The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - Why Trump Is Winning The Democrat Vote – Rod Blagojevich Enters The StoneZONE w⧸ Roger Stone

00:00:00.000 The Stone Zone, with legendary Republican strategist and political icon and pundit, Roger Stone.

00:00:11.260 Stone has served as a senior campaign aide to three Republican presidents.

00:00:15.460 He is a New York Times bestselling author and a longtime friend and advisor of President Donald Trump.

00:00:21.120 As an outspoken libertarian, Stone has appeared on thousands of broadcasts, spoken at countless venues,

00:00:26.500 and lectured before the prestigious Oxford Political Union and the Cambridge Union Society.

00:00:32.100 Due to his four-plus decades in the political and cultural arena, Stone has become a pop culture icon.

00:00:37.440 And now, here's your host, Roger Stone.

00:00:45.860 Good evening and welcome to The Stone Zone.

00:00:48.400 I am obviously not Roger Stone.

00:00:50.060 I am Mark Vargas, guest hosting for Roger, who is giving media interviews.

00:00:55.420 We are broadcasting live right now, just feet away from the convention center at the Republican National Convention here in Milwaukee.

00:01:02.560 We've got an incredible show here for you tonight.

00:01:05.100 But before we get started, we'd like to show you some clips of Roger doing some media hits over the last couple of days here in Milwaukee.

00:01:12.660 The parallels between now and 1968 are just eerie.

00:01:16.000 A Democrat Party split in half by a foreign war.

00:01:20.000 Donald Trump making the greatest single political comeback since the renomination of Richard Nixon.

00:01:26.220 The weak Democrat candidate, LBJ, finally, ultimately dropped out of that race.

00:01:33.760 Biden going to the LBJ Museum to make a statement.

00:01:37.500 Nobody thought that through, the connotations of that.

00:01:40.120 What I see regarding the assassination is eerily similar to 1963, where the Secret Service was supposed to seal all of the buildings, tall buildings, anywhere close to a presidential appearance.

00:01:54.640 They didn't.

00:01:55.320 The building was not searched.

00:01:56.800 It was not sealed.

00:01:58.540 How is it possible that a civilian got on the roof, seen by local police who seemed to do nothing about it?

00:02:05.320 And then we see the moment provided by God, where Donald Trump moves his head at exactly the right second, avoids a kill shot, and preserves this entire movement, bolsters his candidacy, completely changes the political situation.

00:02:22.000 This is an act of God.

00:02:23.440 There's no other way to see all of these events, whether it is the Supreme Court decision on immunity, whether it is the Georgia case being thrown out,

00:02:32.760 whether it is the effort to keep him off the ballot being defeated before the Supreme Court.

00:02:38.360 These are all acts of God.

00:02:39.820 These are all the hand of God.

00:02:42.040 Trump is on his way back to the White House, and he will not be stopped.

00:02:45.720 Roger Stone, we're here at the convention.

00:02:49.300 You've been to so many conventions.

00:02:51.720 What strikes you about this one?

00:02:53.700 Does it feel different than others?

00:02:55.540 Yeah, it's much broader.

00:02:56.740 I see more black faces.

00:02:58.120 I see more Hispanic faces.

00:02:59.740 I see more Asian faces.

00:03:01.040 I see a lot more young people.

00:03:02.980 This is the new Republican Party.

00:03:06.020 This is no longer the party of Wall Street, no longer the party of the money elite, no longer the party of the country club.

00:03:13.620 Now we are the party of working America, the middle class, and you can see it in this convention.

00:03:18.600 All right.

00:03:19.000 We are here with Roger Stone, not only one of the most legendary political strategists in the history of the country,

00:03:26.580 but also one of the most legendary dressers in history.

00:03:30.880 So, Roger, we just want you to run down.

00:03:34.140 What are you wearing today?

00:03:35.260 What's the fashion?

00:03:36.260 So, this is a double-breasted seersucker suit.

00:03:39.360 They're impossible to find, so I had to have it made.

00:03:41.440 Now, this is particularly important.

00:03:44.460 This has a two-inch waistband.

00:03:49.500 It's because I saw a picture of Cab Calloway on the cover of Life Magazine in the 30s.

00:03:53.940 I took it to a tailor, and I said, I want these pants.

00:03:57.100 And they said, nobody has pants like that anymore.

00:03:59.320 I said, I want these pants.

00:04:00.900 So, I got these pants, of course, supported by braces.

00:04:04.780 And it's a southern look, but you've got to have two-tone shoes if you're going to wear it.

00:04:09.780 There's no other way.

00:04:11.540 Putting me to shame.

00:04:13.080 Roger Stone.

00:04:14.160 True.

00:04:14.340 Thank you so much.

00:04:18.900 And I am back again.

00:04:20.880 It's been a busy week here in Milwaukee.

00:04:24.380 But I'd like to first offer our thoughts and prayers.

00:04:28.300 We just moments ago learned that, or just recently, that Lou Dobbs has passed away today.

00:04:34.860 President Trump has put a statement out on his Truth Social.

00:04:37.640 So, we're offering our thoughts and our prayers to Lou Dobbs' family, friends, and millions of fans and supporters from around the world through his legendary career in media.

00:04:48.960 So, again, Lou Dobbs passed away today.

00:04:52.880 Details are still unclear.

00:04:55.160 But with that, I'd like to introduce my very, very special guest this evening.

00:05:02.760 You know him as the nation's highest-profile Trumpocrat.

00:05:06.200 But he is the former Democrat governor of Illinois, former Governor Rob Lagojevich.

00:05:12.120 Governor, thank you for joining us on The Stone Zone.

00:05:14.840 Thanks for having me, Mark.

00:05:15.840 Roger Stone is not alone.

00:05:17.260 He's got friends like you to take care of his show when he's not here.

00:05:20.800 It's a little bit of a different show, and we're in a hotel room here, again, just feet from the convention center.

00:05:25.500 But we want to broadcast live here in Milwaukee.

00:05:28.220 We've got some exciting things here to talk about.

00:05:30.960 But, Governor, let's talk about number one.

00:05:33.600 There is a lot of diversity here at this convention, unlike any other convention.

00:05:39.220 I think that's because Donald Trump has really transformed, remade the Republican Party.

00:05:45.140 Tell us about the diversity and what this convention looks like this year.

00:05:50.360 Well, you know, I've never been to a Republican convention.

00:05:52.400 I've been to four Democratic conventions.

00:05:54.240 I actually spoke at one or two minutes.

00:05:56.240 I get 4.30 in the morning, and there were a couple of sanitation workers sweeping up the floor when I gave my speech all those years ago.

00:06:01.440 I think they liked it.

00:06:03.760 But this Republican convention, the ones I've seen on television compared to the ones I'm actually seeing now and in person, looks very, very different.

00:06:11.580 Roger, in the opening, pointed out how diverse it is, and that's really encouraging.

00:06:15.720 And it's true.

00:06:16.980 His observation is absolutely right.

00:06:18.500 There are a lot of Black Americans here.

00:06:21.320 There are a lot of Latinos who are here.

00:06:24.180 He's right to say that there are younger people here.

00:06:26.860 So the Republican Party, this new Republican Party that Donald Trump has been creating, is really a party that has now the Big Ten philosophy.

00:06:37.560 It's broad-based, centered around, looking after the working guy.

00:06:40.780 And there's a political realignment that's happening in the country.

00:06:44.260 And as the Democrat Party becomes a lot more corporate, a lot more Wall Street, a lot more Hollywood, a lot more Silicon Valley billionaires, the Republican Party is becoming the party that's looking after the little guy and the working people.

00:06:54.140 And it's very exciting.

00:06:55.160 And when you see it, as we're seeing it, right, Mark?

00:06:57.880 It's very promising and hopeful for our country.

00:07:00.920 Governor, we're talking about, on last Saturday, it could have been one of the darkest moments in our nation's history when an assassin's bullets just missed President Trump's head at a rally in Pennsylvania by a mere centimeter, ripping through the skin of his ear.

00:07:20.220 You know, there's a lot of talk about the Democrats have been calling, have had dangerous rhetoric ever since Donald Trump was elected president in 2015.

00:07:27.700 Many believe it's the rhetoric of the Democrats that have actually led to this situation.

00:07:33.620 Your thoughts, where were you when you learned that President Trump had been shot last Saturday?

00:07:39.940 I was at home.

00:07:41.080 It was in the late afternoon in Chicago.

00:07:46.140 I was lacing up my running shoes to go out and run seven miles.

00:07:49.440 That's seven more miles than the current governor of Illinois has ever run in his whole life.

00:07:52.320 And then my daughter, my older daughter, Amy, called and said President Trump had just been shot.

00:07:58.420 And I immediately stopped lacing up my shoes, turned the television on, put on Fox News, and I saw what happened moments after he had been shot.

