The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - The Stone Zone ｜ 05-04-26

00:00:00.000 Socko and Feliz, New York and New Jersey's premier attorneys at law.

00:00:04.600 Their team brings decades of experience across a wide range of practice areas.

00:00:09.580 Whatever life brings, they're your legal team.

00:00:12.420 From everyday matters to complex cases, they've got you covered.

00:00:15.820 With the experience you need and the results you want.

00:00:18.900 Because when life gets complicated, they make it simple.

00:00:22.240 SockoFeliz.com.

00:00:23.720 S-A-C-C-O-F-I-L-L-A-S.com.

00:00:27.060 Two C's, two L's.

00:00:30.000 this is the stone zone with roger stone people love him and respect him roger stone now get

00:00:42.220 in the zone it's the stone zone here's roger stone you are now diving into the deep end of

00:00:51.200 the stone zone just minutes ago i posted on social media a video of the dancing that was

00:00:58.100 going on in my house when we learned that former FBI Director James Comey had been indicted by

00:01:05.500 Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. In this very specific case, he was charged with threatening the

00:01:12.100 life of the President of the United States. Now, previously, FBI Director Comey slipped the punch

00:01:17.480 in the Eastern District of Virginia. In really what was an open and shut case, Comey testified

00:01:23.000 under oath before Congress, lying 254 separate times, claiming that he had never taken sealed

00:01:31.420 information and given it to a third party and directed them to leak it to the media in order

00:01:37.400 to embarrass President Donald Trump. But prosecutors found an email in which he did exactly that. He

00:01:44.220 hooked up with his law school buddy, Dan Richmond, and he attached, sealed, and classified information

00:01:51.240 and directed that he leak it to the New York Times.

00:01:54.660 The only reason that case did not move forward is because three separate federal judges

00:01:59.780 violated both their oath of office and their canon of ethics

00:02:03.700 to attack the appointed acting U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan,

00:02:09.400 who brought the case against Comey.

00:02:12.380 So in order to dispose of this case, instead of ever looking at the actual evidence,

00:02:18.420 they claimed that Halligan had been improperly appointed to her position and of course that

00:02:25.540 matter went to appeal. Now she'll win that on appeal, I should say the Justice Department will

00:02:30.460 win that on appeal, but by the time they do so the statute of limitations to charge Comey for that

00:02:36.520 particular lie will have expired. So he escaped justice there but I'm not sure he will escape it

00:02:43.580 At this time, James Comey now stands in precisely the cold spotlight of the accused, the indicted, and hopefully the soon-to-be-convicted former FBI director.

00:02:53.260 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.

00:03:02.680 This latest case reportedly arises from the notorious Instagram photograph in which seashells were arranged to read 8647,

00:03:11.160 accompanied by a breezy caption about a beach walk

00:03:14.960 and a curious shell foundation, formation, pardon me.

00:03:19.940 Millions of Americans instantly understood the implication.

00:03:22.540 86 is a mob term.

00:03:24.840 Everybody who's watched any law and order understands

00:03:28.780 that it means to remove, to reject, to eliminate, to whack.

00:03:33.580 And 47, of course, refers to President Donald Trump,

00:03:36.860 the 47th president of the United States.

00:03:39.480 The meaning was plain enough to any citizen with common sense and a pulse.

00:03:44.440 Once again, public outrage erupted and the post vanished.

00:03:47.860 Then came the familiar Comey refrain, misunderstanding, innocence, surprise, lofty opposition to violence,

00:03:55.460 and wounded confusion that anyone would interpret the message as threatening.

00:03:59.980 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.

00:04:06.980 But James Comey is no naive retiree stumbling through the language of the modern age.

00:04:12.600 He's the former U.S. attorney, former deputy attorney general, former FBI director,

00:04:18.540 and one of the most media-conscious government officials of the last generation.

00:04:22.700 He's also outrageously self-righteous, outrageously pompous, and I find him outrageously sanctimonious.

00:04:32.240 He understands symbolism. He understands the coded language.

00:04:35.880 he understands how political rhetoric migrates through television screens, social media feeds, and the fever swamps of unstable minds.

00:04:45.620 That's exactly why this is indeed a serious matter.

00:04:49.200 America has endured repeated assassination attempts, political violence, and a coarsening culture

00:04:54.540 in which extremists increasingly mistake theatrical menace for civil engagement.

00:04:59.880 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.

00:05:11.060 He knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it with intent, and he knew better.

00:05:15.940 This indictment also is significant because it marks Comey's second trip to the criminal dock, as I said, in roughly six months.

