought the president was doing a good job of returning America to its values.

00:04:38.780 So much for the idea that President Trump's poll numbers are collapsing.

00:04:44.560 It is also interesting that we've got a political brawl going on in Florida.

00:04:51.040 Last week, President Trump endorsed Congressman Byron Donalds to be the next governor of Florida.

00:05:00.060 Unfortunately, the current governor, Ron DeSantis, responded by throwing a temper tantrum.

00:05:05.960 Trump endorsed Donalds in a posting on True Social saying,

00:05:10.540 Byron Donalds would be a truly great and powerful governor for Florida.

00:05:14.420 And should he decide to run, he has my complete and total endorsement.

00:05:19.060 And then in all caps, the president said, run, Byron, run.

00:05:24.180 Yesterday, Ron DeSantis, as President Trump has dubbed him,

00:05:28.720 decided to take a pot shot at Congressman Donalds.

00:05:32.140 You've got a guy like Byron, he said.

00:05:34.060 He hasn't been part of any of the victories we've had here, DeSantis proclaimed,

00:05:38.220 while complaining that Donalds had been an effective campaign surrogate for Trump in several other states.

00:05:45.240 DeSantis, as many insiders have long known,

00:05:47.940 and as I predicted on this show almost two years ago on this network,

00:05:53.480 wants his wife, Casey DeSantis, to be Florida's next governor.

00:05:57.460 Not since George Wallace was succeeded by his wife, Lerlene, have we seen anything like this.

00:06:04.000 The only problem is, well, Casey DeSantis is even less popular than Ron.

00:06:08.640 My good friend, former Congressman Matt Gaetz, responded to Ron's outbursts, tweeting,

00:06:15.060 man, it hurts to see this.

00:06:16.960 Governor DeSantis, I don't think you remember when you, Byron Donalds and I,

00:06:22.040 were working collaboratively to get you, that's Governor DeSantis, elected in 2018.

00:06:27.940 We literally were your debate prep team.

00:06:30.940 You and I even tried to muscle Byron into the chairmanship of the Republican Party of Florida.

00:06:35.840 We thought so highly of him.

00:06:37.760 Byron is going to miss some votes while running for governor.

00:06:41.220 But you missed a lot of votes, too, when you ran for governor.

00:06:45.020 For the DeSantis cult members claiming that Donalds isn't qualified,

00:06:50.240 he has the same qualifications that Ron DeSantis had when he ran for governor in 2018.

00:06:57.540 DeSantis was a three-term congressman when he ran for governor.

00:07:00.780 Donalds is currently in his third term.

00:07:02.620 So by the same logic, DeSantis wasn't qualified when he ran for governor in 2018.

00:07:08.400 And of course, his wife, Casey DeSantis, isn't qualified whatsoever. 0.91

00:07:12.960 This is a case where Macbeth wants Lady Macbeth to run for governor.

00:07:18.380 I argue he's bitten off far more than he can chew.

00:07:22.480 This is going to work out about as well as Ron DeSantis' attempt to backstab President Donald Trump,

00:07:29.820 the man who made him governor.

00:07:32.900 Few people remember this, but 67 Republican County chairmen in Florida had endorsed the Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam for governor.

00:07:42.340 It was only the tweeted endorsement of Donald Trump that catapulted DeSantis ahead in the nomination contest for governor.

00:07:51.520 And then the president had to come to Florida three times in the last two weeks of 2018 to literally drag Governor DeSantis over the finish line.

00:08:02.860 Don't look for gratitude or loyalty in politics, folks.

00:08:06.140 If you want that, well, as Harry Truman said, get yourself a dog.

00:08:10.680 This is Roger Stone, and you're in the Stone Zone, and we'll be right back.

00:08:14.760 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:08:34.300 Not just stepping stones.

00:08:35.660 The Stone Zone.

00:08:37.900 Not just stepping stones.

00:08:39.340 If you're looking to create, grow, and sustain your wealth, download and subscribe to the Payne Points of Wealth podcast at BeBullish.com.

00:08:52.000 With Bob, Ryan, and Chris Payne.

00:08:54.340 It's your podcast for market insights, money tips, and real talk on the economy.

