The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - The Stone Zone ｜ 06-26-25

00:00:00.000 The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:00:06.280 Welcome. You are entering the Stone Zone and I am your genial host, Roger Stone.

00:00:13.500 Well, New York Democrats have nominated Zoran Kwame Mamdani as their foreign-born communist nominee for the Democratic nomination for mayor.

00:00:27.900 He has deep ties to terrorist organizations.

00:00:31.240 I am not even mildly surprised by his victory.

00:00:36.280 I think a lot of this has to do with the shaming, the shifting graph in New York City.

00:00:43.800 I think we are sadly at a point where a Catholic Democrat can probably no longer win a Democrat contest.

00:00:52.800 And Andrew Cuomo, despite his history as a brawler in American politics, was carrying very, very substantial negatives into the Democrat primary.

00:01:04.960 I do kind of worry about or wonder about Zoran Kwame Mamdani's name.

00:01:14.060 If his middle name is Kwame, my middle name is Mabutu.

00:01:17.140 I'm going to call myself Roger Mabutu Stone.

00:01:19.940 That sounds to me like a blatant attempt to attract African-American votes. 0.65

00:01:25.820 But perhaps I'm just a cynic.

00:01:30.040 The point here is that he is supposed to be the most radical economic attempted in any American metropolis.

00:01:40.480 He is a 33-year-old Uganda-born assemblyman, has in the past supported terror groups, refuses to condemn calls for violence,

00:01:51.300 and has promised to open government-run grocery stores in New York City to sell food below market prices paid for with New Yorkers' tax dollars.

00:02:03.960 That is commonly known as communism.

00:02:06.600 President Trump responded to the Democrats' insane nomination of this radical, progressive leftist on truth social.

00:02:17.360 It's finally happened, the president said.

00:02:19.800 The Democrats have crossed the line. 0.59

00:02:21.760 Zoran Mamdani, a 100 percent communist lunatic, just won the Democratic primary and is probably on his way to becoming mayor of America's greatest city. 0.99

00:02:35.500 We've had radical leftists before, but this, the president said, is getting a little ridiculous. 0.98

00:02:41.240 I find him terrible, his voice grading. 0.99

00:02:45.060 He's not very smart. 0.98

00:02:46.280 He's got AOC plus three dummies all backing him. 0.99

00:02:50.920 And even our great Palestinian senator, crying Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him. 0.66

00:02:57.200 Yes, this is a big moment in the history of our country.

00:03:01.360 Taking away the hyperbole, I do think the president's right about the realignment that's taking place in American politics.

00:03:07.840 It is no longer about Republicans and Democrats.

00:03:11.540 It is about people with common sense, people who embrace capitalism, people who embrace free enterprise, people who embrace peace, people who embrace law and order, people who embrace free speech, and those who do not.

00:03:29.380 In a second post, Trump wrote, I have an idea for the Democrats to bring them back into play.

00:03:35.700 After years of being left out in the cold, including suffering one of the greatest losses in history in the 2024 presidential election,

00:03:45.120 the Democrats should nominate low IQ candidate Jasmine Crockett for president and AOC should respectively be vice president.

00:03:54.040 And then the three high-level members of her cabinet could be the so-called squad. 0.92

00:04:02.440 Those are the anti-Semitic members of the U.S. House, all of whom are Democrats.

00:04:08.600 The Democrat Party has certainly come a long way from the days of President Harry Truman,

00:04:13.740 who was the American president who fostered the creation of the state of Israel.

00:04:18.800 Well, added along with our future communist mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdami, our country is in big trouble. 0.61

00:04:28.080 Well, perhaps not.

00:04:29.440 I take a slightly different view.

00:04:31.440 Assuming that he wins, in the next half of the show, we're going to talk to Hank Shankoff,

00:04:39.460 the premier Democrat political strategist in America today, to handicap the general election force and to analyze the primary results.

00:04:49.420 But if he is elected this November, he will have three years to govern before the next presidential election.

00:04:57.960 The American people will get a chance to see what his soft on crime, defund the police, redistribute the wealth policies do to the city of New York.

00:05:09.860 This morning I said on X, if I lived in New York, the first thing I would do is move.

00:05:15.340 And I got a record number of likes.

00:05:17.800 Hurts me to say that because I love New York City.

00:05:20.700 I think it is still the greatest city in the world.

00:05:24.120 But I fear what is about to happen to it.

00:05:27.120 Now, Mamdami is proposing what economists call a war on prices, a plan that I think would devastate New York's economy through government takeovers of housing, retail and labor markets.

00:05:40.640 His platform includes, as I say, city-owned grocery stores, rent freezes, fare-free buses and a $30 minimum wage by 2030.

00:05:52.800 All of this funded by a $10 billion tax hike on businesses and the wealthy.

