Troy Smith
If there is one person in America who surely never shies away from controversy, it’s veteran political operative Roger Stone. Stone has been a master of controversy for nearly his entire career, whether it be through his involvement with President Richard Nixon, or his friendship of over forty years with former President Donald Trump.
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Even when Roger Stone isn’t trying to be controversial, he is. It’s simply his nature. That is exactly why a recent article published by an outlet called Mediaite, owned by an individual named Dan Abrams, has been stirring controversy. The article, written by a man called Isaac Schorr, is titled, “Trump Advisor Roger Stone Calls Casey DeSantis a C*** for Mentioning Her Children on Campaign Trail”. Under closer examination, however, Mediaite‘s story does not validate their clickbait-designed headline.
To his supporters, Stone is viewed as a freedom fighter who – under enormous pressure when charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller with essentially manufactured process crimes – refused to testify falsely against President Donald Trump. In fact, almost a year after, Trump – recognizing the political motive of the charges against Stone and the lack of any real evidence of either “Russian collusion” or WikiLeaks collaboration in the 2016 presidential campaign – both commuted Stone’s prison sentence and issued him a full and unconditional presidential pardon. For others, however, Stone is seen as a sharp-elbowed, hyperpartisan “dirty-trickster.” If that’s true, it appears that the dirty trickster has just had a meticulously orchestrated dirty trick played on him.
For those aware of some of Roger Stone’s previous statements and brash nature, these statements surely would not seem out of character. There’s just one problem. Roger Stone quite literally never called Casey DeSantis a c***. In none of the statements referenced in the article, nor found on any of Stone’s video or written content, did he ever actually call Casey DeSantis the c-word.
Stone replied to an X (formerly Twitter) post by Mike Crispi (host of the talk show Mike Crispi Unafraid), in which Crispi highlighted the repetitive nature of Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis’ public speaking engagements, where DeSantis often speaks about her children, always referring to their ages. “I have a 6, 5 and a 3 year old,” the tweet from Crispi reads five times in a row.
SeeUNextTuesday
— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) November 23, 2023
Stone replied to the X post from Crispi, saying, “SeeUNextTuesday”. Stone never said the word “c***.” The controversial political operative highlighted the fact that he never actually said the word c*** in a response to Mediaite posted to his X account. Stone alleges that Mediaite is attempting to generate sympathy for the ‘dying campaign of DeSanctimonious’.
The non-journalist fake news leftists at Mediate once again use a word in the headline and story THAT I DID NOT POST in the transparent effort to create a contrived controversy and generate sympathy for the dying campaign of Desanctimonius #FakeNews pic.twitter.com/Jo16FvQNjq
— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) November 28, 2023
Contacted for comment, Crispi told Rare.us that the entire controversy is a confeccion. “Stone was originally scheduled to be on my daily show the following Tuesday. If Roger Stone wanted to call Casey DeSantis a c***, I think he just would have done it. The whole thing looks to me like a fugazi—a fraud designed to generate online sympathy for the faltering DeSantis campaign which, let’s face it, so far has been an expensive dumpster fire.”
Two things point to the fact that this is a manufactured controversy. A visit to the Urban Dictionary shows that the sly acronym for the word “c****” is C U Next Tuesday, which is not what Stone posted. More indicative that this faux controversy is a setup, is the speed by which the DeSantis campaign’s generally ham-fisted online influencers jumped onboard with a barrage of faux outrage—quickly posting a #StandWithCasey campaign.
Also curious is the speed in which the usual suspects quickly recycled the story, including the entirely misleading headline. These include Newsweek, The Messenger, and notably, The Blaze—whose neocon personnel supported Ted Cruz in 2016 and now, of course, support DeSantis. No one, however, displayed less self-awareness than reporter Mary Papenfuss of The Messenger, who recycled the contrived charges against Stone, decrying Stone’s allegedly vulgar language, but did it in an X post in which she called Stone a “d***” and a “mother f*****.”
As far as DeSantis’ campaign is concerned, Stone is right. 538 shows that DeSantis is trailing former President Donald Trump by a whopping 45.7 points nationally. Nikki Haley, another DeSantis competitor in the 2024 Republican Primary, is beginning to surpass DeSantis in key states throughout the Nation. Even Vivek Ramaswamy is a threat to DeSantis.
