The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - The Stone Zone ｜ 06-02-26

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00:01:13.160 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:01:16.900 People love him and respect him. Roger Stone.

00:01:19.560 Now, get in the zone. It's the Stone Zone. Here's Roger Stone.

00:01:24.880 You are now diving headfirst into the deep end of the Stone Zone.

00:01:31.620 Well, in a shocking announcement, President Donald Trump has announced that Bill Pulte,

00:01:37.060 who is currently the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency,

00:01:42.260 as well as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two housing authorities under the federal government,

00:01:48.740 will now serve as the acting director of national intelligence

00:01:52.740 after Tulsi Gabbard leaves that post on June 30th.

00:01:57.800 Gabbard announced very recently that her husband, Abraham,

00:02:01.780 was diagnosed with a very rare form of bone cancer,

00:02:05.580 which caused her to resign.

00:02:07.840 She had to choose between her family and political power.

00:02:12.060 I think she chose correctly.

00:02:14.140 President Trump praised Bill Pulte on True Social, saying he has experience managing sensitive matters involving market stability and more than $10 trillion of assets at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

00:02:29.260 Pulte will remain in his housing role while temporarily leading the intelligence community.

00:02:35.140 The Director of National Intelligence oversees 18 intelligence organizations, including the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, and the FBI Intelligence Branch, and serves as the President's top intelligence advisor.

00:02:50.820 Now, some in the deep state, for example, Senator Tom Cotton, he would like to take all of the declassification authority away from the director of national intelligence and shift it back to the CIA, which means we'll never learn what really has happened.

00:03:07.560 Now, Bill Pote may not come from a traditional intelligence, military, or diplomatic background, but he has shown in his current position that he has no problem standing up to the entrenched Washington, D.C. corruption.

00:03:22.740 He's been a major critic of the Federal Reserve and has called for Jerome Powell to be investigated over his multi-billion dollar building renovation scheme that built the taxpayers.

00:03:35.100 More importantly, in his role investigating mortgage fraud, Bill Pulte referred Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, to the Department of Justice for prosecution for the crime of mortgage fraud.

00:03:51.460 By the way, Letitia James has prosecuted people for the exact same crime that she was charged with.

00:03:58.140 So, Pulte has demonstrated that he has the guts and the courage and the fortitude and the total loyalty to President Donald Trump to be an excellent choice for this job.

00:04:11.880 The president, of course, has long argued that Washington's intelligence bureaucracy needs disruption, accountability, and leaders who are loyal to the elected president, not the permanent administrative state.

00:04:23.660 Pulte, 38, is the grandson of Pulte Group founder William J. Pulte, one of the largest housing building companies in the country.

00:04:35.440 He was confirmed as the FHFA director back in March of 2025.

00:04:41.180 Since then, he's made the agency far more visible and accountable, including leadership changes at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

00:04:48.960 His appointment signals Trump's continued willingness to put reformers in charge of powerful institutions in a government long dominated by insiders.

00:04:59.040 That is the course correction that I think is needed.

00:05:01.940 Bill Pulte will excel in his role as the acting director of national intelligence. 0.80

00:05:08.060 Meanwhile, the White House Correspondents Association says it postponed its dinner, which will now be held July 24th in Washington, D.C., after the original event was disrupted by an assassination attempt against President Donald Trump and key members of his cabinet by a deranged, psychotic leftist.

00:05:29.580 The news organization says the rescheduled dinner will include significantly enhanced security and new access procedures.

00:05:39.520 President Trump has confirmed that he will be in attendance.

00:05:42.260 The earlier event ended abruptly, as you recall, after 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen attempted to push past Secret Service in an attack on the president.

00:05:53.780 An officer was shot, but thankfully a catastrophic event was thwarted because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

00:06:01.460 The White House Correspondents Association thanked the Secret Service, law enforcement, and hotel staff for responding quickly.

00:06:09.100 There are still major questions about how this wannabe assassination was able to breach the perimeter and get so close to the attendees.

00:06:18.940 The White House Correspondents' President, Weijia Jing,

00:06:23.540 said that the dinner has long been a celebration of the free press

00:06:26.740 and the role of journalism in American democracy.

00:06:30.320 She said the group would not allow violence to have the last word,

00:06:33.960 especially during America's 250th anniversary year.

