Roger Stone on Why He’ll “Do Anything Necessary” to Win

Roger Stone is a political consultant and strategist known for his work with Republican figures like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump. He was convicted in 2019 for charges related to the Mueller investigation and was later granted clemency by Trump in 2020.

This interview was edited for clarity.

Ari: I moved to New York about a year ago, and I realize people actually dress better in Manhattan. There is a lot of pressure to dress more thoughtfully. Now I see your suit. What advice would you give to young people who don’t take dressing well seriously?

Roger: First of all, how you dress is how you present yourself to the world. So, you need to dress for success. I would not hire somebody for a job interview who was dressed like a slob, had scuffed shoes, dirty fingernails, or whose clothes didn’t seem fresh.

Now, not everybody should look like me. I'm not suggesting that. Everybody should develop their own personal style. But I think one of the misnomers is that people think you have to be wealthy or spend a lot of money to be well-dressed. It's just not true; there's a site called Etsy.com. If you know your sizes, you can find a lot of gently used garments that are first quality.

There's another one that I like called Poshmark. A little more expensive, but if you shop, you can find great stuff. So it's not true that you need to be wealthy. If you're a man, you need just some basics.

You need a navy blue blazer, a pair of gray slacks, a pair of khaki slacks, a solid gray suit, and a solid blue suit. If you're a professional, yes, you should wear a tie. Not every day, not everywhere, but where it's appropriate.

So the rule is to dress appropriately for the activity in which you're going to engage. You wouldn't wear a three-piece suit to the gym, so don't wear athletic clothes to the shopping mall or to a restaurant.

Ari: Was there something that sparked this?

Roger: My parents cannot explain it. They were not fashionistas. They were just hard-working middle-class Americans. But from a very young age, I did not want to dress like everybody else. I wanted corduroys; I wanted Brooks Brothers button-down shirts, even as a kid.

It's a look; what can I say?

Ari: You have had a very long career and have been involved with many different presidents and campaigns. If there's a historian writing a book about you and trying to quickly explain your role in American politics, how would they describe you?

Roger: I am like the Forrest Gump of American politics, right? From my earliest days with Richard Nixon through the campaigns I did for Governor Ronald Reagan in 1976, 1980, and 1984, to my work for Senator Bob Dole, who would have been a great president, and to my early advocacy because I think I'm the first one in the country to say to Donald Trump, "You should make a series with the president."

The consistency is that the same coalition of voters elected all those people. There was a fight in which the neocons and the establishment took over the Republican Party after Reagan, but we took it back from them. Trump's nomination in 2016 was the hostile takeover of the Republican Party.

So, I have always stood for the same set of principles. I'm a libertarian conservative. I'm a Christian. I am redeemed in the blood of the cross. I was not always as religious and as dedicated to the Lord as I am today. I'm Sicilian, so when you say you have to forgive those who trespass against you, that's very hard for me, but I do it.

And I have to pray to do it. So I just want people to know that I stand up for freedom. The Democrats say, "Oh, Roger Stone, self-described dirty trickster." I've never described myself that way. Show it to me. I forced the LA Times to print a retraction. I've never said that. Democrats have called me that. I've acknowledged that Democrats call me that.

But that's not me saying it about myself. Politics ain't beanbag. This is a rough-and-tumble contact sport. I will do anything necessary to elect my candidates short of breaking the law.

Ari: Do you think some people are too "nice” for politics?

Roger: I can't identify with such people. Look, I worked for Ronald Reagan. After his two-term presidency, George Bush and James Baker offered me a job. And I could have had the same job I had under Reagan as a northeastern political director, and I declined because I did not believe in George Bush. I did not think he was a conservative. And, in fact, he gave us the Patriot Act.

He gave us a massive debt. He gave us huge tax increases. My career would have been much, much better off had I done that, had I taken that job. But I couldn't say what I didn't believe. I couldn't say this man is qualified when I didn't think he was. I supported Jack Kemp for president, who I thought was actually the real, the legitimate heir to Ronald Reagan.

Early on, when I tried to tell people, as early as 2020, that Donald Trump was going to be president, I was laughed at. People said I was insane. "He's a cartoon character. He's a caricature. He knows nothing about politics." But they were wrong, and I was right. So I think you have to be true to yourself.

I think that is the most important thing. I think Trump exemplifies that, right? He is so unironically himself. He says what he really thinks. He's not handled. He's not managed. He's not scripted. No, he tells you what he really thinks. But that's why he became president.

People found that refreshing. The idea of these politicians who are reading a statement or a speech written by some 28-year-old who doesn't know anything, I don't think the voters respect that.

You've talked a lot about Nixon in the past, and right now, there are a lot of Nixon historians who are around Trump who admire Nixon a lot, and they look at what he did, and they're like, "You know what, we need to do this again, but with Trump."

Ari: Do you agree with that? Do you think there are a lot of things to look back at Nixon and say, 'Trump should be doing this?’

Roger: Yes, there's a very good piece written by Chris Rufo, which I think is exactly right. Nixon understood that you had a growing, unelected elite within our government.

He intended to completely overhaul the CIA and our national security apparatus. This is one of the many reasons why they got rid of him. He was trying to get to the bottom of who really killed John F. Kennedy. The CIA was stonewalling him. The second reason they got rid of him was that the military was spying on him during his presidency.

The Washington Post knew that, but they never reported it. I think that many of the things Nixon talked about need to be done.

For example, network television should not continue to be able to lie and spread disinformation. That was something Nixon talked about, wanted to do, but never got to do. However, I think under the new FCC leadership, under Donald Trump, they will be held accountable for their lies.

Ari: What do you think would be the single biggest accomplishment the Trump administration could have in the next four years?

Roger: They're all interrelated. If you have prosperity and you rebuild our military — which is in terrible shape right now — as a deterrent to war, we will have both prosperity and peace. If you close our border and deport dangerous terrorist criminals as Eisenhower did, America will be safer.

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