The StoneZONE with Roger Stone


The Stone Zone ｜ 05-01-26


Episode Stats


Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

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

James Comey has been charged with threatening the life of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. This marks the second time in less than a decade that a former FBI Director has been indicted by a grand jury for a crime allegedly committed against the President.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 In this 25th anniversary year of September 11th, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation continues to
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00:00:31.900 The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative.
00:00:35.620 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:00:38.560 You are now diving into the deep end of the Stone Zone.
00:00:42.340 Just minutes ago, I posted on social media a video of the dancing that was going on
00:00:49.020 in my house when we learned that former FBI Director James Comey had been indicted by acting
00:00:56.380 Attorney General Todd Blanche. In this very specific case, he was charged with threatening
00:01:02.240 the life of the President of the United States. Now, previously, FBI Director Comey slipped the
00:01:07.600 punch in the Eastern District of Virginia. In really what was an open and shut case, Comey
00:01:12.880 He testified under oath before Congress, lying 254 separate times, claiming that he had never taken sealed information and given it to a third party and directed them to leak it to the media in order to embarrass President Donald Trump.
00:01:30.120 But prosecutors found an email in which he did exactly that.
00:01:34.520 He hooked up with his law school buddy, Dan Richmond, and he attached, sealed and classified information and directed that he leak it to The New York Times.
00:01:44.700 The only reason that case did not move forward is because three separate federal judges violated both their oath of office and their canon of ethics to attack the appointed acting U.S. attorney, Lindsay Halligan, who brought the case against Comey.
00:02:02.700 So in order to dispose of this case, instead of ever looking at the actual evidence, they claimed that Halligan had been improperly appointed to her position.
00:02:14.960 And, of course, that matter went to appeal.
00:02:17.460 Now, she'll win that on appeal. 0.92
00:02:19.360 I should say the Justice Department will win that on appeal.
00:02:22.000 But by the time they do so, the statute of limitations to charge Comey for that particular lie will have expired.
00:02:29.940 So he escaped justice there, but I'm not sure he will escape it this time.
00:02:35.140 James Comey now stands in precisely the cold spotlight of the accused, the indicted, and hopefully the soon-to-be-convicted former FBI director.
00:02:44.260 The man who spent years cultivating the image of a granite-yoon moral sentinel has been indicted for a second time now by a federal grand jury.
00:02:52.420 This latest case reportedly arises from the notorious Instagram photograph in which seashells were arranged to read 86-47, accompanied by a breezy caption about a beach walk in a curious shell formation.
00:03:10.060 Millions of Americans instantly understood the implication.
00:03:12.760 86 is a mob term. Everybody who's watched any law and order understands that it means to remove, to reject, to eliminate, to whack.
00:03:24.520 And 47, of course, refers to President Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States.
00:03:30.040 The meaning was plain enough to any citizen with common sense and a pulse.
00:03:34.780 Once again, public outrage erupted and the post vanished.
00:03:37.660 Then came the familiar Comey refrain, misunderstanding, innocence, surprise, lofty opposition to violence, and wounded confusion that anyone would interpret the message as threatening.
00:03:50.400 It was the bureaucrat's version of being caught with smoke pouring from the kitchen while insisting no one can prove who lit the stove.
00:03:57.920 But James Comey is no naive retiree stumbling through the language of the modern age.
00:04:02.460 He's the former U.S. attorney, former deputy attorney general, former FBI director, and one of the most media conscious government officials of the last generation.
00:04:13.140 He's also outrageously self-righteous, outrageously pompous, and I find him outrageously sanctimonious.
00:04:22.660 He understands symbolism.
00:04:24.500 He understands the coded language.
00:04:26.320 he understands how political rhetoric migrates through television screens,
00:04:31.720 social media feeds, and the fever swamps of unstable minds.
00:04:36.040 That's exactly why this is indeed a serious matter.
00:04:39.600 America has endured repeated assassination attempts, political violence, and a coarsening culture
00:04:44.960 in which extremists increasingly mistake theatrical menace for civil engagement.
00:04:50.300 In such an environment, a former FBI director does not just enjoy the luxury of playing coy with numerals and then pleading innocence when the government notices.
00:05:01.480 He knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it with intent, and he knew better.
00:05:06.360 This indictment also significant because it marks Comey's second trip to the criminal dock, as I said, in roughly six months.
00:05:12.920 his first indictment, which was brought in 2025, involved allegations of false statements to
00:05:18.100 Congress and obstruction tied to his Senate testimony concerning matters connected to the
00:05:23.500 Clinton email investigation error. That case collapsed amid procedural irregularities,
00:05:30.320 questions regarding prosecutorial authority, and what the court reportedly described as
00:05:34.900 government misconduct and investigative missteps. When in fact, Lindsey Halligan,
00:05:39.580 who's not a criminal attorney, took that case before a grand jury in the Eastern District of 1.00
00:05:44.880 Virginia and got an indictment, something that everybody said she could not possibly do.
00:05:49.800 That was only necessary because the acting U.S. attorney, Eric Siebert, who was strongly supported
00:05:57.680 by Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, that's a tip off right there, had failed to disclose to
00:06:05.720 the court that his father-in-law, that is his wife's father, was actually the godfather for
00:06:12.780 Comey's daughter, and that his father-in-law had served as a personal attorney for Comey.
00:06:18.720 That's an egregious conflict of interest. He should have recused himself from the very beginning,
00:06:23.800 but instead, he was planning to give James Comey a pass. In fact, a grand jury had been impaneled,
00:06:29.880 and they were moving very swiftly to exonerate Comey,
00:06:35.160 somewhat different than the way I was handled in Washington, D.C.
00:06:39.360 You know, whenever James Comey appears,
00:06:41.060 confusion seems to follow like exhaust from a badly tuned engine.
00:06:44.660 But for years, Comey postured as the nation's ethical headmaster
00:06:48.820 while leaving a wake of institutional wreckage behind him.
00:06:52.540 He inserted himself in the 2016 election
00:06:54.660 by publicly castigating Hillary Clinton's conduct while declining prosecution.
00:06:58.840 But let's stop and think for a moment. It isn't really his decision as to whether Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted. That would have only been up to the Attorney General of the United States.
00:07:09.680 Yet in his press conference, he presided over the opening phase of Crossfire Hurricane after first declaring that he had gone through Hillary Clinton's emails, which were discovered on a Friday before the election.
00:07:25.900 We're expected to believe that 336,000 emails were reviewed over the weekend when over a year before he'd had Hillary Clinton's emails and had never taken action.
00:07:37.980 He was the one who essentially set up Crossfire Hurricane, the now infamous Russian collusion saga that convulsed the entire country, relied in part on poisoned opposition research, what James Comey knew was paid for by Hillary Clinton.
00:07:53.520 That's the famous Steele dossier. And they claimed falsely that the Democrat National Committee had been the target of a Russian intelligence hack for which there is no evidence whatsoever other than the imagination of his fellow leftist combatant, John Brennan, the CIA director himself, a convert to Islam.
00:08:18.300 and the man who signed four of the eight hijackers' visas,
00:08:23.420 those hijackers who attacked America on 9-11.
00:08:26.280 This is, of course, the same John Brennan who got caught spying on a U.S. Senate committee
00:08:30.480 when it was examining his misconduct and the use of illegal torture.
00:08:36.960 But that's how it is with James Comey.
00:08:41.740 He leaked memorandum of private presidential conversations through intermediaries in violation of the law.
00:08:47.460 He monetized grievances through his books, his speeches, and his television appearances,
00:08:52.100 and he transformed the office of FBI director into a vanity platform.
00:08:57.000 Always the sermon. Always the spotlight. Always the self-regard.
00:09:01.620 Now the old magistrate finds himself judged.
00:09:04.580 The legal standard in this new case is substantial.
00:09:07.020 Prosecutors reportedly must show that Comey subjectively understood the message would be perceived as a threat.
00:09:13.440 Courts do not lightly criminalize speech, nor should they.
00:09:17.460 Political expression, even vulgar political expression, for which I am sometimes known, occupies a protected place in our republic.
00:09:25.600 But ambiguity, deliberately employed by a sophisticated actor, is not the same thing as innocence.
00:09:31.440 A man who spends a lifetime communicating through implication cannot suddenly claim illiteracy by implication.
00:09:38.600 That is the central irony in the entire Komi saga.
