The Stone Zone dissects rural hospitals’ 24/7 crisis, then pivots to Roger Stone’s critique of Clinton-era China policies—$100B in military secrets sold via L'Oreal—and Trump’s anti-waste efforts exposing trillions in fraud. He slams DeSantis’ "temper tantrum" over Trump’s Donalds endorsement, accuses MSNBC’s Chris Matthews of inciting violence, and mocks Crenshaw’s Ukraine hawkishness as donor-driven. Guest Arnie Steinberg blames California’s collapse on progressive policies, questions Newsom’s $40B fire bailout, and frames Trump’s midterms as a power grab to dismantle unconstitutional agencies like the FCC—all while Musk audits Fort Knox gold. The episode ends with a rallying cry for rural healthcare funding amid political warfare. [Automatically generated summary]
Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our country has to offer, especially health care.
Across every state, every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress: protect patient care to keep America strong.
Don't cut rural health care.
This is the stone zone with Roger Stone.
People love him and respect him.
Roger Stone.
Now, get in the zone.
It's the Stone Zone.
Here's Roger Stone.
Welcome.
You are entering the Stone Zone.
Here we eat, sleep, and breathe politics.
In fact, I think if I cut myself, I'd probably breathe politics.
I'm a hard-nosed veteran of 13-nosed veteran of 13 national presidential campaigns from Nixon to Reagan to Trump, but I'm also a bipartisan critic of both parties and hypocrisy whenever I see it.
It was 53 years ago today that President Richard Milhouse Nixon ended his historic meeting in Beijing with communist dictator Mao Tze Tung.
I point out to you, however, that the time that Nixon decided to bring China in out of the cold in order to play them off against the Soviet Union, who had a long mutual border and a great history of mistrust of each other, despite both of them being communist states, China was a poor, backward, largely agrarian society.
Ron DeSantis' Trump Betrayal00:13:31
Few had indoor plumbing, and well, the rural areas didn't even have electricity.
It was not until President Bill Clinton gave them most favored nation trading status and sold them our most sensitive military secrets in return for illegal campaign contributions in the L'Oral scandal that they became the dangerous world power that they are today.
If you listen to the critics of President Donald Trump, his poll numbers are collapsing in the face of his efforts to work with Elon Musk and Doge to wipe out waste, fraud, and corruption from our system, uncovering not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of questionable expenditures.
At the same time, the president is working to clean up the politicized criminal of justice system, to clean out our intelligence agencies that have been used as politicized weapons against the president's opponents.
I can tell you all about that.
Also, to close our borders and expel the most dangerous criminals and terrorists and have them deported.
Unfortunately, those who say the president's poll numbers are collapsing are entirely wrong.
The Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, in conjunction with the Harris poll, also often called the Harvard-Harris poll, actually shows that 48% of Americans say the country is on the right track versus 42% who say it's on the wrong tack.
Overall, 52% say they approve of the job that Trump is doing compared to only 43% who disapprove.
But more importantly, you see that President Trump is outperforming former President Joe Biden in people's perceptions on the handling of key issues with the majority approving of his actions relating to immigration, reducing government costs, and returning America to its original values.
So in other words, looking at both Trump and Biden at this exact same point in the beginning of their term, the numbers are stark.
When it comes to the economy, 49% approve of the job Trump is doing when only 37% agreed with the job that Biden was doing.
When it looks at immigration, 56% say Trump is doing a good job, while only 34% said Biden was performing well.
When it comes to foreign affairs, Trump has a 48% approval rating.
Perhaps that's because of his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, as opposed to only 38% for Joe Biden's handling of foreign affairs.
In the issue of government administration, Trump outpoints Biden by nine points, 49% to 40%.
And in handling inflation, Trump leads 45 to 34%.
53% said they approve of Trump's work to reduce the cost of government.
And the same percentage thought the president was doing a good job of returning America to its values.
So much for the idea that President Trump's poll numbers are collapsing.
It is also interesting that we've got a political brawl going on in Florida.
Last week, President Trump endorsed Congressman Byron Donalds to be the next governor of Florida.
Unfortunately, the current governor, Ron DeSantis, responded by throwing a temper tantrum.
Trump endorsed Donalds in a posting on True Social saying Byron Donalds would be a truly great and powerful governor for Florida.
And should he decide to run, he has my complete and total endorsement.
And then in all caps, the president said, run, Byron, run.
