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>> joining us from new york on iswsmakers" c-span program roger stone long term republican strategist. thank you very much for being with us. >> great to be here. us for the questioning is michael isikoff reporter andgative tom tobianco who covers politics andwashington d.c. mr. stone let me begin with the issue of robert mueller. that he isect preparing charges against the president? inquiry ise that his politically motivated. i think that we've seen in thedinary evidence last couple of weeks that tweets records the contributions to democrats that is a partisanhis

head squad. i think this is a political proceeding rather than a legal proceeding. i have said that i believe that lawyers aret's mr. mueller's intentions. i think they misunderstand the politicaly that the establishment both party have for the president. on their resolve to remove any pretext. to me a strategy of turning over of thousands of documents waving executive relying on the is foolishler strategy. i think that we have to see what of general flynn's plea deal. general flynn said that a senior of the president's transition team directed him to contact the russian ambassador to set up a meeting.

onerfectly legal, action general flynn's part. ishaps, mr. mueller preparing an indictment of others. to me that ifng mr. mueller should proceed, any of the president or his associates to me it appears process be some kind of related indictment, perjury, obstruction. not relating specifically to collusion with the russians to affect the outcome of the election. >> do you think there's anything in the president's tax return that can lead to charges? not.do i have long thought that the president isn't putting his tax the totalt because income would be extraordinary perhaps not of us, as large as some people might. back to the campaign i

have long thought that the should put his tax returns out. deductionsitimate for losses on a large scale. tax code if you don't like the tack code you can tax code. president has taken advantage of perfectly legitimate tax laws in that area. anyn't think there's business relationship with russian entities or anything of that type. to michaelurn isikoff. >> just to follow up on the issue. you just wrote in the daily advice to the president is he must completely disempower and dismantle the mueller's fraudulent rogue prosecution gang. to be clear, have you spoken to the president about this and specifically told him

?e should fire mueller >> i don't believe that he should fire mueller. i would not have told him that. haven't told him that. the president should ignore the incorrect attorneys who appear to have told him that he doesn't have the authority to directives to the attorney general of the united states. the department of justice is extension of the executive branch. president should order the attorney general, mr. sessions, to appoint a special counselor ran --matter of union uranium one. that would put mr. mueller, and rosenstein under immediate investigation. >> before we get to uranium one. wrote he should completely

dismantled now you're saying she shouldn't fire him. completely dismantle --d >> by the appointment special uranium one, my article goes on with that scandal. it would be impossible for mueller to proceed. therefore, he would be check mated and therefore would have effect. >> have you given this advice to president? the >> i have not. theom tobianco of associated press >> thanks for doing this. these to follow up on opening questions. it sound like you're saying, do that to the question of whether there will be some separate charges against the president. for whatever the reason, political, legal, justified, you, it does seem like

your answer is yes. correct? >> that is my concern. that is what i fear. be a trumpedwould process charge and given the confidence public and exposures about the partisan nature of this inquiry in the last couple of weeks, whether mr. mueller could sustain that in the court of public opinion remains to be seen. as you know, has been told by his lawyers that he exoneratingetter him on matters pertaining to russian collusion. was by thanksgiving and then christmas and then first of the year. read they're saying february. i think it under estimates the partisan nature of this inquiry. think be clear, i don't of the president has committed any crime. i think this is a political proceeding.

first step of a potential based the deep resentment and is an that had president outsider. on that couldin coo part. you're working on a book about this. the 25th amendment and potential for removal of the president that's correct? i may be. interestingly enough, i was entitled thebook downfall of donald trump. i never said that. i never used those words to their credit, they made a correction. president is taken down, ither by mr. mueller in what would consider to be a rogue trumpedr some kind of up 25th amendment move, you scarborough and senator

othersand don lemon and increasingly saying he's crazy, he's insane, he's mentally unbalanced. that's nonsense. person i known for 40 years. he sharp in attack. own unique style. b for theat as plan establishment. this is a book i hope that i do not have to write. fact, my next book which i publisherrn into my is "stone's rules" which has nothing to do with this subject. but more a book of things that i -- it's a book i don't have to write. if i did write it, i would title it "unmaking of the president." concerns.d on my there was some confusion about

