Roger Stone joins The Paul Leslie Hour!
Join us for an in-depth conversation with Roger Stone, a prominent political insider known for his distinctive style and controversial views. In this episode, Stone discusses his experiences with the Russian collusion investigation, his thoughts on fashion and politics, and his unwavering commitment to freedom and liberty. Discover insights from his book Stone’s Rules and learn about his new menswear line. Whether you’re interested in politics, style, or personal resilience, this episode offers a unique perspective from one of the most talked-about figures in modern politics.
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Roger J. Stone Official Interview Transcript
Well ladies and gentlemen, it is our great pleasure to welcome Roger Stone. Breitbart.com says, Stone is one of the best known and best dressed political insiders. Meanwhile, MSN.com says Stone is possibly the most dangerous man in politics. So let me ask you Mr. Stone, which one do you identify with more?
Look, I, you know, that’s a comment from the radical left. I’m a warrior for the things I believe in. I was put through hell by the phony Russian collusion hoax, which we now know based on the declassification of documents by Tulsi Gabbard, was a fraud to begin with.
I was put through a Soviet-style show trial where the judge withheld exculpatory evidence from my defense attorneys, essentially railroaded, because I was being pressured to testify falsely against President Trump, which I refused to do. As you know, I ultimately got a full and unconditional presidential pardon. And rather than just disappear into the woodwork and retire, I return to the ramparts to fight for freedom and liberty yet again.
Fashion philosophy
The part about being well dressed, I certainly have a distinctive way of dressing. I have very strong thoughts about how a well-dressed gentleman should dress. I think the way you present yourself to the world, whether you’re in politics or business or media or entertainment or tech, doesn’t really matter.
People make judgments on your appearance, therefore you want to look as good as you can. So I wrote a book called Stone’s Rules, which includes not just rules for politics and rules for food and other things that are more culturally oriented, but a lot of my thinking about what it takes to be well-dressed.
The most important thing, of course, is that a gentleman should always be dressed appropriately for the activity that you’re about to engage in. You wouldn’t wear a suit to a bowling alley, but you shouldn’t wear athletic clothes to a shopping mall, for example.
Very well stated and just as a quick plug I do recommend this book very much. You can read a book review of it on Write Revolution News that I wrote and you know it’s interesting to me you have a very distinct style. I remember one video that you were in and there was a commenter and this guy whoever he was he said I don’t like Stone but I’ll have to admit his clothes are cool here.
Well, look, I like there’s a particular style. You know, my manner of dressing is very much affected by traditional British Savile Row tailoring, but also a heavy American traditional Ivy League style.
Very specifically, one of the most legendary tailors on Savile Row, Anderson and Shepard, produced a suit with a very soft shoulder, a very full drape in the chest and back, very full cut trousers that are suspended by braces, what Americans call suspenders.
It’s not for everyone, but it worked for Gary Cooper, it worked for Fred Astaire, it worked for Clark Gable, it worked for Cary Grant, it worked for Edward VIII. It worked for Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones and so on. It’s a very distinctive style that I think makes any gentleman look good.
Roger Stone collection
So as you know, I’ve very recently teamed up with a company called Tailor on Tap and we’ve produced the Roger Stone collection, which is a limited edition. I think we have two blazers, three or four suits, a number of dress shirts similar to the one that I’m wearing.
Ultimately we’ll add pocket squares, some tasty neckwear, and so on. Some people say, it’s very expensive. Just remember one of Stone’s other rules. Cheap things are not good. Good things are not cheap.
So if you buy an article of clothing, a suit, a blazer, whatever it may be, and you take good care of it, and it is custom made to leave a substantial amount of fabric in the seams. So as you get older, it can be let out or if you lose weight, it could be taken in.
If you take care of it, it will last you a lifetime as opposed to the garment you go buy in a department store, say a men’s jacket, which isn’t even sewn together, it’s glued together and is designed to be obsolete after you wear it four or five times. So in the end, I think buying custom is actually a cost saver.
And of course there are options. There are many options in terms of ticket pocket, no ticket pocket, and so on. So I just urge people to check it out on their own.
Well, there’s a number of really eye-catching items. One that caught my eye was the raconteur, which is a jacket. Is there a particular item that you are especially proud of?
Well, I think that the basis, really the fundamental for any young man’s wardrobe is the traditional navy blue blazer. We offer it in two versions, a single version, which is not two buttons, but three buttons where you button the middle button, you roll, you leave the top button unbuttoned. That’s called three rolled to two.
Most people don’t know this, but all single-breasted jackets in the United States had three buttons originally. And then when John F. Kennedy was living in London, when his father, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, was the ambassador to the UK under Franklin Roosevelt, he went to one of the Savile Row tailors, Jack Kennedy, and he had what was really the first gentleman’s two-button single-breasted jacket made.
And of course today, almost all gentleman’s jackets, whether it’s a suit jacket or a blazer or a sports coat, are two buttons. That’s because of an innovation by John F. Kennedy. So I recommend that, a navy blue blazer, as a fundamental piece for any young man starting out.
Here’s why. With, you know, gray flannel trousers and a suit and a shirt and tie can be dressed up. With jeans and a t-shirt it can be dressed down. With an open collar shirt and khakis it can be somewhere in the middle. But it’s appropriate for all those things. With a dark tie you could even get away with wearing it for business, although I don’t recommend it.
Personal style influences
So Roger Stone, earlier you were mentioning all these famously well-dressed individuals throughout history. I’m curious about your personal influence. Would you say that there is somebody that you have always thought and maybe even somewhat copied?
You know, used to, when I was much younger, I used to like to stay up late and watch the black and white movies on TV. These are days with the days before cable. And TV Guide would be mailed to your house. My parents got it and therefore you could look at the schedule of movies in advance.
So I looked at the films of Ronald Reagan, of Errol Flynn, of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Sr. of Cary Grant, particularly. Particularly well turned out. Those are all influences, I guess, if there are any. I don’t copy any one person’s style. I kind of, I have my own style.
And of course, I don’t expect everyone to dress like me, nor do I advocate that. What I’m saying is you need to effectuate your own style. The other thing that’s interesting, of course, is that people say to me, I’d love to, but I can’t afford it. It all looks very expensive.
I’ve written a long piece about this at stonezone.com because you can go online to websites like Etsy.com or there’s a second one that I like, hold on, I’ll tell you the name of it in a second, poshmark.com. And with some careful shopping, you can buy either gently used or never used clothing, designer clothing, quality clothing, Brooks Brothers, for example, many others, at very reasonable prices.
So I’ve always augmented my wardrobe with things that I found online at a fraction of their original cost, whether it’s a pair of classic Gucci loafers, the horse bit loafers, which are a couple thousand dollars, maybe more today, probably $3,000, but they can be found for a couple hundred bucks if you shop carefully. So I recommend that as well.
Advice on casual wear
Now, one of the things you talk about in the Stone’s Rules book here is, and I thought this is absolutely spot on, you said, if you’re not an athlete, do not wear a jersey. So what do you say, Mr. Stone, to that guy who maybe read that and thought, well, that sounds like me, I do that. That person who thinks that they are just helpless when it comes to fashion, what would you say to that young man?
Look, I admit to you that may be a little harsh. If you’re going to a tailgate party to watch a football game and you’re cheering on one specific team and you feel like you want to wear a jersey, fine. Don’t wear it to a five-star restaurant. Don’t wear it to church. Don’t wear it on dressier occasions.
But look, even I’ve loosened up my rules over time. There’s a time when I would never wear a cowboy hat, or I thought they should only be worn west of the Mississippi today. A good looking cowboy hat in the right place can be all right. I used to say cowboy hats are like hemorrhoids. Eventually every asshole gets one, but I don’t feel that way anymore.
Marriage advice
Well, you know, congratulations are in order. I saw on X, which I recommend everybody if you’re not following, it’s at Roger J Stone Jr. 36 years of marriage, you and Mrs. Stone. So congratulations. There’s so much advice that people give, relationship advice, marital advice. What is your takeaway after 36 years?
It’s really pretty simple. Mean, look, my wife is a Cuban American, so she has known firsthand the horrors and the brutality of communism. Her family lost everything in Cuba.
It is absolutely true that through everything I went through, she’s been my rock. She was always the one there. They were pressuring me to testify against Trump and saying, we’ll make all your problems disappear. All you’ve got to do is lie. All you’ve got to do is say, you know, sign this, say this.
I never really thought about it, but she before I could even speak, she would say out of the question. And there were times when I was pretty angry, pretty frustrated, pretty fatalistic. She was the one who really was my major cheerleader.
As you may know, almost immediately after my pardon, she was diagnosed with very aggressive stage four cancer, which I’m convinced is brought on by the stress of being hunted by relentless federal government with unlimited financial and legal power for two and a half years.
Remember that in this trial we lost our home, we lost our savings, we lost our insurance, we lost our ability to make a living because I was unconstitutionally gagged, not able to defend myself or talk about any topic in public. It is a horrific thing to go through.
My good friend General Flynn’s been through it. President was subjected to the same type of tactics. Could never have survived that without my wife’s support and love. And one piece of my advice is every couple fights, people fight, don’t ever go to bed angry. That’s one piece of advice. Always make up before you go to bed, before you go to sleep.
Viewer’s question on the Clintons
Very sound advice. Well, this is a viewer question. I’m going to see if you can hear this. Okay, here we go.