00:08:58.620 Download and subscribe at BeBullish.com.

00:09:09.340 And we're back in the Stone Zone here on the Red Apple Audio Network.

00:09:30.080 You know, when my wife and I attended the wedding for Donald and Melania Trump at the Bethesda-by-the-Sea Church in Palm Beach,

00:09:38.760 we were seated in the same pew as MSNBC talking head Chris Matthews and his wife.

00:09:46.000 It's amazing the number of times Chris Matthews called me to beg me to get President Trump to speak on his then CNBC TV show.

00:09:55.880 But only last week, this unhinged talking head solicited an assassination attempt against President Trump on air.

00:10:05.360 Who's going to take a shot back at this guy, raved Matthews while fuming about Trump.

00:10:10.960 Radical left-wing media has a history of calling for violence and, unfortunately, sometimes getting results.

00:10:17.520 Remember that it was a Democrat who shot up Congressman Steve Scalise in a field full of Republicans after drinking the Democrat media Kool-Aid. 0.51

00:10:27.340 Another crazed gunman attacked a Christian group, the Family Research Council, after the far left Southern Poverty Law Center put them on a hate watch list.

00:10:38.000 Who can forget when Senator Rand Paul was assaulted in his front yard by a radical leftist neighbor? 0.63

00:10:46.260 Of course, we've already seen multiple attempts on the life of President Trump, in part because the radical left media consistently calls him a fascist, a racist,

00:10:56.280 and every other word they can think of to incite violence.

00:10:59.760 But Chris Matthews sure didn't think that Donald Trump was a racist when he was attending his wedding

00:11:05.560 and while he was drinking champagne at the fabulous reception afterwards at Mar-a-Lago.

00:11:11.580 The Department of Justice, Kash Patel's FBI and the Secret Service should pay some attention to Chris Matthews

00:11:18.280 and anyone else who wants to, quote unquote, take a shot at the president.

00:11:23.780 Congressman Robert Garcia said it's time to bring weapons to the Capitol.

00:11:29.720 I think it's time for the FBI under Kash Patel to pay the congressman a visit and see what he thought about that.

00:11:37.760 Speaking of violence, Congressman Dan Crenshaw has been caught vowing to kill Tucker Carlson.

00:11:46.440 After an interview with JGB News, a British network, Crenshaw was asked if he'd ever met Tucker Carlson.

00:11:54.980 And in a hot mic moment, Crenshaw replied, 0.99

00:11:58.320 If I ever meet Tucker Carlson, I will effing kill him. 0.99

00:12:02.300 I'm not joking. 0.99

00:12:03.900 Tucker responded to Crenshaw's death threat with a public challenge.

00:12:08.380 Why don't you come sit down for an interview and we'll see how you do.

00:12:12.080 I'll send you my address, Dan Crenshaw.

00:12:14.780 That's what Tucker Carlson said.

00:12:16.700 Dan Crenshaw's deranged obsession with Tucker Carlson stems from Tucker's opposition to Crenshaw's support for endless foreign more.

00:12:27.020 Back when Tucker was on Fox News, Tucker reported that Dan Crenshaw is a committed neoliberal.

00:12:33.400 He's a tool of his donors.

00:12:35.780 He's hawkish on Ukraine's border, but indifferent to the security of our own borders.

00:12:41.760 Tucker has continued to hammer Crenshaw and said in December that Dan Crenshaw is obviously not emotionally prepared to lead anything.

00:12:51.100 My good friend Tucker Carlson was absolutely right.

00:12:56.100 Steve Bannon, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Committee in right outside Washington, D.C., made headlines the other day by calling for President Trump to run again for president in 2028.

00:13:10.580 Let's let's listen to Steve Bannon.

00:13:13.040 The mayor of MAGA is Donald J. Trump.

00:13:20.000 We want Trump in 2028.

00:13:22.920 That's where they can't stand.

00:13:24.540 A man like Trump comes along only once or twice in a country's history.

00:13:29.420 Right?

00:13:30.340 We want Trump.

00:13:32.000 We want Trump.

00:13:33.420 We want Trump.

