NEW YORK – In a bitter fight for its life, establishment GOP leaders have decided to block Donald Trump's nomination at all costs, even if it means losing the presidency to Hillary Clinton, says Roger Stone, co-author of the 2015 bestselling book "The Clintons' War on Women," and the recently published "Jeb! and the Bush Crime Family."

"The big fix is in," Stone, a former adviser to Trump, told WND in an exclusive telephone interview Sunday.

"Beware the 'Big Steal,'" Stone warned. "The leaders of the GOP establishment plan to steal the nomination from Trump and to thwart the popular will, and they don't care if they lose. Trump threatens all the establishment GOP leaders' cozy deals. He's a threat to the lobbying class. He's a threat to the consultant class. He's a threat to the globalists."

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"The GOP establishment would rather suffer through four years of Hillary – whose policies are indistinguishable from Marco Rubio's or Mitt Romney's – than to have an outsider be president like Trump, who is beholden to no one," Stone insisted.

"Rubio has been given until Tuesday and if he doesn't win the Florida primary, the establishment GOP leaders have decided to dump Rubio in favor of drafting Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee who lost to Barack Obama in 2012," he explained. "If Rubio cannot win Florida, then Rubio drops out and Romney is in."

"The GOP establishment's secret plan is to back Romney against Trump in the hopes of winning enough delegates in the primaries after Super Tuesday to block Trump on the first ballot at the GOP national nominating convention in Cleveland," he added.

"If Trump does not win enough delegates to carry the nomination on the first ballot, there's no way he will be president," Stone stressed. "On the second ballot, the GOP establishment figures enough delegates, including the 210 GOP superdelegates, can be pounded together to make Romney the GOP nominee in 2016."

Stone argued the GOP establishment as seen by the GOP leadership in Congress would be as comfortable with the policies of Hillary Clinton as they have been caving into the policies of Barack Obama.

"If Romney loses to Hillary in the general election, that's fine with the GOP establishment," Stone continued. "With Hillary as president, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan keep their jobs as the congressional heads of the GOP and they actually have more power under a Democratic president, the lobbyists supporting the GOP stay put, and the globalists open-borders crowd in control of the GOP establishment remain in power within the party."

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"The GOP establishment knows that if Rubio or Romney win the nomination, the nomination will be worthless because the GOP will lose to Hillary in November," Stone elaborated.

"But the GOP establishment is fine with that outcome because Hillary Clinton's plans are the same plans the GOP leadership in Congress currently has," he insisted. "The Democrats and the GOP in Congress both want to continue open borders, to introduce amnesty for the illegal immigrants already in the United States, to give the green light to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and ship more millions of jobs overseas, and to expand the welfare state and retain Obamacare, and to allow Goldman Sachs and their friends on Wall Street to make all the money they want to make."

'A battle to the death' for control of the GOP

Stone explained what is going on right now in the remaining GOP primaries is "a battle to the death" for the future control of the Republican Party.

"Right now the GOP establishment is throwing all the dirt they can find against Trump against the wall to see what sticks," Stone noted, commenting on Romney's call for Trump to release his income taxes and the recent allegations that the litigation against Trump University exposes students Trump supposedly cheated out of tuition dollars.

"The GOP establishment attack on Trump is just beginning," Stone commented. "If Trump becomes the GOP nominee, 'Plan B' is for the GOP establishment to go into a full-court press to defeat Trump, even if it means Hillary wins the general election."

"Since the GOP establishment would be perfectly comfortable with losing to Hillary, either Rubio or Romney winning the GOP nomination would be fine with them," he argued. "But if Trump wins the White House, it marks the end of the cozy deal the GOP establishment in Washington and D.C. has had with the welfare-state leftists controlling the Democratic Party."

"I keep trying to explain to people – on what issue were the GOP controlling Congress and Obama and the White House any different? Endless war, the Patriot Act, bailouts for banks and Wall Street?" Stone asked. "Sure the GOP in Congress tries to sound different, especially when running for elections. But it's all rhetoric. The real fight is between the globalist welfare state of the Obama, Hillary, and the GOP establishment controlling Congress and the Trump supporters who still believe in American sovereignty."

A brokered convention

"So, the GOP establishment has decided to go to 'Plan B,'" Stone insists. "If Rubio loses Florida and it becomes clear he can't suck up enough delegates to block Trump on the first ballot in Cleveland, then the GOP establishment will draft Romney to run."

"The GOP establishment has lawyers right now checking filing deadlines to make sure Romney can yet be registered in the big primaries remaining, including New York, New Jersey and California," he noted.

"The GOP establishment is dead set to back whichever candidate – Rubio or Romney – that they believe has the best chance of getting of a block of delegates in the remaining primaries big enough to block Trump on the first ballot in order to force the GOP into a brokered convention," Stone detailed.

"Then, if Trump loses on the first ballot, the GOP establishment plans to vote the superdelegates and swap enough delegates from the remaining delegates to take Trump out in the second ballot," he insisted.

"In 2012, the delegates for Ron Paul were ruled down at the GOP convention," Stone recalled, referring to the 2012 GOP Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, when Ron Paul supporters walked out of a rules committee decision to replace with Romney supporters 10 of Maine's 24 delegates pledged to support Ron Paul, in a move that effectively stopped Maine from submitting Ron Paul's name in nomination.

"In 2012, although Romney had enough delegates to win the ballot on the first ballot, the establishment GOP leaders wanted to avoid a floor fight so GOP could present a united front to the American public," Stone noted. "It's the same this every year. By controlling the rules committee, the GOP establishment seeks to control the nominating convention."