i'm not --but again, i'm predicting that this could happen. don't have i hope i to write. >> have you been questioned or by mueller's team? >> i have not. >> they have not reached out to at all? >> no. .hey have not we talked about this, i never had any contact with any russians or those fronting for the russians. as i understand it, their charge is looking into collusion by the russians in the election. other question that they may wikileaks orng to any other matter, they can read my extensive under oath before the house intelligence committee which i think i addressed all those extensively. >> one issue that you didn't theess in your testimony to was that waso it

your intermediary with julian assange when you began tweeting over the summer that wikileaks will be releasing damaging e-mails about john podesta and clinton. that individual has identified credito a new york comic. was he in fact, the person you were talking to who was giving you a heads up on what julian assange was going to be releasing? >> well, that's a his role.erization of i feared professional reprisal him should his name be known. terminated from his position from wbai.

his role is very narrow. it.ll be familiar with he is a confirming source on july 21st, assange said he had extensive materials on hillary clinton and he would publish them. that, i included in my own column and in broadcast for wars. i wanted a confirmation. he confirmed it. he didn't tell me the source of mr. assange's or topic of content the information. wikileaks hadhat explosive information on hillary would publishthey and they did. >> how many conversations -- >> he's a journalist. i believe assange is a journalist. improper.e anything >> how many conversations did

with credito with julian assange's intentions to releasing hillary clinton e-mails. >> i had the conversation multiple time. he told me in late august that this would happen. he told me through september it would happen through the it ining of october when fact, the material was published. yourt me follow up on earlier point about the campaign against robert mueller and what we're seeing from the left. talked about joe scarborough. news by seanerted discredit robert mueller before he comes to conclusion? stone: thanks to the good work of judicial watch, thanks to infowars and crusading journalists like sean hannity and tucker carlson and judge jeanine and others, we have learned an extraordinary amount of things. it seems that the justice

department was so arrogant that it betrayed its deep animus and hatred for donald trump in official emails and tweets and other records, i guess assuming hillary clinton would be elected. all they have done is report the news, and it has supplied something of a battle because other outlets have ignored these significant findings. host: i want to follow up on that. when we were covering the campaign, i feel like we never heard about that. the "clinton cash" book came out and made a big splash, but then it just disappeared. what is behind the timing on it, and why did we not have congressional hearings? why did we not see trey gowdy

outfront when it would've mattered, when it would have had a bigger impact? stone: i do not think anybody has yet connected the dots. i don't think they knew that the clinton foundation had taken $145 million from a company that was acquiring these mining rights. i'm not sure we understood the connection between the $500,000 fee that president clinton took from russian interests connected to this transaction. i am not sure we in understood the entire scope of it. we certainly did not understand the role of mr. mueller, mr. comey, mr. mccabe, and mr. rosenstein at the time. now we do, which is why i laid this out in the long piece for infowars, and why i have reported on it for the last week. i think you have real evidence,

unlike the collusion investigation, of what could be the largest financial crime in history. >> just following up on the uranium one story, it is complicated. but as i understand it, part of what is new here is the focus on the investigation of bribery and corruption by an employee in the united states. the theory of your case is that mueller news that and should have alerted senior people in the justice department and the obama administration about it so that they could have pulled the plug on the uranium one deal, because it was being done by corrupt people in the russian government. the guy in charge of that case was ron rosenstein.

the man who donald trump selected as the deputy attorney general, the number two man in his justice department. do you have evidence that rod concealing information in order to promote a cover-up of a russian takeover of uranium in the united states? stone: i think this was bumped to him by mr. mueller. i view the payments to the clinton foundation as bribes, as well. they should certainly be seen in that context. so i think it is somewhat ironic that this ended up on mr. rosenstein's desk. i too scratch my head about the appointment of rosenstein. my understanding that he was recommended for this job by elijah cummings, the democrat

congressman from baltimore, and pushed for the job by then-white house chief of staff reince priebus. this is an example of the president appointing establishment republicans who did not vote for him, and do not have his back. i fear the extent to which he has surrounded himself with people who did not support him and are not loyal to him. i am a loyal supporter of the president, and i am concerned about some of the people he has, perhaps inadvertently, put around him. >> you said you do not believe he should fire mueller. should he fire rosenstein? stone: the reason i believe he should not fire mueller is because i think the democrats realize that they have lost the upper hand in this particular struggle, and therefore i think they are trying to go him into this.

