Read the full transcript of former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci’s interview on Intelligence Squared on “Trump and the Threat to American Democracy”, Oct 10, 2025.
The Warmest Welcome
MODERATOR: That was the warmest, loveliest welcome. Thank you all very much indeed. I’m not going to introduce this man because he’s why you’re here. You know who he is. You came to see him.
All right, just one line for those of you who have been dragged here by their luck, their wives. Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, investment firm, broadcaster, podcaster. For 11 days, Donald Trump’s director of communications at the White House, which is where I met him. Do you remember how we first met?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I remember very vividly. Yeah.
MODERATOR: And you did hold my hand.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I held your hand, yeah.
MODERATOR: Do you remember how I got you to—come on, we’re going to start early. We’re in a church.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Go ahead, Emily. I’m listening.
The Newsnight Interview Story
MODERATOR: Do you remember? So Anthony Scaramucci was walking past with Sebastian Gorka, and we suddenly spotted you. You’d just become the Director of Comms about three days earlier, four days earlier. And we went, “That’s the Mooch. That’s Scaramucci.”
And Sebastian Gorka was meant to come on Newsnight that night. And I said, “We prefer you.” And Gorka, to his credit, just said, “Yeah, you should do it. Go on. You should go and do Newsnight.”
And so there is this very weird, spontaneous interview where it looks as if the Mooch is the handsiest person in the history of television interviews. But what nobody realized is it was me grabbing his hand so he didn’t walk off my set. That is actually what happened.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: You’re finally getting the real story, right? Because you have no idea.
MODERATOR: I was not letting go.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: But that day, you have no idea how much grief I took for that. Okay, keep going. This is getting better and better. Keep going, Emily.
MODERATOR: Yeah. So that day, you stood in front of me and told our entire audience that Donald Trump was a man of the people because he loved eating burgers and pizza. We’ve come a long way since then.
Trump’s Fast Food Obsession
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So I think that was a—all right, so I do remember the conversation. I think it was a segue. But listen, he got 80 million people to vote for him.
MODERATOR: Yeah.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So, you know, and I will tell you that I did 71 campaign stops with Donald Trump. And so we went through all of the United States, and he would come down the steps of that plane, and the first thing he would say to the—he always had a police chief greeting. I mean, he would look over and say the guy was trying to say hello to him and potentially get a selfie. He’d say, “Is there a Burger King near here? Is there a McDonald’s?”
And the police chief would look at him and he would say, “Yes sir, there is.” And he would say, “Okay, okay guys, what do you want from McDonald’s?” And we’d all look at him and say, “We don’t want anything from McDonald’s.” And they would be bringing trays of Quarter Pounders into the plane.
And you know he’s going to live forever, right? You know that. So anyway, all right, keep going.
Political Journey: From Clinton to Trump
MODERATOR: I think before we get stuck into today, we should just explain a little bit to people. You were quite politically ecumenical. I mean you supported Clinton, you supported Obama, you supported Romney. I think you endorsed Scott Walker, Wisconsin, Jeb Bush. Just kind of take us around that. What brought you into the Trump orbit?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I am so accidentally into this thing. It’s really hard to believe. I was a business person. I started my career at Goldman Sachs and I was in the private banking area.
Problem is I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood in New York. It was in a middle—middle class is different in the UK. But you know, my dad was making—when my dad left his job, he was 41 years as a crane operator on Long Island. His last salary in the year 2000 when he retired at age 65 was $32,500 a year.
So when I was going to school, meaning middle school to high school, my dad was making between $25,000 and $30,000 a year. So that was in the country at that time on Long Island, believe it or not, you could buy a house, you had a family.
My mother, believe it or not, was a makeup artist. So she always comments on my makeup. I’m a Mac 5 if you’re ever looking to buy me, that’s my color scheme according to my mother. But anyway, so my mother was doing bridal parties on Saturday and my dad was working. And if my dad was lucky, he was working on a Saturday because that’s when he got time and a half from the union.
A Fish Out of Water
So I’m telling you that story. I did not grow up poor. I would never tell anybody I grew up poor. I would never want to dishonor my dad’s work ethic by even suggesting I grew up poor. But I’m telling you this story because I have been a fish out of water for most of my life.
I went to Tufts and Harvard. I wasn’t dressed appropriately. My first job interview at Goldman Sachs, I was wearing 100% polyester. Okay? I was fully flammable. For my first job, I had black polish suit trousers. I had a white poly shirt. I mean, you never had to go to the dry cleaner. You just throw it in the laundry. I didn’t know any better. And I had this—you know, I’m going to call it what it was. It was a black guido tie.
And I was sitting at the Charles Hotel, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Goldman partner looked at me and said, “Listen, you’re a smart kid, but you are the worst dressed person that we’ve ever met at the Harvard Law School.”
And I remember being so embarrassed by this.
So this is an important part of the story because I was a complete fish out of water. So now I’m at Goldman. I’ve never hit a golf ball, I’ve never swung a tennis racket. All I did was work as a kid to make the money to go to school. And I had no access to the people that they wanted me to develop relationships with.
And then it dawned on me that the way I could do that was through politics.
Breaking Into Politics Through Fundraising
So I was 29 years old. I wrote my first check to Rudy Giuliani. I mean, he lost his mind now, but back then he was running for mayor. And I wrote a $250 check, young Republicans for mayor. He won, which was like the luckiest thing that happened to me.
Emily, you know, parking passes in New York are a really hard commodity. I had literally the best parking permit in New York City. I mean, I could park my car on two wheels on a fire hydrant in front of Radio City on Christmas Eve, no problem.
MODERATOR: Okay.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: And so Rudy and I became very close and he introduced me to Bob Dole. I don’t know if you remember Bob Dole. He introduced me to George W. Bush. He introduced me to George Pataki. And so I was a Republican Party fundraiser, which helped me grow my business. And that’s how I got involved in politics.
But you mentioned Barack Obama. So I went to law school with President Obama. I think he was here last week. And a couple of my friends very close to him, they said, “Okay, you’re a big Republican fundraiser. But he went to law school with us.” And I didn’t know him that well.
And so I went to a Democratic fundraiser for then Senator Obama. I walked into the room, he was there, and I said, “Senator, we didn’t really know each other that well in law school, but I have a big check for you. But I want to tell a big fib to people and tell them that I knew you really well in law school. Are you cool with that?”
He looked at me, said, “If you double the amount of the check, we’ll take it all the way back to Hawaii.” And I ripped the check up, I had another check, I doubled the check and I handed it to him.
And if you know Barack Obama, he’s got the best smile in American politics since Jack Kennedy and he went on to win the presidency. And Emily, put a little bit of trivia for you. I’ve been to more Barack Obama Christmas parties than Donald Trump Christmas parties. I’ve been to no Donald Trump Christmas parties.
Staying Republican Despite Obama
MODERATOR: But how did he lose you then? Because you’ve written him this great check. It’s all going well.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I was a lifelong Republican, so my dad’s union was tied to the Republican Party, which is rare because most unions in the United States are tied to what you guys call labor. I guess it’s labor. And so it was Democrats, but in New York, in the county of Nassau, there was a very tight fisted Republican by the name of Joseph Margiotta that ran the unions.
And so when I turned 18, I registered for the draft and I registered to vote. I turned to my dad, I said, “Am I a Democrat or a Republican?” And so he said, “Oh, no, no, you’re a Republican.” And so it’s sort of like a sports team. You know, it’s like you can’t go from Man City to Manchester United, right? You can’t do that.
So I’ve always been a Republican, but I did write a check to Hillary Clinton when she ran for the Senate because she was coming from my home state and I knew she would be a good senator. Wrote a check to Barack Obama. I did do that, but I was a lifelong Republican.