00:08:07.460 He was behind the podium.

00:08:08.520 And I don't know if your listeners or Roger's listeners know the story in my connection to President Trump's celebrity.

00:08:14.760 But honestly, he fired me, freed me from prison when I was there for a long, long time for political things, not for crimes.

00:08:20.620 And I have this great personal warmth for him and a warm feeling for him.

00:08:25.280 And so when I saw that he was behind the podium after he had been shot, but we didn't know what his condition was, I felt great hurt for someone I consider to be a friend.

00:08:36.860 I don't know him that well.

00:08:38.300 I'm not claiming that we're, you know, close friends in that sense.

00:08:41.020 But I see him that way.

00:08:42.820 And that's how I felt when I saw it.

00:08:44.840 I said a little prayer that hopefully he would be okay because I saw the film footage of the shooting.

00:08:51.720 And then he got up and there was that blood streaming down his face.

00:08:55.360 And there was all that blood on his ear.

00:08:59.140 And then there he was moments after that, raising his fists and shouting out, fight, fight, fight.

00:09:07.420 And I remember saying to my other daughter, my younger one who was there, we were watching this.

00:09:14.160 I just love this guy.

00:09:15.700 Isn't this guy great?

00:09:16.940 This guy is great.

00:09:20.300 And it was clear to me at that point that, you know, he was going to be okay and that, you know, it was bad as that was to get shot like that in the air and to be bleeding that way.

00:09:31.860 This was not a mortal wound that he was going to be able to carry on and live his life and become our next president because I do believe he's going to be.

00:09:38.620 Governor, there's a lot of talk of the comparisons between President Donald Trump on Saturday and Teddy Roosevelt.

00:09:46.520 Can you describe sort of the similarities in the situations and what, in fact, happened to Teddy Roosevelt so long ago?

00:09:53.740 It was 1918?

00:09:55.080 It was 1912.

00:09:55.980 1912.

00:09:56.540 And I'm glad you asked that question.

00:09:57.600 It's a great question.

00:09:58.580 Here we are in Milwaukee, Mark.

00:09:59.740 And this happened, what I'm about to describe to the listeners and the viewers, 112 years ago in October, the 14th of October, 1912, and a former president, Theodore Roosevelt, was running for president again.

00:10:14.660 And he was exiting a hotel in Milwaukee to go give a speech.

00:10:17.840 It was a Sunday evening.

00:10:19.400 And he had to go to a convention center.

00:10:21.300 And as he's about to get into the vehicle and his motorcade that was going to take him to where he had to go, a guy came up to him and directly.

00:10:29.740 Right in front of him, shot him right in the chest.

00:10:31.700 And he was fortunate.

00:10:33.000 And here again, divine intervention spared Donald Trump because he turned his head just slightly to the right and preserved his life.

00:10:42.320 In Roosevelt's case, he had his speech.

00:10:44.760 And it was like a long, long speech.

00:10:46.520 Thank goodness he was going to give a long speech, like a two-hour speech, and all that paper in there inside his suit coat pocket.

00:10:53.200 And he also had his glass cases there.

00:10:55.200 And so the progress of the bullet was slowed down by that.

00:11:00.000 It still lodged in his chest, and it was still a wound that caused great bleeding.

00:11:05.220 But it saved his life.

00:11:07.200 And in the Trumpian fashion that was not Trumpian then, it was Rooseveltian at the time, he insisted on going to give his speech before he went to the hospital.

00:11:18.760 And then he goes to the convention hall, and he tells the audience there, and this was at a time when they didn't have microphones like they have today, and you got to pretty much shout out your speech.

00:11:26.540 There was a big crowd.

00:11:27.600 They were waiting for the former president and a leading presidential candidate to come and give a speech.

00:11:31.780 And Teddy Roosevelt opened his remarks by saying something along the lines of, ladies and gentlemen, please bear with me.

00:11:37.580 I'm going to speak a little bit softer.

00:11:39.440 I have to because I've just been shot.

00:11:42.880 And the audience, you know, was, of course, understandably shot by that.

00:11:48.620 And then he went on to give like an hour, a speech for like an hour.

00:11:51.640 And then he went to the hospital.

00:11:52.860 And the bloody shirt that he was wearing is, I believe, in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

00:11:57.320 It was an iconic moment, as was what happened Saturday with President Trump.

00:12:01.520 And had Roosevelt not had the Republican incumbent president in the race, he would have gone on to win that race.

00:12:08.460 He got something like 27 percent of the vote as a third-party candidate.

00:12:12.680 And in this case, I'm not saying this is the reason Trump is going to win, but this is going to be among the reasons why Trump is going to win by a lot more than anybody ever thought he was going to win by.

00:12:22.480 Because the American people can see real courage and real strength and real toughness and defiance in the face of an evil act.

00:12:28.380 So, God bless Trump that he's alive.

00:12:31.480 Thank God that he spared his life.

00:12:33.720 And I think there's a renewed sense of purpose that President Trump has.

00:12:36.940 And I think we'll get a sense of that tonight when he gives his speech.

00:12:40.020 Governor, we're seeing a lot of reports of just flagrant miscalculations, lax insecurity.

00:12:48.320 You know the threats are always high with President Trump.

00:12:51.120 But it's remarkable to me.

00:12:52.380 It doesn't take a law enforcement expert to discover or learn that this guy climbed up a ladder.

00:12:59.420 He did an army crawl on the roof, set up his rifle.

00:13:03.160 He was about 150 yards away.

00:13:05.020 I've been told that that rifle can hit a target over 400 miles, 400 yards away, despite he was just 150 yards from the president's body.

00:13:14.060 And it's shocking that he was able to do all of this.

00:13:18.080 And the Secret Service, I think, attendees at the rally were pointing up saying that there's a man with a gun up there.

00:13:25.420 And he's still got a shot fired, shots fired.

00:13:29.300 I think the Secret Service director is in real serious trouble, should be fired immediately.

00:13:34.100 Governor, your thoughts, you've had a protective detail when you were governor, your thoughts on just this flagrant drop in protection and protocol for a city, for a former president of the United States and the Republican nominee for president.

00:13:48.040 It's shocking to me.

00:13:49.420 Well, first of all, just to praise the men and women who were there with President Trump at the moment where the shooting happened and how they bravely did their jobs and protected him.

00:14:00.040 But there was clearly a lapse by whoever's responsible for the security around the perimeter of that location where the president was giving his speech.

00:14:09.440 And, you know, the first thing you do, I'm not an expert, but you don't have to be an expert to know that after President Kennedy was assassinated and Lee Harvey Oswald was up in the book depository building with that long range rifle,

00:14:21.520 that the first place you would look is to make sure that buildings that are around the area where a president or presidential candidate is going to give a speech, that those buildings are clear and that the roofs are empty.

00:14:32.480 And the fact that they could not do that, that they missed that, suggests at a minimum gross negligence and raises, I think, reasonable questions.

00:14:41.000 How did that happen?

00:14:41.860 And was that by design or was that just completely, completely stupid and irresponsible on the part of the, those Secret Service agents responsible to make that call?

00:14:53.860 I believe there needs to be, of course, an investigation.

00:14:57.420 I think everybody does.

00:14:58.920 The other question is, can you trust the FBI?

00:15:01.120 Can you trust the DOJ?

00:15:02.840 I've had hard experience with those people, some of them.

00:15:05.840 You know, I believe there's good and bad in everything, and I have to believe most people in the Department of Justice and the FBI are still good people doing their jobs, real professionals who want to do justice and find the truth.

00:15:17.020 But this is, our country has become so politicized.

00:15:20.060 And my party, the Democrat Party, has weaponized these prosecutors and these courts to such an extent, what they've done to Trump, what happened to me and all the other, all the rest, the political establishment, I should say,

00:15:30.300 that I think it'd be crazy not to have reasonable cynicism and doubt about whether or not you're going to get an honest investigation here.

00:15:39.260 I hope we do.

00:15:40.540 But I think we, the people, must demand that they become as transparent as possible and let us know.

00:15:44.960 What we don't need is another Warren Commission to wait a thousand years before we actually find out what happened in Dallas in the 22nd of November, 1963.

00:15:55.020 So the bottom line is, I think there was a tremendous lapse on the part of the Secret Service.

00:15:59.260 I think that's obvious.

00:16:00.300 And I think it was so ridiculously incompetent that I think it's reasonable to say that maybe someone purposely chose to, like, ignore certain places.

00:16:10.280 And the question is, why?

00:16:11.860 So let's find out, hopefully, what the truth is going to be.

00:16:14.560 I don't know if we ever will.

00:16:16.220 But God willing, let's hope that in the light of this, the security around President Trump and President Biden and anybody else who's in a position that needs that kind of security is going to get a lot more, a lot better and a lot more professional.