00:06:00.300 The wealthy is everybody, by the way.

00:06:03.280 He's also calling for universal child care for children under six and full government control of the housing sector.

00:06:10.880 Mamdami's housing proposal calls for freezing rents for over 2 million tenants in rent-stabilized apartments for four years,

00:06:18.720 while simultaneously raising the corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent and imposing a new 2 percent millionaire tax.

00:06:30.400 Does the prospective mayor not realize that there will be a flood of people leaving New York under these policies?

00:06:39.700 The rent freeze would make it difficult for landlords to maintain their properties and would discourage investment in additional or new housing since no one wants to invest in an asset with frozen revenues.

00:06:52.300 Rent control prices like these violate the basic principles of market efficiency and have failed every place they have ever been implemented,

00:07:01.040 leading to housing shortages, reduced new construction and deterioration of existing units due to limited maintenance incentives.

00:07:11.140 Perhaps Mamdami's most dangerous economic proposal is his plan to create a network of city-owned grocery stores

00:07:19.100 that would buy and sell at wholesale prices and operate with the goal of keeping prices low and not making a profit.

00:07:29.480 Wow.

00:07:29.740 In practice, this means selling food below market rates subsidized by the working people's tax dollars.

00:07:37.520 The result would be higher taxes on all working Americans who choose to stay while conservatives flee and freeloaders move in.

00:07:45.520 Private grocery stores, unable to compete with subsidized pricing, would be forced to close, further increasing dependence on government-run shops

00:07:56.840 and driving up the city's deficit spending as well.

00:08:01.300 John Katsimatidis has said publicly that if this guy is elected mayor, he's going to close his grocery stores in New York City.

00:08:08.860 So this is not just hyperbole.

00:08:10.960 History shows that every communist country attempting similar policies eventually limits access to government stores to only those who qualify,

00:08:21.880 usually the poor, while the rest of the population pays for services that they're not allowed to use.

00:08:28.780 So to prevent black market reselling or hoarding, the government would also have to restrict how much food each person can buy,

00:08:36.340 depending on how far the prospective mayor pushes this insanity, we could even see tip lines to report neighbors who are reselling goods

00:08:45.980 or maybe even turning in people who gained weight since they're clearly consuming more than their fair share.

00:08:53.060 As I say, John Katsimatidis, who, of course, is the media mogul behind Red Apple Audio Networks,

00:09:03.580 also CEO of the grocery store chain Gristides, one of the largest in the city, said,

00:09:09.200 if the city is going to socialist, I will definitely close or sell or move to franchise all of my Gristides locations.

00:09:19.420 Katsimatidis is, like Donald Trump, a man who says what he means and means what he says.

00:09:25.700 Conservative commentator John Part Horowitz called Mamdani the globalized infata candidate.

00:09:33.080 Mamdani's own Facebook profile features a video of him standing with members of Within Our Lifetime,

00:09:40.140 a radical group that supports terrorism, holding signs saying there is only one solution,

00:09:45.440 an intifada revolution.

00:09:49.440 Many Republicans are calling for the Republican candidate for mayor, my friend Curtis Lewa,

00:09:53.840 to make his deal and throw his support to Eric Adams, the former, pardon me,

00:09:59.400 the current mayor of New York City, who is running as an independent.

00:10:03.540 I'm not sure about the efficacy or success of such a profile or such a maneuver.

00:10:11.180 We'll talk about that when we interview Hank Sheinkoff in the upcoming segment of the show.

00:10:18.340 Meanwhile, President Donald Trump had to correct the fake news regarding the bunker buster bombs

00:10:24.860 that were used last Sunday in the surgical attack on the three nuclear weapons development sites in Iran.

00:10:37.460 A CNN report by the notorious congenital liar Natasha Bertrand and others claimed that the attack by the U.S. military

00:10:49.560 on Iranian nuclear sites was not successful and that the capability of the Iranians to produce a nuclear bomb was not destroyed.

00:11:01.140 Now, this is the same Natasha Bertrand of CNN who told us about the Russian collusion hoax

00:11:07.740 and insisted that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

00:11:11.180 Special Counsel John Durham concluded that was false in his report.

00:11:14.580 This is the same Natasha Bertrand who said that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation.

00:11:22.960 This is the same Natasha Bertrand who told me in an email, which I still have,

00:11:27.240 that Congressman Eric Swalwell shared my classified testimony with her,

00:11:34.260 which both violates the United States law and also violates the House rules.

00:11:41.340 Why this person still has a job, I don't know.

00:11:44.580 But I do know that Tulsi Gabbard yesterday, the director of national intelligence,

00:11:50.420 certified what the president had said, that our own sources, as well as the Israeli sources of intelligence,

00:11:58.460 tell us that the message was successful and carried out with precision,

00:12:03.860 did in fact destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities.

