All Episodes
Previous Next
March 29, 2023 - The StoneZONE - Roger Stone
59:32
Rod Blagojevich and Roger Stone Discuss Our Weaponized Justice System - The StoneZONE
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
And now, Lindell TV brings you The Stone Zone, with legendary Republican strategist and political icon and pundit, Roger Stone.
Stone has served as a senior campaign aide to three Republican presidents.
He is a New York Times bestselling author and a longtime friend and advisor of President Donald Trump.
As an outspoken libertarian, Stone has appeared on thousands of broadcasts, spoken at countless venues, and lectured before the prestigious Oxford Political Union and the Cambridge Union Society.
Due to his four-plus decades in the political and cultural arena, Stone has become a pop culture icon.
And now, here's your host, Roger Stone!
Welcome.
I'm Roger Stone, and you are about to enter the Stone Zone.
Well, let's say Roger Stone Party.
That means if you're indicted, you're invited.
What I have in common with my upcoming guest is we were both charged with fabricated political crimes.
We were both unjustly convicted.
But for the grace of God, I served no time.
But this man did unjustly serve time, only ultimately to be freed from prison by President Donald Trump.
He's a former distinguished member of the U.S.
House of Representatives, a former governor of Illinois, and his crime seems to be that he thought about running for or seeking a U.S.
Senate seat over the objections of Barack Obama.
Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich joins us now.
Hi, Roger.
Thanks for having me.
How are you?
I'm excellent.
It's so great to see you, and thank you for joining us in the Stone Zone.
We've got a lot to talk about because we're both innately political animals, and as abused as both of us have been, we both love the game.
And I actually know no more shrewd or canny analyst of the political situation other than yourself.
So some of your tweets came to my attention.
You were victimized by a completely politicized judicial system.
I've looked at your case aggressively.
You didn't do anything wrong other than think about possibly pursuing a U.S.
Senate seat.
But evidently, that's not what the Obamas had in mind.
So, let's take it from the top.
What do you think is going on in regards to President Donald Trump, and how do you see it?
Yes, Roger, and we both love the political game and we both love our country.
And to me, what they're about to do to President Trump, and let's hope they don't, but I'm fearful that they will, since they did it to me, the idea that they would arrest an American president As I said in one of my tweets, not since South Carolina fired at Fort Sumter has our Republic been in more danger.
The weaponization of uncontrolled prosecutors with unlimited power, unlimited resources.
They're unchecked.
The ability to bring charges on things that are non-existent crimes.
And they have the power to do that.
They did it in my case.
They're going to do it with President Trump with this Non-disclosure agreement, which is common practice.
The Russian collusion thing was all fake and they knew it.
The impeachment on the call of the Ukrainian president was the President of the United States doing his job and doing his due diligence to see whether or not some allegations may or may not have validity.
They've impeached him for that.
Our country's in serious trouble because of these weaponizations by prosecutors and even members of Congress and politicians who are putting politics, the immediate politics, above The importance of preserving our Republic by following the Constitution and preserving freedom.
So if what is suggested might happen to President Trump tomorrow, it's a very dark day for our country.
And I feel terrible from a personal point of view, because as you know, Roger, I wouldn't be here today talking to you if it wasn't for Donald Trump reaching in to rescue a Democrat governor.
Did nothing to help his politics, what he did for me, but he saw something that was wrong and he ended it.
And as a result of that, all I did was 2,896 days in prison, almost eight years.
But it would have been a lot worse and I'd still be there until May of 2024.
So on a personal level, of course, I feel terrible for President Trump.
But as an American who loves his country, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, and I'm still a Democrat, the idea that they can do something like this is disgraceful and it's sickening.
And they're the ones who ought to go to prison.
Well, there but for the grace of God go I. As you know, federal prosecutors wanted to give me seven to nine years for lying under oath to Congress in my voluntary testimony.
about Russian collusion that never actually took place.
Only after my trial and after my pardon did we finally, and then only by the orders of a federal judge, Yet the last remaining long-hidden redacted sections of Robert Mueller's final report, in which even he conceded that he had found, quote, no factual evidence, close quote, of Russian collusion, WikiLeaks collaboration, or any other crime on my part. WikiLeaks collaboration, or any other crime on my part.
I was charged.
29 FBI agents stormed my home at 6 o'clock in the morning with a CNN camera in tow for the specific purpose of pressuring me To testify falsely against President Trump, which I refused to do.
My very best sources tell me that while this arrest by the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will not happen tomorrow, I do believe it will happen this week.
And in this particular case, District Attorney Bragg, an elected position, an elected Democrat, who took a million-dollar campaign contribution from George Soros, is going to take what would normally be a campaign finance violation, a misdemeanor, and bump it up to a felony in order to seek a prosecution of Donald Trump.
Five previous federal prosecutors, none of them Trump fans, have examined the evidence of this case and all of them have elected to bring no charges, evidently because they didn't think they had a provable case or because they didn't have confidence in their witnesses.
Yet we have a county prosecutor who now, I think, while he's ignoring soaring crime in his own jurisdiction, What's happening in our country?
I mean, I respect you as a Democrat.
I think you are a throwback to the days when there were patriotic, moderate, and conservative Democrats who were anti-socialists, who were for a strong national defense, for a pro-American foreign policy.
It strangely seems to me like that Democratic Party doesn't exist anymore.
And I would add, Democrats who supported the police, Democrats who revered our flag, Democrats who believed in God, they're very different today, this Democratic Party.
You know, I've been gone for such a long time and I came back to a world that it's almost impossible for me to recognize how my party, the Democratic Party, has changed.
I still think there's some so-called JFK Democrats that still exist.
But they're being drowned out by the radical left-wing activists who have no reverence for those things that we traditionally always believed in.
You know, God, country, flag.
And recognizing that, yes, of course, there's some bad cops.
For every bad cop, there's a thousand good ones.
And where would we be without police officers keeping us safe from criminals?
Now, I spent eight years in prison with criminals.
There are criminals out there.
And I know how the criminals operate, because I saw it when I was in prison.
When the cops weren't around, They ran around and did what they felt they can do.
And they're clever, they're smart.
And what's happening in a city like Chicago, where I live, is that the gangbangers and the organized criminals know that the police have been on the run because the Democratic leadership in the city, Lori Lightfoot and others, have run away from the police.
So I fear for the Democrat Party, but more than that, Roger, I fear for our country.
And I don't want to see what they're doing to President Trump happen to a Democratic president.
I don't want to see it happen to any Republican president, even those I don't agree with or presidents I oppose.
But this weaponization of prosecutors and using them for politics is a very serious problem in our country.
And it's becoming the norm.
It's becoming the practice.
Both sides do it to each other.
But the Democrats have taken this now to a much higher level.
With this constant pursuit of witch hunts against one man, Donald Trump.
And it's unprecedented.
And if we don't stop this, it's going to ruin our country.
And what will happen is that once they get done with Trump and the Republicans take over, they're going to do it to the Democrats.
And then it's going to be even worse because they'll take it to a whole new level.
This expanding of turning things that are routine in politics into crimes that don't exist.
Now, there was a Republican governor in Virginia, I think you know him, Roger McDonald.
His case went to before the Supreme Court.
He was convicted.
Didn't do a day in prison, nor should he have.
But the United States Supreme Court took up the case and nine to nothing, every one of the justices, the Democrats and Republicans on the court, talked about the weaponization of these prosecutors.
And Justice Breyer, a liberal Democrat justice, talked about how dangerous these prosecutors with uncontrolled power are to our separation of powers.
And our founding fathers recognized that.
That's why they set up a system of checks and balances.
But what's happened throughout our history is this branch within the executive branch of government, this one part, these weaponized federal prosecutors and prosecutors now elected in places like New York that are overwhelmingly democratic, are expanding what previous prosecutors are doing to criminalize things that are very common and legal in politics and in government.
And what may or may not happen tomorrow or later this week is really the epitome Unfortunately, it is not just the executive branch that is completely politicized.
I was very gratified recently when an Obama-appointed judge dismissed civil charges against me in connection to January 6th.
It was a fair and honest decision because I have no involvement in January 6th.
I was not there.
I didn't go to the Ellipse.
I didn't march to the Capitol.
I wasn't at the Capitol.
To the extent that I came in contact with members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, that is proof of absolutely nothing whatsoever.
That's called guilt by association.
So I was gratified in this particular case that, as I say, an Obama-appointed judge dismissed those charges.
I also must tell you that I was surprised, given the treatment that I received from the judge in my case.
Who is the same judge in Paul Manafort's case?
Do you think the bench has become equally politicized?
Yes.
And again, I don't want to... Maybe your listeners don't think that what I'm saying is true.
That I am innocent.
That I didn't break a law.
That it was all politics.
But I didn't.
I didn't take a penny.
No one even says I did.
The so-called sale of the Senate seat.
If I'm guilty of selling it, Obama's guilty of trying to buy it.
Because it started with him.
He sent an emissary to me to make a political deal.
It's not illegal.
And then eventually, after I was in prison for years, the appellate court reversed that conviction.
The so-called sale of the Senate seat was never a crime.
They called it routine political log rolling.
And then they kept me in prison on three fundraising requests where there was no quid pro quo, because we knew where the line was.
There was never a promise or a threat.
There was merely an ask for campaign contributions by agents for my campaign.
I spent eight years in prison for that.
And the reason it happened, Roger, was because I fought back.
Because I knew what those prosecutors were doing to me was so wrong.
They were hijacking a governor twice elected by the people.
Now, they were Bush appointees.
These were Republican prosecutors.
We went before a Republican judge, and after they failed to convict me at a first trial on their fake charges, they tried me a second time.
And then they moved the line and used fake law to get convictions on things that are legal.
And then the appellate court, three appellate justices, all Republican appointees, whitewashed the case because the stakes were too high.
If I was right and those prosecutors were proven to be what they are, and that is lying, dirty, rotten scoundrels.
Then they would have to face serious consequences because they're guilty of a crime, it has to be a crime, of stealing a governor elected by the people.
So the stakes were really high.
And the point I'm making is, Roger, no, the courts are extremely political.
It's disillusioning to have to say that.
I lived it.
I thought I'd get a fair trial.
I didn't.
I thought the appellate court would do the right thing.
They didn't.
But then again, you can look through our history and realize that from time to time, our courts do terrible things for political reasons.
Just ask Dred Scott, a black man who Judge Taney said in 1857, 1858, didn't have the rights of everyone else because he wasn't a man.
Just talk about the case of Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896, separate but equal.
The courts get things wrong, and a lot of times it's motivated by politics.
And we have here in Illinois, dozens of people on death row who didn't do it and eventually were exonerated by DNA evidence.
So the courts don't always get it right.
And is there politics in the judiciary?
They're all appointed.
They're political appointees.
These federal judges are political appointees from either the Democrats or the Republicans.
And in the case of President Trump in Manhattan, those are all going to be Democratic judges that would have to stand in judgment of Donald Trump, who is, from their point of view, you know, someone who They despise because he's such a strong Republican.
This is very dangerous.
Again, and I don't know what the solution is, but we need to take the politics out of the court system.
We need to take the politics away from the judges somehow.
And these prosecutors who violate their oath of office and who weaponize themselves to turn non-crimes into crimes because they're motivated by politics, those prosecutors ought to go to prison.
There is no question that they are taking normal, constitutionally protected political activity and criminalizing it.
The other issue I have, in all honesty, is how in the District of Columbia or in New York City, specifically in New York County, which is Manhattan, could you ever get a jury that was truly unbiased?
Jurors say, oh, I hate Donald Trump, but I can be impartial in my decision making.
No, I don't think it works that way.
Let me ask you this.
Were you surprised by the recent defeat in the Democratic primary of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and is this somehow an awakening and perhaps a move in the right direction for Chicago and for the Chicago Democratic Party?
I wasn't surprised.
I was delighted.
She was a failure as a mayor.
She's a former U.S.
Attorney, and those US Attorneys, a lot of them, not all of them, let's hope and believe they're more good ones than bad ones, but they tend to be tyrants.
They have total control of their courtroom.
I've learned the hard way what that's like, and she governed that way.
And we have a lot of crime in Chicago and crime's been out of control in our city for a long time.
But Roger, it was like that too, not so much as bad, but the crime rates were still very high in Chicago when Daley was the mayor and when I was the governor.
The difference with her was people just got to know who she was and they didn't like her.
And they didn't like her because of the tyrannical attitude that she had towards governing.
Because government is really, as Churchill said, the worst system, democracy, the worst system ever devised by man except for all the rest.
There's a lot of give and take and there has to be compromise.
And, you know, she was not made that way.
So she was rejected.
She was rebuked by the voters when she went from 73% of the vote four years ago to 17% of the vote in this recent election.
She didn't even make the runoff.
She finished two candidates and now we're going to face each other in a runoff.
Now, with regard to what's going to happen in the days ahead, we have a real hard, tough race in Chicago.
I'm not going to tell you who I'm for, Roger, because I don't want to hurt the candidate I'm backing.
But it's a clear choice between the voters here in this city And what's happening in big cities like Chicago and other places, we're becoming less like the old traditional Chicago and more like today's San Francisco.
Chicago is becoming a very left-wing socialist city.
We have elected socialist city council members now.
That wasn't the case before when I was the governor even.
So things are changing in politics and one of the candidates running for mayor, who's a very formidable candidate, is very left-leaning.
Arguably with socialist sympathies and has a good chance of winning.
He's running against the former school's chief here, Paul Dallas, in a tough race.
They're both smart guys.
They're both hardworking guys, apparently.
I don't want to tip my hand again because I don't want to hurt one of the other candidates, but we'll see what happens in this election.
The issue of crime is forefront, of course.
Taxes are another big issue.
And the business climate in the city of Chicago.
Whether or not Chicago is going to be a city that invites and embraces the business community, recognizing the importance of economic growth for quality of life, or whether we're going to be a city that follows suit like some of these other big cities that chase businesses out of the city.
We'll have to see what the voters decide on the 4th of April.
You realize the awesome political power you have.
You could destroy a candidate simply by endorsing them.
This has occurred to me on a number of occasions.
I did see a quip you made online.
I saw the fedora that Mayor Lightfoot was campaigning in, and you're right.
If you had worn that hat, they would have given you a life sentence rather than just the 12 years that you ended up serving.
I never understood how she got elected to begin with.
The late Richard J. Daley, Mayor Daley, the mayor in the 60s, must be rolling in his grave.
Literally rolling in his grave.
Let's talk about the Democratic Party.
I'm a much better analyst in the Republican Party.
I must tell you, sadly, that I think what we're going to see this week is just the first step In a in an escalated effort to destroy the president.
I think there will be subsequently a fabricated indictment against him in Georgia and Fulton County again by George Soros funded prosecutor.
I think he is equally innocent there.
I fully expect that the that the referrals from the January 6th Committee, the phoniest kabuki fraud I've ever seen, where multiple witnesses actually perjured themselves in the mention of my name saying things that were entirely untrue.
They won't be charged.
But I think it is entirely possible that the special counsel in the January 6th matter will subsequently bring charges against the president.
There is only one charge, a violation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution that would theoretically, politically prohibit him from continuing his campaign for re-election.
I still think it's entirely possible that he'll be charged in connection with his I'm not saying that I believe any of these prosecutions are valid or legitimate.
What I am saying is the fear in the Democratic Party and in the power centers that run the country of running against him again seems palpable.
So from a political point of view, first of all, I think those prosecutions will turbocharge his candidacy.
If you want to guarantee that Donald Trump is going to be the nominee of the Republican Party, then bring these prosecutions against him.
It really only strengthens him within the party.
And perhaps that is what they want.
After all, the advisers to Jimmy Carter actually wanted to run against Ronald Reagan.
Can you imagine?
They thought he'd be the easiest candidate to be.
The handlers of Hillary Clinton wanted to run against Donald Trump.
They thought he would be the easiest candidate to be.
Ron, what do you think the implications of this chain of potential prosecutions will be politically on the President?
I think politically, ironically, it will help him.
I don't want to see it happen because I don't want to see him have to go through that on a personal level because of my high regard for him personally.
I don't want to see it happen even more importantly as an American.
As I said earlier, this is not how our democracy is supposed to work.
These prosecutors are not supposed to be political weapons for either party.
So I don't want to see it happen.
But if it happens, and it appears that it may, and you're right, those other places are likely to bring charges too.
The January 6th thing is so preposterous because there he was with 100,000 people of supporters there urging them to quote-unquote peacefully protest.
You got a bunch of renegades, probably less than 1% of the people that were there who did stupid things.
Those people are going to be held accountable for what they did.
How is that anything but democracy in action?
And by the way, your listeners I think should be reminded that Nancy Pelosi was in charge of security in the Capitol that day.
And I just wonder why the security wasn't like it should have been.
Was that just negligence or was that intentional?
But what do I think politically?
I think President Trump will be stronger as a result of this.
And I think those Beltway people... You see, I learned a lot of hard lessons too when I was governor.
I had this power and I thought that I could work with my own party.
And I could with some, but I couldn't with the others.
And the one I had the most problems with Was the Speaker of the House, Michael Madigan, who was the Democratic House Speaker for 43 years.
And he presided over this political empire that enriched himself, his family, the lobbyists, and what I call the political-industrial complex in Springfield.
Well, I spent six years in Washington as a congressman.
There's an even more powerful, bigger political-industrial complex in Washington.
It's called the Deep State.
It does exist.
Your listeners and your viewers who believe in that are right to believe in that.
And those who don't, should.
Because it does exist.
And it's that establishment.
And they fight amongst themselves within certain parameters.
And they don't go outside of that.
And therefore it's pretty much an inside game.
And it's basically the elites and the governing elites and the ruling class against the rest of us.
We the people.
Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Conservatives, Liberals, Socialists.
We the people.
And they control things.
And when you get somebody who's determined to shake it up and actually make it work more for the people, I believe I was that kind of governor.
I believe President Trump was certainly that kind of president.
Then you get that establishment come after you.
So you have these strange alliances, like you got Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer agreeing with Chris Christie, a Republican governor, but the quintessential establishment guy together opposing Yeah, I totally agree with your analysis.
The appeal of Trump is far greater and better than the appeal of the Republican Party.
Let's go now to the Democrats.
than any political movement the Republicans have had since Ronald Reagan.
Yeah, I totally agree with your analysis.
The appeal of Trump is far greater and better than the appeal of the Republican Party.
Let's go now to the Democrats.
This may be a tough question, because I know you are still a loyal Democrat, but how do you rate the Biden presidency?
I mean, we're talking about food shortages for the first time in my lifetime in the land of plenty, the United States of America.
That's never happened in my lifetime.
So that alone tells me there's something wrong with the Biden administration and the failures of his policies.
I think there's a stark contrast to be made between how things are now economically and what they were like before COVID under President Trump.
How people's retirement funds were doing so much better then than they are now.
You can talk about economic issues.
You can take a look at the immigration situation that was getting better under Trump, significantly better now, where it used to be before President Trump, or at least getting there.
Look at the foreign policy of our country is very different today than it was then.
Ukraine, Russia would never dare to invade Ukraine when Trump was president, but they recognized that they felt that there was a president in Biden that didn't have the stern backbone that his predecessor had.
So if you're asking me to give it a grade, I'd give it a— I would give the same grade to Biden's presidency as I would to my celebrity, Roger.
You know what that is?
D minus.
I consider myself a D minus celebrity based on everything I've gone through, and I would say President Biden's administration is pretty much a D minus administration.
Well, first of all, you greatly underrate yourself, let me say this.
By the way, if you haven't gotten a Cameo, which is a customized video shout-out from either Governor Blagojevich or myself, go to Cameo.com and you can order that right now.
A birthday, an anniversary, a special occasion, a shout-out to your political club, or maybe it's just the guys you play golf with, or your Bridge Club, go to Cameo and order up a customized video shout out from Governor Rod Blagojevich or Roger Stone.
You can do that right now and we'd both be very grateful for it.
One of the things that the government tries to do to make you plead to crimes that you have not committed is to impoverish you, to basically break you because the cost of the defense in any of these matters Is debilitating.
And therefore, we would appreciate your support at Cameo.
I'm going to talk about MyPillow.com here in a little bit.
Do you think that President Biden will be re-nominated?
And how confident are you, Governor, that he will be the Democratic nominee in 2024?
If he runs, he'll be re-nominated.
And I really believe he'll run.
So I do think he'll be the Democratic nominee.
I believe President Trump will be the Republican nominee.
And I think President Trump will kick his ass.
And I think it's going to be a stark contrast between what it was four years ago and now.
I hope I can say that, by the way, on your show, Roger.
You can.
But I think the second time around, Trump against Biden will be very different.
And the Trump campaign will be able to remind the American people how things were when he was president, how things are now under Biden.
And I think the Republicans will have learned a lot of hard lessons about Monitoring polling places in election apparatus and things like that and be a lot more vigilant to be certain that things are run on the up and up.
I don't know all the details about all the different places in the different states, but I do know as a Chicago Democrat, and I know Obama knows this, we both came out of Chicago politics, there is such a thing as vote fraud.
Just ask Richard Nixon in 1960 and no one denies it.
The question is, did that alter the outcome of the election?
We never had a chance to really explore that.
But I think the Republicans will have learned from this.
But the larger issues will be the mood of the country.
And, you know, you look at that right track, wrong track thing, Roger, and you know politics better than anybody.
When it's on the wrong track, as it is now, that means the incumbent parties voted out.
And that's one of the reasons why these prosecutors that are weaponized who are Democrats are doing what they're doing to President Trump is they recognize and are fearful.
That if he gets that nomination, he'll not only be in a good position to win, but if he wins, you're going to look at a president who's really going to be determined to shake up that deeds of state and bring the necessary reforms to make America what it's supposed to be again.
And that's the land of the free, where we have constitutional government and we protect the individual freedoms of Americans.
I agree with your analysis when you say that if Obama, pardon me, if Biden runs, that he'll be renominated.
It's very hard for me to imagine how he'll get through a campaign in his current, what appears to me to be, debilitated condition.
It seems to me that Governor Gavin Newsom has aspirations, but also your very own governor, Governor Pritzker, a man so big he has his own zip code.
It looks to me like he wants to be president.
First of all, how is Jay Pritzker doing as governor, and does he have any prospect of being on the Democratic National Ticket?
Or am I out of my mind?
Well, he'll be—he reminds me if he runs for president, he'll be, well, the most stout president since Taft, right?
If he somehow became president.
But he used to work for me.
J.B.
Pritzker was my director of the Illinois Human Rights Commission.
He asked me to appoint him to that position.
He's on the FBI tapes asking me to appoint him to the United States Senate.
Roger, if I was really trying to sell a Senate seat, he's the guy I would have sold it to.
Because he spent $350 million to elect himself governor and re-elect himself governor of the money that he inherited from the Hyatt Hotel fortune.
I mean, he's been very lucky that he's been born with a silver tablespoon in his mouth.
And he's been spending that money to get elected governor of Illinois twice, $350 million.
So he's going to have the money to run for president.
But it's a whole different ballgame when you run for president of the United States than when you run for governor of a state.
Illinois is a microcosm of America.
So in that respect, the demographics are such that show that he can get votes in a place like Illinois.
But I think Bloomberg showed that notwithstanding all the wealth that Bloomberg had, what did he get?
1% of the vote in the Democratic Uh, primaries that he ran in.
Uh, I don't see J.B., Governor Pritzker, running against Biden.
I do see him looking at a run for president if Biden chooses not to run.
If it was between Governor Newsom and, uh, Pritzker, I think for a lot of reasons, Newsom would be in a stronger position to win.
And he'll be able to raise the money that J.B.
will be able to fund by himself.
I think the Democratic National Committee works very closely with Governor Pritzker because Governor Pritzker gives them a lot of money.
And JB was generous to me in my campaigns for Congress.
He supported Paul Vallis, the governor against me in the Democratic primary in 2002, and gave him a lot of money.
But then he supported me in the general election.
So I have no complaints with how he treated me politically back then.
But I don't think he's been a very good governor.
He's got this Democratic-controlled legislature with the old boss Madigan out of there.
Governor Pritzker has this money that he's been spending to elect himself, and he's been giving it to Democratic Party chairmen across the state.
I feel like he can bring a lot more real reform to the state if he would exercise that political capital that he has for the good of the people, but he plays it safe and he won't do it.
And that's because I think he's positioning himself for a potential run for president.
But if you're asking me, do I think, you know, he'll be President of the United States one day.
Now, I don't always get these right.
I mostly always get them wrong.
But I would be very surprised if J.B. becomes the President of the United States.
I think others will have a better chance than he would.
At the risk of getting too much in the weeds, as you know, New York State is experiencing an epic skyrocketing crime rate across the entire state.
Many people are attributing this to bail reform laws that have been enacted under which violent criminals are essentially subjected to turnstile justice.
They're arranged, charged, but they're not held.
They're immediately released, and the level of recidivism—in other words, committing another violent crime—is extremely high.
Given the experience that New York has had, why in the world would Governor Pritzker and Illinois Democrats want to make the same exact mistake and essentially duplicate these failed bail reform laws in the state of Illinois?
Because the Democratic Party has been taken over by the different coalitions.
The left-wing progressive labor unions, not the trade, building trade unions, but the public employees unions, the teachers unions.
The Service Employees Unions, very progressive, very left-wing.
They've worked and built coalitions with some of the other groups that are active in Democratic politics, including the group that has been very anti-police, that's been pro-defund the police.
And then there's the racial component that goes along with that politically, that scares Democrats like Pritzker, who's trying to run for higher office and doesn't want to hurt himself Politically to do the strong necessary right thing to keep the public safe.
It's putting politics over public safety is what it is and These groups have infiltrated the Democrat Party Everywhere in big cities certainly across the country in states like New York, California Illinois, but other states too and they certainly have a big role in the Democratic Party nationally that's among the things that have changed in our party and
While it's a safe political move to just go along with the things that they want, like bail reform, that is a wrong thing for many reasons, not the least of which is, why would you take away from a judge the discretion in particular cases, each case on a case-by-case basis?
That's very different.
Every case is different.
Every individual is different.
The circumstances are different.
The system is designed so that judges can make those determinations right there, Well, the prosecutor makes one case, the defense lawyer makes another case, and the judge can decide what's right in that particular case.
They have taken away that discretion from judges.
And in a lot of these cases, what you have, as you said, are violent criminals being let out without any kind of bail or consequences, and they go out and commit violent crimes again.
And there have been murders that have been committed by some of these people that have been let out because there was no bail.
So I think it's an irresponsibly terrible thing to do.
And it's politically motivated.
Do I think that in most cases, these nonviolent offenses should not have bail?
I do.
I was a former prosecutor.
I used to prosecute those cases.
But that's the judge's decision.
And the judge has the facts before him or her in each particular case.
And frankly, a prosecutor, if he or she is doing his or her job the right way, they have the discretion to say, That this guy is not a threat to the community.
He is likely to return, but he doesn't have any money.
And by the way, it's a $200 retail theft charge.
He's not a threat to the community.
We don't need to clog up the jail system.
He'll come back to court.
And in most cases, those cases do come back to court.
And in most cases, those guys get what they call I-bonds, individual recognizance bonds.
So the idea that J.B.
Pritzker and Democrat governors in other states are doing this, where they take that discretion away from judges, They're adding to the rising crime rates in places like Chicago and New York.
And the irony is, you got that prosecutor in New York, in Manhattan, the DA.
Here's a guy who's saying no bail for prostitution cases.
And he's also saying, I'm not going to prosecute prostitution cases, streetwalkers.
And he can make his argument on why he thinks that's not the right thing to do, but how ironic that he would chase a former president on a sex matter when it has to do with some agreement that happened after the activity, if it in fact happened, because President Trump denies that that even happened.
Well, as you know, Bill Clinton paid $850,000 to Paula Jones to buy her silence.
He was not prosecuted for that.
President Trump denies this.
Michael Cohen, the chief witness, was interviewed by five different federal prosecutors who elected not to make this case.
Governor, your wife's going to kill me over this one, but I have no choice.
You sound exactly to me like the kind of person I'd like to see in public office.
I mean, I'm a loyal Republican, but if I had to have a Democrat in public office, I'd like it to be you.
Is there any chance that you could ever be persuaded to seek public office again?
Yeah, thanks for asking that, Roger.
Well, she can't hear me right now, can she?
I don't think she's watching this show.
Look, I'm like a boxer who fought a lot.
I was in the game.
I was actually good at it.
I ran a lot of tough elections.
I won every one of them.
Dallas, who has a good chance to be the mayor of Chicago, I ran against him in 2002 in the Democratic primary.
He was a tough opponent.
And the experts said he was going to win.
CNN projected him a winner a half an hour after they started counting the votes.
But I ended up winning that.
And I ended up becoming the governor.
And I got reelected.
I wish I hadn't been reelected.
I wouldn't have ended up going to prison for eight years.
But I was actually good at that.
And you know, that was, as you say, there is an element of the political game part of it.
It's adult sports.
And, you know, I like sports and I like competition.
And so there is that part of me, Roger, where like a boxer who's, you know, time has gone by, you kind of want to fight that one more fight, right?
Yes, that's in me.
I have that desire.
And I also miss having the power that I had where I could actually drive things and do things that could help people.
Because I think we did a lot of good stuff for everyday people without raising taxes on them.
Every child in Illinois got health care under me, but we didn't raise taxes on working people.
Our senior citizens got free public transportation, the disabled too, but I didn't raise taxes on people to do it.
These are progressive objectives and ends, but the means were conservative.
We didn't raise taxes, we just moved the money around and took it away from the special interests, pissed everybody off, and I got thrown in prison for it.
But having said that, would I like to run again for something meaningful one day?
I'm not ruling it out.
Now, I have family considerations.
My family has suffered a great deal because of The livelihood I pursued.
My daughters were little girls when I had to kiss them goodbye and leave for prison for 14 years.
My little one was eight years old when she was embracing me and clutching me.
When I had to leave the house with cameras all over the place and helicopters filming it.
So they've been through hell, my family.
And it would be a very selfish thing of me, Roger, if I got into politics without them being for it.
And at this stage right now, Roger, I must say they prefer To not have me do that and relive all of that stuff again.
And so in the immediate future, I don't see it happening.
But who knows?
You never know.
In the short run, though, I want to do whatever I can to help Donald Trump.
And I'm a Trumpocrat.
In other words, I'm a Democrat still for Trump.
There's a lot of Trumpocrats out there.
Of course, I have a personal motivation because of him.
But I know him in a way that most people don't.
You know him a lot better than I do.
I don't know him that well.
But I got to know him a little bit on Celebrity Apprentice, and I saw a man, when the cameras weren't on, who was a good, decent, kind-hearted man.
And people don't realize that about him.
I also see a man publicly, and I saw it privately, who's strong and who's tough.
And then I see a guy who's a billionaire, who doesn't need politics, who's an international celebrity, Who doesn't need the ego lift that you get by seeing your name in the newspaper or seeing yourself on TV.
And yet he decided to get in this game that has led to all these criminal investigations with people determined to destroy his life.
And I say to myself, why would a guy do that?
But for the fact that he must really love his country and really sees what's wrong with this country and believes he has the strength, the fortitude and the intelligence and the ability to make things better.
I truly believe this about Donald Trump.
And therefore, whatever I can do in the short run politically to be helpful to him, I'll do it.
And if me being helpful to him hurts him, then I won't be helpful to him.
But I'm very much for him, Roger, because I think he loves America.
And I think that he will make things better if he becomes president again, as he did the first time around.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a patriotic American, a decent man, a man who's become a good friend, a man who did absolutely nothing wrong, but lost a huge part of his life because he engaged in politics.
Governor, thank you so much for joining us today on The Stone Zone, and God bless you.
God bless you, Roger.
Thank you.
It's a real treasure for me to know you.
Appreciate you.