00:06:37.500 The self-congratulatory message from the White House Correspondents' Association,

00:06:42.700 Hack, is nauseating.

00:06:43.860 The same media class that spent years demonizing and smearing Trump, making excuses for left-wing violence, and framing his supporters as threats to democracy, now wants to present itself as the brave guardian of freedom.

00:06:59.620 The White House Correspondents Association actually got an award for reporting on the 6 a.m. arrest by 29 FBI agents of my wife and I back on January 19th of 2019, for example.

00:07:18.820 Now, they would have you believe that their presence at my home was based on tough investigative reporting.

00:07:25.840 But that's not true because, well, I was arrested at 6.06 in the morning.

00:07:30.840 At 6.11, somebody from CNN emailed, or I should say text message, a copy of my sealed criminal indictment.

00:07:40.220 That would not be unsealed until almost 11.30 that morning.

00:07:45.760 So how did CNN get a copy of it?

00:07:47.940 Well, that's pretty simple. If you examine the copy that was sent to my lawyer, it has no time stamps or official markings that would indicate that it came from the official docket. But if you look at the metadata tags, it does have the initials of the man who wrote this framed job. That would be the most corrupt federal prosecutor in history, Andrew Weissman.

00:08:12.600 It is outrageous now that the White House Correspondents Association wants to reposition itself as a brave guardian of freedom.

00:08:22.560 These people have made a mockery of press freedom for at least a decade now.

00:08:27.180 The White House press corps has become an activist lobby pushing for stochastic terrorism through their coordinated attacks against the president and his supporters like me.

00:08:37.000 If journalists want to honor the First Amendment of free speech, they should start by practicing honest reporting, asking fair questions, and admitting how badly they have damaged the public trust.

00:08:48.780 Hopefully, this will be the last White House Correspondents Association event held in the event, and in the future, they will be held in a more secure atmosphere in President Trump's White House ballroom.

00:09:02.540 Meanwhile, the Treasury Department has published data showing how President Trump's working families tax cuts have delivered major relief to low- and middle-income Americans this filing season.

00:09:13.260 Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, who in my view is one of the President's very best appointees, noted that the numbers prove President Trump's tax agenda rewards work, respects paychecks, and restores fairness to the tax code.

00:09:27.220 Through the April filing deadline, families and workers claimed $82 billion in individual tax relief.

00:09:34.980 The Treasury Department says that 97% of filers received a tax cut compared with what they have owed if Trump had not enacted the 2017 tax cuts and they had been allowed to expire.

00:09:48.540 The relief was heavily concentrated among working families, not the wealthy, contrary to what the fake news media will tell you.

00:09:56.080 96% of filers received a tax cut earned over $200,000, and nearly 70% earned under $100,000.

00:10:06.100 Several signature Trump administration policies drove the relief.

00:10:10.920 More than 7.5 filers claimed no tax on tips, with an average deduction above $7,000.

00:10:18.560 More than 29 million claimed no tax on overtime, averaging about $3,100 per person.

00:10:25.220 More than 35 million seniors claimed the enhanced senior deduction, averaging over $7,500 per person.

00:10:33.640 Families also benefited from the enhanced child tax credit, claimed by nearly 40 million Americans and their families,

00:10:41.800 and the permanently double standard deduction used by more than 127 million filers.

00:10:47.880 This is what pro-worker tax policy looks like and why it was so important to pass the big, beautiful bill to begin with.

00:10:56.900 Instead of punishing success and expanding Washington, President Trump's plan lets Americans keep more of what they earn.

00:11:04.380 This is part and parcel of defending economic freedom.

00:11:07.860 The Trump administration is delivering on providing lower taxes, stronger families, more savings, and a renewal of the American dream.

00:11:16.280 Meanwhile, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says that the Justice Department has discovered a room filled with important documents tied to former Special Counsel Jack Smith's extra-constitutional and illegal investigation into President Donald Trump.

00:11:33.100 Speaking on a podcast, Blanche said the room was not technically secret, but DOG personnel were unaware of it.

00:11:41.220 He said the materials were found in burn bags, which are normally used to destroy sensitive documents.

00:11:47.620 Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the location of the bags raised many questions.

00:11:52.740 To me, this raises a larger question.

00:11:55.400 Why were these documents not burned?

00:11:57.700 Now, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche floated a theory that an honorable agent may have placed them somewhere unusual to preserve the records rather than letting them be destroyed.