00:12:08.500 It was a total obliteration, to quote President Donald Trump.

00:12:14.200 This incredible exercise of American strength has paved the way for peace, in my opinion.

00:12:18.860 This is not a regime change war.

00:12:21.080 This is not a never ending war.

00:12:23.760 This is not about endless foreign war where our inherent national interests are not clear.

00:12:31.060 This was a tough decision by the president.

00:12:34.200 There's no question about it.

00:12:35.800 But the fake news, CNN, along with the once great New York Times,

00:12:40.700 have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in American history.

00:12:47.680 The nuclear sites in Iran have been completely destroyed.

00:12:51.600 Both the Times and CNN are beginning to be slammed by the public.

00:12:55.700 We just caught the New York Times working with CNN, cheating again, the president said.

00:13:01.100 They try to demean the great work of our B-2 pilots did, and they are wrong in doing so. 0.97

00:13:07.220 These reporters are bad and sick people, the president says. 0.94

00:13:11.200 I certainly agree with that. 0.99

00:13:13.280 You're tuned in to The Stone Zone.

00:13:15.060 I'm Roger Stone.

00:13:16.240 We have a lot more about the politics of the day.

00:13:19.180 Please, whatever you do, don't touch that dial.

00:13:21.060 The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.

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00:15:08.600 The Stone Zone.

00:15:10.240 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:15:13.780 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.

00:15:16.060 You know, it was right here in the Stone Zone only days ago

00:15:19.640 that I identified an ex-Biden White House official, Neera Tanden,

00:15:25.940 as the woman who was controlling the auto pen, 0.81

00:15:29.820 which seems to actually have been the president of the United States

00:15:33.700 during Joe Biden's presidency.

00:15:36.540 Tanden admitted under oath to the House Oversight Committee

00:15:39.920 during a closed-door testimony this week

00:15:43.420 that she controlled Joe Biden's auto pen.

00:15:46.500 House Oversight Chairman James Comer

00:15:49.200 recently identified five Biden aides

00:15:52.360 who were involved in the cover-up of Joe's mental decline

00:15:55.860 and the auto pen scandal.

00:15:58.840 The Director of Domestic Policy, Neera Tanden,

00:16:01.740 was brought before the committee last Tuesday,

00:16:04.520 and she admitted that she was authorized

00:16:07.020 to use Joe Biden's auto pen

00:16:09.000 between October 2021 and May 2023.

00:16:13.380 Tanden testified that she was also authorized

00:16:16.720 to direct the auto pen.

00:16:18.920 However, she denied manipulation or abuse.

00:16:23.120 As Staff Secretary, I was responsible

00:16:25.000 for handling the flow of documents to and from the president.

00:16:29.040 I was also authorized to direct those auto pen signatures

00:16:32.220 be affixed to certain categories of documents.

00:16:36.160 We had a system for authorizing the use of the auto pen

00:16:39.000 that I inherited from a prior administration.

00:16:42.620 We employed that system throughout my tenure as Staff Secretary.

00:16:47.220 However, Tanden claimed that she stopped overseeing the auto pen

00:16:50.800 after May of 2023,

00:16:53.000 when she became the head of the Domestic Policy Council.

00:16:57.920 The Oversight Committee previously pointed out

00:17:02.000 that Neera Tanden was the White House Staff Secretary

00:17:04.980 when Joe Biden auto pen pardons from a golf course

00:17:09.040 in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

00:17:12.080 Tanden was frequently mentioned in the leaked Podesta emails

00:17:15.820 released by WikiLeaks.

00:17:18.360 No, there is no evidence that I had advanced knowledge

00:17:21.980 or any involvement in the obtaining or leaking of those emails,

00:17:28.420 even though CNN and the New York Times

00:17:30.780 insisted for two and a half years that that was the case.

00:17:35.200 The U.S. government could never produce any evidence

00:17:37.980 that showed that because, well, simply was not true.

00:17:42.700 Tanden was one of the most vocal Russia conspiracy theorists

00:17:47.760 pushing the Russian collusion hack idea

00:17:51.540 and the idea that the Steele dossier was real.

00:17:56.560 She not only attacked Republicans

00:17:58.020 while she was working for Hillary Clinton,

00:17:59.760 but she also went for the throats of Senator Bernie Sanders 1.00

00:18:04.180 and his supporters.

00:18:06.940 Early this year, the Oversight Committee revealed

00:18:10.340 six criminals were pardoned by Joe Biden's auto pen

00:18:14.180 on December 30th, 2022,

00:18:16.980 while Joe Biden physically was vacationing and golfing in St. Croix.

00:18:21.300 So, based on Neera Tanden's testimony,

00:18:26.320 she was likely behind the auto pen pardons

00:18:29.500 while Joe was golfing and on vacations.

00:18:33.520 Nobody can be in two places at once.

00:18:36.780 Coming up, the number one most preeminent Democrat strategist

00:18:41.140 in the country today, Hank Shankoff joins us

00:18:44.260 to break down yesterday's mayoral primary

00:18:47.400 and what lies ahead for New York City.

00:18:49.860 Whatever you do, stay right here in the Stone Zone.

00:18:53.600 The Stone Zone

00:18:54.860 On the Red Apple Podcast Network

00:18:58.200 The Stone Zone

00:19:01.600 On the Red Apple Podcast Network

00:19:04.120 And we're back in the Stone Zone.

00:19:09.280 Joining me now is the preeminent Democrat strategist

00:19:14.360 in the country today.

00:19:15.700 Dr. Hank Shankoff has worked on an estimated

00:19:19.220 700 political campaigns on four continents

00:19:22.700 and in 14 foreign nations,

00:19:25.380 as well as in 44 American states

00:19:28.240 over the last 35 years.

00:19:30.300 His clients have included President Bill Clinton,

00:19:33.200 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,

00:19:35.760 Leonel Fernandez, the former president

00:19:37.620 of the Dominican Republic and the former president

00:19:40.420 of Mexico, Vincente Fox.

00:19:43.360 Hank Shankoff's opinions are widely sought by the media,

00:19:47.660 the New York Times, the Daily News,

00:19:49.580 the New York Post, the Washington Post,

00:19:51.260 the Los Angeles Times, and many, many others,

00:19:54.360 which is why we are extraordinarily fortunate

00:19:57.580 to have a few minutes of his time today.

00:20:00.900 There is nobody who knows more about New York politics

00:20:05.600 as well as national politics,

00:20:09.140 a man for whom I have enormous respect

00:20:11.400 despite the fact that we're in different parties,

00:20:14.620 Dr. Hank Shankoff, my friend Hank,

00:20:17.600 thank you so much for joining us.

00:20:20.060 Roger, it's a pleasure to be with you.

00:20:21.380 I'm grateful.

00:20:23.140 So you are a shrewd analyst of American politics.

00:20:27.640 You have an amazing ability to see the future

00:20:31.480 based on data and trends.

00:20:34.600 Was there anything about the Democrat primary

00:20:38.300 for mayor in New York City

00:20:39.800 that produced Nama Z Zoran Mandani that surprised you?

00:20:47.080 Well, it was surprising.

00:20:48.980 I mean, surprising in the amount of organizing ability

00:20:52.060 that Zoran Mandani and the Working Families Party

00:20:54.660 and the left wing brought to the event.

00:20:56.780 New York is now a case example

00:20:58.840 of what happens when the left organizes

00:21:00.740 as it's known how to do very well.

00:21:03.080 And they did a great job.

00:21:04.480 They turned out a vote.

00:21:05.780 They turned out voters who don't necessarily vote,

00:21:08.480 which is kind of interesting. 1.00

00:21:10.340 And the other campaigns were very stupid, very simple. 1.00

00:21:15.380 Do you think that his victory reflects 1.00

00:21:19.540 changing demographics of both New York City

00:21:22.960 and of the Democrat Party in New York City?

00:21:25.620 I think it has a national impact, Roger,

00:21:29.460 because New York is a petri dish, you know,

00:21:31.600 for what goes on nationally.

00:21:33.120 What it tells you is that the New York that we knew

00:21:35.760 no longer exists.

00:21:37.020 The blue-collar New York of Jews and Italians and Irish 0.99

00:21:40.000 has now been replaced by an entirely different grouping.

00:21:43.820 The class struggle will be between those who voted

00:21:46.120 for Mondani, likely, and everybody else.

00:21:48.060 His electorate was better educated, richer, more professional.

00:21:54.180 The colonel electorate was poorer, blacker, less educated. 1.00

00:21:58.040 And the educated people chose to vote for Mondani.

00:22:01.080 Now, what does that really mean?

00:22:02.580 It means that the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party

00:22:06.360 now owns New York, at least in that Democratic primary.

00:22:10.120 And those folks are highly motivated to turn out again,

00:22:12.960 which they will.

00:22:13.500 They are much more progressive, much more liberal,

00:22:17.320 much less likely to be religiously engaged.

00:22:20.120 The very things that made American culture what it is

00:22:22.540 are things that don't matter to them.

00:22:24.380 There are people who have never borne a burden

00:22:26.300 or paid a price,

00:22:28.160 you know, and have no idea about history

00:22:30.560 that got us to this point.

00:22:31.940 But they do know that they don't want to

00:22:33.940 pay a burden, pay a price rather,

00:22:36.340 bear a burden, and will never serve this nation

00:22:38.280 in any capacity.

00:22:39.060 It makes sense.

00:22:39.600 You know, it's kind of interesting.

00:22:42.560 They're the new class of the Democrat Party.

00:22:45.760 And they will be in constant conflict

00:22:47.640 with the Republicans for some time

00:22:49.480 who have become much more blue collar,

00:22:52.140 much less engaged in,

00:22:53.660 more engaged in the things that this group has rejected,

00:22:56.960 which is religion, community,

00:22:58.900 and traditional American kinds of values.

00:23:01.480 We also see something important here as well, Roger,

00:23:04.280 that people tend to forget.

00:23:05.480 This was a European derivative country 0.99

00:23:07.440 where European institutions mattered.

00:23:11.320 The Magna Carta, you know, people don't say,

00:23:13.400 well, I think about the Magna Carta,

00:23:14.740 but European institutions that created democracy

00:23:17.200 were part of American culture.

00:23:19.520 We now have a society that is more than 50%

00:23:22.900 non-European derivative.

00:23:24.640 And that tells you where we're going to be going.

00:23:27.280 We've got to create some democracy someplace

00:23:29.400 and put it into people's brains

00:23:31.360 or we're going to lose this country.

00:23:32.840 I, for one, do not see how the policies

00:23:37.860 of defunding the police,

00:23:41.540 essentially nationalizing

00:23:43.920 or taking control of grocery stores

00:23:47.640 and having the taxpayers pay for food for everyone,

00:23:53.540 how the failure to denounce anti-Semitism and terrorism,

00:23:59.940 I just don't see how this can work in New York City,

00:24:04.100 a city that already has very substantial problems.

00:24:08.200 Many of the Republicans that I know nationally

00:24:10.740 who believe that in the end,

00:24:14.740 Imam Dhani will be elected

00:24:16.620 because of the lopsided voter registration

00:24:20.200 in New York City,

00:24:22.300 think this is a good thing

00:24:23.720 because his policies will,

00:24:27.380 by the next presidential election,

00:24:29.560 turn New York into chaos

00:24:31.240 and be an example for the American people

00:24:34.440 of what happens under these policies.

00:24:37.640 You're thinking?

00:24:38.660 No.

00:24:39.100 I couldn't agree with you more.

00:24:40.120 I think that this will be the case example,

00:24:41.940 should he be elected,

00:24:43.720 of how it doesn't work

00:24:45.780 and it will be a place of chaos

00:24:48.380 where police will be more significant

00:24:54.120 but less significant.

00:24:54.900 What do I mean by that?

00:24:55.880 They'll be more needed

00:24:56.620 but they won't be wanted, okay?

00:24:58.800 Because the people that elected Bandami

00:25:00.880 don't think they need police

00:25:02.480 and they also believe

00:25:04.080 that others really don't need them.

00:25:05.420 What they need is something else

00:25:06.640 but the something else isn't working.

00:25:09.500 You know, even under David Dinkins

00:25:11.320 who didn't get enough credit for reducing crime,

00:25:15.220 crime went up under Mayor Koch

00:25:16.940 and went down on David Dinkins.

00:25:18.700 He knew that we needed more cops

00:25:19.960 and he went and got them.

00:25:20.860 So we're going to live in a society

00:25:22.080 in New York likely

00:25:22.800 where police are less important

00:25:24.600 where the belief is that somehow

00:25:26.940 if we reduce enforcement of societal norms

00:25:30.060 that everything will work out fine

00:25:31.520 which is not exactly how things work.

00:25:35.320 And New York will change.

00:25:36.620 It's not going to be the melting pot

00:25:38.720 that it was.

00:25:40.760 It's going to be something different.

00:25:42.740 What that difference is

00:25:43.920 is not clear yet.

00:25:45.920 But it won't be the New York that we knew.

00:25:48.960 Cultural institutions will suffer.

00:25:51.220 Educational institutions will suffer.

00:25:53.420 And the people that paid the tab,

00:25:55.180 they're not staying.

00:25:56.620 I mean, the Jews will start to migrate out. 0.99

00:25:58.840 Which when that happens in any society,

00:26:00.740 Hannah Arendt was right.

00:26:02.320 It's the beginning of totalitarianism.

00:26:04.700 Just simple fact of life.

00:26:06.600 You can't have chaos

00:26:07.800 and presume that a society will function well.

00:26:10.040 And that's what this portents.

00:26:13.240 Simple.

00:26:14.440 So I'm not hopeful about the future here.

00:26:17.280 Yeah, look, I think we both respect

00:26:19.940 the extraordinary political talents

00:26:23.700 of Andrew Cuomo.

00:26:25.320 The polling always showed him leading in this race.

00:26:30.540 But, of course, he did not win.

00:26:32.840 He was carrying very, very significant negatives

00:26:36.280 pertaining to the circumstances of his resignation

00:26:40.440 and the attempt to impeach him before he resigned.

00:26:44.680 I candidly never thought

00:26:47.820 that he could win this contest.

00:26:51.160 Now, of course, he did file

00:26:53.660 and preserve the ability to run

00:26:56.500 as an independent in the general election.

00:27:00.520 Do you think he will do that?

00:27:02.580 And, the corollary,

00:27:04.400 do you think he could possibly be successful?

00:27:07.560 He will not run, is my hunch,

00:27:09.480 because he's a New York patriot.

00:27:11.140 And if he were to run, he would lose.

00:27:12.780 Why?

00:27:13.000 He was the issue in the race.

00:27:15.140 He also ran a bad campaign.

00:27:17.060 Why?

00:27:17.880 Because the advertising arguments were bad.

00:27:21.520 And Mandami's advertising arguments,

00:27:23.620 they weren't great, but they were great ads.

00:27:26.240 They fit the tenor of the moment.

00:27:28.140 They were slick.

00:27:29.880 They looked like texts, T-E-X-T-S.

00:27:33.300 The mail was a combination of Instagram, TikTok,

00:27:37.380 and the over-bloated graphics,

00:27:39.220 which are very much a part of some of the movie comic books

00:27:43.920 that are kind of appearing.

00:27:46.640 You know, and hip-hop culture,

00:27:48.920 the overblown graphics, the overblown everything.

00:27:51.360 He understood that.

00:27:52.680 Andrew Cuomo didn't.

00:27:54.140 The ad makers were just lousy.

00:27:55.640 And that goes back to the polling question you raised.

00:27:59.040 You know, we're living with pollsters who,

00:28:01.700 I cautioned some people, I said,

00:28:03.760 stop looking at people who voted in four of the last four elections,

00:28:07.260 or three of the last four elections.

00:28:08.780 You start looking at people who voted in one of the last four elections,

00:28:12.040 or two of the last four elections,

00:28:13.580 because those are the people that Mandami is going to turn up.

00:28:16.600 And that's exactly what he did.

00:28:18.240 That, combined with the understanding of social media

00:28:21.080 and better advertising,

00:28:23.400 kind of sunk Andrew Cuomo.

00:28:25.560 Plus, his history.

00:28:28.760 The sexual harassment arguments had tremendous impact here.

00:28:32.560 And there's something you can't forget,

00:28:34.060 because they were all over the newspapers,

00:28:35.940 and it's extensively covered for an extended period of time.

00:28:38.780 I concur with all of that.

00:28:44.880 I actually question at this point the efficacy of polling.

00:28:49.880 I think both between the way we communicate has changed

00:28:54.040 and the extreme, extreme polarization in our politics,

00:29:00.120 I really wonder the extent to which voters,

00:29:03.800 Republicans and Democrats and those who are neither but who do vote,

00:29:09.400 are willing to answer questions either on the phone or online

00:29:15.220 from strangers they don't know.

00:29:17.600 They don't want to be targeted.

00:29:19.860 They don't want to be harassed.

00:29:21.400 They don't want to be identified.

00:29:22.600 I think taking a legitimate, scientifically-based poll today

00:29:30.180 to try to get a snapshot of voter opinions is increasingly difficult.

00:29:37.980 It is.

00:29:38.560 You know, we're not living, as I've noted before,

00:29:40.200 in a communal society anymore, Roger.

00:29:42.240 And polling is kind of a communal thing.

00:29:43.920 You know, people call you.

00:29:45.280 It might be your neighbor.

00:29:46.380 They say, oh, I'm your neighbor.

00:29:47.340 I live in your community.

00:29:48.380 And by the way, I'd like to know how you're feeling.

00:29:49.740 Would you mind answering some questions?

00:29:52.180 Would that be really good?

00:29:53.020 Nobody's doing that anymore.

00:29:54.000 They're streaming television.

00:29:55.320 We live in a society that is much less personal,

00:29:59.960 much more, sorry, much less communal,

00:30:04.120 much more driven by individual needs and desires,

00:30:07.020 much less communal, much less voluntary,

00:30:10.460 and much less civic.

00:30:12.040 You know, our turnout numbers are kind of lousy

00:30:13.860 when you think about it.

00:30:14.820 So why should people want to participate?

00:30:19.620 Why should they want to be polled?

00:30:23.040 Yeah, we definitely saw this phenomena in 2024

00:30:26.600 where President Donald Trump exceeded his share of the vote

00:30:31.880 by several points above all of his polling in the swing states.

00:30:37.500 And I attribute this to the fact that there were Trump voters

00:30:40.800 who did not want to tell a stranger, either online or on the phone,

00:30:48.480 that they were going to vote for Donald Trump

00:30:50.440 because they feared being targeted and harassed.