congresswoman spier saying that there are rumors that the president will firing mueller. the only rumors are the ones you are starting, congresswoman. they believed if the president fired mr. mueller on, say, new year's eve or christmas day, that they would have the obvious analogies to the saturday night massacre and therefore the momentum and public relations argument would flow back to them. the argument would be that trump fired mueller to cover up or stop his investigation into the misdeeds by the president, rather than mueller being fired for his obvious bias and lack of objectivity. the same thing can be achieved without giving the left that opening. >> the question was whether or not you thought he should fire rosenstein? stone: i am going to punt on that, not presuppose, but

normally speaking, special counsel's are appointed when there is an identified crime for some reason why there is a conflict of interest. recall that mr. mueller was appointed by mr. rosenstein rather than the attorney general. rosenstein's lack of tandoor -- lack of candor was extraordinary. when asked if he could see the obvious bias of partisanship in mr. mueller, he said he did not see it. the guy has all of the visual acuity of stevie wonder. >> let me go back to the 25th amendment here. do you have any evidence that anyone is actively plotting, attempting or laying the groundwork right now inside of the cabinet -- inside of the administration -- to make that removal? that would obviously be the mechanism for that to happen.

not the senate, not political pundits, inside of his own white house. stone: like you, i have sources and i work those sources. yes, i believe there are some who have had this discussion. this is both outside of the cabinet and in. i think it is the fallback plan for the establishment, and that is why i am sounding the call. you will see an enormous uptick in these irresponsible stories, smearing the president, non--- not up to the job, and so on. i am being realistic about what i believe is the resolve of many in the political establishment to get rid of the president under any means necessary. >> but who are we talking about? the defense secretary?

the vice president? stone: like you, tom, i cannot reveal those sources. i am not prepared to do so. >> i'm sorry. i'm not asking you to reveal your sources. who are your sources? -- rather, what are they telling you? stone: there are members of the cabinet who have had this discussion. >> michael isikoff. michael: can you tell us what cabinet members you are talking about? stone: not at this time. i will probably reported fully, but i do think that there is a plan of foot that is broader than just the cabinet. now, the 25th amendment requires a majority of the cabinet and the vice president. i do not think that is achievable today, not on the heels of this historic tax cut. not on the disintegration of the credibility of the mueller

investigation. but, we have seen what happens when hysteria is whipped up among the people by some in the mainstream media, and i always thought this was planned the two-party duopoly that has run this country into the ground. it deeply resents the election of donald trump. >> on the russian investigation itself, you referred to the fact that we learned a lot about mueller's team and their partisan biases since he was appointed. but we have also learned a lot about the trump campaign's contacts with a lot of operatives and russian representatives that we did not know one year ago when donald trump took office. we learned about the trump tower meeting, in which the top

officials of the trump campaign were offered -- were told, rather -- that they would be given to rogatory information about hillary clinton. we learned about george papadopoulos, who actually met russians offering dirt on hillary clinton in the form of thousands of emails. we learned about jeff sessions's meetings with russian ambassador. we learned about michael flynn's contacts. would it not of been better for the president and his top people to have disclosed all of this from the very beginning, instead of having had this drip out over time and fuel an investigation that has cast a cloud over his presidency? stone: first of all, i think all of those things you said turn out to be innocuous. none of it constitutes collusion, meaning working with the russians to affect the

outcome of the election. secondarily, we do not know that his lawyers have not disclosed these things. we are not privy to what they haven't -- >> let me be -- stone: papadopoulos, to call him a foreign-policy advisor is grandiose. he was a volunteer on a 100 member advisory board. he had no authority, and nobody approved. >> then-candidate trump identified him as a member of his foreign policy team when asked to his members were. stone: reading off of a press release, yes. which was a photoshop to demonstrate that there was a foreign-policy apparatus. >> my question was whether or not you think it adds up to anything. it certainly has fed the story.

