The StoneZONE with Roger Stone


The Stone Zone with Special Guest Matt Gaetz | 10-21-25


Episode Stats

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary

Former Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) joins us in the Stone Zone to talk about how President Trump's second term stacks up against his first term, and why he's now a better president than the one before him.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome, you are now entering the Stone
00:00:27.720 Zone. Today, it is my distinct pleasure to welcome one of the boldest, most outspoken
00:00:34.200 conservative voices in the country, former congressman from Florida's 1st District, now
00:00:40.800 host of the Matt Gaetz Show on One America News. Former Congressman Matt Gaetz joins
00:00:47.640 us in the Stone Zone. Matt, welcome.
00:00:51.400 Well, it's great to be with you, Roger. Thanks for having me back.
00:00:53.400 Matt Gaetz has consistently been one of President Trump's strongest and most effective advocates
00:01:00.920 all the way back to his first election. He is an unwavering conservative. It is thanks
00:01:06.780 to his courage and leadership that Mike Johnson is now the Speaker of the House rather than
00:01:12.600 the hapless, empathetic Kevin McCarthy. And Matt Gaetz is also outspoken. He is a man
00:01:21.080 who speaks the truth. Matt, let's kind of start from the beginning. How do you think
00:01:26.060 President Trump's unpredictable and incredible second term is stacking up compared to his
00:01:37.460 first term as president?
00:01:39.480 They are different. Admittedly, they are different. And I would say that the touchstone of that
00:01:45.680 difference is the difference in personnel. In the first administration, we had so many snakes in
00:01:52.200 the grass. President Trump had rolled into Washington with a New York Rolodex. And a lot
00:01:58.120 of the people he relied upon in Washington, D.C. betrayed him. They were more interested in getting
00:02:05.040 people who they could milk for, you know, influence peddling than people truly dedicated to President
00:02:12.760 Trump's principles and his vision and his agenda. And that's just so different than what you see
00:02:17.720 now. You see a cabinet that's really working together as a team. You see both horizontal
00:02:23.740 integration across agencies to do things like the deportation agenda, which requires a DOD component,
00:02:32.160 Department of Justice component, obviously DHS as the lead. But then we also have a lot more
00:02:38.540 continuity vertically. You know, we were always facing liars, leakers at the deputy assistant
00:02:46.640 secretary level and those folks who sometimes are Senate confirmed, but not the names that you see
00:02:54.240 most frequently in the news. And more and more through the first term and frankly, through the four
00:03:00.160 years that we spend in the wilderness thereafter, we got a really good sense of who would do a good job.
00:03:05.400 And not everyone's perfect. There are, of course, you know, times when everyone, myself included,
00:03:10.860 need encouragement to focus on the right prioritization of our incredibly long task list.
00:03:18.420 But at the end of the day, there's vertical and horizontal integration. And then the president is
00:03:23.080 able to be more comfortable and in his bag. When Trump was first in office, he was so grieved and
00:03:30.500 angry about the lies of the Russia hoax and what was happening to you and what was happening to
00:03:35.900 General Flynn and what was happening to George Papadopoulos. It was happening to his own family.
00:03:40.620 They were trying to throw Don Jr. in prison and they were not kidding about that. That was not like
00:03:45.200 a PR stunt. That was an actual resourced effort. And he was so grieved by that and yet rescued the
00:03:52.180 economy anyway. And it did a number of other great things. But now he is able to approach the presidency
00:03:59.420 with, I think, a full suite of skills and assets and agencies and experiences that are going to make
00:04:09.900 this the most consequential four years for the country, I think, in my lifetime.
00:04:13.980 Yeah, I agree with your assessment. I think in his first term, he came to Washington from the world
00:04:20.740 of business and he not unreasonably thought, well, there's the Republicans and the Democrats.
00:04:26.100 Democrats are my opponents. The Republicans are my allies, not recognizing that there were many in
00:04:32.060 the Republican Party who resented his nomination, resented his rise, did not support his America
00:04:38.380 first agenda. Ironically, I think he's now, even though I think he was a great president in his
00:04:43.860 first term, bring us a record-breaking economy, rebuilding our military strength, appointing
00:04:50.860 scores of conservatives to the federal courts, just for a couple of examples. But I actually
00:04:56.600 think he's now a greater president in his second term because he was so battle-hardened by those
00:05:04.240 four years in the wilderness. Those four years in the wilderness, he got to really understand
00:05:08.860 the deep state and their viciousness and their duplicity. And today, he's just a much wiser,
00:05:16.860 tougher, more seasoned leader. I have said on the show...
