Trump Confidant Roger Stone Pens Book.
CUOMO: All right. The man you're about to meet is a longtime political ally of Donald Trump. He's been in politics for a very long on -- in New York state, on the federal level. He's been all over the place. His tweets and communications through the 2016 campaign, predicting damaging information related to Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, have been the subject of discussions for months. So does Roger Stone believe he is a target of the Mueller investigation? Let's ask former Trump political adviser Roger Stone. He's the author of a new book out tomorrow called "Stone's Rules: How to Win at Politics, Business and Style." Thank you for taking the opportunity.</s>ROGER STONE, FORMER TRUMP POLITICAL ADVISOR: Great to be here.</s>CUOMO: We'll talk about the book. Although, you know, really, my whole discussion with you is woven in and out of what your different rules are.</s>STONE: There's a lot of books -- there's a lot of rules in there that the president ought to read right now, if you ask me.</s>CUOMO: Yes. Well, you know, we don't know that he's big on digesting information that way, but I'm sure you could pick up the phone and communicate some. Whether he will listen is a different one. A hundred and forty rules. An obvious nod to the old number of characters that were allowed in Twitter. Now it's been extended. Let me ask you something else, just to get some things on the record. The question they set up in the intro there was do you think you're a target? Have you been contacted, directly or through counsel, by anybody from the special counsel's team?</s>STONE: I have not. But for example, you read in the paper, and you reported at MSNBC and CNBC that Mr. Mueller is probing my dinners with Rick Gates and my meetings with him at Trump Tower. Wants to examine the period in which we worked together in the '80s. There's a couple problems here. First of all, based on my recollection, I had one dinner with him with other people to discuss the makeup of the New York delegation to the Republican National Convention. I had no meetings with him whatsoever in 2016 in -- at Trump Tower. I didn't know him until 2016. We -- he did not work at Black, Manafort and Stone in the '80s. He was evidently an intern at a successor firm. So I didn't --</s>CUOMO: You're saying the connection is not there. What I don't get is this. How does the special counsel not reach out to you? Just your bizarre coincidences, I'll give you a generous read on that until we get into it, with what was going to happen with WikiLeaks and Guccifer and the e-mails. How have you not been called?</s>STONE: Well, first of all, the claim that I knew in advance about either of the -- the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Since the DNC never let FBI examine their server, we're not even certain they were hacked. But the idea that I had advanced knowledge is speculation.</s>CUOMO: Speculation based on you, though, Roger.</s>STONE: Supposition.</s>CUOMO: You put it out.</s>STONE: Yes, and I'm a political animal. But Julian Assange came here at CNN in June of 2016 and said, "I've got a treasure trove of documents about Hillary Clinton."</s>CUOMO: But you said you were talking to him, meeting with him. You made this --</s>STONE: I actually never said that.</s>CUOMO: Well, you did say to Sam Nunberg, "I had dinner last night with Julian Assange."</s>STONE: Which I think I've explained adequately was a joke to get Sam Nunberg off the phone. And I have obviously produced my passport, airline records, customs records.</s>CUOMO: So that the meeting couldn't have been possible?</s>STONE: Well, it was in Los Angeles. And I think I proved that.</s>CUOMO: How about the -- look, the one that gets you the most in terms of -- and again, obviously, I'm out of my depth, because the special counsel hasn't called you in yet. And his would be a layup, I would think. At least to talk to you about it. Is "It's coming for Hillary. It's coming for Podesta." And then it came.</s>STONE: Well, first of all, Assange says --</s>CUOMO: Right after.</s>STONE: Assange says that he has a treasure trove of devastating documents. He says it in numerous interviews. As far as John Podesta is concerned, my tweet says "the Podestas." "The Podestas." Not apostrophe "S." Meaning John and Tony, referring to the --</s>CUOMO: Is that true? I thought it was apostrophe "</s>S." STONE: No. But it still says "The Podestas."</s>CUOMO: Hold on. You read it for me.</s>STONE: But the "the" gets removed, even in the House Intelligence Committee.</s>CUOMO: But there's -- there is an apostrophe "</s>S." STONE: But it refers to multiple people.