00:12:07.920 The discovery follows comments from FBI Director Kash Patel and former Deputy Director Dan Bongino about sensitive Trump-Russia probe documents that were also found in a secret room in burn bags at the FBI.

00:12:23.320 Bongino described roughly 100-page documents connected to Crossfire Hurricane, that was the secret operation to take down Donald Trump without probable cause, as the mother load, saying it changed his understanding of the entire Russian collusion hoax.

00:12:41.480 Crossfire Hurricane, of course, was the FBI investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion that was based on a pack of lies and designed to facilitate a coup against a duly elected president, Donald Trump

00:12:56.140 It was these charges that hampered his presidency for the entire first term

00:13:00.500 Last year, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents showing that the Obama administration advanced claims about Russian interference that officials knew were completely and totally bogus.

00:13:15.820 I'm Roger Stone. You're listening to Stone Zone and we'll be right back.

00:13:19.320 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:13:23.200 He likes politics and he's a professional at the highest level.

00:13:27.840 Roger Stone.

00:13:28.940 Who is Roger?

00:13:30.500 Roger Stone here.

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00:14:28.560 this is the stone zone now get in the zone it's the stone zone a man who's gone through hell

00:14:41.140 but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him not everybody but

00:14:47.500 people love him and respect him roger stone where's roger stone here's roger stone

00:14:53.040 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.

00:14:57.200 Well, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, once known as Lion Ted, for his anti-Trump hostility in 2016,

00:15:04.860 is attempting to reinvent himself as the arbiter of MAGA in recent years.

00:15:10.180 But Trump advisor and good friend of mine, Alex Bruskovitz, is having none of it.

00:15:14.940 Speaking at the Jerusalem Post annual conference, Bruskovitz warned that pro-Israel conservatives

00:15:21.140 about the subversive and inherently untrustworthy nature of Lyon Ted Cruz.

00:15:27.980 Bruce Kovitz said that Israel remains one of America's closest 0.86

00:15:31.000 and most capable democratic allies, small d,

00:15:34.740 but he warned that support for Israel has declined among Americans,

00:15:38.360 especially younger Republicans,

00:15:40.160 meaning advocates must make the case in a way that resonates better

00:15:43.880 with the American public.

00:15:45.160 He listed Cruz as an example of how not to defend Israel to the masses.

00:15:51.000 Bruscovitz criticized Senator Ted Cruz for immediately accusing President Trump of appeasing Iran

00:15:56.960 after reports of a possible U.S.-Iranian deal surfaced before the details of the proposed settlement were even known.

00:16:06.260 Bruscovitz correctly noted that such attacks undermine the President's diplomatic strategy

00:16:11.560 and weaken the broader pro-Israel cause.

00:16:15.520 Buscovitz pointed to Ted Cruz's past comments suggesting the phrase Christ is king was being used in an anti-Semitic way,

00:16:24.360 saying those remarks offended millions of Christians.

00:16:27.240 Ted Cruz also led his personal feud with Tucker Carlson based off a contentious interview between the two men early this year

00:16:35.820 bleed over into attacks by proxy on Vice President J.D. Vance.

00:16:41.800 President Trump has proven he can stand with Israel while still refusing bad deals.

00:16:47.680 As the president has said many times, no deal is better than a bad deal.

00:16:52.340 And he hasn't succumbed to the neocon foreign policy of groupthink.

00:16:57.240 Ted Cruz has shown why he has no faith in President Trump and hopes to use President Trump as a way to reroute the Republican Party from the America First agenda back into the Party of Wall Street.

00:17:09.960 the party of the billionaires, the party of the country club, the party of failed neocon orthodoxy

00:17:16.400 that birthed a senator like Ted Cruz. You know why people take an almost immediate dislike to Ted

00:17:23.680 Cruz when they first meet him? Well, they're only saving time. Unfortunately for lying Ted,

00:17:29.420 he's too odious of a figure to be able to manipulate anybody, much less someone as savvy 0.89

00:17:34.980 and rock steady as President Donald Trump. Now, we all know what this is really about. Ted Cruz

00:17:41.180 hankers for another shot at the presidency. He is consistently talked about as a potential 2028

00:17:48.980 candidate. Believe me, he could not stand up to the likes of Vice President J.D. Vance. Harkens

00:17:56.520 back to my favorite line, as I said from the beginning. Ted Cruz, of course, was George W.