00:05:20.860 And nothing rattles him, Roger. Nothing rattles him now. Think about where we've been. This is a man
00:05:25.280 who has survived multiple assassination attempts and having to sit there in that dank New York
00:05:30.820 courtroom as he was subjected to this absurd criminal prosecution. And now he's like, oh,
00:05:36.300 what, the best you have is the no-kings rally? Like, the best you have are, like, some boomers
00:05:41.980 sweating to the oldies and some people adopting lesbians and, you know, confused transsexuals
00:05:49.040 as, like, the base of what you're going to do to try to win back a majority of the country.
00:05:53.000 It's laughable to see how Democrats are responding now, given what Trump has endured. Like, what?
00:05:59.660 What are you going to do? Shut the government down? Fine. I'll pay the troops anyway. I'll act,
00:06:04.060 and you all will look like a bunch of clowns and we'll own it. And that's just the kind of
00:06:08.460 clarity of decision-making you probably only get with the concoction of experiences that we've been
00:06:15.020 going through.
00:06:15.460 I agree with your assessment. I'm a fan of Speaker Mike Johnson. I don't think people have a clear
00:06:23.160 understanding of how difficult his job is because the Republican caucus is very broad. Let's face
00:06:29.320 it. There are some rhinos in that caucus. They're not interested in reform. They're not interested in
00:06:35.120 exposing the corruptions of the Biden crime family. They're not interested in holding people
00:06:40.160 accountable. And then there are others in the caucus who are true radicals who, you know,
00:06:45.260 really believe deeply in the America First agenda, want to bring reform. And of course,
00:06:51.000 the Speaker has to get enough votes to pass anything. What's your assessment of the Speaker?
00:06:57.640 Well, I personally like him a great deal and still communicate with him frequently when I have
00:07:03.800 ideas or when he wants to share what's going on in the House. You know, I think in terms of
00:07:11.120 the inner workings of the Republican primary, let's just be super reductive about it. There's us and
00:07:17.320 there's them. And the us are people who are not bought and paid for by big business. The us are
00:07:23.840 people who don't want more wars. The us are those of us who are very suspicious of increased federal
00:07:29.740 surveillance of everything. And the them we think are the kind of amnesty, curious, pro-interventionist,
00:07:38.940 a chamber of commerce Republicans. And Mike is one of us. But what what what has created frustration
00:07:48.160 at times is that we always thought he would be more willing to squeeze them. Like we believed Mike
00:07:54.960 emerging as a movement conservative would make Mike more likely to say to the war pimps and the
00:08:03.200 surveillance snoops and the amnesty, curious crowd that it's just not going to be that way.
00:08:09.440 And of course, you know, you're right. There's a math problem. And the core of that math problem is
00:08:14.560 in the United States House of Representatives. There are more of them than there are of us.
00:08:19.360 And that's what the Speaker has to balance daily.
00:08:21.520 Well, folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to former Congressman Matt Gaetz,
00:08:26.320 now the host of The Matt Gaetz Show on One America News. Matt Gaetz is a bold conservative,
00:08:34.000 a trained attorney, a fiery debater, and a political lightenrod who never shies away from a fight.
00:08:41.200 We're pleased to have him. Today, your former colleague, Jim Jordan, made a formal referral
00:08:48.080 of former CIA Director John Brennan to the U.S. Justice Department for lying to Congress multiple
00:08:56.880 times about material matters furthering the Russian collusion hoax. You have been, as I have,
00:09:05.120 a strong supporter of Attorney General Pam Bondi. Do you have confidence that Brennan,
00:09:13.200 Mueller, Comey, Clapper, et al., McCabe, and others will actually be held to account that they will
00:09:24.800 actually be charged for their egregious crimes of seditious conspiracy to undo the 2016 election?
