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May 31, 2024 - The StoneZONE - Roger Stone
57:23
Life in Prison For Starting a Website? Trump Pledges to FREE Ross Ulbricht - The StoneZONE
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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 best-selling 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 yes, you are back in the Stone Zone.
One of the political stories that we didn't get a chance to cover yesterday was the Libertarian Party National Nominating Convention, which was attended by President Donald Trump.
There were some significant news developments there, and my co-host Troy Smith of Slingshot.News joins me now to break those down.
Roger, thank you so much for having me.
It's an honor to be here, as always.
Great to have you back with me.
So many people thought that the Libertarian Party had devolved into a joke, and a few wondered why President Donald Trump agreed to their invitation to address their convention.
It's important to note that under law, Trump could not be the nominee of both the Republican Party and the National Libertarian Party.
New York, I believe, may be the only state that allows nominations on multiple ballots, and that would require the Libertarians to actually get on the ballot in New York, which they have not yet done. - That's fine.
There was a very significant development, however.
What I think turned into what could have been a catastrophe was turned around by President Donald Trump when he made the bold pledge to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.
Let's take a look.
And if you vote for me on day one, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time surge.
That moment, that flashpoint, I think really kind of changed the entire situation.
Unfortunately, the Libertarian Party would go on to nominate a candidate who is in favor of transitioning children, who favors mask and vaccination mandates, who believes that men should compete in women's sports, and who believes in open borders.
That is not, by my definition, libertarianism in any way.
Clint Russell, who was a candidate for vice president, joins us later in the show to talk about that convention and what he's decided to do about their nominee.
But first, we're going to be joined by Martha Bueno, who is a forward-thinking entrepreneur and political activist Recognized by Inc.
500 at the age of 32 of leading one of the fastest growing companies in the United States.
She is melding her entrepreneurial success with political activism, including a very strong and valiant race in 2022 for the Miami-Dade commissioner position.
Right now, however, with the announcement by Donald Trump that he will grant clemency to Ross on day one, Martha Bueno, a lifelong libertarian and a friend to the Albrecht family, has shifted her support to Donald Trump.
Martha Bueno joins us now in the Stone Zone.
Thank you so much for having me.
This is such a great honor.
Thank you so much for joining us.
So, Martha, you saw that national convention where I think President Trump did an extraordinarily valiant thing.
It's sad how many Americans are unaware of the history and the story of Ross Ulbricht and also unaware of why a commutation of his sentence at this point would be appropriate.
Can you help illuminate those who are in the dark?
Absolutely.
So Ross is a tragic story of an American, a young American man who did something that he believed was right.
He built a very libertarian free market website, which unfortunately, you know, what happens when people have some freedom is they tend to sell all sorts of goods and services.
And sometimes those goods and services include drugs.
But he built the website.
He did not, in fact, sell drugs himself.
And as a libertarian, with a belief of not hurting people and not taking their stuff, there were very important rules on this site.
You could not buy or sell any stolen goods, no arms, no child trafficking, no child porn.
So there was a lot of rules.
And of course, all of this was used with Bitcoin.
And for that crime of building a website, Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to double life sentence plus 40 years, which is 240 years.
And it is far too long here.
He was an idealistic, or he is an idealistic young man, and he deserves freedom.
What he did was, maybe some people see it as a bad thing.
I, as a libertarian, do not.
And so for me, he is a hero.
I do understand why the state Did not quite like what he did.
And so they threw the book at him and have put him in a prison ever since.
He's been there for 11 years.
It is far too long.
As President Trump said from the stage, it is far too long.
And he deserves to be home.
His family is a good family, and they deserve to have him back home.
And he deserves to be somebody who brings good things to this world, to this country.
He's an entrepreneurial spirit, and I believe that he has a lot of good left in him, and I hope to see him be able to achieve it.
Based on the research I did, which I admit was cursory, but it appears that most of the drug sales were marijuana, which is now legal in more than half of the states.
There is no evidence that he himself sold drugs, and as you point out, there was nobody here sex-trafficked, nobody killed.
Life in prison seems to be a little excessive given his transgressions, and he's now served 11 years, more than one would ever serve.
For the crime of selling marijuana, even if he himself had done it.
All of this, of course, on the dark web, which I'm not terribly familiar with.
Troy, do you have a question for Maria?
Absolutely.
Roger, you kind of hinted at my question there.
It would seem that a life sentence would be just unbelievably out of the question.
Why would they choose to give this man a life sentence?
That would be my question to you, Martha.
It's like, why is this guy getting a life sentence?