as a political matter, would it not have been better for the president to have gotten all of this out right from the get-go, rather than have this drag out over time? stone: i do not think so, because even the most innocent and innocuous contacts are hyped up by the president's opponents be more than they are. senator sessions, now attorney general sessions, was a member of the foreign relations committee. his contact with the russian and as he is neither illegal nor improper, and nothing they discussed to our knowledge constitutes coordination or collusion or conspiracy regarding the election. so look, these contexts get hyped up to be more than they are. again, no evidence of a crime. no evidence of russian collusion to affect the outcome of the

election. >> is the president well served by secretary of state tillerson? stone: the president's a non-interventionist, and i think tillerson tends to be more of a neocon. therefore, i am disappointed that we are continuing to be a presence in afghanistan. the president said during the campaign that he would wind that down. we appear to be increasing the levels. but let's be clear, the foreign-policy of this administration, at least at this point still driven by the president, understands that we do not need to march off to more foreign wars. i have predicted for infowars that secretary tillerson will be gone by year's end.

>> thank you for having us. we continue the conversation with michael isikoff. what are you hearing? michael: it is not going to wrap up anytime soon. if for no other reason, we have two outstanding indictments. paul manafort and rick gates, and they are going to trial. trials take a long time to be gear it up and take place. mueller is certainly not going to wrap up until he -- until there is a resolution of the mueller-gates matter. we do not know what michael flynn is telling the special counsel. we do not know what george papadopoulos is telling the special counsel.

all of those are wildcards that the trump lawyers cannot possibly know the answer to at this point. so i think any hope i might have that there is going to be a rapid wrapup of mueller's fanciful, at this point. >> rogers involvement with the president, what is it d think? michael: i found it interesting that he said mueller steam has not counted him, because of course his tweets suggest for knowledge of what julian assange was going to do. it has been one of the democratic talking points of possible collusion, if that were the case one would have expected that stone would have been questioned already. if we taken at his word, anyway. but i think it was interesting today that he is now confirmed

publicly for the first time that randy credico was the intermediary giving the heads up on what julian assange was going to do. >> tom, and pence's political future in the white house is the gop prepares for midterms, what is -- >> the book itself will be a political biography of the vice president. he will go all the way back to his days as a child in columbus, indiana. his first two runs for congress in 1988 and 1990. his career as a talk show host, running all the way up through his successful congressional career and all the way to the white house. in terms of where he is in the white house, what i hear is that

he is a loyal soldier. i have not picked up on anything as of yet as far as an effort to push out trump or fight him in any way. there was a big turn as we all saw over the summer, the great reporting from "the new york times" about fundraisers being held and donors showing up. >> that sparked a turnabout in terms of the public support for the vice president, or the president. it is an interesting relationship, obviously. perhaps he is more supportive of the president then you made to be with other presidents in public. coming into 2018, there is a big question out there. whenever i am over in the house,

i am asking about two things. i asked about russia, and i ask about vice president pence. these two things are essentially interconnected. if something were to happen, if there is an indictment or a big wave that comes through, if there is an impeachment, then we have a president pence. >> i would like to point out the 25th amendment. i talked to scholars of the amendment who point out that it cannot be invoked under any circumstances without the participation of vice president pence. in order for that to be the route by which president trump is removed from office, it would require vice president pence to push the button. >> the political peril of all of this is incredible. i feel like we are at the end of 2017, and we have this pounding headache from one year ago. we got 2016 would be the end of

the political insanity. it only ramped up. >> it only started. >> happy new year. gentlemen, thank you both for being with us on "newsmakers." thank you for being with us. >> republican senator jeff flake who announced he won't seek reelection was asked about the state of the republican party influence of steve bannon. is to pushng we need ultranationalist theectionist element of party. that's not good for us. >> what is the risk if the party in that direction? the bannon direction the trump direction.