Yesterday, Ron DeSanctimonius, as President Trump has dubbed him, decided to take a pot shot at Congressman Donalds.
You've got a guy like Byron, he said.
He hasn't been part of any of the victories we've had here, DeSantis proclaimed, while complaining that Donalds had been an effective campaign surrogate for Trump in several other states.
DeSantis, as many insiders have long known, and as I predicted on this show almost two years ago on this network, wants his wife, Casey DeSantis, to be Florida's next governor.
Not since George Wallace was succeeded by his wife, Lurlene, have we seen anything like this?
The only problem is, well, Casey DeSantis is even less popular than Ron.
My good friend, former Congressman Matt Gates, responded to Ron's outbursts, tweeting, man, it hurts to see this.
Governor DeSantis, I don't think you remember when you, Byron Donalds, and I were working collaboratively to get you, that's Governor DeSantis, elected in 2018.
We literally were your debate prep team.
You and I even tried to muscle Byron into the chairmanship of the Republican Party of Florida.
We thought so highly of him.
Byron is going to miss some votes while running for governor.
But you missed a lot of votes too when you ran for governor.
For the DeSantis cult members claiming that Donalds isn't qualified, he has the same qualifications that Ron DeSantis had when he ran for governor in 2018.
DeSantis was a three-term congressman when he ran for governor.
Donalds is currently in his third term.
So by the same logic, DeSantis wasn't qualified when he ran for governor in 2018.
And of course, his wife, Casey DeSantis, isn't qualified whatsoever.
This is a case where Macbeth wants Lady Macbeth to run for governor.
I argue he's bitten off far more than he can chew.
This is going to work out about as well as Ron DeSantis' attempt to backstab President Donald Trump, the man who made him governor.
Few people remember this, but 67 Republican County chairmen in Florida had endorsed the Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam for governor.
It was only the tweeted endorsement of Donald Trump that catapulted DeSantis ahead in the nomination contest for governor.
And then the president had to come to Florida three times in the last two weeks of 2018 to literally drag Governor DeSanctimonius over the finish line.
Don't look for gratitude or loyalty in politics, folks.
If you want that, well, as Harry Truman said, get yourself a dog.
This is Roger Stone, and you're in the Stone Zone, and we'll be right back.
This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
Not just stepping stone.
The Stone Zone Zone.
Not just Steven Stone.
Listen to this podcast now on the Red Apple Podcast Network, the Leadership Thread, with Dr. Peggy Polonis.
I'm Dr. Peggy Polonis.
Join me on each episode where I unravel the story that shaped leaders, tracing the thread that led them where they are today.
Because leadership isn't born in adulthood.
And thank you once again for joining us on the leadership thread, education, ethics, and sustainability.
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Watch a step in stone.
This is the Stone Zone.
Now, get in the zone.
It's the stone zone.
Here's Roger Stone.
And we're back in the stone zone here on the Red Apple Audio Network.
You know, when my wife and I attended the wedding for Donald and Melania Trump at the Bethesda by the Sea Church in Palm Beach, we were seated in the same pew as MSNBC talking head Chris Matthews and his wife.
It's amazing the number of times Chris Matthews called me to beg me to get President Trump to speak on his then CNBC TV show.
But only last week, this unhinged talking head solicited an assassination attempt against President Trump on air.
Who's going to take a shot back at this guy, raved Matthews while fuming about Trump?
Radical left-wing media has a history of calling for violence and, unfortunately, sometimes getting results.
Remember that it was a Democrat who shot up Congressman Steve Scalise and a field full of Republicans after drinking the Democrat media Kool-Aid.
Another crazed gunman attacked a Christian group, the Family Research Council, after the far left Southern Poverty Law Center put them on a hate watch list.
Who can forget when Senator Rayon Paul was assaulted in his front yard by a radical leftist neighbor?
Of course, we've already seen multiple attempts on the life of President Trump in part because the radical left media consistently calls him a fascist, a racist, and every other word they can think of to incite violence.
But Chris Matthews sure didn't think that Donald Trump was a racist when he was attending his wedding and while he was drinking champagne at the fabulous reception afterwards at Mar-Lago.
The Department of Justice, Kash Patel's FBI, and the Secret Service should pay some attention to Chris Matthews and anyone else who wants to, quote-unquote, take a shot at the president.
Congressman Robert Garcia said it's time to bring weapons to the Capitol.