00:30:54.680 It's a sad commentary on where we are in our politics today.

00:30:58.900 Many conservatives, many Republicans, many sane people today

00:31:05.000 calling for the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa,

00:31:08.860 to drop out of the race and to endorse current New York City Mayor Eric Adams,

00:31:15.760 who is now running as an independent.

00:31:17.980 In your view, does Sliwa have a chance in the race under the current circumstances

00:31:25.380 or would those who fear a Mamdani mayoralty be best served

00:31:34.420 if Sliwa and Adams could join forces?

00:31:38.320 Sliwa is a decent man.

00:31:40.200 He loves the city.

00:31:41.180 He's a New York patriot.

00:31:43.780 And the New York patriot thing to do would be to follow the law,

00:31:47.680 leave the state for a while, and get off the ballot

00:31:49.820 in order to solidify Eric Adams' possibilities of being re-elected.

00:31:54.760 Adams is not without flaws,

00:31:56.240 but he is a former New York City police officer who served the city.

00:32:00.680 He cleaned up the act of that administration.

00:32:03.760 The police commissioner he's appointed,

00:32:05.320 the fire commissioner he's appointed,

00:32:06.580 the deputy mayor he's appointed,

00:32:08.000 are doing brilliant work.

00:32:09.340 He's got a lot to talk about.

00:32:10.560 And he ought to protect New York City from a Mamdani administration 1.00

00:32:14.980 run by a guy who managed an office with a budget of $150,000 with three people.

00:32:21.160 You know, this is an extraordinary event to manage New York City.

00:32:24.900 It takes, I mean, it's herculean by any measure.

00:32:29.840 What is this guy going to do?

00:32:30.980 Put Brad Lander, the former controller who supported boycott

00:32:33.820 the rest of the sanctions of Israel,

00:32:35.860 in charge of the city as a deputy mayor?

00:32:39.180 What kind of people is he going to bring into government?

00:32:41.480 People who want to destroy the police department

00:32:43.360 or change it radically so it doesn't function?

00:32:46.640 And people who really don't understand the gravity of the situation.

00:32:50.040 Look, maybe, Roger, the argument is that

00:32:51.840 having, you know, it's just, it hits the Trumpian era, right?

00:32:56.460 Maybe the cities have lost their function.

00:32:59.320 Maybe we don't need them anymore because the melting pot has changed.

00:33:02.060 Maybe we don't require cities as places for the exchange of ideas and culture anymore

00:33:07.500 because people are so self-sufficient and so unengaged.

00:33:11.500 Maybe this election reflects that.

00:33:15.460 You know, the suburbanization of America, finally.

00:33:18.080 The amalgamation of former cultural and ethnic groups

00:33:23.140 that frankly have made their way in America through the melting pot.

00:33:27.000 And that the new immigrants don't need what we've provided in the past. 1.00

00:33:32.320 Maybe that's where this is.

00:33:34.060 And that's something we have to consider.

00:33:36.200 It may just be that in the late stage of urbanization

00:33:38.520 that doesn't, that has to change.

00:33:40.660 Well, as you pointed out, Ma'am Dami's victory came

00:33:46.660 by mobilizing a very substantial number of voters

00:33:49.660 who hadn't voted before or had voted sparsely in the past.

00:33:54.400 Conversely, however, do you now think it is possible

00:33:57.060 that voters who did not participate in the primary

00:34:00.360 but are alarmed of the prospect that he may become mayor

00:34:03.940 could now vote in the general election in order to vote against him?

00:34:08.460 I think that's not an impossibility, but it depends on the argument.

00:34:13.060 I mean, he is a very, very clever, extraordinarily good to the camera.

00:34:18.220 His credit in the past has been, you know, to globalize the anti-father,

00:34:23.220 which does not mean let's have lunch with Jews. 1.00

00:34:25.140 It means kill them. 1.00

00:34:26.600 But the liberals and the progressives are prepared to look past that, 0.99

00:34:30.520 like Jerry Nadler, who really should have retired a long time ago,

00:34:33.520 and to endorse people like this with the hope that somehow this will go away.

00:34:37.520 It's not going to go away.

00:34:39.520 But they don't understand that.

00:34:40.880 And they don't understand that the city's changes are not reflected,

00:34:44.820 necessarily, in the populations that he serves.

00:34:47.520 The very wealthy west side of Manhattan,

00:34:50.900 where people have never really suffered a bad day.

00:34:54.080 I mean, he doesn't understand this.

00:34:55.600 So who knows what could happen?

00:34:57.740 It is, I think we've headed into a realm where all possibilities occur,

00:35:04.040 even the most irrational.

00:35:05.360 And we proved that at election day in New York just a couple of days ago.

