Roger Stone - US political strategist HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Stephen

Sackur. They say you can judge a man

by the company he keeps. If that is

true, my guest today should provide

telling insight into the character

of President Donald Trump. Roger

Stone is a hugely controversial and

divisive figure in American

conservatism. He is a long-time

friend and sometime adviser to Mr

Trump. Is he also a symbol of all

that is currently wrong in American

politics?

Roger Stone, welcome to HARDtalk.

A

pleasure to be here.

It is just past

the one-year anniversary of the

Donald Trump administration. How

would you describe the political

atmosphere in the United States

today?

I would say improving. The

president continues to be a

polarising figure. A relatively

close election with both candidates

seen as polarising. But the rising

tide of a strong economy is helping

enormously. We have created under

the watch of Donald Trump 2 million

jobs, a record stock market, African

American and Hispanic unemployment

is at historic lows. Suddenly, you

have a billion-dollar company like

Apple coming back to the US to

repatriate money. I am growing lay

positive about it supplied all the

more Marach -- remarkable, his

approval ratings are at historic

lows.

A great economy, and yet, a

president who is profoundly

unpopular with the American public.

I would argue that he is polarising

rather than unpopular.

You have seen

the figures.

I have. I quibble with

some, there are methodology issues

and so on. In the first year of the

presidency, I do not think you can

judge his overall success. I think

as the economy grows, as he gets

more of his programme in place,

particularly after his historic tax

cut has in effect, you will see a

change.

What about the intangible

political ultrahad the extraordinary

signs of a president who, according

to independent fact checkers, has,

in the course of his first year,

delivered pretty much 2000 falls

were misleading statements. --

false.

If you like your healthcare

programme, you can keep it. Read my

lips, no new taxes. No president has

ever told the exact truth...

But

these are untruths on a scale never

seen. Do you accept that?

Not

exactly. Every president has a

potential to barricade. --

prevaricate. He won. His opponent

had not the best truthful track

record.

Is this style of politics

something you imbued in the

president? You have been a friend

and political ally for a long time.

At a time you were a senior adviser

until 2015 when he decided to run.

There are people that believe your

attitude to quote unquote

misinformation is something you

passed on.

First of all, no one

imbues Donald Trump with anything.

He marches to his own drummer. He is

his own wordsmith, Tweetmaster,

speechwriter, Press Secretary. He is

the chief architect of his own

success. It was an extraordinarily

improbable election that he won.

Something he may have picked up on,

you said I believe in doing

anything, anything, necessary to

win, then you added short of

breaking the law.

I actually lifted

out from Lyndon Baines Johnson in

his biography. -- lifted that quote.

I meant leave no stone unturned. The

implication is you make an all-out

effort, short of breaking the law.

Lying is not illegal. It is fair

game.

You do not lie on purpose...

Sometimes you say things that proved

not to be true.

Donald Trump lies on

purpose, we both know that. You can

talk about very little things, the

size of crowds and things like that,

but there is evidence to show he

must know it cannot be true.

Evidently, voters have taken that

with a grain of salt because they

elected him.

Absolutely. I am saying

that your politics, it is not about

words like values, your conscience,

it is about doing whatever is

necessary to be that is a political

culture you believe in which Donald

Trump believes in as well and

perhaps they are associated because

you have known him for an awful long

time.

It is a political culture that

every successful president in modern

times has subscribed to. I do not

think Donald Trump or I have done

anything different than has been the

norm.

Here is a quote for you, I

know you know him, you may not

respect him very much, but a writer

who has looked at your career and

Donald Trump's, he says in many

ways, Roger Stone created Donald

Trump is a political figure, the

Donald Trump candidacy was a Roger

Stone production.

I am flattered,

but I cannot take credit. It is true

that I first thought of the idea of

Donald Trump as a candidate for

presidency back in 1988. I was drawn

to him as a potential candidate

because of his independence created

by his wealth, independence in the

sense he was not deeply committed or

responsible for the policies of the

past, he had no investment in

mistakes already made. And what I

saw was a growing to duopoly in

which the two parties working

together had started an endless war

without national inherent interest

in clear, national debt, spending

and borrowing with no end in sight

cheating people going through the

system and brought in people

practical -- rorting people, trade

policies which sucked jobs out of

America. And a stagnant economy of

those who did not know how to run a

business. I thought a person with

enormous courage to change things.

How disappointed, what kind of sense

of betrayal, did you have, when when

once the bandwagon started to roll

in 2015, which you set in motion,

you were thrown overboard.

I would

argue with that interpretation. I

resigned, and showed that

resignation to the New York Times

the night before.

If we take the

words of Donald Trump at face

value...

No one breaks up with

Donald Trump, he breaks up with you.

There is no point in disparaging or

disagreeing with him. I did more

television interviews on his behalf

after I left the campaign than

before.

I recall all of that, you

were a very familiar figure,

offering your total loyalty and

support to Donald Trump even though

you left the official campaign.