00:13:35.780 We want Trump.

00:13:37.560 We want Trump.

00:13:39.380 We want Trump.

00:13:41.240 We want Trump.

00:13:42.680 Gotta love it.

00:13:43.820 You know, that is world class trolling because, well, Steve Bannon is well aware of the fact that the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution states no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.

00:13:56.560 By the way, it also says that if any person fulfills more than two years of a term to which another person was elected, such as when Lyndon Johnson succeeded John F. Kennedy, they, too, are only allowed to run for one more term.

00:14:14.300 In that same event, Bannon gave the gesture that some have called a Roman salute.

00:14:19.960 That's the same gesture that Richard Spencer made in 2016, providing the left's most effective ammunition, the propaganda war.

00:14:28.860 They call it a Hitlerian salute.

00:14:31.520 That's why I always do Richard Nixon's double fisted V for victory stance after my speeches.

00:14:38.520 There can be no mistakes about what that's all about.

00:14:42.400 NASA, incredibly, the National Security Administration, Authority, pardon me, we've now learned that intelligence officers maintain a chat room to discuss polygamy, transgender surgeries, as new unearthed internal documents reveal.

00:15:02.340 One of my favorite writers, Chris Ruffo and Hannah Grossman cultivated and published sources within the National Security Agency, the one current employee and one former employee who have provided these chat logs from the NSA's interlink messaging program.

00:15:20.680 These chat logs dating back two years are lurid.

00:15:25.240 They're featuring wide-ranging discussions of kink, of sex, castration, and far worse.

00:15:34.620 One employee wrote to co-workers about being involved in a nine-member polycule, a polyamorous group with metas with benefit connections.

00:15:48.180 In response to the shocking and disgusting news, a NSA press official has released a statement that says all NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission-related material on the interlink is usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.

00:16:08.660 You know, I will not be wasting my breath.

00:16:13.800 I want to leave you with this.

00:16:15.860 It's my favorite quote.

00:16:17.280 It goes like this.

00:16:19.340 It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

00:16:28.000 The credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred dust and sweat and blood, who thrives valiantly, but who errs and comes up short again and again.

00:16:43.460 Because without effort, there is no victory.

00:16:49.520 The hat is off to those who strive to do the deeds, who know the great enthusiasm, who spends himself in a worthy cause.

00:16:58.820 Who with the best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement and who with the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

00:17:22.820 So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

00:17:33.240 Now, that quote came from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt, one of our greatest presidents, but was uncovered by my mentor, Richard Milhouse Nixon.

00:17:44.040 Those are the words that I live by.

00:17:47.380 The credit that lies not with those who stand on the sidelines, but those who get in the arena.

00:17:53.240 I'm in the arena today.

00:17:54.940 Actually, I'm in the stone zone, and I'm so glad you joined me.

00:17:59.000 God bless you.

00:18:00.020 And stay tuned for our upcoming guest, Arnie Steinberg, perhaps most of the incisive political analysts and strategists in America today.

00:18:08.220 So whatever you do, don't touch that dial.

00:18:11.600 It's the stone zone.

00:18:25.220 Here's Roger Stone.

00:18:29.000 And we're back.

00:18:30.800 And you're in the stone zone here at the Red Apple Audio Network.

00:18:35.440 Joining me now is a political strategist and analyst who I respect perhaps more than, well, just about any in the United States.

00:18:46.820 Arnie Steinberg now lives out on our left coast.

00:18:50.400 But the architect in 1970 of Jim Buckley's epic third-party election as U.S. senator from the state of New York, only one other third-party candidate,

00:19:03.980 Harry F. Byrd, Jr., of Virginia, won that year.

00:19:08.460 But Jim Buckley was elected over both the Republican and the Democrat, running as the candidate of the conservative party in one of the most important U.S. Senate races of 1970.

00:19:18.620 Arnie's had many extraordinary successes since then, but that one, since I worked on it myself as a young man, still stands out as the gold standard.

00:19:28.980 He joins us now in the stone zone.

00:19:31.540 Arnie Steinberg, welcome.

00:19:33.700 Hi, Roger.