So I went to work for Mitt Romney. You know, that’s how I met a lot of the people that are still working in the Republican Party, like Paul Atkins, our SEC chair, was on the Romney transition team with me. And then I worked for Scott Walker and Jeb Bush.
The First Trump Breakfast
And you know, I don’t think I’ve ever told this story, but I’ll tell you guys this. I got a call from Trump and I had met Trump because I was a CNBC analyst. He was at NBC and he was doing the Apprentice, and he invited me to a few parties and then we bought a charity table together for Robin Hood, which is like a hedge fund charity for the underprivileged. Then we went to a couple Yankee games together.
He called me and he said, “Listen, this is the day after the Apprentice. Listen, I want you to have breakfast with me.” I said, “Okay, I’m going to come over and have breakfast.”
So if you ever go to Trump’s office at Trump Tower, his chair is up here, your chair is down there, and you’re looking up at him. I mean, and he’s spitting at you with the pursed lips and everything. He says, “Did you see me on the Apprentice last night? I was terrific. I was terrific.”
It’s like, “No, I didn’t see you on the Apprentice.” “You were the only one. You were the only one.” He said, “But that’s over for me now. I’m going to run for president.”
And I remember looking at him and saying, “You’re just doing that for publicity. You’re not really serious.” “No, I hired this guy, Corey Lewandowski. I built on the fifth floor of this building. I built a campaign headquarters.”
And, Emily, have you been to that? Were you at that campaign? So if you go from the fifth floor of the Trump Tower, you walk up one flight of stairs, you’re at the 14th floor. That’s everything you should know about Donald Trump in that one time. And so all those condos, like that 56th floor is really like the 42nd floor. You got that? And so now this is what he—
MODERATOR: Used to call truthful exaggeration, right?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Exactly.
MODERATOR: A big lie.
Loyalty to Jeb Bush
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So now I say to Trump, “I can’t come work for you. I’m loyal to work for George W. Bush. I’m working for Jeb.” “Don’t you think Jeb has low energy? Don’t you think he has low energy?”
I said, “No, I actually don’t think he has low energy.” But he did have low energy, and he lost. Okay, so now Trump—
MODERATOR: Do you think the nickname killed him? Do you think it cut him out the right—
The Trump Campaign Experience
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Well, I think what happens to these guys, and this is something that Trump is part of his genius, and people think he isn’t. But trust me, you don’t go from being a reality television star to the American presidency in 18 months and wipe out everybody, including the Democrats, if you don’t have some instincts for this stuff.
But what happens is someone hits you with that label and you start to internalize it. Like, you got to tell your kids, you reflect everything. You don’t absorb things. If someone’s being mean spirited to you in social media or things like that, reflect it, don’t absorb it. But you could see that Bush absorbed it. You could see Rubio and Cruz, they absorbed the commentary, even Secretary Clinton.
But so now Trump and I shake hands. He says if Bush drops out of the race, he’ll come work for me. Guys, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but that was like colossal mistake number one. I reached over, shook his hand, what kind of thing, and he called me. He called me the day that Bush dropped out, and he said, “Listen, why don’t you come work for me?”
He actually wanted me to co-chair the campaign with Mnuchin, but I was hosting something for Fox Business called Wall Street Week, and I didn’t want to give up the show, so I said, “I’ll be on the committee, I’ll help raise some money, I’ll provide media advocacy, and let’s go to work.”
And do you mind? I’m going to tell this story because this is an important part of Trump’s success, and it’s also something I learned from him. And you can think he’s an evil guy, and I think he’s probably one of the worst people on the planet right now. But I did learn from him, and I want to share it with you.
The Albuquerque Revelation
He took me to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the first campaign stop. When we got to the Albuquerque Civic Center, we got to see something we never saw on the Bush campaign. You know what that was, ladies and gentlemen? People. There were people in the room. With Bush, we had like five people, three were staff. And we were asking somebody to come in. It was one point where Bush was in New Hampshire. He was like, finish speaking. Nobody clapped. And he said, “Please clap.” You remember that? I know you remember that.
And then that was, okay, so now you’re coming in on the Trump plane. There are 9,000 people in the Albuquerque Civic Center. There’s overflow in the Civic Center. And the Secret Service gives you this badge when you travel with them. And I had never traveled with them. So I said, “What is this?” And the guy says to me, “Well, if the shooting starts, we know not to shoot you.”
MODERATOR: You never had a badge on you? Never been badged by the…
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: No, I’ve never heard. So now I take the badge off, I put it in my pocket, I cross the security perimeter, and I go into the crowd, because I’m now fascinated that there are 9,000 people here in Albuquerque to see Mr. Trump. Why are you here?
And I’m going to give you a composite, but this has never left me. And hopefully this is something you’ll take with you from tonight. There was a gentleman there about 35 years old, and he said to me, “Listen, I was at a factory with my dad. My dad retired from the factory. He has his pension. But I lost my job at the factory after 12 years. They moved the factory. Anthony, you think you’re in New Mexico?”
MODERATOR: New.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: New Mexico, okay, that would be Mexico, because that’s where my factory moved to. And if you really study the trade situation, Emily, 65,000 factories left the United States from 1993, when we signed NAFTA to 2016. 65,000 factories.
And so this young man was telling me that he was working at Domino’s, the pizzeria delivery service, and he was working at Lowe’s, the home improvement store, to try to supplement his income. And he said he was here because Mr. Trump was bringing the jobs back.
The Economic Reality Check
When I got back on the plane, I went on the Internet and I looked up my dad’s local union, Local 986, the operating engineers on Nassau County, to figure out what the wages were, because I knew my dad’s wages. And I turned to Mr. Trump, I said, “Well, you know, my dad’s wages, 40 years later, his 1976 wages are down 26.5% in terms of purchasing power.”
So that now takes our family out of that small house I grew up in, in that middle class living environment, into needing some level of government assistance. So, ladies and gentlemen, what we did to the country is we turned working class people who were once economically aspirational, who once thought that their children were going to grow up and live the American dream, maybe go to Harvard Law School, work at Goldman, things like that, to economically desperational.
Mr. Trump saw that. I did not see that. And it always, it’s a poor reflection on me, if I’m being brutally honest with you, because I grew up with the people that Mr. Trump was talking to, but I ended up getting the confirmed biases of the people I started hanging out with. Those were the people in the hedge fund community or Goldman Sachs or going to Davos, Switzerland.
And what ends up happening to you if you’re not careful? You start to pick up the confirmed biases of the people you’re hanging out with, and you lose touch with what’s actually happening on the ground. And I will tell you that the establishment Democrats and the establishment Republicans miss this huge wedge in the system that he exploited.
MODERATOR: Yeah, I mean, very good at recognizing problems. Possibly less good at finding solutions.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I mean, no, he doesn’t want to find the solutions. He just wants to draw you in. Think about this, Emily. This is a guy that was living in a triplex apartment adjacent to the Tiffany’s jewelry store. If you went into the apartment, it looked like Louis XIV smoked crystal meth and decorated the apartment. We’ve never seen an apartment like this. I mean, and there’s no way you could live in an apartment like that. You wouldn’t be able to sleep.
But this guy with that level of detachment saw what was going on on the ground. And I grew up with these people, and I missed it. And so it doesn’t reflect well on me. But I think it’s an important story to tell about the epiphany that I had on that campaign, watching that.
MODERATOR: Okay, so I want to try and find an arc of how we’re going to be talking tonight. And I guess I’m going to divide it into three areas and then your questions. We’ll take your questions as well. How’s it going? Where is it leading? And where is everyone who doesn’t like it? So starting really basically, America, how’s it going?
The State of American Democracy
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Well, it’s going terribly, but it’s been great for the podcast business. Come on, give it up. Am I doing this going terribly? Trump is good for one thing. That’s podcasting, but other than that, no.