00:09:31.760 I do believe that they will be charged. I do believe it will be a conspiracy charge. And I think the reason
00:09:40.560 that it will be a conspiracy charge is so that you can avoid the judicial death trap that is venue in the
00:09:48.640 greater Washington, D.C. area, where you get so many of these public employees and radical liberal Democrats
00:09:56.240 in every jury pool. But I believe that there was a criminal conspiracy to undermine the workings of
00:10:07.120 President Trump on a lot of fronts. And I think the December 9th meeting that Obama had directing his
00:10:14.720 top deep state officials to concoct this Russia hoax was one act in furtherance of that conspiracy.
00:10:21.040 But you know what another act was, I think, in furtherance of it? The raid at Mar-a-Lago.
00:10:25.760 Because some of the documents President Trump had in his possession were the documents that were
00:10:32.480 exculpatory for him that proved that what you had observed from the Obama team was false.
00:10:41.600 And so when they directed the government to go and raid his home to get the evidence
00:10:47.600 in their own possession that demonstrated their own criminal culpability, that would then use such
00:10:53.920 a conspiracy charge in the Southern District of Florida. I've lived in the Southern District.
00:10:59.200 You live in the Southern District, Roger. I think that the jury pool we get in the Southern District
00:11:03.920 of Florida is way more likely to administer justice. Now, as to the specific act of Brennan in furtherance
00:11:11.760 of the conspiracy, there is, I believe, perjury to questions I asked. I was the one asking questions of
00:11:20.000 Brennan in a recent deposition just a couple years ago within the statute of limitations. And ostensibly,
00:11:27.760 the deposition was about the Hunter Biden cover-up and the Hunter Biden laptop story being Russian
00:11:37.760 disinformation. But I know we've only got a minute or so left here, but maybe we'll chat about it in
00:11:43.840 the next segment, how we were able to get Brennan talking about the Steele dossier, his role in getting
00:11:52.800 that pollinated around the intelligence community, and how that really became central to the public
00:11:59.600 relations drive to convict all of you in the media before anyone had a fair opportunity to present
00:12:05.840 evidence. Yeah, I think you raise an excellent point. Lying to Congress is the least of John
00:12:11.200 Brennan's problems. Here's a man who is an admitted communist, who we know spied on a U.S. Senate
00:12:17.920 committee that was investigating his illegal use of torture as the CIA director. The man who signed
00:12:25.120 the visas for four of the hijackers who were told attacked America on 9-11. And the guy who knew that
00:12:34.480 the Steele dossier, the fake report paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign, commissioned by Hillary
00:12:41.280 Clinton's campaign, was jammed into President Barack Obama's intelligence briefing so it could be used as
00:12:49.600 the rationale for illicit FISA warrants so they could spy on Donald Trump's campaign, as well as the
00:12:57.040 rationale for the appointment of Robert Mueller, who tried to send me to prison for the rest of my life,
00:13:02.960 as well as destroying President Trump and my good friend, General Flynn. Folks, if you're just tuning
00:13:07.600 in, we're talking to Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz is an unapologetic defender of the America First agenda,
00:13:15.840 an outspoken conservative, a man who came to my aid when I was in deep water. We're honored to have him,
00:13:22.560 and don't go away. We'll be right back with more of Matt Gaetz. In the meantime, don't forget to check out
00:13:28.080 Matt's show, the Matt Gaetz show, on One America News. Whatever you do, folks, don't touch that dial.
00:13:34.240 We'll be right back.
00:13:35.440 This is The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
00:13:39.520 He likes politics and he's a professional. At the highest level, Roger Stone.
00:13:45.360 Where's Roger?
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00:14:39.820 This is The Stone Zone. Now, get in the zone. It's The Stone Zone.
00:14:57.180 A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going, and he's smart, and he's strong, and people love him.
00:15:04.100 Not everybody, but people love him and respect him. Roger Stone. Where's Roger Stone?
00:15:08.840 Here's Roger Stone.
00:15:11.880 And we're back in The Stone Zone. We're talking to former Congressman Matt Gaetz, one of the most
00:15:17.960 outspoken and articulate supporters and advisors to President Donald Trump. Matt, you recently made
00:15:25.460 a tongue-in-cheek post on X insinuating that the moon landing was faked. I made the same mistake
00:15:31.980 several years ago. I actually said I thought the whole thing was shot in a warehouse in New Jersey.