00:16:29.640 Than what we saw on Saturday.

00:16:31.520 And sadly, there was a gentleman, a firefighter, that was killed, a father.

00:16:36.500 And the other night at the convention here in Milwaukee, they honored this brave individual.

00:16:41.780 President Trump actually called his widow and offered his thoughts and prayers and said that he would continue to call her and shook up on her in the weeks and months and years ahead.

00:16:53.380 There were also two others that were critically injured.

00:16:55.860 But you also have to think about the PTSD, the post-traumatic stress disorder that those rally attendees are going to feel for a very, very long time.

00:17:05.620 I hope that the questions, the answers, it doesn't take years and years and years for the answers because the threat level, our country is so divided.

00:17:14.080 Governor, I want to ask you about this division that you did, that you did talk about.

00:17:20.020 You know, your party is, people argue that the Republicans have gone so far right, but the far left, I guess the Trump derangement syndrome nearly cost the 45th president of the United States his life.

00:17:33.980 You don't recognize this Democratic Party anymore.

00:17:36.960 Tell us about the Democratic Party when you were a young Democrat versus the Democratic Party that we're now seeing today.

00:17:42.760 Yes, thank you.

00:17:44.200 Let me just say this about Corey Kemp.

00:17:46.080 Is this Kempotori, is that how you say his name?

00:17:49.040 I mean, what a moving story that is.

00:17:51.160 And, you know, I hope most of your listeners are, it's their decision, of course, on what their level of faith is.

00:17:56.740 But I have to believe God has a special place for somebody like that.

00:18:00.280 The fact that here he was with his family, they're going to a Trump event.

00:18:04.360 It's a big, big deal to them.

00:18:05.900 They must have been planning this for weeks.

00:18:07.520 It's the President Trump, this larger-than-life figure, is coming to their small town in that farm field there in western Pennsylvania.

00:18:14.960 And they're having this wonderful experience together.

00:18:18.240 And then that happens.

00:18:19.540 And the first instinct this man does is to protect his family, his children, and his wife.

00:18:24.220 And he literally takes a bullet, more bullets, I don't know how many there were, that took his life.

00:18:28.520 God bless him.

00:18:29.640 And my understanding on him, he was a person of great faith.

00:18:32.920 He was a firefighter.

00:18:34.180 And you see the photographs of him.

00:18:35.960 And you can just see the love that the family has for each other and what he had for them.

00:18:40.380 And that's a bona fide American hero who probably isn't going to get books written about him.

00:18:46.580 He may get some things named after him, as he should.

00:18:50.520 But these are these everyday people who do heroic things that don't get, you know, front-page news headlines or news stories or books written about him.

00:18:58.400 They're just everyday Americans who are good people, love their families, believe in God, and are willing to do what he did to protect his family.

00:19:06.740 So God bless him.

00:19:07.540 And with regard to today's Democratic Party, I don't know that, well, let me put it this way.

00:19:12.700 It's a very different party than what I was in.

00:19:14.580 It's a very different party than what President Kennedy was the president of.

00:19:17.640 And Harry Truman, Harry Truman would be rolling over his grave if he listened to some of the views of these Democrats today.

00:19:23.880 And so would Franklin Roosevelt.

00:19:25.760 Just the other day, I was talking to a group of people, and I talked about a new law that was passed in my state of Illinois and signed into law by the current governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker.

00:19:34.380 And the law says that you can't call an offender, a criminal offender, an offender anymore.

00:19:41.000 You have to call him or her a justice-impacted individual, a justice-impacted individual.

00:19:48.020 So I'd say to your viewers out there, Roger Stone's viewers out there, some guy comes up and pulls out a gun, makes your wife, girlfriend, sister, or mother get out of the car, and then he demands the keys, takes her purse, then takes the car.

00:20:03.940 We can't call him a carjacker.

00:20:05.620 We have to call him a justice-impacted individual.

00:20:11.040 I think that sums up how ridiculous the Democrat Party has become.

00:20:14.380 And the lunatic fringe of the Democrat Party is now the lunatic center and mainstream of the Democrat Party.

00:20:21.140 And it's a Democrat Party of a strange coalition.

00:20:23.500 It's an odd coalition.

00:20:24.680 It's no longer the working people.

00:20:27.300 Trump is turning them into Republicans because Trump speaks to them.

00:20:30.020 Trump's values ironically reflect that, but his policies, his programs, and his priorities are all about looking after working people, his trade policies, and all these other things.

00:20:45.280 The Democrat Party used to be that party.

00:20:46.780 It's not anymore.

00:20:47.700 Today's Democrat Party is the party of Wall Street financiers, Silicon Valley billionaires, movie stars, and an odd coalition with socialist politicians whose answer to inequality isn't to help you just go up in the world.

00:21:00.020 They're not for that.

00:21:00.900 They want to pull you down.

00:21:02.560 And that's wrong.

00:21:03.600 And, you know, I'm the son of an immigrant who came to America.

00:21:05.580 He was a working person.

00:21:06.560 My mother and father were working people.

00:21:08.260 They lived in a five-room apartment.

00:21:10.160 My mother never got the dream of the home she hoped she'd have one day.

00:21:13.940 They always worked so hard and sacrificed, scrimped and saved, rarely went out.

00:21:17.500 It was a big event to go to the local neighborhood restaurant where my mother kept saying, you got to eat everything, son, we're paying for this.

00:21:23.220 Because they didn't have anything.

00:21:24.260 And what little they had was for school, for me, to have an opportunity to live the American dream.

00:21:28.600 That's supposed to be what the Democrat Party was always about.

00:21:32.820 Everyday people, ordinary people having a chance to do better in life and help them do better in life.

00:21:39.820 Today's Democrat Party is just the opposite.

00:21:41.760 It's all about the corporate interests.

00:21:44.760 It's about Hollywood and movie stars, Silicon Valley, and all the things that those people are about, and lip service to everyday people.

00:21:51.920 This Democrat Party, in so many ways, is the most fraudulent party in American history.

00:21:57.740 And one last thing.

00:21:58.820 What they're doing to the rule of law and the Constitution, how they're turning prosecutors into political weapons, and how they went after Trump on non-crimes all over the place to prosecute him, persecute him, destroy him, ruin him financially, put him in jail, is motivated by politics.

00:22:17.380 And there's nothing sacred with these people.

00:22:19.440 If they would screw around with the rule of law and the Constitution, that's not just unpatriotic.

00:22:24.780 That's almost treasonous.

00:22:27.100 And I can't say necessarily that's what it is, treason, but it seems to me that it is.

00:22:31.800 When you steal away the fabrics of our society, the things that gives us freedom, like law.

00:22:36.340 We don't have the law.

00:22:37.120 We have no freedom.

00:22:37.780 And that they would play with that because they want to beat Trump in an election is really disgraceful.

00:22:43.580 Makes you hate the Democrat Party.

00:22:45.580 And I'm still considered a Democrat.

00:22:46.940 I still consider myself a Democrat.

00:22:48.340 You know, once you're a CUP fan, you're always a CUP fan.

00:22:50.220 It's hard to leave.

00:22:51.420 But I'm a Trumpocrat and an enthusiastic one.

00:22:53.740 And I don't like these Democrats.

00:22:55.460 A Democrat for Trump.

00:22:57.000 And arguably, probably the highest profile Democrat for Trump in America.

00:23:01.320 Governor, you know, Van Jones, who hasn't really been a big fan of President Trump, and he's a CNN commentator and very close with the Bidens and the Obamas, just the other day, I believe it was last night, said something that I thought was so profound on CNN that probably left all of his CNN hosts stunned.

00:23:20.420 And his quote was something a lot I'm paraphrasing, is that Donald Trump gets struck by a bullet and he stands up and he fights.

00:23:26.180 Joe Biden has just been, has COVID, and now he's taken nearly six days off.

00:23:34.220 The optics of that is so weak.

00:23:36.840 Governor, as a registered, a Trumpocrat who is still a registered Democrat, the Democrat Party is in complete, total chaos.

00:23:46.300 And this COVID, now he's been tested positive for COVID, it's getting even worse.

00:23:50.940 Your thoughts on what's happening with President Biden and the Democratic Party?

00:23:56.180 Well, I mean, I don't like Biden, I think he's a terrible president, you know, hope and pray he gets better.

00:24:01.560 We don't, we want him to get well.

00:24:04.020 We don't want him to be president, that's for sure.

00:24:06.520 But I'm not so sure we necessarily want him to get out of the race just because it's an insult to the 15 million of my fellow Democrats who voted for him in these primaries.

00:24:15.140 And granted, his opposition wasn't that, wasn't that difficult.

00:24:19.460 But 15 million Democrats in primaries voted to make him their nominee.

00:24:23.780 And now all of a sudden, after George Clooney makes the phone call, a play actor, a guy who makes a living pretending to be other people in a world of make-believe.

00:24:32.080 And the living he makes is making tens of millions of dollars.

00:24:34.940 I mean, he's a lucky man, I'm sure he's got the talent that, you know, you know, that warrants that.

00:24:40.860 But that's who the Democrats listen to now, not the woman who, the home health care worker who's caring for your sick grandmother or the auto mechanic who gets dirty fixing your car or the nurse or the firefighter or any number of working people.

00:24:56.080 Their votes don't matter.

00:24:57.160 If George Clooney says we want somebody else, we got to get serious and get somebody else.

00:25:00.880 So do I think he's going to drop out?

00:25:02.880 All along, I've said he wouldn't.

00:25:06.500 And yet, you know, I see these things about COVID and Biden now shifting and saying, well, maybe if my health's not right, I might reconsider.

00:25:15.340 So I don't know whether what's going to happen today, this weekend or the days ahead.

00:25:19.080 I do know, though, that what's happening in politics today and this movement that President Trump has created, that has gotten so much resistance, which is more proof that it's a real movement and that he really means what he says he wants to do for this country.

00:25:34.700 Make our country more secure by securing the border, make our country safer by having common sense laws that are just, that protect the public, but also hopefully merciful when you take into account whether someone deserves these long, long sentences on first offenses that are nonviolent.

00:25:50.020 I think he's going to make our country a lot more prosperous, just like it was when he was president before COVID.

00:25:55.460 And I think he's going to make our country strong and reflect him.

00:25:58.280 But I think this movement and what Trump is about is so powerful, it doesn't really matter what Democrat wants.

00:26:05.020 Trump's going to win, not because they're voting against somebody as much as they're going to be voting for Trump and for what he's about.

00:26:10.160 And I think that's going to be a shift that we're going to see in the days ahead.

00:26:13.060 And I think it starts tonight with President Trump's speech.

00:26:15.820 Let's talk about that, President Trump's speech this evening.

00:26:19.320 Give us a preview of what we already kind of know the themes that are going to be highlighted tonight.

00:26:23.960 And it's unity, obviously, after he has said publicly that he's rewritten his speech.

00:26:29.280 He had a speech that he referred to as a humdinger prior to Saturday's assassination attempt, and he's rewritten his speech.

00:26:36.320 Give us your thoughts or a preview of what you think President Trump is going to talk about tonight.

00:26:42.060 Well, I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be, I think it's going to reflect the experience he just had on Saturday.

00:26:48.380 You know, Roger Stone is the host of the show, and we both have grown to love Roger.

00:26:55.320 I'm fascinated by him and all of his stories and his background and the time he spent with Richard Nixon and the time he spent with Ronald Reagan.

00:27:02.060 And I think about President Trump's speech tonight.

00:27:04.780 I think about President Reagan in March of 1981 when he was shot.

00:27:08.200 And he was shot and almost died, but his life was spared.

00:27:14.820 And it gave Reagan a sense of renewed purpose and a belief that his life was spared because God had a plan for him to do things for this great country that I also believe has God ordained.

00:27:24.960 I think there's something always been special about the United States.

00:27:27.660 That's why everything is at stake in this election.

00:27:30.220 I think President Trump feels the same thing.

00:27:32.680 I don't know this, but I would imagine that he does.

00:27:34.760 I mean, any of us out there who went through that experience and realized that if you just turn your head just the slightest bit, maybe a millimeter or two, you're a dead man.

00:27:43.300 And that the guy that was shooting you really wanted to kill you.

00:27:46.160 I shouldn't laugh, but I mean, this is how it was.

00:27:48.320 And that he dodged the bullet literally.

00:27:51.940 It has to be God and a divine purpose.

00:27:56.540 I do believe in things like destiny.

00:27:58.300 I know I came home because of a miracle.

00:28:00.240 Trump pulled me out.

00:28:01.040 You were tremendous help, and I'm forever grateful to you, my friend, for that.

00:28:03.580 But I think President Trump believes that, too.

00:28:07.860 I'm sensing that.

00:28:08.520 I don't know firsthand that he does, but I have a strong belief that he does, and I think that speech tonight that he's going to give is going to reflect that.

00:28:14.720 And I think, again, you know, sometimes historically, one of the advantages, and I'm not here to recommend going to prison for eight years like I did, because it sucked, especially when you didn't do it.

00:28:27.280 But one of the things you can do when you're there, because you've got to kill time, and I'm writing a book about this, by the way, is you can catch up on your reading.

00:28:35.080 And I did read a lot, and I read a lot about different historical figures, so much so that I believe certain terrible things happen from time to time, that at the time that it happens, you think it's the worst thing in the world.

00:28:46.920 And yet, you look back after it's all been played out, and there all of a sudden, that figure who was hurt at one point, is the instrument to do some really good, meaningful things for the world.

00:28:59.140 Franklin Roosevelt was an example of that, the calamity he suffered when he was stricken with polio.

00:29:02.880 He then saved our country during the Great Depression, overcame the paralysis of the economy, because he had paralysis, lifted us over the fear that we had.

00:29:11.300 Reagan had his purpose.

00:29:12.700 I think Trump is a man with a moment.

00:29:16.520 He's going to meet that moment, and I think it's part of a destiny.

00:29:19.400 I do, and I divide plan, and I sure would hate to be the Democrat running against that.

00:29:23.980 Governor Unity, what are your thoughts?

00:29:27.180 What can, and there's no question that our country is divided right now.

00:29:31.580 It's us versus them, and the Democrats have really, you know, they've weaponized our justice system to target political enemies.

00:29:38.400 The United States looks more like the USSR than the USA.

00:29:42.380 Let's talk about what your thoughts are.

00:29:44.040 What are some things that we can do as a country to start bridging the gaps and uniting, and hopefully going back to that thought that we, at the end of the day, we are still Americans.

00:29:54.480 We can't be enemies within our own borders.

00:29:57.680 Governor, what are your thoughts for the viewers and listeners of the stone zone of what we each, each of us can do to help bring our country back together, in light of what we just all experienced as a nation on Saturday night with President Trump's attempted assassination?

00:30:13.140 Well, Mark, you know, I would, I'd refer to another great Republican president.

00:30:18.740 Now, here's one that Roger doesn't know, because Roger would have been too young.

00:30:23.520 It was Abraham Lincoln.

00:30:25.580 Roger wasn't alive then, but it was Abraham Lincoln, and Abraham Lincoln gave, you know, put out a message and a statement to the southern states after he was elected, and the states began to start leaving.

00:30:35.080 And I think it was his first inaugural address where he said, we must not be enemies, we must be friends, we are, we are not enemies.

00:30:42.020 And I think the American people need to be, to have that view.

00:30:46.240 We can disagree politically as we should.

00:30:48.380 That's part of a healthy democracy.

00:30:50.060 And sometimes the ideas of the other side turns out to be, they were right and you were wrong, and you embrace those ideas because they're good for the public, promote the common good and the general welfare, and it's just good.

00:30:59.020 But today, the politics is so hyper-partisan.

00:31:02.560 You know, I was in prison, Mark, for 2,896 days, eight years for politics, not for crimes.

00:31:08.120 I keep saying that, but it's true.

00:31:09.840 It is true.

00:31:10.500 But I came home to a world that I discovered had changed so much in so many different ways.

00:31:14.900 Put aside all the technology that I'm still grappling with, right?

00:31:18.620 You see me with those iPhones.

00:31:20.220 How do you turn that thing on?

00:31:21.180 The governor is not very good with the iPhones.

00:31:23.060 I can assure you of that, but you're right.

00:31:26.080 Keep going.

00:31:26.320 All right, but it's a world, a country that what I came home to loved less and hated more, and the politics is so hyper-partisan on both sides.

00:31:38.540 I would argue that my side is more at fault.

00:31:40.960 It's so much more ugly.

00:31:42.300 It's so much more vindictive, so much more determined to destroy somebody.

00:31:45.620 But in both sides, the politics is very, very hyper-partisan, and it's very difficult for either side to get together and get things done for the people.

00:31:53.700 And all of that stirs up the resentments and the divisions in our country.

00:31:58.160 And I would like to hope and think, and I think it's going to happen.

00:32:00.960 I think more and more people are going to start saying it is time to kind of get together and unify.

00:32:05.340 And I think a test of great leadership that President Trump will pass tonight is that he's going to be out there.

00:32:11.900 He'll be tough and strong on the things that he believes in, as he should, and that's what we rely on him to be.

00:32:16.900 But I believe he's going to be really making a substantial step towards working towards unifying our country.

00:32:23.380 I think he's always been that way, Mark.

00:32:25.200 This is a man that's very practical.

00:32:26.780 I think his shock when he got to Washington was that the moment he won and shocked the world by beating Hillary Clinton, which itself was an act of great patriotism.

00:32:36.420 I mean, I've known him, okay?

00:32:38.020 I would say, I think he was shocked that when he got there, that Nancy Pelosi and Schumer and the Democrat leadership was unwilling to work with him on anything, on anything, even things that help Democratic constituencies.

00:32:50.840 They could care less about helping Democratic constituencies if many would get in the way of their politics of demonizing Trump.

00:32:58.520 Our country, politically, is divided way more because of the stuff the Democrats have been doing demonizing Trump than anything Trump or the Republicans have been doing on the other end.

00:33:08.240 And it's been an unprecedented assault against one man, the kind of vilification and persecution that he's gone through.

00:33:13.860 But I think he's such a strong man and such a big man, and I think he loves his country so much, and I know he loves his country so much.

00:33:20.500 Why would he do this, put himself out there like he does?

00:33:23.040 I think he's going to lead, and he's got the ability and the capability to put aside all those things those people did to him if they'll work with him to do good things for the American people.

00:33:32.260 And I think it's going to begin tonight when he gets his speech.

00:33:37.000 Governor, you're in a unique position.

00:33:38.620 You were on Celebrity Apprentice, and I know Roger probably has a thousand stories about acts of kindness coming from President Trump that never see the light of day, that don't get any attention.

00:33:50.700 Governor, I want to ask you, you've seen the softer, compassionate side of President Trump, the fact that he has a big heart.

00:33:58.820 Again, these are stories, insight from the inside during your time on Celebrity Apprentice.

00:34:04.180 We know that President Trump felt so much compassion, he actually said so, when seeing your wife, Patty, make her case on national television trying to get you home.

00:34:14.300 Governor, can you share some stories that show, and we saw this last night at the convention, Kai Trump, who delivered an incredible speech.

00:34:24.140 I actually saw Don Jr. later that evening at a restaurant at the hotel, and he said his friends were telling him that you just got your butt kicked by a 16-year-old in terms of a speech.

00:34:35.300 It was an incredible speech, and he was so proud of her.

00:34:38.420 And I got to meet her and thank her for her speech, but she really focused on the personal side of Donald Trump.

00:34:46.300 Donald Trump, the grandfather, not Donald Trump, the president.

00:34:49.900 Governor, can you share with us some stories about acts of kindness that President Trump has shown to your family, besides the obvious, which was commuting your prison sentence and reaching into those cold, dark waters and rescuing you?

00:35:01.560 Yeah.

00:35:01.980 Thanks a lot for asking that.

00:35:03.100 You know, I saw his granddaughter.

00:35:04.480 She was so sweet.

00:35:05.220 And, you know, I was so impressed with the things she was saying about her grandfather, even less impressed about the things about him.

00:35:11.560 It was really the way her.

00:35:13.340 And maybe this sounds a little bit on the selfish side, but I have two daughters, 27 and 21, and Patty did a great job raising my little babies.

00:35:20.860 They're kind of grown up now, right, 21-year-old, 27-year-old.

00:35:25.180 And I saw that beautiful granddaughter of his talking about her grandfather that way.

00:35:29.580 My first thought was, after I was watching her for a while, was, you know what?

00:35:33.060 I can't wait to be a grandfather.

00:35:34.680 And I hope I have a granddaughter.

00:35:36.100 And I hope I get that kind of love from her like he got from her last night.

00:35:39.560 Now, my daughters, I know they love me, but they don't love me the same way they did when Annie was eight and I left home.

00:35:44.520 And my daughter Amy was 15 and I left home.

00:35:48.180 They manifested differently, you know, that lovable, sweet stuff that you get from a little girl when you're their daddy.

00:35:54.640 And I saw the granddaughter do that, and it was so moving and so touching and so sweet and so real.

00:36:00.640 And everything she said about her grandfather, of course, I'm sure is absolutely right, because I saw it myself.

00:36:06.020 And, you know, he's a big, strong, tough guy.

00:36:07.940 He's all of those things.

00:36:09.500 But he's also a guy who's very fundamentally kindhearted.

00:36:12.500 And I've been through, you know, I've been in politics for a while, and I've met a lot of people in politics in high places.

00:36:17.920 I've known Obama for a long, long time, since 1995.

00:36:21.320 We came up together in politics.

00:36:23.280 We were contemporaries.

00:36:24.520 And, you know, he was on the south side of Chicago.

00:36:26.440 I was on the north side of Chicago.

00:36:27.380 And both of us kind of viewed as guys that, you know, we're going to go higher up.

00:36:31.100 And we both ultimately did until he got way to the top, and I got brought way down to the bottom and even further, right?

00:36:37.220 Even further, yeah.

00:36:37.860 He went to the big house, and you went?

00:36:39.440 He went to the White House, and I went to the big house.

00:36:42.080 It's a family show.

00:36:43.020 I could call it something else.

00:36:44.000 But so I've known him, and I had some experiences with Bill Clinton, had some with George W. Bush when I was a congressman and governor.

00:36:52.840 I knew Biden when he was a senator, and I was a congressman.

00:36:55.960 I think with Biden, I don't have to explain it.

00:36:58.700 What you see is what you get.

00:37:01.720 Hillary and these people and all these politicians.

00:37:04.880 And like any other place in the world, there's always good and bad and everything, right?

00:37:08.700 And the same is true with politics, politicians.

00:37:11.860 And then there are good guys and not so good guys, right?

00:37:14.780 Trump is fundamentally a good guy.

00:37:17.500 He's a good guy.

00:37:18.860 He's the kind of guy who would help you.

00:37:21.540 And I'm not just talking about what he did for me.

00:37:23.400 He'd just help you, even when the cameras aren't on.

00:37:26.340 And he's also, believe it or not, I don't want to get him mad at me if he sees this.

00:37:30.020 He may not want anybody to know this, but he's sensitive.

00:37:33.080 He's a sensitive guy.

00:37:34.080 And he saw when I was on Celebrity Apprentice, and I had been fired already, and he was right

00:37:39.640 to fire me, and everybody else had been fired too.

00:37:42.000 And we were brought back for the final program.

00:37:43.820 It was Bret Michaels, the rock star, and Holly Robinson, Pete, the TV star.

00:37:48.180 They were the final two.

00:37:49.340 And you go to New York University, and you're on a stage, and there's like a live audience,

00:37:53.400 maybe 750 to 1,000 people in that audience.

00:37:56.060 My two little girls were there, and my wife, Patty, were there.

00:37:59.080 The Trump production team was very generous, allowed me to bring them to New York.

00:38:02.000 I was in the midst of all my troubles, facing my first trial shortly.

00:38:06.420 They tried me twice.

00:38:07.220 They didn't convict me on their fake stuff the first time.

00:38:09.300 Then they used unlawful standards in the second trial.

00:38:11.320 You notice how I'm obsessed with this?

00:38:13.420 Anyway, back to Trump.

00:38:15.080 So I'm on the stage.

00:38:16.260 Because innocent people fight back.

00:38:18.420 Yes, you're damn right.

00:38:19.300 That's why.

00:38:19.860 Innocent people fight back.

00:38:21.080 If you're guilty, they stay silent.

00:38:23.140 Thank you.

00:38:23.640 I want to say that again.

00:38:24.280 You're doing so good.

00:38:25.980 Innocent people fight back.

00:38:27.480 I mean, it's true.

00:38:28.980 And you were really Trump before Trump.

00:38:30.920 You went out and you fought so hard.

00:38:32.940 I mean, you even challenged the prosecutor to a duel, which was remarkable.

00:38:37.500 And everyone thought that the fact that you were fighting back so hard that it was going

00:38:41.980 to hurt you.

00:38:42.640 But at the end of the day, it saved you because President Trump saw that fighting spirit since

00:38:47.700 day one.

00:38:48.820 And I believe that that played a significant role in his decision, making the decision to

00:38:53.900 send you home because you never stopped fighting and innocent people never shut up.

00:38:59.060 True things.

00:38:59.840 I didn't challenge them to doodle, but I did call them out and say, why don't you meet

00:39:02.300 me in court tomorrow and say some of these things to my face, you coward.

00:39:05.160 I did that on TV.

00:39:06.380 Of course, I had to answer to that when they finally convicted me on their fake crimes.

00:39:09.960 And I had to go before the judge and get sentenced.

00:39:11.860 That didn't help me.

00:39:12.900 It's among the reasons why I got 14 years and I didn't take a penny.

00:39:15.860 But I have no regrets because those people are corrupt and somebody needs to fight them

00:39:19.740 and call them out.

00:39:20.840 But I'll tell you among the reasons why I wouldn't give in that I want to go back to Trump's

00:39:24.080 kindness because I was hired by the people to represent them and fight for them.

00:39:28.880 I swore in the Holy Bible twice.

00:39:30.880 Doesn't that mean anything to protect the Constitution and the rule of law?

00:39:34.260 And what they were doing was so unlawful.

00:39:36.100 And I could never make a deal with them, even though they were floating in.

00:39:39.240 They offered lighter time in prison.

00:39:40.920 I could have been out maybe in a year and a half, but never could I do it because none

00:39:44.700 of it was criminal.

00:39:45.320 I knew what they were doing.

00:39:46.660 And I was the governor of the state and I was elected by the people and they invested

00:39:51.620 in me, their trust and would have been a terrible thing to do to our country, to not resist that

00:39:56.680 sort of stuff.

00:39:57.640 The Bible says resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

00:40:00.720 So no way could I make a deal.

00:40:02.340 Trump is the same way.

00:40:04.400 I'm like more like, you know, I'm Trump light.

00:40:07.040 He's Trump.

00:40:07.740 He's Trump.

00:40:08.180 Okay.

00:40:08.700 But.

00:40:09.080 And he showed Trump tough on Saturday night.

00:40:10.700 He sure did.

00:40:12.020 But he's kind too.

00:40:13.620 And so there I was on the stage and he throws a question to me about something.

00:40:18.880 And I weaved in my message and I kept saying, I didn't break a law across the line or take

00:40:23.580 a penny.

00:40:24.360 And the audience starts laughing derisively.

00:40:28.240 And my little girls were there, but he doesn't know it at the time.

00:40:30.940 And then later on, there was another thing.

00:40:32.580 He asked the question, how many people here on the stage think he's guilty?

00:40:35.600 And everybody, pretty much they were good.

00:40:37.280 Even Cindy Lauper and some of the movie stars and the celebrities and all the rest.

00:40:40.880 They kept their hands down.

00:40:41.980 It was nice of them.

00:40:43.120 Even Sinbad, the comedian, very nice guy, by the way.

00:40:46.100 Except Michael Johnson was the one who put his hand up.

00:40:48.700 Okay.

00:40:49.580 Anyway, show's over.

00:40:51.480 The decision's made.

00:40:52.900 The rock star, Bret Michaels, is the winner.

00:40:55.440 And it's over.

00:40:56.680 And now I'm going to spend one more night in New York City with my little girls and my

00:41:00.360 wife, Patty.

00:41:01.260 And my little Annie, but Annie was six at the time.

00:41:03.680 And my daughter, Amy, would have been 13.

00:41:06.100 And it was Patty, my wife.

00:41:08.000 And we're in an elevator going down to New York University.

00:41:11.800 And in walks Donald Trump.

00:41:13.300 This is 2009.

00:41:15.040 2010 in March.

00:41:16.400 So it's six years before he was elected president.

00:41:19.500 And I never think in my wildest dreams he's ever going to be president, much less go into

00:41:23.520 politics.

00:41:24.020 Why would he?

00:41:24.680 The life he was living.

00:41:25.960 Look what he's got to go through, by the way, because he loves his country.

00:41:29.000 But anyway, he's on the elevator with us.

00:41:31.380 And I introduce him to my wife, Patty, and to my little girls.

00:41:34.320 And we get out of the elevator.

00:41:35.600 And Trump is like six foot three, six foot four.

00:41:37.820 He's big.

00:41:38.240 He's got a real presence to him.

00:41:39.360 And he sees my little girls.

00:41:41.080 And he remembered way back, maybe an hour before when the show was on.

00:41:46.400 And there was all those people laughing at me.

00:41:47.820 And he realized my little girls were in the audience and heard that, that father getting

00:41:51.920 mocked that way.

00:41:53.080 And he gets down to their level and talks to them.

00:41:56.280 No cameras.

00:41:57.000 There were no newspapers there.

00:41:58.260 This was just an act of kindness from a guy who saw a guy, me, in trouble, facing very

00:42:04.720 difficult circumstances with his little girls.

00:42:07.420 And he wanted to explain to his little girls that he had respect for their father, for his

00:42:12.220 courage, for his toughness.

00:42:13.880 In other words, prop them up so they see that their father's not this guy that the audience

00:42:18.920 seems to think he is.

00:42:20.280 It was one of the kindest things in a subtle way that I've ever really seen.

00:42:24.000 And I saw other examples of that with Trump in my interactions with him.

00:42:27.680 Even the last time I saw him back in May at Mar-a-Lago and him asking me about my wife,

00:42:32.420 Patty.

00:42:33.180 So he's really a good guy.

00:42:36.800 He's a good guy.

00:42:38.380 And you know what my new politics is?

00:42:40.360 I'm less about Democrat, Republican, even views.

00:42:43.720 I might even stomach some crazy views.

00:42:45.940 If you're fundamentally a good person, you got my vote.

00:42:49.020 Because most people in politics are not fundamentally good people.

00:42:51.840 They are politicians.

00:42:53.920 Governor, let's transition real quick.

00:42:58.020 Governor, or Senator Menendez, was just found guilty.

00:43:02.520 Remember, the gold bars and cash stuffed in his clothes and his closets and throughout

00:43:07.700 his house.

00:43:08.940 Talk to me a little about his conviction.

00:43:12.540 Now there's calls for him to resign his seat in the Senate.

00:43:17.480 But pretty hard to fight back on that evidence when it is, it's there in gold, in the form

00:43:24.220 of gold bars.

00:43:25.100 Yes, I think $150,000 worth of gold bars hidden in his home and hundreds of thousands of dollars

00:43:33.700 in cash hidden in his home.

00:43:36.580 And I was in Congress with Menendez for like two years.

00:43:39.940 Then he went on to become a U.S. Senator.

00:43:42.160 And I knew him a little bit.

00:43:43.740 And he was all right.

00:43:45.540 I mean, you know, no strong feelings about him one way or the other.

00:43:49.520 And having gone through what I've gone through, I have a certain empathy for people who have

00:43:54.820 to face that sort of thing.

00:43:56.800 But I think that's pretty blatant corruption in my mind based upon the evidence and the

00:44:02.120 facts that we've seen in the media.

00:44:04.500 Now, I know, again, how the prosecutors can twist things and they lie and the media plays

00:44:08.480 it a certain way and you don't get the whole truth and all the rest.

00:44:11.200 But one thing we know, it's undeniable.

00:44:12.960 He had the cash in his house, a lot of it, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, not

00:44:17.760 a thousand dollars, you know, weighing around, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.

00:44:22.860 And in today's day and age, very few people do that.

00:44:25.760 And his excuse that he's, you know, he came from Cuba and he was worried about the government

00:44:29.860 compensating his money.

00:44:31.440 I mean, does that really get past the smell test?

00:44:33.580 That kind of explanation?

00:44:34.560 One of the most powerful United States senators in the country.

00:44:36.800 And he's worried about the government taking his money.

00:44:38.780 Yeah.

00:44:39.200 You know what I mean?

00:44:39.920 So that causes me to not believe him.

00:44:42.920 The explanation about the cash and that by itself, the cash alone is probable cause that

00:44:46.500 maybe you want to look and see what's that guy doing with all that cash.

00:44:49.460 Because when you're in politics, you don't touch cash.

00:44:52.900 And if it's a campaign contribution and someone's given you cash for your campaign, you take it

00:44:56.820 like this, Mark, look, and you say, here, take this to your aid.

00:44:59.680 Go ahead, report that and put that in the bank right away.

00:45:02.540 Okay.

00:45:02.980 You don't want to touch it because you don't, at least that's the way I was.

00:45:06.780 So the cash and the gold bars, how do you explain those?

00:45:12.980 I'm laughing, but it's just, right?

00:45:15.520 And then the other thing that's not so appealing, if your defense is going to be, well, it was

00:45:19.360 her fault, your wife.

00:45:22.100 That's not going to go very well.

00:45:23.140 I think from a practical point of view, it's not going to press female jurors.

00:45:27.640 No.

00:45:27.760 I mean, whatever happened to chivalry.

00:45:29.740 So I think the defense was very weak.

00:45:31.700 And I think it was weak because I don't know that he has one.

00:45:34.460 And I want to explain to Rogers listeners and viewers the difference between campaign

00:45:38.540 contributions and taking something personal.

00:45:41.620 See, what they did to me when they convicted me on legal things was they criminalized legal

00:45:45.660 requests for campaign contributions.

00:45:47.460 No one says I took anything illegal.

00:45:49.220 Illegal.

00:45:49.500 I got 14 years in prison because they said I was trying to sell a sentence.

00:45:53.100 See, that was a big lie.

00:45:54.280 The appellate court reversed that.

00:45:55.460 It was never a crime.

00:45:56.900 It was a corrupt trial.

00:45:57.880 So they got convictions on fake jury instructions.

00:46:00.460 But eventually they can never uphold that standard because everything in politics is horse

00:46:04.240 trading.

00:46:04.600 And Obama started the whole thing.

00:46:05.760 He wanted to make a deal.

00:46:07.220 So that's that.

00:46:08.160 The second part.

00:46:08.320 And it got so little attention because it went against the government's narrative that

00:46:12.040 the marquee charge in their case had just been overturned and it wasn't a crime, which

00:46:17.680 is interesting.

00:46:18.660 Nobody covered that.

00:46:19.800 I'm so glad you said that.

00:46:20.940 Can you say it again for Rogers listeners?

00:46:23.020 Thank you.

00:46:23.980 Actually, it's one of the easiest arguments to make when people say, oh, he sold the Senate

00:46:27.700 seat.

00:46:28.420 Got two questions to who and for how much.

00:46:32.380 Nobody can answer any of those questions because it never took place.

00:46:36.880 And then asking, well, then if it was a crime, why did the appellate court overturn those

00:46:41.640 convictions?

00:46:42.960 Because it never existed.

00:46:45.060 There was no sale of the Senate seat.

00:46:47.020 There was no buyer.

00:46:48.100 Governor, Governor, you said if someone was going to buy it, it's going to be the current

00:46:51.360 governor, J.B.

00:46:52.140 Pritzker, because he spent nearly $500 million of his own money to become governor, not once

00:46:57.680 but twice in Illinois.

00:46:59.540 Buying the Senate seat would have been really easy to do.

00:47:01.680 That would have been a real easy phone call, wouldn't it?

00:47:03.680 I would have given him a discount.

00:47:04.860 I could have taken that sentence seat for a cool $100,000.

00:47:08.780 No, I mean a cool $100 million is what I'm going to say.

00:47:12.780 He's on the FBI tapes, Pritzker is.

00:47:15.020 They're covered up, those FBI tapes.

00:47:16.540 They won't play them.

00:47:17.240 But somehow they broke the gag order and allowed his out.

00:47:22.000 And they were trying to make Pritzker look bad when he ran for governor.

00:47:26.040 But he's on there asking me to make him a U.S. senator.

00:47:28.340 If they use the standard that was used against me, which is not the law, against J.B. Pritzker,

00:47:33.580 then Pritzker committed the same fake crime that I went to prison for.

00:47:37.720 Because when he asked me that, of course, the implication in my mind is if you want to

00:47:41.180 get a lot of money, campaign contributions at the least, right, this is the guy to do

00:47:45.880 it because this is what he does in politics.

00:47:48.000 He pays for everything because he inherited like $3 billion.

00:47:50.760 And so, oh, no, if I was corrupt, he would have been my senator.

00:47:56.320 And he would have been more than happy to make some sort of a transaction, even if it

00:48:00.280 was implied.

00:48:01.180 But that's the thing.

00:48:02.120 He didn't break the law, and I didn't either.

00:48:04.440 However, how they got the convictions on me and the difference between my case, let's

00:48:09.020 say, for example, and Menendez, is the difference between the bribery law on personal corruption

00:48:14.920 versus politics, requests for campaign contributions.

00:48:18.420 The Supreme Court has said over and over again that a request for a campaign contribution

00:48:23.920 or a donor's desire to give a campaign contribution is free speech, protected by the First Amendment.

00:48:29.560 And the only compelling state interest to limit free speech is, quote, unquote, quid pro quo

00:48:35.580 corruption, which means you've got to show as an element of the crime that there was some

00:48:41.500 sort of a deal.

00:48:42.100 So when Obama wants, you know, so that when I'm asking, let's say, a union leader for

00:48:48.100 a campaign contribution, and by the way, in my case, I wasn't even the one asking.

00:48:51.160 It was third parties doing it.

00:48:52.280 That's right.

00:48:52.600 On my behalf.

00:48:53.500 So if they ask for a campaign contribution, if they say, hey, look, contribute $50,000 to

00:48:58.340 Governor Blavage's campaign contribution, and you'll get appointed to a board, that's

00:49:02.720 a crime.

00:49:03.260 That's an express quid pro quo.

00:49:04.700 Correct.

00:49:04.900 But if you go to the campaign contributor, and you say, can you contribute $50,000 to

00:49:09.720 Governor Blavage's campaign?

00:49:11.800 And that's it.

00:49:13.280 And the guy thinks, well, if I do it, I'm kissing his ass, and maybe he might be good

00:49:17.740 and make me an ambassador or appointment to a board and commission.

00:49:20.400 That's 100% legal.

00:49:21.900 That's how politics works.

00:49:23.400 They criminalized it in my case.

00:49:24.860 There was no quid pro quo.

00:49:26.000 In fact, the judge in that second trial, that dirty, rotten, corrupt, scoundrel judge

00:49:30.320 who died, I wish his family the best.

00:49:34.220 He's going to have to answer to God.

00:49:35.560 But that judge said, I don't even want to hear quid pro quo in the trial.

00:49:39.240 So it was fundamentally flawed.

00:49:41.500 In Menendez's case, because it's personal, you don't have to prove that express quid pro

00:49:46.040 quo.

00:49:46.740 You can infer it.

00:49:48.400 A jury can reasonably say, ask itself, there's no evidence that there was a deal made.

00:49:53.260 However, who gives a senator $150,000 in gold bars, or who gives them hundreds of thousands

00:50:00.160 of dollars in cash for nothing, not expecting anything.

00:50:04.620 And even though we don't have evidence of that, we can infer that based upon our experiences

00:50:10.560 in life.

00:50:11.220 And so that's what happened to Menendez, and that's why he got convicted, because the

00:50:15.000 law actually allows for the jury to infer a quid pro quo.

00:50:19.220 You don't have to prove up and express one like you do for fundraising.

00:50:21.720 Governor, as we're here in Milwaukee, again, we're live.

00:50:25.780 Roger Stone is actually running around the convention giving interviews today.

00:50:30.440 And so I am filling in for Roger.

00:50:33.620 Again, we're just feet from the convention center where this evening, President Trump

00:50:38.120 will address the nation for the very first time since the assassination attempt on Saturday.

00:50:45.080 But Governor, I know you've been watching.

00:50:47.380 You've been here the last couple of days, but you've been watching the convention even

00:50:51.940 at home.

00:50:52.500 You've been following the speeches.

00:50:54.220 Just give me your thoughts so far this week of the speeches and sort of the cadence of the

00:51:00.040 convention this year.

00:51:02.540 Well, I have a hard time getting over Nikki Haley running against President Trump.

00:51:05.920 I thought that was a terrible act of political opportunism and fundamental disloyalty.

00:51:10.500 So when I watched her speak, and I can't be objective, I didn't like her speech because

00:51:15.980 frankly, I don't like her.

00:51:18.380 Maybe I'll be too frank, but I just can't get over the fact that Trump makes sure that you

00:51:22.720 an ambassador, and then when she sees that he's been wounded, she pounces on that, like

00:51:26.680 most politicians do.

00:51:27.820 And then basically, she's going to try to take from him what he basically had a right

00:51:34.420 to pursue based upon the fact that he had been the previous president, just from a political

00:51:38.340 point of view.

00:51:39.120 So I can't be objective on her.

00:51:41.900 I think J.D. Vance is a great pick.

00:51:44.320 I think he's a tremendous pick.

00:51:45.760 And I like the fact that he's young, he's very intelligent.

00:51:49.080 His common man roots, his background, you know, the fact that the book he wrote, Hillbilly

00:51:57.400 Elegy, talks about that rough and tumble, hardscrabble life that he came from, rural America,

00:52:02.580 the forgotten Americans.

00:52:03.860 These are the people Trump talks to.

00:52:05.340 I believe I was their governor, too, when I was governor of Illinois.

00:52:08.000 I know rural America really well.

00:52:10.600 It was in southern Illinois and downstate Illinois, outside of Chicago, that I won my first election

00:52:16.060 for governor.

00:52:16.520 People didn't think I could do that because I was a Chicago guy.

00:52:19.400 But the fundamental thing was my dad was a working person.

00:52:21.900 So was my mother.

00:52:23.220 You know, I felt a connection to working people all across the state.

00:52:26.300 And they've been forgotten.

00:52:27.520 And their communities have been hollowed out because of globalism and because of the trade

00:52:31.520 policies of NAFTA, Clinton, and Biden.

00:52:34.360 Those policies sent those jobs overseas.

00:52:36.840 And now in those downstate communities in Illinois and in Ohio and all across the Rust Belt

00:52:42.060 states, those people don't have economic opportunities.

00:52:45.240 They don't have jobs.

00:52:46.180 So J.D. Vance is the perfect advocate for them.

00:52:50.620 And his life experience reflects that.

00:52:52.820 And so therefore, it makes what he's talking about very real.

00:52:55.620 He's also very intelligent, very well-spoken, and he's a best-selling author.

00:53:00.320 And I guess he went to an Ivy League law school, right?