But it’s going terribly because we have a crisis of leadership. This is actually, and again, to be fair and objective, it’s an indictment of both parties. We have a crisis of leadership going on, and we have a structural problem going on. And so three things that happen has created the structural problem. And so then the question is, do we have transformative leadership? Do we have transcendental leadership that can pull us out of the structural problem?
So problem number one started in ’92. Ross Perot ran for president. Bill Clinton was in the race with George Herbert Walker Bush, and he scared the daylights out of those two parties. He got 19.9% of the vote. So they structurally collapsed on third parties, and they tightened their duopoly to the point where you can’t get a third party on a ballot in all 50 states even. And it’s become impossible to have an independent run, even though independents now are the highest voter registration in the country, over 40% of the registered.
Structural problem number two is we allowed for this thing called gerrymandering. I think most people here know what it means, but I’ll just be brief. The local authorities can pick the congressional district. So if you’re the incumbents in and you like him, well, your house will be included in the district. If you don’t like him, they’ll figure out a way to cut your house out of the district so you no longer can vote in that district.
And so these districts used to look like geometric shapes that we would recognize from geometry, but they now look like jigsaw puzzle pieces. And I submit to you rhetorically, but just think about it. Are we in a real democracy if the politicians are picking the voters? I thought the voters were supposed to pick the politicians. Right. So that’s a structural problem.
Citizens United and Its Impact
And then the last problem, and this is the big one, is Citizens United. And so if you don’t know what that is, again, just briefly, it was a Supreme Court case in January of 2010 where Justice Scalia said, “Well, you know, if you’ve got money, you have a First Amendment right in the country to expend unlimited amounts of money on your political candidate or your cause, whatever it may be.” And this was the rise of the political action committee.
And I can show you, I didn’t bring charts. I don’t want to bore people, but I can show you, since January of 2010 to today, the legislative agenda has skewed towards big pharma, big food, tax cuts for the rich. The big beautiful spending bill, which was just passed, is a representation of that. If you made a million dollars a year, you got a $7,000 benefit from that bill. If you made $50,000 or less, you lost $700 of benefits.
The bill, at the time of its signing, had a 38% approval rating in the country. It’s now at 31%. But the politicians don’t care because they can continue to get reelected because of these structural things that they did to the system. The overall Congress has an approval rating of 14%. So Kim Il-jung, the North Korean dictator, is doing almost as well as the Congress, but the individual incumbent has a 95% reelection rate.
So these structural problems have put us in a place of continual disrepair. Deficit spending will go up. The partisan bickering will continue because they don’t have to play to the middle, because they’re screening out the people that are in the middle. They’re playing to their bases. And we’ve discovered the algorithms and social media enhance the followership of the people that are the most rancid. And we know that, and those are the problems.
So how’s it going? Great for the podcast business. Shitty for the country.
MODERATOR: Does any part of the economy or the direction of the economy excite you?
Innovation and Economic Hope
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Okay, so that’s a different, that’s the political system. So the great irony, and this is the hope that you should take from tonight is that despite everything I just said, the people, the men and women of industry and in the economy are innovating and they’re bringing more productivity to bear.
And there’ll be improvements in software, there’ll be improvements obviously driven by AI, there’ll be robotic technology, there’ll be more fuel efficiency, sustainability. All these things are happening. And so the great irony is we’ll probably get bailed out by that.
And again, just remember this because if you’re an investor in the room, you got to be very careful of the linear way that we’re designed to think. If you really study the brain, you’re designed to think linearly as part of your survival mechanism. You know, the brain is literally a hundred thousand year old piece of machinery. It hasn’t had a software upgrade in 100,000 years. Right? Your phone went from iPhone One to iPhone 17. But this really hasn’t evolved. And so you have to understand how it operates.
We’re thinking linearly, but the world is happening exponentially around us. And so let me give two examples. One would be Thomas Malthus. Most Brits know who he is. He was a former famous apocalyptic economist in the 1840s. He said we were going to run out of food. Population is growing exponentially. We can only grow the food linearly. We’re going to run out of food.
But he missed everything. He missed fertilization, irrigation, vertical farming, GMO activity, all the things that we do now. We have more people. Prior to Ozempic, we had more people dying from obesity related illnesses than we did from starvation. But he said we were going to starve.
If you were in class in the 1980s, somebody told you about peak oil and they said we’re going to run out of oil. My professors at Tufts said it would be 2010. Wow, we’re going to run out of oil. Did we run out of oil? No, we invented fracking, improvements in energy efficiency, satellite technology so that we can actually get thermal imaging of where the fossil fuels are, that we can extract better offshore drilling mechanisms, all of this stuff.
We have more energy, we have to deal with the environmental impact of the energy. But my point is don’t think of the thing linearly if I’m telling you it’s not going well right now. There will be things that happen, deus ex machina that we’re not planning for that will right size the ship. And so you can’t use, you can’t sit there and be overly pessimistic because we’ve always figured a way out of it.
MODERATOR: So I guess if you make that a smaller question, do you think the actions that Trump is making right now are helping or hurting the economy?
Economic Policy and the Rule of Law
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Well, you know, the actions that he’s making right now are hurting the economy because the number one driver of the economy in a country like ours and yours for that matter, is the predictability of the rule of law. And so that’s not just the contract law, but it’s the criminal laws. The criminal laws, the procedural system.
You could look to the United States over an 80-year period of time since the end of the Second World War and you could make the statement: some tribalism, some partisanship, lots of bickering, but the legal system is stable. It’s very predictable. The contract system stable. And the property rights, Emily, like this country, are sacrosanct. They date back to the Magna Carta. There’s 900 years of common law precedent. And it gives people great comfort that they can invest in the country.
If you’re going to take one person and lift them above the law and they’re going to go down a list called Project 2025 and they’re going to go through the list to put pressure on the legal system, pressure on the courts, go after their adversaries as they’re publicly saying, indiscriminately go after their adversaries. So I’m sure we’re going to get to James Comey. But if the prosecutor that’s been at the Department of Justice for 25 years says there’s no meat to the case, the case is specious, I’m not bringing the case. I say, okay, you resign. We’re going to give it to Miss Arizona. I guess she was to take the case. Okay. And so that puts pressure in the system and on the margin that hurts the commercial activity in the country.
If you’re going to come down on the 2nd of April from Mount Evil like orange Moses with the tariff tablet and you’re coming down with the tariff tablet and people are looking at it and like, what the hell is that? And nobody can figure it out and you’re going to try to shock and awe the global economic system, you’re going to slow down commerce, you’re going to put the country into a recession.
The country’s heading now. Country, if he left the Biden economic policies in place would be growing slowly with inflation being reduced and more global integration would lead to lower costs of capital. But what he’s done now is he’s totally disrupted the system. He flipped over the global system to the point now where people are not hiring the incremental employee, they’re not going to build the additional factory and he’s setting a trajectory for a recession in the country. So no, I think his decision making is very, very flawed on policy.
Now, if you said to me, is he right that America needs to right size some of their tariffs, he is right. I probably don’t have the time to give you the 80-year economic trade history, but he is right on portions of that. He is right on the border. You can’t have a welfare state and have 7 to 10 million people cross the border every year. You won’t be able to sustain from a tax perspective. So he is right that you have to control the border and have legal as opposed to illegal immigration.
He is right that we lost our manufacturing advantages by offshoring too many things. And some of those things have a national security implications of the United States, like the semiconductor chips that are being made in Taiwan. But the way he’s going about policy I think is very flawed. And by the way, just as evidence that he’s right about a few things, the Biden administration left some of the tariffs in place. Everybody knows that. Right.
And I would just say this on the tariffs, I think about it this way. If you’ve got a country like China where the private sector can team up with the government and they can get a gigantic subsidy from the government to help them develop their goods, and now they can lowball price their goods and have them enter the UK market or the United States. That’s unfair competition. And so the UK government or the US Government as a responsible agent to protect their workers, needs to come up with tariffs, surgical tariffs to defend their workers.
