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– Greetings, and thanks so much for watching this PJTV special on the 2016 presidential election. I'm your host, John Phillips. Joining me in studio is the man who is the author of the bombshell new book, The Clintons' War on Women, which is available online at amazon.com, Republican political strategist Roger Stone. Roger, thanks so much for coming in. We appreciate it. – [Roger] Glad to be with you. – Right now as the election stands, Donald Trump, a man who you worked for for many years, have a very close friendship with, is trailing Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the early voting state of Iowa, but is leading nationally. What do you see happening in Iowa, and what do you see happening after that? – Well first of all, I think this is gonna be a very long road because all of the delegate selection processes up til March 15th are proportional. And because the number of these lesser candidates who probably have no prospect to be nominated but they have super PAC money left over, I could see them staying in the race longer than expected. Therefore the kind of knockout blow you saw in the first couple contests that would lead to a nomination are unlikely. I think Ted Cruz will probably win Iowa. The bad news for Ted Cruz is that that's now known and therefore the headline is, "Cruz wins Iowa as expected, Trump strong second." – Right, yeah. – [Roger] Or whoever. – "Dog bites man" is not a story, "man bites dog" is a story. – [Roger] Right. Right. So he loses the element of surprise

by the fact that in the political class, everybody now recognizes that he's out front. I do think Trump has to win New Hampshire. I think if he wins New Hampshire he will win South Carolina. It's notable that his poll lead in South Carolina is larger today than I think any southern state except for Alabama. He has been building a firewall in the south, he has been visiting the southern states, he is beginning to get organized there. And therefore he'd be in a position to rule. – And those are primaries, they're not caucuses, which is important. – [Roger] Those are primaries, which I think is much more important. In the primaries you're gonna get broader electorate, you're gonna get larger turnout. It is less of a mechanical function and more of an

advertising and communications function. I also think, however, that it's not outside the realm of possibility that Trump could go through this process, amass the largest block of delegates, but be short of the number needed to be nominated. That's because you have six, in a fraction, six and a half percent of the convention

comprised of the super delegates. These are party establishment figures who are most definitely not for Donald Trump. Therefore Trump, to win, doesn't need 50% or 51% of the delegates, he needs 57% of the delegates approximately. – [John] That's hard to do in a crowded field. – [Roger] Very difficult. And therefore, I think the Republican etablishment goal is to keep these lesser candidates in the race, Kasich, Bush,

Christie, and Rubio,

get to the convention and then try to cheat Trump out of the nomination despite the fact that he shows up in Cleveland with the largest block of delegates. – What happens if Reince Priebus and the boys at the RNC put the fix in on Donald Trump?

Are you gonna have mutiny in the Republican party? – I think you'll have, well it'd probably be too late for Trump to run as an Independent, I see thousands of Trump supports both within the Republican party and people who might have been attracted to the Republican nominee. Democrats, Independents, staying home. You will have a mutiny in the Republican party, but more importantly you'll have a damaged nominee with a clouded nomination who'll go onto lose. – Do they hate Trump enough to cut a deal with Cruz? Because they hate Cruz maybe as much as they hate Trump, if not more. – Well, they hate Trump enough to be satisfied with a Hillary Clinton election. There's your real problem. In other words, the congressional wing of the Republican party, they got another four years of power and perks, even if Hillary's president. What bothers me is that there are some Republicans in the establishment who'd rather have Hillary as president than Trump, and I'll tell you why. They see Trump as entirely uncontrollable. He's not reliant on special interest money, he doesn't need the super PACs, he doesn't need the Koch Brothers, he doesn't need the lobbyists, he doesn't need the special interest. Trump's his own man. Nobody puts words in his mouth, nobody tells him what he thinks. He's an independent thinker. Take for example, the issue of federal spending. Every time we nominate somebody for president they say they're going to cut federal spending, and they never do. I worked in the United States Senate. I worked in the House. I was a staffer in both places, I've seen this process up close. Every wasteful dollar, and there's billions in the federal budget, was put there by somebody, and that somebody, a senator, a congressman, is gonna fight to protect that money on behalf of the widget manufacturers, whatever special interest is filling his campaign coffers in return for these appropriations. Donald Trump would be impervious to all of that. He would take an axe to federal spending, and that's what you need. – And even someone like Ted Cruz, who's a pretty conservative guy, is still tied to the old system. He still comes from the U.S. Senate, he worked for George W. Bush prior to being elected to the Senate. He's a guy who plays within the sandbox. – Look, Ted Cruz was director of policy and planning in the George W. Bush administration. We know their record on spending. They spent like Democrats. We know their record on war, they brought us into a war that was completely unnecessary and unjustified. So I think Ted Cruz has to wear some of that. Yes, he's still part of the system. I like Ted Cruz in terms of what he says today, but if you're looking for an outsider who will really bring radical reform to the system, I think Donald Trump's your man. – Talk to me about the mechanics of the Trump campaign, because he doesn't seem like the type of guy to me that's gonna wake up in the morning, meet with a room full of policy advisers, have speech writers in there writing things for him. He seems like more of a do-it-yourself kind of guy. – Trump is his own strategist, and you can't argue with it because it's been going great. Trump is his own message maven, Trump is his own logistician. Trump is his own tactician. He's very much his own man.