00:18:03.080 Bush's brain, hired by the Bush family when George W. was running for president. So all those Bush

00:18:09.240 policies that you don't like, the neocon efforts to look for trouble around the world, the war

00:18:19.000 against Iraq, which is based entirely on a lie, the claim that Iraq was involved somehow in the

00:18:27.040 9-11 attacks on America, that's false.

00:18:29.480 Also, the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, had access to yellow cake uranium,

00:18:39.540 all lies to draw America to an unnecessary war in which tens of thousands of Americans died

00:18:47.340 and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died.

00:18:51.740 That is the legacy of Ted Cruz.

00:18:54.100 That is the legacy of the neocons. I really don't think Ted Cruz is a viable presidential

00:19:02.060 candidate, but evidently he thinks so. Watching him run down the hall to try to get a picture

00:19:09.980 taken with Nicki Minaj, that was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So I salute my

00:19:16.840 friend Alex Bruskovitz for calling out lying Ted once again. All he's trying to do is undermine

00:19:23.740 the President of the United States. I want to thank you for joining us today in the Stone

00:19:28.600 Zone. Coming up, my good friend Mark Vargas, the editor and publisher of the Illinois Review,

00:19:34.780 with an inside story about the fact that Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is about to lose

00:19:40.900 the Chicago Bears who are about to move to Indiana. We'll be right back with that story.

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00:20:23.740 This is the Stone Zone.

00:20:43.460 Now, get him a zone.

00:20:45.380 It's the Stone Zone.

00:20:46.920 A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going, and he's smart, and he's strong,

00:20:53.080 and people love him, not everybody, but people love him and respect him, Roger Stone. Where's

00:20:58.220 Roger Stone? Here's Roger Stone. Welcome back to the Stone Zone. Joining me now is the editor and

00:21:06.340 publisher of the Illinois Review, Mark Vargas. Mark is not only a skilled political operative

00:21:14.700 with a long history of public service, but he's also a shrewd analyst of the political situation.

00:21:22.060 Before we get into some of the Chicago news, I want to ask Mark, Mark, what is your reaction to the surprise announcement by President Donald Trump that rather than appoint some intelligence agency veteran, probably from the CIA, the president has decided to appoint the head of the Federal Housing and Finance Administration, Bill Pote, as the acting director of national intelligence.

00:21:48.700 That is a job that by law he can hold for seven months before going for Senate confirmation, which, of course, would then come after the election.

00:22:00.040 Mark, what's your immediate reaction?

00:22:02.260 We're going to be with you, Roger, and it's a fantastic choice to be acting director.

00:22:06.700 I mean, you know, the president, Washington, has been filled with these career diplomats and embedded deep state bureaucrats and all these institutional veterans.

00:22:15.540 And naming Pulte as acting director follows a logic that President Trump has followed since the very beginning of his second term, that these broken and corrupt institutions are often best reformed by trusted outsiders, people with a business background where you're judged on results and not by insiders who help break these institutions.

00:22:38.620 And so it makes a lot of sense for Pulte is going to follow the line of Tulsi Gabbard, who was there to flip everything upside down, expose the corruption and the weaponization, hold people accountable, pull security clearances and right the ship.

00:22:54.900 Because Americans no longer trust our intelligence institutions until President Trump came along and put Tulsi Gabbard in that position, and now Pulte will follow those steps, and as a result, Americans will trust our intelligence institutions again.

00:23:13.380 I mean, think about this, Roger, that people talk about Bolte doesn't have the experience.

00:23:17.800 Well, what happened in previous administrations, going back to George W. Bush, when he put in the career diplomats, the expert intelligence analysts, what did they do?

00:23:25.500 They protected a corrupt and broken system in order to fix it and put it back on the right trajectory.

00:23:31.820 And for Americans to trust it again, you've got to put people in like Bill Bolte, who are not part of the system.

00:23:36.900 They're outsiders. And it's going to be fantastic. And I'm excited to see what he's going to do in

00:23:41.640 the first in the seven months that he's going to be in this position. Yeah, it is. It is a truly

00:23:46.680 great appointment, as we both know, and we've covered here on the Stone Zone. Some elements

00:23:51.840 of the intelligence community really tried to hamper Tulsi Gabbard in her mission. She was 0.86

00:23:57.080 specifically directed by the president to get to the bottom of the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.