00:15:36.620 It was a joke, but many people on X can't take a joke. As a man who's authored a number of books
00:15:44.920 on conspiracies myself, I'm kind of wondering, what conspiracies piqued your interest and why?
00:15:51.160 Well, I will, of course, affirm that that was a joke. I was reposting a post that had suggested
00:16:01.060 that there were two moons. And of course, there aren't two moons for Earth. And so I was joking
00:16:07.740 that if there were two moons, we ought to fake a landing on the second fake moon, which of course,
00:16:14.700 you know, you're right. It's sometimes it's funny just to see what will get a rise out of people on
00:16:19.280 X. But, you know, isn't there an odd life cycle to conspiracies? First, if you say something like
00:16:26.820 the vaccine might hurt you, or there were a lot of federal officers and agents on the grounds of
00:16:33.500 January 6th, or actually it was Hillary Clinton benefiting from support from Russians. If you said
00:16:39.420 those things, first, it was a conspiracy. Then it was Russian disinformation. Then it was like true,
00:16:46.840 but you could still be hunted for it. And then finally, like, actually, you know, the left did
00:16:52.460 some great thing for you. I mean, it's just, they come true so frequently. And so those are things I've
00:16:58.540 been called a conspiracy theorist for. Oh, 60 Minutes did a whole segment on how Tucker Carlson and I
00:17:05.160 were conspiracy theorists, because we said that the coronavirus came out of the Wuhan lab and not
00:17:11.840 out of the pangolin at the animal market. So that's a, it's another conspiracy that came true.
00:17:18.460 Yeah, kind of reminds me of the four phases of life. You know what they are? Who is Matt Gaetz?
00:17:24.880 Get me Matt Gaetz. Get me a Matt Gaetz type. Who is Matt Gaetz? That kind of sums up celebrity
00:17:32.000 in America today. Folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to former Congressman Matt Gaetz,
00:17:38.860 who formerly represented Florida's first district in Congress. When we come back,
00:17:43.280 I'm going to ask Matt Gaetz about a ongoing scandal in Florida in which Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife
00:17:51.300 and the current attorney general seem to me to have been caught red-handed taking $10 million in
00:17:58.700 Medicare funds that was earmarked for the poor, the elderly and the disabled and moving it to a dark
00:18:06.540 money account where they used it to fight two statewide initiatives that they opposed that were
00:18:13.920 on the ballot in the Sunshine State. It is reported that a state grand jury is looking into this matter.
00:18:21.640 Congressman Gaetz has been quite vocal about it, as have I. I want to ask him about that.
00:18:26.380 So when we come back, Matt Gaetz is going to bring us up to date on his views
00:18:31.060 regarding politics in the Sunshine State. And then we'll talk a bit more about the situation
00:18:37.840 in the Middle East, where I think Matt Gaetz has been unfairly criticized. So whatever you do,
00:18:43.160 don't touch that dial. We'll be right back with more of this terrific interview with Congressman Matt Gaetz.
00:18:48.920 This is the Stone Zone. Now, get him a zone. It's the Stone Zone. A man who's gone through hell,
00:19:07.440 but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him. Not everybody,
00:19:13.160 but people love him and respect him. Roger Stone. Where's Roger Stone?
00:19:17.380 Here's Roger Stone.
00:19:20.580 And we're back in the Stone Zone with former Congressman Matt Gaetz, now the host of the
00:19:26.400 Matt Gaetz Show at One America News. If you haven't tuned in for Matt Gaetz's show,
00:19:31.680 it is terrific. Don't miss it. I raised a question in the last segment about Governor Ron DeSantis
00:19:39.060 of Florida. Now, I am a pretty vociferous critic of Ron DeSantis because I think he owes
00:19:45.480 his governorship to Donald J. Trump. His rise in the Republican primary was due to a Trump endorsement
00:19:53.400 and his victory in that election where he won by 25,000 votes in 2018 out of 8.9 million votes cast,
00:20:04.380 I think is due to the fact that President Trump on the advice of Matt Gaetz and others changed his
00:20:10.280 schedule three times in the closing days of that election to help drag Ron DeSantis over the finish
00:20:15.580 line for a very tight race. More recently, Governor DeSantis and his wife and the man they appointed
00:20:24.260 Attorney General of Florida, James Uthmeyer, have been accused of taking $10 million from Medicare funds,
00:20:34.560 money that was specifically earmarked for the poor, the elderly, and the handicapped,
00:20:39.520 and moving that money to a dark money account where they used it to fund initiatives against the
00:20:47.980 legalization of cannabis. This has been widely reported in both the Miami Herald and the Orlando
00:20:55.300 Sun Sentinel. I think it is a very serious scandal. It's amazing to me how few people in Florida actually
00:21:02.720 know about this. As I indicated, there is a state grand jury that's been impaneled and seems to be
00:21:09.140 hearing evidence in this matter. Matt, how serious is this and what is your assessment?