I think it's time for the FBI under Kash Patel to pay the Congressman a visit and see what he thought about that.
Speaking of violence, Congressman Dan Crenshaw has been caught vowing to kill Tucker Carlson.
After an interview with JGB News, a British network, Crenshaw was asked if he'd ever met Tucker Carlson.
And in a hot mic moment, Crenshaw replied, If I ever meet Tucker Carlson, I will effing kill him.
I'm not joking.
Tucker responded to Crenshaw's death threat with a public challenge.
Why don't you come sit down for an interview and we'll see how you do?
I'll send you my address, Dan Crenshaw.
That's what Tucker Carlson said.
Dan Kenshaw's deranged obsession with Tucker Carlson stems from Tucker's opposition to Crenshaw's support for endless foreign war.
Back when Tucker was on Fox News, Tucker reported that Dan Crenshaw is a committed neoliberal.
He's a tool of his donors.
He's hawkish on Ukraine's border, but indifferent to the security of our own borders.
Tucker has continued to hammer Crenshaw and said in December that Dan Crenshaw is obviously not emotionally prepared to lead anything.
My good friend Tucker Carlson was absolutely right.
Steve Bannon, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Committee right outside Washington, D.C., made headlines the other day by calling for President Trump to run again for president in 2028.
Let's listen to Steve Bannon of MAGA is Donald J. Trump.
We want Trump in 28.
That's what they can't stand.
A man like Trump comes along only once or twice in a country's history, right?
We want Trump. We want Trump. We want Trump. We want Trump. We want Trump. We want Trump.
You know, that is world class trolling because, well, Steve Bannon is well aware of the fact that the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution states no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.
By the way, it also says that if any person fulfills more than two years of a term to which another person was elected, such as when Lyndon Johnson succeeded John F. Kennedy, they too are only allowed to run for one more term.
In that same event, Bannon gave the gesture that some have called a Roman salute.
That's the same gesture that Richard Spencer made in 2016, providing the left's most effective ammunition in the propaganda war.
They call it a hit Larian salute.
That's why I always do Richard Nixon's double-fisted V for victory stance after my speeches.
Strive in the Arena00:03:20
There can be no mistakes about what that's all about.
NASA, incredibly, the National Security Administration Authority, pardon me, we've now learned that intelligence officers maintain a chat room to discuss polygamy, transgender surgeries, as new unearthed internal documents reveal.
One of my favorite writers, Chris Ruffo and Hannah Grossman, cultivated and published sources within the National Security Agency, the one current employee and one former employee, who have provided these chat logs from the NSA's Interlink Messaging Program.
These chat logs dating back two years are lurid.
They're featuring wide-ranging discussions of kink, of sex, castration, and far worse.
One employee wrote to co-workers about being involved in a nine-member polycule, a polymorris, a more MMORIS group with metas with benefit connections.
In response to the shocking and disgusting news, a NSA press official has released a statement that says, all NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission-related material on the Intel link is usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.
You know, I will not be wasting my breath.
I want to leave you with this.
It's my favorite quote.
It goes like this.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, but who errs and comes up short again and again.
Because there is no victory.
Hat off to those who strive to do the deeds, who know the great easy solutions, who spends himself in a worthy cause.
Without effort, there is no victory.
But his hat is off to those who actually strive to do the deeds, who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Now, that quote came from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt, one of our greatest presidents, but was uncovered by my mentor, Richard Milhouse Nixon.
Those are the words that I live by.
The credit lies not with those who stand on the sidelines, but those who get in the arena.
I'm in the arena today.
Actually, I'm in the stone zone, and I'm so glad you joined me.
Gavin Newsom's Recall Victory00:15:40
God bless you, and stay tuned for our upcoming guest, Arnie Steinberg, perhaps most of the incisive political analysts and strategists in America today.
So whatever you do, don't touch that dial.
The Stone Zone.
Here's Roger Stone.
And we're back, and you're in the stone zone here at the Red Apple Audio Network.
Joining me now is a political strategist and analyst who I respect perhaps more than, well, just about any in the United States.
Arnie Steinberg now lives out on our left coast, but the architect in 1970 of Jim Buckley's epic third party election as U.S. Senator from the state of New York.
Only one other third party candidate, Harry F. Berg Jr. of Virginia, won that year.
But Jim Buckley was elected over both the Republican and the Democrat, running as the candidate of the Conservative Party in one of the most important U.S. Senate races of 1970.