00:24:02.560 She did so by declassifying all the documents proved that was a seditious conspiracy led by Barack Obama and others to undo the election of a duly elected president utilizing evidence that was completely and totally fabricated.

00:24:19.120 Tulsi Gabbard also declassified all the documents pertaining to the phony impeachment.

00:24:25.640 You remember the cute little Vindman brothers in their matching uniforms?

00:24:29.540 Well, they both lied.

00:24:30.840 They both lied under oath. And of course, there was the CIA whistleblower who was really being coached by then Senate Congressman, now Senator Adam Schiff.

00:24:43.220 He swore he had never talked to the whistleblower. The whistleblower was on his staff.

00:24:47.720 This whole thing was a fraud. And Tulsi Gabbard had the courage to expose it all.

00:24:53.260 It is interesting to me this incredible report by Katherine Herridge, a very respected journalist, that indicates that as soon as President Trump directed Tulsi Gabbard to get to the bottom of whether these electronic voting machines are secure or whether they can be manipulated or have been manipulated, perhaps even in the 2020 election, that the Central Intelligence Agency began surveilling Tulsi Gabbard.

00:25:20.400 Let's get that straight for a moment. One agency of the government spying on another agency of the government. What is it they're afraid of? That Tulsi Gabbard may expose the fact that our own central intelligence agency has been using the same technology to rig foreign elections for decades and may even have been involved in the rigging of our 2020 presidential election.

00:25:45.160 So, Mark, I could not agree with you more. I think this is a truly, truly great appointment by the president. It shows Donald Trump's ability to think outside the box.

00:25:58.140 Bill Pulte ran a $10 billion federal agency.

00:26:04.120 Before that, he ran a multimillion-dollar family business.

00:26:07.940 He's tough, he's smart, and he's the only person who has shown the courage to try to

00:26:14.640 hold those who broke the law and violated the Constitution in their efforts to get Donald

00:26:19.020 Trump and prevent him returning from the White House accountable, was Bill Pulte in his official

00:26:24.180 role in investigating mortgage fraud, which is part of his job as the head of the Federal

00:26:29.340 Housing and Finance Administration, who uncovered the mortgage fraud by New York Attorney General

00:26:36.120 Letitia James. 0.71

00:26:37.660 She slipped out of that case because the courts in the Eastern District of Virginia falsely 0.86

00:26:43.460 claimed that the prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan, had been improperly appointed.

00:26:47.640 that's wrong it will be overturned on appeal

00:26:51.300 but it is a demonstration that Bill Pulte

00:26:54.520 has the courage to go after the entrenched

00:26:57.540 interests in this country who violated the law

00:27:00.560 and the Constitution in an effort to take Donald Trump down

00:27:03.540 when we come back we're going to talk to Mark Vargas

00:27:06.700 about the Chicago Bears and the worst governor

00:27:09.620 in the state of Illinois

00:27:11.660 the worst governor in America J.B. Pritzker

00:27:14.440 don't go away

00:27:17.640 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:27:40.820 Roger Stone, who's a very, very, one of the smartest political minds.

00:27:44.640 Roger Stone was persecuted.

00:27:45.660 People forget he's actually a brilliant, brilliant political analyst.

00:27:48.820 Now, get him a zone.

00:27:50.600 It's the Stone Zone.

00:27:52.560 Here's Roger Stone.

00:27:54.580 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.

00:27:56.740 We're talking to Mark Vargas, the editor and publisher of the Illinois Review.

00:28:01.560 And we do want to bring you up to date on some of the most shocking news from Chicago.

00:28:06.060 But before we do that, I want to finish our conversation regarding the appointment by

00:28:10.760 President Donald Trump of Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing and Finance Administration,

00:28:16.240 to be the new Director of National Intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard, who resigns as of

00:28:22.980 June 30th. Mark, you had some additional thoughts. Yeah, the one point that I think is going to be

00:28:27.340 great for your listeners, Roger, is when I used to work at the Secretary of, Office of the Secretary

00:28:31.400 of Defense, and I had a security clearance, and so I know the security clearance process. But

00:28:36.480 What's interesting is what Gabbard has done in yanking 37 security clearances from Obama and Biden officials is significant.

00:28:45.940 I can't underscore the significance of that because when they leave government, they still make millions and millions of dollars in consulting and advisory roles because they can still hold those clearances.