He is unscripted, he is un-coached,

he is genuine, and that's why I think he is having this resonance with voters. Voters see him as not phony, not reading off the talking points written by someone else, not talking a poll, finding out what's popular and then just taking that position because it's popular. That's not Trump. I believe his campaign, at the time I left, they had no polling; they had taken one survey and he has followed it in Iowa. Beyond that, it's his gut, and you can't argue with it cause it's working so incredibly well. – And you know, the public has been responding to that type of situation for quite some time now. In the 80s and the 90s, everybody watched those scripted shows, they watched sitcoms, they watched those hour long dramas, and then the numbers for those shows started to tail off. In the 2000s, reality programming and cable news really took off like a rocket ship because people wanted something that was more real, they didn't want the laugh tracks. And when you look at Hillary and you look at Jeb and you look at these pre-programmed candidates that have everything poll-tested, they look like those old sitcoms with the laugh tracks, and Trump looks like the reality show. – I think that's exactly right. I think Trump has benefited substantially from 15 seasons on The Apprentice.

Now, I know that among the leagues they say, "Oh, this is a reality TV show "and it's comedy," and so on. That's not how voters see it. Voters see Trump on The Apprentice and look at him, he looks presidential. He's sitting in the high-back chair– – Everyone's differential. – [Roger] Right, he's sitting in a high-back chair. – [John] Mr. Trump. – He's making decisions. He is blunt. He's to the point. He's decisive. They wish that's what they had in a president, and therefore, I think he's benefited. Also it has spread his name ID. He's the single, best-known business man probably in the world. – No question. – [Roger] 15 seasons on The Apprentice doesn't hurt. – And it makes Jeb, and it makes Kasich, and it makes all the others, even Christie, look small compared to Donald Trump. When Donald Trump's up there he's the alpha-male on the stage. – Well, look at the size of the crowds. Now I recognize that not everybody who's turning out for a Trump rally is voting for Trump, but he's pulling these enormous crowds because of his celebrity status. People wanna see Trump. They wanna touch Trump. They want Trump's autograph. Marco Rubio? Who's that? – He's a political celebrity. – Yes. – What happens if he loses Iowa? Is he gonna keep his cool? Because he's a guy who's not used to losing. He doesn't lose in business, he doesn't lose in politics, he doesn't lose in gambling. He's a guy who wins all of his bets. Is he gonna unravel after he loses Iowa even though he knows it's probable? – I don't think so, I think the good news is that it's not gonna be a suprise because it's an open secret at this point. I think that he is very highly competitive and I think he doubles down in New Hampshire. I was delighted to see that the campaign has decided to spend money on media, something I've argued for publicly, even though Trump is a great communicator. Even though he has used the free media in an extraordinary way to pull out to a giant lead. I do think in the closing days of the contest, it's important to reinforce the central messages on immigration, on trade, on ISIS, that have gotten Trump to where he is. And therefore I'm glad to see they're going on cable and broadcast TV in the early states. – Let's say he wins the nomination. What type of person do you think he would pick as his vice presidential running mate? He has joked about picking Oprah in the past, but I doubt that that's what he would do if he wins the nomination. What do you see him doing, knowing him so well? – Somebody who is not a career politician. Somebody who's from some other discipline in life. It could be a general, someone who's from the military. It could be somebody who is from business. It could even be somebody who has never been thought of in a political realm before, but I don't see him going to this other pack of losers who ran for president, and picking a vice president. – [John] And he would call them losers, too. – [Roger] Well, and that's the tradition, you pick one of the guys you beat. Reagan picked Bush, Kennedy picked Johnson, you pick somebody that you beat for the nomination. I don't see that happening. – Yeah, I don't see that happening either. – [Roger] I see him going outside the box and picking somebody who would enhance the ticket. Given the rise of ISIS and the need to crush ISIS, I think somebody with a military background would be a sound choice, but look for Trump to go outside the box. – [John] I think you're right. Roger Stone, it's been a pleasure. – Great to be here. – The book is The Clintons' War on Women, available right now at amazon.com. Thanks so much for watching this PJTV special. (peaceful music)