The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - July 09, 2026


The Stone Zone ｜ 07-08-26

Topics
Graham Plattner withdrawal from Maine Senate race Soros Family Land Purchases & Medicare Fraud
Hosted by
Roger Stone Troy Smith Jake Novak
Mentioned
Seth Rich C. Graham Plattner Donald Trump Vladimir Zelensky Zoran Mamdani Bernie Sanders Susan Collins George Soros JD Vance Hillary Clinton Julian Assange Ro Khanna Joe Biden Vintage Zelensky Robert Mueller Vladimir Putin Tony Blinken Jared Kushner Steve Witkoff Amy Klobuchar and 22 more
The Stone Zone ｜ 07-07-26 The Stone Zone ｜ 07-09-26

Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

152.02

Word count

5,778

Sentence count

326

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Karg Island is a small, rugged island in the Persian Gulf that few could locate on a map only weeks ago. And it s nothing less than the main distribution center for the Islamic Republic of Iran s oil exports. It sits near the Strait of Hormuz, 300 miles off Iran s coast.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.540 Get ready, Staten Island.
00:00:02.920 The Ferry Hawks are back at SIUH Community Park, July 7th to the 12th,
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00:01:01.020 Well, President Donald Trump gave peace a chance,
00:01:06.100 but it was clear from the events of the last 48 hours
00:01:10.220 that the MOU painstakingly negotiated by Vice President J.D. Vance,
00:01:16.200 Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff
00:01:18.060 to end the conflict with Iran lays his tatters.
00:01:21.700 This began when the Iranians struck three ships in the Straits of Hormuz
00:01:28.640 A direct violation of that agreement
00:01:31.100 This came on the heels of two other previous infractions
00:01:34.940 And President Donald Trump authorized strikes last night
00:01:39.740 Hard strikes against military targets in Iran
00:01:43.740 Knocking out their radar facilities that they were seeking to rebuild
00:01:48.460 knocking out a number of drone storage facilities and other hard military targets.
00:01:56.620 Now, some may think that the president does not have many options, having bombed very heavily in Operation Midnight Hammer, Operation Epic Fury.
00:02:08.380 But in his comments, I noticed the president mentioned the potential of bombing Karg Island.
00:02:15.520 Now, Americans would be wise to begin paying very close attention to this small, rugged island in the northern Persian Gulf that few could locate on a map only weeks ago.
00:02:26.780 That is, of course, Karg Island.
00:02:28.720 And it's nothing less than the main distribution center for the Islamic Republic of Iran's oil.
00:02:34.820 Karg Island stands as one of the most consequential strategic locations in the entire Middle East.
00:02:40.500 If Iran's regime derives financial oxygen from oil imports, then Karg Island is the lungs through which that oxygen flows.
00:02:49.980 At this point, most of their exports, almost 80 to 90 percent, are going to China.
00:02:55.520 Should anyone doubt the urgency of understanding its importance, facts about Karg Island reveal why this isolated outpost has become such a critical focus of geopolitical scrutiny.
00:03:06.180 So far, the president has only bombed the periphery of it.
00:03:09.440 He has not destroyed the actual facility.
00:03:13.040 Karga Island is a continental limestone island located in the northern Persian Gulf,
00:03:18.640 approximately 30 kilometers, that's about 18 miles, off of Iran's coast.
00:03:23.640 It sits northwest of the Port of Bashir and about 483 kilometers,
00:03:28.500 that's roughly 300 miles northwest of the Strait of Hormuz.
00:03:32.180 The tiny island measures roughly 8 kilometers in length, 4 to 5 kilometers in width,
00:03:37.480 covering an area of only six or seven square miles.
00:03:42.060 Its rocky limestone terrain collects freshwater and porous foundations,
00:03:46.440 making it one of the few islands in the Gulf with national freshwater resources
00:03:50.540 capable of supporting human settlement. 1.00
00:03:53.720 It's actually perfectly situated for the Islamic Republic of Iran's nefarious purposes. 0.99
00:03:59.900 Its population exceeds only about 10,000 residents. 0.92
00:04:03.080 The island extends Iran's territorial sea claims deeper into the Persian Gulf and sits amid some of the most valuable oil infrastructure in the region.
00:04:13.200 The economic and strategic importance of Karg Island cannot be overstated.
00:04:18.260 Karg Island serves as Iran's primary offshore crude oil export terminal and historically has handled about 90 to 98 percent of the country's crude exports.
00:04:30.680 The island's loading infrastructure is capable of exporting roughly 7 million barrels of oil per day through specialized terminals,
00:04:38.040 Trump referred to them in his remarks as the pipes, and Sea Island loading platforms located on the island.
00:04:45.340 Pipelines connecting the island directly to mainland oil fields in Kyrgyzstan as well as underwater reservoirs beneath the Gulf itself make it crucial.
00:04:55.460 The entire complex is operated by the National Iranian Oil Company.
00:04:59.720 Crude blends such as Iran Heavy, Iran Light, and Furuzan are loaded onto massive tankers at Karg before dispatched across global markets.
00:05:10.360 Should anyone be surprised, analysts repeatedly describe Karg Island as the main distribution center for Iran's oil.
00:05:16.900 Now, modern history has been equally dramatic.
00:05:19.760 Karg Island was briefly occupied by British forces in 1838.
00:05:24.040 oil discoveries in the 20th century transformed this little island into the most important
00:05:29.280 petroleum export facilities in the world by the 1970s. During the Iran-Iraq War between 1980 and
00:05:36.640 1988, the island was repeatedly bombed by the Iraqi forces attempting then to cripple Iran's
00:05:42.160 oil exports. Much of the infrastructure was damaged but later rebuilt in the 1990s.
00:05:47.640 Following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the island's oil infrastructure was nationalized by
00:05:53.760 the Ayatollah's regime, and incorporated into the state-run petroleum apparatus that still
00:05:59.240 exists. Meanwhile, nearby Karku Island sits northeast of Kark and also plays kind of a
00:06:05.260 supporting role in the export of crude oil cargo operations. Also not far away stands another
00:06:11.620 sensitive strategic location, the Bushir nuclear power plant, adding another layer of geopolitical
00:06:18.380 sensitivity to the region. The modern energy system, Karg Island, functions as a massive
00:06:24.000 storage and loading complex capable of loading tens of millions of barrels of crude into large
00:06:29.160 tankers. Estimates say the storage capacity ranges between 20 million to 30 billion barrels a day
00:06:35.640 depending on operational configurations. Yes, tankers line up to load crude shipments that
00:06:41.240 then travel across international markets. That oil today largely goes to China. Previously,
00:06:48.440 Iran was an exporter to Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Russia. Today, about 90 to 98%
00:06:56.560 of the oil leaving Karg Island is going to China. The president has made it very clear that he
00:07:03.040 doesn't wish to bomb Karg Island. He'd like to keep the infrastructure in place for a post-regime
00:07:10.500 government, but he implied very heavily that it is a possibility, and that is, I think, his whole
00:07:17.420 card if they push him too far. Meanwhile, America is back at war, and we pray for a swift end to
00:07:25.120 this conflict, but the president, I think, today in his remarks at the NATO conference kind of
00:07:30.740 revealed the possibility of a bombing of Karg Island. So where are the Democrats today? They're
00:07:38.220 all in on giant government. They've embraced state power, kind of like a jealous lover.
00:07:43.020 Democrats are running this year on a final push for single-payer health care, promising at long
00:07:48.880 last to give our central government full power over body and a fifth of the economy. As Graham
00:07:54.880 Plattner does in Maine, they always link free child care to free health care. So add the cost
00:08:00.880 of the free program to the cost of free health care. Let's let a million quality center learning
00:08:06.780 centers like the ones in Minnesota bloom. Controlling medicine and child care, Democrats 0.87
00:08:12.120 also plan to control all other major industries. New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdami, who is today
00:08:19.560 the moral and intellectual leader of the party in a moment when all the national politicians
00:08:24.540 are about as smart as Mazie Hirano or as appealing as Amy Klobuchar, has said explicitly that his
00:08:31.360 goal is to seize the means of production. There it is. They're not kidding. One of Mamdami's
00:08:38.640 allies, the congressional candidate Claire Valdez, actually says she wants to nationalize the airline
00:08:44.440 industry, turning United and Delta and American and JetBlue and Southwest into the federal
00:08:50.980 government airways. Acting on the opposition to private property controlled by its owners,
00:08:56.460 Mamdami, of course, recently instituted a rent freeze in New York City, covering both one year
00:09:01.240 and two-year leases for people living in about one million rent-stabilized apartments,
00:09:06.160 which makes up about 27 percent of the overall housing stock across New York City's five boroughs.
00:09:13.300 Housing prices are to be set by government.
00:09:16.240 Where you live and how much you pay for it should be a government program, according to the Democrats.
00:09:21.320 This transition to government-managed housing will intensify in a hurry.
00:09:25.120 Ma'am Dami's detailed housing plan centers on the promise of putting the public sector in the driver's seat.
00:09:32.560 Opposing private industry, Democrats oppose the private wealth it produces.
00:09:37.100 In the People's Republic of California, a proposed tax on the net worth of billionaires is quickly drifting downward.
00:09:44.160 A July 2nd essay from, I spoke of yesterday, by California Congressman Ro Khanna, a spectacularly cynical Silicon Valley Democrat,
00:09:55.120 called for a dramatic expansion of federal welfare programs on the backs of a federal tax that has to reach all fortunes, $50 million and up.
00:10:04.520 Wealth is for government, you see. It has to be transferred into the hands of centralized power to give the masses their free programs.
00:10:13.400 In his distasteful speech on Independence Day, Mamdami depicted an America defined by terror, oppression, and an oligarchic theft.
00:10:23.160 We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go sleep hungry while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more, he said.
00:10:31.740 We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections.
00:10:36.560 We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans.
00:10:45.260 Of course, none of that means anything at all. 0.78
00:10:47.640 Monopolies dominate every industry.
00:10:49.680 How many airlines can you choose from again?
00:10:52.000 How many competing companies offer you gas for your car?
00:10:55.340 How many kinds of breakfast cereal can you buy from how many different grocery stores?
00:11:00.780 Mamdami wasn't trying to describe America.
00:11:03.420 He was trying to demonize and demagogue to depict a nation of private industry as something dark, cruel, and dangerous.
00:11:11.620 He was trying to sell massive government power as kindness, fixing all the faked-up plutocratic domination.
00:11:18.680 This is where the Democrats are.
00:11:20.240 They're all in on giant, big government.
00:11:22.780 They're entirely opposed to private property, private enterprise, and, yes, private lives.
00:11:28.520 They've embraced state power. 1.00
00:11:30.380 It's a dismal gang of brutally stupid adult children who've made a living as shameless grifters by warning you that Donald Trump is an aspiring dictator who yearns to implement authoritarianism. 1.00
00:11:41.020 They keep inventing fake panics to sell that idiocy, while Trump eliminates whole government agencies and sharply deuces the size of the federal workforce. 1.00
00:11:50.240 Trump isn't going far enough, as far as I'm concerned, and congressional Republicans are trailblazers in the art of uselessness. 0.96
00:11:57.300 Federal deficits persist, and the crisis of federal debt is just getting worse.
00:12:02.600 But Trump is the only president in your lifetime or mine who's worked to make the federal government smaller and less powerful in any practical way, 0.99
00:12:09.140 and only idiots and con artists pretend to think he's an authoritarian. 0.98
00:12:12.920 You can have Trump or you can have Miami area Democrats who explicitly intend to confiscate private wealth, seize the means of production, and run society directly and forcefully through the instrument of government power. 1.00
00:12:27.380 The fools who warn you that you have to vote for Democrats to save us from Trump's authoritarianism are trying to herd you into real authoritarianism. 0.85
00:12:35.920 authoritarianism. Anyone who's still pretending this isn't the actual choice by now has transitioned 0.99
00:12:40.980 from being a shameless clown to being a real danger. The tediousness of the bulk work style 0.94
00:12:46.620 never Trumpism and the National Review's infantile socialist worshiping coprophilia is becoming
00:12:52.980 something else entirely. It's time to choose and it's time to remember the choice that other people
00:12:58.480 make. That choice is between authoritarianism and freedom. It's between big government
00:13:03.140 and a government by the people.
00:13:06.100 I'm Roger Stone.
00:13:07.040 You're listening to The Stone Zone.
00:13:08.240 Thanks for joining us.
00:13:09.400 Whatever you do, don't go away
00:13:10.540 because we'll be right back
00:13:11.640 with more politics on the other side. 0.97
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00:13:46.060 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
00:13:49.820 We have breaking news.
00:13:51.820 Let me read it directly from NBC.
00:13:53.400 C. Graham Plattner, the controversial candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maine, announced only minutes ago that he's ending his U.S. Senate campaign, capping a chaotic few days of uncertainty and Democrat infighting, leaving the Democrat Party without a candidate in the vitally important Maine Senate race this fall.
00:14:14.140 The announcement by the populist progressive candidate came after a woman he dated accused him of sexual assault back in 2021, causing his support to hemorrhage even among top Democratic allies who rescinded their endorsements and called on him to drop out.
00:14:31.900 Once again, this is off of NBC. In a video message posted on X, Plattner denied the
00:14:39.200 allegation is false, but said they have placed an immense amount of weight on him as he is only
00:14:44.280 until July 13th to decide whether to continue his candidacy. He said if he continued, he loses
00:14:49.960 his ability to fundraise, access voter data, or run a campaign. What comes next needs to come from
00:14:56.020 the people, needs to come from the people of Maine. It has to be open, transparent, and democratic.
00:15:00.480 He needs to be reflecting the will and the values of the people that built this movement.
00:15:05.660 He goes on to say,
00:15:08.500 We believe for the movement to continue, it cannot be made for that reason.
00:15:12.140 We, meaning he, is suspending his campaign operations.
00:15:15.780 Plattner said, We're not doing it because of the allegations.
00:15:18.360 We're doing it because the structures are being taken away from us by those in power.
00:15:23.120 Now, the main Democrat Party has the option to replace Plattner on the ballot by July 27th.
00:15:29.620 That's the deadline.
00:15:30.480 set by state law. It's unclear how the party will go about selecting a candidate in that
00:15:36.120 compressed time frame. Maine is already jockeying to be the candidate to face Republican
00:15:41.000 Susan Collins, a good friend of mine, who's seeking her sixth six-year term. Earlier on
00:15:48.000 Wednesday, the state party said it had decided to hold a nominating convention to pick a replacement
00:15:53.540 candidate and plans to announce a full timeline shortly. So this was thought by many to be the
00:16:01.700 Democrats' best chance in the country for a pickup. Susan Collins was thought to be an 1.00
00:16:08.760 endangered Republican incumbent. And then Graham Plattner, the guy with the Nazi tattoo and a
00:16:16.500 strange history, surfaced as a candidate. Actually, the sitting Democrat governor of Maine,
00:16:21.660 who was originally thought to be the likely candidate, dropped out of that race.
00:16:27.380 Plattner's exit came after Chuck Schumer and the Democrat National Party warned in no uncertain terms
00:16:33.840 that they will not invest in the Maine Senate race if Plattner remained on the ballot. 0.51
00:16:39.680 So within hours of Politico first reporting the allegations by the ex-girlfriend on Monday,
00:16:45.760 Senator Liz Warren, who had visited, made a campaign for platform, called for him to drop, as did Congressman Ro Khanna, calling the allegations serious and credible.
00:16:57.840 Ruben Gallego himself, no paragon of future, also called for Plattner to drop off.
00:17:05.040 Even Bernie Sanders weighed in, although Plattner had cited Sanders as his political lodestar.
00:17:12.980 So this is a shocking but important development. It's a difficult situation for the main Democratic Party because party operators don't have enough time for a full primary campaign. Many may see it as a lifeline to find a less flawed nominee with a fighting chance of defeating Collins, who was again first elected in 1996, last won re-election in 2020.
00:17:35.440 Democrats need a net gain of four seats
00:17:38.840 to capture control of the Senate this fall
00:17:40.720 apart from Manning, North Carolina
00:17:42.600 all of their opportunities come in states
00:17:44.540 that President Trump carried by double digits
00:17:46.980 in 2024
00:17:48.120 those being Ohio, Iowa
00:17:50.480 Alaska and Texas
00:17:52.160 Big blow to the Democrats
00:17:54.080 I'm Roger Stone, listen to the Stone Zone
00:17:56.440 and we'll be right back
00:18:05.440 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
00:18:13.800 The significance of this Democrat car crash in Maine,
00:18:17.720 in which their Senate candidate, Graham Plattner,
00:18:19.900 has withdrawn from the race, cannot be underestimated.
00:18:23.540 Democrats need a net gain of four seats to capture control of the Senate this fall.
