The Stone Zone dissects Trump’s first 100 days—English-only trucking rules, sanctuary city crackdowns, and ActBlue’s foreign-funded ties to Letitia James—while mocking Shree Tanadar’s impeachment bid as politically motivated. Judge Hannah Dugan’s suspension over shielding a deported immigrant sparks claims of judicial bias, while China’s iPhone 17 export blockage exposes Apple’s supply-chain vulnerabilities. Pollster Mark Mitchell slams mainstream surveys for rigging results, citing Rasmussen’s landline accuracy and accusing firms like Ipsos of oversampling Democrats; he frames the GOP as America’s top enemy (30%) ahead of China (20%), with 34% now calling Ukraine aid excessive. The episode ties media bias to polling failures, warning listeners to distrust narratives over data. [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.
The Stone Zone.
Entertaining and informative.
On the Red Apple Podcast Network.
You are entering the Stone Zone, and I am your genial host, Roger Stone.
Well, I don't know about you, but I, for one, am not tired of winning yet.
At the end of 100 days, I venture to say that President Donald Trump has actually achieved more than perhaps my other previous favorite president, Ronald Reagan, did in eight years.
It's an extraordinary record between closing our borders, shrinking the federal government, drilling again for gas and oil, entering a tough tariff war with our trading partners who have been taking advantage of us for decades,
signing new executive orders to end government involvement in censorship and to restore the freedom of speech, making it illegal for men to engage in women's athletics.
I could go on and on.
Here's a new one that really kind of tickled me.
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order requiring English language proficiency for commercial motor vehicle drivers such as truckers.
In the order issued Monday, Trump says the quote requirement has not been enforced in years and America's roadways have become less safe.
My administration will enforce the law to protect the safety of American truckers, drivers, passengers, and others, including by upholding the safety enforcement regulations that ensure that anyone behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle is properly qualified and proficient in our national language, which is English.
In other words, so they can read the traffic signs.
The White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, wow, is she a firecracker, elaborated on the situation, saying there's a lot of communication problems between truckers on the roads.
It's a public safety risk.
We're going to ensure that our truckers, who are the backbone of our economy, are all able to speak and understand English.
That's a very common sense policy here in the United States.
Another executive order signed Monday will direct state and federal officials to publish lists of quote sanctuary cities, jurisdictions, or places where local authorities often do not cooperate in enforcing federal immigration regulations.
There are several California public officials who may soon find themselves being investigated and perhaps even being arrested for violating this order.
Donald Trump and Tom Homan are guys who mean business.
And if I were some Democrat mayor or Democrat governor, I would think twice about openly announcing your intention to defy federal law.
Maybe they're looking for their 15 minutes, kind of like this congressman from Michigan, Shree Tanadar.
He's introduced a resolution for the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
I went through the list of his causes.
I couldn't find one legitimate cause.
Could it be because the congressman, who, by the way, my colleagues tell my a number of my sources in the House tell me that he reeks of both urine and curry, is $800,000 in debt in his congressional campaign account.
So I think this is really not so much about any alleged crime or other high crime or misdemeanor, I think is the exact language required in the Constitution.
I think it's about getting his 15 minutes and also raising a few bucks.
It really is distasteful.
Remember Congressman Al Green from Texas?
He introduced articles of impeachment against Donald Trump within hours of Trump being sworn into his first term.
So this guy is kind of the Indian American Al Green, not to be taken seriously.
Meanwhile, conservative activist Robbie Starbuck, who's a friend of mine, is setting his sights on Meta, claiming in a new lawsuit that the social media conglomerate's AI Chaba defamed him.
Starbucks documented that Meta Chaba falsely accused him of being a, quote, white nationalist who was arrested on January 6th, and he has now sued them for defamation.
The suit filed in the Delaware Superior Court claims that the Chabot recommended that right-wing influencer Starbuck lose custody of his children, saying that he was a danger to them.
Quote, Mr. Starbuck was stunned to learn that Meta AI has created these false and damaging accusations about him completely out of whole cloth, and that it was asserting these claims to AI users as fact.
I'm reading from the lawsuit filed by Robbie Strawbuck this past Tuesday.
The anti-DEI crusader, Robbie Starbuck, first became aware of the AI's alleged distortions of his record on August 5th, 2024, when an ex-user posted them in a screenshot.
The lawsuit by Starbuck says that the Chabot falsely claimed that Starbuck, in addition to being present at the January 6th riot, was linked to the so-called QAnon conspiracy group.
Starbucks then uncovered more falsehoods about him being presented as facts, including the lies that he had once faced a lawsuit for defamation himself and that he engaged in Holocaust denial, both lies.
That same day, Starbuck tagged several of Meta's top executives in a post on X, calling on them to rectify the situation.
He also had his lawyers issue a formal cease and desist letter.
Mark Zuckerberg, are you cool with your platform attacking people with fictional stories?
What are you going to do about the lying AI?
There has to be accountability.
That's what he said on X back in August.
Three days later, Starbucks' lawyer received an email from Meta's counsel, Michelle Visser, which said that the company is taking the matter seriously and conducting an investigation.
Meta's Chabat, however, has continued to defame him to this day and has not corrected the falsehoods about him.
Meta's chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan responded to a video posted by Starbuck this past Tuesday saying, this is clearly not how our AI should operate.
We're sorry for the results it shared about you and that the fix we put in place didn't address the underlying problem.
I suspect the only thing Meta and Facebook are saying about Robbie Starbuck is the only thing they're sorry about is the fact that he's suing them and once again, bringing attention to Meta's discriminatory practices against conservatives.
I have the same problem.
Dugan Arrested for Obstruction00:03:19
I still, to this day, do not have a profile on Facebook.
But there are at least five other Roger Stones who are on Facebook.
And it's worse than that.
They're actually selling cryptocurrency and Bitcoin.
I was in a restaurant the other day, an Italian restaurant, of course, and a man came up to me and said, hey, Stone, where's that Bitcoin I bought from you?
I had no idea what the man was talking about.
He insisted that he had purchased Bitcoin from me on my Facebook profile.
There's only one problem.
I don't have a Facebook profile.
I'm banned for life on Facebook.
I'm also banned for life on Instagram.
I'm also banned for life on YouTube.
So if you happen to bump into any number of Roger Stones over at Facebook or Instagram, please don't buy anything from them.
Above all, do not send them your credit card information or any of your personal financial information because, well, they are not me.
Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued an administrative order on Tuesday calling for Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan to be temporarily relieved of her official duties.
Dugan was arrested and charged with obstruction of an official proceeding on Friday after evidence came to light that she had shielded an illegal immigrant from federal agents.
Now, you will see a large number of liberal Democrat commentators insisting that Dugan was arrested because the Trump administration disagreed with one of her rulings.
That's false.
She was arrested once again and charged with obstruction of an official proceeding on Friday after evidence came to light that she had shielded an illegal immigrant from federal agents.
She was also charged with concealing an individual to prevent discovery and arrest.
The order on Tuesday reads that Dugan, quote, is temporarily prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court in the state of Wisconsin.
The FBI arrested Dugan on Friday for hiding a previously deported illegal immigrant in her jury room to stop him from being arrested immediately by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents, also known as ICE.
Mexican national Eduardo Flores-Ruz was in criminal court facing three battery charges after attacking two people.
Attorney General Pam Bondi blasted Dugan's action, saying, we could not believe that a judge really did that.
You cannot obstruct a criminal case and really, shame on her.
It was a domestic violent case of all cases, and she's protecting a criminal defendant over victims of crime.
Attorney General Bondi said that Flores Ruiz beat up two people, a man and a woman.
He beat the guy, hit the guy 30 times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, and then beat up a woman so badly they both had to be hospitalized.
And these are the illegals that Democrats so desperately want to keep from being deported back to their home countries.
Talk About Polling Manipulation00:16:06
Meanwhile, China is blocking efforts to move iPhone manufacturing out of their country.
Chinese authorities refuse to allow one of Apple's Chinese equipment suppliers to export machinery to India that Apple needs for the upcoming iPhone 17's trial production, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke to us here in the Stone Zone.
No reason has been given by China as to why authorities are preventing the export of these machines, but it is almost certainly a move to maintain its dominance over global supply chain and most importantly, Apple, which has to remain dependent on China for years to come.
With lower tariffs on India than China, Apple sought the leverage to lower their labor costs in China, in India, but China has now blocked them.
Currently, Apple assembles roughly 20% of its iPhones in India, a number that's taken several years to build up to.
Apple reportedly wants to take things much further, though, with a long-term goal of moving about half of its iPhone production out of China.
Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that builds most of Apple's phones in China, has already seen approval times from Chinese authorities for exporting the iPhone-making equipment from Chinese factories to those in India rise from two weeks to as long as four months.
Donald Trump has signaled that he will crack down on the notorious Democrat fundraising platform Act Blue.
We're going to talk about that when we come back.
ActBlue is the payment processing app which Democrats have used to move millions of laundered dollars into candidates for the U.S. Senate for governor.
But among the very largest recipients of these phony contributions is New York Attorney General Letitia James.
When we come back on the other side, we'll talk more about that.
Thanks for tuning in to the Stone Zone.
Whatever you do, don't touch that dial.
The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
Rural Americans deserve access to the best our nation has to offer, especially when it comes to health care.
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 health.
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.
The Stone Zone.
Entertaining and informative.
On the Red Apple Podcast Network.
We're back in the stone zone.
As we were discussing, President Donald Trump is now cracking down on the notorious Democrat fundraising and Monday laundering platform, Act Blue.
President Trump signed a memo directing the Department of Justice to investigate online fundraising platforms that have been willing participants in schemes to launder excessive and prohibited contributions to political candidates and committees.
There are now 19 state attorney generals who are investigating Act Blue.
Trump's memorandum is targeting foreign contributions to American elections.
Many have claimed that foreigners are exploiting Act Blue for such purposes.
Here's how it works.
You can give through the Act Blue app, but unlike when you usually make a purchase or a contribution utilizing a credit card, they turn off the feature in which your credit card has to be matched to the address where the billing is sent.
This has allowed them to essentially launder literally millions of dollars, but the pattern is very clear.
Instead of large donations, what we see is a pattern of many, many small donations.
So, for example, the Democrat congresswoman from the Orlando area, who ran in the last state election against U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, with very low name ID and frankly no prospect of victory, raised $37 million, almost 80% of it through Act Blue.
The incumbent Marco Rubio raised almost $10.5 million, less than a third of what she raised.
How likely is that?
The answer is unlikely.
Who is among the worst offenders?
Well, that would be New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Right now, there are people who are canvassing those across the country who say they gave to Letitia James.
They are shown a spreadsheet with the dates and amounts of the contributions they allegedly gave to Letitia James' campaign for Attorney General.
I've looked at the initial proceeds.
70% of those contacted have never heard of Letitia James and flatly deny having given any contribution.
So when New York One's Errol Lewis says the mortgage fraud charges against Letitia James are false, that's just the beginning, Errol.
What do you see?
What's coming?
Joining us in the next segment, Mark Mitchell, who's the head pollster for Ras Mussin Reports, he's going to talk to us about why this spate of new polling that shows that the president's job approval is dropping and that he is growingly unpopular with the American people is a crock.
So don't go away.
Mark Mitchell, the head pollster for Rasmussen Polling, will be along in just a moment.
Whatever you do, don't touch that dial.
We'll be right back in the Stone Zone with our guest, Mark Mitchell with Rasmother Musson Polling.
The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
Welcome back to the Stone Zone.
We're joined now by Mark Mitchell.
He is the head pollster for Rasmussen Reports, and I would say a leader in the information war.
He is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former nuclear submarine officer, turned financier and technological leader.
But he founded himself as a real outsider in an industry desperately desperate to reassert their integrity.
And that is, of course, political polling.
Ras Mussen's reports has made a name for itself, not just for predicting with extraordinary accuracy election outcomes, but also questioning other pollsters in their methodology and timing and questioning Americans about things that the establishment doesn't want questions asked about.
Mark Mitchell, thanks for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
It's great to be here, Roger.
Let me tell you how happy I am about this.
The list of people who are like, oh, you're going to love Roger.
You should talk to him.
John Fawcett, Brandon Howes, I was talking about today.
Rich Barris, they all give shout outs, and I'm really happy to be here.
Well, I am myself, of course, a consumer of survey research going back in a 50-year career in American politics.
Mark, I remember the days when all the polls were taken at the doorstep.
That's how far back I go in the days of Gallup and Harris.
And I talk often about how easy it is to rig a poll.
In my view, there are two kinds of polls.
One kind is which the person who commissions the poll and a competent pollster are trying to get an accurate measure of public opinion within the timeframe that the poll is taken, memorizing and realizing that any poll is a snapshot of a moment in time.
In fact, technically, because public opinion, particularly in this day of mass media, public opinion changes very quickly.
Any poll, generally speaking, is only good for that episecond in which it is taken.
Now, public opinion doesn't shift that dramatically that quickly, but it does shift.
Then there's the other kind of poll.
That's the kind of poll that is designed to get a desired result, either for fundraising or public relations reasons.
There's a big difference.
And polls can be rigged by the wording of the questions, the order of the questions, the accuracy of the sample.
There are many, many ways to rig a poll to get a desired result.