But to come down from Mount Evil with the 39% and the 104, he’s got the Penguins, I guess, taxed at 140%. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, nobody. You guys are laughing because it was on the sheet, right? I mean, I’m not making it up. It’s not like not making it up. So this stuff is terrible. There’s no opposition. There’s no articulate organized opposition. The Republicans are scared out of their minds of him and the Democrats are too busy fighting with each other to get an organized opposition leadership in place.
The Rhetoric of Division
MODERATOR: Okay? So on that point. Following the murder of Charlie Kirk, Trump has been on a mission to shut down what he calls a radical left terrorist network. And he says that the left is following of people using words like racist or fascist or Nazi. So it’s no wonder that people keep getting attacked. This has become a real conundrum, I guess, for people who think that he is acting in an authoritarian, fascist way, but don’t know how to call that out without then becoming a target for his honor.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So that’s part of his genius. Yeah, right. Unfortunately, it is. He’s projecting. Right. I have a, you know, in addition to the rest of his politics, I have a smaller podcast called Open Book, where I interview authors because I’m a little bit of a bookworm. And there’s an author by the name of Lawrence Rees, and he wrote a book called “The Nazi Mind,” the 12 characteristics of what the Playbook Was for the Nazis To Create Their Rise in Germany.
And what do you do? You find scapegoats. You divide others. You project what you’re doing. You accuse the other side of doing it. And there’s a whole list. There’s 12 characteristics. And if you look through the list, you know, these guys are. I mean, 10 out of 12, 11 out of 12 on the list.
So you’re in that conundrum. And they’re, you know, these poor people were killed in a Mormon church over the weekend. I don’t know if you guys saw that. Rather than, you know, offering sympathy to the victims, Trump put out on Truth Social, “More white Christians assassinated,” you know, from the leftist hate. In the meantime, the person that shot them had none of that profile or none of that configuration. So Trump is going to double down on that narrative.
You know Charlie Kirk, and I know Charlie. I can tell you my stories about him if you want to hear them. But Charlie Kirk is killed. One of the reporters turns to Trump and says, “Sir, your friend died. He was assassinated. How are you doing today?” Trump says, “Fine, fine. Did you see the ballroom that we’re building over here on the side of the White House?” The level of detachment towards other human beings is remarkable.
MODERATOR: But just go back to this whole question.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: He doesn’t think of you as a human being. You’re an object in his field of vision.
MODERATOR: But is it helpful to those who oppose what Trump is doing now to give it a name, to call it fascism, to call it authoritarianism, to say, you know, this is the kind of behavior of the 1930s or whatever? Or do you think we’re just numb to that now, do you think we’re kind of immune to that? I mean, the way Trump phrases it, you then become part of the problem.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So I think his base is immune to it. But remember, he’s polling right now at 37%. That’s his approval rating. If we’re going to get into Vice President Harris at some point in the conversation, understand that the best thing that Donald Trump has had going for him through his political journey so far are the Democrats, because they put up Hillary Clinton. She was in a big fight with Bernie Sanders. They rigged it for her, so much so that Debbie Wasserman Schultz got fired on the eve of the Democratic Convention. You remember all this?
MODERATOR: I do. I also remember the part that Russia played in leaking emails at the time.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Right. The leak of the emails and obviously the big fight over that. We can talk about that as well. But she was a weak candidate. He was not a popular figure, but she was a weak candidate. And remember, she got the popular vote, but he beat her in the swing states and won the Electoral College second time around.
Joe Biden, who beat him, was clearly impaired. He was clearly sunsetting. There’s a lot of documented evidence. Why don’t you come out of the race in September of 2023? Why are you waiting? Okay. He has this disastrous debate where he doesn’t know where. And Trump had a great line in that debate. Trump said, “I don’t know what he said, and I don’t think he even knows what he said.” And that was a death blow to Joe Biden’s political career.
Kamala Harris and the 2024 Campaign
MODERATOR: You were helping Kamala Harris, this debate with Trump.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I spent six hours with her and her team. And I went to the, I was in the spin room for her after the debate with Gavin Newsom.
MODERATOR: And what did you feel when you were watching that? Did he think this is somebody who could do it, or do you think this is somebody who’s not going to do it, but I’m going to help them.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So the, well, here’s what I would say. The assassination attempt at Butler and the visual photography from that definitely helped Donald Trump. You just have to accept that it did. And then secondarily, she’s entering the race with 107 days. When Hillary Clinton ran against Donald Trump, he was one of the top 50 to 100 most famous people in the world. When Vice President Harris ran against him, he was by far the most famous person in the world.
She was at such a material disadvantage, and she wasn’t an incumbent president. And you gave her 107 days. And then, Emily, the other thing you did to her was she had to use Joe Biden’s staff. She didn’t have any time.
MODERATOR: She fired a few.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I think she did. But she was operating the campaign headquarters out of Delaware, not her home state of California, with her people. So this was insurmountable odds. But when I met with her, I did think she could do it because she’s very well prepared, she’s very well organized, despite the rhetoric about her. She was attorney general in California. She was the senator in California and the sitting vice president. And she was a very well prepared, very organized person. And I thought she did a great job in the debate.
But her biggest issue was not wanting to take the risks that you need to take if you want to be president. So if you want to be the American president, guess what? You got to take risks. You got to throw the ball. Jack Kennedy. You guys are telling me. I’m Catholic and the Pope is going to run America. Let me give a controversial speech to refute that. People in this room may remember Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He was Barack Obama’s reverend. He had said some very bad racist things in the church. Obama had to go out and address the fact that he was likely going to be the first black president of the United States. He took an exogenous risk. You have to take these risks if you want to be the president.
MODERATOR: So spell that out. Are you just talking about the Joe Rogan podcast?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: You know, it’s a lot of different things. So, so she needed to go on Fox News. She had 107 days to campaign. She needed to be on Fox News 108 of the 107 days.
MODERATOR: Let me ask you something.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: And she wouldn’t do it because she didn’t want to be pinned by them. So in her book, Pete Buttigieg was doing it every single day and just beating them left and right. And she had the, trust me, she, she beat Trump in that debate. She had the verbal dexterity to beat those guys.
MODERATOR: So in her book, she, she admits that she wanted to pick Pete Buttigieg. If she could have picked him as her VP, she would have done. But she says that America wasn’t ready for a black woman and a gay man. Is she wrong?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: No, but she may be right. But let me tell you why that decision making is wrong. That’s the risk, right? Okay. You got to take the risk if he’s the best player, player on the field. When you think about what she just did, she just fell into the trap of wokeism for Donald Trump. So wait a minute, you’re going to pick somebody that’s inferior and less talented than Pete Buttigieg so that you can fill the box as it relates to the stuff that we’re talking about in the culture war?
Remember this, ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump is the Napoleon of the culture war. He can see the battlefield. If you remember your biographies of Napoleon, he could see the entire battlefield. He could anticipate where the moves were. He was anticipating moves even before the generals were thinking of the moves, and that’s why he was consistently a victor on the battlefield. Trump is the Napoleon of the culture war. He can see what they’re doing. He knows how to trigger them, and they flail every time they respond. So she should have picked blue. That would have been an example of good risk taking for her.
The Bible Belt and Electoral Strategy
MODERATOR: Right. So I don’t want to litigate 24. But if you’re looking forward, who is that person? Who is the match for that now? I mean, Gavin Newsom has kind of reinvented himself as the sort of chief troller, the sort of guy who will take the “thank you for your attention” tweets to Trump.
I guess you’ve got Mamdani, who looks like he’s going to win in New York as mayor in November, who’s just taken, trying to take the whole party to the left. Very kind of punchy, very upbeat, very unapologetic. I mean, I know somebody put a five quid bet on Clooney, which is either too little or too much, depending on whether you think there’s any chance of that, of him coming into or somebody coming into the race like that. Where do you think the—well, that’s right.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I mean, it’s a couple things there. So I would say that if they go with Mamdani or the AOC crowd, they’ll be out of power for three decades because the United States, and this is unique—
MODERATOR: But isn’t that the risk? Isn’t that the kind of risk you’re just talking about? Like, he feels wildly popular.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: But he feels wildly popular to a segment of the population. But to win the presidency, you’ve got to win those swing states. You’ve got to go into those states and remember something about the United States, which is different from Europe and the UK. This is a church or a former church. They don’t use former churches for conferences or presentations in the United States. It’s a very religious country.
And you know that you’ve traveled the United States. I did 71 campaign stops with Trump. We have a Bible Belt and then we literally have a buckle of the Bible Belt. And these are the most intense, fanatical orthodox people. And they are conservative. Even if they have gay family members and even if there’s a lot of hypocrisy in the orthodoxy of their Christian conservatism, they are conservative.
And so those people—Trump is right about this. Trump said, “I hope Mamdani wins because he’ll be the greatest gift that the Democrats can give to the Republicans.” But you can assume it’s a different case.
MODERATOR: None of this applies to Trump. I mean, that’s the thing, right? So, you know, Kamala’s got to take risks. Mamdani’s kind of too left for the country. They weren’t like somebody who doesn’t understand the Bible Belt. And yet none of those rules apply to Trump.
Like, how does Trump get the Bible Belt? How does Trump get the buckle? How does Trump manage to be the person—you know, just going back to her book, she’s like, “I’m the one that gets accused of word salad. Like, have you listened to one of his speeches with the sharks and the windmills and the escalators? And I’m the one that gets accused of word salad.” And she’s got a point, right? That somehow the rules are completely different for him.
Trump’s Immunity to Criticism
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Well, okay, so they’re not completely different for him, but he’s done something which people will be writing about 50 years from now—he’s immunized everybody to him.
MODERATOR: Yeah.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So when Emily Maitlis or George Stephanopoulos or Jake Tapper, you pick the journalist, went after Trump and accused him of the word salad. And the Washington Post said Trump is on track to tell 40,000 lies in a four-year period of time. This term he told 34,000 lies, according to the Washington Post, in the first term.
And so Trump has figured out, and he said this to Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, “If I say the lie, and I say it again over and over and over again, there’s a group of people that are going to be with me and are going to believe the lie.”
Moreover, Trump has also figured out that the culture war for the people that I’m describing and the people I visited on those 71 campaign stops is real. When Fox News gets out there and says, “You’re not allowed to say Merry Christmas anymore, you can only say Happy Holidays,” this explodes the mind of these orthodox Christian conservatives. In the meantime, I’ve never heard anybody say Happy Holidays, everyone says Merry Christmas to me. But that’s a narrative that comes off of Fox.
When they play these cultural tropes, Trump understands every piece of the music, every musical score that’s being played. Trump is the conductor. He can lie with impunity. You guys in the media, me, we call him out on the lie. He doesn’t care. He keeps moving.
People like Kamala Harris who have like a shame gene like normal people, or have like a self-reflective gene, like normal people are like, “Oh, wow, maybe I said a word salad on the View.” Not Trump. So you have to understand what he did. Through his lack of shame, he has steamrolled everybody.
You have colleagues that you used to work with or there’s people in America—when I’m interviewing Trump, what do I do? He’s going to—I’m going to ask him a question, he’s going to say a lie. Do I counterfactually check him? And so now I spend the entire interview counterfactually checking him or should I let him speak?
MODERATOR: Could you do—this is what’s going on now—could you do your old job? Would he be able to stand up in the—
The Real Reason for Scaramucci’s Firing
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: That was the big problem. See, people don’t even remember why I got fired, right? They think, “Oh, I do—you think I got fired for the New Yorker thing, right?” You think I got fired because I said Steve was—I can’t say it in the church, but I said some bad things about Steve.
MODERATOR: Which was, you know what we did.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Steve Bannon was like the worst guy on the planet. By the way, do you know why I believe in God? We’re in a church. You guys want to know why I believe in God? Because Steve Bannon is articulate, he’s charismatic, he’s a historian. But God made him so ugly to save the civilization from Steve Bannon.
You’ve never met a worse person than Steve Bannon. Okay? He’s worse than Trump because he actually understands what he wants to do with the white supremacy. Trump really doesn’t understand it. But I got fired. You guys think I got fired for the New Yorker magazine?
MODERATOR: No, it was Trump, wasn’t it?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: What was it?
MODERATOR: I thought you fell out with Jared and Ivanka, wasn’t it?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: No, the reason I got—well, the reason I got fired, Jared is the one that told me I was getting fired—is I was in the Cabinet Room with Trump and Trump wanted to veto the Russian sanctions bill. You remember all the stuff that happened, all the Russian nonsense, the emails that were divulged. Trump wanted to veto the bill.
I was sitting in the Cabinet Room with him, with three other people, and I said something to him which I thought was a normal thing to say. I said, “Mr. President, you can’t veto that bill.” He said, “What are you talking about? I’m the president. Of course I can veto the bill. The Russians didn’t help me, and I’m going to veto the bill.”
I said, “Well, you can’t veto the bill because Paul Ryan is on your team. He passed it in the House, and Mitch McConnell on your team passed it in the Senate. If you go to veto the bill, they’re going to call Chuck Schumer. They’re going to get the 17 votes necessary to override your veto.”
He looked me straight in the face. “They can’t do that. I’m the president.” Okay, that’s eighth grade social studies, ladies and gentlemen.
So I looked at him, I said, “Well, they can do that.” He then picked up the phone and called Don McGahn, because he didn’t believe me. He was the White House general counsel. McGahn told him that they could override his veto. He looked at me, hung up the phone, didn’t say a word to me. An hour later, he signed it.
He told Jared Kushner that I embarrassed him in the Cabinet Room and he wanted to get rid of me. And Jared said to me, “You can’t tell him stuff that he doesn’t know in front of other people because he’s so insecure. He’s going to think that you’re going to be in the chapel someday telling people, okay? And you’re going to be really upset about it. You can’t tell him, okay?”
So I said, “You gotta be kidding me. I’m trying to help the guy out.” He said, “Listen, it’s touch and go here. He’s probably going to fire you.”
So the weekend came, and I was still good. Can I tell everybody how I knew I got fired? So in the White House, they issue you a bat phone, which is this super encrypted phone, because it’s got all kinds of anti-spyware on it. And you’re supposed to only call people like Mike Pence or the President from the bat phone. I mean, Pete Hegseth obviously did not get that memo. Okay?
So now I’ve got the bat phone in my hand. It’s 6:00 a.m. in the morning, and I turn the bat phone on. It goes on, but there’s no text messages coming into the bat phone. I said, “Okay, let me see if I can call out on the bat phone.” Can’t make a call from the bat phone. They cut my air supply at the White House. So at 6:00 a.m. I knew I was fired. I got fired at 9:30.
And General Kelly, by the way, who you know I’m very close friends with—Kelly fired me. It was a brutal session, me and him. And I still socialize with him. I just made a donation to the Marine Scholarship Foundation on behalf of his wife.
General Kelly is a four-star general, 40-year Marine veteran. He’s also a Gold Star family member. He lost his son in the Gulf wars, stepped on a landmine and died instantaneously. His son—I mean, American hero. Eighteen months as the White House Chief of Staff and you’ve interviewed him and you know him and you know General Kelly did more in those 18 months to protect the country than anybody.
And now we’re in a situation where there’s no General Kellys in the room. And by the way, even though I fell out with Jared Kushner, you’re correct, Jared Kushner was like a hockey goalie or a football goaltender blocking insane shots coming in from Donald Trump. All of these policies that Trump is imparting today are things he wanted to do in 2018. He wanted to do these things in 2019. They were stopped by rational, more establishment-oriented Republicans.
MODERATOR: Funnily enough, I was down to interview John Kelly in November of 2019. I was just about to head off when I got a call from the Palace. So that interview never happened. Apologies to John Kelly. We have got half an hour and I’m very excited.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Who did you interview from the Palace?
Audience Questions: The Epstein Files
MODERATOR: I forget. Now we’ve got half an hour. I want to get lots of questions in. I’m going to start with the ones that are coming in from online. Let’s just start with Sophie’s because this is something that we would have come onto. But let’s take from Sophie. What do you make of the latest on the Epstein files? You’ve met Jeffrey Epstein?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Yep. I knew Jeff Epstein and most people in New York that at a certain level had interacted with him at some point. I told Emily backstage he was actually a member of a social club that I was the membership chair of when he first went to jail. And so there was a big hullabaloo about whether or not he could stay in the membership. And so we made a decision to have a five-year sort of suspension to let him stay in the membership, but he ended up getting rearrested shortly thereafter.
MODERATOR: So just explain why is he handling this so badly. It seems to be the one real kind of weak spot that he cannot—
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I don’t think he thinks he’s handling it badly. I think he’s decided that his base has nowhere to go. He’s won the culture war with a good 40% of the country. And so when he says he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they’ll stay with him, it has to do with the culture war. They see him as the last great white hope for them.
And so he feels that he’s the leader of a full-on personality cult and he can do whatever he wants. It can be arbitrary and capricious. It doesn’t matter.
MODERATOR: But what do you think he’s scared of now? I mean, genuinely, what do you think he’s scared of? We’ve seen the best thing, but we—
The Epstein Files and Trump’s Containment Strategy
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: See, the illustration was scared of Elon Musk. But Elon Musk put out that tweet that you’re in the Epstein files. Have a nice day, DJT. Okay. He was shitting a brick, okay? That diaper that he wears definitely had some remains in his underpants. Because he knows that Elon Musk knows. He knows, okay? And he knows that a lot of people know. But the question is, can he contain it?
And so, not well reported, he sent J.D. Vance out to see Musk and said, please don’t start the America Party. And J.D. Vance is the, quote, unquote, heir apparent to MAGA. And you’ll be back in with me and MAGA. And Trump is promising not to go after your businesses or do anything untoward to you or X or SpaceX or anything that you’re working on.
And so if you notice, the America Party, which was filed for, there’s been no action on it. So Trump has got Musk contained. He’s also gone to the Department of Justice. So he’s got Marjorie Taylor Greene and a few others, I think Nancy Mace for that matter. These are hardcore MAGA women in the House that have gone through the file and they’ve left the room in tears because of the accounts of what went on with the victims.
And so what’s at issue is how deep is Trump in the mix with Epstein? And it’s pretty clear that he’s very deep in the mix, but he’s done a very good job of suppressing those files. And while Charlie Kirk, unfortunately, this great tragedy with Charlie Kirk, when they had the week of Charlie Kirk’s mourning and the eventual funeral. And Emily knows this. The Senate passed 51 to 49 that they would not divulge the Epstein files.
The Charlie Kirk thing has moved the zeitgeist away from the Epstein files for Trump’s base. Where the problem was going to happen for Donald Trump is the divergence from his base. But he’s done a masterful job of keeping them in line. Okay, we’re not going to have any more wars. No more forever wars, but we’re going to drop bunker buster bombs in Iran. You see what I’m saying?
MODERATOR: Yeah.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So he’s done a great job of—
Charlie Kirk as Symbol and Martyr
MODERATOR: Just on the Charlie Kirk one. There’s another question that’s just come in. How much will Kirk be used as an effective symbol and martyr? Will that last or fade?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So it’s a great question, and it will depend on Erica Kirk, and it’ll depend on what she’s able to do with that movement. Coretta Scott King was a very nice person, but she did not have the evangelical qualities of Martin Luther King Jr. So when he was assassinated, they said, well, she’s going to take the mantle of leadership. But the movement faltered as a result of not having the right leader at the top.
So I thought her speech, you know, my heart goes out to her for that speech. I don’t know if—did you see the speech? I mean, she gave a very good speech. And of course, Trump gets on after her. So I disagree with everything she says.
MODERATOR: I hate my opponents.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: And then everybody starts laughing. And that’s Trump. That’s the personality cult of Trump. But her message was a healing and forgiving message. And her message was, hey, guys, we’ve got to figure out a way to dial down the rhetoric. We’re Americans. Trump goes on, and he’s taken lighter fluid into the situation.
So it will last longer than people think. You know, there was a great news site. It died during COVID, but there was a great news site called 2weeksoldnews.com. And if you went to the website, you could see what the hysteria was two weeks ago. Oh, wow, that was setting my hair on fire two weeks ago. Now, I don’t care about it. The website died during COVID.
But the point that I’m making is that two weeks from now, there’ll be another thing that we’re talking about. Right? Like, you know, we’re probably not going to talk about Peter Mandelson, but I would not have fired Peter Mandelson. That would have blown over. And he had gotten himself, and this is a very hard thing to do because I know these people. He had gotten himself in the inner sanctum with Trump. He could call Trump and he could get into the study off of the Oval Office, have lunch with Trump, like that. And that was valuable to the UK Government. I would not have fired him. I understand the pressure.
MODERATOR: Would you put him in there in the first place?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Well, you know, I know Peter a long time. I don’t know the answer to that because I’m not the Prime Minister. I can only assess his role from the start date of him as the UK ambassador and the effect that he was having. He was very effective. He also got, with Starmer’s help, a tariff deal done before everybody else at a 10% levy, which was better than the rest of the European Economic Union, better than most countries. But he had the inside track.
I understand why he got fired, I understand the fury around it and I understand all that. But it’s two weeks later and people are not as focused on it as they once were, so. But Kirk will last longer. What Trump wants from Kirk is to last long enough into the midterms because Trump was looking at the big, beautiful spending bill.
If you had said to me, February, is Trump going to win the midterms? Likely, yes. Then they dropped the big beautiful spending bill. And then if you asked me the same question, likely no. But now after the Kirk assassination, they are galvanized again and they’re raising a lot of money. So Trump is going to, with his team, try to figure out, to lengthen the arc of that narrative into the midterms. I don’t think it’ll get that far, but I think it will get farther than people think.
Audience Q&A Session
MODERATOR: Let me take a few questions. Yeah, great. Some lights up if you can. These are our mics to your side. Just let’s start with a lady here and I’m going to take three questions at the same time. There’s a gentleman here and another lady there.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: My question is about getting young people involved in politics. Anthony, you told a story about getting involved in your mid-20s. And when I reflect on my children’s views of politicians, they don’t have a lot of faith in them and they’re kind of comical characters. And it seems that politicians try to drive a wedge, whereas when we were involved in politics, it was about compromise and working across the aisle was what made a successful politician. And I just wonder what that long term outlook is for the health of democracy. Great.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Don’t answer that. Right. We’re going to remember that one. Okay, thank you. Great. If I can do this like an IQ test.
MODERATOR: Yeah, I’ll write them down.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: The indictment of James Comey. Does that mean the politicization of the DOJ is here to stay? I speak as somebody used to run the MOJ, the Ministry of Justice. Is the DOJ politicization here to stay?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I thought long and hard about this. I can give you my opinion. Okay, let’s go to the next one.
MODERATOR: Don’t let him do that. Right.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Right.
MODERATOR: One more here and then I’m going to take another couple on this side as well. Okay.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Okay. So take it from American living in the UK, but I listen to US Politics every night and especially now, hearing your upbringing, you have the Republican reach, you have now through the podcast, the Democratic reach. You have the global history, you have the finance chops, and you know how to play Trump. So if not you, who is going to run? Mooch for president?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So you’re asking me—
MODERATOR: Let’s get a couple of—
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: My agent told me this was going to be vodka and then I promise I’m coming up.
MODERATOR: There’s one hand there. It’s just a very long arm. That’s all I can see. There we go. And any other arms here. You, sir, and you there.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Hi, I’m Tilly. I’m here with the Times. I was just wondering, do you have a favorite behind the scenes story that you think sums up the chaos, the charm, the unpredictability of working with Donald Trump and ideally one that is not going to get myself or yourself sued? Thank you. Okay.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: That I do this. That I have. Okay.
MODERATOR: So let’s remember that one arm here and then one arm there.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: All right.
MODERATOR: Another American living in London. What is—I heard Gavin Newsom speaking recently and he was cautioning against there might not be an election in 2020. Yeah. What do you think the likelihood of that is? Okay.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Okay.
MODERATOR: And last one.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Hello, Anthony, when do you predict your next Republican in a presidential election?
MODERATOR: Next. When will you—
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: When will you vote? When will you next vote Republican?
MODERATOR: Next vote Republican.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: When will I next vote for Republican? That’s a good question. Okay, Mickey.
MODERATOR: Okay, you can. So you can go back.
On Running for Office and Political Cynicism
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: All right, so let’s go. I’m going to take the—these.
MODERATOR: Okay. So young—
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I’m going to do this contemporaneous because they’re related. So you’re asking me if I’m going to run for president. Right now I’m just running for reelection of my marriage. Okay. I’m trying to stay married. Okay?
But I can’t run for office because I don’t have the calling to run for office, and I don’t have the mendacity in my personality. I’m not—she asked me if I could do Carolyn Levitt’s job. I couldn’t do Carolyn Levitt’s job. You know, I did one press conference from the press room on the first day. And by the way, I wasn’t the press secretary. I was the comms director. But Trump asked me to do it, and he hated my press conference. He hated it.
And the feedback I got was answering the questions too truthfully. He wanted them—you know, the crowds are bigger than Jesus and the Sermon of the Mount and all the stuff that he wanted. I don’t have it in me. And so you can’t put something you can’t put into somebody what God left out. I don’t have in me that level of mendacity that you need to run for office. And trust me, every one of these guys, they get up and they congenitally lie from the moment that they run.
So, second thing, that’s the problem that your children are having, because they’re looking at the situation and they’re seeing the lying and they’re seeing the cynicism. And contemporaneous to that, the politicians have decided that negative campaigning works. You know, one politician, very, very smart guy, said to me once, have you ever met a smart politician? And then he answered the question himself. He said, well, no, because I’m getting blistered by my opponents in my own party. I’m getting blistered by the opposition. Negative campaigning works.
Before you met me, if you—I mean, I was called Tony Soprano on the Potomac. I thought that was funny. I was called a Jersey Shore cast member. I mean, I was called some very mean things. And they were doing everything they could to dimensionalize me and turn me into a caricature. Because then if you can attack me personally, then you won’t accept what I’m saying.
MODERATOR: Right.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: That’s a very big thing they teach you in trial advocacy. If you’re wrong on the facts, attack the person. So that’s the system that your kids don’t like, but they’ve got to get involved. And the reason I would say to them, if I was at their school or I was teaching them or I was on their campus, that you have to get involved, because whether you like it or not, I hate it. I’m like the Michael Corleone of this. Every time I think I’m getting out, I get pulled right back in. I hate it. But I have to be involved.
Because if I’m not involved speaking to people about what I see, then I’m not doing the right thing for my country or for my family members. You know, two of my uncles fought in the Second World War. The one I’m named after fought on Normandy beach. And then he was wounded four days later in a small town in France on the way to Paris. Think of his bravery. I’m going to not stand up to Donald Trump if they’re watching family members do that?
So what I would say to your children, yes, I see all the cynicism, I see the lying, I see the hypocrisy. But if you get involved and you create a domino effect of very good people getting involved, we can change the system. Remember what I said, it’s going linearly, very badly, but exponential things can happen. And that would be my message to your children.
MODERATOR: And just on this side, we’re going to talk about the politicization. This was the politicization, the James Comey indictment.
Trump’s Authoritarian Tendencies and the Department of Justice
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: So if Donald Trump could do this, he would. Victor Orban or Erdogan. Those are even words. Okay? The Department of Justice, he could do it. So he’s going to do everything he can to do that. And when I told Emily after the midterms, however crazy you think he is now, he’s going to go way crazier. Okay? He’s going to do way more manipulative and way more cynical things.
So are we 100% there? No. Are we there as it relates to him? Yes. Does the system now need reform? We need to get the Department of Justice out of the executive branch now, because it’s not.
MODERATOR: Do you believe there are still three co-equal branches or not?
The Weakness of Congressional Opposition
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Well, yes, there are, but I don’t think anybody anticipated the babies and the jellyfish in the Congress. Okay. I mean, the only guy standing up to Trump right now is Rand Paul. He’s the only one, you know. And Ted Cruz on the free speech, which Trump had to back down. See, Trump also knows two or three senators say, “I’ve had enough,” he’s got to retreat.
You know, he is very nervous about the midterms. He’s made $3.5 billion for himself, possibly more. He knows he’s got an emoluments clause issue. If he lost the House and the Senate, he’s going to get impeached and he’s going to get convicted. And he’s done a lot of evil, criminal things. And so his fight is going to be—that’s why he’s on the phone with Abbott saying gerrymander the entire state of Texas. I got to win the House, bare minimum.
So the answer to your question is if he could do it, he would do it. The question is, what is Roberts going to do? Okay. What is Roberts going to do? This? What’s he going to do? Okay.
Chief Justice Roberts and the Tariffs Case
So I can tell you right now, prima facie, you could get 20 constitutional lawyers up here and economic historians that they’ve got Trump dead to rights on the tariffs case. The laws that he’s using, they don’t even have the language. Okay. It’s just such a stretch to use these emergency, emergency authorizations to implement the tariffs. He lost in the district court. He lost in the appellate court. The Supreme Court said, “We’re going to take it in November and we’re going to decide the case before the end of December.”
He’s got them. Roberts is afraid of Trump. He’s not going to tell people in a room like this, but he’s told people privately, “I’m afraid I’m going to make a ruling, and Trump is not going to live up to the ruling.” Right. That’s the reverse of Marbury versus Madison. Okay. Since you’re a justice person, you know what that is, Marbury versus Madison.
The first Supreme Court justice said, “Nope, President can’t do that.” And Jefferson looked at him and said, “You know what? I’m not going to do that, because we set this up to be decentralized, and we set this up so that there wouldn’t be any monarchical powers.” And so he obeyed the decision of the court.
We’re now in the reverse of Marbury vs Madison, and Roberts is telling people privately, “I don’t want to put the country in a situation where we have a constitutional crisis.” Well, why not, Justice Roberts? “I don’t have the people in the Congress. There are a bunch of jellyfish in that Congress. They’re not going to back me up.”
See what’s going on. So we’re at a fulcrum. I don’t know the answer to your question, but I’m telling you, Trump wants that in the worst possible way. Will they allow him to do that? Will the willing—remember when Jack Kennedy wrote the book “Profiles in Courage”? It was a thin book. And one of the journalists said, “Well, you know, this is people having the courage to stand up in situations like this.” And they said, “It’s a very thin book.” And Kennedy said, “Well, if I wrote ‘Profiles of Cowardice,’ it would be the phone book.” I mean, very few people are willing to do this.
MODERATOR: Yeah, hold on. Let’s keep going.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I want to keep this on time. Such a great question, though.