00:21:13.540 I think the conduct is pretty seriously wrong. There is a state-managed care entity and they
00:21:24.200 had overbilled the state some gargantuan amount and actually years ago had offered to settle that
00:21:31.620 dispute for $67 million. And the state of Florida said, no, we won't settle the dispute at that amount.
00:21:38.220 And then years later, when Ron DeSantis and James Uthmeyer needed to find money to defeat a marijuana
00:21:45.980 legalization amendment that they didn't like, they go back and say, well, tell you what,
00:21:51.300 instead of giving the state $67 million, why don't you give $57 million back to the state that you
00:21:58.480 overbilled? And then let's take $10 million and run it through some charity of my wife and then some
00:22:05.380 shadowy C4 organizations. And then lo and behold, the money pops up in the political committee of
00:22:12.240 the then chief of staff, now attorney general, James Uthmeyer. And if it is legal to say to someone
00:22:20.720 that instead of paying the money back to the folks that they jilted, that they can instead send the
00:22:27.060 money to your political committee to run political ads, then we have legalized theft and we shouldn't.
00:22:33.800 And I think that's why there's a grand jury of answering questions about whether or not someone
00:22:39.460 should be charged with a crime.
00:22:41.520 I think that's an excellent assessment. How would you assess the current race for governor of the
00:22:48.540 Sunshine State? I kind of hoped that you would run. I think it's pretty clear at this point that you've
00:22:53.060 decided to dedicate yourself to the Matt Gaetz show, where you're an important and bold voice for
00:22:58.640 conservative views. How do you assess the current race for governor?
00:23:02.520 I like what I'm doing now. I think, you know, Byron is a good guy and it's easy to see why he's got so
00:23:10.960 many supporters. You know, I don't know that the field is fully set and I'm paying close attention
00:23:16.820 to it. I will say on the Democrat side, the fact that they seem to be running David Jolly is such a
00:23:23.980 meme for how far the Democrat party in Florida has fallen. Like, I'm just wondering, Roger, did a group of
00:23:31.280 Democrats get together over there on Adam Street and say, tell you what, when we ran Charlie Crist last
00:23:37.000 time, a former Republican from Pinellas County who had a cup of coffee in Congress, we almost got
00:23:44.440 there. We lost by 20. And so let's take the Charlie Crist archetype, a former Republican from Pinellas
00:23:50.540 County who had a cup of coffee in Congress, and let's zap it of any personality. That's basically what
00:23:57.500 you get with David Jolly. It's like Charlie Crist without the personality. So I think that certainly,
00:24:03.720 you know, we've got folks in the cabinet now who regularly eye the governorship. We've got a number
00:24:09.500 of folks in Congress who I think look at it. Yeah, I like what I'm doing now on the MacGate show,
00:24:14.140 but it'll be interesting to watch over the next several months.
00:24:16.760 Yeah, Charlie Crist is an amazing guy. First of all, as you know, he's eminently likable. It's almost
00:24:21.460 impossible to dislike him. But how one can go from a Ronald Reagan conservative, which is what he
00:24:27.500 always called himself, to being a Barack Obama Democrat, stopping briefly to be an independent
00:24:33.440 on his way there. It reminds me of that joke, a Republican, a Democrat, and an independent walked
00:24:38.620 into a bar, and the bartender said, hi, Charlie. Yeah, it really is. And David Jolly's not only a former
00:24:46.560 Republican Congress of the rhino stripe, but now he's a lobbyist. I actually almost feel sorry for
00:24:52.700 the Florida Democrats. They literally have no bench whatsoever. They can't come up with a viable
00:24:58.720 candidate for governor. So I think whoever the Republican nominee is, is likely to be elected.