</s>CUOMO: You didn't write it that way.</s>STONE: No. But the House Intelligence Committee drops the "the" entirely, as have numerous media organizations. The point being that in April of 2016, the Panama Papers exposed the shady business dealings of John and Tony Podesta. And that is my reference. Nowhere do I predict that John Podesta's e-mails would be hacked, because I had no advanced notice.</s>CUOMO: But you did say his time is coming.</s>STONE: Well, because Paul Manafort --</s>CUOMO: And it came, by the way. That's the part.</s>STONE: Yes --</s>CUOMO: Is that the truth winds up being a foil for you.</s>STONE: All public information. Look, this is an effort to distract from the content of the WikiLeaks disclosures; were incredibly embarrassing to the Clinton campaign.</s>CUOMO: But it's also about tracking who knew what and when and may have been coordinating or encouraging what would be illegal activities.</s>STONE: There is no -- there is no evidence whatsoever that I had advanced knowledge of the source.</s>CUOMO: Well, you called it on -- two days before.</s>STONE: Speculation, supposition, conjecture. But no proof. Where's the proof? There no proof. Yes, I followed Assange's Twitter feed very assiduously. I had a Google Alert for him. I read every interview he gave. You could foreshadow what he's doing just ready by what he says.</s>CUOMO: Direct messaging Guccifer? How about that?</s>STONE: Which I -- well, which I made available to the House Intelligence Committee. Six weeks after the hacking. So they're ex post facto. You went to law school. How can I have been -- be involved in collusion in hacking material after the fact? You'd need a time machine. It's chronologically impossible. The content --</s>CUOMO: Well, you're assuming that the --</s>STONE: -- of those emails are banal, at least.</s>CUOMO: Well, banality aside, the -- you're assuming that the timing of it is a full appreciation of what the full context of the relationship was. That would be a case for you to make, if ever asked. Again, the special counsel --</s>STONE: Twenty-four words in exchange on Twitter direct messages.</s>CUOMO: right.</s>STONE: Which is innocuous and happens after the fact. So on the basis of the content, the timing and the context, there's no evidence.</s>CUOMO: Why even reach out to somebody like that, who was connected --</s>STONE: Thousands of journalists did so. I was covering this. I have to do five shows a day for -- five shows a week for --</s>CUOMO: So it was journalistic curiosity?</s>STONE: You didn't want to know? Of course I wanted to know. I'm a political animal.</s>CUOMO: Right. But it seemed like, if I were to call a guy and find out what he did, and you know, what he wanted to cop to, that's one thing. You seeming to want to encourage and develop some relationship with him is different. Fair point?</s>STONE: I wanted to find out what he knew. It's ironic that we have a movie right now, "The Post," praising the "Washington Post" for publishing the Pentagon Papers, classified information, at the same time we're criticizing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for publishing classified information, calling it a crime. You can't have it both ways. Which is it?</s>CUOMO: I think that's a conversation to be had. I think --</s>STONE: This is what journalists --</s>CUOMO: I think that's a conversation to be had. The WikiLeaks folk get sideways with me from time to time. I'm not exactly sure why. When they made the first dump, my caution to people was, hey, if this has classified information, Pentagon Papers case, Blackman's decision aside, we don't know what the Espionage Act means in this new era of caching documents and downloading things that may be classified. There haven't been any cases about it. But as we're seeing right now, you never know what the prosecution is going to do, what the government will go after. Yes, journalists feed off leaked information.</s>STONE: That's what they do.</s>CUOMO: And I say thank God for that.</s>STONE: A legitimate rule -- role.</s>CUOMO: But it takes us to the same point, truth. What is the truth? Is the truth that you knew what was happening? Is the truth that you were encouraging what was happening because exactly what you say, you are a political animal and you wanted to help your friend? You don't believe those are legitimate questions?</s>STONE: They're legitimate questions, but I've answered them ad nauseam again and again and again --</s>CUOMO: Except from the special counsel.