The StoneZONE - Roger Stone - Mark Vargas | 07-04-25
Aired: 2025-07-07
Duration: 22:16


=== Pritzker's Crime Crisis (14:25) ===

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[00:00:31]  The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
[00:00:37]  And we're back in the Stone Zone.
[00:00:40]  Joining me now is Mark Vargas, who is not only the editor of the Illinois Review, but has his own record of public service, serving as a civilian in a number of foreign assignments to work for his country.
[00:00:56]  I want to ask you, before we get into the real topic I invited you to talk about, J.B. Pritzker, the hefty Illinois governor with a waistline that makes Chris Christie look smelt.
[00:01:08]  I want to ask you for a moment about the rise of Zorian Miamdami, who was recently exposed as a race hustler who actually misappropriated his racial identity in a pathetic attempt to exploit the DEI affirmative action regime while applying to college.
[00:01:26]  According to recent data that was obtained by a hacker from Columbia University, it was revealed that Miamdani claimed to be a black man when he applied to Columbia in 2009, even though he lied about his race and listed his father, who was a professor at the very same university on his application.
[00:01:45]  He still couldn't get in because his grades were so poor.
[00:01:50]  What do you make of the rise of this Muslim radical socialist, if not communist, as the Democrat nominee for mayor of New York City?
[00:02:00]  Well, Roger, lying about key information sounds like his political advisor is Letitia James.
[00:02:06]  But I think Mamdani is great for Republicans, great for the MAGA movement, and he represents the worst nightmare for mainstream Democrats because of how extreme he is.
[00:02:16]  Not only is he all for DEI, but he's anti-American.
[00:02:21]  He's, again, he's the worst nightmare for Democrats.
[00:02:25]  He's threatened to arrest Prime Minister, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives in New York City for the UN meeting.
[00:02:33]  But the more attention that Mamdani gets, I think the better off it is in terms of poll numbers and support, support for Republicans and for MAGA and for President Trump, because he is so extreme.
[00:02:44]  And it's just yet another example of how far to the left the Democratic Party has gone.
[00:02:51]  Yeah, I agree with that analysis.
[00:02:53]  It is a sad commentary because I still have many friends and relatives in New York, but I do not see this having a happy end.
[00:03:02]  Those, I saw a long piece by the millionaire Bill Ackman yesterday extolling the virtues of Eric Adams.
[00:03:08]  He obviously is completely unfamiliar with Adams' record, a record of corruption, a record of rising crime, a record that is mostly artifice.
[00:03:20]  Those who think Curtis Sliwa, who worked very hard to win the Republican nomination, is going to get out of the race, are dreaming.
[00:03:28]  I'm not sure what former Governor Andrew Cuomo will do.
[00:03:33]  The governor is looking a little long in the tooth to me, and he was dispatched relatively easily in the Democrat primary.
[00:03:39]  But whether it is a four-person race or whether it is a two-person race, being the Democrat nominee for mayor of New York City puts you in the poll position.
[00:03:51]  And while it could be very, very hard on the people of New York when he defunds the police, when he opens the prisons, when he taxes the middle class and anybody who has any money to pay for all of his government giveaway projects,
[00:04:07]  I predict to you that New York will be on fire by 2028 and will sadly be a showcase for the rest of the nation as to what happens when you select Democrats who share a Marxist, hateful, pro-Islamic, pro-Muslim, pro-Hamas leader.
[00:04:30]  Anyway, let's talk about Illinois.
[00:04:33]  J.B. Pritzker, who I referred to earlier as the rotund Illinois governor who with a waistline that makes Chris Christie look smelt, has tossed out feelers about running for president.
[00:04:47]  I find this almost shocking in view of his record in Illinois.
[00:04:52]  Can you speak to us about that record and also give us some insights into how he appears to be faring in the early polling?
[00:05:04]  Well, Pritzker's entire tenure, first of all, Roger, the only reason why he's governor is because he bought the seat not once but twice.
[00:05:11]  He's heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune.
[00:05:15]  So he was born with a net worth of $4.5 billion.
[00:05:19]  So he spent nearly $400 million of his own money to be elected governor.
[00:05:25]  So the guy has no friends.
[00:05:27]  He only pays for them.
[00:05:28]  But his entire tenure as governor of Illinois has been about tax and spend.
[00:05:33]  He's raised taxes on everyday hardworking Illinois.
[00:05:37]  And it's projected that over the next five years, Illinois is going to have a $22 billion budget deficit.
[00:05:46]  And his far-left progressive views, he'd certainly be aligned with the Mamdani in New York City, given his progressive views for transgenderism, his hatred for Republicans and the MAGA movement, very dangerous.
[00:06:03]  He recently made comments, which I've listened to this three times.
[00:06:07]  It sounds to me like he is advocating violence.
[00:06:11]  If any Republican said what this guy said, he would have been arrested by now.
[00:06:15]  Let's listen to Governor Pritzker.
[00:06:19]  Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now.
[00:06:46]  They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have.
[00:06:52]  We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.
[00:07:03]  That's demagoguery at its worst.
[00:07:06]  How is he looking in these early polls, Mark?
[00:07:09]  Well, Emerson put out a poll of potential 12 Democrat candidates for a Democratic primary.
[00:07:16]  And of the 12, Pritzker is dead last.
[00:07:20]  He's polling at just 2%.
[00:07:22]  But surprisingly, Roger, among the black community nationally, he's only got 1%.
[00:07:28]  And of the Hispanic community, he's only at 0%.
[00:07:32]  And so it shows how wildly unpopular J.B. Pritzker is at the national level.
[00:07:37]  But I can tell you, he's also wildly unpopular at the local level here in Illinois.
[00:07:43]  Yeah, it really is extraordinary.
[00:07:45]  Illinois has had an incredible spike in crime.
[00:07:50]  Now we're to the point where the rise in crime is not just in the city of Chicago proper, but unfortunately spreading to the wealthier suburbs.
[00:08:00]  But the mayor of Chicago, Bear Johnson, he actually says that the rise in crime is all Richard Nixon's fault.
[00:08:10]  Listen to this.
[00:08:12]  So we cut off the pipeline.
[00:08:14]  Boys between the ages of 10 and 19 being either victims or the perpetrators.
[00:08:20]  So, yeah, it is personal.
[00:08:28]  Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time.
[00:08:35]  We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes, and people mocked President Johnson.
[00:08:41]  And we ended up with Richard Nixon.
[00:08:46]  I'm going to work hard every day to transform this city.
[00:08:48]  That's what it takes to build a better, stronger, safer Chicago in a nearby step up.
[00:08:53]  Let's be very clear about this.
[00:08:55]  It was President Richard Nixon who desegregated the American schools.
[00:08:59]  It was President Richard Nixon who appointed more African Americans to federal office than Lyndon Baines Johnson and John F. Kennedy combined.
[00:09:08]  It was Richard Nixon who gave us the policy of affirmative action.
[00:09:14]  It was Richard Nixon who desegregated the trade unions.
[00:09:18]  It was Richard Nixon who insisted you could not bid on a federal contract if your country, if your company was segregated.
[00:09:28]  It was Richard Nixon who increased ninefold the funding for black colleges.
[00:09:35]  It is Richard Nixon who in 1958 rounded up the votes to pass the Civil Rights Bill, the first civil rights bill passed since the Civil War, when Lyndon Johnson, who the mayor just relied upon, was rounding up the votes to defeat it.
[00:09:51]  I actually think that the mayor, I'm not sure if he's mentally ill.
[00:09:55]  I know he's physically ill.
[00:09:58]  Talk about a guy who is not up to the job.
[00:10:01]  Mark, you told me a harrowing story the other night.
[00:10:04]  You were in bed when you heard gunshots.
[00:10:07]  What happened?
[00:10:08]  I was woken about 11 p.m. to the sound of, I thought were fireworks, but it turned out they were over 15 gunshots that led to a mass shooting.
[00:10:20]  18 people were shot.
[00:10:22]  Four were killed just a couple of blocks from where I was staying.
[00:10:27]  It was unbelievable.
[00:10:29]  And again, this has been encouraged by the leadership of Governor Pritzker and Brandon Johnson.
[00:10:34]  You cannot ask the mayor, who, by the way, Roger, his approval rating is at 4%, the lowest approval rating I think of any mayor in history.
[00:10:41]  Because let's be clear, he was only elected because of the very corrupt and racist Chicago's teachers union, who literally stole the election for him.
[00:10:49]  But he's been hospitalized over 10 times for panic attacks.
[00:10:53]  But they call rioting and looting and burning police cars and flipping them upside down as nearly just peaceful protesting.
[00:11:01]  And that the youth, they need more activities to do after school and during the summertime.
[00:11:07]  If they had more activities to do, then they would be peacefully protesting and tormenting residents and visitors to Chicago.
[00:11:14]  But he is ill-prepared.
[00:11:15]  Anytime you ask him a difficult question about crime, he responds with, you're only asking me this question because I am a man of color.
[00:11:22]  No, they're asking you these tough questions about crime and how to reduce crime because you're the mayor of this city.
[00:11:29]  Folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to Mark Vargas, who is the editor of the Illinois Review and is a keen analyst of both state and national politics.
[00:11:41]  Mark Pope Leo, the new Pope, is a Chicago native.
[00:11:47]  Thus far, he has released some statements that seem like a breath of fresh air.
[00:11:51]  Well, a couple other things he says show that he's not incredibly different than his predecessor, the late Argentine Marxist sympathizer, Pope Francis.
[00:12:02]  What's your take on Pope Leo and the direction he's going to take the church?
[00:12:07]  Well, it's certainly interesting to have a Pope who grew up in a county just next to yours where you grew up.
[00:12:12]  He's still an active, he's still a registered voter in Will County in the western suburbs of Chicago.
[00:12:16]  Just last summer, he was at one of the famous Chicago Pizza Joints with his family.
[00:12:21]  He's an unabashed Chicago White Sox fan, and I am as well.
[00:12:25]  His brother, Louis, who's here in Florida, is a huge Trump supporter.
[00:12:30]  But certainly a breath of fresh air.
[00:12:32]  He's got a lot of challenges ahead.
[00:12:34]  Number one is, you know, the child sex abuse among the church.
[00:12:38]  And he's claimed to have a zero tolerance of that.
[00:12:40]  So he needs to be held accountable and let's make sure that there is a zero tolerance for that.
[00:12:44]  But no doubt we had a progressive liberal Pope Francis.
[00:12:50]  But I think that Pope Leo has shown, you know, he's pushing back against the Trump administration in terms of migration of illegals.
[00:12:59]  But they seem to forget that the Vatican is surrounded by walls.
[00:13:03]  Walls are used for protection.
[00:13:05]  And that's why President Trump has been so keen on building a wall on our southern border for protection.
[00:13:11]  We're a nation of laws and we need to apply those laws.
[00:13:14]  But, you know, he's going to have, he has some progressive views, but he's, you know, everything that I've seen is he's going to probably try and go right down the middle.
[00:13:24]  But there's no doubt that he's got challenges, whether it's child sex abuse challenges, whether it's financial challenges.
[00:13:31]  But we do know that he's been very critical of President Trump on migration.
[00:13:35]  He's big on climate change.
[00:13:39]  And so we'll see what happens.
[00:13:41]  It's still very early in his term.
[00:13:44]  Yeah, I'm slightly encouraged.
[00:13:46]  He has remained hardlined in the church's support for life.
[00:13:50]  He is opposed to women in the priesthood.
[00:13:57]  He is absolutely against this transgendered nonsense.
[00:14:03]  On immigration, he's wrong.
[00:14:04]  He doesn't seem to mind the walls that protect him from the rabble around the Vatican, but he thinks perhaps that we shouldn't have walls.
[00:14:13]  As far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out, but I'm praying for him.
[00:14:17]  If you're just tuning in, we're talking to Mark Vargas, the editor-in-chief of the Illinois Review.
[00:14:24]  And we'll be right back with a bit more.

=== Stone Zone Appeal (02:32) ===

[00:14:26]  So please stay here in the Stone Zone with us on this July 4th.
[00:14:31]  We've got a little more musical interlude coming up for you as well.
[00:14:34]  We'll be right back.
[00:14:37]  Buston Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
[00:14:43]  Buston Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
[00:14:49]  Welcome.
[00:14:50]  We're back in the Stone Zone.
[00:14:52]  And as promised on this 4th of July special edition of the Stone Zone, we have a musical interlude for you.
[00:15:01]  It would not be the 4th of July if we could not hear the iconic Kate Smith and her rendition of God Bless America.
[00:15:10]  God bless America.
[00:15:31]  From the mountain and the prairie and the ocean.
[00:15:53]  Americans deserve access to the best of what our country has to offer, especially health care.
[00:15:58]  Across every state, every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
[00:16:07]  No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
[00:16:10]  They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
[00:16:15]  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.
[00:16:27]  Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
[00:16:35]  Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
[00:16:37]  They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
[00:16:41]  But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
[00:16:44]  Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
[00:16:49]  Don't cut rural health care.
[00:16:54]  Again, if that doesn't stir your soul, you're just not an American.

=== Forgiveness Fridays Initiative (04:28) ===

[00:16:59]  We're still talking to Mark Vargas, the editor-in-chief of the Illinois Review, a man who has served his country in a number of foreign assignments as a civilian.
[00:17:11]  Also, someone who was very instrumental in working for my pardon, the pardon of Governor Rod Blagojevich, the pardon more recently of Ross Albrecht, who the noted libertarian who President Donald Trump pledged to pardon prior to the election and kept his pardon.
[00:17:33]  Mark, I want to ask you about this.
[00:17:35]  Ross Albrecht and his mother, who was a great champion for his freedom, have called on President Donald Trump to begin a tradition of, I guess we would call this Pardon Fridays, urging the president to make pardons, commutations, or to reverse decades of Department of Justice abuses by showcasing a different case every Friday.
[00:18:06]  In the spirit of mercy and justice, these grassroots leaders are calling on President Trump to take bold action against decades of DOJ abuse by issuing these regular pardons and commutations for political prisoners, whistleblowers, and other victims of the deep state.
[00:18:26]  What do you think of this idea, Mark?
[00:18:28]  Well, first of all, Roger, the role that you played with Ross Lubrecht was instrumental in that of Susie Wiles and the president, once again, showing he's got backbone in trying to right wrongs.
[00:18:38]  And so incredibly grateful for the president for his actions and certainly incredibly grateful for yours as well as Susie Wiles' actions, Robert or Roger.
[00:18:46]  But, you know, this is incredible.
[00:18:47]  Forgiveness Fridays, I love this because what we've learned, certainly with your case and with the president's cases, is how broken and racist this criminal justice system is.
[00:18:58]  And we've seen over the last several decades how Democrats and Republicans on both sides, particularly the Democrats under the Obama and Biden administrations, of how they weaponized the Department of Justice and the FBI to go after their own political enemies, whether it was you, whether it was Rob Lugojevich, President Trump, so many others in President Trump's orbit.
[00:19:18]  And we've learned through your case and other cases that the prosecutors, they actually hide evidence that show innocence.
[00:19:28]  It's remarkable.
[00:19:29]  Think this is what happens in a third world country, but this is what happens in the United States Of America and, thanks to president Trump and his leadership, I think we're finally on the path to right wrongs uh, and recalibrate our justice system, because it has been so broken for so long.
[00:19:46]  I think this idea of forgiveness fridays would be a fantastic opportunity for president Trump to demonstrate his compassion and his love of second chances, while bringing relief to many who can be safely returned to their families and their communities.
[00:20:04]  Trump has already appointed leader and conservative champion attorney Ed Martin as the pardon attorney, so Alice Marie Johnson, a great woman, as the so-called pardon czar.
[00:20:18]  They're working very hard to evaluate the cases of the many who have been wronged in a corrupted and politicized criminal justice system.
[00:20:29]  I think Trump's mercy in this respect, which activists really respect, is due in no small part to the enormous lawfare that they deployed against him.
[00:20:41]  They tried to keep him off the ballot, they tried to bankrupt him, they tried to throw him in jail and despite all of that, despite all of that, he persevered.
[00:20:52]  Now the tables are turned.
[00:20:53]  It's New York attorney, Letitia James, who's under investigation uh, for a 20-year record of mortgage fraud and now under investigation because she was well aware of a major New York bank that was violating the Iranian sanctions to the tune of 90 million dollars.
[00:21:12]  Leticia, if you're listening, the FBI is coming to your home one morning soon.
[00:21:17]  Mark my words.
[00:21:19]  Thanks for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
[00:21:21]  God bless you on this independence day and go bless America.

=== Stone Zone Update (00:48) ===

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