00:18:28.320 Other than Maine and North Carolina,
00:18:30.600 all their opportunities come in states that President Donald Trump
00:18:33.600 carried by double digits in 2024. Again, those are Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, and Texas. Maine was
00:18:40.920 actually the only blue-leaning state with a Republican senator. Plattner, who was a Marine
00:18:47.000 veteran on an oyster farmer, actually won the Democrat primary back on June 9th after two-term
00:18:53.020 Democrat Governor Janet Mills, the Democrat establishment's preferred candidate, failed to
00:18:58.000 gain traction, and the radical progressive was able to win the contest after she quit. So this
00:19:05.320 is a significant setback for the Democrats in their Senate bid. There aren't many political
00:19:12.980 mysteries from 2016 that still have the power to set the internet on fire, like the unsolved
00:19:18.300 murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. The official theory is that the 27-year-old was shot near his
00:19:25.480 D.C. home during a botched robbery. His family has rejected all claims that he was somehow
00:19:30.820 connected to WikiLeaks or murdered because of his work at the DNC, and they have continued to claim
00:19:37.300 that he was the victim of a robbery gone wrong, but his wallet, his watch, and his jewelry, as well as
00:19:43.560 his cash and credit cards, were still intact. Questions never went away, mostly because so many
00:19:49.600 details surrounding that case were sketchy and made no sense. Seth Rich was killed less than two
00:19:55.880 weeks before WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of internal Democrat National Committee emails
00:20:02.220 that literally rocked the 2016 election and exposed the Democrats' bitter and Hippocratic
00:20:08.360 internal struggle, which they had to change their party rules to guarantee that Hillary Clinton
00:20:13.780 would defeat Bernie Sanders, who wasn't even a Democrat a year before he had run for the
00:20:19.840 Democrat nomination. As a result, a theory emerged that emails WikiLeaks released hadn't come from
00:20:26.340 Russia, but came from someone inside the DNC. In fact, it was in my trial that the FBI was forced
00:20:33.800 to admit that they had never actually inspected the computer servers of the Democrat National
00:20:40.080 Committee. The underlying theory of my federal trial, in which I was accused falsely of lying
00:20:48.960 under oath to cover up Russian collusion that we now know categorically never existed, there was
00:20:55.700 never any evidence produced at my trial of an actual online hack. In fact, the judge refused
00:21:02.560 to allow me to introduce forensic evidence or expert testimony, which I could have proved that
00:21:08.760 there was never any online hack. This idea that the WikiLeaks releases came from someone inside
00:21:15.860 the DNC was tied to Seth Rich's name. Many believe to this day that he was the insider
00:21:21.600 who leaked the emails after his candidate, Bernie Sanders, was ousted by Hillary. Now,
00:21:27.300 there's never been any public proof of that claim, and some people who know Seth claim that he wasn't
00:21:32.180 a disgruntled Bernie Bo. But then, of course, Julian Assange entered the conversation. Things
00:21:38.500 got a lot more curious. Assange did something then that he never does. He spoke out about a source.
00:21:44.640 He publicly denied that the Russian government or any other state actor was his source.
00:21:49.000 Again, neither at my trial or anyplace else did Robert Mueller and his gang of thugs
00:21:54.080 produce any evidence to the contrary. But then in a 2016 interview about the dangers faced by
00:22:00.280 WikiLeaks sources, Assange unexpectedly brought off Seth Rich's murder. When the interviewer asked
00:22:07.000 Rich, whether Rich had been a source, Assange fell back on WikiLeaks' policy of refusing
00:22:12.340 to identify sources, but then offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction
00:22:19.640 of Rich's murder, which only ignited the theories tenfold. Now, nearly a decade later, a new claim
00:22:27.000 has surfaced, and it's confirmed that the FBI will have some very serious explaining to do.
00:22:33.440 Attorney and former journalist Ty Clevenger, a man for whom I have enormous respect,
00:22:37.960 has spent most of the last decade fighting a federal government for records related to Seth Rich's death.
00:22:44.160 Clevenger took to X with a bombshell post.
00:22:46.600 He said the government attorney has now told him that several hundred pages connected to Seth Rich may have been discovered inside a hidden room at the FBI headquarters.
00:22:56.520 This story is pretty explosive, especially since last year Fox News reported that Kash Patel and his team had located a secret secure room inside the J. Edgar Hoover building where they found computer drives and thousands of pages stored in burn bags, which are used for classified material that's supposed to be destroyed.
00:23:16.600 According to those news reports, some of the records were reportedly connected to the FBI's crossfire hurricane investigation.
00:23:24.940 So perhaps Seth was part of that mission.
00:23:27.800 Clevenger is honest about what he knows and what he doesn't know.
00:23:31.680 So this isn't by any means a done deal, not by any stretch, but it could be something big.
00:23:37.340 He hasn't, of course, received the documents, doesn't know what they contain, and doesn't know if the FBI will release any of them.
00:23:43.720 As it stands right now, he's just reporting what he says a government attorney has told him.
00:23:48.900 However, there's a bigger fight going on about records related to the Seth Rich case.
00:23:53.200 See, at first, the FBI told Clevenger he couldn't find any records related to Rich.
00:23:58.160 But later, court proceedings proved the Bureau had records and assorted material connected to Seth's work laptop
00:24:05.000 and an image of his personal laptop, a DVD, and a tape drive.
00:24:09.620 They had all previously denied having any of those.
00:24:12.140 Later, a federal court ruled the FBI improperly withheld that material and ordered the Bureau to provide additional information about what it had.
00:24:19.960 So this is a story that we are going to be watching very carefully.
00:24:25.480 One thing is for sure, the FBI's handling of the records is no longer a conspiracy theory.
00:24:30.780 The Bureau once said it couldn't find anything related to Seth Rich.
00:24:33.900 Court proceedings now prove that that was a lie.
00:24:36.580 Now it's time for Trump's FBI to set the record straight and be as transparent as possible.
00:24:41.760 because the mystery surrounding Seth Rich's case has gone on for about a decade.
00:24:46.680 His killer was never caught.
00:24:48.400 Julian Assange raised a lot of questions that were never answered.
00:24:51.440 So did my trial, where the government claimed repeatedly to have proof of a Russian hack,
00:24:56.120 but produced none, and none has been produced since that time.
00:25:00.500 It is time for the truth.
00:25:03.120 Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center is back in federal court,
00:25:07.320 pleading not guilty to 11 criminal counts in a superseding indictment,
00:25:11.760 that has ripped the veil off of one of the far left's most powerful activist organizations.
00:25:17.500 Federal prosecutors allege that the Southern Poverty Law Center defrauded donors
00:25:21.880 by secretly funding millions of dollars to informants
00:25:25.620 embedded inside racist and extremist groups the organization publicly claimed to oppose.
00:25:32.040 Reminds me of something that a veteran FBI agent once told me.
00:25:35.480 He said if there were 10 people at a Ku Klux Klan meeting,
00:25:38.640 nine of them would be government informants, one would be an actual Klansman. The indictment says
00:25:44.100 that four million dollars in donor money was moved through fake entities with names like the
00:25:48.760 Rare Books Warehouse and the Tech Writers Group, eventually reaching individuals tied to groups
00:25:54.840 including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance. Prosecutors now further
00:26:00.980 allege that some funds were used for materials connected to cross burnings and Klan robes.
00:26:06.160 One informant allegedly helped organize the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
00:26:11.920 It became so very controversial.
00:26:14.420 So what the Southern Poverty Law Center was doing was creating and funding these right-wing extremist groups
00:26:20.520 so they could go out and raise millions of dollars to fight the very right-wing extremist groups that they were funding and abetting.
00:26:28.220 That's a fraud.
00:26:29.480 Southern Poverty Law Center, of course, denies all wrongdoing, calling the charges politically motivating,
00:26:34.740 claiming its informant program helped prevent violence and assist law enforcement.
00:26:39.600 But I believe that's just a cover.
00:26:42.040 In actuality, the Southern Poverty Law Center was stoking the flames of racism
00:26:45.820 so they could gain power, money, and prestige from allegedly fighting back against it.
00:26:51.520 They've made millions of dollars based on a lie.
00:26:54.740 Southern Poverty Law Center was never a civil rights group.
00:26:57.420 It's been a scam since its inception. 0.78
00:26:59.060 It was, I would say, victimizing little old ladies for their $25 checks.
00:27:06.120 It was a partisan smear machine smearing mainstream conservatives, evangelical Christians, religious liberty groups, immigration control advocates, and free speech organizations, including people like me, as extremists.
00:27:19.180 The FBI cut times with the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2025 after backlash over its so-called hate map, which listed nearly 1,400 groups, including Turning Point USA, as my good friend Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
00:27:35.840 Southern Poverty Law Center has claimed to be a watchdog for all these years.
00:27:38.960 Now, federal prosecutors are finally cutting through their scam and exposing it to the American people.
00:27:44.460 The Southern Poverty Law Center must pay for the damage they've caused to the fabric of our country.
00:27:50.700 Not surprisingly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived at the NATO summit in Ankara with the same tired demand.
00:27:58.920 bring Ukraine into NATO, no matter the cost, no matter the risk,
00:28:03.480 no matter how close it drags the West towards a direct war 0.92
00:28:06.660 with the nuclear-armed Zelensky. 0.89
00:28:09.340 Once again, claiming Ukraine belongs in NATO,
00:28:12.520 arguing that this country's battlefield experience
00:28:14.760 and drone capabilities should make it part of the alliance's collective defense.
00:28:19.420 Now, if I've pointed out here in the Stowe Zone multiple times,
00:28:22.820 when East and West Germany were united and the Russians agreed to that,
00:28:26.540 We signed an agreement with the Russians called the Budapest Memorandum, in which we specifically agreed not to push Ukraine into NATO.
00:28:36.800 We would then reinforce that in a second treaty, the Minsk Accords.
00:28:42.560 So when Joe Biden sought to push Ukraine into NATO, he was in violation of both those agreements, and that was the line in the sand for the Russians, as Vladimir Putin made clear many times.
00:28:58.180 Now, people here will say, oh, Stone, you're a Russophobe, you're a Russian agent, so on.
00:29:04.040 Look, my family was mowed down by Russian tanks in Budapest in 1956.
00:29:09.860 But I also understand that we had agreed in two treaties not to push Ukraine into NATO, and then we did so.
00:29:17.440 This was the work of Joe Biden and Antony Blinken.
00:29:21.320 Standing among Western leaders, including President Trump, Zelensky, an anchor once again claimed that Ukraine belongs in NATO, arguing that his country's battle experience should make it part of their defense.
00:29:35.200 That argument is exactly the problem. Ukraine is already tied to Western weapons, intelligence, satellites, and funding.
00:29:42.940 Making that arrangement official would not strengthen NATO, would turn a proxy war into a potential world war.
00:29:49.640 NATO has already provoked Russia by expanding beyond its bounds and violating its word.
00:29:55.460 Adding Ukraine to the organization would put Russia's back against the wall and the consequences could be dire for mankind.
00:30:02.640 Zelensky also boasted about Ukraine's drone strike capability while admitting that Europe must urgently build more anti-ballistic missile systems to counter Russia.
00:30:11.920 So, in other words, he wants credit for military strength while asking the West for even more protection, more weapons, and, of course, more money.
00:30:20.780 Vintage Zelensky.
00:30:22.540 Moscow, meanwhile, is now openly describing the conflict as a real war, citing Western involvement from Washington, Berlin, Paris, and other capitals.
00:30:31.860 Russia's central demand remains unchanged.
00:30:34.440 Ukraine must permanently abandon NATO ambitions.
00:30:36.820 Yet Zelensky keeps pretending NATO membership is realistic, responsive, imminent, or even in keeping with the agreement signed by the United States.
00:30:46.820 It is not. In my view, it is delusional.
00:30:49.700 European leaders know the truth, even if they won't say it plainly.
00:30:54.260 Fast-tracking Ukraine into NATO would force Americans and Europe to defend every inch of Ukraine as alliance territory.
00:31:01.400 Zelensky has proven that he does not care about the Ukrainian people.
00:31:06.000 This is not about democracy.
00:31:07.400 He has postponed any elections because he knows if elections were held, well, he would lose.
00:31:14.440 His delusions have sent thousands of men, now younger men, to premature death.
00:31:20.020 Linsky will be lucky if he's not dragged into the streets and brought to justice publicly and brutally when all this nonsense comes to an end.
00:31:26.600 That is how unpopular he is among his own people.
00:31:30.700 It goes to the larger question, of course, whether NATO has outlived its usefulness.
00:31:36.820 I could understand the purposes of NATO in the immediate aftermath of World War II,
00:31:41.240 when Europe was essentially decimated and America was still economically relatively strong.
00:31:46.620 Then I could understand why we paid for the defense of the NATO countries.
00:31:51.780 But during Donald Trump's first term, he kept a vow that he had made as early as 1988.
00:31:57.580 that it was time for our NATO allies to pay their fair share.
00:32:01.800 During Trump's first term, he collected $650 million from our NATO allies
00:32:08.060 who were delinquent in paying for their own defense.
00:32:11.460 And now a new poll confirms that Americans are growing increasingly distrustful of the NATO alliance.
00:32:17.600 According to a reporting by Politico,
00:32:19.880 only 43% of Americans believe European NATO members would actually come to the aid of the United States
00:32:25.920 of America were attacked by a foreign adversary. That's a devastating number for an alliance
00:32:31.020 built on Article 5, the so-called mutual defense guarantee. I mean, for decades, American taxpayers
00:32:37.400 have poured trillions into NATO, underwriting Europe's security, while too many European nations
00:32:42.560 neglected their own defense. Now, after years of lectures from arrogant globalist bureaucrats in
00:32:49.020 Brussels, the American people are asking the obvious question, why are we still paying to
00:32:53.920 protect countries that may not protect us. We saw this recently in our assault in Iran, where
00:32:59.420 countries like Italy would not allow us to use our bases, or Germany, or France, or would not
00:33:06.740 support our efforts in that war. We saw how few countries helped us to try to destroy terrorism
00:33:12.780 in Iran. There's no reason to think it would be any different if we faced attacks on our own
00:33:18.920 shores. President Trump, my opinion, is right to challenge the arrangement. He's repeatedly warned
00:33:24.200 that America carries the burden while Europe enjoys the benefits. Even now, NATO officials
00:33:28.640 talk about Europe taking over more of its own defense. Let's hope they can go back to the
00:33:33.600 status quo as soon as President Trump is out of the office, but perhaps not. They're not serious
00:33:38.140 about self-reliance. They want a free ride to continue. The answer is not another spending
00:33:43.160 target, another summit, or another promise from Europe. The answer is independence. The United
00:33:48.640 States of America should leave NATO completely, bring our troops home, secure our own border,
00:33:54.100 build our own military, and stop treating American taxpayers like the worst security blanket.
00:33:59.800 I'm Roger Stone, you're listening to The Stone Zone, and we'll be right back.
00:34:03.880 Welcome back into The Stone Zone. Well, the family of George Soros is once again showing America what
00:34:10.800 elite power really looks like up close. George Soros and his sons, Alex and Gregory, have reportedly
00:34:16.840 purchased 18 plots of land on Shelter Island, a quiet Hamptons community of roughly 8,000 acres.
00:34:24.480 According to the New York Post, that buying spree now makes the Soros family the island's
00:34:29.180 largest private landowner, and some residents are not happy about it. Locals fear the billionaire's
00:34:35.360 family arrival will drive up costs, reshape the community, and push ordinary residents aside,
00:34:41.000 not to mention the weird rituals that may be going on in there. The residents of the Hamptons
00:34:46.140 have already seen what happens when ultra-wealthy outsiders move in with their lawyers, contractors,
00:34:52.340 cameras, and political muscle. Residents say local workers, including plumbers and maids,
00:34:58.620 have been required to sign non-disclosure agreements before working on the Soros properties.
00:35:04.580 Surveillance cameras have reportedly appeared on local streets, raising privacy concerns in a small
00:35:10.340 island community accessible only by boat. In one case, the family allegedly bought multiple homes
00:35:17.360 along a single road and sought permission to install a fence that would block access
00:35:22.120 from other residents. Locals say that construction projects have already disrupted the island's
00:35:28.000 peace, including plans for one of the largest swimming pools on Long Island. At a recent town
00:35:35.480 board meeting, resident Steve Lennox warned that locals cannot keep up with the legal firepower
00:35:41.760 of millionaires who seem to be able to build whatever they want. The behavior of the liberal
00:35:47.160 elites is always hypocritical. They preach equality, but everything in sight, buy it, wall it off, and 0.97
00:35:53.280 leave working families to deal with the consequences. What they really want is power, more for them and
00:35:58.700 less for the commoners who they, in truth, deeply despise.
00:36:03.360 Meanwhile, and this is not at all surprising,
00:36:07.020 but the task force set up by Vice President J.D. Vance
00:36:11.940 says it has uncovered a staggering explosion in suspicious Medicare claims.
00:36:17.280 The Vice President's anti-fraud task force now says
00:36:21.040 that Medicare claims for tissue and orchard transplant-related products
00:36:25.220 skyrocketed from $200 million in 2019 to $14.4 billion in 2025, a massive 71,000% increase in just six years.
00:36:38.320 J.D. Vance and the CMS administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz, say his agency identified 4,200 suspicious claims totaling $224 million through May alone.
00:36:50.460 So I'm counting on the vice president, who I'm increasingly impressed with, to get to the bottom of this.
00:36:56.360 We're going to have another Minnesota-type fraud.
00:36:59.720 This is just the tip of the iceberg.
00:37:03.560 Anyone who thinks this won't be an issue in the 2026 midterm elections really doesn't understand American politics.
00:37:11.500 Thanks for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
00:37:13.440 Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.
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