00:19:34.120 So, you are a keen observer, particularly of California politics, but as well as national politics.

00:19:42.560 I want to ask you off the bat, given the impact of Governor Gavin Newsom's mishandling of the fires and the essential, I would say, deterioration of the quality of life in California,

00:19:57.700 what's the long-term impact?

00:20:00.260 Can California ever actually go red?

00:20:04.780 I guess if you adopt the Atlas-shrug-Anne-Rand approach, which is that Atlas is going to shrug and things will become so awful,

00:20:12.640 some people wonder whether that's the only way for a reversal of the decline that's become even more precipitous.

00:20:19.080 I think part of the problem is that beyond politics, you have the media here, the school boards are theoretically nonpartisan.

00:20:27.900 When you go to vote for school board, party doesn't appear.

00:20:31.220 Same with city councils, same with county boards or supervisors, but they're all sort of democratic, leftist, progressive, the institutions of higher learning.

00:20:40.180 The school boards are so awful that the LA Unified School District and one of the ones in Orange County now are under litigation for their sort of indoctrination, pro-Hamas kind of indoctrination.

00:20:51.460 So you have all of these institutions together, and then you have the Democratic Party grooming elected officials at the lower level.

00:20:59.800 So they run for school board, then they run for city council, then they run for county supervisor, then they run for statewide office.

00:21:05.780 So it's tough to reverse that kind of a situation.

00:21:10.940 President Trump received 6 million votes to Kamala Harris's 9.2 million votes.

00:21:17.060 I think that kind of illustrates the point.

00:21:19.820 That was an improvement, by the way.

00:21:21.960 That's a dramatic improvement over the eight years prior.

00:21:25.420 Yeah, no, it's an extraordinary showing by the president in an overwhelmingly blue state.

00:21:30.500 Now Governor Newsom is begging Congress for $40 billion to help California recover from the fires.

00:21:37.360 Considering California's history and current leadership, how much of that money do you actually think would go towards helping anybody, and how much would be wasted or, perhaps even worse, stolen?

00:21:48.120 You know, I'm reminded of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., citing the fact that so much of illness and health is related to obesity, to smoking, to drug addiction, and bad nutrition.

00:22:01.340 And so much of California's problems are ingrown.

00:22:04.300 They're related to the way state and local governments govern.

00:22:07.800 And so with respect to what you say, it's not so much a lack of confidence, which would be justified, that the money would be spent effectively and efficaciously.

00:22:17.240 It's a matter of whether the same policies will continue.

00:22:21.600 You know, I myself built a home in what's called the coastal zone.

00:22:24.900 I'm actually 15 minutes from the coast, but their jurisdiction was extended inland in some areas.

00:22:30.280 And the reason why my house survived several fires is that I didn't obey the coastal commission, and I cleared all the overgrowth there.

00:22:38.300 So that's just, you know, one instance.

00:22:40.920 So I don't think there's a great deal of confidence that that's going to happen, and the macro major state government policies with respect to the environment, with respect to water, all those.

00:22:55.080 And then you add to that the incompetence of Mayor Bass and the city council.

00:22:59.500 Our fire chief that she just fired and her two colleagues in the fire department that are ranking, they're making $400,000 here.

00:23:10.140 They're DEI hires.

00:23:13.320 When I look at the Democrat Party and I try to look at their bench, they don't seem to have much of a bench.

00:23:19.840 Do you think Gavin Newsom will actually be a viable contender for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2028 in wake of his epic failures?

00:23:27.420 Yeah, he has epic failures.

00:23:31.100 He's very lucid.

00:23:32.400 He's very quick on the draw verbally.

00:23:35.040 You know, I mean, every so often he vetoes some extreme progressive legislation.

00:23:39.780 I think he was just refusing to sign or vetoing legislation where this law enforcement would not cooperate with respect to immigration there.

00:23:48.940 So, you know, this is a guy who has nine lives.

00:23:52.580 He's not without talent.

00:23:54.120 I mean, his ability to lie with a straight face is admirable.

00:23:57.200 And he has great hair.

00:23:58.520 Those two things cannot be denied.

00:24:00.840 Yeah, you know, when I was involved in the recall against him, and I told Larry Elder, a dear friend, when he decided the last minute to run, you know, you'll probably win way ahead of everybody else to succeed.

00:24:14.560 The question is whether the recall will succeed.

00:24:17.380 But the most effective television commercial was a fellow about 50 years old saying, you know, Gavin Newsom reminds me of that guy in high school who stole your girlfriend for you.

00:24:28.620 And after he was done with her, he left her.

00:24:30.260 The thing I didn't understand about that recall is that Gavin Newsom beat the recall in every single county, including counties that had voted to secede from California.

00:24:43.080 How likely is it we had an honest count?

00:24:45.200 Well, I think part of the challenge is that the burden of proof is on those voting for the recall.

00:24:55.920 People tend to be hesitant to vote for a recall, and that's why if they get out of the ballot, which is very rare, it's even more rare for them to succeed.

00:25:04.180 I myself directed a recall against Howard Miller.

00:25:07.440 Your older listeners would remember Howard Miller was on the advocates debating Bill Rusher of National Review, and Howard was the president of the L.A. School Board.

00:25:14.800 And at that time, L.A. School Board elections were citywide, and the electorate of L.A. City is larger than, you know, some small city.

00:25:24.520 And that recall succeeded, but it was very, very difficult.

00:25:29.040 So I think, you know, voters tend to be risk-averse, and so they tend to say, why are you spending money on recall?

00:25:35.580 Why is it occurring?

00:25:36.620 Why not wait for the general election?

00:25:38.080 And it's very equivalent in California to ballot measures, where, as a general rule, it's hard to get a ballot measure passed.

00:25:46.580 Their people are likely to vote no.

00:25:48.320 So people tend to want to vote no on a recall.

00:25:50.580 All right, we've got about three minutes for my last question regarding the Golden State.

00:25:55.880 And on the other side, let's get into national politics with Arne Steinberg.

00:26:00.100 I really like this Nicole Shanahan.

00:26:02.560 She was Bobby Kennedy's running mate as an independent.

00:26:05.380 She's now emerged as a strong supporter of both the MAGA and the MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, movements.

00:26:12.600 Do you think she would have appeal as kind of a centrist candidate in a California governor's race? 0.99

00:26:17.960 She just might.

00:26:19.960 I mean, she's got a fairly liberal record, which shows that she simply is not somebody, a central casting right winger there.

00:26:28.040 She's a woman. 0.82

00:26:28.900 She's attractive. 0.97

00:26:29.860 She's very bright.

00:26:31.380 She's a techie.

00:26:33.380 She's educated.

00:26:34.840 And I think she can relate to a lot of different constituencies.

00:26:37.980 So I wouldn't discount that.

00:26:40.020 You know, I mean, California has the history of people sort of coming up from nowhere and succeeding.

00:26:46.340 All right.

00:26:47.180 You're tuned in to the Stone Zone with Roger Stone here on the Red Apple Audio Network.

00:26:52.520 We're talking to political strategist and analyst Arne Steinberg.

00:26:56.200 Whatever you do, don't touch that dial because we'll be right back.

00:27:01.280 On the other side, we're going to talk national politics.

00:27:04.200 Donald Trump, how he's doing, the outlook for the midterm elections and much, much more.

00:27:10.320 We'll be right back.

00:27:11.500 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:27:15.220 Not just stepping to stone.

00:27:16.560 The Stone Zone.

00:27:18.840 Not just stepping to stone.

00:27:26.520 But with Donald Trump, all of the conventional rules seem to be canceled.

00:27:31.220 After all, before Donald Trump, every president we had had been a governor, a senator, a congressman or a general.

00:27:37.720 He's really the first business person we've had as president.

00:27:41.440 Now, I realize that in politics, a week is a lifetime.

00:27:45.120 But how do you see the midterms shaping up, recognizing that it's very early?

00:27:51.080 I think that President Trump has really made a strategic calculation, and we're going to find out in the midterms if it works.

00:28:02.260 He's basically said, I'm going to go for broke.

00:28:04.820 I've got a narrow majority in the House, very narrow, not a real big majority in the Senate.

00:28:10.020 And I'm going to try to do as much as I possibly can, full speed ahead, regardless of the implications for the midterm.

00:28:17.440 And if he loses the midterms, he's going to try to put in and cement as much as possible that's irreversible.

00:28:25.180 On the other hand, what he's hoping is that it's going to pay dividends.

00:28:27.980 And what we don't know is whether what's good for the medium term and the long term, medium term meaning a few years down the line and long term even five or ten years down the line or decades,

00:28:39.240 whether that will survive over the next couple of years there.

00:28:43.380 And that's what we have to hope is that people recognize that President Trump has put together some some benchmarks.

00:28:51.180 He's set very high standards for himself, and I don't think he can do all of those things by the midterm, whether it's no tax on tips or no tax on overtime or a drastic cut in the inflation rate.

00:29:05.700 So I think what he's going to have to do is find a skillful way to sort of lower some expectations that are unrealistically high.

00:29:14.900 It's kind of like that old adage, Roger, you and I know when we're training advancement, you always say, you know, for a political event, get a room that that could hold fewer people than you expect.

00:29:25.740 So you can say standing room only.

00:29:27.900 And I think the president has to calibrate in such a way so that if he is successful, which he probably will be, that he's viewed as successful because perception and not reality is what counts in politics.

00:29:39.240 The left would have us believe, I said this earlier in the show, that the president's poll numbers are collapsing when, in fact, the most liberal poll, the one from the Center of American Political Studies at Harvard, the so-called Harvard-Harris poll, shows President Trump doing substantially better in this period in his administration than Joe Biden was doing at the beginning of his.

00:30:03.880 What have you noticed in the most recent polls?

00:30:06.620 Well, I've been looking and I see different things.

00:30:09.640 I think it depends on the way the questions are phrased.

00:30:12.020 It's clear that to me, the most important measurement is measuring Donald Trump against his first term.

00:30:18.260 And now, given the fact that Donald Trump is one of those people who has the public feel very, very strongly for him or get him, you love him or you hate him among so many people there.

00:30:28.800 So given the fact that he has a certain hard negative that's never going to change there, I think the numbers look quite good for him.

00:30:35.600 But it's interesting how the left loved executive power as long as Barack Obama or Joe Biden or even Bill Clinton was in the White House.

00:30:45.880 Now, they argue against the basic tenets of executive power.

00:30:51.300 I saw Andrew Weissman, perhaps the most corrupt prosecutor in federal history, saying the other day that the president had no authority to fire management or even any agent at the FBI.

00:31:02.860 When, of course, he does, they're all members of the executive branch.

00:31:07.360 But in view of the conservative view of executive power, or I should say, in light of past court decisions, where do you see this issue ending up?

00:31:16.580 This is extremely important.

00:31:20.120 The traditional conservative view has been mixed increasingly on foreign policy.

00:31:27.260 It's conservatives, not liberals, that have felt that the war powers have to be strictly enforced, that we should have limits on how quickly and when we can use the military.

00:31:37.220 Originally, it was, you know, the George McGovern types, the very liberals there.

00:31:41.480 And conservatives have basically thought that government ought to be limited, but they have come into what I think the current Supreme Court may rule, which is when you look at all these so-called, quote, independent agencies, whether it's the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and so on there, that, as Scalia had hinted years ago without much support, that these are part of the executive branch.

00:32:07.880 And the United States Constitution invested the executive authority with the president, solely with the president.

00:32:15.240 So when Congress passes legislation that, in effect, establishes a, quote, independent commission, that it's an oxymoron.

00:32:24.360 It cannot be independent of the executive branch and be part of it.

00:32:30.120 And so that is what gets the root of this.

00:32:32.180 And I think that President Trump, more than any other Trump, is basically saying we can't have this hybrid.

00:32:37.240 How can I be CEO of a company, that is to say CEO of the United States of America, and my executive team is – some of them are forced upon me because they were appointed to a fixed term, and I'm told I can't end their term when they come in.

00:32:53.800 Or they can do anything that they want there, and I can't fire them.