DeSantis’ campaign could not be in a worse situation. Even with ‘all of their chips’ on the table in Iowa, DeSantis reportedly trails the former President by 27.2 points in the state. With Nikki Haley’s recent surge, she now trails DeSantis by less than two points in Iowa. UPDATE: In the latest Big Data Poll for Iowa, Trump is leading DeSantis by an even larger margin of 34.5. In that same poll, Haley trails DeSantis by just four points.
There is another possibility, however, that perhaps Stone’s actions are more strategic than they appear. Ron and Casey DeSantis have been offering voters the same kind of “two-for-one” package that Bill and Hillary Clinton successfully sold to voters in 1992. It is not a secret in Tallahassee or Washington that Casey DeSantis is essentially her husband’s only real political advisor, and is responsible for pushing him into a premature and unwise candidacy that has the potential to prematurely end his political career. Florida Governors are limited to two terms and Ron DeSantis’ current term ends in 2026. At least one source who previously worked for Florida’s First Couple told Rare. that Florida’s First Lady was “abusive toward staff, controlling, and entitled,” which would contradict her carefully constructed public image as “just a loving wife and mom.”
There are more than broad hints that Florida’s First Couple, addicted to the perks of power, the private jets, the exclusive clubs, and the largesse of the special interests, intend to run Casey DeSantis for Governor at the end of Ron’s current term. Just as Alabama’s George Wallace successfully ran his wife Lurleen when he was term limited, but still harbored national political ambitions.
How coincidental that the University of Florida, after receiving more state funding, would release a poll showing Casey DeSantis as the favorite in a hypothetical race for Governor in Florida’s 2026 Republican primary.
In fact, in anticipation of what may be an ignominious defeat in the Iowa caucuses, Governor DeSantis has already begun floating what may obviously be the Governor’s plan B. Saying the following to Politico:
After orchestrating the contrived attack on Stone, the DeSantis online influence director, Christina Pushaw, doubled down by claiming in an X post that Stone’s animus for the Florida Governor goes back much further to 2013—falsely claiming that Stone had worked as a political consultant for Broward County Florida’s controversial former Sheriff Scott Israel, a Democrat who DeSantis fired in the wake of the Parkland school shooting. A thorough review of state election records turned up no evidence that Stone was paid anything by either Israel or any electioneering communication organization supporting his candidacy.
Sources told Rare.us that Stone’s animus toward the Florida Governor was more likely related to the Governor’s betrayal of Florida’s sugar industry, which helped fund DeSantis’ initial campaign for Congress, but who later betrayed the industry by voting for an amendment to the U.S. Farm Bill—striking the federal sugar program which DeSantis had pledged to support in a questionnaire he signed for the Florida Sugar League. Stone worked as a strategist for U.S. Sugar in the industry’s historic defeat of a constitutional amendment requiring a “penny-per-pound” tax on the sugar industry, dedicated to Everglades cleanup.
Perhaps Stone’s animus towards DeSantis is more simple. “Running against the man who lifted you from obscurity to become Governor of Florida is the treacherous act of a backstabber and ingrate,” Stone said in one of his X postings. Stone and investigative journalist Laura Loomer took enormous abuse in the aftermath of the 2022 Election when they both accurately predicted that DeSantis would challenge Trump, whose endorsement catapulted the little-known Congressman to the Florida Republican Gubernatorial nomination and subsequently dragged DeSantis across the finish line by changing his schedule to campaign for DeSantis three times in the closing two weeks of the 2018 Election.
An MSNBC alum, Dan Abrams, the owner and founder of Mediaite which published the misleading headline, has a storied history of hating Roger Stone – even calling for Stone to be imprisoned for crimes that he did not commit. In 2020, when Stone had his sentencing reversed after federal prosecutors initially recommended he serve 7-9 years in prison, Abrams said that the reversal represented a “dark, dark day for the Department of Justice.” This case seems to be open-and-shut. Mediaite‘s owner Dan Abrams is a prolific hater of Roger Stone, based on his own public statements. Stone never said the word “c***.”
If any of this bothered Donald Trump, it’s not showing. Days after the manufactured assault on Stone, the former President ReTruthed this:
