TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): A lot of people claim to be experts on the Trump, and the Trump White House, and the Trump orbit. Very few of them really are. Roger Stone actually is.
He has been advising Trump for more than three decades. He lobbied for him in the 1990's. He was campaign manager of his aborted 2000 presidential run. Stone was one of the people who strongly urged the president to run for office this time, and he served on the campaign during its critical early months. Trump has fired Stone more than once, maybe a bunch of times, and called him a “stone cold loser,” but their relationship has always recovered.
If anyone can truly claim to understand the president, I think it would be Roger Stone, so he joins us tonight to explain.
[...]
ROGER STONE: Well, I wanted to give Steve Bannon the benefit of the doubt, particularly given the reputation of Michael Wolff for fabrication. But now that all the facts appear to be in, and the fact that these comments were made while Steve Bannon was working for the president in the White House, it is a stunning act of betrayal, and it's also a complete misunderstanding of Donald Trump.
In Donald Trump's world, in Trump world, there is no Karl Rove. There never has been, never will be. Donald Trump is very much his own man. He is his own strategist, his own phrase-maker, he is his own speechwriter, sometimes he's his own press secretary. He may be the greatest single salesman in American history, and the president's agenda on which he was elected -- I should say his platform -- was determined long before Steve Bannon joined the campaign, and was determined by one man, Donald Trump.