That's not what you do at Rasmussen.
No, it's not.
So the first question I have to ask you is, first of all, tell us about your predictions based on your own polling in the last presidential election.
Well, we're always trying to be accurate, and sometimes it's harder than others.
There are very particular reasons why it was harder than normal back in 2020.
We don't have to get into that.
But this time out, I was polling Joe Biden versus Donald Trump all the way back into 2021.
And every single poll, we had Donald Trump winning by massive amounts.
And of course, it tightened up a little bit, but we were pretty much the only people saying that.
I literally had never one poll showing Joe Biden up in the last year of our polling.
And then, I mean, what was crazy is that we were putting out so much, and we saw the race narrow after Kamala Harris became the candidate.
But for me, it always, it tightened up at Trump plus two and just stayed there.
And all of my polling showed that he was going to do good in the swing states, winning almost all of them every single time.
And public opinion does change a lot rapidly, many times.
Just look at Pierre Polyev.
But what it doesn't change about is Trump.
Because once you've decided to support Trump, you're pretty much there.
Like you've pretty much gone through the process, in my opinion.
After everything they've thrown at him, the amount of psychological operations you have to overcome to be a Trump supporter, you know, he's earned very sticky results, and that's what I saw.
And what I also saw was every other pollster, except for a couple of other independent ones, shilling so hard for Kamala Harris, six, seven, eight, even nine points to the left of me.
And they came back.
I think I shamed them back into hurting at the end to be a little bit less inaccurate.
But they were doing everything in their power, in my opinion, to try and get Kamala Harris.
There were Harris plus six polls, and she lost the national popular vote.
And not one single mainstream media or academic research institution, not one of them, put out a map that showed that Kamala Harris was going to lose an electoral map.
And we did.
We had Trump winning five out of the six swing states.
The sixth one was a top toss-up.
And everybody calls us a right-leaning pollster, but no, in our swing states, we were actually a little bit too left, believe it or not, almost the full point.
So there it is.
There are no right-wing pollsters.
There are accurate ones and left-wing establishment shills.
Yeah, I think that is true.
I found a tremendous tendency, particularly right after they dumped Biden and they anointed Kamala Harris.
By the way, these were the people who kept whining about our lack of respect for democracy, but they nominated a candidate for president that not a single Democrat primary or caucus voter voted for.
Just a little reminder I had to throw in there.
But in almost every case, I saw this great tendency to oversample Democrats as if they were trying to create this psychological claim that she was surging.
She was coming on strong.
She was beating Trump.
Virtually every poll when I got into the crosstabs, I found them oversampling Democrats and undersampling Republicans.
And when you add that to the millions of dollars pouring in through Act Blue, virtually all of it laundered money, they were trying to create this idea that there was some kind of surge for her.
Well, we both know she couldn't even fill a rally hall.
She couldn't fill a stadium.
Whereas Donald Trump was the only presidential candidate I've ever worked for, and that's I've been through 13 presidential campaigns.
The only presidential candidate I ever saw where you didn't have to go out and work to raise a crowd.
All you had to do was announce that he was coming, and you would be guaranteed a full house.
In fact, an overflow crowd.
Yet they even tried to claim that he was having trouble filling his rally halls, which, of course, was never, ever the case.
Let's talk for a minute about what's going on right now, because you see polling outlets like ABC and Fox News claiming that Trump's polling is tanking and giving him the worst possible 100-day approval rating.
What's going on here?
Well, it's another psychological operation, just like back in September.
They have arrayed everything in their power to take out the anti-establishment candidate.
It's really interesting.
If you look at the history of Google searches for Trump approval, Bush approval, Biden approval, Obama approval, Trump approval just has like twice as much search volume as everybody else.
And that's because they're pushing narratives and headlines, trying to convince everybody that America hates this guy.
But, you know, he had his first presidency and then added votes.
And then, I think, won a second time and then added votes.
And he keeps adding votes and he keeps adding support.
And all they're left with, they don't have political power now.
So they're trying this disgusting mean girl's tactic of, again, trying to convince everybody that Trump's not cool.
Now, I'll tell you, his approval is not great, but that's, I think, more of a reflection of the fact that we're on the cusp of a civil war and nothing to do with, like, we're just not in a country that's going to give Trump an 80% approval rating like they did George W. Bush.
It's not going to happen.
But he's doing pretty well.
I had him at 48% today.
Totally underwater two points.
Totally different than the negative 13, negative 14 points.
But what's crazy is you can look at RealClear politics and see they essentially planned this as a media hit.
That ABC headline, Trump's the worst 100-day polling in 80 years.
I bet they wrote that a month ago.
And it's like everybody was rushing to get their homework in to dump all their scummy polls into the weekend news cycle.
And it's like CNN, CBS, you know, ABC Washington Post, Reuters Zipsos, and even Fox News gave Trump the worst polling that they have this cycle all over the weekend on purpose, I think, to tank his RealClear politics aggregate just to get those headlines.
Really desperate tactics, if you think about it.
And the independent pollsters were like looking around and no, like our numbers don't look like these guys at all.
And they're so like the crosstabs immediately tell you they're so scummy.
Voter Attitudes in Ukraine00:10:35
If you look at the ABC one, they give Trump underwater six points on the issue of immigration.
That's like Louisville.
In my numbers, 65% of America supports Trump's massive deportation programs.
And he's getting rated well on all these issues, even the economy.
We had Trump at a 46% excellent or good on the economy.
And even though that's his worst issue, that's better than any issue that Biden was ever rated by on any, like ever in all of our polling.
And so this whole scenario where every single pollster structurally shows that Trump does worse, it's all fake.
It's all a reaction to the anti-establishment candidate, the person who's going to try and end the gravy train, the big corporate marriage of power, capitalism, and political power that's caused globalism, that's stolen the American dream, that's basically crushed people.
And it's like, no, your fake media narratives aren't going to work anymore because people remember what it was like under Joe Biden and they want Donald Trump to fix it.
I could not agree more.
I was looking at the crosstabs in the New York Times Sienna poll.
According to that poll, 37% of the people in this sample voted for Donald Trump.
Ridiculous.
It's a small poll, too.
It's only like 700 people.
It's like really small.
They have a massive budget.
And not only that, their independence lean 17 points Democrat.
Like my numbers don't look like that.
Then there's the NPR PBS mayorish poll.
Like I would believe anything they publish.
Please give me a break.
It's pretty laughable.
One thing I am curious about is voter attitudes about continued aid to Ukraine, voter attitudes about the war in Ukraine, the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Based on the data that you've seen, your own data and data of others, are Americans content to continue to shovel millions, if not billions of dollars more to Ukraine?
This is a tough one because there are, listen, there's some things that the Americans immediately see through.
They overwhelmingly suspected that COVID came from Wuhan way back in 21.
And even half of them think that it was purposely released by China.
And yet at the same time, they also are very susceptible to sort of like patriotism, former neoconservative, pro-interventionalist media attacks.
And I think that that's something that really did happen because everybody hated Putin.
They wanted America to really like intervene to stop this thing.
And what's happened is over time, those numbers have absolutely abated.
And we've been asking the question very many times, who's winning?
Russia or Ukraine?
And really what's happened is the numbers have gotten up to basically half think it's a stalemate.
And is the United States doing too much or not enough to help Ukraine fight the Russian invasion?
34% say too much.
39% say not enough.
And obviously there's a party difference, but not as much as you'd think.
And ultimately, voters trust Trump more than they trusted Biden or Harris on this issue, but, you know, by a couple of points.
Ultimately, though, you know, we're just in an entirely different political context.
You might appreciate this question.
We've asked it many times.
Who is the biggest enemy that the United States currently faces?
And we put North Korea, Iran, Russia, you know, China, all the normal actors.
Then we put the Democrat Party and the Republican Party also.
And people say that the Democrat Party is America's number one biggest enemy, like 30%, followed by China, roughly 20%, followed by the Republicans in the high teens.
And if you look at Russia, it's like 12%.
North Korea and Iran are in middle single digits.
And so I think this really reflects part of the Trump movement in that Americans might have an opinion about Ukraine or Israel or whatever, but very much in the forefront of their mind and why they're making their votes is domestic issues, is divisiveness, is affordability and a problem with your future.
I mean, we have numbers in the low 30s of people who say that they're better off than they were four years ago.
And only 22% say today's children will have it better off than their parents.
Those are existential problems for our republic.
And at the end of the day, Ukraine, I don't think just captures the share of mind.
We have about two and a half minutes left in this segment.
A technical question.
With the advent of cell phones, with the advent of the internet, with fewer and fewer people having hardline phones in their home, and fewer Americans willing to open the door to a stranger, given these times, it has to make the job of being a pollster far more difficult.
How do you go about making sure that you are getting a sample that is an accurate reflection of the electorate?
That's true.
And people have tackled the problem different ways.