Do you think that there was something about the charges here?
There was an ulterior motive?
There was something they wanted to punish him specifically for?
Do you think that this was political?
Why did they decide to give him life Imprisoned for basically running a website.
Seems insane.
It does seem insane.
You're absolutely correct.
And, you know, I don't, I can't speak for the United States government and why they would do this.
However, the judge, Katherine Forrest, at her sentencing said that Ross needed to be punished for his very libertarian ideals.
For, yes, absolutely.
You know, it's crazy to hear that our American justice system, which is supposed to be fair and balanced, is punishing somebody For creating a website that, again, was using Bitcoin, which back at the time, people didn't really understand Bitcoin, and was basically selling cannabis.
But they also sold other things.
They sold art.
They sold insulin.
I mean, it was very much like an eBay-style website.
And I want to point out that this sentence is so wrong, that El Chapo Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the largest drug traffickers, human traffickers, murdered people.
I mean, one of the most evil people on the planet was only given one life sentence.
And I don't think by that comparison, one can even, you know, look at Ross and say, you deserve this.
Ross has served far too long and he's been a model citizen in prison.
He's not only helped people graduate in jail, he's led, you know, courses for people.
He's helped them meditate.
He's created games.
He's done everything he can do to pass his time in the most helpful way.
And again, he's been a model citizen and he's in a maximum security prison with people that he does not deserve to spend his time with.
It has been a travesty.
They have, you know, upended this entire family and family's life.
And it's just wrong.
And Donald Trump is doing the right thing here by offering to commute his sentence.
This is so needed, and it definitely got me behind Trump.
And I know so many people—actually, I keep getting messages from so many people saying that they don't vote, they're anarchists, and they don't vote.
And they're going to be voting.
They're going to be casting their first vote for Donald J. Trump come November.
Let me posit a theory here, and that this may not really have been about Ross, may not even really been about the Silk Road website, but it may have been about Bitcoin.
It's kind of obvious to me that this administration would like to either heavily regulate, or if they can, actually outlaw Bitcoin as a form of currency.
And of course, Donald Trump has just embraced Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, which I think is a good reason for many libertarians or those looking for an alternative monetary system to vote for him.
Troy, what do you think of that idea?
Well, Roger, I think, you know, it's about freedom, really.
And I think the regulators, you know, they talk so much about the, oh, Bitcoin is unreliable.
They say, oh, well, Bitcoin is not really backed by anything.
But yet their entire system is backed by the exact same thing.
So they want to tell us that oh it's this unregulated system and we have Elizabeth Warren even Senator Elizabeth Warren on CNBC after Trump announced that his campaign would be accepting Bitcoin donations.
She's on CNBC Roger calling for Bitcoin to be eliminated because It funds terrorists.
And you made the point, I believe, on this show where you said, well, are we going to ban dollars, too?
And I think that's what it comes down to, Ross Ulbrich, here.
What is the really underlying crime?
Roger, we just went through a hush money trial in New York where there was no underlying crime for the former president.
And it's a travesty that they were able to orchestrate this persecution without really a charge.
And it seems to me, Martha, we can kick this one to you, it seems to me that Ross Ulbricht is being put through the exact same wringer, where there's no real underlying charge, but he really made the crime of operating as a free individual in the United States.
Oh, absolutely.
And you know, it's funny because it's actually the same court that Ross was convicted and tried in.
So Donald Trump is facing the exact same court that put Ross into a cage for double life sentence and 40 years for the crime of using a currency.
I agree with you both.
I think the real crime, according to the United States government, Is having introduced and been the first use case for Bitcoin in the United States.
And, you know, like you said, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
The dollar.
Should we go after the dollar?
Because we can exchange dollars.
And as a matter of fact, that's the number one thing used to exchange for drugs is the United States dollar.
So, I mean, if if Bitcoin is such an evil currency, then so is the US dollar.
And, you know, Bitcoin is a currency.
That is supposed to free us from the government fiat.
And I think that that is exactly why he is in that cage.
And I hope to see not only Ross free, but Bitcoin free.
And there are many other current people currently in jail for using Bitcoin.
People like Roger Ver, people like Ian Friedman.
I mean, there are so many people that the United States government is now going after for Bitcoin.
And of course, we know that they're trying to impose their own type of cryptocurrency, CBNC.
I'm sorry, I just drew a blank.
But the United States government is also going after creating their own currency so that they can continue to inflate it and continue to force us to use money that is basically worthless.
Very, very well put.
All right, we have to move along.
Let me thank Martha Bueno for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
An eloquent presentation regarding why it is time for President Donald Trump to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbrich.
Thank you so much, Martha, for joining us on the show.
Thank you for having me and Free Ross.
There you go, folks.
If you're just tuning in, I'm Roger Stone.
I'm here with my co-host Troy Smith.
We're going to take a quick break for our advertisers, our commercial supporters, our sponsors.
But after that, we'll be right back with more of what you really want, politics.
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The End Welcome back, folks.
If you're just tuning in, I'm Roger Stone and this is The Stone Zone.
You can see us every day at 8 p.m.
Eastern by going to Rumble.com slash Roger Stone.
Please follow us there so you don't miss any of the action here on The Stone Zone.
Joining me again in The Zone is my co-host, Troy Smith.
Troy, the Trump trial in New York continues to dominate the news.
I'm not an attorney, as I've said on this show many times, but I am perplexed by the jury instructions from Judge Juan Merchant, who basically says that since the government never established any underlying crime, which would be required for these financial transactions which would be required for these financial transactions to be a felony, they had to mask or be related to some underlying crime.
That is, interestingly, specifically not a Federal Election Commission campaign finance violation.
We know that only because, well, the Federal Election Commission conducted an investigation.
But the judge would not allow Bradley Smith, the former chairman, vice chairman, and I believe general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, a man who probably has the best understanding of the federal election law of anyone in the country, the judge would not allow him to testify. the judge would not allow him to testify.
And therefore, the perception continues with the jury that Trump may have committed a federal election commission, a federal, pardon me, a campaign Finance crime, which of course he didn't.
Now basically, as I understand it, what the judge is saying is if the jurors, a majority of the jurors, find that Trump committed any underlying crime, doesn't even have to be the same one, well that would result in a guilty verdict.
No lawyer that I know thinks that this is a just result or that this trial will stand on appeal, but that's not really the point here, is it, Troy?
Roger, no, it doesn't seem to be the point.
And we kind of broke the news.
We were one of the first to do it yesterday about Robert De Niro kind of acting like a fool outside of the Trump hush money trial.
And I think him being there highlights exactly what you're saying.
The point of this is not some kind of trial or to right some wrong or to point out some crime.
The point of this trial is election interference.
This was hammered by Trump's surrogates outside of the Trial yesterday, which I think we're going to show here very shortly.
But when we're talking about Robert De Niro, at a certain point, he says in his speech, Roger, that he delivered yesterday while he was being showered with booze from Trump supporters, that he was there on behalf of the Biden-Harris campaign.
He says it flat out.
And he actually says, I'm working with the Biden-Harris campaign.
And so I was watching yesterday the press coverage of De Niro.
And while I think he thought that he was going to march in there and be some kind of anti-Trump hero, he was really being destroyed by both sides of the political aisle because the idea that the Biden administration sent Robert De Niro, this 80-year-old individual who this 80-year-old individual who appears to be losing his mind, to the hush money trial, it's...
It proves, as you said on the show, that this is purely political.
This is all about the 2024 election and the Biden administration's attempt to justify, I think, what they're planning.
And we don't know exactly what they're planning because, you know, the election's not here yet.
But I think that these cases, this one in particular, if they're able to land anything here, all it's going to do, Roger, is give the establishment, the same people who put Joe Biden in power in 2020, it's going to give them a license to do whatever they want.
And it's going to give them carte blanche to go out and say, well, the president's been charged.
And I'm interested to hear what you think, because I think what's eventually going to happen, if they do land any of these charges, I think his approval rating will actually go up.
People will actually like him more.
Your thoughts?
Well, I agree with you that the Biden-Harris campaign made a tactical error by producing not only Robert De Niro, who admitted that he was there at their behest, but also one of the January 6th Capitol Hill police officers to assault Donald Trump.
That proves what we have been saying all along, that this is a politicized prosecution, and that is all political theater.
But, Troy, I have one question for you that I'm a little unclear on.
What exactly is a MOOC?
People in the crowd were very angry at De Niro, but they kept calling him a MOOC.
What exactly is a MOOC?
I got to tell you, Roger, I'm not from New York.
That's not my thing.
I have no idea what that is.
When the show's over, we're going to go to the Urban Dictionary and look that up, because there are a lot of people calling Robert De Niro a MOOC.
What it's really going to transpire here is going to be very interesting.
Yesterday you saw a purposely leaked story that the Secret Service has been meeting with officials in New York in their prison system to talk about the terms and circumstances, I guess, under which President Donald Trump would be incarcerated.
I assume that this story was leaked.
For its negative effect on the jurors.
In other words, oh, he's definitely guilty.
Now we're beginning to plan about how we're going to put him in jail.
It really is incredibly outrageous.
Of course, CBS led with this story, which instantaneously was almost everywhere.
Your thoughts?
Well, Roger, you know, the idea that the Secret Service is meeting with somebody, like you said, I think that that's probably, as you said, selectively leaked to try to create the impression that the media wants to create, and they've been doing this all along.
And I noticed this yesterday in some of the things that were being said outside of the the hush money trial wanted to play some of these clips here because uh steven chung hits this right on the head uh in his statement that he gave to the press yesterday he's an advisor i believe he's the communications director for the trump campaign uh and uh we want to play that clip of steven chung uh outside of the courthouse yesterday it was just he nailed it this is election interference and uh let's roll that clip now get roger's thoughts on the other side
make no mistake this is election interference of the highest order crooked joe biden and his campaign are in complete freak out mode and that's why they've gone back on the word and now they've gone in bed with a highly convicted conflicted judge and now they're making a political mockery of this entire thing Thank you.
The fact remains that President Trump will overcome.
He'll fight these charges up and down, and there's nothing to stop the truth from coming out.
Thank you.
Yeah, Stephen Chung, the Communications Director for Donald Trump's campaign.
I think he just hit it on the head.
It's going to be very interesting watching the polls and the polling in the wake of this trial.
It's still quite extraordinary to me.
And of course, it's not over yet.
Most people do not understand that in a criminal trial at the state or federal level, Uh, the, the, the prosecution gets to put on their case as to why you should be convicted.
Your attorneys, your defense attorneys, uh, are allowed to cross-examine, uh, the government's witnesses.
Then you're allowed to put on your defense.
The government is allowed to cross-examine your witnesses, uh, unless the witnesses of course are not allowed to testify by the judge.
Uh, and then of course the, uh, the, People don't know this.
The government gets the final shot at the ball.
They get to essentially have a summation to answer everything put forward by the defense.
This seems unfair, but that is our American system.
President Donald Trump seemed to be surprised by it.
I was surprised by it when I went to trial in D.C.
on the trumped-up charges of Russian collusion, which, of course, I was not guilty of.
Well, and Roger, in this case I wanted to ask you specifically because you dealt with media leaks in your case as well, isn't that right?
And it's probably, it's just like deja vu for you seeing these leaks happen in the Trump case as well.
Yeah, I remember the weekend that CNN reported that special counsel Robert Mueller had seized all my bank records and my tax records from the I.S.
and my bank records from my bank.
How could CNN possibly know that?
Who would know that?
I didn't know it.
Only one person knew it—the special counsel's office and someone in that office.
But yes, we were subjected to these leaks like Chinese water torture.
Every single week there was a new story about a new surprise witness or Stone associate pulled to the grand jury.
This is this is part of their strategy.
So and I think this is key.
While they want to gag Trump, they want to gag him in New York.
They want to gag him in the Florida documents trial.
They want to gag him.
I think they have successfully gagged him in the D.C.
trial of election interference brought by Jack Smith.
They are constantly leaking negative, many times inaccurate information about you to their colleagues in the fake news media.
And of course, no one else is gagged but you.
So, CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times, they're allowed to pile on.
They can say anything they want, but you're not allowed to respond to defend yourself.
Clearly unconstitutional, but unfortunately that question has never made it to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
I challenged the gag order in my case, and it was basically sat on for eight months by the DC appeals court and then rejected on procedural grounds, saying that I hadn't asked the judge in my case who had imposed the gag order saying that I hadn't asked the judge in my case who had imposed the gag And therefore, my motion, my mandamus was not ripe for consideration.
I sustained huge public damage during that entire time.
To this day, people on Axe will keep calling me a Russian traitor.
They obviously didn't follow my case because the government never produced any evidence of either Russian collusion or even Wikileaks collaboration.
And it wasn't until BuzzFeed, of all people, sued the U.S.
Department of Justice to force the release Of the entire final report by Robert Mueller, where the entire section on me had been redacted, that Mueller himself admitted that he'd found no evidence of Russian collusion, WikiLeaks collaboration, or for that matter, any other crime on my part.
I think most people know that my prosecution was about pressuring me into testifying falsely against Donald Trump, something I refused to do.
Well, Roger, and it's important to point out because you've been through this ringer, you've seen this before, and I wanted to get your opinion.
We talked a little bit about it yesterday.
The pressure campaign that's being mounted by MSNBC, CNN, and others against the Supreme Court, does that make you question, it would seem to me, based on your case and based on Trump's case and others, that the gag order is an essential piece Of how the deep state comes after you.
It's an essential piece of how the government manipulates reality in order to achieve its goal of persecuting its enemies politically.
So my question to you is, do you think that this pressure campaign is an indication that we may have an opportunity here before the next election to see gag orders ruled unconstitutionally as they really should be?
Well, somebody has to get a gag order question before the court, and of course the court has to agree to hear it.
But the hypocrisy here is knee-deep.
The same people who are howling for Justice Alito to recuse himself from any matter pertaining to Donald Trump or the January 6th matter, because his wife, evidently, based on what I read, flew an upside-down flag at their beach house, which we're not even sure had a political connotation.
She says it did not.
She said it was a dispute with a neighbor who called her a vile word with four letters.
It starts with C.
Those same people are the ones who see nothing wrong with Judge Merchant giving a campaign contribution to Joe Biden or having a daughter who is a Democrat fundraising consultant and whose clients include Biden and Harris.
And she has used this trial, which her father is presiding over, to As the focal point for her fundraising.
Seems to me that that is a serious monetary financial conflict of interest, but of course the folks who want Alito, and for that matter Clarence Thomas, to step down, well they have no problem with the conduct of Judge Merchant and his daughter.
No, they don't, Roger.
And additionally, anybody who really stands up for President Trump, you know, I think it's kind of interesting.
I would call them the Trump surrogates, the people outside of the courthouse, whether it be Lara Trump was out there yesterday, Eric Trump was out there.
We've seen senators.
We've seen Senator Rick Scott.
We've seen representatives from Congress and even Speaker Johnson.
They are viciously attacked.
And I think it's important.
I don't think that and I even see him attacked within Republican circles to a certain extent, people bashing them.
And I say it's important because the president, as you state, it's gagged.
He's not allowed to speak about these issues.
And for people of prominence, especially within Republican politics, to come and show their support for the former president, I think is a great thing.
It's a sign of unity.
And I notice that too, Roger.
Any unity as it pertains to the MAGA part of the Republican Party and embracing those values, well, that's bad.
We can't talk about that.
But if it's unity on the Democrat side or amongst established Republicans who want to do damage to the MAGA movement and make sure that it has no influence in Republican politics, it's terrible.
All right we're gonna go to a quick break and while we're at it I'm gonna find out what that drilling noise is.
We'll be right back in the Stone Zone.
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Welcome back, folks.
I'm Roger Stone, and yes, this is The Stone Zone.
I'm here with my co-host, Troy Smith.
The editor-in-chief of Slingshot.News.
And joining us now is Clint Russell, who was a candidate for vice president at the National Libertarian Nominating Convention, also the host of a very popular podcast.
He joins us now.
Thanks for having me, Roger.
Yeah, host of Liberty Lockdown, vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, and front row center for Donald Trump's speech.
In fact, I gave an opening speech before he came out, so it was quite a surreal event, but I enjoyed it tremendously.
So, you are the host of Liberty Lockdown, which we very much commend to our audience.
You know, I was, as you know, briefly a member of the Libertarian Party in 2012.
When the Republican Party foolishly nominated Mitt Romney, who clearly believed in nothing whatsoever other than power and money—a man who once described himself as severely conservative, which, of course, no conservative would ever describe themselves that way—I realized that it was time to split.
It was a very difficult decision.
I'm a former young Republican national chairman.
I'd worked for three Republican presidents, but I left.
And it was a surreal experience.
Now, I'm proud of my support for Governor Gary Johnson in 2012.
I think he was the strongest candidate the party has ever nominated.
He had a more than credible record as governor of New Mexico of low taxation, less regulation, more freedom.
And it is pathetic as kind of a Ron Paul conservative, which is what I consider myself, The last vote I cast in a Florida Republican presidential primary was for Congressman Ron Paul before leaving the party.
We have arcane laws here, so there's a long waiting period in switching parties, so I didn't switch parties in time to vote for Donald Trump in 2016 in the Florida primary, but of course I was able to vote for him subsequently in the primaries in 2020.
The Libertarian Party, as I learned the hard way, has always had different wings.
There seems to be a more traditional, conservative, let's call them the sane wing, if we may.
And then there's another wing who, they seem to be out of their minds.
I do not define libertarianism the way they do.
Break that down for us, if you would.
Yeah so when actually we were kind of ships in the night when you were going over to Libertarian Party I was going over to the GOP or shifting slightly in that I was trying to support Ron Paul in 08 and 12 but you know I've been a Libertarian I'm a second-gen Libertarian anyways the the party in that era
From 08 through 12, because Ron Paul was toying or attempting to get into the president's, into the White House, uh, under the GOP banner, many of the good libertarians, the Ron Paulian libertarians, the Misesian Rothbardian libertarians, all, uh, essentially shifted over to the GOP because we knew that in Ron Paul, we had a real libertarian.
And we were like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Let's get this guy in there.
In that void.
All of the liberal progressive libertarians, I'll scare quotes it even though they do the same thing to me, they basically took over the Libertarian Party and they dominated it for the next 10 years.
And it took until 2022 for Michael Heiss, Angela McArdle, Dave Smith, myself, Tom Woods, a handful of others to Essentially stage a coup within Libertarian Party under the Mises Caucus banner.
We did so successfully.
We took over the party, but Dave Smith opted not to run for the presidency.
I basically stepped in as a surrogate for him under the vice presidency, and that's how we got here.
We lost a Nailbiter, to put it mildly, I detailed it in length on Liberty Lockdown this morning.
It's one of the craziest stories ever, but that's what happened.
Basically, the very critical race theory, race conscious Libertarians, which I didn't even know they were a thing until I got involved with the Libertarian Party, they took over and the Misesian, Rothbardian Libertarians and the Mises Caucus, we tried to Basically take it back, and we came up just short.
But now the party has nominated this fellow, Chase Oliver, who I don't know.
He's in favor of transitioning children.
He supported mask and vax mandates.
Nothing freedom-oriented about that.
He is for men competing in women's sports.
He's for open borders.
Where's the libertarianism?
I'm not seeing it.
Well, for the record, I don't know about the mandate aspect of that.
If he supported mandates, I want to make sure that we get it right because I don't want to slander the guy unnecessarily.
But he was taking photos of himself wearing masks for two years and standing with like a porcupine shirt with the gay pride rainbow across it and taking pictures with transvestites and gay pride flags and stuff like that.
And he's just very much in – this is what I described earlier, like the critical race theory, the race and gender conscious libertarian wing, which as I said, I don't relate to.
I believe that that falls under critical theory, that falls under a hierarchy of oppression, which is not really how libertarians view things.
We view things as individualists and as a meritocracy.
So I don't understand.
Why the Libertarian Party delegates went with him.
It was razor close and it was ultimately a coalition of the second and third largest, I guess, coalitions that came together in the 23rd hour that barely edged out the Mises Caucus candidates.
But yes, I agree with you.
I don't see the Libertarianism in him very much.
I mean, he is to a certain degree anti-war, which I appreciate, but I am not fond of the man.
I really I am not.
And I did everything in my power to prevent him from being our candidate because I think it is going to be the worst turnout the Libertarian Party has ever seen come November.
I agree with that analysis.
Look, the Libertarian Party has always had trouble attracting a candidate who is able to gather resources.
It's a sad fact in America that you have to become well-known and your views have to become well-known before you can win anybody's votes.
So nominating an obscure academic or an individual who has no access whatsoever to resources seems to me to be counterproductive.
This is why I thought that the nomination of Governor Johnson gave the party a chance to break through.
I said this on yesterday's show.
I thought it was interesting that in 2012, when I was helping get Governor Gary Johnson on the ballot, I think it was 48 states, in helping his campaign, it was virtually impossible to get any mainstream media coverage.
CNN and the rest of the mainstream media just literally pretended like he didn't exist.
By the way, they did the same thing to the Green Party candidate.
They're committed to the two-party duopoly.
Fast forward, and there's another odd aspect of this.
Gary Johnson wanted a strong running mate, as did I.
Our first choice was former Congressman Barry Goldwater Jr., and we asked him, and he politely declined.
He liked Gary, he liked our platform, but he could not leave the party of his father, the party of Lincoln.
Our second choice was Governor Bill Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, who's a friend of mine.
I approached Bill Weld and he told me that I was out of my mind and that he had no interest in whatsoever and he intended to remain a Republican.
Fast forward to 2016.
The party nominates Gary Johnson again and then suddenly Bill Weld pops up basically volunteering to be a vice presidential candidate.
Once nominated, he spends all of his time attacking Donald Trump and extolling the virtues of Hillary Clinton.
I know a setup when I see one.
And suddenly, the media discovered that there was a Libertarian Party and that they did have a nominee, and CNN now suddenly is having a town hall for the Libertarian candidates and covering their campaign.
