Opinion | What Trump Wants From Roger Stone

So why did President Trump finally act? He was certainly prompted by Mr. Stone’s impending date with prison on Tuesday, but his own re-election prospects also likely played a part. When Mr. Stone was convicted in November, Mr. Trump was facing a close race with Joe Biden among likely voters in battleground states. Today, fewer than four months until Election Day, the polls point to a possible landslide defeat for Mr. Trump.

The stakes in 2020 are far higher for Mr. Trump than they were in 2016. Back then, few expected him to win, including Mr. Stone. (We were filming him on the morning of Election Day, when he told us that he had just registered ImpeachHillary.org.) And because of the global fame Mr. Trump had amassed as the Republican nominee, any result was a win for him.

This time if he is defeated, he will suffer global humiliation.

President Trump has reportedly lashed out at his re-election team for his floundering campaign. As he seeks to right the ship, Mr. Trump would surely want to turn to Mr. Stone, whose political acumen he has trusted for nearly 40 years and who has far more experience in presidential campaigns than anyone else in the president’s inner circle.

It wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Stone rescued a Trump campaign from disaster, beyond whatever Mr. Stone’s involvement was with WikiLeaks. When Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign careered after the “Access Hollywood” tape revealed his crude remarks about women, Mr. Stone sprang into action. During the second debate between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Stone helped orchestrate an indelible moment: Sitting in the front row were several women who had accused President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct. The scene rattled Ms. Clinton and muddied the scandal.

After all they’ve been through together, it’s fitting that Mr. Stone and Mr. Trump have arrived simultaneously at a moment of great need. Mr. Trump has now rescued Mr. Stone, but can Mr. Stone return the favor?

Mr. Stone has been through a damaging legal struggle, and it’s not clear whether his arsenal of dirty tricks can work anymore. While Mr. Stone once worked his dark arts from the shadows, his adversaries are now on to him. He is superb at creating inflammatory spectacle to gin up publicity, but what good is that talent during a pandemic? He is expert at manipulating people via social media, but he’s been banned from virtually every major platform, and Facebook just exposed and deleted his clandestine network of fake accounts. He is a master of riling up the base, but Mr. Trump’s core problem is reaching out to moderates.