00:28:56.260 They're invaluable because these are top secret, the highest security clearances in the federal government, top secret TSSCI.

00:29:04.200 And so there's been no accountability.

00:29:05.940 And so by yanking their security clearances, it sends a message that, oh, this is our income potential post-government service.

00:29:14.300 And so I can only imagine the type of the clearances that Pulte will review and perhaps yank when he takes over this position.

00:29:23.080 But again, you know, what this boils down to is not an expertise problem.

00:29:27.320 It's a trust and credibility problem.

00:29:29.140 And as a trusted outsider and close to the president, Pulte is going to do an incredible job in the necessary work that Gabbard began.

00:29:37.740 People don't realize this, but a number of those 37 from whom she pulled the security clearances are among those who signed that letter by 51 current and former intelligence agency officials claiming that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation, which, of course, we all know it wasn't.

00:29:57.220 So, I agree with your analysis, and I appreciate you bringing up that point.

00:30:01.560 Now, let's turn to the Windy City and the worst governor in America, although that could be a contest with Gavin Newsom or Kathy Hochul, I'm not sure.

00:30:11.260 But J.B. Pritsky, the man who would be president, he's on the verge of losing the Chicago Bears, which is an institution.

00:30:20.240 Mark, what's going on here?

00:30:21.280 It really is unbelievable.

00:30:23.120 And, you know, after months of negotiations and legislative maneuvering, last-minute political drama, I mean, we are on the cusp.

00:30:30.880 Pritzker's on the cusp of the most humiliating defeat in modern political history, and that is because of his failed leadership.

00:30:38.040 It looks like the storied franchise, the Chicago Bears, are going to be moving across the lake to Indiana, to Hammond, Indiana, and to build a new stadium.

00:30:50.420 The legislature couldn't, the dysfunctional Democrats led by Prisker,

00:30:54.920 they couldn't put a deal together before the end of the legislative session.

00:30:58.620 And this is a guy who wants to be president of the United States.

00:31:00.960 He wants to run for president.

00:31:02.240 He's made that very clear.

00:31:03.740 He's taken trips to Iowa to give speeches in New Hampshire.

00:31:07.040 And so this is going to be a pretty bad look.

00:31:09.180 I'm the best leader to run our country, even though I lost the Chicago Bears.

00:31:14.900 I mean, the United States could lose Team USA if this guy's elected president.

00:31:19.880 horrific leadership uh and the chicago democrats are in complete chaos they don't want to support

00:31:25.640 the bill to move the bears to the suburbs to an arlington heights location because that would mean

00:31:29.660 going on record and pushing the bears out of the city and into the suburbs but they also don't want

00:31:34.900 to create tax breaks and subsidies for a multi-billion dollar sports franchise while the

00:31:42.100 illinois democrats just passed a new budget that's going to raise taxes on illinois residents

00:31:48.180 by another $800 million beginning on July 1.

00:31:52.720 So this is a humiliating defeat for Pritzker.

00:31:55.860 They're running out of time.

00:31:57.520 Brandon Johnson is scrambling.

00:31:58.940 You've got Pritzker and Johnson feuding on live television, blaming each other.

00:32:05.000 But at the end of the day, the buck stops with the governor, the chief executive of the state.

00:32:09.020 My sources tell me that in the governor's office, Pritzker is dumbfounded.

00:32:12.940 His jaw is still on the floor.

00:32:14.600 He never anticipated that the Bears would consider leaving Illinois altogether.

00:32:19.660 But that seems to be the reality that he faces.

00:32:22.940 People are upset.

00:32:24.460 They're calling for Pritzker to be impeached and removed from office.

00:32:28.160 This is optically, this is a political nightmare for Pritzker.

00:32:32.340 Well, Mark, I've seen J.B. Pritzker.

00:32:35.220 He needs to run, not for president.

00:32:37.660 He just needs to run.

00:32:38.740 As you pointed out previously, J.B. Pritzker, the governor, and Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, a man who, if his IQ was one point lower, you'd have to water him like a plant.

00:32:52.320 But I will say this, his approval rating is about 7% last time I looked.

00:32:59.000 Both of them have prohibited the Chicago Police Department from backing up ICE agents in the exercise of their duties to arrest dangerous illegal immigrants and deport them.

00:33:14.580 I think that they may both yet be legally liable for this if any of those ICE agents turn out to be injured.

00:33:23.020 Is that not right?

00:33:23.900 No, that's right.

00:33:24.520 There's an order came down prohibiting local law enforcement from assisting federal ICE agents even when their lives are in danger.

00:33:32.880 And they're surrounded by violent, dangerous, and vicious mobs, people wanting to run them over.

00:33:37.240 We've seen an 8,000% increase in trying to run over federal ICE agents.

00:33:41.940 It's all because of J.B. Pritzker and Brandon Johnson, their rhetoric, that MAGA and President Trump and the MAGA movement is the rise of Nazism in America.

00:33:51.540 They've got their followers riled up and wanting to injure and take the lives of federalized agents.

00:33:58.620 Meanwhile, they want to protect violent and vicious and dangerous criminal illegal aliens that were welcomed with open arms and embraced in Chicago under Pritzker and Johnson.

00:34:07.740 Our police officers were 4,000 short.

00:34:10.660 We've had over 200,000 high-priority 911 calls consistently year after year going unanswered because of that shortage.

00:34:17.800 Violent and dangerous criminals are roaming around because of the no-cash bail.

00:34:22.060 And violent and dangerous criminal teenagers and these teen takeovers, they're freeing out on the streets

00:34:27.080 because the message that Pritzker and Johnson send to these teenagers that steal cars at gunpoint,

00:34:32.000 that riot and loot and stomp and jump on top of cars and terrorize tourists and residents,

00:34:38.840 The message to them is if you keep doing this, we're going to send you to a community counseling program where after an hour, they'll be out playing ping pong and plotting their next team takeover.

00:34:49.740 And so a total failure of leadership.

00:34:51.520 It's why 1,200 businesses have left, over 500,000 people have left under J.B. Pritzker.

00:34:56.940 And now it looks like the Chicago Bears are going to join them and leave the state altogether as well.

00:35:00.440 The other thing that amazes me is J.B. Pritzker continues to argue, despite the actual facts, that crime is down in Chicago, that crime is down across the board in Illinois, but none of that's true, is it?

00:35:12.820 It's a total lie.

00:35:13.800 This past Memorial Day, just a couple of weeks ago, Chicago was the most violent city in America.

00:35:18.700 There were more shootings in the city of Chicago over Memorial Day weekend than in Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Detroit combined.

00:35:27.580 And yet Governor Pritzker likes to say that President Trump is manufacturing a crisis.

00:35:31.820 The numbers and the data speak for itself.

00:35:34.580 Chicago is a war zone.

00:35:35.920 Again, it's why all these businesses and people are leaving.

00:35:38.520 And it's another reason why the Chicago Bears are leaving.

00:35:40.620 This place is a war zone under Pritzker and Johnson's failed leadership.

00:35:44.660 You know, I do remember that J.B. Pritzker, who tries desperately to be a regular guy,

00:35:50.900 You uncovered the fact that he and his company were getting millions and millions of dollars of public subsidies, despite the fact that he was governor.

00:36:00.220 Tell us about that.

00:36:01.320 Yeah, Pritzker translated means waste, fraud and abuse.

00:36:05.180 Three numbers to keep in mind, $20 billion, $180 million and $2.5 billion.

00:36:11.320 $20 billion in state government contracts, all taxpayer funded, went to one company in Pritzker's so-called blind trust.

00:36:19.260 His blind trust clearly has 20-20 vision.

00:36:22.560 Secondly, $180 million.

00:36:23.980 $180 million of Illinois taxpayer money has gone to renovate just one of J.B. Pritzker's hotels that his family owns in downtown Chicago and $2.5 billion.

00:36:34.900 That's the number, the dollar amount of Illinois taxpayer money that was stolen from taxpayers to make sure that criminal illegal aliens have free health care.

00:36:44.200 It's remarkable. 0.94

00:36:45.220 Pritzker has called auditing Illinois' books under his leadership, he's called that a threat to democracy.

00:36:53.100 He does not want the books opened.

00:36:55.800 I think President Trump would find all sorts of things, his administration and Vice President J.D. Vance,

00:37:02.560 of just a very simple and basic audit of state finances under Pritzker, one-party rule for decades,

00:37:09.020 what we've discovered in California and what we've discovered in Minneapolis.

00:37:12.300 I think that's just the icing on it, Kate, wait until you go into Illinois under J.B. Pritzker.