I am

a strategist. A campaign cannot have

two strategists. There was no sense

in my staying so I could fight about

things which he turned out to be

right about and I turned out to be

wrong about. This is the first

candidate for the presidency in my

experience of 10 national

presidential campaigns who never

took a poll, who never spent any

money on, you know, he'd network

campaign advertising, analytics,

focus groups.

-- paid. Are you still

in contact?

From time to time.

Do

you give advice?

Occasionally.

Does

he take it?

Sometimes.

For example?

I believe the president is entitled

to discretion. If he asks you what

you think would tell you what he

thinks, you should have discretion.

I do not discuss in detail what we

talk about, which I have had as a

policy since the beginning. I would

never want to be of detriment to

him.

You talk about Steve Bannon, a

person Donald Trump calls Sloppy

Steve, for so long his Chief

Strategist.

A self appointed role.

He was very important for the key

months in which Donald Trump won the

presidency. Steve Bannon was a key

figure and entered the White House.

General Michael Flynn, National

Security Adviser, Anthony

Scaramucci, Sean Spicer, Reince

Priebus, Katie Walls, as well as key

figures outside of the

administration, James Comey, the FBI

Director, recently Andrew McCabe,

FBI deputy director. All of these

people, they are people who have

either been fired or quit in the

first year of the Donald Trump White

House. It looks like chaos.

I do not

agree with that. Some did not serve

the president well. Steve Bannon

blew up the president himself and

has only himself to blame.

A man who

lied about his meetings with the

Russians?

No, his actions were

legal. He lied to the FBI agent.

We

will get to something which hangs

like a very dark shadow over the

whole of the Donald Trump

presidency, that is the special

counsel investigation into

allegations of collusion during the

election campaign between the Donald

Trump campaign and the Russians to

interfere with and directly

influence that election.

Yes, a

fairy tale, a falsehood, meaningful

co-ordination, conspiring, collusion

with the Russians, there has never

been any evidence of it produced

either by the House or the Senate

committee.

You speak with such

confidence. You could not possibly

know.

We would have read about it by

now.

There is an investigation.

He

has nothing. I guarantee it. We will

wait and see. What about the

indictments related to Russia? He

processed indictments. It was a

process... And Manafort, on crimes

not related to Russia, but Ukraine.

Paul Manafort, a close friend of

yours, facing serious charges.

None

related to Russian collusion.

Look

at the facts, at least 12 Donald

Trump associates had contact during

the campaign.

Contact with the

Russians are not illegal, and it is

not evidence... What the Hillary

Clinton?

Summer, 2016, contacts to

the Kremlin. Jared Kushner, one of

Donald Trump's sons, a meeting which

Trump himself oversaw.

The meeting

was illegal and produce nothing. Why

was he Hillary Clinton out of the

country? What about Obama? Why would

she be in the country for such a

meeting? And what about the evidence

of our season is? The meeting is a

nothing burger. -- malfeasance.

I

have heard this phrase nothing

burger before.

It is an American

expression.

It comes down to what we

do and do not know.

I am willing to

go on record. He has nothing

relating to Russian collusion. I

agree with the president. It is a

witch-hunt.

It could be about

obstruction of justice.

Now we are

going back to the firing of James

Comey.

First there was the recount that

failed, the recount showed that

Donald Trump one Wisconsin and

Michigan by a larger margin than

expected.

Then they wanted to brief

the Electoral College on Russian

collusion. It would have been the

shortest briefing of all time. There

was no evidence then, there is no

evidence now. Then there is this

investigation. Roger Stone has had a

lot of time and a lot -- Robert

Mueller has had a lot of time and a

lot of money. Meetings do not equal

collusion. If so Hillary Clinton was

colluding with the Ukrainians.

People in Washington were looking

very closely at your particular bit

part.

It did seem for a time as

though more and more detail was

coming out about hacked information

that was garnered on the Democratic

Party that you were getting a heads

up from WikiLeaks about what was

coming down the pipes.

Entirely

false. Everything I tweeted or road

was because I was following the

tweets of both WikiLeaks or Julian

Assange and following his

interviews.

You are pre-empting

them. You seem to know that John

Podesta was going to come into the

firing line before it was issued in

WikiLeaks.

Yes, because in January

2016I read all the Panama Papers

information about business

activities in Russia. He did not

need a heads up from WikiLeaks to

know that would become an issue in

the campaign. After the focus on

manifold, the focus on John Podesta

was going to happen. I did not say

anywhere that WikiLeaks would polish

his e-mails, because they did not

know.

It is odd that the Russians

were hacking The Democratic Party

darts --.

When they say with a high

degree of confidence it is our

assessment, that meant they don't

know. I don't agree with that. The

same people told you Lee Harvey

Oswald killed Kennedy and he acted

alone, and now we know, on the basis

of recently released documents, is

unlikely true.

You can take your

view of what is credible and I can

take mine. The fact is that the

Russians, according to every

credible intelligence official in

the United States, were hacking the

Democratic Party, the information

was being given to WikiLeaks... As

former counterintelligence

officials. And you appear to be

ahead of the game knowing what is

coming up. You went to the

Ecuadorian Embassy to try to see

Julian Assange.