All right, folks, that was Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Where else can you get this kind of political news other than here at the Stone Zone?
So it's a good time for me to remind you that we wouldn't be here at all but for the great folks at MyPillow.com.
Now, if you thought MyPillow.com was just about pillows or bedding, maybe blankets and sheets, well, it means you haven't been to the MyPillow.com website.
Right now, my favorite product, the one that literally I use every night, is the Epic New MyPillow 2.0.
This is correctly described by Mike Lindell himself as the greatest pillow he's ever brought forward.
Can we throw that up on the screen, gents, so we can refer to it?
There we go.
MyPillow 2.0, right now with promo code STONE, a low $89.98.
And here's the great part.
If you order your MyPillow 2.0, which includes a patented cooling technology, You know how you flip the pillow over through the night to get the cooler side for the best night's sleep you can get?
Well, you won't have to do that anymore.
These pillows are truly amazing.
They remain cool and comfortable for the best sleep of your entire life.
For $89.98, Mike Lindell throws in a second MyPillow 2.0.
Absolutely free!
Please use promo code STONE.
A couple other products I want to highlight for you because all of our activities here at the Stone Zone are listener and viewer supported.
There is no other compensation folks, so if you don't go to MyPillow.com and use promo code STONE or patronize any of our other sponsors, Well, then Mrs. Stone and I have a tough month, so I implore you to go to MyPillow.com.
The Men and Women's Bath Robes, this is one of my absolute favorite products, now on a closeout sale.
Uh, they were $89.98.
They're now $59.98, both lightweight and heavyweight.
Uh, this is a plush, luxurious terrycloth with a very wide foam Uh, uh, lapel.
Uh, I think that you will, uh, find as I have, that these are extraordinarily comfortable and durable.
I have washed mine multiple times.
Still looks like it's brand new.
And this is an extraordinarily low price.
$59.98.
The bathrobe closeout sale, uh, at MyPillow.com.
Don't forget to use promo code STONE.
Also on closeout now are the men and women's slippers.
This is a, again, a special price as low as $49.98.
That's a full $100 off the original price.
These are extraordinarily comfortable.
They come in several styles for both men and women.
Again, please remember to use promo code STONE.
Now, we are animal lovers here at the Stone Zone, and above all, my favorite product at MyPillow.com are the dog beds.
If you are an animal lover, there's my babies Mimi and Peewee, brother and sister from the same litter, luxuriating in their MyPillow dog bed.
And the dog beds come in multiple sizes.
There you see the small size.
Look at that fella.
Is he cute or what?
But the dog beds, normally the small, $39.98, as you see, as low as $19.99 with promo code stone.
The medium, $79.98, what with promo code stone, $39.99.
And the large dog bed, and this is big, $139.98, but with promo code stone, a low, low $39.98.
By the way, these beds are suitable for dogs or cats.
I have them for both my dogs and my cats.
The cats love them as well.
Now if you have the dog beds, well then you should consider getting the MyPillow Pet Blankets.
Yes, look at that fella right there.
Is he cute or what?
The pet blankets are designed to keep your dogs or cats comfortable while protecting your furniture or protecting your car interior.
The small normally $27.99 with promo code STONE1959.
The medium $39.99 with promo code STONE2799.
Stone, 1959.
The Medium, 39.99.
With promo code Stone, 27.99.
The Large, normally We promote Goldstone $59.98.
And a very special version of the pet blanket made for the automobile, the Car Pet Blanket, normally $113.98 with promo code STONE 6998.
So whether it is the pillows, or the robes, or the slippers, or the moccasins, or the scarves, or the dog beds, or the pet blankets, or the six The Six Piece Towel Set.
Let's throw that baby up.
The Six Piece Towel Set.
These are the greatest bath towels ever conceived by man.
That's because Mike Lindell does not use a cotton that has been treated with oil, which makes it less absorbent.
When you buy your bath towels in a department store or other places online, you are getting cotton that in almost all cases are treated with this oil.
Mike Lindell uses the highest quality terrycloth cotton in the country for bath towels that actually dry you off.
That's right, they're absorbent.
So you get a six-piece MyPillow towel set for the low, low price of $49.99.
Please use promo code STONE when you go to the site.
I would not ask folks if we didn't need your help, but we do need your help.
Why?
Well, I was shocked on Friday to learn that Hunter Biden's lawyers have now sent a second threatening letter to me simply because I've come on this show to discuss the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop.
In their first threatening letter, they urged me to preserve all documents and records that I have pertaining to the laptops.
Well, that'll be simple, because there are none.
Everything I know about Hunter Biden's laptop, I learned either by reading it in the New York Post or Breitbart News, or by reading it on the website of the Marco Polo USA Foundation, which you can find at marcopolousa.org.
I have no reason to believe That the shocking laptop contents published by that public service organization were acquired in any improper or illegal manner.
That information was not hacked, nor was it stolen.
Hunter Biden and his lawyers can't seem to decide whether it is his, or maybe it isn't his, or perhaps it's his.
I only know that I have an unalienable First Amendment right to talk about that material.
Then, in a second threatening letter from Hunter Biden's lawyers, which arrived Friday, they threatened to bring a lawsuit against me for accusing Hunter Biden of specific crimes.
Well, the contents of the laptop really serve as documentation of many, many crimes, in my opinion, interstate crimes, influence peddling, corruption, perhaps even treason.
I'm really not that interested in his personal conduct, although it certainly is, shall we say, colorful.
But I have an absolute right to talk about this, and I will continue to do so.
If Hunter Biden wants to sue me, he will get countersued, as will his patron, Kevin Morris.
Who's he?
Well, he's a rich lawyer-producer out of Hollywood who wrote a $2 million check for Hunter Biden, but he's contacted various reporters with this weird Unabomber-type chart that he's designed in which he falsely claims that I and my attorney, Tyler Nixon, Uh, had access to or were somehow involved in the process by which Hunter Biden's laptop contents became public.
Mr. Morris and Abby Lowell, attorney, you are now on notice.
That's defamatory.
It's false.
And if you sue me, I will counter sue you.
I relish the opportunity, in this case I would do it myself, to cross-examine Hunter Biden about every single page of his laptop.
Every single page.
Also, I would be forced to ask for sanctions against attorney Abby Lowell, who I know personally.
He's a very high-priced and very capable attorney, but in this case he has no case against me.
They simply seek to silence me Because they are embarrassed.
I'm more concerned about whether or not the laptop results, which clearly show me undue foreign influence on the current administration, is going to be pursued by the Justice Department or by a legitimate House investigation.
Folks who want to help me in this fight can go to StoneDefenseFund.com StoneDefenseFund.com Most of you who follow the Stone Zone know that Mr. Stone and I are already fighting eleven Ongoing, totally baseless, totally groundless, totally unsubstantiated civil litigations against us.
And this would just yet be another.
So perhaps they're attacking me because they think you will not stand up with us and support us.
Please go to StoneDefenseFund.com.
Send a contribution because this is a fight I will not shy away from.
I will not be silenced.
As far as President Donald Trump is concerned, tonight at pastorsfortrump.com, pastorsfortrump, the word for, at 7 o'clock there is a national prayer call.
I urge you to phone in to participate.
If you go to pastorsfortrump.com right now, you can get instructions on how to join the call.
This is going to be historic.
I think that there are going to be hundreds of thousands of people.
It's entirely possible that the President himself may call in.
This has been organized by my friend Pastor Jackson Laumeyer.
Again, Pastors4Trump.com at 7 p.m.
Eastern Time tonight.
You want to be in on this piece of history.
If you listen to the President's call for protest this week, I think he won't be charged tomorrow, but I think it is likely it'll be charged later in the week.
I urge you yet again Let your protests be peaceful, let them be civil, let them be orderly, and let them be legal.
Do not, under any circumstances, be goaded into violence or any inappropriate or illegal behavior.
There are people out there, provocateurs, who would like to try to trick you or goad you into counterproductive activities like that.
Avoid them.
Conduct yourself carefully in this hyper-charged political atmosphere.
If you choose to protest, fine, you have a constitutional right to do that, but please protest peacefully.
That is my request.
I'm Roger Stone.
This has been the Stone Zone.
I want to thank our guest, Governor Rod Blagojevich, a great American patriot, a great American political figure, one of the greatest governors in Illinois history, a proud Democrat, but as you heard today, a supporter of President Donald Trump.
In the meantime, I'm Roger Stone.
This has been the Stone Zone.
Don't forget to stop by MyPillow.com and use promo code STONE.
Again, go to MyPillow.com, use promo code STONE.
Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.
Looks like you've been sleeping well.
Megan!
He's back!
The MyPillow guy!
And you're looking good!
Still feeling good!
Well, just when you thought it couldn't get any better, we've got the best pillow ever!
MyPillow 2.0!
Wow!
It's so soft and smooth.
It's cool to the touch.
How did you do that?
Well, we took MyPillow's patented bill and combined it with this new technology that we didn't have back then when I invented MyPillow to bring you the best pillow in history, MyPillow 2.0.
Just like all of you, I never imagined that my pillow could get any better.
That's why I haven't changed it in nearly 20 years.
Then I heard about a revolutionary new technology and I knew I had to bring it to y'all.
MyPillow 2.0 is truly the next generation of my pillow.
The MyPillow 2.0 is cooler and softer than the last MyPillow.
It is so comfortable to sleep on at night.
I look forward to going to bed and I wake up well rested in the morning.
Sleep is all about temperature and height.
MyPillow 2.0's patented adjustable fill is going to give you the exact individual support you need from your head to your bed.
And now here's where it gets even better.
We've all experienced those temperature-related sleep interruptions where you get too hot, you toss and turn, you flip your pillow over to the cool side.
Well, all that's gone with my brand new MyPillow 2.0 cooling fabric that's made with temperature-regulating thread.
The best sleep just got even better.
Whether you have a MyPillow or not, you need to get the brand new MyPillow 2.0.
Call or go to MyPillow.com now.
Use your promo code, and for a limited time, when you buy one, you'll get a second one absolutely free.
You're sleeping even better!
And cooler too!
And you're looking good!
Feeling good!
I knew you would!
Visit MyPillow.com Extractivity is an all-natural energy and health drink developed by Brannon House several years ago with a team of experts.
Extractivity supports a healthy heart, strong immunity, skin, hair, and nails, cognitive health, and cellular health.
This all-natural energy drink is loaded with antioxidants, but don't take our word for it.
Do your own research to find the benefits of red wine extract, bilberry extract, grapeseed extract, pine bark extract, and vitamin C.
Brandon credits Xtract Jevity in part for his abundance of energy and good health.
Order your 30 day supply now at mystore.com.
Be sure to use the promo code on the screen for a generous discount.
Xtract Jevity, your all natural source for energy and good health.
▲
Export Selection