Not CNN, just the mainstream media generally.
Why?
Well, because they thought that he would be draining votes from Donald Trump.
That's why.
That's how manipulative the media is.
Troy, do you have a question for Clint?
Absolutely, Clint.
We saw Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
deliver a speech at this convention, and he actually put his name on the list to be nominated, and we saw he only got 2% of the vote.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
That seems surprising to me.
It's not surprising to me.
Libertarians are the most ideologically possessed, stubborn, psychotic people I have ever engaged with in my entire life.
I mean, we're very principled people, and we do not like outsiders.
We don't like people who are just trying to use us for ballot access, which is clearly what RFK Jr.
was attempting to do.
Donald Trump He doesn't need us for ballot access, so this is why I took his attempts at trying to persuade us into nominating him and all of those things, or at least voting for him.
I took that in a much more favorable way, because I know he doesn't need to do that.
But RFK Jr., he's got a tremendous amount of un-libertarian policies, particularly in his history.
He hasn't been favorable towards gun rights.
Essentially a socialist on economics.
So we have major, major areas of disagreement when it comes to policy.
I absolutely respect the work he has done in looking into the corruption within the FDA, the CDC, Fauci.
I mean, the real Anthony Fauci was an absolute masterpiece of a book.
And as someone who named my show Liberty Lockdown, I am very freaking pissed off about the lockdowns.
And I love that he has done such an incredible job of highlighting the injustice of that period and where it stemmed from.
So, you know, no hard feelings towards RFK Jr., but he's just simply not a libertarian.
And that's why he got blown out.
I think you make you make an excellent point.
So, Clint, what will you now do?
I know there are some in the party calling for you to endorse Chase Oliver.
I gather from your postings on social media That's not your intention.
That's correct.
That's called understatement.
Yeah, I'll keep it family friendly, but I have never been a party guy.
As I said earlier, the only time I voted Republican in my life, or the two times I guess, was when Ron Paul was in the GOP.
That's what I'm about.
I am a Ron Paulian.
Yes, I'm a libertarian, and yes, I occasionally participate in libertarian party politics, but I think that the principles, the ideas, the philosophy, and trying to bring our philosophy into reality is what matters most.
I am anti-war.
I am pro-capitalism.
I am pro-property rights.
Whatever party, whatever politician gets me closer to that end goal, is the conduit that I will use to get there.
So there was a lot of people in the party, particularly because I was running for vice president, particularly because I got 47% of the vote, which shows you how close this divide is in the party.
It was like razor thin, literally 30 or so votes.
I mean, 31 was the difference between myself and my competitor.
So It was razor thin, and a lot of people in the party are party politics folks.
They're like, ride or die, we stay in the Libertarian Party, and we support whoever it is.
Chase Oliver doesn't represent me.
And he doesn't represent the vast, vast, vast majority of Libertarians in this country.
This ticket is going to implode upon itself, because he is appealing to critical, race-conscious leftists, largely.
That is who he's going to appeal to.
I don't know many of those people to be libertarian.
Last I checked, none of them are.
So that's the future of the party in the next six months, and I think you're going to see very little support from the more influential members of a libertarian party.
I don't know of any of them that actually agree with Chase Oliver.
We're going to go to a quick commercial break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about the general election implications.
As Clint Russell just pointed out, it appears to me at this point that all of the minor party or independent candidates are to the left and none of them are to the right.
Maybe, just maybe, what happened at the Libertarian Party Convention could have been the best possible result for Donald Trump.
First of all, he went into the lion's den showing enormous courage.
He stood on principle in his call to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, and the party nominated someone Who I'm looking at, objectively, looks like a progressive leftist to me.
Anyway, this is The Stone Zone.
I'm Roger Stone.
We'll be right back with our special guest, Clint Russell, when we come back from this commercial message.
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Welcome back, folks.
If you're just joining us, I'm Roger Stone, and you're in the Stone Zone.
I'm here with my co-host, Troy Smith, and Clint Russell, who has a terrific show of his own, Liberty Lockdown.
Clint, where can people go to see your show?
Let's get some business done here.
Sure.
Liberty Lockdown on Rumble, obviously.
Also YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
Just search Liberty Lockdown, you'll find it.
I also do the best political show over on We Are Change, all one word, on Rumble, where we have an exclusive deal and we go live most nights.
I'll actually be going live in about two hours with Luke Hradowski, my co-host, and Steph, which we were thrilled to have you on a couple weeks ago, Roger.
So yeah, those are the shows I do.