00:25:04.620 I agree with you, however, that the field may not be full. I notice that you are frequently put into
00:25:12.680 the league with my friend Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and others, and being defamed as
00:25:18.720 anti-Semitic. I've known you a long time. I know that that's the furthest thing from the truth. I don't
00:25:25.880 think there's anything wrong with saying we should put America's interests first rather than Israel's
00:25:31.360 interests first. As President Nixon used to say, it doesn't mean that we aren't pro-Israel. It doesn't
00:25:36.480 mean that we don't recognize that Israel is a friend and ally. But an American president must always put
00:25:42.660 the interests of America first. And then there's this insane claim that because you take that
00:25:49.640 position, which I think is the correct position, that you are somehow compensated by Qatar or
00:25:58.060 compensated by some state entity to hold the views that you have. I think this is outrageous and
00:26:04.640 unfair. Well, how do you respond to these fake allegations? Well, it's just so silly, Roger,
00:26:11.480 because it doesn't happen anywhere else. When I criticize the Chinese, no one says that I'm
00:26:16.960 xenophobic. When I criticize the country of Niger for throwing out American troops, no one said I was
00:26:24.160 doing it because I hated black people. But somehow, if you're critical of the decisions of the Netanyahu
00:26:29.280 government, rather than engaging those criticisms logically and thoroughly, people like to just throw
00:26:36.420 them in the well-used bucket of anti-Semitism. And I would warn those who overuse that phrase,
00:26:43.520 look what happened to the people who overused racism, right? The people who saw racism lurking
00:26:49.420 behind every corner ultimately became beclowned in society. And the same may become true of people
00:26:57.240 who think that every legitimate criticism of a government's actions when tens of thousands of people
00:27:03.140 are dying is somehow rooted in hatred for a people or a country. I want what's best for Israel. I want
00:27:09.300 what's best for the Jewish people. I hope that they thrive. That's not the view of someone who's
00:27:14.020 anti-Semitic. I do believe that the decisions of the Netanyahu government not only are not in America's
00:27:20.480 best interest, I don't even think they're in Israel's best interest. I think they're just in
00:27:24.720 Netanyahu's best interest. I think this is a guy who tries to externalize conflict because it is the
00:27:31.700 only way he is able to hold power. So he has disrupted all this great work President Trump
00:27:38.860 has tried to do for peace. I mean, just think about when they were bombing Qatar. They were
00:27:43.920 bombing Qatar because one way to make sure that there's no peace deal is executing the people
00:27:49.180 who might sign it. And I think that has been very revealing, not only to President Trump, who has
00:27:55.760 great instincts, but also to the country at large. When you look at the sympathies for Israel after the
00:28:02.640 October 7th attack, they were rightly and justly at a zenith. People were horrified by that. And you
00:28:10.040 compare those numbers now, more and more polling is suggesting there are greater sympathies with the
00:28:15.620 Palestinians than with Israelis that are aligned with the Netanyahu government. So I will continue
00:28:23.040 to cover what is happening in Israel in the Middle East. I think it's very important. I am 43 years
00:28:30.340 old. In most of my life, I've seen my friends, my neighbors, people I care deeply for get drug into
00:28:38.520 these stupid wars in the Middle East. And I think that they were that happened because people weren't
00:28:44.840 asking the right question. President Trump asked the right questions is reposition the Republican
00:28:50.280 Party. And I'm going to be to make make make sure that there's not a reversion to the neoconservative
00:28:58.180 mean. Yeah, I completely agree. All this anti-cutter hysteria is really ridiculous. Cutter's mediation
00:29:05.360 was important in achieving President Trump's most recent peace deal. And President Trump considers
00:29:11.360 them a great ally. So all of this bizarre animus is really strange. You actually talked about how you
00:29:18.960 found someone rummaging through your stuff during a visit to Israel. Can you explain exactly what
00:29:24.740 happened and why you believe they were doing that? It was an AIPAC trip. And my week there, I had been
00:29:33.040 in South America previously, I had eaten some grubs and had some really bad digestive distress. And so
00:29:41.280 instead of like climbing some mountain in Israel, as I was planned to do, I scurried back to my hotel
00:29:48.320 room. And there was a person in my room, and they were snooping around, for lack of a better term,
00:29:56.380 I asked them what they were doing there. They said that they were with the hotel, and they were making
00:29:59.840 sure that everything in my room was appropriately appointed. But that made no sense. This person
00:30:05.360 had no hotel name badge, they had no clipboard. And before I knew it, they flipped out and were gone.