00:05:22.500 his first indictment, which was brought in 2025, involved allegations of false statements to

00:05:27.700 Congress and obstruction tied to a Senate testimony concerning matters connected to the Clinton

00:05:33.440 email investigation error. That case collapsed amid procedural irregularities, questions regarding

00:05:40.820 prosecutorial authority, and what the court reportedly described as government misconduct

00:05:45.500 and investigative missteps. When in fact, Lindsey Halligan, who's not a criminal attorney,

00:05:50.680 took that case before a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia and got an indictment, 1.00

00:05:56.580 something that everybody said she could not possibly do. That was only necessary because

00:06:01.220 the acting U.S. attorney, Eric Siebert, who was strongly supported by Senators Tim Kaine and Mark

00:06:09.840 Warner, that's a tip off right there, had failed to disclose to the court that his father-in-law,

00:06:18.480 that is, his wife's father, was actually the godfather for Comey's daughter, and that his

00:06:24.760 father-in-law had served as a personal attorney for Comey. That's an egregious conflict of

00:06:30.240 interest. He should have recused himself from the very beginning, but instead, he was planning to

00:06:35.440 give James Comey a pass. In fact, a grand jury had been impaneled, and they were moving very swiftly

00:06:42.700 to exonerate Comey, something different than the way I was handled in Washington, D.C.

00:06:48.960 You know, whenever James Comey appears, confusion seems to follow like exhaust from a badly

00:06:53.300 tuned engine.

00:06:54.500 But for years, Comey postured as the nation's ethical headmaster while leaving a wake of

00:06:59.560 institutional wreckage behind him.

00:07:02.100 He inserted himself in the 2016 election by publicly castigating Hillary Clinton's conduct

00:07:06.960 while declining prosecution.

00:07:08.840 But let's stop and think for a moment.

00:07:10.560 It isn't really his decision as to whether Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted.

00:07:15.100 That would have only been up to the Attorney General of the United States.

00:07:19.680 Yet in his press conference, he presided over the opening phase of Crossfire Hurricane

00:07:26.140 after first declaring that he had gone through Hillary Clinton's emails,

00:07:31.920 which were discovered on a Friday before the election.

00:07:35.340 We're expected to believe that 336,000 emails were reviewed over the weekend

00:07:40.960 when over a year before he'd had Hillary Clinton's emails and had never taken action.

00:07:48.240 He was the one who essentially set up Crossfire Hurricane,

00:07:52.280 the now infamous Russian collusion saga that convulsed the entire country,

00:07:57.440 relied in part on poisoned opposition research,

00:08:00.300 what James Comey knew was paid for by Hillary Clinton.

00:08:03.100 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,

00:08:27.880 and the man who signed four of the eight hijackers' visas,

00:08:33.020 those hijackers who attacked America on 9-11.

00:08:35.860 This is, of course, the same John Brennan who got caught spying on a U.S. Senate committee

00:08:40.080 when it was examining his misconduct and the use of illegal torture.

00:08:46.540 But that's how it is with James Comey.

00:08:51.260 He leaked memorandum of private presidential conversations through intermediaries in violation of the law.

00:08:57.040 He monetized grievances through his books, his speeches, and his television appearances,

00:09:01.660 and he transformed the office of FBI director into a vanity platform.

00:09:06.580 Always the sermon, always the spotlight, always the self-regard.

00:09:11.180 Now the old magistrate finds himself judged.

00:09:14.140 The legal standard in this new case is substantial.

00:09:16.600 Prosecutors reportedly must show that Comey subjectively understood the message would be perceived as a threat.

00:09:23.020 Courts do not lightly criminalize speech, nor should they.

00:09:27.040 Political expression, even vulgar political expression, for which I am sometimes known, occupies a protected place in our republic.

00:09:35.200 But ambiguity deliberately employed by a sophisticated actor is not the same thing as innocence.

00:09:41.080 A man who spends a lifetime communicating through implication cannot suddenly claim illiteracy by implication.

00:09:48.180 That is the central irony in the entire Comey saga.

00:09:51.320 he built his career in the gray areas between what was said and what was meant, between what

00:09:56.620 could be proven and what could be insinuated, between law and theater. He weaponized suggestion

00:10:02.680 when it benefited him, and now asks the nation to believe suggestion is meaningless when it

00:10:07.580 implicates him. Sorry, no sale. Whether prosecutors prevail is one question for the course, but

00:10:13.800 whether a jury convicts is another matter entirely. But politically and morally, this

00:10:18.960 indictment carries force. It reminds the American people that titles do not confer sainthood,

00:10:25.240 media adulation does not erase misconduct, and bureaucratic pedigree does not place one

00:10:30.820 above scrutiny. James Comey once moved through Washington as if it carved from marble.

00:10:37.020 In truth, he was always fashioned with something much more brittle, vanity, ambition, and the

00:10:43.560 intoxicating belief that rules were for other people. Eventually, even brittle monuments

00:10:49.500 crack. If you're just tuning in, I'm Roger Stone, and you're listening to The Stone Zone here on

00:10:56.260 the Red Apple Audio Networks. I noticed that my good friend Laura Loomer is spiraling again,

00:11:05.520 unleashing a frenzied torrent of tweets blaming the likes of Candace Owens, Joe Kent, and Tucker

00:11:11.100 Carlson for recent acts of leftists and Islamic terrorism. While I don't support the anti-Trump

00:11:19.060 comments of these people by any means, the notion that deranged leftists are being radicalized

00:11:24.740 by those three is completely and utterly absurd. Laura Loomer is posting deranged propaganda,

00:11:31.280 not serious analysis. It is leftist radicals, Antifa thugs, pro-Hamas encampment militants,

00:11:38.380 and deranged Democrats radicalized by the fake news media who are drawing inspiration from their

00:11:44.240 own sides, fever swamps. They are on platforms like Reddit and Blue Sky and Echo Chamber or

00:11:50.480 Bio. They are the enemy combatants we must be focused on. Blaming conservative dissenters,

00:11:56.860 putting out provocative takes for clicks for leftist terror is a grotesque inversion that

00:12:02.360 lets the real culprits off the hook. I know Laura Loomer, I've written quite a bit about her. She is

00:12:07.540 no longer fighting legitimate enemies of the MAGA movement. She's now hunting personal foes while

00:12:12.740 handing the left a free pass. Her obsession with settling scores, family dirt, invented 1.00

00:12:18.580 conspiracies, endless feuds has eclipsed her once laudable truth-seeking pursuits. Laura Loomer's

00:12:25.320 well-documented history of mental instability, including the fact that she was involuntarily

00:12:30.860 institutionalized at least twice, according to the testimony of her own father, and her inability

00:12:39.500 to own guns, because he is such a danger to herself and others, makes her conduct particularly

00:12:45.100 alarming. So for the sake of the conservative movement in the country, it is time she checks

00:12:49.780 back into the loony bin once and for all, for the good of America, before she gets even more

00:12:54.860 gruesome plastic surgery and morphs from jigsaw into the elephant man before your very eyes. 0.98

00:13:01.480 This infighting on the right distracts from the engines of radicalization. Democrat leaders like

00:13:07.480 Hakeem Jeffries and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy being two of the absolutely worst.

00:13:13.960 Jeffries has branded President Trump a racist dictator whose agenda threatens democracy and 0.70

00:13:20.300 minorities. And Murphy has escalated, painting Trump as mentally unstable and invoking the 25th 0.90

00:13:27.360 Amendment while framing him as an existential threat. This is eliminationist rhetoric. When

00:13:33.080 congressional leaders cast the president as a threat to the republic's survival, unbalanced

00:13:38.300 followers hear a permission slip for violence. By any means necessary, stops being a metaphor and

00:13:44.440 becomes a mission. Such inflammatory garbage directly fuels incidents like the attack on

00:13:49.660 President Trump at this past weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner. The same toxic 0.99

00:13:55.200 atmosphere preceded Butler, Pennsylvania. Democrats' words have body counts. Yet the

00:14:01.620 Secret Service catastrophic failures compound that peril. The lapses at the Correspondents' Dinner

00:14:07.300 were unforgivable, another embarrassing breach that allowed violence to almost reach the president.

00:14:12.740 This wasn't a one-off. It was a chilling repeat of the near assassination in Butler,

00:14:17.160 where unsecured rooftops, ignored warnings, and operational breakdowns nearly ended President Donald Trump's life.

00:14:25.100 Under Director Sean M. Curran, the agency continues to fumble basic protective duties.

00:14:30.400 Curran, a 20th year veteran Trump tapped in January of 2025 after leading his personal detail, was supposed to restore competence.

00:14:38.760 Instead, these repeated failures by the Secret Service expose either shocking incompetence or deeper institutional rot

00:14:45.760 that even a loyal appointee does not seem to be able to fix.

00:14:49.640 I'm Roger Stone. We'll be right back.

00:14:52.240 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:14:55.900 He likes politics and he's a professional at the highest level.

00:15:00.640 Roger Stone. Where's Roger?

00:15:10.600 Roger Stone here.

00:15:11.920 Every day you wait, your money loses value,

00:15:13.760 but gold and silver don't follow those same rules.

00:15:16.420 American Sovereign Bullion gives you access

00:15:18.100 to a nationwide wholesaler network,

00:15:19.920 helping you secure aggressive pricing on real physical metals.

00:15:22.940 Call 844-272-2428 now to get your free gold and silver guide

00:15:28.640 to learn how to protect your wealth with physical gold and silver

00:15:31.340 delivered right to your door or with a gold IRA.

00:15:34.340 Visit ASBgold.com, that's ASBgold.com,

00:15:38.660 for your free gold and silver guide today.

00:15:41.040 Behind every F-35 jet is a Canadian company.

00:15:44.720 Horizontal tails built in Winnipeg, engine sensors from Ottawa,

00:15:47.620 and stealth composite panels crafted in Lunenburg to name just a few.

00:15:50.860 Thanks to thousands of skilled Canadian workers,

00:15:53.020 the F-35 aircraft is delivering unmatched capabilities

00:15:55.620 for 20 allied nations around the world

00:15:57.540 and will generate more than $15.5 billion in industrial value for Canada.

00:16:01.820 This ad is sponsored by the F-35 partner team,

00:16:04.120 Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and RTX.

00:16:06.840 Learn more at www.f35.com slash Canada.

00:16:11.040 this is the stone zone with roger stone roger stone who's a very very one of the smartest

00:16:26.680 political minds roger stone was persecuted people forget he's actually a brilliant brilliant

00:16:31.460 political analyst now get in the zone it's the stone zone here's roger stone and you're back

00:16:39.820 in the Stone Zone. As I said this weekend, assassination has been all too common in American

00:16:45.940 history, particularly in the modern age. Of course, President Harry Truman survived an

00:16:50.600 assassination attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists. President John F. Kennedy, of course, brutally

00:16:55.980 murdered in the streets of Dallas in 1963, I believe at the hands of a plot that was engineered

00:17:02.400 by Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson. I wrote a New York Times bestselling book on that. Of course,

00:17:07.720 there was an attempt on the life of President Gerald Ford by a follower of Charles Manson.

00:17:13.340 There actually was an attempt on Richard Nixon's life in Miami Beach, according to CIA agent

00:17:18.780 Gerald Hemings. And of course, we're well aware of the three attempts on the life of President

00:17:25.880 Donald Trump. I think Trump himself said it when he said it is those presidents like Lincoln,

00:17:30.940 for example, who were most impactful, who they've tried to kill. But the real question here is,

00:17:37.720 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?

00:17:47.180 Communications blackouts, inadequate perimeters, resort mismanagement, and a culture of complacency seems to persist.

00:17:55.480 Butler should have triggered a total overhaul of the Secret Service.

00:17:58.680 Instead, what we get is more of the same.

00:18:01.140 President Trump, in my opinion, should fire the current director immediately.

00:18:05.580 Loyalty to Trump doesn't excuse presiding over a no-fail mission that repeatedly failed.

00:18:10.780 The agency needs immediate sweeping reform with new leadership.

00:18:15.780 Depolitization and accountability actually mean something.

00:18:19.460 Half measures and excuses are no longer tolerable when lives in the republic are on the line.

00:18:26.260 Senator Majority Leader John Thune should also resign if you ask me.

00:18:31.160 His tepid approach learned from a lifetime of serving the establishment clearly undermines the aggressive mandate President Trump has delivered.

00:18:39.120 When deep state resistance, border chaos, and security breakdowns demand a street fighter, Thune wilts under pressure.

00:18:46.020 Republicans need some spine in their leadership, not just another gutless wonder.

00:18:51.020 We can no longer tolerate people like Laura Loomer's sideshows or Democrat incitement,

00:18:58.100 Secret Service malpractice, or weak GOP stewardship.

00:19:01.780 The time for leadership is now.

00:19:04.320 Right-thinking citizens must zero in on real threats.

00:19:07.580 President Trump survived Butler by providence.

00:19:10.300 He is there by the hand of God, by the grace of God, to lead a revival of this nation.

00:19:15.240 and I'm still convinced that America's greatest days, a golden age of peace, prosperity, security, justice, and law and order, lie just ahead.

00:19:25.100 I'm Roger Stone. You're listening to The Stone Zone, and we'll be right back.

00:19:39.680 This is The Stone Zone.

00:19:42.180 Now, get in the zone.

00:19:43.860 It's the Stone Zone.

00:19:46.100 A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him.

00:19:53.200 Not everybody, but people love him and respect him.

00:19:55.640 Roger Stone. Where's Roger Stone?

00:19:57.940 Here's Roger Stone.

00:20:01.280 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.

00:20:03.680 Well, in my opinion, peace through strength is the only way to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East.

00:20:08.820 This is not the neocon foreign adventurism of the Bushes and the Clintons and the Bidens and the Obamas.

00:20:17.200 This is the peace through strength doctrine of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

00:20:22.180 So let's dispense with the polite fiction.

00:20:24.600 The Middle East does not reward wishful thinking. It punishes it.

00:20:28.160 For too long, policymakers have addressed hard realities in soft language,

00:20:32.800 calling fragile ceasefires, breakthroughs, strained alliances, temporary disagreements, and unstable political systems transitions.

00:20:41.800 That approach has not delivered peace. It has actually prolonged instability.

00:20:46.720 A more direct assessment is overdue.

00:20:49.400 Progress in this region depends on confronting facts head-on.

00:20:53.180 Ceasefires are often temporary.

00:20:55.180 Adversaries are deeply mistrustful.

00:20:57.120 alliances require constant maintenance and governance models that work in theory often

00:21:02.460 fail in practice. Ignoring these truths doesn't make them disappear, it just makes them more

00:21:07.800 dangerous. Take the recent Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire. Describing it as a timeout is not

00:21:14.320 criticism, it's accuracy. Anyone who's followed the history of conflict between Hezbollah and

00:21:20.360 Israel understands that ceasefires here are rarely permanent solutions. They are pauses in a longer

00:21:26.240 struggles shaped by deep mistrust and reinforcement by decades of violations, rearmament, and proxy

00:21:33.060 escalation. So that mistrust is the central obstacle to peace. No party in this conflict

00:21:39.000 has a clean record, although the Iranian-backed militia groups, most notably Hezbollah, are by far

00:21:45.680 the worst offenders. The right for Israel to defend itself should be seen as absolute, but that should 0.90

00:21:51.640 not preclude us from understanding the conflict from all perspectives. Acknowledging reality is

00:21:57.240 not moral equivalence as we must understand the nuances of the conflict to be able to achieve our

00:22:02.600 goals. Durable peace cannot be built on denial. It must be built on enforcement, verification,

00:22:08.780 and a sober understanding of incentives. Hezbollah remains a designated terrorist organization

00:22:14.260 responsible for attacks that have killed Americans and destabilized the region. There's no ambiguity 0.79

00:22:19.960 there, but experience has shown that eliminating such groups outright, especially one embedded in

00:22:25.580 society and backed by a state like Iran, is not achievable through military force alone. Decades

00:22:31.780 of mowing the lawn have only caused more resentment as collateral damage causes blowback

00:22:37.080 and emboldens extremists in the region. Tactical victories, absent a broader strategy, are known

00:22:44.300 to regenerate the very threats they seek to destroy.

00:22:47.020 The goal, then, is not naive eradication.

00:22:51.180 It is degradation, reducing operational capacity

00:22:54.920 to a level where political structures

00:22:56.740 and state institutions can assert control.

00:22:59.720 In Lebanon, that means strengthening sovereignty

00:23:02.440 and enabling a system that reflects

00:23:04.960 its complex sectarian balance.

00:23:07.820 It also means pairing pressure with diplomacy,

00:23:10.980 weakening military capabilities

00:23:12.020 while creating conditions for governance and economic recovery.

00:23:16.760 Ending cycles of violence requires more than force.

00:23:19.900 It also requires a pathway out of perpetual conflict.

00:23:24.060 The same realism applies beyond the battlefield, you see.

00:23:27.840 Consider the ongoing impasse over Turkey and the F-35 program.

00:23:32.040 That dispute, triggered by Ankara's purchase of Russia's S-400 system,

00:23:36.920 has strained relations with NATO at a time when unity is essential for warding off elevated threats from China and Russia.

00:23:44.500 Turkey is not a peripheral player.

00:23:46.180 It's a central ally of the United States, hosting critical U.S. assets and contributing to collective security in the region.

00:23:53.780 Allowing a single dispute to fracture that relationship undermines the broader strategic goals.

00:23:59.720 Yet, resolution cannot come at the expense of American security.

00:24:03.360 Any path forward must ensure that sensitive technology, like the F-35 Lightning II, remains fully protected.

00:24:12.100 This is where disciplined diplomacy matters.

00:24:15.080 A solution is possible, one that removes the S-400 risk, restores Turkey's role in the F-35 ecosystem, and reinforces NATO's cohesion.

00:24:25.560 Such an outcome would only strengthen alliances, but also deny Russia the leverage it seeks.

00:24:30.860 It is not about concessions, it's about aligning interests in a way that enhances collective strength.

00:24:37.060 That's why I'm particularly proud of our ambassador, Tom Barrack, a man I've known since 1972,

00:24:42.060 doing an amazing job, a difficult job.

00:24:45.140 He's also the president's special envoy to Syria.

00:24:48.680 Perhaps the most controversial argument, however, concerns governance itself.

00:24:53.540 The idea that strong leadership, whether in monarchies or centralized republics,

00:24:57.960 has often delivered more stability in the Middle East than rapid democratization may go against common Western fairytale norms,

00:25:10.380 but it's empirically sound.

00:25:12.300 The aftermath of the Arab Spring offers a sobering case study.

00:25:16.120 In many cases, attempts to quickly impose Western-style democratic systems led to fragmentation, conflict, and renewed authoritarianism.

00:25:25.680 By contrast, several Gulf monarchies have achieved measurable progress, economic diversification, modernization, and improved living standards for their people.

00:25:36.440 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.

00:25:46.840 Stability must be seen as a prerequisite for both democratic values and human rights.

00:25:53.960 Institutions cannot flourish amid chaos.

00:25:56.920 Rights cannot be meaningfully exercised in the absence of security.

00:26:01.260 Supporting effective governance, whatever its form,

00:26:04.100 can create the condition under which broader freedoms eventually emerge.

00:26:08.820 Even in more complex systems, strong leadership has played a defining role.

00:26:13.240 Israel, often cited as the region's most robust democracy,

00:26:17.840 has depended on decisive leadership to navigate constant security threats.

00:26:21.860 Turkey also illustrates how centralized authority can deliver economic growth and regional influence.

00:26:29.000 The point is not to endorse any single model.

00:26:31.920 It is to reject the one-size-fits-all thinking.

00:26:35.420 The Middle East is not a laboratory for exporting political templates.

00:26:39.500 It's a region shaped by history, identity, and political pressures that demand tailored approaches.

00:26:45.680 In all of these cases, from ceasefires to alliances to governances,

00:26:49.920 the underlying principle is realism in service of stability.

00:26:54.920 That means applying pressure where necessary,

00:26:58.020 engaging partners where possible,

00:27:00.220 and refusing to be guided by illusions.

00:27:02.920 It means prioritizing outcomes over rhetoric

00:27:06.340 and recognizing that imperfect solutions are often the only ones available.

00:27:11.020 When U.S. foreign policy is dictated by idealism,

00:27:14.320 it's a disaster for the region and the taxpayers ultimately bear the cost.

00:27:18.740 The pursuit of peace is not about pretending conflicts are simpler than they are.

00:27:22.860 It's about managing complex situations with discipline and clarity at all times.

00:27:28.100 In my view, the Trump administration is doing precisely that.

00:27:32.040 Now I want to try something a little different.

00:27:33.900 I'm going to take your questions.

00:27:34.920 You can go to askstone at stonezone.com.

00:27:39.160 That's askstone at stonezone.com right now, and we will take your questions.

00:27:44.360 We have a few left over from the weekend, so I'm going to start there.

00:27:47.400 Michael in Miami, Florida says, let's see, Roger, you have helped shape victories for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump.

00:27:55.820 What is the one timeless strategic principle that still wins elections today?

00:27:59.960 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.

00:28:11.360 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.

00:28:34.480 So that old advertising adage, KISS, K-I-S-S, keep it simple, stupid, that stands in politics as well. 0.95

00:28:44.200 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

00:28:56.820 Today, thanks to the Internet, we have hundreds of choices, maybe thousands.

00:29:02.240 That's also true for print media.

00:29:04.220 Now, while Newsweek and Time and Life and Look have gone by the wayside, and we have national newspapers, well, they pose as newspapers, they're really newsletters for the Democrat National Committee.

00:29:16.520 I'm thinking of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, no longer credible sources of information.

00:29:21.740 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, having never met Hernandez, never spoken to him or his attorneys, but read an eloquent long, I think it was eight page letter that he had written to President Donald Trump.

00:29:49.220 in which he made it very clear that he had been framed.

00:29:52.040 You see, Hernandez, as the president of Honduras,

00:29:56.940 had signed the first extradition treaty in the history of the country.

00:30:01.020 And he extradited the two largest narco-traffickers, 0.83

00:30:04.740 the two largest murderers,

00:30:06.360 the two largest drug dealers in the history of the country.

00:30:09.040 They went to New York, they stood trial, and they were convicted.

00:30:13.280 That was under President Donald Trump.

00:30:15.340 And then when Joe Biden became president,

00:30:17.360 those same two criminals were released from jail, their sentences were essentially commuted,

00:30:24.380 and they gave false testimony against Hernandez, the very man who had extradited them.

00:30:30.000 Now, if you read that trial transcript very carefully, what you find is that Hernandez was

00:30:34.740 convicted solely on the testimony of two convicted criminals. In other words, where was the evidence

00:30:41.460 of financial transfers to Hernandez?

00:30:44.320 There were none.

00:30:45.340 Where was there evidence that he was involved

00:30:47.500 in the actual moving of drugs?

00:30:49.500 There were none.

00:30:50.800 But this CBS journalist insisted

00:30:53.700 that I must have gotten paid for my advocacy.

00:30:58.040 No, I've been through this myself.

00:31:00.220 They did to Juan Orlando Hernandez

00:31:03.520 precisely what they tried to do to President Donald Trump,

00:31:06.220 what they tried to do to me.

00:31:09.040 The facts speak for themselves.

00:31:11.120 There's a great multi-part series now over at artvoice.com that lays this all out, chapter and verse.

00:31:19.340 So I realize that if the Democrats retake the House, or someday when they return to power, all of this will be examined.

00:31:27.700 I don't fear discovery. There's nothing to discover.

00:31:31.620 All I did was read a letter and then ask my own personal attorney to go to PACER and print out all of the documents,

00:31:38.640 including the trial transcript, and I found one really strange thing. You see, President Juan

00:31:45.540 Orlando Hernandez's criminal defense lawyer literally disappeared in the middle of his trial.

00:31:52.800 He no longer responded to emails or text messages. When they went to his home in his office,

00:31:57.720 he wasn't there. He vanished into thin air. How coincidental. The judge in his case was allowed

00:32:04.480 to appoint a criminal defense attorney who then worked closely with the government prosecutors

00:32:09.680 to lock up the former president. A man in his 50s got a 30-year sentence, and then just to make it

00:32:15.800 worse, Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, pulled the visas of Hernandez's wife, his two

00:32:24.240 daughters, and his son. So the man has not seen his own family now in five years. He's living in

00:32:29.640 the Miami area because it is not safe for him to go back to Honduras. But this is an enduring story

00:32:34.940 of justice. President Donald Trump did what was right. Anyone can examine this trial. So for those

00:32:41.040 who say, well, why did you arrest Maduro, who was a NERCO trafficker, but you released Hernandez,

00:32:46.820 is because Hernandez was not a drug trafficker. The public record will prove that. I'm prepared

00:32:54.120 for any scrutiny that may come down the road. I prayed fervently about this before forwarding

00:32:59.620 Hernandez's letter to President Trump, and I believe up to this minute that I absolutely did

00:33:04.740 the right thing. Those who were online today attacking him yet again, claiming that he was

00:33:12.240 caught on tape lamenting the fact that the media was biased and that that somehow invalidates the

00:33:18.340 pardon, is an absurdity. The people who were actively involved in moving drugs were the

00:33:24.180 Anaya family, Tony and his family, who took power after Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez

00:33:31.360 was moved out of the way, which is what this is all about. So if anybody ought to be prosecuted

00:33:36.680 for drug trafficking, I would say it is the immediate past leadership of the Hondurans. 0.99

00:33:42.240 I'm Roger Stone. You're listening to Stone Zone right here on the Red Apple Audio Network. Don't 0.98

00:33:46.620 away because we'll be right back. This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone. He likes politics

00:33:54.740 and he's a professional at the highest level. Roger Stone. Where's Roger?

00:34:16.620 this is the stone zone with roger stone roger stone who's a very very one of the smartest

00:34:23.920 political minds roger stone was persecuted people forget he's actually a brilliant brilliant

00:34:28.680 political analyst now get in the zone it's the stone zone here's roger stone and we're back in

00:34:37.420 the stone zone and once again we're taking your questions by email you can send them to

00:34:41.660 AskStone at StoneZone.com. That's AskStone at StoneZone.com. Here's a question from Carlos

00:34:49.760 in Tampa, Florida, who says, looking at the 2026 midterms, what's the single biggest mistake

00:34:55.240 Republicans can make between now and election day? First of all, I think in the big, beautiful bill,

00:35:01.000 the president has created the backdrop for what could be a very successful election. It does take

00:35:06.540 some time for the biggest tax cut in American history to kick in. Also, the tax against

00:35:13.260 retirement has been repealed. The tax for tips has been repealed. And 88% of those on Social

00:35:21.180 Security will pay no tax on their Social Security payments. These are profound changes. I continue

00:35:27.860 to be outraged by Jerome Tulate Powell, who has kept interest rates artificially high.

00:35:37.100 If you base the interest rates on the unemployment rate and the inflation rate,

00:35:45.700 he should already have cut rates. But it's interesting that in this recent vote in which

00:35:50.720 the Fed essentially voted to just keep it steady at the same rate, there were four dissenters. That

00:35:57.020 hasn't happened in many decades. Now adding insult to injury, Jerome Powell has decided

00:36:05.020 that he's going to remain as a Fed governor after his term as chairman is over. The arrogance of

00:36:11.300 this non-economist lawyer is profound. He's the one who's acting politically. To go back to your

00:36:17.740 question, the single biggest mistake Republicans can make is not delivering accountability and

00:36:22.600 justice when it comes to the Russian collusion hoax and the stolen election of 2020. President

00:36:28.780 Trump promised his voters that he would do that. And now Attorney General, Acting Attorney General

00:36:34.040 Todd Blanche seems to be moving in the right direction with the new indictment of James Comey

00:36:38.940 for threatening the life of the president. But there needs to be more follow through.

00:36:44.620 Those two twin issues, I think, will ignite the non-Republican Trump base. People want to know

00:36:51.740 whether our elections are on the up and up.

00:36:54.200 They want to know about the 300,000 paper ballots

00:36:57.060 that just suddenly appeared at 3 o'clock in the morning

00:37:00.120 in three swing states.

00:37:01.740 They want to know whether the electronic voting machines

00:37:04.400 are secure or whether they can and have been manipulated.

00:37:08.140 These are not complicated issues.

00:37:10.760 So I do think Republicans have to deliver on both of them

00:37:14.100 or there will not be an energized base for the president.

00:37:18.860 Beyond that, I think we should recognize

00:37:20.620 As Republicans enjoy an enormous financial advantage going into this election,

00:37:27.280 they will have somewhere around $6 billion to spend on the midterms.

00:37:31.000 The Democrats are still deeply in debt from their last fiasco, the Kamala Harris campaign.

00:37:36.620 Now, in some ways, that just offsets the fact that ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC,

00:37:45.140 and of course, the worst of them all, CNN,

00:37:47.220 And I often say, I don't get my news from CNN for the same reason I don't drink out of the toilet.

00:37:52.980 They provide news coverage for the left.

00:37:56.500 Republicans have to pay with paid advertising to counter that false messaging.

00:38:02.320 And that is how that will work.

00:38:05.220 But we have better candidates.

00:38:07.400 We have better issues.

00:38:08.460 You see, the Democrats have no agenda other than their hatred for Donald Trump.

00:38:13.060 They have no plan to create jobs.

00:38:15.100 they have no plan to create to control inflation. They have no plans to make housing more affordable

00:38:21.920 and more available. Donald Trump has plans for all of those things. Plus, he has kept his pledge

00:38:27.460 to seal our border, which is ultimately going to result in a drop in crime. We're beginning to see

00:38:34.440 that already. So we have a platform. They have no platform other than their hatred for Donald Trump

00:38:40.140 and their increasing embrace of radical violence.

00:38:43.420 It is hard for me to believe that the once great Democrat Party of Harry Truman,

00:38:48.020 who is the founder of Israel, and the late, great John F. Kennedy,

00:38:52.480 refuses to denounce anti-Semitism, refuses to denounce bigotry,

00:38:57.880 and increasingly embraces violence.

00:39:00.820 I'm Roger Stone. Thanks for joining us today in the Stone Zone.

00:39:03.740 We're here five days a week talking about news, history, politics, style, and, yeah, food,

00:39:09.780 because I like to eat as well as talk politics.

00:39:12.460 Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.

00:39:15.260 You can always tune into The Stone Zone.

00:39:17.500 We're here five days a week,

00:39:19.160 and we bring you the inside skinny

00:39:20.860 on what's really happening at Disneyland on the Potomac.

00:39:24.560 That would be Washington, D.C.

00:39:26.200 Until tomorrow, God bless you once again, and Godspeed.

00:39:39.780 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:40:02.000 He likes politics and he's a professional at the highest level.

00:40:06.960 Roger Stone.

00:40:07.860 The Marine Toys for Tots foster care program is bringing hope to children who need it most.

00:40:13.020 Every two minutes, a child enters foster care, often with only a small bag of belongings.

00:40:17.560 More than 400,000 children face trauma and uncertainty, many before age eight.

00:40:22.040 This May, during Foster Care Awareness Month, Toys for Tots is creating room for joy.

00:40:27.280 In 2025, nearly 375,000 children receive comfort through toys, books, and essentials, reminding them they are not alone.

00:40:35.540 Donate now and change your child's life.

The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - May 05, 2026

The Stone Zone ｜ 05-04-26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript