Watch here my interview with the infamous conservative political consultant, Roger Stone. We discuss everything from Roger’s take on the excellent movie The Apprentice; his and Trump’s relationship with Trump’s one time mentor Roy Cohn; he reveals Trump texted him last night after the State of the Union speech…and more.
Is it just me or, when I ask him about JD Vance at the 16.50 mark, do you detect a subtle warning to the Vice President to stay out of the limelight?
We move on to chat about the Musk/Trump relationship. Roger refuses to join the doom-mongers. And he takes us inside his relationship with Richard Nixon and recaps how Trump first got on Nixon’s radar.
And I was especially interested when he revealed at 23:55 that Trump still asks him from time to time, somewhat baffled “Why did Nixon throw in the towel?” He makes an interesting observation about how the internet and proliferation of media has been a game-changer.
At the start of the interview he reveals that, in their fifty years of friendship, in all their one-on-one meetings and calls, Trump has never once expressed fear. Rage, yes. Anxiety that he might lose - or, given the legal tribulations of the last four years, go to jail - no. Stone says that the only other president who had a similarly thick skin and unrelenting optimistic outlook (my phrasing) was Ronald Reagan.
He reiterates something that I think we sometimes lose sight of given Trump’s celebrity. That it’s very hard to get to the top in politics unless you can really perform for the cameras.
At the end I remembered something my dad said to me not so long ago. He phoned me up from the UK and said: “I don’t get why the Democrats don’t field the obvious candidate for President.”
Who? I asked.
“George Clooney” he replied.
A timeline of topics discussed:
0:27 “Somewhere tonight Roy Cohn is laughing”. Why did Roger post that after Trump’s State of the Union?
1:20 - Stone on Trump 2.0: “He has staged the greatest single political comeback in American history” - Trump’s unwavering belief in himself
2:45 - Stone’s take on the movie The Apprentice (in which he is portrayed)
5:12 - Why Stone gave a shout out to Cohn last night during Trump’s address
7:15 - What is Stone’s own relationship to Trump now?
8:15 - Stone’s reporting on Jeffrey Epstein
10:05 - The most recent release of “Epstein files”
12:11 - Stone’s perspective on Russia and Putin
15:50 - How Stone sees Trump and J. D. Vance’s relationship playing out? Is he Trump’s successor?
18:20 - “Trump has changed the face of the Republican party forever: ”We used to be the party of Wall Street, and the Country Club and the Financial Elite.. we are no longer that.”
19:42 - Trump and Musk’s relationship…"It’s kind of obvious what the strategy is to try to drive a wedge between them”
21:10 - The tattoo of Richard Nixon on Roger’s back: “a daily reminder”….
22:28 - Nixon and Trump’s relationship. They met at a Yankees game.
23:55 - Trump sometimes asks Stone: “Why Nixon threw in the towel?” How the internet and proliferation of media has been a game-changer in politics
25:15 - The president’s position in the Middle East
27:31 - Is there anything on which Stone doesn’t agree with the current administration?
28:10 - A subscriber question: “What would Roy Cohn advise Mayor Adams to do?”
32:30 - Who among Democrats does Roger think could be their next political star? “It’s a thin bench”….
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