00:30:11.360 And when I reported that to my committee chairman, to the leader of the delegation,
00:30:17.840 I was told, yep, you know, make sure not to leave anything important in your room when you're traveling
00:30:21.520 abroad, which probably is good advice. And, you know, I wasn't carrying around Joe Biden's
00:30:26.400 classified documents or John Bolton's, you know, love notes to himself. But it was it was revealing
00:30:33.680 that even in Israel, we had to maintain our guard. I noticed you recently had some words with Ambassador
00:30:41.760 Mike Huckabee. Can you describe what happened there and what facilitated that exchange?
00:30:47.040 Well, again, I like Mike Huckabee personally a great deal. When I first ran for Congress,
00:30:51.920 he had a fundraiser for me in his home. Mike Huckabee was very angry that Zionist
00:30:57.680 touring Christians were getting delayed visas. And so he wrote a letter to the Israeli government
00:31:03.280 saying that this was wrong, that those American Christians should be able to come without the
00:31:09.040 harassment. He described it as harassment and negative treatment the government was imposing.
00:31:13.680 And then quite interestingly, he said that if the visas were not resolved, his remedy would be to
00:31:21.360 encourage those people to not come. In other words, boycott. He would encourage Americans not to give
00:31:29.120 to groups within Israel, also known as divestment. And he would in turn not approve visas for Israelis
00:31:37.360 wanting to go to the United States, also known as a sanction. I found it very interesting. I reported
00:31:44.000 on this back in July. But Mike Huckabee was using boycott, divest and sanction strategies against Israel
00:31:50.640 to achieve this result. And lo and behold, it worked. BDS done by Mike Huckabee to Israel was effective.
00:31:58.000 And he used shrewd diplomacy to get Americans their approvals. And thereafter, I think more recently,
00:32:06.960 someone posted the video and Mike Huckabee said, well, this is a lie. I never called for BDS. And
00:32:13.280 I had to remind Ambassador Huckabee of the words in his very own letter from months earlier.
00:32:18.640 Matt, your leadership through that long, seemingly endless Republican caucus was inspiring.
00:32:26.000 You took a lot of heat for it, but you stood tall. And the result, I think, was very, very much worth it.
00:32:33.360 I think that those who have already thrown in the towel on the midterm elections are making an enormous
00:32:42.480 mistake. Several months ago, I did Laura Loomer's show on Rumble. And she said, oh, we're going to lose
00:32:50.560 the midterms elections. I realize that in American politics, a week is a lifetime. And you can't
00:32:58.400 determine what's going to happen more than a year from now, today. If you had to assess
00:33:05.440 the upcoming midterms, understanding that a lot will go down between now and then,
00:33:11.040 what do you think is the likely result? You know, Roger, you and I spent all this
00:33:16.720 time talking about why people vote and how that moves the balance of power. But as I look at the
00:33:22.880 battle space right now, I think the midterms are going to be determined by some of this devious
00:33:27.920 cartography. I think that who controls the House of Representatives in the midterms is going to be
00:33:34.880 really, really driven by the Gavin Newsom effort in California, whether or not there's a corresponding
00:33:40.800 effort in Indiana, and, you know, whether or not Florida gets additional congressional seats
00:33:47.200 for reapportionment as a consequence of more accurate census data.
00:33:53.600 I think that's a good assessment. Obviously, the state of the economy is going to be key,
00:33:58.960 as it always is. I mean, President Trump's critics said that if he pursued
00:34:05.120 better tariff deals with our trading partners, that is to say, tariff arrangements that are good
00:34:10.960 for both us and our trading partners, as opposed to giving away the store,
00:34:15.040 as we have traditionally done, well, the stock market would crash, inflation would skyrocket,
00:34:21.120 unemployment would be out of control. Of course, none of those things has happened.
00:34:25.120 This past June was the first month in 15 years that the United States government actually ran a
00:34:32.000 surplus, meaning we took in more money than the government paid out, which is almost a miracle.
00:34:38.720 Then Elon Musk, somebody I admire very much and I like, because he stood tall for free speech when
00:34:45.360 he bought Twitter and converted it into X, he took the extraordinary step of revealing all of the internal
00:34:52.880 documents and documentation that showed that those in our intelligence services under
00:34:58.560 Joe Biden and Barack Obama worked hand in glove with Twitter executives to censor people like,
00:35:05.200 well, Matt Gaetz and me and anyone who questioned President Trump, the safety and effectiveness of
00:35:13.120 the COVID vaccination, the outcome of the 2020 election, the Russian collusion hoax,
00:35:20.240 the validity of Hunter Biden's laptop revelations. So can we ever really, as a former member,
00:35:28.720 can we ever really make the deep cuts in federal spending to get rid of the not millions, not billions,
00:35:36.800 but literally trillions of dollars of waste, fraud and corruption that Elon Musk identified?
00:35:42.960 I mean, of the 435 votes in Congress, there aren't 100 of them to do that. You know,
00:35:50.240 there might be 80, 85 on a real good day where everybody's had their caffeinated coffee and is
00:35:57.440 feeling a full doubt of courage. But, you know, what's the goal of a politician? To get elected,
00:36:03.280 and then to get reelected, and then to get elected to higher office.
00:36:06.160 Folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to former Congressman Matt Gaetz, one of the boldest,
00:36:11.840 most outspoken conservatives in the country today. He is the host of the Matt Gaetz Show
00:36:17.120 on One America News. If you haven't checked out his show, you absolutely must. It is
00:36:22.080 must watching and listening for conservative Americans. You're listening to The Roger Stone Show
00:36:27.680 right here in the Stone Zone on the Red Apple Audio Networks. Whatever you do, don't touch that dial,
00:36:33.920 because we'll be back with one more segment with one of the most outspoken and courageous
00:36:38.800 conservatives in America today, former Congressman Matt Gaetz. Don't go away.
00:36:44.000 This is The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
00:36:47.280 And he's a great, great person, Roger Stone.
00:36:51.760 The Stone Zone.
00:37:03.920 This is The Stone Zone. Now, get in the zone. It's The Stone Zone.
00:37:20.320 A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going, and he's smart, and he's strong, and people love him.
00:37:27.280 Not everybody, but people love him and respect him. Roger Stone. Where's Roger Stone?
00:37:32.000 All right. We're back in The Stone Zone. Just a few more minutes with former state representative and
00:37:40.400 three-term member of Congress, Matt Gaetz. Matt, kind of a lighthearted question. You are consistently
00:37:46.560 among the best dressed and most dapper men in the field of media or politics. Now, neither one of us has
00:37:55.200 shoes like Vish Burra, but other than that, would you care to share your style tips for those in the audience
00:38:01.840 who are looking to dress to impress?
00:38:05.360 Very well. I don't select any of my own clothes. My wife dresses me. And if I ever look like a clown,
00:38:13.600 it's because she's down that day and I got access to the closet myself. I have no
00:38:20.240 effective sense of style. Actually, HBO made a movie about me called The Swamp,
00:38:26.080 and it was before I met my wife. And it's reflective of really someone who probably got dressed in the
00:38:31.520 dark or had some serious color blindness. And I always appreciate looking at the stone on style tips,
00:38:39.040 but I've never been able to fully integrate them. And my wife, she tries to keep me in a
00:38:44.560 like a clean, fresh look. I wear a lot of black and white and try not to spill on myself too much.
00:38:51.040 Well, you've given away your secret because you've definitely upped your game.
00:38:55.280 I think you look great and it's all due to your wonderful wife, Ginger. I want to thank you for
00:38:59.760 joining us today in The Stone Zone. Matt Gaetz, once again, the host of The Matt Gaetz Show on
00:39:05.200 One America News, absolute must watching for American conservatives or anyone who is a free
00:39:11.600 thinker. Matt, God bless you and thank you for joining us today in The Stone Zone. Folks,
00:39:16.800 thank you for joining us today in The Stone Zone. Until tomorrow, God bless you and God's spirit.