00:37:17.140 It's going to be shocking.

00:37:19.040 Yeah, none of this would ever have happened under Governor Rob Blagojevich, a Democrat mayor who never, ever raised taxes and did an incredible job for the people of Illinois.

00:37:31.200 My favorite Pritzker story, however, is how he lives in a very, very fancy, beautiful mansion, but he bought the mansion next door because he didn't want to have neighbors.

00:37:43.160 And then in order to avoid paying the correct amount of property taxes, he ripped the toilets out of that mansion, which remained empty, so he could avoid a larger tax bill.

00:37:55.300 Doesn't sound like every man to me.

00:37:56.900 No, it is remarkable. Eight bathrooms and they pulled out eight toilets so that so that the home could legally be uninhabitable of this legal term.

00:38:06.440 And as a result, he this billionaire worth four billion dollars.

00:38:10.600 This was all to skip out on three hundred thousand dollars in property taxes.

00:38:14.280 It really is. It's an insider, a window into who this guy really is, how he operates and how he thinks.

00:38:20.360 Well, and he really he owns the Democrat Party of Illinois because he funds every bit of it.

00:38:26.500 In other words, it doesn't matter whether you're running for the state Senate or what you're running for.

00:38:30.660 He's footing the bill.

00:38:32.260 So he has this lockstep support of the Illinois Democrat machine.

00:38:37.540 I'm sorry, but the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, not Richie Daley, but the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, a great man.

00:38:44.360 He would be rolling in his grave today if he saw what was being done by J.B. Pritzker and Brandon Johnson.

00:38:50.480 Pritzker controls the Democratic Party.

00:38:53.160 He controls the Chicago media.

00:38:55.760 And it's why Illinois, and Roger, you might know this, but Pritzker is pushing to have Chicago as essentially the permanent host city of the DNC convention.

00:39:05.560 It was 2024. They've now had all of the DNC officials back out in Chicago over the last couple of weeks to plot out whether Chicago will host in 28 and 2032.

00:39:15.720 I'm not sure we've ever had a city that's hosted the Democratic convention in the same place three conventions in a row, 12 years in a row.

00:39:22.780 But that's what Pritzker is pushing, and they're listening to him because the guy just writes checks.

00:39:26.880 That's all he does.

00:39:28.120 Well, and he's clearly looking for some hometown advantage for his would-be presidential candidacy.

00:39:34.360 I would point out that historically, conventions that took place in Chicago have not worked out too well for the Democratic National Committee.

00:39:42.440 I'm thinking, of course, of 1968.

00:39:45.900 That this guy is considered a front-runner for president is pretty laughable because if you look at the polls,

00:39:51.400 He has no support, no support among some of the core constituencies in the Democrat Party, no particular support among African-Americans, no support among Hispanic-Americans, no support among working-class, blue-collar Democrat-Americans.

00:40:08.140 It boggles the mind until you realize that his chief competitor is probably Gavin Newsom, a governor who's even doing worse.

00:40:16.380 it is it's the battle it's the battle of the worst governors and of 12 potential democratic

00:40:22.880 candidates that were polled he polled dead last pritzker one percent support from blacks and 0.96

00:40:28.960 hispanics nationally uh it's horrific uh he would be dead last but i know a spot where they could

00:40:35.280 have a where he could have a presidential campaign launch at soldier field home of the chicago bears 0.78

00:40:39.720 why because it's going to be empty here soon because they'll be playing in indiana they won't

00:40:43.880 need their stadium in downtown Chicago anymore. That would be a perfect spot for Pritzker to host

00:40:48.580 his presidential campaign launch in that arena, because no one's going to be there.

00:40:55.520 All right. I want to thank our guest, Mark Vargas, the editor and publisher

00:40:58.760 of the Illinois. Mark, where can people go to the Illinois Review in order to follow it and

00:41:04.400 follow you? Thank you. IllinoisReview.com, Facebook at Illinois Review Breaking News,

00:41:10.340 And you can also follow me on X and Truth Social at Mark A. Vargas.

00:41:15.520 Thank you very much for joining us, Mark.

00:41:17.640 God bless you.

00:41:18.600 And thank you for joining us today on The Stone Zone.

00:41:20.940 Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.

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The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - June 03, 2026

The Stone Zone ｜ 06-02-26

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