00:09:41.740 he built his career in the gray areas between what was said and what was meant, between what
00:09:47.040 could be proven and what could be insinuated, between law and theater. He weaponized suggestion
00:09:53.100 when it benefited him, and now asks the nation to believe suggestion is meaningless when it
00:09:57.980 implicates him. Sorry, no sale. Whether prosecutors prevail is one question for the courts, but
00:10:04.200 whether a jury convicts is another matter entirely. But politically and morally, this indictment
00:10:10.060 carries force. It reminds the American people that titles do not confer sainthood. Media
00:10:15.940 adulation does not erase misconduct, and bureaucratic pedigree does not place one above
00:10:21.700 scrutiny. James Comey once moved through Washington as if it carved from marble.
00:10:27.980 In truth, he was always fashioned with something much more brittle, vanity, ambition, and the
00:10:33.980 intoxicating belief that rules were for other people. Eventually, even brittle monuments
00:10:39.920 crack. If you're just tuning in, I'm Roger Stone, and you're listening to The Stone Zone here on
00:10:46.660 the Red Apple Audio Networks. I noticed that my good friend Laura Loomer is spiraling again,
00:10:55.920 unleashing a frenzied torrent of tweets blaming the likes of Candace Owens, Joe Kent, and Tucker
00:11:01.520 Carlson for recent acts of leftists and Islamic terrorism. While I don't support the anti-Trump
00:11:09.460 comments of these people by any means, the notion that deranged leftists are being radicalized
00:11:15.140 by those three is completely and utterly absurd. Laura Loomer is posting deranged propaganda,
00:11:21.700 not serious analysis. It is leftist radicals, Antifa thugs, pro-Hamas encampment militants,
00:11:28.780 and deranged Democrats radicalized by the fake news media
00:11:32.600 who are drawing inspiration from their own sides, fever swamps.
00:11:37.080 They are on platforms like Reddit and Blue Sky and an echo chamber of bio.
00:11:41.920 They are the enemy combatants we must be focused on.
00:11:45.380 Blaming conservative dissenters putting out provocative takes for clicks
00:11:49.180 for leftist terror is a grotesque inversion that lets the real culprits off the hook.
00:11:55.200 I know Laura Loomer, I've written quite a bit about her.
00:11:57.520 she is no longer fighting legitimate enemies of the MAGA movement. She's now hunting personal
00:12:02.480 foes while handing the left a free pass. Her obsession with settling scores, family dirt, 1.00
00:12:08.540 invented conspiracies, endless feuds has eclipsed her once laudable truth-seeking pursuits.
00:12:15.140 Laura Loomer's well-documented history of mental instability, including the fact that she was
00:12:20.120 involuntarily or not institutionalized at least twice, according to the testimony of her own
00:12:28.280 father. And her inability to own guns, because he is such a danger to herself and others,
00:12:33.740 makes her conduct particularly alarming. So for the sake of the conservative movement in the
00:12:38.840 country, it is time she checks back into the loony bin once and for all for the good of America 1.00
00:12:44.000 before she gets even more gruesome plastic surgery and morphs from jigsaw into the elephant man 0.99
00:12:49.640 before your very eyes. This infighting on the right distracts from the engines of radicalization. 1.00
00:12:56.860 Democrat leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy being two of
00:13:02.680 the absolutely worst. Jeffries has branded President Trump a racist dictator whose agenda 0.71
00:13:09.180 threatens democracy and minorities. And Murphy has escalated, painting Trump as mentally unstable 0.98
00:13:15.960 and invoking the 25th Amendment while framing him as an existential threat.
00:13:21.120 This is eliminationist rhetoric.
00:13:23.360 When congressional leaders cast the president as a threat to the republic's survival,
00:13:28.160 unbalanced followers hear a permission slip for violence.
00:13:31.440 By any means necessary, stops being a metaphor and becomes a mission. 0.97
00:13:36.220 Such inflammatory garbage directly fuels incidents like the attack on President Trump 0.81
00:13:40.740 at this past weekend's White House Correspondents did. 0.99
00:13:44.700 The same toxic atmosphere preceded Butler, Pennsylvania.
00:13:48.900 Democrats' words have body counts.
00:13:51.680 Yet the Secret Service catastrophic failures compounded that peril.
00:13:55.860 The lapses that the correspondents did were unforgivable,
00:13:58.760 another embarrassing breach that allowed violence to almost reach the president.
00:14:03.140 This wasn't a one-off.
00:14:04.420 It was a chilling repeat of the near assassination in Butler,
00:14:08.020 where unsecured rooftops, ignored warnings,
00:14:10.620 and operational breakdowns nearly ended President Donald Trump's life.
00:14:15.580 Under Director Sean M. Curran, the agency continues to fumble basic protective duties.
00:14:20.820 Curran, a 20th year veteran Trump tapped in January of 2025 after leading his personal detail,
00:14:26.880 was supposed to restore competence.
00:14:29.160 Instead, these repeated failures by the Secret Service expose either shocking incompetence
00:14:34.100 or deeper institutional rot that even a loyal appointee does not seem to be able to fix.
00:14:39.960 I'm Roger Stone.
00:14:40.980 We'll be right back.
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00:15:16.100 The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative
00:15:19.840 on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:15:23.140 And you're back in the Stone Zone.
00:15:25.800 As I said this weekend,
00:15:27.200 assassination has been all too common in American history,
00:15:30.640 particularly in the modern age.
00:15:32.120 Of course, President Harry Truman
00:15:33.880 survived an assassination attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists.
00:15:38.040 President John F. Kennedy, of course, brutally murdered in the streets of Dallas in 1963,
00:15:43.820 I believe, at the hands of a plot that was engineered by Vice President Lyndon Baines
00:15:48.320 Johnson.
00:15:48.880 I wrote a New York Times bestselling book on that.
00:15:51.300 Of course, there was an attempt on the life of President Gerald Ford by a follower of
00:15:56.240 Charles Manson.
00:15:57.540 There actually was an attempt on Richard Nixon's life in Miami Beach, according to CIA agent
00:16:03.000 Gerald Hemmings.
00:16:04.080 And, of course, we're well aware of the three attempts on the life of President Donald Trump.
00:16:11.160 I think Trump himself said it when he said it is those presidents, like Lincoln, for example, who are most impactful, who they've tried to kill.
00:16:19.860 But the real question here is why does the Secret Service still suck at its one job, keeping the president from getting threatened more than any chief executive in history alive?
00:16:31.440 Communications blackouts, inadequate perimeters, resort mismanagement, and a culture of complacency seems to persist.
00:16:39.680 Butler should have triggered a total overhaul of the Secret Service.
00:16:42.880 Instead, what we get is more of the same.
00:16:45.340 President Trump, in my opinion, should fire the current director immediately.
00:16:49.780 Loyalty to Trump doesn't excuse presiding over a no-fail mission that repeatedly failed.
00:16:55.000 The agency needs immediate sweeping reform with new leadership.
00:16:59.840 depolitization, and accountability that actually means something.
00:17:03.640 Half measures and excuses are no longer tolerable when lives and the republic are on the line.
00:17:10.480 Senator Majority Leader John Thune should also resign, if you ask me.
00:17:15.360 His tepid approach learned from a lifetime of serving the establishment
00:17:18.860 clearly undermines the aggressive mandate President Trump has delivered.
00:17:23.320 When deep state resistance, border chaos, and security breakdowns demand a street fighter,
00:17:27.900 Thune wilts under pressure. Republicans need some spine in their leadership, not just another
00:17:33.880 gutless wonder. We can no longer tolerate people like Laura Loomer's sideshows or Democrat
00:17:41.240 incitement, Secret Service malpractice, or weak GOP stewardship. The time for leadership is now.
00:17:48.520 Right-thinking citizens must zero in on real threats. President Trump survived Butler by
00:17:53.540 providence he is there by the hand of god by the grace of god to lead a revival of this nation and
00:17:59.700 i'm still convinced that america's greatest days a golden age of peace prosperity security justice
00:18:06.960 and law and order lie just ahead i'm roger stone you're listening to the stone zone and we'll be
00:18:12.280 right back
00:18:13.300 the stone zone entertaining and informative on the red apple podcast network
00:18:24.120 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
00:18:26.500 Well, in my opinion, peace through strength is the only way to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East.
00:18:31.620 This is not the neocon foreign adventurism of the Bushes and the Clintons and the Bidens and the Obamas.
00:18:40.000 This is the peace through strength doctrine of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.
00:18:45.000 So let's dispense with the polite fiction.
00:18:47.420 The Middle East does not reward wishful thinking.
00:18:49.820 It punishes it.
00:18:50.540 For too long, policymakers have addressed hard realities in soft language, calling fragile ceasefires breakthroughs, strained alliances, temporary disagreements, and unstable political systems transitions.
00:19:04.800 That approach has not delivered peace. It has actually prolonged instability.
00:19:09.520 A more direct assessment is overdue.
00:19:12.180 Progress in this region depends on confronting facts head-on.
00:19:15.980 Ceasefires are often temporary.
00:19:17.980 Adversaries are deeply mistrustful.
00:19:20.340 Alliances require constant maintenance and governance models that work in theory often fail in practice.
00:19:26.840 Ignoring these truths doesn't make them disappear.
00:19:29.540 It just makes them more dangerous.
00:19:31.720 Take the recent Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire. 0.92
00:19:34.900 Describing it as a timeout is not criticism, it's accuracy.
00:19:38.560 Anyone who's followed the history of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel understands ceasefires here are rarely permanent solutions.
00:19:47.480 They are pauses in a longer struggle, shaped by deep mistrust and reinforcement by decades of violations, rearmament, and proxy escalation.
00:19:57.140 So that mistrust is the central obstacle to peace.
00:20:00.680 No party in this conflict has a clean record, although the Iranian-backed militia groups, most notably Hezbollah, are by far the worst offenders.
00:20:09.960 The right for Israel to defend itself should be seen as absolute, but that should not preclude us from understanding the conflict from all perspectives.
00:20:18.680 Acknowledging reality is not moral equivalence, as we must understand the nuances of the conflict to be able to achieve our goals.
00:20:26.380 Durable peace cannot be built on denial.
00:20:28.760 It must be built on enforcement, verification, and a sober understanding of incentives.
00:20:34.180 Hezbollah remains a designated terrorist organization responsible for attacks
00:20:38.460 that have killed Americans and destabilized the region.
00:20:41.740 There's no ambiguity there, but experience has shown that eliminating such groups outright, 0.77
00:20:46.840 especially one embedded in society and backed by a state like Iran,
00:20:50.800 is not achievable through military force alone.
00:20:54.080 Decades of mowing the lawn have only caused more resentment
00:20:57.680 as collateral damage causes blowback and emboldens extremists in the region.
00:21:03.160 Tactical victories, absent a broader strategy,
00:21:06.620 are known to regenerate the very threats they seek to destroy.
00:21:09.820 The goal, then, is not naive eradication.
00:21:13.980 It is degradation, reducing operational capacity to a level where political structures
00:21:19.540 and state institutions can assert control. 0.66
00:21:22.380 In Lebanon, that means strengthening sovereignty and enabling a system that reflects its complex sectarian balance.
00:21:30.720 It also means pairing pressure with diplomacy, weakening military capabilities while creating conditions for governance and economic recovery.
00:21:39.560 Ending cycles of violence requires more than force.
00:21:42.700 It also requires a pathway out of perpetual conflict.
00:21:46.920 The same realism applies beyond the battlefield, you see.
00:21:50.060 Consider the ongoing impasse over Turkey and the F-35 program.
00:21:54.960 That dispute, triggered by Ankara's purchase of Russia's S-400 system,
00:22:00.100 has strained relations with NATO at a time when unity is essential
00:22:03.460 for warding off elevated threats from China and Russia.
00:22:07.300 Turkey is not a peripheral player.
00:22:08.980 It's a central ally of the United States,
00:22:11.220 hosting critical U.S. assets and contributing to collective security in the region.
00:22:16.300 Allowing a single dispute to fracture that relationship
00:22:19.460 undermines the broader strategic goals.
00:22:22.520 Yet, resolution cannot come at the expense of American security.
00:22:26.900 Any path forward must ensure that sensitive technology,
00:22:30.320 like the F-35 Lightning II, remains fully protected.
00:22:34.900 This is where disciplined diplomacy matters.
00:22:37.540 A solution is possible, one that removes the S-400 risk,
00:22:41.920 restores Turkey's role in the F-35 ecosystem,
00:22:45.660 and reinforces NATO's cohesion.
00:22:48.420 Such an outcome would only strengthen alliances, but also deny Russia the leverage it seeks.
00:22:54.140 It is not about concessions, it's about aligning interests in a way that enhances collective strength.
00:22:59.560 That's why I'm particularly proud of our ambassador, Tom Barrack, a man I've known since 1972.
00:23:04.880 He's doing an amazing job, a difficult job.
00:23:07.940 He's also the president's special envoy to Syria.
00:23:11.480 Perhaps the most controversial argument, however, concerns governance itself.
00:23:15.660 The idea that strong leadership, whether in monarchies or centralized republics, has often delivered more stability in the Middle East than rapid democratization may go against common Western fairytale norms, but it's empirically sound.
00:23:35.120 The aftermath of the Arab Spring offers a sobering case study.
00:23:38.900 In many cases, attempts to quickly impose Western-style democratic systems led to fragmentation, conflict, and renewed authoritarianism.
00:23:49.020 By contrast, several Gulf monarchies have achieved measurable progress, economic diversification, modernization, and improved living standards for their people.
00:23:58.640 These systems are not perfect by any means, nor should they be beyond criticism, but they have, in many cases, provided a degree of stability that allowed development to take root.
00:24:09.640 Stability must be seen as a prerequisite for both democratic values and human rights.
00:24:16.740 Institutions cannot flourish amid chaos.
00:24:19.720 Rights cannot be meaningfully exercised in the absence of security.
00:24:24.040 Supporting effective governance, whatever its form,
00:24:26.900 can create the condition under which broader freedoms eventually emerge.
00:24:31.620 Even in more complex systems, strong leadership has played a defining role.
00:24:36.180 Israel, often cited as the region's most robust democracy,
00:24:40.080 has depended on decisive leadership to navigate constant security threats.
00:24:45.180 Turkey also illustrates how centralized authority can deliver economic growth and regional influence.
00:24:51.420 The point is not to endorse any single model. It is to reject the one-size-fits-all thinking.
00:24:58.260 The Middle East is not a laboratory for exporting political templates.
00:25:02.300 It's a region shaped by history, identity, and political pressures that demand tailored approaches.
00:25:08.640 In all of these cases, from ceasefires to alliances to governances, the underlying principle is realism in service of stability.
00:25:17.080 That means applying pressure where necessary, engaging partners where possible, and refusing to be guided by illusions.
00:25:25.720 It means prioritizing outcomes over rhetoric and recognizing that imperfect solutions are often the only ones available.
00:25:33.840 When U.S. foreign policy is dictated by idealism, it's a disaster for the region and the taxpayers ultimately bear the cost.
00:25:40.980 The pursuit of peace is not about pretending conflicts are simpler than they are.
00:25:45.340 It's about managing complex situations with discipline and clarity at all times.
00:25:51.040 In my view, the Trump administration is doing precisely that.
00:25:54.820 Now I want to try something a little different.
00:25:56.700 I'm going to take your questions.
00:25:57.860 You can go to AskStone at StoneZone.com.
00:26:01.940 That's AskStone at StoneZone.com right now, and we will take your questions.
00:26:07.140 We have a few left over from the weekend, so I'm going to start there.
00:26:10.200 Michael in Miami, Florida says, let's see, Roger, you have helped shape victories for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump.
00:26:18.640 What is the one timeless strategic principle that still wins elections today?
00:26:22.740 That's a pretty broad question, but the real answer is to understand that repetition and simple messaging are crucial in communicating in any political campaign.
00:26:34.160 It always seemed odd to me. I'm not a big fan of Carl Fatboy Rove or George W. Bush, but they ran an almost flawless campaign against John Kerry. John Kerry seemed to think that once you said something one time, everybody heard it and you could then just move on and say something else, where the Bush campaign repeated their central message over and over and overhead, driving it home.
00:26:57.280 So that old advertising adage, KISS, K-I-S-S, keep it simple, stupid, that stands in politics as well. 0.95
00:27:06.980 Political messaging must be repeated over and over again, particularly in this diffuse media situation in which it's unlike the days when we just had three television networks and a handful of national news magazines. 0.99
00:27:19.620 Today, thanks to the Internet, we have hundreds of choices, maybe thousands.
00:27:25.020 That's also true for print media.
00:27:27.020 Now, while Newsweek and Time and Life and Look have gone by the wayside, and we have national newspapers, well, they pose as newspapers.
00:27:36.300 They're really newsletters for the Democrat National Committee.
00:27:39.300 I'm thinking of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, no longer credible sources of information.
00:27:44.520 I had a journalist from CBS contact me this morning and say that he had read a piece about the pardon by Honduran president, pardon by President Donald Trump of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, something I advocated for with the president.
00:28:01.720 having never met Hernandez, never spoken to him or his attorneys, but read an eloquent,
00:28:07.740 long, I think it was eight-page letter that he had written to President Donald Trump
00:28:12.020 in which he made it very clear that he had been framed.
00:28:14.820 You see, Hernandez, as the president of Honduras, had signed the first extradition treaty in
00:28:22.420 the history of the country, and he extradited the two largest narco-traffickers, the two
00:28:27.800 largest murderers, the two largest drug dealers in the history of the country. They went to New 0.51
00:28:32.680 York, they stood trial, and they were convicted. That was under President Donald Trump. And then
00:28:38.400 when Joe Biden became president, those same two criminals were released from jail. Their sentences
00:28:45.500 were essentially commuted, and they gave false testimony against Hernandez, the very man who
00:28:51.300 had extradited them. Now, if you read that trial transcript very carefully, what you find is that
00:28:56.500 Hernandez was convicted solely on the testimony of two convicted criminals.
00:29:02.080 In other words, where was the evidence of financial transfers to Hernandez?
00:29:07.100 There were none.
00:29:08.120 Where was there evidence that he was involved in the actual moving of drugs?
00:29:12.280 There were none.
00:29:13.640 But this CBS journalist insisted that I must have gotten paid for my advocacy.
00:29:20.820 No, I've been through this myself.
00:29:22.780 They did to Juan Orlando Hernandez precisely what they tried to do to President Donald Trump, what they tried to do to me.
00:29:31.760 The Facts Speak for Themselves is a great multi-part series now over at artvoice.com that lays this all out, chapter and verse.
00:29:42.380 So I realize that if the Democrats retake the House or someday when they return to power, all of this will be examined.
00:29:50.500 I don't fear discovery.
00:29:52.140 There's nothing to discover. All I did was read a letter and then ask my own personal attorney to
00:29:58.300 go to PACER and print out all of the documents, including the trial transcript. And I found one
00:30:04.680 really strange thing. You see, President Juan Orlando Hernandez's criminal defense lawyer
00:30:11.240 literally disappeared in the middle of his trial. He no longer responded to emails or text messages
00:30:18.460 when they went to his home in his office, he wasn't there. He vanished into thin air. How
00:30:23.880 coincidental. The judge in his case was allowed to appoint a criminal defense attorney who then
00:30:30.360 worked closely with the government prosecutors to lock up the former president. A man in his 50s
00:30:36.180 got a 30-year sentence. And then just to make it worse, Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State,
00:30:41.900 pulled the visas of Hernandez's wife, his two daughters, and his son. So the man has not seen
00:30:49.720 his own family now in five years. He's living in the Miami area because it is not safe for him to
00:30:54.800 go back to Honduras. But this is an enduring story of justice. President Donald Trump did what was
00:31:00.420 right. Anyone can examine this trial. So for those who say, well, why did you arrest Maduro,
00:31:06.240 who was a NERCO trafficker, but you released Hernandez's because Hernandez was not a drug
00:31:12.860 trafficker. The public record will prove that. I'm prepared for any scrutiny that may come down the
00:31:18.760 road. I prayed fervently about this before forwarding Hernandez's letter to President Trump,
00:31:24.720 and I believe up to this minute that I absolutely did the right thing. Those who are online today
00:31:30.900 attacking him yet again, claiming that he was caught on tape lamenting the fact that the media
00:31:37.720 was biased and that that somehow invalidates the pardon is an absurdity. The people who were
00:31:44.540 actively involved in moving drugs were the Anaya family, Tony and his family, who took power after
00:31:51.500 Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was moved out of the way, which is what this is all
00:31:57.020 about. So if anybody ought to be prosecuted for drug trafficking, I would say it is the immediate
00:32:02.740 past leadership of the Hondurans. I'm Roger Stone. You're listening to the Stone Zone right here on 0.99
00:32:07.600 the Red Apple Audio Network. Don't go away because we'll be right back.
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00:33:15.740 The Stone Zone.
00:33:17.740 Entertaining and informative.
00:33:19.880 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:33:22.620 And we're back in the Stone Zone.
00:33:24.460 And once again, we're taking your questions by email.
00:33:27.340 You can send them to AskStone at StoneZone.com.
00:33:30.880 That's AskStone at StoneZone.com.
00:33:34.380 Here's a question from Carlos in Tampa, Florida, who says, looking at the 2026 midterms, what's the single biggest mistake Republicans can make between now and Election Day?
00:33:45.120 First of all, I think in the big, beautiful bill, the president has created the backdrop for what could be a very successful election.
00:33:52.300 It does take some time for the biggest tax cut in American history to kick in.
00:33:57.520 Also, the tax against retirement has been repealed.
00:34:01.420 The tax for tips has been repealed.
00:34:04.960 And 88% of those on Social Security will pay no tax on their Social Security payments.
00:34:10.620 These are profound changes.
00:34:12.980 I continue to be outraged by Jerome Tulate Powell, who has kept interest rates artificially high.
00:34:23.940 If you base the interest rates on the unemployment rate and the inflation rate, he should already have cut rates.
00:34:34.120 But it's interesting that in this recent vote in which the Fed essentially voted to just keep it steady at the same rate,
00:34:41.300 There were four dissenters. That hasn't happened in many decades.
00:34:46.180 Now adding insult to injury, Jerome Pollan has decided that he's going to remain as a Fed governor after his term as chairman is over.
00:34:56.820 The arrogance of this non-economist lawyer is profound.
00:35:00.960 He's the one who's acting politically.
00:35:03.140 To go back to your question, the single biggest mistake Republicans can make is not delivering accountability and justice when it comes to the Russian collusion hoax and the stolen election of 2020.
00:35:14.820 President Trump promised his voters that he would do that.
00:35:17.740 And now Attorney General, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, seems to be moving in the right direction with the new indictment of James Comey for threatening the life of the president.
00:35:28.140 But there needs to be more follow through.
00:35:30.800 Those two twin issues, I think, will ignite the non-Republican Trump base.
00:35:37.080 People want to know whether our elections are on the up and up.
00:35:40.580 They want to know about the 300,000 paper ballots that just suddenly appeared at 3 o'clock in the morning in three swing states.
00:35:48.120 They want to know whether the electronic voting machines are secure or whether they can and have been manipulated.
00:35:54.500 These are not complicated issues.
00:35:56.600 So I do think Republicans have to deliver on both of them, or there will not be an energized base for the president.
00:36:05.220 Beyond that, I think we should recognize Republicans enjoy an enormous financial advantage going into this election.
00:36:13.640 They will have somewhere around $6 billion to spend on the midterms.
00:36:17.380 The Democrats are still deeply in debt from their last fiasco, the Kamala Harris campaign.
00:36:22.780 Now, in some ways, that just offsets the fact that ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and of course, the worst of them all, CNN, I often say, I don't get my news from CNN for the same reason I don't drink out of the toilet.
00:36:38.760 But they provide news coverage for the left.
00:36:42.900 Republicans have to pay with paid advertising to counter that false messaging.
00:36:48.720 And that is that is how that will work.
00:36:51.580 But we have better candidates.
00:36:53.560 We have better issues.
00:36:54.860 You see, the Democrats have no agenda other than their hatred for Donald Trump.
00:36:59.460 They have no plan to create jobs.
00:37:01.620 They have no plan to create to control inflation.
00:37:04.340 They have no plans to make housing more affordable and more available.
00:37:10.060 Donald Trump has plans for all of those things.
00:37:12.340 Plus, he has kept his pledge to seal our border, which is ultimately going to result in a drop in crime.
00:37:20.160 We're beginning to see that already.
00:37:21.700 So we have a platform.
00:37:23.360 They have no platform other than their hatred for Donald Trump and their increasing embrace of radical violence.
00:37:29.140 It is hard for me to believe that the once great Democrat Party of Harry Truman, who's the founder of Israel, and the late, great John F. Kennedy refuses to denounce anti-Semitism, refuses to denounce bigotry, and increasingly embraces violence.
00:37:47.220 I'm Roger Stone. Thanks for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
00:37:50.140 We're here five days a week talking about news, history, politics, style, and, yeah, food, because I like to eat as well as talk politics.
00:37:58.860 Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.
00:38:01.640 You can always tune into The Stone Zone.
00:38:03.880 We're here five days a week, and we bring you the inside skinny
00:38:07.260 on what's really happening at Disneyland on the Potomac.
00:38:10.940 That would be Washington, D.C.
00:38:12.600 Until tomorrow, God bless you once again, and Godspeed.
00:38:16.760 Thanks for listening to The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
00:38:20.460 You can hear The Stone Zone with Roger Stone weeknights at 8 on 77 WABC.
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00:38:44.500 See you next time for a new episode so you never have to wonder.
00:38:48.340 What the heck is going on here?
00:38:50.560 Roger Stone here.
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