The StoneZONE - Roger Stone - The Stone Zone | 03-18-26
Aired: 2026-03-19
Duration: 38:05


=== War Tactics and Drone Insights (15:18) ===

[00:00:10]  This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
[00:00:14]  People love him and respect him.
[00:00:15]  Roger Stone.
[00:00:16]  Now, get him a zone.
[00:00:18]  It's the Stone Zone.
[00:00:20]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:00:23]  And welcome to the Stone Zone.
[00:00:25]  I'm Jake Novak filling in for Roger Stone this evening, coast to coast on this fantastic radio program.
[00:00:31]  Really very happy to have the opportunity, especially when so much important news is going on and so much reality needs to be delivered to the American public because there are a lot of liars out there.
[00:00:43]  I try to say it in a more diplomatic way.
[00:00:45]  People who don't get it right, prevaricators, spins.
[00:00:50]  No, I'm just going to say they're out liars and we've got to get to that as soon as we can.
[00:00:54]  But I want to let you know in about 40 minutes, I know you might not realize it now.
[00:00:58]  It may not seem this way, but we got two pieces of evidence today that perhaps the height of the anti-Trump hate in America is starting to subside.
[00:01:07]  Now, one of the pieces of evidence comes from a big media company, and another one comes from one of the guys who's been one of the biggest Trump haters over the last few years.
[00:01:14]  So stay tuned for that.
[00:01:16]  About 40 minutes after they are, you got to hear that.
[00:01:18]  But what you have to hear right now is a really, really good friend, a really, really great expert on so many things going on around the world.
[00:01:27]  He is Matt Tardio, a former U.S. Green Beret, a former law enforcement officer, a current podcast host.
[00:01:34]  And Matt, I had to have him on to talk about a lot of things in the war.
[00:01:39]  I could get your overall assessment, but I want to get specific first.
[00:01:41]  And if we have time, we can get your overall assessment.
[00:01:43]  But it seems to me, Matt, the first thing I want to talk about is it looks like we're getting an idea now about war tactics.
[00:01:51]  So the first war tactic I want to talk about is it's clear now that in addition to some other things they're doing, the Israelis are implementing a get each Iranian leader at a time as they can get top leaders.
[00:02:04]  Something that, by the way, Matt, probably wasn't possible technologically not that long ago, but technologically it seems possible to do.
[00:02:13]  And I'm going to let me know what you think about it, but a little tease.
[00:02:17]  I think this is actually the most ethical way to conduct a war, but I'd like to get your take on it, Matt.
[00:02:23]  You know, I don't know if I'd say like the most ethical way to conduct a war.
[00:02:27]  You know, bombs are always going to have collateral damage, but like the most ethical way is obviously going to be put boots on the ground.
[00:02:31]  But at the same time, you end up being bombs that fall afterwards.
[00:02:35]  I think in the case of Iran, you've got a completely different conflict going on here where you have, you know, an active resistance movement on the ground that wants absolutely nothing to do with the Islamic regime over inside of Iran.
[00:02:46]  And so it affords us the opportunity to go about doing things, you know, a little bit differently.
[00:02:50]  And I mean, we're currently dominating the airspace, we're dominating the battlefield to the point where, you know, I watched a video earlier of besieged forces.
[00:02:59]  For those that don't know which ones the besieged forces are, are literally stripping off their uniforms in the middle of checkpoints and putting on civilian attire before they leave to go somewhere else.
[00:03:08]  It's because they've been actively getting targeted.
[00:03:10]  And even that airstrike yesterday that ended up taking out leadership, the airstrike yesterday that took out leadership, it was very, very interesting the way that that ended up going down because they ended up going to a tent out in the middle of nowhere, according to the reports that I read.
[00:03:25]  And that within itself is kind of crazy because you've got a bunch of key leadership from the IRGC that are going to meet up.
[00:03:34]  They decided that everything can't be secure enough, that they have to go meet up in a tent.
[00:03:37]  They can't go to a regular place that they're going to meet.
[00:03:39]  They think they're okay, and they all end up getting schwacked anyways by a bomb falling from the sky.
[00:03:44]  You know, you made a good point about boots on the ground.
[00:03:47]  And I know you know this very well because you've been talking about it.
[00:03:50]  In some ways, there are some boots on the ground, right?
[00:03:53]  The actual Iranian people, they're painting the targets for us, aren't they?
[00:03:56]  They're lighting them, aren't they?
[00:03:57]  A little bit.
[00:03:58]  No, it's not that they're lighting the targets for us.
[00:04:01]  A lot of people are getting confused for some of the videos that they see going around of the airstrikes that are falling down.
[00:04:05]  They see the laser that's like, you know, like painting the target.
[00:04:09]  That's actually coming from some of the drones, right?
[00:04:11]  So it looks like we have recon drones that are out and about doing their thing, and then they're painting the targets for the fast movers that are coming in or the bombers that are coming in and dropping the bombs on those targets in particular.
[00:04:21]  But the people that are on the ground, that's something completely and totally different.
[00:04:24]  What we're seeing is either A, FPV drones, like first-person view drones that are flying around one way, you know, that are going in and blowing up these different besieged checkpoints, or B, I saw a video the other day of a drone that appeared that it had dropped an explosive device on a besieged checkpoint, turned around and ran away.
[00:04:44]  So that's pretty significant when we take into account what we saw after the 12-day war, which was, you know, an entire drone-making ID factory that was being manned by Afghans that was over inside of there.
[00:04:57]  So that goes to show the, how do I want to say the amount of intelligence that's on the ground, the amount of, you know, people that we have working for us and also working from Assad that are over there doing these different things that are keeping those besieged forces on the run.
[00:05:10]  But it also shows that you have this uprising that's about to start taking place over there.
[00:05:14]  I saw a drive-by shooting that occurred earlier today over inside of Tehran.
[00:05:18]  So all those things are pretty dang big.
[00:05:20]  There was an ambush that took place over in southeastern Iran just the other night that Iranian state media even recognized and ended up killing five of the besieged forces.
[00:05:30]  So, I mean, all of these are signs that we're about to start seeing the regime get overthrown in the very near future.
[00:05:36]  We're going to go to break in a few minutes, but I want to get two more questions into you and then we'll bring you back after the break for one more thing.
[00:05:42]  But I want to talk about another war tactic, which is, of course, Israel hitting that gas field this morning.
[00:05:47]  And obviously, that got the markets all upset and things like that.
[00:05:50]  People are worried about oil supply and things like that.
[00:05:52]  But Matt, I just couldn't help but think of how this contrasted with what's going on with Ukraine and Russia.
[00:05:59]  And I know that some Russian energy sites have been targeted, but frankly, you know, nothing like this today, nothing like the percentage of this is going to hit the Iranian oil industry.
[00:06:10]  And it just made me laugh because as the Europeans actually funnel more money to Russia in energy purchases than they're funneling to Ukraine in the war, Israel may have made a point here, like, you want to end a war, you want to end a war, you want to win a war and end a war, you got to cut off the financial sources.
[00:06:26]  And yeah, it's going to cause some pain in the markets, but probably worth it.
[00:06:30]  Probably.
[00:06:31]  Yeah, and I mean, that's exactly what Trump said the other day.
[00:06:33]  You know, he was getting asked whether or not the U.S. is concerned about the strait being closed.
[00:06:37]  And he's like, meh, I mean, it might bother the EU, but maybe they ought to get over there and help reopen the straits.
[00:06:42]  But as far as the United States go, I mean, we're the top producers.
[00:06:44]  So why would we care?
[00:06:46]  You know?
[00:06:46]  Right.
[00:06:46]  Now, next question I want to quickly ask you is just about this Joe Kent resignation and his, I mean, it's more than just a betrayal of what he had to say just a couple months ago.
[00:06:58]  But, you know, he really went full on conspiracy theory thing that it's the Jews and Israel that led us to war.
[00:07:05]  Actually, by the way, he clearly doesn't read the Wall Street Journal because there's been, and the Washington Post has been incredible reporting about how the Saudis were the ones lobbying for this war the hardest.
[00:07:14]  And I don't blame them, but they certainly were.
[00:07:16]  But what's your take on this?
[00:07:18]  Obviously, we're not going to try to trash his past.
[00:07:20]  He had a nice record, but that doesn't excuse him for what he's doing now.
[00:07:24]  No, he's got a very good record as far as his military service goes.
[00:07:28]  And, you know, I actually spoke to him on the phone last week about a national security matter, and it appears that that matter got taken care of and it undoubtedly saved American lives.
[00:07:38]  However, Kama, there's a difference between making sure that we're taking care of our troops and everything else and just outright blatant lies that I feel like we're thrown out during that form.
[00:07:50]  Now, it could also be his opinion.
[00:07:52]  But what I'm also seeing is it looks like he set up for Chuckler Carlson.
[00:07:55]  It looks like he set up for a speaking engagement.
[00:07:57]  And I'm also hearing about a couple of different places he's probably going to be appearing on in the very near future.
[00:08:01]  So it almost seems kind of set up.
[00:08:04]  And it almost also seems a little bit reminiscent of what we saw with Anthony Aguilar when he ended up bringing up the Amir kid over in Gaza that allegedly got killed, that who we later then end up discovering that he wasn't killed and he's alive and well.
[00:08:17]  And that within itself is a little bit troubling.
[00:08:19]  Bree Dial ended up putting out yesterday something that I was unaware of, but that ended up getting confirmed through somebody else that I know, his wife working for Grey Zone.
[00:08:28]  You know, and that is one of the most pro-Russian propagandist platforms you can find.
[00:08:35]  But in my opinion, that's where this issue might be coming from.
[00:08:40]  Israel today was taking out supply boats that were pushing to the Caspian Sea to go supply Russia on their way from Iran.
[00:08:46]  And so, you know, Russia in themselves has a lot of interest in this war.
[00:08:49]  And I don't think a lot of people actually realize that.
[00:08:51]  Yeah.
[00:08:52]  You know, you mentioned we're talking to Matt Tardio, former Green Beret, former law enforcement officer, and he just referenced a journalist named Brie Dahl, D-A-H-L, who works for the Daily Signal.
[00:09:01]  So you can check her out and her reports.
[00:09:04]  So we listen, we are not trashing Joe Kent's overall past record.
[00:09:09]  We've both not done that.
[00:09:10]  We're honoring some of the things he did in the past, but we're very, very saddened by what seems to be a total betrayal here.
[00:09:16]  But someone who doesn't really deserve, as far as I know, I don't know what service she ever did for this country.
[00:09:21]  Here is Marjorie Taylor Green speaking over a phony video that I'm going to explain a little bit.
[00:09:27]  You can see it on social media.
[00:09:28]  But here she is criticizing the war over the video of what supposedly is a dead serviceman from this war.
[00:09:34]  Listen to this.
[00:09:40]  The consequences of this war are real.
[00:09:45]  Why are our sons and daughters coming home in gaskets for Israel?
[00:09:52]  I witnessed this coming home to the Bay Area yesterday, and it was so heartbreaking.
[00:10:04]  Why?
[00:10:08]  Well, what you can't see if you're just listening to us on the radio here on the Stone Zone is she was using a video from 2011 under the Obama administration.
[00:10:18]  I mean, this is just beyond the pale.
[00:10:20]  And unlike Joe Kent, Matt Tardio, Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't have any great record of service for us to have any gentleness with her over this.
[00:10:28]  Yeah, I agree with that.
[00:10:30]  I don't, you know, the amount of myths and disinformation that's going out there.
[00:10:33]  And here's the thing, too: you know, a lot of people don't know that the term disinformation ended up getting coined by the Russians in the early 1900s.
[00:10:42]  It's something very, very interesting that people need to look into.
[00:10:45]  I would encourage people to look into, you know, something that's called Operation SIG that the Russians launched.
[00:10:51]  I believe it was the late 60s, the early 70s.
[00:10:54]  That was an attempt to tear apart the U.S. support for Israel, along with several other things.
[00:11:00]  And of course, we've got Russia operating over there, but Russia ends up getting a lot of its support.
[00:11:04]  So it's from Iran.
[00:11:05]  So it's no surprise to me that we see a lot of pro-Russian media outlets that are very, very against this war, because Russia certainly is, because it's going to put a big hurt on them, you know, here in the near future.
[00:11:17]  So, you know, it's kind of scary for them, I guess, that they're about to have a money laundering machine along with a huge supplier of weapons get cut out right from underneath them.
[00:11:28]  All right, we're talking to Matt Tardio.
[00:11:29]  This is the Stone Zone.
[00:11:30]  I'm Jake Novak filling in for Roger Stone.
[00:11:32]  When we come back, we're going to talk about Trump's response to a question about terror threats here in the United States, even as the Department of Homeland Security.
[00:11:41]  Once again, today, there was a vote that failed to refund it, or at least temporarily.
[00:11:45]  We'll be right back on The Stone Zone.
[00:11:56]  This is The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
[00:11:59]  Roger Stone, who's the very, very, one of the smartest political minds.
[00:12:03]  Roger Stone was persecuted.
[00:12:04]  People forget he's actually a brilliant, brilliant political analyst.
[00:12:08]  Now, get in the zone.
[00:12:09]  It's the stone zone.
[00:12:11]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:12:14]  And I'm Jake Novak filling in for Roger Stone this evening on the Stone Zone, coming to you nationwide, worldwide.
[00:12:21]  Listen to this.
[00:12:27]  I've got to tell you, that doesn't bother me that much, but if it were 5 a.m. and they were blasting in a loudspeaker, that's another story.
[00:12:43]  I got a story for you about, oh, about 48 minutes after the hour.
[00:12:47]  I'm going to tell you about what's going on and the people who are defending the continued use of that call to prayer that early in the morning.
[00:12:55]  And these are the same people who have been against every other religious demonstration in this country for years, and suddenly they're in favor of this.
[00:13:03]  But I want to get back to Matt Tardio, former Green Beret, former law enforcement officer.
[00:13:07]  He's got a podcast now.
[00:13:09]  And Matt, I got to talk to you about one of the things that I think is really interesting in messaging because, you know, you're a good combo.
[00:13:14]  Not only do you know the situation in the Middle East, but you were also a police officer.
[00:13:19]  And, you know, a couple of days ago, they asked President Trump whether he was worried, worried, that was the word they used, about terror attacks here in the United States.
[00:13:29]  Now, if you're a journalist, I think that that is really not a great question to ask for a lot of reasons.
[00:13:34]  He said no, but if they had said, are you concerned?
[00:13:37]  Are you taking precautions?
[00:13:38]  That would have been a different answer.
[00:13:39]  So, of course, President Trump said no.
[00:13:41]  He's not going to come off sounding weak.
[00:13:43]  And then when we did have the attack in Michigan and we did have this incident at Gracie Mansion in New York, there were people saying, oh, Trump, you know, he was just whistling past the graveyard.
[00:13:51]  Ha, ha, ha.
[00:13:52]  You know, I'll tell you a little bit of a history story.
[00:13:54]  Everyone talks about Israel and how strong they were in the Six-Day War.
[00:13:58]  Well, it didn't almost work because when the Six-Day War was about to start or it just started, the then Prime Minister of Israel, his name was Levi Eshkol, a very beloved person, beloved prime minister, not a controversial figure in Israel at all.
[00:14:09]  He gave a national speech on national radio and it sounded like he was crying.
[00:14:13]  It really did.
[00:14:14]  He had some health issues, whatever it was, and it absolutely terrified the country.
[00:14:18]  A lot of people believe it's amazing that they carried out the great Swift victory in the Six-Day Wars they did after that speech.
[00:14:24]  Matt, I, of course, put a gun to my head.
[00:14:27]  I'd say, I'm worried, but worry isn't the right question.
[00:14:30]  It's about being prepared.
[00:14:31]  It's about being vigilant, right, Matt?
[00:14:34]  Yeah, no, it's all about being vigilant.
[00:14:36]  And let's be clear, you know, the shooting that took place in Michigan at the Temple of Israel was by, at a bare minimum, a Hezbollah sympathizer, if not a Hezbollah terrorist himself.
[00:14:49]  And when we look at some of the things that are taking place over here in the United States, just run by the last two weeks, the amount of, you know, active shooters, bombs, bomb threats, et cetera, that have taken place over here.
[00:14:58]  And it all has to do with radical Islamic extremists.
[00:15:01]  It's not going anywhere.
[00:15:02]  And when you look at places like Dearborn, Michigan, they're defending all of these people and they're pretending like it's not a thing.
[00:15:08]  And by the way, the rumor was that his vehicle was registered out of Dearborn.
[00:15:13]  Right?
[00:15:14]  And also that, you know, I was speaking with a law enforcement officer that was on the ground today.
[00:15:19]  They had information on a second suspect, and they were actually out searching for a second suspect.
[00:15:24]  This is not something that should be taken lightly here in the United States of America.

=== Economic Indicators and Market Pressures (07:24) ===

[00:15:29]  Maduro was working very closely with the IRGC, but working very closely with Hezbollah and was giving out diplomatic passports.
[00:15:36]  I mean, that's in his indictment, right?
[00:15:38]  Yeah.
[00:15:39]  These are things that we know that Maduro was doing.
[00:15:43]  And it's not a surprise to me that we've ripped Maduro out and now we're going over to rip out the IRGC.
[00:15:48]  Yeah, this is Matt Tardio.
[00:15:49]  You're listening to Matt Tardio on the Stone Zone.
[00:15:52]  He's my guest.
[00:15:52]  I'm Jake Novak in for Roger Stone.
[00:15:55]  You just alluded to something that I've been talking about for several years.
[00:15:58]  When I first heard, and I think it was 2022, when I first heard that for some period of that year, the large group, the largest group of people coming over our open border under the Biden administration were from Venezuela, I knew that Hezbollah was making a foothold in this country because that, because Hezbollah had a foothold in Venezuela for many years.
[00:16:18]  Ahmedinejad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, who has been eliminated, by the way, by the Israelis, made a very famous visit to Ugo Chavez, who was the dictator there at the time and started Venezuela on that downward spiral.
[00:16:30]  So you knew that this was going to happen.
[00:16:33]  You just knew it was going to happen.
[00:16:34]  Matt Tardio, thank you so much for joining us.
[00:16:36]  Everyone check out his podcast.
[00:16:38]  Matt, tell everyone how they can hear your podcast and see it.
[00:16:41]  Yeah, you guys can find me over on YouTube.
[00:16:43]  Just search for speak the truth, and you guys will find me.
[00:16:46]  You guys can find me over on X. Just search my name, M-A-T-T Space, T-A-R-D-I-O.
[00:16:52]  And that's where, generally speaking, you guys will be able to find me.
[00:16:55]  Matt is very, very knowledgeable.
[00:16:57]  He's easy to listen to, and it's fun to get all of his information.
[00:17:01]  Thank you so much for joining us, Matt Tardio, on the Stone Zone.
[00:17:04]  Listen, when we come back, the markets had their little tantrum again today.
[00:17:08]  They're going to do that sometimes.
[00:17:10]  And remember when they told us that President Trump was going to get rid and make it illegal to have in vitro fertilization?
[00:17:17]  Well, guess a very, very special and unexpected person is throwing cold water on that.
[00:17:22]  This is the Stone Zone.
[00:17:49]  Now.
[00:17:50]  Now, get him a zone.
[00:17:52]  It's the stone zone.
[00:17:54]  A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him.
[00:18:01]  Not everybody, but people love him and respect him.
[00:18:03]  Roger Stone wins Roger Stone.
[00:18:06]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:18:09]  And welcome to the Stone Zone on this Wednesday night.
[00:18:11]  I'm Jake Novak filling in for Roger Stone.
[00:18:13]  Thank you so much for the opportunity.
[00:18:15]  I'm just going to bluntly say this right now.
[00:18:18]  Don't play the state lotteries.
[00:18:20]  Do not play the national lottery games.
[00:18:22]  Do you think I'm telling you that because I'm a moralist or I'm a prude?
[00:18:25]  No, I'm neither of those things.
[00:18:27]  It's because the games are rigged.
[00:18:29]  And I've been reporting on that fact for many, many years.
[00:18:33]  And there was an amazing story out of Texas last year.
[00:18:36]  And now we're getting some more details about it, about an absolutely rigged lottery.
[00:18:41]  You must listen to this.
[00:18:42]  Go ahead and gamble if you want to, but you don't want to gamble in a game where you can't win.
[00:18:46]  So I want to talk about that.
[00:18:47]  Speaking of gambling, the market, the stock market had a bit of a meltdown today.
[00:18:51]  Nothing actually huge from a percentage standpoint.
[00:18:53]  The Dow lost 800 points.
[00:18:55]  Not saying that's a good day, but these days you need to have at least 1,000 points or 2,000 point loss to really, really get too nervous.
[00:19:03]  And the markets had a couple of reasons why they were upset.
[00:19:06]  Investors were upset today.
[00:19:07]  They got an inflation report they didn't like.
[00:19:10]  Inflation was a little hotter on the producer end.
[00:19:12]  Wholesale inflation went up more than expected.
[00:19:15]  That's a very volatile number, by the way.
[00:19:17]  So there you go.
[00:19:19]  And, you know, they're not loving the continuing high price of oil.
[00:19:22]  They don't like those things.
[00:19:24]  Now, when you're a president of the United States and you have a goal to get rid of a nation that is a threat to this country, you're going to have to weather a lot of storms.
[00:19:32]  And the markets are going to be a big one, especially for someone connected so much to the business world his whole life like Donald Trump.
[00:19:39]  And there are reports this evening that he would like to see no more attacks on any oil facilities on Iran, although they were okay.
[00:19:46]  He was okay with the Israelis taking out that gas field this morning.
[00:19:50]  But he'd like to see it stop for now.
[00:19:51]  And that's probably because of market pressures.
[00:19:54]  But it also may be simply because they don't need to continue to do that to finish this mission.
[00:19:59]  And so that's all well and good.
[00:20:01]  But it's important to remember all these things.
[00:20:03]  The markets are worriers by definition.
[00:20:07]  Investors have to worry on a daily basis.
[00:20:10]  And that is what they're going to do.
[00:20:13]  And look, I'm not a financial advisor.
[00:20:16]  I'm not giving you official financial advice.
[00:20:18]  But it sure seems like the price of oil as it is now, $98, $99 a barrel, is not going to stay there for very long.
[00:20:26]  If you think that, make your bets appropriately.
[00:20:29]  But if you are absolutely sure that you think it's going to go down like I am in a few weeks or maybe a couple of months at the most, maybe you want to invest in it.
[00:20:36]  That's all I'm saying.
[00:20:37]  I don't, I'm not going to tell you that officially, but that's something you should know.
[00:20:39]  Now, there, of course, are a lot of people beating the drum about how the economy is right now.
[00:20:46]  And my friend Scott Rasmussen, who I believe to be the most reliable pollster in this country, he has an outfit called Napolitan News Report, Napolitan Reports.
[00:20:55]  He's no longer with Rasmussen reports.
[00:20:57]  Just have to clarify that once again.
[00:20:59]  He did found Rasmussen Reports.
[00:21:01]  Oh, by the way, he also founded ESPN.
[00:21:03]  This is not, you know, a pretty smart guy, but he has a new outfit, and I trust him as a pollster a lot.
[00:21:08]  And he had a new poll out today showing that Americans are feeling really weak, not so great about the economy, really the weakest they felt in quite some time.
[00:21:17]  And that's understandable.
[00:21:18]  They're seeing gas prices go up.
[00:21:20]  There haven't been a lot of new jobs added to the economy.
[00:21:23]  We're not seeing, however, a major job cutting situation in the economy.
[00:21:27]  That's good news.
[00:21:28]  And there's a few other things that haven't happened.
[00:21:31]  We're not seeing a foreclosure crisis.
[00:21:34]  Even the car repo situation, which I've actually been very worried about in America for the last year or so, the amount people owe on their cars right now looks like absolute mortgages.
[00:21:44]  It's not good.
[00:21:46]  People are underwater on their car mortgage.
[00:21:48]  In other words, if they trade in their car, they owe still more than what they're going to get for trading it in.
[00:21:54]  It's really a sad situation, but there hasn't been a massive wave of repossessions in this country either.
[00:21:59]  So, you know, again, I don't think it's that bad.
[00:22:02]  And then the guy named Craig Fuller, who is an expert on trucking in this country.
[00:22:06]  And listen, folks, I know we have planes and I know we have trains to move freight from one part of the country to the next.
[00:22:12]  But eventually, just about everything in this country gets delivered by a truck, right?
[00:22:16]  When the train pulls into the station and they're going to deliver it to your house, the train doesn't pull up to your house.
[00:22:21]  You need a truck to make that connection.
[00:22:23]  Same thing with the planes at the airport.
[00:22:25]  And Craig Fuller says that trucking volumes are at a four-year high, up 10% from last year.
[00:22:31]  And he says the economy is very strong.
[00:22:34]  He said that is a tremendously strong indicator of an economy.
[00:22:37]  It's a very reliable indicator of the economy.
[00:22:40]  I am not saying the economy is perfect, but if you believe that everything is terrible, no one's getting hired, homes are falling, that's not happening.
[00:22:49]  And what also isn't happening is that we're not seeing a grinding to a halt of our economy.

=== Mental Illness and Tax Base Erosion (09:14) ===

[00:22:53]  That's simply just not happening.
[00:22:55]  Now, let's talk a little bit about other delusions.
[00:22:59]  I don't know about you, but during the height of the 2024 election, some of the people in my wider circle who were on the moderate to liberal side told me that they kind of wanted to vote for Donald Trump, but they were sure, they were sure that he was going to make in vitro fertilization, IVF, illegal.
[00:23:23]  I wonder where they got that idea.
[00:23:24]  Maybe they got it from Kamala Harris.
[00:23:25]  Here she is saying that that would happen.
[00:23:28]  He would ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to birth control and put IVF treatments at risk, and force states to monitor women's pregnancies.
[00:23:41]  Just Google Project 2025 and read the plans for yourself.
[00:23:48]  Hysterical lie.
[00:23:52]  None of that has happened.
[00:23:53]  And not only did that not happen, but President Trump has done something amazing to make IVF a lot more possible for a lot of families out there.
[00:24:03]  And who is the person who's letting everybody know that this was a delusion?
[00:24:07]  Who is the person who's letting everybody know that President Trump has done something very good, not only on this issue, but on a number of health issues?
[00:24:14]  Well, none other than billionaire, former Dallas Mavericks owner and shark tank guy, Mark Cuban.
[00:24:19]  Now, I'm going to read Mark Cuban's post word for word because this is important to hear every word of it.
[00:24:24]  This is something he posted on X today.
[00:24:27]  And by the way, I repost all this stuff.
[00:24:28]  You can go to my X account at JakeJakeNY.
[00:24:31]  That's JakeTwoTimes and then NY for New York at JakeJakeNY.
[00:24:35]  But this is what Mark Cuban had to say today.
[00:24:37]  I'm going to read it word for word.
[00:24:38]  Quote, everyone wants me to rip on Trump RX.
[00:24:42]  Reality is it's saving patients money on IVF and a few other drugs, a lot of money.
[00:24:49]  In my opinion, anything that saves patients money is a win.
[00:24:53]  And they truly do have some great people that are making smart moves.
[00:24:57]  You just don't know their names.
[00:24:59]  Chris Klomp, Mark Atalia, Abe Sutton, and so many more.
[00:25:03]  And when you talk to them and you see the work they put in, it's obvious they are focused on trying to do the right thing for patients.
[00:25:10]  Don't forget, they didn't give the insurance industry a price increase that they wanted, and those stock prices got crushed.
[00:25:17]  Trump RX is just getting started.
[00:25:19]  End quote.
[00:25:20]  That's Mark Cuban, folks, one of the nastiest, consistently negative bashers of President Trump.
[00:25:28]  I know he said some good things about him at times, but Mark Cuban has been really rough on Trump, over the top, in my opinion.
[00:25:34]  But he can't deny this either.
[00:25:36]  I really want to call some of these people in my wider circle who two years ago were assuring me that they had to vote for Kamala Harris before that Joe Biden because, you know, they're worried about their children not being able to do IVF.
[00:25:47]  They're busy in their careers and IVF's going to be outlawed and women are going to be forced into the handmade's tail.
[00:25:54]  I mean, this is the kind of stuff that I've been growing up with, living with ever since I was a kid.
[00:25:59]  Remember when President Reagan got elected, they told us we're going to be in a nuclear war within five minutes.
[00:26:05]  You know, when you do stuff like that, at least old, in my childhood years, if you did something like that and it didn't turn out to be true, you ended up losing big time the next election.
[00:26:17]  So I have to say, though, this is something, however, this is more than just a big win on the Trump RX thing.
[00:26:23]  I think this is a sign when you have somebody like Mark Cuban writing an extensive quote like this instead of just whispering it out of his mouth saying, all right, it's pretty good.
[00:26:30]  I mean, you heard me read that long quote from him.
[00:26:33]  That wasn't a short post, right?
[00:26:35]  Okay.
[00:26:36]  So he's saying all of this and going into detail.
[00:26:40]  I see this as a sign that some of the worst of the Trump mania hatred in this country is beginning to subside just a little bit.
[00:26:47]  It's not going to go away.
[00:26:49]  This is a permanent mental illness that millions and millions of Americans are suffering from.
[00:26:53]  And I use those words advisedly.
[00:26:55]  And no, I am not demonizing mental health in this country or mental illness.
[00:27:00]  It's a real illness.
[00:27:01]  Just like I'm not demonizing someone, if I see someone coughing up blood on the street and I say, I think he might have tuberculosis, I'm not making fun of that person.
[00:27:09]  If I see people going to bed every night looking to see if Donald Trump's under their bed, I'm going to say you're mentally ill.
[00:27:14]  You're having a mental illness.
[00:27:15]  It doesn't mean you're insane.
[00:27:16]  It doesn't mean you need to be hospitalized, but you need some help.
[00:27:20]  And I'm seeing it subside just a little bit if Mark Cuban is saying that.
[00:27:23]  There's another sign that it's subsiding just a little bit.
[00:27:25]  We learned today that MS Now, which is the new name of MSNBC, is going to cut an hour of the Morning Joe show.
[00:27:33]  They're going to cut some other of their programming because the audience are people who just want to see Trump bashing and more than just Trump bashing, but hysterical Trump bashing.
[00:27:42]  Listen, if you don't like a president, you don't like his policies and you just want to push back on them all the time, I don't think that that's so terrible.
[00:27:48]  What's terrible is when you frighten people into thinking there isn't going to be IVF.
[00:27:52]  When you frighten people into thinking that they're going to be, that someone who doesn't have an up-to-date license plate, a driver's license is going to be whisked away and sent back to some country they never lived in.
[00:28:02]  These kind of scare tactics, that's not okay.
[00:28:05]  And you see that a lot on MS now.
[00:28:07]  And it's getting cut because the audience for that is shrinking.
[00:28:11]  So I have to say that that has to be something.
[00:28:13]  I just, it's a positive sign, folks.
[00:28:16]  It's a positive sign.
[00:28:17]  It's not going to be the end of this mental illness in this country.
[00:28:20]  But those are two signs.
[00:28:23]  Now, speaking of changes in news divisions, we also found out today that the CBS evening news has dipped back below the 4 million viewer mark.
[00:28:33]  They had a new high when they brought in that new anchor, and they got it to 4.6 million.
[00:28:38]  Now they're down below 4 million.
[00:28:39]  And there is a report in today's New York Post that the executive producer of that show is on very, very thin ice.
[00:28:47]  And all I can say is, no kidding, no kidding.
[00:28:51]  When Barry Weiss took over the editorial reins at CBS, people like me, and I actually have some secondary one or two degree separations from her.
[00:29:01]  And I was able to get some messages to her about things I think she should have done at CBS News.
[00:29:05]  And no, I'm not surprised that she didn't do them.
[00:29:07]  Believe me, I'm not that full of myself.
[00:29:10]  But honestly, there hasn't been enough of a change in that broadcast.
[00:29:14]  And now it's below 4 million viewers.
[00:29:17]  They're really in trouble there.
[00:29:19]  There's really no other way to say it.
[00:29:22]  Folks, speaking of things that are in trouble, New York State's in trouble.
[00:29:26]  We don't have a lot of money.
[00:29:27]  Now, why should the rest of the country, this is a coast-to-coast international program, in addition to being a national program?
[00:29:32]  The reason is what you're about to hear from the governor of New York is that what you're about to hear from probably a lot of other blue state governors.
[00:29:39]  Here's Kathy Hochl, the governor of New York, telling people why she really, really thinks rich people should come back to New York.
[00:29:46]  Listen to this.
[00:29:47]  And being conscious of the facts that I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state.
[00:29:56]  Right?
[00:29:57]  Now, there are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up.
[00:30:01]  Okay, cut me the checks.
[00:30:03]  I mean, just if you want to be supportive, but maybe the first step should be go down to Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home because our tax base has been eroded.
[00:30:14]  These people really think we're stupid.
[00:30:15]  It was the same Kathy Hochl who a year and a half ago or so told rich people who didn't want to pay higher taxes, they should get out of New York.
[00:30:22]  Now you should come back and be patriotic.
[00:30:26]  What a lot of people don't understand is it's not about greed.
[00:30:29]  I think if people thought that their tax money was being spent efficiently and better than you and I can spend it in our own charitable donations, then we would do it.
[00:30:38]  Now, I'm not a New York exile.
[00:30:40]  I'm staying here in New York State, but I can see why somebody who could set up a foundation with their billions of dollars would rather say, you know what, I'm going to save some of that tax money that would have gone down the drain here in New York, go to Florida, go to Texas, go to some other state where I don't have to pay as much taxes, and then really do some good for America.
[00:30:57]  Now, I was telling you earlier about this call to prayer issue.
[00:31:00]  The call to prayer recordings in some parts of New York City at 5 a.m. are starting to cause what we call here in New York City, quality of life issues.
[00:31:10]  Now, look, I think that even some of the call to prayer, I know I might be in a minority here.
[00:31:15]  I actually think some of it is really beautiful.
[00:31:17]  I actually don't think it's necessarily a horrific thing.
[00:31:20]  But no, loudspeakers at 5 a.m. in a public place are really not part of your constitutional right as a religious group.
[00:31:27]  Now, I'm not going to go into the pros and cons much more into this.
[00:31:29]  I think I've made that point.
[00:31:31]  But what I wanted to point out to you is something really interesting.
[00:31:34]  The same groups, the same legal defense groups that for years have been fighting nativity scenes, for example, that show up in your town square maybe for a week out of the year.
[00:31:45]  They've been fighting some other types of religious Things that you see every once in a while, maybe private silent prayer in public schools where it's just silent, we have a moment of silence, things like that.
[00:31:56]  They're all in favor of these loud call to prayers every darn morning at 5 a.m.
[00:32:02]  It's the hypocrisy factor, it's the duplicity factor that's really, really illuminating, isn't it?

=== Religious Groups and Legal Defense (02:06) ===

[00:32:08]  All right, this is the stone zone.
[00:32:09]  I'm Jake Novak in for Roger Stone.
[00:32:11]  And when we come back, I'm going to explain to you why you should never play your state lotteries or these national lotteries.
[00:32:17]  I got a story out of Texas you got a here to believe.
[00:32:20]  This is the stone zone with Roger Stone.
[00:32:23]  That is a great, great person, Roger Stone.
[00:32:27]  The Stone Zone is The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
[00:32:51]  Roger Stone, who's the very, very one of the smartest political minds.
[00:32:55]  Roger Stone was persecuted.
[00:32:57]  People forget he's actually a brilliant, brilliant political analyst.
[00:33:00]  Now, get him a zone.
[00:33:02]  It's the stone zone.
[00:33:04]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:33:06]  And I'm Jake Novak filling in on the Stone Zone again for Roger Stone.
[00:33:09]  Thank you so much for listening this evening.
[00:33:12]  Gonna get to this lottery story in a second, but just give you an update.
[00:33:15]  If you were hoping that the Department of Homeland Security would at least get temporarily funded today, sorry, didn't happen.
[00:33:21]  Democrats wouldn't even vote in favor of a two-week refunding so that the TSA workers and some of the other people who haven't been getting their paycheck could get a paycheck.
[00:33:30]  Nope.
[00:33:31]  No soup for you.
[00:33:33]  And I want to use this particular update to remind you of something else that happened a couple of days ago.
[00:33:37]  You had a bunch of airline CEOs, the big airlines, all signing a letter together, all coming out together and saying Congress has to refund the Department of Homeland Security.
[00:33:46]  The TSA lines are too long.
[00:33:48]  And da-da-da-da-da-da.
[00:33:50]  Sorry, CEOs.
[00:33:52]  If you're just going to say Congress and not specifically say who in Congress is responsible for it, you're not going to get what you want.
[00:34:00]  And you're just giving the people who are responsible a pass.
[00:34:03]  You need to say the Democrats in Congress.
[00:34:06]  Oh, I know that's going to make it hard for you at your cocktail party.
[00:34:09]  And your husband or your wife is going to be angry at you for not being, you know, pro-Democrat.

=== Lottery Scams and Airline CEO Blame (03:51) ===

[00:34:14]  But hey, what's what, you know, you're not going to have a nice cocktail party for much longer if your airlines have this kind of a problem.
[00:34:20]  You have to call out the Democrats.
[00:34:21]  This is an objective fact.
[00:34:22]  And this is not an opinion.
[00:34:24]  It is just the Democrats who are responsible for this shutdown of the TSA.
[00:34:29]  This is not a debatable fact.
[00:34:31]  And if you're just going to say Congress, that's not saying people need to do something.
[00:34:35]  No, the Democrats need to stop voting to continue to shut this shutdown.
[00:34:39]  That's it.
[00:34:40]  So the CEOs can go pound sand.
[00:34:42]  I have no, absolutely no sympathy for you.
[00:34:44]  And if I were a shareholder of one of these airlines or one of the employees of one of these airlines, I would repeat what I just said to the boss.
[00:34:52]  Now, I'm not a prude.
[00:34:54]  I understand people are going to gamble.
[00:34:55]  I have no problem with that, really.
[00:34:57]  I really don't.
[00:34:58]  I promise I'm not, you know, that kind of a guy.
[00:35:01]  But I'm telling you right now, do not play your state lotteries.
[00:35:04]  Do not play your national lotteries.
[00:35:06]  They are rigged.
[00:35:08]  And here's how they're getting rigged right now because I knew this was going to happen and it happened in Texas in 2023.
[00:35:14]  A huge jackpot in Texas was basically stolen by a bunch of investors who had enough money to put up to print every single possible ticket combination.
[00:35:24]  Now, this has always been possible theoretically.
[00:35:27]  There's still a finite amount of numbers that you can possibly put on a ticket.
[00:35:31]  So what was stopping people from doing this in the past?
[00:35:34]  The answer is technology.
[00:35:36]  All those orders couldn't be processed in time.
[00:35:39]  And there weren't enough machines to actually print out all those tickets.
[00:35:43]  Because of those online ticket-selling apps where you can buy lottery tickets even from out of state, you can now make massive orders for massive numbers of tickets at once.
[00:35:55]  And in the case of what happened in Texas in 2023, we only found out about this last year, the state Texas Lottery Commission, according to someone known as the Joker, they call him the Joker because he's an Australian gambler who has a difficult name to pronounce.
[00:36:07]  I'm going to give it a shot.
[00:36:08]  Zelkyo Ranogajech.
[00:36:11]  And he is an Australian gambler, investor, whatever you want to call him.
[00:36:15]  And he gave an exclusive interview to a Dallas magazine just today explaining how the whole scam worked.
[00:36:21]  I explained most of it to you.
[00:36:23]  They were able to use online ticket buying apps to order a massive number of tickets at once, which is something you couldn't do before those online apps began.
[00:36:32]  Then they were able to buy up a bunch of convenience stores, fill them up with lottery printing machines.
[00:36:36]  And according to the Joker guy, the state lottery fully cooperated by providing those machines with all the extra paper they needed.
[00:36:44]  There's a special paper you have to print out these tickets on.
[00:36:46]  It can't just be on regular paper.
[00:36:48]  And the state lottery commission apparently showed up with reams of paper more than once during the whole process.
[00:36:53]  And they won the lottery and they got a $20 million profit, even though they spent so much money on that operation.
[00:36:59]  Now, if you believe in the simulation, you're going to love this name.
[00:37:02]  The executive director of the Texas Lottery at the time, his name was Gary Grief.
[00:37:07]  I kid you not.
[00:37:08]  Not good Grief, Gary Grief, G-R-I-E-F.
[00:37:12]  And when this story came to light about a year ago, he went missing.
[00:37:16]  He's still missing.
[00:37:18]  Nobody knows where he is.
[00:37:20]  The state of Texas has dissolved, dissolved its lottery commission ever since.
[00:37:25]  They still have lottery drawings, though.
[00:37:27]  Governor Abbott has ordered the Texas Rangers and a number of other groups within the state to investigate this thing.
[00:37:32]  No findings yet, folks, but I'll give you, I just gave you the findings.
[00:37:36]  Some out-of-state, international people with a ton of money and probably paid off Texas Lottery Commission people were able to pull off this scam.
[00:37:46]  And if you think it's only Texas doing this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you and maybe a bridge in Texas to sell you to.
[00:37:53]  Folks, these games are rigged.
[00:37:56]  Don't play them.
[00:37:57]  You're much better off on a sports betting app or maybe investing in the market.
[00:38:02]  I'm Jake Novak.
[00:38:02]  I was in for Roger Stone this evening.
[00:38:04]  Have a really great evening.