Arnie's had many extraordinary successes since then, but that one, since I worked on it myself as a young man, still stands out as the gold standard.
He joins us now in the Stone Zone.
Arnie Steinberg, welcome.
Hi, Roger.
So you are a keen observer, particularly of California politics, but as well as national politics.
I want to ask you off the bat, given the impact of Governor Gavin Newsom's mishandling of the fires and the essential, I would say, deterioration of the quality of life in California, what's the long-term impact?
Can California ever actually go red?
I guess if you adopt the Atlas shrug and rant approach, which is that Atlas is going to shrug and things will become so awful, some people wonder whether that's the only way for a reversal of the decline that's become even more precipitous.
I think part of the problem is that beyond politics, you have the media here.
The school boards are theoretically nonpartisan.
When you go to vote for school board, party doesn't appear.
Same with city councils, same with county boards or supervisors, but they're all sort of Democratic, leftist, progressive, the institutions of higher learning.
The school boards are so awful that the LA Unified School District and one of the ones in Orange County now are under litigation for their sort of indoctrination, you know, pro-Hamas kind of indoctrination.
So you have all of these institutions together, and then you have the Democratic Party grooming elected officials at the lower level.
So they run for school boards, then they run for city council, then they run for county supervisors, then they run for statewide office.
So, you know, it's tough to reverse that kind of a situation.
President Trump received 6 million votes to Kamala Harris's 9.2 million votes.
I think that kind of illustrates the point.
That was a good question.
That was an improvement, by the way.
That's a dramatic improvement over the four years, the eight years prior.
Yeah, it's an extraordinary showing by the president in an overwhelmingly blue state.
Now, Governor Newsom is begging Congress for $40 billion to help California recover from the fires.
Considering California's history and current leadership, how much of that money do you actually think would go towards helping anybody?
And how much would be wasted or perhaps even worse, stolen?
You know, I'm reminded of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., you know, citing the fact that so much of illness and health is related to the obesity, to smoking, to drug addiction, and bad nutrition.
And so much of California's problems are ingrown.
They're related to the way state and local governments govern.
And so, with respect to what you say, it's not so much a lack of confidence, which would be justified that the money would be spent effectively and efficaciously.
It's a matter of whether the same policies will continue.
You know, I myself built a home in what's called the coastal zone.
I'm actually 15 minutes from the coast, but their jurisdiction was extended inland some areas.
And the reason why my house survived several fires is that I didn't obey the Coastal Commission and I cleared all the overgrowth there.
So, that's just one instance.
So, I don't think there's a great deal of confidence that that's going to happen.
And the macro major state government policies with respect to the environment, with respect to water, all those.
And then you add to that the incompetence of Mayor Bass and the city council.
Our fire chief that she just fired and her two colleagues in the fire department that are ranking, they're making $400,000 here.
They're DEI hires.
When I look at the Democrat Party and I try to look at their bench, they don't seem to have much of a bench.
Do you think Gavin Newsom will actually be a viable contender for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2028 in wake of your failures?
He has epic failures.
He's very lucid.
He's very quick on the draw verbally.
I mean, every so often he vetoes some extreme progressive legislation.
I think he was just refusing to sign or vetoing legislation where this law enforcement would not cooperate with respect to immigration there.
So, this is a guy who has nine lies.
He's not without talent.
I mean, his ability to lie with a straight face is admirable, and he has great hair.
Those two things cannot be denied.
You know, when I was involved in the recall against him, and I told Larry Elder, dear friend, when he decides the last minute to run, you know, you'll probably win way ahead of everybody else to succeed.
The question is whether the recall will succeed.
But the most effective television commercial was a fellow about 50 years old saying, you know, Gavin Newsom reminds me of that guy in high school who stole your girlfriend for you.
And after he was done with her, he left her.
The thing I didn't understand about that recall is that Gavin Newsom beat the recall in every single county, including counties that had voted to secede from California.
How likely is it we had an honest count?
Well, I think one of the challenges is that the burden of proof is on those voting for the recall.
People tend to be hesitant to vote for a recall, and that's why if they get out the ballot, which is very rare, it's even more rare for them to succeed.
I myself directed a recall against Howard Miller.
Your older listeners would remember Howard Miller was on the advocates debating Bill Rusher of National Review, and Howard was the president of the LA school board.
And at that time, L.A. school board elections were citywide.
And the electorate of L.A. City is larger than some small state.
