Longtime campaign strategist Roger Stone thinks only Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz appear willing to torpedo Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Clinton performed well during the first Democratic presidential debate, Stone told the Washington Examiner. After examining her debate, Stone said he thinks Trump and Cruz have the chutzpah necessary to battle Clinton that other Republicans lack.
Stone previously advised Trump on his front-running presidential campaign.
Stone came away from the first Democratic presidential debate disappointed in CNN’s questions and the moderators’ failure to focus on Clinton’s response to the 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
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“Marco Rubio won’t ask her that question [about Benghazi]. He’s in the club. They were in the Senate together. They’re in the club,” Stone said. “No politician will ask her that question. Donald Trump fears nothing and nobody. He’ll ask her the hard questions. He may not be as polished a performer because he’s not a career politician and he doesn’t think about ‘maybe we should have polled this question, maybe we should have put it into a focus group.’ He tells you what he really thinks. The only other one in this field that I think has got the guts to take her on face-to-face is Ted Cruz.”
Echoing Trump, Stone said he thinks the other Democrats did not push back forcefully enough on Tuesday night.
“I thought Hillary had a very good debate, on the other hand when no one challenges you — neither the moderators, nor your opponents — it’s really not hard to take points that came out of a poll and focus groups and go out and spit them out. I can do that,” he said. “She was allowed to spit out her BS about being an advocate for women and children, which she is neither and nobody really challenged her. Not even Bernie Sanders, senile old coot that he is. Given a softball on the emails, he gives her a pass. Pathetic.”
Stone is the author of a new book The Clintons’ War on Women, released this week that hits Clinton on a perceived strength — her support among female voters. The longtime right-wing operative’s book promises to reveal the “appalling truth” about “Hillary’s strange relationship with top aide Huma Abedin” and the “identity of Chelsea Clinton’s real father.” Asked about the appearance of new information in his book, Stone answered that “there’s no such thing as old information if no one’s heard it.”
“This is a standard tactic of the paid mercenaries who work for Hillary. ‘Oh that’s old news,'” he said. “No, it’s not old news if people haven’t heard it. So Hillary Clinton is an advocate for women unless you’re one of those unlucky women who’s been sexually assaulted by her husband.”
Stone compared President Bill Clinton to comedian Bill Cosby, who has been dogged by sexual assault allegations, and said he talked to several women who are “scared to death” of the Clintons. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign did not respond for request for comment on Stone’s book.
Stone, whose exit from the Trump campaign attracted attention in August, sought to prevent his audience from perceiving his writing as a Republican hit job.
“The American people will tolerate a lot of things, I don’t know that they’ll tolerate a liar so it’s about her credibility. Nothing the woman says can be believed,” he said. “You can say Stone’s a partisan henchman, he’s a Republican. No. My book on the Bushes is coming out in January. It’s entitled [sic] Jeb and the Bush crime family. Both parties are in it together.”