What is that all

about? We will take that one by one.

As former top cut intelligence

agents have said, there is more

evidence that the DNC information

was downloaded to a portable drive

and taken out the back door. There

really is no evidence it was

hacked...

You really don't trust

your own government, do you?

Because

they lie to us constantly. The

nation magazine, hardly a right-wing

organ, it was the organisation

published that study. Secondarily,

Julian Assange himself has said

Roger Stone has not tweeted anything

I have the authority said in public

either in an interview or re-tweet.

I spent four hours in front of a

House Intelligence Committee where I

went voluntarily and, as I told

them, and I see now, I know of no

one who conspired with the Russians

I have no prior knowledge of the

hacking of the DNC, I am not even

sure they were hacked. The reason I

went by the Ecuadorian Embassy, I

did not ask for a meeting, that was

incorrect, I dropped off a card. It

is because I don't believe Julian

Assange is a Russian asset. I

believe he is a journalist. I do not

live WikiLeaks is a Russian front, I

believe it is a news organisation. A

news organisation with a better

reputation for accuracy than, say,

the New York Times and Washington

Post.

Even as we speak, Donald

Trump's warp with the top echelons

of the FBI and, indeed, it seems

with the Justice Department is

continuing.

This is dangerous

territory. It is not dangerous at

all. The FBI and the CIA would not

like to release a memo that which

showed they used a fabricated

dossier as the justification for

surveillance by the State on the

Republican candidate for president.

I was than Watergate. I guess you

are giving me a very authentic view

into the can let that the collective

mind of the so-called alt-right.

Not

at all.

You don't trust, one second,

those put into the positions of

highest authority in America's

leading security and intelligence

agencies. You believe the FBI, the

CIA, and they suppose the other

intelligence agencies...

They have

been politicised. Those agencies

have been entirely politicised...

Because they don't do what you and

Donald Trump wanted to do does not

mean they are politicised.

The FBI

and the CIA oppose the release of a

memo that will demonstrate that they

violated the war because they say it

threatens national security.

Nonsensical. The thing is, you have

a very strong set of opinions about

what is happening. I come back to

what they opened with, you win your

political career have always prided

yourself in the power of

disinformation. To quote Ted Cruz, a

right-wing Republican, you have

spent your entire career lying.

Because everything I have said today

will be borne out to be true and you

can come and re- interview me when

that happens. That is how confident

I am that I am correct.

Your record

suggests that you are, from time to

time, inclined to use language which

deepens and expands the fractures in

American society.

Like Hillary

Clinton sang Bright -- black people

should be brought to heel.

Like

Roger Stone Sweeting about the

Negroes, using the word beginning

with Robert Mueller for women he

disagrees with.

I did refer to

someone as a Negro.

I also issued an

apology. But why did you do at? You

know what it conjures up about

segregation.

Actually, I don't think

it is offensive. But because some

black people I know do so I did

apologise for that. As far as

calling her a bitch, I stand by

that.

A nasty, narrowminded... You

started this interview by worrying

aloud about the polarisation of

things today, and then use that

language. Your politics, your style

of politics, it is corroding and

corrupting American political

culture today.

I have done nothing

in politics that is the norm. Our

opponents have said things about us

every bit as coarse as the things we

may have said. I reject this idea

that I have changed the culture.

I

was positing earlier that you may

have influenced Donald Trump in some

ways. When Donald Trump said what he

set about immigrants who come from

countries like Haiti and he said

that he wished more would come from

Norway rather than countries like

Haiti, when he reacted to the

Charlottesville display of power by

neo-Nazis by Sangha will find people

involved, how did you respond to

have what he said in those

situations?

The President denied

saying that. No Republican who was

there recall since they met.

I think

you will find that Lindsey Graham

says the interpretation was right.

I'm not going to criticise the

present for saying what people

think.

The United Nations human

rights Council described it as

racist.

The United Nations, they

have accomplished a great deal.

I

guess it is this commie he used it

with me in United Kingdom, you know

there people around the world who

have responded to think they have

heard from Donald Trump and wonder

where the United States is led by

racist and that doesn't seem to

worry you.

What matters are deeds,

not words. African American

unemployment is at the lowest point

in our history. They called Richard

Nixon a racist. He gave us

affirmative action. He desegregated

the American public schools without

violence or bloodshed. What matters

are deeds, not words.

When you look

at what is happening today in the

United States and you consider

Donald Trump as a man and as a

president, how do you think this

presidency is going to pan out?

It

depends on whether he make America

great again. Our economy is booming.

In the State of the Union Address he

talked about restoring our cities,

Detroit, I would like to see him do

that. I would like to see him follow

through on the place to get us out

of Afghanistan and Syria. I am

disappointed that the generals have

talked him into continuing or

increasing our presence in those

places. He ran as an enter

individualist in the campaign. But

one year does not a presidency make.

-- ran as an anti- interventionist.

Given the intractable opposition of

the 2-party elites.

Roger Stone, we

have two and there.

Thank you very

much for being on HARDtalk. Very

happy to be here.

-- to end there.