I should say that if you’re interested in the collection, you find it at shop.tailorontap.com. Shop.tailorontap.com. My partner will kill me if I didn’t say that, so.
Yeah, and we’ll definitely include the link there. It looks like it’s having trouble playing, so I’ll just read the question. ROBERT McCREADY’s Question: If Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton were hanging off of a cliff, what kind of sandwich would you make?
Look, I wrote a book on the Clintons in 2015. It’s a very revelatory book. It was extremely critical. I think it covers all of the Clinton many decade crime spree.
I suspect that since every single one of the prosecutors in my case had previously worked for Hillary Clinton, I think that that book probably got me charged. Of course, the judge refused to accept that that showed bias on the part of the government.
Just as she said, it was not a problem for people who’d served in the Obama or the Clinton Justice Department or the FBI to be on my jury. Of course, there were no Republicans on my jury. There were no evangelical Christians. There were no Roman Catholics.
There were a couple of lesbians, there were a bunch of— beyond that, there were veterans of the swamp, all of them Democrats, and most of them haters. Because no Republican, no conservative, no free thinker, certainly no supporter of Donald Trump, could get a fair trial in the District of Columbia, both in terms of the outrageous bias of the judges, but also the jury pool, which is made up of overwhelmingly leftists and Democrats.
Radio show and guests
I also want to call to the attention of the viewers and listeners out there, your excellent broadcasts on WABC radio. You don’t have to be in New York City, you can of course listen anywhere, but you’ve had a number of compelling guests through the years, from my friend Robert Davi and you know, up and down the line. Is there someone that you have wanted to welcome on the show that you haven’t yet?
That’s an excellent question. I found out that I have a face for radio. And I’m on every weekday at 8 p.m. Eastern. You go to wabcradio.com if you don’t live in the greater New York area. You can hear the show live at wabcradio.com.
And then I’m on Sundays for two hours from 3 to 5. That’s the Roger Stone Show. So during the week our show is The Stone Zone, 8 p.m. at wabcradio.com. On Sundays it’s The Roger Stone Show for two hours from 3 to 5 p.m. once again at wabcradio.com.
What I found in terms of doing a good radio show is it takes about at least an hour and a half of preparation for every hour that you’re actually on the air, meaning you have to read everything, whether you have a guest or whether you don’t have a guest, it is very labor intensive.
The good news is, of course, that you could be doing the show in your underwear and nobody would know. Or you have to worry about whether you shaved or not or whether you’re having a bad hair day and so on. So there is that advantage.
You ask a very good question. I’ve been very blessed. The president’s been on my show. The vice president’s been on my show. Tulsi Gabbard, whom I very greatly admire and respect, has been on my show.
At this point, given everything happening in this hemisphere, Venezuela, Honduras, Cuba, I would really like to have Marco Rubio on the show. I think he would be a great guest. There is someone whose politics I didn’t agree with 10 years ago, but who I think has emerged as one of the most effective members of the Trump cabinet.
So he’s either had a substantial change of heart because he used to be an unabashed neocon, yet today he’s helping implement President Trump’s vision for peace and trying to avoid endless foreign wars. So I like to ask him about his evolution. I think his opposition to communism in this hemisphere is something I really admire. So there’s something I’d like to have on the show.
Documentary insights
No doubt a lot of people out there are familiar with the documentary, Get Me Roger Stone. I’m curious from you, was there one part of that that you thought was particularly unfair or something that you think maybe led to a misconception about you?
It’s generally speaking not a bad film. I mean the guys who made it were trying to screw me, but I think they failed. It’s entertaining. There is a claim in there that’s just simply untrue.
It came from a guy named Wayne Barrett who was a leftist at the Village Voice and a pretty intellectually dishonest guy. But he claims that Donald Trump and I purposely destroyed the Reform Party of Ross Perot on behalf of the Bushes.
Now anyone who’s read my book, The Bush Crime Family, knows that I was opposed to George H.W. Bush being on the ticket with Reagan in 1980. I was not for the candidacy of George W. Bush early when he ran for president.
I’ve always been a critic of the Bushes because they are neocons and I’m a Rand Paul, or actually a Ron Paul Republican in terms of my foreign policy outlook. So it was a false claim, but Barrett said a lot of things about me that weren’t true.
Other than that, the movie is pretty entertaining. I think people who don’t know it will find it interesting. It does point out that I was probably the first or maybe the second person in the country to suggest that Donald Trump should be a serious candidate for president.
All the way back in 1988, I recognized that Trump had the courage and the stamina and the size and the independence and the audacity and the courage to challenge the political establishment that he was not tied to the problems of the past, that he was not a neocon.
And ultimately, of course, I tried to get him to run again. First, tried to get him to run in 1988. Then I tried to get him to run in 2000. I tried to get him to run in 2012. And ultimately, of course, he did run in 2016 and then made the greatest single comeback in American political history in 2024.
Trump and future predictions
I am kind of amused by the Panickers who are tearing their hair out saying the Republicans will surely lose the midterm election. We don’t know that yet. I heard this before though, 1982 Reagan had enacted deep tax cuts and deep regulatory cuts.
They had not yet fully impacted the economy by the end of Reagan’s term by 19 late 1983 and 1984. The economy was the strongest it had ever been up until that point. I believe it’s the same here with Trump that that that his tax cuts, his regulatory cuts, his tariff policies, they will lead to an economic golden age.
We needed a deeper interest rate cut from the Fed, but the Fed is dominated by liberal Democrats who care more about politics than the affordability of housing. We will get a rate cut, deeper rate cut in April when we get a new Fed chairman.
Food prices have come down, but not low enough, not as low as they were in the last year of Trump’s first term. Gas prices have come down, but not low enough, not as low as they were at the end of Trump’s first term. Housing is still not affordable.
You can thank the Fed for that more than anyone else. But I think by the end of Trump’s term, all those things will change. I think you’ll begin to see an upturn before the 2026 election, a greater upturn than we’ve already seen. And I concede nothing at this point.
All politics is local. The imagery of the National Democrat Party has gone very, very, very far off the deep end where AOC, and Jasmine Crockett and Zoran Mamdami and that old windbag Bernie Sanders when that’s the face of your party you’re not offering the American people much of an alternative.
Potential Democratic candidates
Do you see anybody from their crowd that is viable or halfway decent who could be a possible president?
Well, I see somebody who could be a possible presidential candidate. I don’t think Gavin Newsom just in terms of his oratorical skills. His skills as a bullshitter, his full head of hair. You know, he’s very glib.
All of these problems in California, the homelessness, the high taxes, the environmental problems, the crime. None of that’s his fault, of course. He’s only been governor. So I think he’s potentially a decent candidate.
He’d be a horrific president because we have to assume he would do for America what he’s done for California. But he’s probably their strongest candidate. J.B. Pritzker. This guy’s so fat, he’s got his own zip code.
I mean, and I think that I just don’t understand what constituency he’s chasing when he works with the mayor of Chicago so that the Chicago police do not back up ICE agents who are performing their duties. And therefore I think both Pritzker and the mayor Brandon Johnson, who’s if his IQ was one point lower, you’d have to water him like a plant.
They could end up with personal liability for an ICE agent who was injured while the Chicago police stood by and watched. I’m not sure what constituency they think they are chasing. I guess they want criminals to vote for them. I don’t know. I really can’t figure it out.
Being Roger Stone
It occurs to me you have had some very interesting experiences in life from your interactions and working with world leaders, writing many very compelling books, now this menswear line, having a documentary film. I mean, I could keep on going. What is the best thing about being Roger Stone?
Well, you get the good with the bad. I mean, I can always get a table. That’s kind of nice. But you never know when you’re going to run into some leftist who’s violent towards you or your family. The death threats just keep rolling in even today.
I guess I’m very proud of the book I wrote about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It’s The Man Who Killed Kennedy, the Case Against LBJ, which I make a comprehensive case that there was a cabal that included Johnson, but also the Central Intelligence Agency, Organized Crime, Big Texas Oil, certain banking interests and others to kill John F. Kennedy.
That book, I took that book to I guess six publishers, they all told me it had no commercial appeal, it would never do well. It almost immediately became a New York Times bestseller. It still stands up very, very well today.
If you buy it, get the paperback edition, because it has three additional chapters. You can get all my books at stonezone.com and they’ll be signed. Or you can go to Amazon or some multinational corporation that hates your guts and buy it there if you like.
Parting words
StoneZone.com Well Mr. Stone, you are as compelling on camera, on the radio airwaves, in print, however you can get Roger Stone. Thank you so much for spending time with me and my viewers and listeners. Any parting words for them as we close here?
Yes, I am reminded of my mentor Richard Nixon, who’s having a little bit of a revival in terms of people re-examining his presidency. Also, many have figured out that Watergate was a setup.
We now have declassified government documents that show the CIA knew well in advance about the Watergate break-in, and they infiltrated the burglar team with four active CIA operatives. But he, I believe, was the one who said, the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but when you take some knocks, you suffer some defeats, some setbacks.
When sadness comes, because only until you have been in the deepest valley can you appreciate the majesty of the highest mountaintop. But he also said, a man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s only finished when he quits. And I assure you, Paul, I have no intention of ever quitting in the fight for liberty and freedom.
Well spoken. Mr. Stone, thank you so much.
Great to be with you, many thanks.
God bless you.