Most excellent.
Let's look at the general election now.
What did you think of my theory that, from Donald Trump's point of view, this was the best possible result?
In other words, Chase Oliver is not going to appeal to anyone who might have been voting for Donald Trump.
Well, you're obviously right.
I mean, I can't deny it.
But what's weird about it is that what made this happen was the, it was the oppositional party to the more right-leaning libertarians at the Libertarian Party.
Like, the people that despise Donald Trump are now the ones that are responsible for handing the vast majority of libertarian votes to Donald Trump.
And the bizarre thing Like the crazy irony is that they have been accusing the Mises caucus of wanting to assist Donald Trump when in fact we were all like, no, we're Ron Paul.
Like, you know, Trump's not bad on many things, but we're Ron Paul guys.
And that's why we want to have a messenger that reflects us in totality.
And now so many of us are left going, well, if it's Chase Oliver, who's a guaranteed loser, who's going to mislead America as to what libertarianism is, or it's Donald Trump, who's going to, or who promises, and I hope, I pray he will, I know Lynn Albrecht, I know Ross's mother.
If, if Donald Trump is going to pardon Ross Albrecht, if he's going to, you know, assist us in avoiding World War III, which was one of my biggest concerns, Yeah, it's going to be real hard not to cast a vote for the guy come November.
Now, I haven't endorsed anybody and I haven't decided definitively what I'll do, but I know for a fact I am not voting for Chase Oliver.
All right, so we'll put you down as undecided.
Maybe pliable with steaks and martinis, we'll see soon, but we certainly want your vote.
I do think the Libertarian Party, unfortunately, May have now be moving into complete irrelevance.
I mean, I see them actually getting the lowest vote they've ever gotten with this candidate.
And anyone who is a libertarian will recognize that Donald Trump is the only president in modern times to not only not start any new foreign wars, but to bring many of our men and women in uniform home to the United States without having the countries they're leaving collapse behind but to bring many of our men and women in uniform home to the United States without
That alone, that is a libertarian credential, particularly when you consider that during the presidency, there were those in his administration and those in the permanent power structure pushing him relentlessly towards war, something that he resisted.
Remember a great story he told about a drone was shot down and those of the Pentagon wanted him to retaliate.
Trump said, well, how many people were killed on the drone?
They said, none, sir.
There were none killed.
He said, well, you want me to go to World War III over that?
It's an excellent answer.
All right, final question for Troy Smith, then we got to move it along.
Troy, you have a question for our guest.
Absolutely.
So, as far as the future, Clint, where do you see the party going from here?
Because Roger said they're in danger, really, of falling into total irrelevance.
Do you see libertarians sticking around, looking to right things, or is it just too early to make that call?
Or do you think that they will kind of coalesce around Donald Trump in total?
Yeah, it's very hard to say at this junction because it's still very fresh.
You know, we honestly thought that there was a very good chance that we would maintain control of the party and have a Michael Reichenwald, Clint Russell ticket in the vein of Ron Paul and Dave Smith that would absolutely galvanize the populist, slightly more right-leaning Libertarian Party.
Folks are libertarians, not even LP members, but libertarian voters all over this country.
We would have inspired them and got them to vote for the Libertarian Party.
That ain't happening now.
The people that are pissed at lockdowns are not going to vote for Chase Oliver, who was essentially Justifying or playing along with the biggest psychological operation, the most criminal civil rights infringement I've ever experienced in my life.
So they're not going to vote for them.
I promise you that.
So yeah, I think that the party is in danger of serious irrelevancy and it's really going to boil down to, in my opinion, whether or not Dave Smith or myself decides to run in 28, but for this cycle, it's over.
I mean, there is absolutely no Libertarians that I consider my brethren are going to be supporting this ticket.
All right.
I'm afraid we have to wrap it up.
Let me thank our guest, Clint Russell.
Clint, you have a permanent invitation here at the Stone Zone to come back at any time.
I've enjoyed this enormously.
And I urge folks to go to Liberty Lockdown right here on Rumble to see Clint's great show.
And I look forward to being back with you and Luke Rutkowski again.
That was a great show.
I'd love to do it again.
Absolutely, Roger.
That was maybe my favorite episode we've done in the six months or so we've been doing it.
You are an almanac of deep state history.
You know the ins and outs in a way that I find just absolutely fascinating.
So yes, thank you again, Roger, and thank you for having me, Troy.
All right.
Thank you to Clint Russell.
Well, I think we're at the end of the show here, folks.
We appreciate your joining us.
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