Roger Jason Stone (born Roger Joseph Stone Jr.; August 27, 1952) is an American political consultant and lobbyist. He is Donald Trump's longest-serving political adviser, best known for the Mueller special counsel investigation and his alleged involvement with and connections to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as a consultant for the Trump campaign.

Since the 1970s, Stone has worked on Republican campaigns, including those of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Trump. He co-founded a lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black Jr. The firm became Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMSK) in 1984.^: 124 BMSK became a top lobbying firm, leveraging White House connections for high-paying clients, including U.S. corporations, trade associations, and foreign governments.^: 125 Stone's style has been described as "a renowned infighter", "a seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics", "a Republican strategist", and "a political fixer". Stone has called himself "an agent provocateur". He has described his political modus operandi as "attack, attack, attack—never defend" and "admit nothing, deny everything, and launch a counterattack", all evocative of associate Roy Cohn.

Stone first suggested Trump run for president in 1998 while lobbying for his casino business. He left the Trump campaign on August 8, 2015. In 2018, two associates alleged Stone claimed contact with Julian Assange during the 2016 campaign.

"Make America Great Again" (MAGA, US: ) is an American political slogan most recently popularized by Donald Trump during his successful presidential campaigns in 2016 and in 2024. "MAGA" is also used to refer to Trump's ideology, political base, or to an individual or group of individuals from within that base. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants in the arts, entertainment and politics, being used by both supporters and opponents of Trump's presidency and as the name of the Super PAC Make America Great Again Inc.

Originally used by Ronald Reagan as a campaign slogan in his 1980 presidential campaign (Let's Make America Great Again), it has since been described as a loaded phrase. It has been described as a slogan representing American exceptionalism and promoting an idealistic or romanticized American past that excludes certain groups. Multiple scholars, journalists, and commentators have called the slogan racist, regarding it as dog-whistle politics and coded language.

History

Ronald Reagan

"Let's make America great again" was famously used in Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. At the time the United States was suffering from a worsening economy at home marked by stagflation. Using the country's economic distress as a springboard for his campaign, Reagan used the slogan to stir a sense of patriotism among the electorate. During his acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican National Convention, Reagan said, "For those without job opportunities, we'll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live.

On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup, two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. They sought to keep him in power by preventing a joint session of Congress from counting the Electoral College votes to formalize the victory of the president-elect Joe Biden. The attack was unsuccessful in preventing the certification of the election results. According to the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the incident, the attack was the culmination of a plan by Trump to overturn the election. Within 36 hours, five people died: one was shot by the Capitol Police, another died of a drug overdose, and three died of natural causes, including a police officer who died of a stroke a day after being assaulted by rioters and collapsing at the Capitol. Many people were injured, including 174 police officers. Four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months. Damage caused by attackers exceeded $2.7 million.

Called to action by Trump on January 5 and 6, thousands of his supporters gathered in Washington, D.C. to support his false claims that the 2020 election had been "stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats" and demand that then-vice president Mike Pence and Congress reject Biden's victory. Starting at noon on January 6 at a "Save America" rally on the Ellipse, Trump gave a speech in which he repeated false claims of election irregularities and said "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore".