The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - July 14, 2026


The Stone Zone ｜ 07-13-26

Topics
rare earth minerals election monitoring
Hosted by
Roger Stone Troy Smith Jake Novak
Mentioned
Mitch McConnell Donald Trump Elaine Chao James C. Chang Chao Julia Chang Block George W. Bush Zoran Mamdani Archela Anna Maria Archilla Walter D. Huddleston Richard Nixon Angela Chow Stu Block Mayandami Zhao Franklin Roosevelt Clerk Janice Winfrey Amir Saeed Aravani Headquarters Complex Cheryl Redmond and 17 more
The Stone Zone ｜ 07-10-26 The Stone Zone ｜ 07-14-26

Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

137.34

Word count

5,353

Sentence count

299

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

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

When he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, Mitch McConnell was just 42 years old. He began serving as the junior Republican senator from Kentucky in 1985. He was a single man at the time, having divorced his wife and mother of his three children, Cheryl Redmond, in 1980. In order to secure his seat in the Senate, McConnell had to defeat incumbent Democrat Walter D. Huddeston.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
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.
00:00:00.000 this is the stone zone with roger stone people love him and respect him roger stone
00:00:16.560 now get in the zone it's the stone zone here's roger stone
00:00:22.560 You are now entering the Stone Zone.
00:00:28.540 This is where you can get the inside political scoop about what's really happening in Washington.
00:00:34.200 Roughly three weeks ago, emergency services were called to the home of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell.
00:00:41.940 It was caught by TMZ.
00:00:44.120 Since that time, Senator McConnell has not been seen or heard raising substantial questions about his current condition.
00:00:51.780 and some even questioned whether he's still alive.
00:00:55.660 Then on Sunday, his office released a photograph of him
00:00:59.920 with his wife, former Transportation and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
00:01:06.060 Of course, the conspiracy theorists immediately started to analyze that photo
00:01:10.660 with some claiming, not me, but others, that it was AI generated.
00:01:16.440 But there's a much bigger story here.
00:01:18.680 When he was first elected to the United States Senate in 1984, Mitch McConnell was just 42 years old.
00:01:25.600 He began serving as the junior Republican senator from Kentucky in 1985.
00:01:30.600 McConnell was a single man at the time, having divorced his wife and mother of his three children, Cheryl Redmond, in 1980.
00:01:38.720 In order to secure his seat in the Senate, McConnell had the tall order of defeating incumbent Democrat Senator Walter D. Huddleston.
00:01:49.260 Huddleston had served in that position from 1973 to 1984.
00:01:54.480 McConnell's team ran a controversial series of TV ads featuring bloodhounds searching for Huddleston, who had a high absentee record and had missed votes while making paid speeches.
00:02:07.180 The ad highlighted his absence on key votes on issues like Social Security, the budget, defense, and agriculture.
00:02:15.560 Also highlighted within McConnell's campaign was his strong opinions on national defense.
00:02:21.220 Then in what was dubbed the upset of 1984, McConnell defeated Huddleston, Kentucky in the 1984 election by just over 5,000 votes and headed to Washington to embark on what has without any question been one of the most successful political careers in Kentucky state history.
00:02:40.640 McConnell is the longest serving Senate leader in the U.S. history, having served in that position as the Republican majority leader from 2007 to 2025.
00:02:52.280 In the years preceding his upset victory in the state of Kentucky, Mitch McConnell took a hardened stance against China, a stance that would dramatically shift following the beginning of his relationship with his second wife, Elaine Chao.
00:03:06.740 In the aftermath of McConnell's new relationship with Zhao, the senator radically shifted his viewpoints in order to adapt to a softer stance towards the Communist Chinese Party and its many associates and to squash anybody who dared to stand up to China's aggression towards the U.S.
00:03:25.660 Interestingly, McConnell also saw his wealth shift dramatically in the years following his election.
00:03:31.960 Upon taking his seat in the U.S. Senate, McConnell's net worth was minimal.
00:03:36.140 Estimates put his total net worth at the time somewhere around $200,000.
00:03:40.860 After serving in the U.S. Senate for 41 years, Mitch McConnell, according to the latest filings, is now worth an astounding $35 million.
00:03:50.160 China had the ultimate ally now in Mitch McConnell as one of the premier leaders in Washington, D.C., for the better part of two decades.
00:03:58.000 20 years in which China made enormous strides to level the playing field against the United States on the world stage, spreading their influence across the globe.
00:04:08.460 Without Mitch McConnell, China wouldn't be the nation it is today.
00:04:12.100 Without their clear influence over the Kentucky senator and Republican leader, it's unclear whether they would currently be competing with the United States for global influence at all.
00:04:21.680 Let's take a deeper look at Mitch McConnell's historic flip-flop on China and how it has impacted our world today.
00:04:28.780 McConnell's hardened stance against China began after he met Elaine Chao.
00:04:34.460 Prior to his relationship with Chao, Mitch McConnell took his many ardent stance against China for several different reasons.
00:04:41.000 As the 1990s approached and George H.W.'s presidency took over for the Republicans' resurgence under Ronald Reagan, China was becoming a very big issue.
00:04:51.680 McConnell supported strict sanctions against Tiananmen Square, the massacre in China, which was a hardline position.
00:05:01.400 The first legitimate action Mitch McConnell took against the Chinese Communist Party as a member of the U.S. Senate was in 1989,
00:05:08.620 when the Kentucky senator voted in favor of sanctions following the Tiananmen Square massacre.
00:05:13.620 McConnell even went so far at that time to sponsor legislation to allow for China's most favored nation trading status, saying that it should be revoked for its human rights abuses.
00:05:25.840 This, by the way, is where Richard Nixon gets a bum rap.
00:05:29.920 You see, at the time that Nixon recognized China, China was a dirt poor agrarian society with a non-formidable military, very little indoor plumbing.
00:05:44.800 The rural areas were largely without electricity.
00:05:48.460 It was not until Bill Clinton gave China most favored nation trading status that they would become the superpower that they are today.
00:05:59.540 That status would, of course, be extended by President George W. Bush.
00:06:04.920 When it came to China, McConnell at that point showed no allegiance or affiliation.
00:06:09.220 His opinions aligned with the harshest of the China critics within the Republican Party and his dissent continued until 1992.
00:06:17.040 Actually, as I was investigating, I was able to dig up a Heritage Foundation publication
00:06:21.440 that was released by Senator Mitch McConnell in 1992.
00:06:25.660 Within that publication, McConnell makes his position on China and its human rights abuses 100% clear.
00:06:32.340 McConnell even called for the United States to do anything and everything
00:06:35.620 in order to protect Hong Kong from the People's Republic of China.
00:06:40.840 The Kentucky senator went so far as to say the United States needs to send a clear warning to Beijing
00:06:45.900 that they would act if there was any encroachment on Hong Kong or Taiwan. McConnell spoke out
00:06:52.400 against Chinese government policies of censorship, holding political prisoners, and arms sales.
00:06:58.380 McConnell at that time was the lead sponsor and author of the United States Hong Kong Policy Act.
00:07:04.020 It committed the U.S. to treating Hong Kong as a separate entity from mainland China. That was
00:07:09.420 introduced in 1991, and he pushed it through, warning that post-1997 risks to Hong Kong's
00:07:15.740 freedom would not be tolerated. Law included monitoring, reporting requirements, and tools
00:07:20.920 for the U.S. Senate to respond if China eroded Hong Kong's autonomy. Senator had repeatedly
00:07:27.660 cited this as the cornerstone of his long-standing China policy. Fortunately for China, Mitch 0.78
00:07:33.000 McConnell's hardened stand against them was about to change, seemingly all because of one person,
00:07:38.440 Elaine Chao. Born in Taiwan on March 26, 1953, Elaine Chao's background would lead you to believe
00:07:45.880 she's one of the most accomplished Asian-Americans in the history of our country. Chao became the
00:07:51.180 first Asian-American to serve as a cabinet member when she was named labor secretary under George
00:07:57.000 W. Bush. She served in that position from 2001 to 2009. She went on to serve as transportation
00:08:03.500 Secretary under President Donald Trump 2017 to 2021. It was widely thought that former Democrat 0.80
00:08:10.540 Congressman Harold Ford would get that position until President Trump had a Capitol Hill meeting 0.95
00:08:17.040 with Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao locked out with the job. With an MBA from Harvard,
00:08:23.240 Elaine Chao is both educated and well-connected. She's been a member of the Washington, D.C. elite
00:08:28.500 since her marriage to Mitch McConnell and is a mainstay in Washington political circles.
00:08:34.680 It isn't until you exam her deep family ties to the Chinese Communist Party
00:08:38.740 that Elaine Chao's vast accomplishments begin to come into question.
00:08:42.520 You see, Chao's father, who has since passed away, was called James C. Chang Chao.
00:08:48.540 He founded Foremost Group, a New York-based international shipping company, in 1964.
00:08:54.660 That company specializes in bulk cargo, in other words, ore, coal, and so on, and has heavy operations tied to China.
00:09:03.880 James was a classmate and schoolmate of Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese Communist Party general secretary, and the president of China from 1989 to 2003.
00:09:16.060 This personal connection reportedly facilitated early business and political access that no one else could get.
00:09:22.800 Today, Foremost is worth nearly $1.2 billion with a fleet of over 30 cargoes nationwide.
00:09:30.520 Angela Chow, that's Elaine Chow's sister, Elaine Chow being Senator Mitch McConnell's wife,
00:09:37.280 served on the board of a subsidiary holding company linked to the Chinese Shipbuilding Corporation,
00:09:43.640 a major Chinese state-owned defense conglomerate central to the People's Liberation Army.
00:09:50.700 Angela also had roles tied to Chinese state banks and trade promotion groups.
00:09:55.720 Elaine Chao's family is extremely wealthy and influential and serious direct ties to national security elements within the Chinese Communist Party.
00:10:05.540 So when you understand where Elaine Chao come from, you'll understand why Mitch McConnell's views have shifted.
00:10:11.920 Now, it's public knowledge that Mitch McConnell was introduced to Elaine Chao in the 1990s by a man known as Stu Block.
00:10:19.640 Stu Block is a longtime friend of McConnell.
00:10:22.900 Block is a D.C.-based lawyer, real estate expert with extreme political influence, and a true Washington insider.
00:10:30.620 McConnell and Block reportedly became acquainted in the 1960s when McConnell was serving as a political aide.
00:10:36.840 Block is married to a woman named Julia Chang Block,
00:10:40.440 the first Asian-American U.S. ambassador that was appointed to her post as ambassador to Nepal
00:10:47.080 by President George H.W. Bush. Julia Chang-Block immigrated to the United States at nine years old
00:10:54.100 in the 1950s directly from China, was actually the mentor to Elaine Chao, also known as Mrs.
00:11:01.780 Mitch McConnell. This is how the direct connection to McConnell and Chao was made.
00:11:06.300 The married couple invited McConnell and Zhao to a candlelight dinner, and well, the rest is history.
00:11:13.140 What more do we need to know about Julia Chang-Block?
00:11:16.720 She served as a prominent senior role at USAID. 1.00
00:11:20.500 That's the organization that's been completely exposed by Elon Musk and Doge for siphoning billions of dollars in taxpayer funds for ridiculous programs across the globe.
00:11:31.440 Chang Block was also the founder of the United States China Education Trust, also known as USET.
00:11:38.780 USET is a 501c3 organization based in D.C. that aims to improve bilateral relationships by strengthening mutual understanding between the United States and communist China through education exchanges and leadership programs.
00:11:55.360 That organization has repeatedly attacked President Donald Trump's trade policies.
00:12:00.780 On February 6, 1993, Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao were married, and following the wedding, McConnell radically shifted his previously hardline anti-China stance to adopt a more pro-China policy model.
00:12:16.260 In 2000, for example, the senator supported legislation which gave permanent favored nation status trotting to China and eventually paved the way for the nation to join the World Trade Organization. 0.61
00:12:27.560 This is what has made China the economic powerhouse and the military menace that they are today. 0.86
00:12:34.020 This move alone is seen as a foundational building block of China's economic plan to challenge the United States on the global stage. 0.94
00:12:42.780 That bill locked in lower tariff rates for China, allowing them to pillage and destroy many manufacturing in the United States and other key industries in the United States. 0.90
00:12:52.620 When we return, we'll continue with the story of Mitch McConnell and how he's empowered our communist Chinese allies, but also how he's gotten fabulously wealthy doing so. 0.94
00:13:04.040 I'm Roger Stone. You're listening to The Stone Zone. 0.78
00:13:07.300 Next, we'll talk about how Mitch McConnell's support for legislation has cost America over 5 million manufacturing jobs, largely due to the conditions created by his legislation.
00:13:18.220 With China able to raid U.S. manufacturing, companies within our borders struggled to compete and die, while Mitch McConnell got wealthy.
00:13:26.960 I'm Roger Stone. You're listening to The Stone Zone, and we'll be right back.
00:13:31.300 The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:13:37.160 this is the stone zone with roger stone roger stone who's a very very one of the smartest
00:13:53.540 political minds roger stone was persecuted people forget he's actually a brilliant brilliant
00:13:58.320 political analyst now get in the zone it's the stone zone here's roger stone and we're back in
00:14:06.340 the Stone Zone, and I'm exposing Senator Mitch McConnell's ties to communist China and how it's
00:14:12.340 made him a very, very rich man. After marrying Elaine Chao, the senator moved away from his
00:14:18.440 previous attempt to hold China accountable for its human rights abuses and required no stipulations
00:14:24.260 for China to restrict torture or political prisoners or slave labor, despite the fact
00:14:29.280 that the issue was raised repeatedly by his Republican colleagues. When Republicans in
00:14:35.000 Washington first confronted President Trump's largely protectionist trade policies, many of
00:14:40.180 them laughed it off, especially in the beginning. Very few Republicans, specifically in the U.S.
00:14:44.540 Senate, supported Trump's rhetoric in general. Hardly any of them supported his rhetoric on
00:14:49.380 tariffs at all. Going back to McConnell's 2000 vote on handing China guaranteed lower tariffs,
00:14:55.000 President Trump's public displeasure with trade imbalances sent a shiver down the spine of
00:15:00.560 Washington's political establishment. The very same senators who voted to lower tariffs for
00:15:06.020 nations like China were now seeing Trump rise to the top of the Republican field while bashing the
00:15:10.740 very policies that they had implemented. Most Republicans kept their distance with a few,
00:15:15.920 embracing Trump. McConnell was not one of them. Upon his election, Trump began to take a stronger
00:15:21.100 stand against nations he viewed as abusers of the American economy, nations like China that were
00:15:27.180 allowed through the Washington, D.C. political establishment to essentially gut the manufacturing
00:15:32.080 industry in the center of our country. This was bad news for Mitch McConnell and his fellow
00:15:37.080 Republican senators, who had not passed economic legislation based on protecting the people they
00:15:42.280 were elected to represent, but based on benefiting the insidious forces within their lives looking to
00:15:47.820 exploit American workers. Actually, McConnell led the rallying cry against Trump's 2018 over
00:15:53.800 tariffs, telling the people of Kentucky, quote, I'm not a fan of tariffs and I'm not nervous about
00:15:58.200 what appears to be a growing trend in the administration to levy tariffs. This is a
00:16:02.160 slippery slope. Beyond his comments in 2018, McConnell has repeatedly rallied both Republicans
00:16:07.880 and Democrats to block Trump's tariff policies, even though they have brought billions of dollars
00:16:13.440 into the U.S. Treasury. This continued into Trump's comeback second term. After the American
00:16:20.320 people sent Donald Trump back to Washington, D.C. with an astounding victory in 2024. McConnell
00:16:25.120 recharged his anti-Trump pro-China tariff attacks on America. Upon taking office a second time,
00:16:31.320 President Trump implemented strict and sweeping tariffs on communist China. Those tariffs were
00:16:36.360 as large as 60 percent were aimed at protecting the American workers that Mitch McConnell had
00:16:40.960 allowed to be raided during his 2000 term. This move by President Trump to implement strict
00:16:46.200 tariffs on China results in China losing an estimated $90 billion of imports for the United
00:16:51.800 States. Mitch McConnell wouldn't stand for that. That's why Mitch McConnell rallied several
00:16:57.000 Republican senators, along with a number of Democrats, to vote to remove President Donald
00:17:01.560 Trump's ability to enact tariffs. That bill passed 5147. China was able to evade tariffs
00:17:08.680 and resume its pillaging of the United States economy that first kicked off with Mitch McConnell 0.93
00:17:13.980 at the turn of the century. When asked why he supported the measure, McConnell gave false
00:17:18.400 statements claiming that the protectionist tariffs implemented by the Trump administration
00:17:22.820 hurt American consumers and not the Chinese officials directly within Mitch McConnell's
00:17:28.320 family. So there you have it, the inside story of why Mitch McConnell went from being a hardliner
00:17:34.080 when it came to human rights and the abuses of China to being a rollover for communist China 0.50
00:17:39.560 that has made he and his family exceedingly rich.
00:17:42.680 You won't hear this kind of stuff
00:17:43.800 anyplace else but the Stone Zone.
00:17:45.580 Don't go away, but we'll be right back with a lot more.
00:17:49.680 The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative
00:17:52.760 on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:18:05.220 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
00:18:08.820 Roger Stone, who's a very, very, one of the smartest political minds.
00:18:12.900 Roger Stone was persecuted.
00:18:14.120 People forget he's actually a brilliant, brilliant political analyst.