</s>STONE: Well, but under oath in front of the House Intelligence Committee, where my testimony is both complete and entirely --</s>CUOMO: But they don't have -- they don't have the teeth that the special counsel does. That's why I think it's odd. And Michael Caputo, who obviously you know very well. He says he sits down with them -- I'm sure you've heard this from him directly. The -- that they have collusion, coordination on their mind. They know a lot about it. Does that make you nervous?</s>STONE: No. Because I'm not involved in any collusion, coordination or conspiracy with the Russians or anyone else. And there's no evidence to the contrary.</s>CUOMO: So the book, 140 rules. Some of them in there are just, you know, chapter and verse of what we see from the president and I would argue, using to his media advantage. Deny, deny, deny. Attack the people asking you questions. It's one thing for a consultant to give that kind of advice. And you were sought by left and right alike to figure out how to deal with a sticky mess. Is that the right way for a president to act? That when you're asked legitimate questions, attack the media? You say that they're the enemy of the people? You say in one of your rules, the media is not your enemy. You know, to deny everything, to never admit a lie. Never clean anything up.</s>STONE: This president has undergone the most vicious fake news assault that I've seen in --</s>CUOMO: What's fake?</s>STONE: -- politics. What's fake? Well, we can argue with it. For example, Stone is -- Mueller is looking at Stone's dinners with -- with Rick Gates. That's fake. There's one dinner.</s>CUOMO: Well, it doesn't mean -- hold on, hold on. Roger, the truth of your relationship with Gates may be nothing. All right. That's your supposition. It doesn't mean that the question is fake. It doesn't mean that they're not looking at it.</s>STONE: No, no, no. Let's take</s>MSNBC. CUOMO: Very mean --</s>STONE: "Stone worked with Gates at Black, Manafort and Stone." No, I didn't, because he never worked there. That's fake news.</s>CUOMO: All right. But that would be -- first of all, Ari Malburg (ph) can speak for himself. He's a talented attorney. But Ari's point could be wrong, right? You can be wrong.</s>STONE: No, no.</s>CUOMO: And it's not a deception and a lie.</s>STONE: He's not a talented attorney.</s>CUOMO: NBC got a report wrong last week about wiretapping. They corrected it. They were wrong. It's not a lie. It's when you don't correct, when you enforce a deception. That's a lie.</s>STONE: It's a smear. And it begins with the premise, the Russians hacked the DNC. Unproven at best. Guccifer 2.0 is a Russian asset.</s>CUOMO: The intel community doesn't believe that. You pointed to the fact that they haven't looked at the server. They believe that they were part of the crime of interference.</s>STONE: Our intelligence agencies have been politicized. Who says that Guccifer is a Russian? John Brennan, the guy they got caught spying on a Senate committee, looking into torture by the CIA? James Clapper, who lied under oath about whether we had a metadata collection program? And Edward --</s>CUOMO: So you believe these men are completely incredible?</s>STONE: I believe that they are politicized, and I believe they are --</s>CUOMO: You don't think that's dangerous -- it's one thing for you to do it, as a proxy. I'll give you that. That's the role of a surrogate. But when the president does the same thing, Roger, it doesn't give you a little bit of pause that he attacks the entire FBI, the Justice Department? It's all deep state?</s>STONE: Not at all. Not at all.</s>CUOMO: -- these Info Wars friends that you have. Not of a president.</s>STONE: In view of the fact that the president cannot be charged with a crime, according to both Republican and Democrat Departments of Justice under both Clinton and Nixon, what's the purpose of this investigation?</s>CUOMO: Truth.</s>STONE: No. To undo the results of the last election.</s>CUOMO: Truth is the point.</s>STONE: We have not found any evidence of a crime.</s>CUOMO: Who interfered -- well, we don't know that. And the investigation is not over. Twenty-three people have been indicted. There's plenty of proof of crimes, Roger.</s>STONE: Thirteen of them are Russians who will never -- who will never come here for trial, including a caterer which means Mr. Mueller has, indeed, indicted a ham sandwich.</s>CUOMO: No. Well, the rule for an indictment is a low level of legal threshold. We know that. But there's much more "there" there than we've seen in other what is described as political prosecutions. Let me give you a last blow on this. What do you say is the best reason to read Roger Stone's book?</s>STONE: Well, what's interesting to me when I post the link to buy this book on Google --