And that recall succeeded, but it was very, very difficult.
So I think voters tend to be risk-averse.
And so they tend to say, why are you spending money on a recall?
Why is it occurring?
Why not wait for the general election?
And it's very equivalent in California to ballot measures, where, as a general rule, it's hard to get a ballot measure passed.
Their people are likely to vote no.
So people tend to want to vote no on a recall.
We've got about three minutes.
And for my last question regarding the Golden State, and on the other side, I'll get into national politics with Arnie Steinberg.
I really like this Nicole Shanahan.
She was Bobby Kennedy's running mate as an independent.
She's now emerged as a strong supporter of both the MAGA and the Maha, Make America Healthy Again, movements.
Do you think she would have appealed a centrist candidate in a California governor's loose?
She just might.
I mean, she's got a fairly liberal record, which shows that she simply is not somebody a central casting right winger there.
She's a woman.
She's attractive.
She's very bright.
She's a techie.
She's educated.
And I think she can relate to a lot of different constituencies.
So I wouldn't discount that.
You know, I mean, California has the history of people sort of coming up from nowhere and succeeding.
All right.
You're tuned in to the Stone Zone with Roger Stone here on the Red Apple Audio Network.
We're talking to political strategist and analyst Arnie Steinberg.
Whatever you do, don't touch that dial because we'll be right back.
On the other side, we're going to talk national politics, Donald Trump, how he's doing, the outlook for the midterm elections, and much, much more.
We'll be right back.
This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
Not just stepping stones.
The Stone Zone Zone Zone.
policies.
But with Donald Trump, all of the conventional rules seem to be canceled.
After all, before Donald Trump, every president we had had been a governor, a senator, a congressman, or a general.
He's really the first business person we've had as president.
Now, I realize that in politics, a week is a lifetime, but how do you see the midterms shaping up, recognizing that it's very early?
I think that President Trump has really made a strategic calculation, and we're going to find out in the midterms if it works.
He's basically said, I'm going to go for broke.
I've got a narrow majority in the House, very narrow, not a real big majority in the Senate.
And I'm going to try to do as much as I possibly can, full speed ahead, regardless of the implications for the midterm.
And if he loses the midterms, he's going to try to put in and cement as much as possible that's irreversible.
On the other hand, what he's hoping is that it's going to pay dividends.
And what we don't know is whether what's good for the medium term and the long term, medium term, meaning a few years down the line and long term, even five or ten years down the line or decades, whether that will survive over the next couple of years there.
And that's what we have to hope is that people recognize that.
President Trump has put together some benchmarks.
He's set very high standards for himself.
And I don't think he can do all of those things by the midterm, whether it's no tax on tips or no tax on overtime or drastic cut in the inflation rate.
So I think what he's going to have to do is find a skillful way to sort of lower some expectations that are unrealistically high.
It's kind of like that old adage, Roger.
You and I know when we were training advanced men, you always say, you know, for a political event, get a room that can hold fewer people than you expect, so you can say standing room only.
And I think the president has to calibrate in such a way so that if he is successful, which he probably will be, that he's viewed as successful because perception and not reality is what counts in politics.
The left would have us believe, I said this earlier in the show, that the president's poll numbers are collapsing when, in fact, the most liberal poll, the one from the Center of American Political Studies at Harvard, the so-called Harvard Harris poll, shows President Trump doing substantially better in this period in his administration than Joe Biden was doing at the beginning of his.
What have you noticed in the most recent polls?
Well, I've been looking at him.
I see different things.
I think it depends on the way the questions are phrased.
It's clear that to me, the most important measurement is measuring Donald Trump against his first term.
And now, given the fact that Donald Trump is one of those people who has the public feel very, very strongly for him or get him.
You love him or you hate him among so many people there.
So, given the fact that he has a certain hard negative that's never going to change there, I think the numbers look quite good for him.
It's interesting how the left loved executive power as long as Barack Obama or Joe Biden or even Bill Clinton was in the White House.
Now, they argue against the basic tenets of executive power.
I saw Andrew Weissman, perhaps the most corrupt prosecutor in federal history, saying the other day that the president had no authority to fire management or even any agent at the FBI, when, of course, he does.
They're all members of the executive branch.
But in view of the conservative view of executive power, or I should say, in light of past court decisions, where do you see this issue ending up?
This is extremely important.
The traditional conservative view has been mixed increasingly on foreign policy.
It's conservatives, not liberals, that have felt that the war powers have to be strictly enforced, that we should have limits on how quickly and when we can use the military.
Originally, it was the George McGovern types and the very liberals there.
And the conservatives have basically thought that government ought to be limited, but they have come into what I think the current Supreme Court may rule, which is when you look at all these so-called, quote, independent agencies, whether it's the Federal Communications Commission or the Federal Trade Commission, and so on, there, that, as Scalia had hinted years ago without much support, that these are part of the executive branch.
And the United States Constitution invested the executive authority with the president, solely with the president.
So when Congress passes legislation that, in effect, establishes a quote independent commission, that it's an oxymoron.
It cannot be independent of the executive branch and be part of it.
And so that is what gets to the root of this.
And I think that President Trump, more than any other Trump, is basically saying we can't have this hybrid.
How can I be CEO of a company, that is to say, CEO of the United States of America, and my executive team is some of them are forced upon me because they were appointed to a fixed term, and I'm told I can't end their term when they come in, or they can do anything that they want there, and I can't fire them.
Yesterday's show, we talked about the intention of Elon Musk and his doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, which is busy rooting out not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars in waste, fraud, and corruption, and their intention to go to Fort Knox and inspect our supply of gold, the largest supply in the country of the bullion reserved there,
which is supposedly the underpinnings of our wealth.
Now, the dollar is no longer tied to gold.
Richard Nixon ended that in 1971.
Interest United: Self-First Policy00:04:12
I'm kind of wondering if this is going to be like Geraldo Rivera going to Al Capone's safe, only to pop it open and reveal that the gold is gone or has somehow been depleted.
Any thoughts on that?
Well, it's probably more worthwhile for him to do that than to try to inspect the supply of condoms that the U.S. Agency for International Development was giving to Hamas there.
But, you know, it reminds me of the movie Goldfinger and James Bond.
I think while this is somewhat theatrical and cosmetic, it also really emphasizes to the American people that we cannot take things on faith.
Just like we say you ought to have an auditor audit corporations, the federal government and maybe the gold supply at Fort Knox needs an audit.
Goldfinger, my all-time favorite James Bond movie, that's because Sean Connery is wearing this incredible gray nailhead three-piece suit with a solid black tie.
It is the very best.
I thought it was because of the female character of Pussy Galore.
I like that as well, but I also liked the Rolls-Royce that Eric Goldfinger was driving around in.
My all-time favorite Bond movie.
When it comes to America first, tell people what that means to you.
Well, I think what America means, I think, as someone who was involved as a very young person in Young Americans for Freedom, they had the share statement, and it basically ended with that foreign policy should be judged by does it serve the just interest of the United States.
So it really has to do with what is the self-interest of the United States.
And you think of Anne Rand talked about self-interest, and I remember talking to Daniel Brandon, who passed away many years ago, her colleague.
And the question is: if somebody wants to give charity and that's what he or she wants to do, then it is in his or her self-interest to give charity.
When we have the Agency for International Development, to what extent is it a charitable organization?
Is that a function of us internationally?
Why are we having an agency for international development?
Or should it, for example, serve the just interest of the United States?
So what it does in its mission is to complement or implement what the foreign policy or national security policy is of the United States, or right now of President Donald Trump.
On the other hand, there's a difference between America first and doing nothing.
The caricature is a whole bunch of endless wars.
Well, nobody wants endless wars.
What we have to decide is how do you define self-interest?
And self-interest may mean at times an alliance.
It may mean at times some kind of security policy or whatever.
What it doesn't mean is that we simply bow down to the rest of the world as some massive philanthropic institution and sacrifice our own self-interest for the good of others there.
So it's sort of a macro approach to what Anne Rand said: does the United States exist for the United States, or is it simply a free-for-all for everybody to get foreign aid, for everybody to get our soldiers whenever they need them for national security or whatever?
And I think that's what President Trump is trying to do.
Seems to me it means that we take care of homeless veterans here in the United States before we ship another billion dollars to Ukraine.
All right, we have to wrap it up from a practical standpoint.
That's a dramatic and terribly important example.
All right, we have to wrap it up there.
Let me thank my guest, Arnie Steinford, for joining us today in the Stone Zone, and thank you for listening to us here on the Red Apple Audio Network.
God bless you and Godspeed.
Americans deserve access to the best of what our nation has to offer, especially health care.
Godspeed Americans00:00:50
Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.