00:18:17.260 Now, get in the zone.
00:18:19.020 It's the Stone Zone.
00:18:21.040 Here's Roger Stone.
00:18:23.160 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
00:18:25.280 I'm your host, Roger Stone.
00:18:27.320 Well, Mayor Zoran Mandami's had a rough couple of weeks
00:18:30.700 when he efficiently released his map of New York City's imminent enclaves,
00:18:37.500 as it was called, well, he probably purposely left out Little Italy. That immediately brought
00:18:44.260 an extraordinary backlash. So his map included little Palestine, little Haiti, little Egypt,
00:18:50.460 little Senegal, little Yemen, and even little Poland, but it left out Little Italy.
00:18:56.500 The outcry was immediate. The Italian American Civil Rights League kind of led the fight,
00:19:03.940 And within days, not only did Zoran Mamdami back down, saying that the list had actually been inherited from his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, but he would be reissuing it and including Little Italy, along with other neighborhoods.
00:19:19.540 Now we hear that longtime left-wing activist Anna Maria Archilla, Commissioner of New York City's Mayor's Office of International Affairs and former co-director of the Progressive Working Families Party, that's the Socialist Working Families Party, actually scheduled a meeting with Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, amid ongoing hostilities in the Middle East.
00:19:46.000 This was first reported by the City Journal, but then also covered by the New York Post.
00:19:51.800 The meeting was set for Tuesday, the morning of July 7th at the United Nations Headquarters Complex in New York,
00:19:57.480 alongside with two other senior officials from Mayor Mamdami's office,
00:20:01.720 according to Caller invitations reviewed by the City Journal and confirmed by sources.
00:20:06.980 It was also ultimately canceled after intervention by Marco Rubio's U.S. State Department.
00:20:14.100 Archela, a government employee in Mayandami's administration, has no prior diplomatic foreign policy or international relations experience.
00:20:23.740 Her expertise lies solely in domestic, grassroots organizing of labor and progressive politics.
00:20:30.820 Her appointment to lead Mayor Mayandami's Office of International Affairs,
00:20:35.780 which is tasked with cultivating relationships with foreign nations, global cities, the U.N., and New York's consular courts,
00:20:43.200 drawn attention given her background in progressive activism.
00:20:46.960 U.S. officials learned of the planned meeting via Archela's calendar and moved quickly to shut it down,
00:20:53.580 citing a direct conflict with America's current Middle Eastern policy.
00:20:57.440 A State Department official told Fox,
00:20:59.600 It is unconscionable that a New York City official would even consider meeting with the Iranian ambassador to the U.N., a man who consistently works to undermine U.S. interests and whitewash his regime's crimes against the United States, our allies, and Iran's own citizens.
00:21:17.180 Sources indicated that Archilla's schedule of the meeting without permission.
00:21:23.120 She was reportedly reprimanded and directed to cancel it, but I question whether that's true.
00:21:28.480 More importantly, I believe this is a direct violation of the Logan Act.
00:21:33.940 The Logan Act does not allow any American citizen to conduct their own personal foreign policy.
00:21:40.920 I think this is a clear violation of the act.
00:21:44.640 This isn't the first time the State Department has had to intervene.
00:21:47.340 Last month, Anna Marie Archilla tried to arrange a meeting between Mayor Zoran Mamdami and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has a record of anti-Israel rhetoric, including Nazi comparisons and claims that there was no Holocaust.
00:22:04.300 That plan was scrapped over visa issues.
00:22:06.740 In the past, the Mayor's Office of International Affairs has long stayed neutral, focusing on best practices with global cities, attracting foreign investment to New York and avoiding political ideology.
00:22:19.360 Yet Archilla hijacked the office to push a political agenda and alarming local officials in exposing a self-suffering disregard for its previous nonpartisan role, not to mention federal law.
00:22:34.940 Archela has prioritized deepening ties with foreign adversaries aligned with Mayor Mondami's progressive worldview.
00:22:41.740 The office reportedly directed staff to emphasize engagements reflecting those priorities.
00:22:47.280 I hope that the FBI looks closely at this because I believe it is a violation of federal law.
00:22:53.500 Not long ago, I wrote about China's dominance over critical rare earth minerals
00:22:58.880 and how it has transformed those resources into a central national security priority for the United States
00:23:06.480 as dependents on adversarial supply chains now pose an urgent strategic risk that must be reduced before it can be weaponized.
00:23:15.500 Throughout history, the greatest powers have risen not simply because they possessed courageous soldiers or brilliant generals,
00:23:21.820 but because they secured the resources necessary to sustain their civilization during moments of crisis.
00:23:28.880 The Roman Empire depended upon grain from Egypt. Great Britain's maritime supremacy rested upon
00:23:35.360 their access to coal, iron, and an unrivaled merchant fleet that connected every corner of
00:23:41.160 the globe. During the Second World War, Franklin Delano Roosevelt transformed the United States
00:23:46.580 into the arsenal of democracy because America possessed the industrial capacity and raw
00:23:52.460 materials necessary for the Allied forces to outproduce the access powers. Today's battlefield
00:23:59.140 extends far beyond aircraft carriers, missiles, and satellites. It reaches deep beneath the Earth's
00:24:05.520 surface, where a relatively obscure collection of minerals has become every bit as strategically
00:24:10.880 valuable as oil was during the 20th century. The nation that controls these materials will
00:24:17.120 enjoy an enormous advantage in military power, artificial intelligence, aerospace engineering,
00:24:23.900 semiconductor manufacturing, quantum computer, and advanced industrial production.
00:24:29.920 Every American understandably asks why the United States can't simply mine everything it needs
00:24:35.020 within its own border. Well, the answer lies in the combination of geology, economics,
00:24:41.180 infrastructure, and frankly, time. Although America possesses significant deposits of certain
00:24:46.660 critical minerals, many of those reserves remain commercially undeveloped, or they're difficult to
00:24:52.160 extract economically, or they lack the processing infrastructure necessary to transfer iron ore
00:24:58.620 into materials suitable for advancing manufacturing. Opening a modern mine frequently requires years of
00:25:05.400 environmental reviews, permitting, engineering, financing, and construction before a single
00:25:11.380 shipment reaches an American factory. Even then, the United States often lacks sufficient
00:25:16.920 domestic refining capacity, forcing raw materials to be processed overseas before they can be
00:25:23.060 incorporated into military equipment or commercial products. Simply put, America currently consumes
00:25:29.660 far more strategic materials than it can produce and refine on its own. That reality demands a
00:25:35.780 practical strategy rooted in diversification rather than just wishful thinking. This is
00:25:41.820 precisely why, for example, recent efforts to secure access to Kazakhstan's enormous tungsten
00:25:47.640 deposits deserves our consideration. Tungsten is not a household word, yet is one of the most
00:25:53.700 strategically indispensable metals on earth. Derived from the Swedish phrase meaning heavy
00:25:59.980 stone, tungsten possesses the highest melting point of any pure metal, exceeding 6,100 degrees
00:26:07.100 Fahrenheit. It's extraordinarily dense, it's remarkably hard, and it's exceptionally resistant
00:26:12.420 to heat, wear, and deformation. Those extraordinary physical characteristics make tungsten
00:26:18.400 irreplaceable in countless military and industrial applications. It's used in armor-piercing
00:26:25.120 ammunition, missile guidance systems, hypersonic weapons, jet engine turbine blades, rocket nozzles,
00:26:33.280 spacecraft components, advanced military tools, semiconductor manufacturing equipment,
00:26:39.040 mining machinery, and precision industrial cutting instruments. If steel formed the backbone of the
00:26:46.480 industrial revolution, tungsten has become one of the most indispensable skeletal structures
00:26:52.040 supporting the technological revolution of the modern age. Yet today, America has a shortage of
00:26:59.000 tungsten. The strategic importance of tungsten extends well beyond military hardware. Every
00:27:04.460 sophisticated manufacturing economy relies upon tungsten to produce the machinery that builds
00:27:10.220 other machinery. You see, high-precision cutting tools capable of shaping hardened steel, titanium,
00:27:16.920 and aerospace alloys depends upon tungsten carbide because few other materials can withstand
00:27:23.140 the tremendous friction and temperatures generated during modern manufacturing.
00:27:28.640 Semiconductor fabrication facilities use tungsten in integrated circuits and advanced
00:27:33.460 chip production. Energy exploration, medical imaging equipment, aviation, telecommunications,
00:27:41.060 and countless other industries rely upon tungsten's unique physical properties.
00:27:45.540 Remove tungsten from the global economy, and the intricate machinery of advanced civilization begins to seize like an engine deprived of lubricating oil.
00:27:56.160 It's one of those rare materials whose importance far exceeds public awareness.
00:28:00.560 But now you know.
00:28:02.140 Unfortunately, communist China recognized tungsten's strategic value decades before much of the Western world awakened to this danger.
00:28:10.900 Though patient planning, state subsidies, acquisitions, and relentless industrial expansion, Beijing now controls about 80% of the global tungsten production, while simultaneously dominating large portions of the processing infrastructure necessary to convert raw ore into finished products.
00:28:31.580 This strategy was either accidental, neither accidental, nor purposely purely commercial.
00:28:39.140 It reflects a sophisticated understanding by the Chinese that controlling indispensable resources creates leverage over nations whose industries cannot function without them.
00:28:50.600 A country need not fire a missile if it can instead interrupt the supply of materials required to manufacture missiles in the first place.
00:28:58.720 Economic coercion, carefully applied, can often achieve objectives that conventional warfare cannot.
00:29:06.800 Tungsten represents only one piece of a much larger strategic mosaic.
00:29:11.980 Rare Earth elements such as neodyrum, dioprosium, terubrubium, phase diem, and gadolium
00:29:21.720 liam enable the powerful permanent magnets found in advanced fighter aircraft, submarines, guided
00:29:29.000 missiles, radar systems, robotics, and official interference. Gallium and germanium remain
00:29:35.820 indispensable for semiconductors and infrared centers, as well as fiber optic communications
00:29:41.740 and sophisticated military electronics. Antimony strengthens specialized munition and military
00:29:49.380 aloys. Neobium enhances aerospace components capable of withstanding extraordinary stress.
00:29:57.300 Tantalum prevents advanced electronic systems to function under extreme conditions.
00:30:02.900 We also need lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and manganese. All of these form the backbone of
00:30:10.500 modern battery technology that powers everything from military drones to energy storage systems.
00:30:18.100 Individually, these names may seem esoteric.
00:30:20.940 You probably haven't heard of most of them.
00:30:22.400 But collectively, they constitute the periodic table upon which America's military superiority and technological leadership increasingly depend.
00:30:33.060 Lithium deserves particular emphasis because it's become the petroleum of the electrified era.
00:30:38.400 Every serious discussion involving electric vehicles, grid scale, battery storage, portable electronics, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, autonomous systems, and military energy resilience inevitably returns to a discussion of lithium.
00:30:56.760 Yet the United States remains heavily dependent upon imports because domestic production cannot presently satisfy projected demand.
00:31:05.420 Argentina, Chile, and Australia possess some of the world's richest lithium reserves, while Canada and Brazil continue expanding their own production.
00:31:16.780 Developing America's own deposits remains essential, but even optimistic projections acknowledge that domestic mining alone cannot satisfy near-term requirements.
00:31:26.980 Until American production becomes operational, strategic partnerships with trusted allies remain indispensable, and that has been the aim of the Trump administration.
00:31:38.120 The emerging partnerships with countries such as Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil should therefore be understood not as evidence of weakness, but as an example of strategic realism.
00:31:53.220 During the Second World War, the Allied victory depended upon an intricate international network
00:31:57.960 supplying aluminum, chromium, manganese, rubber, copper, and countless other strategic materials.
00:32:04.440 No serious historian argues that America should have attempted complete economic isolation while fighting a global war.
00:32:12.620 The same principle applies today.
00:32:14.960 Diversifying supply chains among trusted allies reduces the risk that any hostile power
00:32:20.580 can strangle America's industrial base through economic coercion.
00:32:25.020 Joe Biden did nothing about this.
00:32:27.360 President Donald Trump has a number of specific initiatives
00:32:30.500 to catch up in the war for strategic rare earth minerals.
00:32:36.460 Now you have it.
00:32:37.360 I know you haven't heard of most of them,
00:32:39.060 but you understand that the Chinese Communist Party
00:32:41.260 has demonstrated its willingness to employ export controls
00:32:44.280 as an instrument of geopolitical leverage.
00:32:47.440 Restrictions involving rare earth elements
00:32:49.380 and other strategic materials have disrupted manufacturing, delayed production schedules,
00:32:54.620 increased costs, and reminded policymakers that economic warfare has become an integral part
00:33:00.480 of the fight with China. I'm Roger Stone. You're listening to The Stone Zone, and we'll be right
00:33:05.760 back. The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:33:19.380 This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
00:33:26.700 Roger Stone, who's a very, very, one of the smartest political minds.
00:33:30.640 Roger Stone was persecuted.
00:33:31.860 People forget he's actually a brilliant, brilliant political analyst.
00:33:34.920 Now, get in the zone.
00:33:36.760 It's the Stone Zone.
00:33:38.760 Here's Roger Stone.
00:33:40.840 Welcome back.
00:33:41.640 You're re-entering the Stone Zone, and I'm your host, Roger Stone.
00:33:45.960 I must admit I have some trepidation about election integrity in the 2026 upcoming election.
00:33:53.860 The Trump administration's Justice Department announced now that it will send federal election monitors to 15 jurisdictions in six states during the upcoming 2026 primaries.
00:34:04.360 Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dillon addressed the decision in early July, describing the deployment of election monitors as part of the Justice Department's longstanding efforts to ensure compliance with federal voting laws and protect election integrities.
00:34:20.040 Democrats immediately, of course, said that this was an effort to suppress the vote.
00:34:24.700 These monitors will examine polling place operations, including language access for voters who need it, and accommodations for people with disabilities, while ensuring that ineligible voters do not cancel out the votes of eligible citizens.
00:34:39.580 Dylan posted a video on social media announcing that the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is sending election monitors to jurisdictions in Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Virginia.
00:34:53.280 Now, in recent cycles, the Department deployed monitors in nine jurisdictions for the 2022 primaries and in 27 jurisdictions for the 2024 general election, with a program expected to expand further ahead of November 2026 midterms.
00:35:10.380 In other words, no announcements for the midterms have yet been made.
00:35:13.680 This type of oversight is nothing new. Federal election monitoring has existed for over a century and remains a longstanding bipartisan function of the Department of Justice. So ignore the Democrats screaming that this is somehow about suppressing the vote.
00:35:29.000 The move coincided with nationwide Department of Justice letters warning election officials of potential criminal liability for election officials who knowingly allow non-citizen voting or failing to maintain accurate voting laws.
00:35:44.100 A.G. Dillon called the monitoring a standard procedure focused on jurisdictions with recent history of issues and gave officials five days to respond.
00:35:54.660 This type of oversight is once again nothing new.
00:35:57.780 Federal election oversight has existed for over a century, remains a long-standing bipartisan function of the department, regardless of which party is in power.
00:36:06.980 For decades, both Republicans and Democratic administrations sent federal monitors to polling places to enforce key laws such as the Voting Rights Act.
00:36:15.760 The timing aligns with other Department of Justice actions.
00:36:18.640 The same day, departments sent letters to election officials in 50 states warning them of the potential criminal liability if they knowingly kept non-citizens on the voting rolls or allowed them to vote in our elections.
00:36:31.660 Deputy Attorney General Dillon stressed that keeping voter rolls accurate is critically important to protecting the core principles that every American citizen's vote must count and count equally.
00:36:41.760 Some deployments are drawing particular attention, for example, in Michigan, where the Department of Justice plans to send observers to Detroit, Lansing, and East Lansing ahead of the August 4, 2026 primary.
00:36:53.540 Letters to local officials cited issues observed in the 2024 election, including shortages of personal ballots and malfunctioning voting machines in some selected precincts.
00:37:03.900 Michigan's has pushed back strongly with Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey calling the allegations false and dismissing them as a pretext for extra scrutiny.
00:37:13.760 That's the last thing they want on Election Day, folks. Scrutiny.
00:37:17.160 Deputy Attorney General Dillings stated, unfortunately, some leaders in Michigan, including the Attorney General and the Governor, have pushed back against our entirely legal efforts.
00:37:26.640 but to be clear, both Republican and Democratic administrations have sent monitors to Michigan in
00:37:31.560 the past and other jurisdictions, and we will do so again. This is a proper exercise of our
00:37:37.240 oversight and enforcement responsibilities and important federal statutes, including the National
00:37:42.600 Voter Registration Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. This aligns
00:37:48.300 with the Department of Justice's broader lawsuits and demands for voter roll data from numerous
00:37:53.120 states, along with strong emphasis on stopping illegal aliens from voting in our nation's
00:37:58.380 elections, a top priority for the Trump administration.
00:38:01.720 Critics on the left, of course, say the moves are part of intimidation or partisan targeting,
00:38:06.120 while most Americans see why this is necessary enforcement.
00:38:10.220 I say bravo to the Department of Justice and their efforts to make sure that the 2026 elections
00:38:16.080 are both clean and honest.
00:38:18.640 I'm Roger Stone.
00:38:19.600 I want to thank you for listening to The Stone Zone until tomorrow.
00:38:22.340 God bless you and Godspeed.
00:38:52.340 See you next time for a new episode so you never have to wonder.
00:38:56.800 What the heck is going on here?