00:32:58.580 On yesterday's show, we talked about the intention of Elon Musk and his DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, which is busy rooting out not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars in waste, fraud, and corruption.

00:33:16.080 And their intention, and their intention, to go to Fort Knox and inspect our supply of gold, the largest supply in the country, the bullion reserve there, which is supposedly the underpinnings of our wealth.

00:33:33.460 Now, the dollar is no longer tied to gold.

00:33:36.460 Richard Nixon ended that in 1971.

00:33:38.820 I'm kind of wondering if this is going to be like Geraldo Rivera going to Al Capone's safe, only to pop it open and reveal that the gold is gone or has somehow been depleted.

00:33:51.940 Any thoughts on that?

00:33:53.620 Well, it's probably more worthwhile for him to do that than to try to inspect the supply of condoms that the U.S. Agency for International Development was giving to Hamas there.

00:34:02.820 But, you know, it reminds me of the movie Goldfinger and James Bond.

00:34:09.260 I think while this is somewhat theatrical and comedic, it also really emphasizes to the American people that we cannot take things on face.

00:34:17.060 Just like we say you ought to have an auditor, audit corporations, the federal government, and maybe the gold supply at Fort Knox needs an audit.

00:34:24.500 So, Goldfinger, my all-time favorite James Bond movie, that's because Sean Connery is wearing this incredible gray nailhead three-piece suit with a solid black tie.

00:34:35.760 It is the very best. 0.92

00:34:37.120 I thought it was because of the female character, Pussy Galore. 1.00

00:34:40.900 I like that as well, but I also liked the Rolls-Royce that Eric Goldfinger was driving around in.

00:34:48.740 My all-time favorite Bond movie.

00:34:50.820 When it comes to America first, tell people what that means to you.

00:34:57.360 Well, I think what America means to me, I think as someone who was involved as a very young person in Young Americans for Freedom, they had this statement.

00:35:09.140 And it basically ended with that foreign policy should be judged by does it serve the just interest of the United States.

00:35:15.320 So it really has to do with what is the self-interest of the United States.

00:35:18.700 And you think about, Anne Rand talked about self-interest, and I remember talking to Nathaniel Brandon, who passed away many years ago, her colleague.

00:35:26.720 And the question is, if somebody wants to give charity, and that's what he or she wants to do, then it is in his or her self-interest to give charity.

00:35:36.400 When we have the Agency for International Development, to what extent is it a charitable organization?

00:35:41.400 Is that a function of us internationally?

00:35:43.460 Why are we having an Agency for International Development?

00:35:46.540 Or should it, for example, serve the just interest of the United States?

00:35:50.160 So what it does in its mission is to complement or implement what the foreign policy or national security policy is of the United States, or right now, of President Donald Trump.

00:36:01.180 On the other hand, there's a difference between America first and doing nothing.

00:36:08.760 The caricature is a whole bunch of endless wars.

00:36:11.540 Well, nobody wants endless wars.

00:36:13.380 What we have to decide is how do you define self-interest?

00:36:17.120 And self-interest may mean at times an alliance.

00:36:20.320 It may mean at times some kind of security policy or whatever.

00:36:24.440 What it doesn't mean is that we simply bow down to the rest of the world at some massive philanthropic institution and sacrifice our own self-interest for the good of others there.

00:36:36.920 So it's sort of a macro approach to what Anne Rand said, is does the United States exist for the United States, or is it simply a free-for-all for everybody to get foreign aid, for everybody to get our soldiers whenever they need them for national security or whatever?

00:36:52.640 And I think that's what President Trump is trying to do.

00:36:55.660 Seems to me it means that we take care of homeless veterans here in the United States before we ship another billion dollars to Ukraine.

00:37:03.980 All right, we have to wrap it up.

00:37:05.340 From a practical standpoint, that's a dramatic and terribly important example.

00:37:10.000 All right, we have to wrap it up there.

00:37:11.340 Let me thank my guest, Arne Steinberg, for joining us today in the Stone Zone.

00:37:15.640 And thank you for listening to us here on the Red Apple Audio Network.

00:37:20.420 God bless you and Godspeed.

The Stone Zone ｜ 02-25-25

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