00:35:09.420 If you're just tuning in, folks,

00:35:11.060 we're talking to the premier Democrat strategist in the country,

00:35:14.380 Hank Sheinkoff, one of the few Democrats I know

00:35:16.560 who accurately predicted the election of Donald Trump in 2024.

00:35:20.060 And we'll be right back.

00:35:21.880 So please, don't touch that dial.

00:35:24.060 The Stone Zone.

00:35:26.180 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:35:30.780 The Stone Zone.

00:35:32.600 On the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:35:36.720 And we're back in the Stone Zone.

00:35:38.900 We're talking to Hank Sheinkoff, to me,

00:35:42.000 the preeminent and I think most brilliant Democrat strategist in the country today.

00:35:47.520 I remember a very specific interview right here on this show

00:35:51.420 where Hank Sheinkoff said that the National Democrat Party

00:35:55.860 did not understand that between open borders

00:35:58.880 and the fentanyl and crime problem that caused,

00:36:03.420 the runaway inflation, the unbridled spending,

00:36:08.140 that the Democrats did not recognize the toxic myths, his words,

00:36:13.640 that would lead to Trump's probable re-election.

00:36:16.700 Most of my other Democrat friends were still talking about the election of Kamala Harris,

00:36:23.320 but not Hank Sheinkoff.

00:36:24.840 Hank, you were right.

00:36:26.160 I want to acknowledge that.

00:36:27.900 And I want to ask you, how do you think, you're a Democrat,

00:36:31.420 but how do you think Trump is doing so far?

00:36:35.200 He's got significant problems because of the issues with his own party.

00:36:40.500 And I think that he's been, you know, away from my own political leaders,

00:36:45.660 I would still like to be a Clinton Democrat, but I think that ship has sailed.

00:36:49.340 I don't think we have a centrist Democrat party anymore.

00:36:51.420 But I think the measure of Donald Trump's success,

00:36:55.280 if they're in the early one,

00:36:56.940 will be whether this budget bill gets passed and what shape it's in.

00:37:00.340 If he can be the guy, like Clinton was, who has cured the debt,

00:37:04.760 he will be a great man.

00:37:08.260 But I don't know that that's going to happen.

00:37:09.820 That's problem one.

00:37:11.700 Internationally, the crisis, the international crisis,

00:37:15.920 where America's strength is being challenged by our enemies throughout the world,

00:37:20.580 is maybe unmanageable by anyone.

00:37:22.900 And I think Trump is doing the best he can to manage that crisis.

00:37:27.320 But it's the Ukraine issue alone makes it appear that he is weak.

00:37:32.900 How he cures those two problems, the financial, the internal financial one,

00:37:36.260 the debt issue, and the foreign policy questions will determine

00:37:39.400 how he is remembered in history.

00:37:42.240 And these are very difficult things that he's walking into.

00:37:44.740 I think he inherited these problems.

00:37:47.100 And frankly, he's ripe for attack because they may not be solvable.

00:37:52.640 And that is a very difficult condition to be in for the United States of America.

00:37:56.160 He believed he could solve almost anything.

00:37:58.680 And Donald Trump, no matter his skill, may not be able to solve those two problems.

00:38:02.960 Final question.

00:38:04.380 The decision he made to strike the nuclear weapons development sites in Iran last Sunday.

00:38:11.960 Do you think he made the right decision?

00:38:14.680 The world depends on the United States to save the world from insanity.

00:38:19.780 The United States should have done this or taken out Iran or gone after Tehran in 1983 0.94

00:38:25.280 after the attack at the murder of 200 and close to 300 Marines and French troops

00:38:31.840 who were there in a Beirut in a peacekeeping mission.

00:38:35.380 What Donald Trump did was to let the world know.

00:38:37.680 And this was not just for the Iranians.

00:38:39.800 This was for the Russians and for our European allies to let them know that we will do what we must do

00:38:45.800 and that the Russians should behave better and the Chinese should be very careful.

00:38:50.960 And for those reasons alone, I think that it was the only move he could make.

00:38:54.360 It was brilliantly executed.

00:38:56.060 And we owe the president a great deal with gratitude.

00:38:58.960 All right.

00:38:59.540 We have to wrap it there.

00:39:00.680 The great Hank Sheinkoff.

00:39:01.920 I want to thank him for joining us today in the Stone Zone.

00:39:04.940 And until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.

00:39:08.880 Thanks for listening to the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:39:14.480 You can hear the Stone Zone with Roger Stone weeknights at 8 on 77 WABC.

00:39:20.440 If you like the podcast, share it with your friends and listen anytime at wabcradio.com

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00:39:38.380 See you next time for a new episode so you never have to wonder.

00:39:42.380 What the heck is going on here?

The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - June 26, 2025

The Stone Zone ｜ 06-26-25

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