What most mainstream media organizations are doing is piling into these really limited panels of only 50, 60, 70,000 people, like the Ipsos panel and the YouGov panel.
We still do robo-dialing landline calling for a little bit less than half of our polls because 90 million people still have them and we have 400,000 people that like to answer our polling.
But then we go to online panels and those are tougher.
You pay people to take the response and you never really know who's on the other end of it.
But it's mostly because our money comes not from a boss, not from a political party, not from dark money NGOs.
It comes from subscribers and advertisers.
So at the end of the day, I want to be accurate or our business won't exist.
It really is a matter of will.
It really comes down to that.
And the way I can tell you is that, you know, ABC and Reuters have been inaccurate for like 12 years now polling with the Ipsos panel, but you haven't seen them get any better.
So at a certain point, it ultimately comes down to will.
In 10 or 20 years, maybe I'll be polling AI bots or maybe I'll be, you know, casting chicken bones and doing dark magic.
I don't know, but there will always be election prediction.
And I think that we're reaching more people than almost everybody.
And we haven't even needed to go to cell phone yet, although we will at some point.
But you raise an interesting question at the end of the day with so many scammers out there.
The person who answers a cell phone poll, maybe it tells you more about that person and their mentality than it does about the actual population.
If you're just tuning in, we're talking to Mark Mitchell with Rasmussen Reports.
And we're going to be back with more of Mark Mitchell.
So whatever you do, please don't touch that dial.
You're in the stone zone.
Stay in the zone.
The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
The Stone Zone.
Entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
And you're back in the stone zone.
We're talking to Mark Mitchell.
He's the head pollster with Rasmussen Reports.
And I must say, he has developed a reputation for uncanny accuracy in the predicting of his polling.
We're honored to have him today.
We were talking about the technical difficulties because of the different ways that people get information today and the different ways people communicate online by cell phone, still some hardline telephones, particularly among older voters.
But the other phenomenon I want to ask you about, Mark, is the reticence of some voters out there to tell a stranger on the phone or over the internet or even at their front door for that matter, that they're going to support Donald Trump because they don't want to be harassed.
They don't want to be targeted.
They don't want Antifa in their front yard, whatever it may be.
To what extent do you have to take that into consideration when you conduct any poll involving Donald Trump?
I mean, I think it's a constant consideration, although we don't have that same brand problem that many other organizations probably do.
And I don't think that they're very concerned about.
The Ipsos community managers that recruit people are, you know, the folks you'd expect, mid-20-year-old women with pronouns in their bio.
And they ultimately what it comes down to is that, again, any stream of data can be useful and it can be calibrated.
And all it comes down to is that I want to be accurate.
And so if I get data and I miss an election and it's because I was too left, I'll look at why and I'll say, oh, it's because I was underrepresenting Democrats or my Democrats were too Trumpy or I'm getting too many conservative black voters.
And I'll look at how I target and try and change those things or shift into different data sources or run these tests.
But again, all of these organizations, not only like they've developed a reputation of having their own America that doesn't look like a representation of what reality is.
And so they don't want to fix it.
And again, if people who barely know polling can look at New York Times Sienna crosstabs and say, oh, man, they oversampled too many Biden 2020 voters.
Duh.
They're not doing the work needed to refine their data streams and correct and calibrate to actually show the results.
They're just not.
All right.
Here's a tough question for you with about a minute and a half.
You have an excellent reputation for accuracy, well deserved by your own track record.
Who out there among the other pollsters do you respect?
Well, I was just on with Rich Barris, the People's Pundit.
I think he does great work.
The two of us, Rich and myself, were the only pollsters that asked questions about vaccine averse events and other things like that.
And so I think that alone proves that we're willing to be dangerous and honest because we did it at the risk of our own businesses and reputations for sure.
But then there's other pollsters that do good work.
Qantas puts out numbers that are accurate.
Robert Tehaley, I know, is doing a really great job.
Leadership Thread: Dr. Peggy Polonis00:01:37
The theme is they're all independents, and there just really aren't that many mainstream organizations that do a good job.
Although Emerson has been pretty awesome, especially recently.
They're not all terrible.
It's just that, well, when they do things like they did this weekend, almost apparently coordinate in order to drive a narrative, just in a petty and cynical fashion, undermine Trump because they have nothing else to do.
All right, we're going to have to wrap it there.
I want to thank our guest, Mark Mitchell.
He's the head of pollsting for Erasmus and Reports.
And for all of our listeners, until we meet again, God bless you and Godspeed from the Stone Zone.
Thanks for listening to The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
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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.