The Stone Zone dissects the "unholy trinity" of Democratic governors—Newsom’s $250B California waste (including $18B on a stalled high-speed rail), Pritzker’s $180M Hyatt kickbacks and $20B blind-trust contracts, and Ellison’s defiance of ICE—while Trump blames Zelensky for Ukraine stalemates. A federal court blocks Khalil’s deportation, and an OBGYN rejects biological facts in abortion hearings, framing 2026 as a referendum on Democratic fiscal and law-enforcement failures. [Automatically generated summary]
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The Stone Zone.
Entertaining and informative.
On the Red Apple Podcast Network.
You are now entering the Stone Zone.
We've got a blockbuster show for you tonight.
Mark Vargas, the editor-in-chief of the Illinois Review, joins us with breaking news.
He has uncovered epic corruption by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.
Turns out that Pritzker has been lining his own pockets and the pockets of his family with more than $180 million of taxpayer funds from the state of Illinois.
That story coming up.
But in the meantime, the United States of America was once again facing a constitutional and civil crisis, not on distant battlefields, but in the streets of Minnesota, where violence has escalated and civil order has frayed.
What began as protests tied to a federal immigration law enforcement has metastasized into sustained unrest, exposing a much deeper national question.
Who enforces law when local and state officials refuse to do so?
The situation has deteriorated to such extent that President Trump has publicly warned that he may invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 in order to restore order if Minnesota officials continue to abdicate their responsibility to protect life, property, and federal authority.
This warning did not arise in a vacuum.
Violent demonstrations, vandalism assaults on law enforcement, and open obstruction of federal officers in the exercise of their duties have become entirely routine.
Political leaders in Minnesota have responded not by restoring order, but by filing lawsuits condemning federal law enforcement and effectively encouraging defiance.
When governors and mayors place ideology and partisanship over public safety, the federal government is left with a solemn constitutional duty.
That duty is embodied in the Insurrection Act of 1807 and is one of the most powerful yet misunderstood statutes in American law.
Enacted during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, it authorizes the President of the United States to deploy federal military forces, including active duty troops or federalized National Guard units within the United States when ordinary law enforcement mechanisms have failed.
The act permits presidential action when insurrection, domestic violence, or unlawful conspiracies make it impossible to enforce federal law or when states are unwilling or unable to protect the constitutional rights of their citizens.
In short, it exists to preserve the Republic when civil authority collapses.
Normally, the Passe Kama Thomas Act prohibits the use of military for civilian law enforcement.
The Insurrection Act serves as a narrow but explicit exception to that law.
It recognizes that there are moments when the enforcement of law and the preservation of constitutional order requires extraordinary measures.
Critics claim that invoking the Insurrection Act is authoritarian, but history proves the exact opposite.
The Insurrection Act has been used sparingly and almost always in moments of grave national consequence.
In 1957, President Dwight David Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act to send the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas after the governor of Arkansas refused to comply with a federal court order to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock.
State officials openly were defying the U.S. Constitution and the courts.
Federal troops enforced the law and protected American children exercising their civil rights.
During the 1960s, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson used the act to quell violent resistance to civil rights enforcements across the South.
Those interventions were not acts of tyranny.
They were acts of constitutional necessity.
Even after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968, riots erupted in all major American cities.
President Johnson again invoked the Insurrection Act to restore order when local governments were overwhelmed.
Then, in 1992, President George H.W. Bush used the act to deploy federal troops to Los Angeles after riots exploded following the Rodney King verdict.
Entire neighborhoods burned while local authorities lost control.
Federal interventions stabilized the city and saved lives.
Each of these episodes shares a common thread.
State and local governments failed.
The federal government stepped in to preserve order and uphold the law.
Minnesota today bears an unsettling resemblance to those moments.
Instead of enforcing the law, state leaders have chosen performative resistance.
They have vilified federal officers, encouraging mass protests, and allowed professional agitators to hijack public spaces.
When federal agents are attacked and the enforcement of immigration law is obstructed, what exactly is the federal government supposed to do?
If a state refuses to protect federal officers, if it refuses to enforce the law, if it tolerates violence and lawlessness in the name of ideology, has it not already surrendered its claim to exclusive authority?
You see, the Insurrection Act is not a tool of oppression.
It's a constitutional backstop.
It exists for moments precisely like this when elected officials abandon their oaths and citizens are left unprotected.
The questions Americans must ask is not whether invoking the Insurrection Act is extreme.
The real question is why Minnesota's leaders have allowed matters to deteriorate so badly that such an invocation is even being discussed.
Law without enforcement is fiction.
Rights without orders are illusions.
A republic that cannot defend its law simply cannot survive.
History teaches us that presidents who invoke the Insurrection Act do so reluctantly but decisively when the alternative is chaos.
Minnesota now stands at that very crossroads.
If the rule of law is to mean anything, it must be enforced everywhere, even in states where leaders believe themselves immune from constitutional accountability.
In the meantime, a federal appeals court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to move closer to deporting the radical pro-Hamas activist Mahmoud Khalil, overturning a lower court ruling that freed him from immigration detention last year.
In a 2-1 decision Thursday, the appellate panel ruled that the New Jersey judge who ordered Khalil's release never had the jurisdiction to intervene in the case in the first place.
While the court did not directly order Khalil's removal, it made clear that immigration cases must proceed through the proper legal channels, immigration courts, not in jurisdictions with activist-friendly district judges calling the shots.
Khalil, a graduate student of Columbia University, was a central figure in the Gaza encampment protests that escalated into the unlawful occupation of Hamilton Hall.
He was detained by federal authorities on March 8th last year and held for three months before a lower court declared his detention unconstitutional, a ruling the Trump administration immediately challenged.
Writing for the majority, Judge Thomas Hardiman and Stephanos Beabas emphasized that the legal system does not allow multiple courts to take turns overruling immigration enforcement.
Petitioners, they noted, get one bite at the apple, not zero, but not endless do-overs either.
The ruling comes as immigration authorities continue reviewing a removal order that could send Khalil back to Algeria, where he's a citizen, or Syria, where he was born in a refugee camp.
His attorneys claim that he would face danger if deported, an argument routinely contrived as a pretense to block lawful removals of illegals.
This decision shows that immigration law matters, activist judges don't get to determine the rule of law, and participation in disruptive anti-American violent protests when you're a foreigner may get you removed from this country, and I say, rightfully so.
Meanwhile, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison took the stage this week to speak at a student walkout at the state capitol using the protest not to calm tensions, but to openly attack federal law enforcement and immigration customs enforcement officers, simply doing their jobs.
Speaking to students who skipped class to protest ICE's enforcement measures, Ellison claims he serves as their lawyer and bragged that he sued the Department of Homeland Security just days ago in an attempt to block immigration enforcement in Minnesota.
The state, joined by the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, sought a temporary restraining order to halt ICE activity.
A federal judge wisely rejected that request, dealing a clear bow to Ellison's subversive behavior.
Despite the ruling, Attorney General Ellison, a radical leftist, doubled down, accusing ICE of lawlessness and falsely linking law enforcement operations to violence and disruption.
In what I think was a disgusting fashion, Ellison labeled Renee Goode a martyr, claiming that she sacrificed her life opposing ICE.
The facts in the video tell a very different story.
Good was shot and killed after liberally blocking a roadway to interfere with federal agents and then driving her vehicle towards an officer, striking him in a way that caused him to suffer severe internal injuries.
The New York Times tries to tell us this didn't happen.
You can see it in the video with your own eyes.
The agent responded by opening fire and was justified in doing so.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison once posed by the Antifa Handbook for a social media photo op.
He's an open practitioner of radical Islam.
A man such as this should be banned from public office, and I don't believe that he should be opining on this issue whatsoever.
Zelensky's Readiness Questioned00:04:46
In the meantime, you're listening to the Stone Zone.
And when we come back, a little later in the show, Mark Vargas, the editor-in-chief of the Illinois Review, joins us with a block-busting expose about Governor J.B. Pritzker, the ultra-wealthy billionaire who it turns out has been lining his own pockets and the pockets of his family with more than $100 million of taxpayer money.
Maybe this is why J.B. Pritzker is so violently opposed to Doge, the effort by Elon Musk to expose waste, fraud, and corruption.
J.B. Pritzker, a man so big he has his own zip code, in the crosshairs when we return.
Journalistically, of course, Mark Vargas joins us with the scoop.
You're listening to the Stone Zone.
I'm Roger Stone.
Don't go away.
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.
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Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate those kind words from Vice President JD Vance.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is rightfully placing the blame for stalled peace talks between Russia and Ukraine squarely on the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
In a recent interview with Reuters from the Oval Office, President Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears more willing to negotiate than Zelensky.
President Trump said Putin is ready to make a deal while Ukraine is less ready to make a deal.
Asked directly why negotiations have gone nowhere, Trump gave a one-word answer, Zelensky.
Our European allies predictably disagreed, accusing Moscow of bad faith, but Trump's frustration reflects what I think is a broader concern that the U.S. has poured billions of dollars into a war with no chance of Ukraine achieving victory.
And Ukraine's corrupt leadership does not seem to care that a loss is inevitable because they want to keep the foreign aid coming in so that they can continue to buy gold-plated toilets.
One of the central problems here is that we have poured billions of dollars into Ukraine with little accountability.
Zelensky himself admits that he doesn't know where hundreds of millions of those dollars have gone.
One major sticking point is elections.
President Trump has openly questioned whether Ukraine can still be called a democracy after repeatedly canceling presidential elections under martial law.
Zelensky has resisted, demanding ceasefire guarantees, international protection, and ongoing Western backing before even considering to bring the people to a vote.
What he really fears, of course, is accountability.
Then there's also the question of territory.
The U.S. has quietly pushed Kyiv towards a compromise in eastern Ukraine, but Zelensky continues to reject any land concessions, offering only a freeze in fighting while refusing political recognition of Russian-held regions.
Trump has signaled growing impatience with the conflict and hinted that the U.S. may not continue to bankroll Zelensky's endless war.
Zelensky's tremendous arrogance could be his undoing.
That plus, well, the nose candy.
He has yet to realize that President Trump is giving him an out.
This may be Alinsky's last chance to allow peace to take hold so he can get out of Dodge without receiving the Ceausesco treatment.
He's incredibly unpopular with the Ukrainian people.
It's the other reason he doesn't want to go in election.
If you remember Ceauchesko, the Romanian people dragged him out into the street when he was deposed.
Zelinsky could be wise to negotiate with President Trump if he wants to avoid that same very same fate.
Mayor's Tax Scandal00:15:03
Meanwhile, a Senate hearing meant to examine the safety of abortion pills took a stunning turn Wednesday when a testifying OBGYN repeatedly refused to acknowledge the basic biological fact that men cannot get pregnant.
Dr. Nisha Verma demonstrates why the public no longer has any confidence in the medical establishment.
She was being questioned by Senator Ashley Moody of Florida.
When Senator Josh Holly followed up, Verma continued to deflect, invoking different identities, accusing senators of using yes or no questions as a political tool.
Senator Hawley made it clear the goal was not politics, but science, specifically establishing biological reality in a hearing centered on women's health.
Despite repeated opportunities, Dr. Verma refused to say that biological men cannot get pregnant.
Instead, she suggested that the issue was complex, using politically correct weasel words because she's too woke to admit reality.
The exchange got even more troubling as Senator Hawley pointed out that abortion pills, which was the subject of the hearing, are associated with serious adverse health events in roughly 11% of cases, far exceeding what the FDA label claims.
Yet, Dr. Verma, presented as an expert witness, would not acknowledge the most basic premise underlying women's reproductive health.
Dr. Verma is an example of a liberal activist who uses her professional credentials to push her leftist ideology.
She's okay with murdering babies and mutilating genitals in the name of silence.
Don't go away because when we come back, Mark Vargas of the Illinois Review is here with a blockbuster expose of how Illinois' rotund governor, J.B. Pritzker, has been lining his own pockets and the pockets of his family with the tax dollars of the hard-working families of the state of Illinois.
We'll be right back.
The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
And we're back in the Stone Zone.
While President Donald Trump and his Doge reformers are trying to take a chainsaw to federal waste in Washington, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker appears to be playing a very different game, one that funnels massive amounts of taxpayer money into assets tied to his own family hotel empire.
What we're going to reveal to you today is not some recycled political attack.
It's a fresh information pulled straight from public records with conflict of interest written all over it.
Joining me now is the editor-in-chief of the Illinois Review, Mark Vargas, to help break down this story.
Mark, welcome in to the Stone Zone.
It's great to be with you, Roger.
Thank you.
You have worked with me here in the last 48 hours to produce a blockbuster story, one you'll find nowhere else, which essentially reveals that J.B. Pritzker, who is already a billionaire,
has used the Illinois Metropolitan Peer and Exposition Authority to funnel more than $180 million in taxpayer money into the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place Hotel in Chicago since 2011.
Pritzker appoints nearly half the members of the board of that authority, giving him enormous influence in how the taxpayers' dollars are spent.
But the point here most people may not understand is that Governor Pritzker, a billionaire, and his family own the Hyatt Regency, McCormick Place.
Tell us more about this.
It really is remarkable, Roger, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Given all the widespread and massive fraud happening that's being uncovered in Minnesota under the failed leadership of tiny dancer Tim Waltz, people are beginning to take a look at California and Illinois, for an example.
And what we've uncovered, Roger, really answers the why, because J.B. Pritzker has been so aggressive in attacking the president on a variety of fronts, whether it's illegal aliens over everyday citizens, or whether it's lawlessness over law and order.
But in particular, he's attacked the president on DOSH and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
And Governor Pritzker has called rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
He's called it an insult to Americans.
So that began to beg the question, why?
Well, we've certainly answered that why, that Governor Pritzker has spent his time before office and particularly while in office profiting off the backs of everyday Illinoisans.
What you mentioned was remarkable.
What triggered is that in fiscal year 2023, $8.8 million were spent for hotel infrastructure improvements for the Hyatt Hotel there in downtown Chicago.
Hyatt Hotel obviously is owned by the Pritzker family.
And when we learned that the board that you had mentioned, this MPEA board that approves the taxpayer-funded money, we also learned that Governor Pritzker controls almost a majority of the board because he appoints five of the 11 members.
And so they certainly are not questioning where to put those tax dollars or the fact that those tax dollars are going into the Pritzker family pockets that includes the Illinois governor.
But it's much deeper than that, Roger, the $180 million.
We've also discovered that Governor Pritzker, since taking office in 2019, his so-called blind trust has also held interest in 12 for-profit companies that have collectively secured more than $20 billion in Illinois state contracts, all funded by who?
The taxpayers.
And Illinois has been raising income taxes, sales tax, business tax.
It's the highest tax state in the nation.
And now we know why, because the hard-earned money of everyday blue-collar hardworking Illinois, that money is not to improve government services.
That money isn't being used to improve their lives, create a safe environment for their community.
No, that money is going to line the pockets of Governor J.B. Pritzker and his closest allies and family members.
I do want to correct one misstatement I made.
The actual hotel facility is owned by a state authority, but the Hyatt Corporation, controlled by the Pritzker family, operates the hotel under a very lucrative management agreement that pays a percentage of gross revenue plus incentive fees tied to the profitability of the hotel.
Now, as you point out in this groundbreaking piece at the Illinois Review today, this latest $8.8 million awarded to the hotel in fiscal year 2023 was initially called infrastructure improvement.
It was part of a $59.5 million renovation approved in December of 2024, which covers 1,258 guest rooms and additional projects upgrading more than 93,000 square feet of common areas.
Now, these, as you point out, are not routine repairs.
These are value-boosting investments, HVAC, plumbing, electrical upgrades that directly increase occupancy, which increases revenue, which increases long-term profitability, which puts more money into the pockets of the Pritzker family.
It really is remarkable.
And again, it answers this question.
Why has Governor Pritzker been so opposed to any programs, any organizations, any groups wanting to explore waste, fraud, and abuse in Illinois?
This answers it, because his hotel and his blind trust businesses have secured all of this money, all taxpayer money.
We also know, Roger, that's not in this article, that it's been estimated that since Governor Pritzker has been in office since 2019, over $22 billion has been wasted.
And this is separate from the taxpayer money going to his hotels and to line his business, the pockets of his business associates.
This is on top of all of that, and that's a very, very conservative number.
So obviously we know that number is much, much higher.
But the most conservative number is around $22 billion in wasted taxpayer money on top of what's been happening and what we've uncovered already.
So again, I think this is making what's happened in what's currently happening in Minnesota with Tim Waltz and his team.
I think that's just a tip of the iceberg on what's happening here in Illinois.
According to Forbes magazine, Governor Pritzker's personal net worth is estimated at $3.9 billion.
I recall an anecdote where he cheated the taxpayers when it came to property taxes.
As I recall, because he didn't want any neighbors, he bought the mansion next to his, left it vacant.
Well, you take it from there.
He did.
He bought the mansion.
He didn't want any neighbors.
He left it vacant, but he wanted to figure out how to cheat on taxes.
So what did he come up with?
He removed all of the toilet from the home, which makes it legally uninhabitable.
And I think there were somewhere around the range of nine bathrooms.
So they removed nine toilets.
As a result, that home became legally uninhabitable, and Governor Pritzker was able to skirt over 300, paying over $300,000 in property taxes.
When that was discovered during his campaign, he was caught flat-footed, came up with lame excuses, and ended up paying the difference.
But it triggered a federal inquiry.
And what was the key takeaway from this entire episode was that if Governor Pritzker knows, he knows how to skirt the rules, he knows where there are gaps, and he knows how to manipulate the system for his own benefit.
If he could do that regarding toilets and saving $300,000, imagine what he's doing with a state that has a $54 billion annual budget.
And we're seeing that with $180 million going to his hotel and $20 billion in state government contracts all funded by the taxpayers going into the pockets of his business friends and associates.
Mark, as I recall, it was you and the Illinois Review that exposed the fact that Governor Pritzker, a Mayor Brandon Johnson, a man who is the mayor of Chicago,
and if his IQ was one point lower, you'd have to water him like a plant, specifically passed an ordinance that said that the Chicago city police officers were not to come to the rescue or aid of ICE agents if they were endangered.
Which I believe you got a legal opinion that showed that the governor and the mayor could be personally liable if any of those ICE agents sustained physical injury.
That's right.
The governor signed an executive order, and federal ICE agents are experiencing an over 1,000% increase in attacks on federal ICE agents.
And one of the largest perpetrators, pun intended, of that violent and dangerous rhetoric is Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who have called them thugs, domestic terrorists.
They've now signed executive orders prohibiting local law enforcement from assisting federal ICE agents when they're surrounded by violent and dangerous mobs, when their lives are in danger.
And we saw that example when on a 911 transcript where federal ICE agents were calling for backup and they were told by the 911 operator that leadership is saying the cops have to stand down.
It's absolutely remarkable.
Under his failed leadership, it's why some of the largest corporations in the country, if not the world, have left Illinois and Chicago altogether, like Boeing and Caterpillar and Citadel, because of the high taxes, because of the high crime, and because of the failed Democratic leadership of J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has an approval rating of just 6%.
I do remember when very bizarrely, Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, said all of the civil unrest and crime in the city of Chicago was the fault of President Richard Nixon, who hasn't been in power in this country in over 50 years.
Very, very strange behavior.
Also reports that Mayor Johnson is in and out of the hospital constantly after suffering panic attacks.
This does not sound like a man who's fit for leadership to me.
No, sources have shared that over two dozen times in just less than three years, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has checked himself into Northwestern Memorial Hospital for panic attacks.
They use the underground entrance.
He uses a different, he uses an alias, alias a different name.
He's identifiable by his birth date, but they've gone to great lengths.
The city has gone to great lengths to make sure that they hide that.
They also, he's also increased his Chicago Police Department detail to over 150 police officers protecting him and his family.
Yet they tell us that Chicago is perfectly safe and the idea that there's a crime epidemic.
I specifically remember J.D. Pritzker, I think he was on CNN or perhaps it was Fox, insisting that the published crime statistics from the FBI were wrong and that the neighborhoods and communities of Chicago were perfectly safe.
It's remarkable that he can say that.
Don't believe me and that's your lying eyes when you're looking at the statistic.
In 2025, Chicago was the most dangerous city in America regarding shootings and murders.
Chicago is more dangerous than New York City, than Los Angeles, than Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, D.C., the most dangerous city in America.
Pritzker likes to say that President Trump has created a manufactured crisis.
67,000 dangerous criminals on the street because of no cash bail.
That's not a manufactured crisis.
1,600 police officers short, resulting in over 220,000 high-priority 911 calls going unanswered in 2023.
That's not a manufactured crisis.
And finally, over 90% of Chicago's most violent and vicious and dangerous criminals are freeing out on the streets.
Why?
Because they've never been identified or charged.
That's not a manufactured crisis.
This is reality for everyday residents and tourists to Chicago.
It is a war zone.
Blind Trust, 2020 Vision00:06:20
I really don't understand this concept of the blind trust.
I remember when Dick Cheney was the vice president of the United States, his Halliburton stock, he was the president of Halliburton before becoming vice president, was into blind stock.
And of course, that stock became worth billions of dollars because he lied our way into the war in Iraq, falsely claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, yellow cake uranium to develop weapons of mass destruction, and the most outrageous lie of all, claiming that Iraq had participated in the 9-11 attacks on America.
But if you know that there's Halliburton stock in your blind trust, how blind can your trust be?
J.B. Pritzker knows that there's Hyatt stock in his blind trust, and you pointed out that over $20 billion in state contracts were with companies tied to his own personal financial interests, all within his so-called blind trust.
Mark Vargas has discovered that J.B. Pritzker is not the only 2028 aspirant who's got deep and massive corruption problems.
When we come back, we're going to focus on Gavin Newsom, the would-be president from California.
He's got great hair and a great line of BS, but it's possible that the epic personal corruption of Newsom could even dwarf that of J.B. Pritzker.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back with that story right here in the Stone Zone.
The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
And we're back in the Stone Zone.
If you're just tuning in, we're talking to Mark Vargas, the editor-in-chief of the Illinois Review, who has just published a blockbuster exposé on the fact that Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois has been lining his own pockets with state money flowing through his so-called blind trust.
I have two questions.
You know, Mark, I signed up for one of those online apps where every day they send you a new word so that you can expand your vocabulary.
Today, the word was o-rotund, which when you look it up, means fat.
And I think that describes J.B. Pritzker.
This is a guy who is drunk on his own power, who desperately wants to be president of the United States, although polls show him with a whopping 1% of the vote in the upcoming New Hampshire primary.
But he's not the only Democrat governor who aspires to be president.
He's also not the only Democrat governor who seems to have enormous corruption problems developing.
You dug into California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Tell our listeners what you found.
It really is shocking, Roger.
And I like to call J.B. Pritzker's blind trust blind.
It's a blind trust, but it's got 2020 vision.
But it is remarkable what's happening under Gavin Newsom.
Audits have estimated that since he's been governor of California, that there is as high as up to $250 billion with a D in waste fraud and abuse.
They estimate unemployment insurance fraud at $32 billion.
$24 billion has been spent on homeless programs, yet no one knows where any of that money went.
You remember their high-speed rail boondoggle.
$18 billion of taxpayer money in California was spent, and the rail isn't even operational.
It really is incredible.
They have a failed 911 system.
They spent $650 million on a 911 system, and it doesn't work.
And so what begs the question is you have all of these contractors, all of these state contractors, all of these buddies of Governor Newsom and his wife, they seem to be the only winners here when this type of money is being spent and wasted.
But to think about $250 billion during his tenure in California, Roger, I think that number is going to be higher.
I think these are just low estimates.
Again, what's happening was being exposed in Minnesota under Governor Tim Waltz.
I think it's going to take down three governors simultaneously, what I call the unholy trinity, Waltz, Pritzker, and Newsom.
And what does Pritzker and Newsom have in common?
They both think that they can be presidential contenders here in the next couple of years.
Yeah, I think that's a very good summary.
That's why those who say, oh, the 2026 elections, the Republicans are going to lose, don't bet on it.
These financial scandals in these states are only going to grow larger and more outrageous.
Now, I do think that Gavin Newsom dodged a bullet when Kamala Harris decided not to run for governor, but that makes her candidacy for president more likely.
And two candidates from California, both of them out of their minds, that's just simply not going to work.
This epic Democrat corruption that we see in Minnesota, in Michigan, in Washington State, in Oregon, in Ohio, and now, as you've outlined today, in Illinois, I think these are all going to be major, major issues as we approach the 2026 election.
I want to thank Mark Vargas for being our guest today.
He is the editor-in-chief at the Illinois Review.
You can go to illinoisreview.com, I believe.
Also, they're up on X, some of the most impressive, groundbreaking investigative journalism in the country today, right there at the Illinois Review.
Marks, thank you for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
Thank you, Roger.
God bless.
All right, that's it for us today, folks.
Today, you heard firsthand this blocking story about the epic corruption of J.B. Pritzker, the man who would be president.
Thank You, Mark00:01:46
A guy who will rip the toilets out of a mansion that he bought next door to the home he lives in to avoid paying property taxes.
Well, he's most definitely not prepared to be president of the United States.
Thank you for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
So until tomorrow, God bless you and God.
Thanks for listening to the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
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So you never have to wonder what the heck is going on here.
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.