00:53:02.440 Something I could never get into, by the way.

00:53:04.280 And yes, I did become a lawyer.

00:53:06.440 Yes, I did exactly pass the bar exam the second time around.

00:53:10.500 But he went to Yale Law School, and I went to Pepperdine in Malapu, where there were movie

00:53:13.820 stars.

00:53:15.240 And it was hard to go to the law library and study.

00:53:17.580 And I like to use that as my excuse.

00:53:19.580 But I mean, J.D. Vance is clearly a very highly intelligent guy.

00:53:22.600 And so he's book smart, and he's also street smart because of his life experience.

00:53:26.640 A great pick.

00:53:27.740 And generationally, the combination of Trump and him, it's like Nixon and Eisenhower.

00:53:31.600 Roger Stone could appreciate this because he was friends with President Nixon.

00:53:36.000 Nixon was 39 years old when Eisenhower, the older candidate, picked him to balance out the

00:53:40.540 ticket.

00:53:41.440 And it was a great combination.

00:53:42.620 They won by a lot twice.

00:53:44.260 So I think Vance is great politically.

00:53:46.420 He's going to be tremendous in the states that are going to decide this election.

00:53:51.140 He's going to be a big hit in Wisconsin.

00:53:52.760 He'll be a big hit in Michigan, a big, big hit in Pennsylvania.

00:53:56.940 And if Trump wins those states, he's going to win.

00:53:59.960 I think J.D. Vance will be a big hit in Minnesota.

00:54:02.500 Again, a lot of similar demographics.

00:54:04.140 I think Trump's going to win Minnesota, actually.

00:54:06.160 He's going to be great in North Carolina.

00:54:08.100 Trump will hold North Carolina.

00:54:09.840 I think he's going to be great in Virginia.

00:54:11.860 Trump, I think, is going to win Virginia.

00:54:14.260 And then he might win a lot of other states, too.

00:54:18.320 And then the other states, like Georgia and Arizona, I'm talking about the battleground

00:54:21.540 states, Nevada, J.D. Vance is going to be just fine.

00:54:25.560 But those particular states I mentioned moments ago are where he really is going to resonate

00:54:29.240 with voters because of his life experience.

00:54:31.500 So great, great pick.

00:54:33.640 And I think his speech was touching and nice.

00:54:37.080 He talked about his mother.

00:54:39.080 He doesn't have the same pizzazz Trump has.

00:54:40.700 But then again, you don't really want that.

00:54:42.020 Too much pizzazz is maybe not, you know, it's too much pizzazz.

00:54:47.060 I think it's a good balance.

00:54:48.360 So I'm really excited about the ticket.

00:54:50.020 I think it's a great ticket.

00:54:50.880 I think it's a great choice.

00:54:52.780 For those of you that haven't, that are not here in Milwaukee, security is incredibly

00:54:57.140 tight.

00:54:58.500 We're within what you call the secure bubble, within what they call the perimeter.

00:55:02.860 And outside the perimeter, there are literally tens of thousands of police officers from all

00:55:09.900 over the country, Miami-Dade, Minneapolis, all over the country.

00:55:15.020 After the president's, former president's assassination attempt, they really beefed up

00:55:19.900 security.

00:55:20.700 Security detail is gigantic.

00:55:22.340 And we can feel it.

00:55:23.540 And we see it here.

00:55:24.340 But Governor, next month, the Democratic Convention is coming to Chicago, a city that you know

00:55:30.260 very well and you live in Chicago.

00:55:32.400 But the rhetoric coming from the anti-American, anti-Israel protesters is really ramping up.

00:55:39.120 They've called for, these far leftist groups have called for violence during the Democratic

00:55:44.100 National Convention.

00:55:45.660 Governor, your thoughts on what Democrats can expect at the convention next month in Chicago

00:55:52.360 as crime continues to skyrocket, carjackings continue to skyrocket.

00:55:56.620 Seems like an odd place, odd time to be having a national convention in a city, Democratic-run

00:56:01.440 city like Chicago.

00:56:03.140 In a Democratic-run city like Chicago that has exorbitantly high violent crime rates, unfortunately,

00:56:10.000 and things like carjacking are sadly almost commonplace.

00:56:16.640 I mean, maybe it's not quite commonplace, but it happens all too often everywhere.

00:56:19.980 And today in Chicago, if you live in Chicago, and it's been the case like that for the

00:56:23.980 last several years, I think people actually leave their homes and get in their vehicles

00:56:29.060 and are actually thinking about where they're going.

00:56:32.580 And as they think about where they're going, they're trying to figure out, what do I do

00:56:37.100 to make sure, just in case someone's trying to steal my car, what do I do?

00:56:41.200 They've decided the Democrats to have the convention there because J.B.

00:56:44.060 Pritzker gives tens of millions of dollars to the Democratic National Committee.

00:56:47.640 That's why it was chosen, and that's where they're going to put up with some of the damn,

00:56:51.020 some of the darn difficult issues that they're going to have to face.

00:56:54.600 So those protests that you're talking about, Roger, in the opening credits, talked about

00:56:59.460 this is so much like 1968 this year's, these conventions, 2024.

00:57:04.500 Chicago in 68 blew up.

00:57:06.520 It was a dramatic thing, and I'm not predicting necessarily that'll happen in this year's

00:57:11.460 Chicago convention.

00:57:12.140 But I think a lot of the same elements are going to be there.

00:57:15.220 And I think there's another dynamic today in Chicago, very unlike what it was like in

00:57:20.080 1968.

00:57:20.940 In 1968, we had a Democratic mayor named Richard J. Daley.

00:57:24.840 They call him the last of the big city bosses.

00:57:27.820 But Daley, the old man, and Daley, the son who I've known, who was the mayor, who actually

00:57:31.800 was mayor longer than his father.

00:57:33.460 But both of them are basically like political royalty in Chicago.

00:57:36.940 The first mayor, Daley, was like our king.

00:57:38.420 In fact, the day he died, December 20th, 1976, I'll remember that.

00:57:42.700 Elvis died August 16th, 1977.

00:57:46.540 Kennedy was assassinated on the 22nd of November, 1963.

00:57:50.880 And Mayor Daley died on the 20th of December, 1976.

00:57:54.840 For me, these were really huge events.

00:57:58.640 But he was pro-police.

00:58:00.380 And when the police and the riot took place with the anti-war protesters, and it got messy,

00:58:07.080 and messy is an understatement, but it got violent and terrible.

00:58:10.660 And the American people are watching this.

00:58:12.200 The Democrats' fortunes just kept going down and down because it was such a terrible event.

00:58:17.940 But Daley supported the police.

00:58:21.120 Our mayor does not.

00:58:22.440 This one, Brandon Johnson.

00:58:23.480 And the Democrats have been so, they have so abandoned the police over the last four years

00:58:30.900 after the George Floyd shooting.

00:58:33.220 And they were not exactly that supportive before that.

00:58:36.220 They used to be when the Democrat Party I was in was very much for the police.

00:58:40.860 We all would chase police officers down for photographs so we could put in our campaign

00:58:44.580 literature.

00:58:45.120 But this Democrat Party is very different.

00:58:46.980 Running away from the police, yeah.

00:58:48.520 Yeah.

00:58:48.800 So, you know, a lot of people are fearful that the police are going to do what's called

00:58:52.460 a blue flu and not call into work, or they're not going to kind of lay down on their duties

00:58:56.600 because of the that they felt from the Democrat leadership.

00:59:01.500 My belief, strong belief, is they won't do that.

00:59:04.560 Police are great people.

00:59:06.620 They're honorable people.

00:59:07.580 They do their duty.

00:59:08.600 And they literally sacrifice their lives and put their lives on the line for us.

00:59:12.640 And I think they're going to hold their nose and do their job and keep things orderly

00:59:16.060 in Chicago at the convention.

00:59:17.620 Well, Governor Blagojevich, thank you for joining us again.

00:59:20.700 We're live in Milwaukee from the convention site.

00:59:23.520 We're going to go right, literally right next door and hear President Trump address

00:59:27.680 the nation for the very first time since his assassination attempt.

00:59:31.240 I'm Mark Vargas filling in for Roger Stone on the Stone Zone.

00:59:35.380 Thank you for watching.

00:59:36.680 God bless you.

00:59:37.700 And good night.

00:59:38.620 A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and

00:59:45.600 people love him.

00:59:47.580 Not everybody, but people love him and respect him.

00:59:50.020 Roger Stone.

00:59:51.080 Where's Roger Stone?

00:59:52.180 Here we go.

00:59:53.380 Yeah.

01:00:03.920 Thank you.

01:00:05.020 You

The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - July 18, 2024

Why Trump Is Winning The Democrat Vote – Rod Blagojevich Enters The StoneZONE w⧸ Roger Stone

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