The Threat of Cancelled Elections
MODERATOR: Well, I think it pulls in where we’re going with the next sort of, which is Gavin Newsom’s concern that actually the election in 2028 will be cancelled. You will have heard, I’ve also heard that people think that he’ll use emergency legislation to cancel the midterms. So let’s have a go at that one. When do you next imagine voting Republican and Tilly from the Times wants a little story that won’t get her sued.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Okay, so Trump—sorry, Trump. So Trump thinks he’s going to win the midterms. If he thinks he’s going to win the midterms, there’s absolutely no risk of him canceling the midterms. If he thought he was going to lose the House and win the Senate, that’s his expectation. He will not. There won’t be a fight.
If he thinks he’s going to lose the House and the Senate—I’m telling you, Newsom is correct in sending a warning because Trump cannot lose the House and the Senate. He cannot. It’ll be very, very bad for him. He’ll get impeached, he’ll get convicted, and it’ll be very, very bad for him. So that’s what’s up.
And I admire Newsom for saying it because Newsom is trying to warn people like, you tell your kid, put the clothes on so you don’t get sick when you go out in the cold. He’s trying to warn people.
Gavin Newsom and California’s Economy
So I did Gavin’s podcast, Governor Newsom’s podcast, about three months ago, and I’ve been in touch with Governor Newsom and I think the strategy that he’s deploying, and if you go back to the podcast, him and I talking for almost an hour on his podcast, it’s the fourth largest economy in the world. You let the right wing media position your economy differently than actually—yes, there’s homeless, yes, there’s a crime industry.
MODERATOR: California.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: California. But it’s the fourth largest economy. It’s the export culture of Hollywood. It’s the export culture of tech. Start speaking about the state differently. Go back to the podcast. You’ll see the conversation that Gavin and I had together.
MODERATOR: I’m just going to bring in Mrs. Westwood’s question here. Do you think, who do you think should be the next Democratic candidate in the presidential election?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I think it should be Newsom.
MODERATOR: Do you?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: I do, I do. Because I got news for you. Nobody can like this. It’s fine after two women. And you’re going to need a white male in there. That independence that hold their nose and voted for Trump will vote for. And Newsom is that kind of a guy. And if Newsom wants the job, he can raise the money. The reason why Clooney would be a bad pick is he doesn’t have the field team, he doesn’t have the organization in place. He’s not plugged into the party in that way. But Newsom is.
MODERATOR: Are you saying that the Democrats are done with female candidates?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that in the 2028 election, they’re going to pick a white male candidate.
When Will Scaramucci Vote Republican Again?
MODERATOR: And when are you next going to vote Republican?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Are you a US Citizen? Are you—no, no, I’m kidding. You’re not even a Republican. I was just—that was a really bad joke. But you could give me some help out here and laugh at that.
I will vote Republican again if I see something transformational, it would have to be a Mike Bloomberg character. And so just to set the scene for you, Mike Bloomberg ran as a Republican in New York, but he ran on consensus, he ran on developing a compromise, and he ran on sort of center right business growth policies and trying to protect people from crime and safety. But he was also quite agnostic to the social issues. And if that—if a Republican comes up like that, I would be interested in that candidate.
But I will likely work for Newsom if he runs, and I’ll likely try to help him, because I think of all the people out there, he gets the constitutional crisis that we’re up against, and he’s man enough to—you know what the big fear is? If you don’t mind me overspeaking, but this is very important. You know what the big fear is? I’ve got the playbook. And Trump has made me as president, more powerful. Mickey, do you know what the temptation is to take that playbook and aggrandize yourself and make yourself run that playbook?
You got to get somebody in the job that’s going to be willing to burn that book. Okay. You got to get somebody says, “Okay, we need systemic reform to get the country back to a decentralized government.”
Audience Questions
MODERATOR: I don’t want to leave the upstairs out.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Go for it.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Hi. I wanted to ask you what would need to happen to change the stance of Trump on Netanyahu. Yep. And my—also I want to ask personally, in your political life, what you are most proud of. And what’s your biggest regret?
MODERATOR: Great. Proud. And wait, wait, wait. Is there one more question up here?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: All right, go for it.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Hi. Big fan, Mooch. So you talked a bit about this evening about partisanship in the states and let’s, you know, coming up to the next election, if you’re the Democratic leader, where do you think you need to view the leader? Where you need to focus on perhaps doing something to stop this partisanship? Is it culturally, is it, is it you know, politically, is it economically? What would be your tactic to kind of stop this or even close the gap?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Yeah.
MODERATOR: So brilliant. Okay.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Okay, so okay, so let’s do Trump and Nes. Don’t answer it. Right. Just wait.
MODERATOR: Yeah, I’m going to repeat it first. We’re going to do Trump on Netanyahu.
Trump’s Relationship with Netanyahu
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Okay, okay. So again, you may not like my answer, and so, but I’m just going to tell you what I really believe, based on my understanding of the prime minister and the president.
Trump’s base is an orthodox Christian base, and they literally interpret the Bible and they believe that the Israelites need to control what we would call the state of Israel for there to be a second coming. And if you don’t accept that, that’s fine. But I’m telling you, there are tens of millions of people in Trump’s Bible base that believe that, and they are staunch supporters of Israel, and Trump will never go against Netanyahu because of that.
And so I don’t think it’s anti-Semitic if you are against the Israeli government’s policy in terms of what they’re doing in Gaza, but in Trump’s base, it’s very, very binary. You’re with the Israeli government or you’re not. And so Trump is more or less going to let Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu, dictate the outcome and the finality of that war.
Now, Netanyahu will say that they still have the hostages, and he’ll give his narrative like he gave at the UN, but you’re just asking me about the relationship between the two of them, and I’m explaining it. Yeah. Okay.
Scaramucci’s Biggest Regret
Second thing, my biggest regret, and this is something you should really listen to, because this is a very big regret, is taking that job. That is by far my biggest regret, because the signs were on the wall. And I’m going to tell this story very quickly, but this is a cautionary tale, particularly for the young people here. Do not let your pride and your ego get into your decision making.
Okay, so hear me out again. It doesn’t reflect well on me. I grew up in a small town. My father was a laborer, went to Tufts and Harvard, worked at Goldman, built two successful businesses. Now I get to work, get a chance to work in the White House for the American President.
Now my wife hates Trump almost as much as Melania hates him. I’m talking way—it’s like that Eastern European hatred. And you know exactly what I’m talking about, okay? My wife hates him because she’s interacted with the Trump women and she knows how bad of a guy she is, and she told me not to do it.
I had a mentor who wanted a very big job in the administration. When Trump won, he called me. He’s about 10 years older than me. I can’t tell you the post because then you’ll figure out who it is. And I went to Trump, I went to the President. I said, “This is my mentor. You got to give him this job. This is the only—you don’t have to give me a job, but give him the job.” He met with them. He gave him the job.
About three weeks later, this gentleman called me and said, “I’m pulling myself out of the job. I’m rescinding the nomination.” I said, “What? This was your life’s dream, to have this job, and, you know, you’ve had this great success in the private sector and now you could do this.” He says, “I’ve been in Trump’s presence three or four times. The chemistry is not right, and I don’t feel comfortable working for him in the position. So I’m pulling myself out of the job.”
I mean, that was a sign from the universe to me. Did I listen? I did not listen. I let my pride and my ego get the better of me.
MODERATOR: But many people would say that made you, that made you, you know, but I’m telling you, that was your life.
A Personal Low Point
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: At some point, changed my life. Listen, listen, listen. If you’re ever having a bad day, give me a call, okay? If it’s not a health issue, think about this day.
July 31, I’m fired from the White House. I’m blown into Pennsylvania Avenue. Skinned alive. Rolled in margarita salt by the media. By the media. I love you, Emily, but you were harsh on me that day. But it’s okay. I still… Okay. I got ripped up by the late night comedians. I got literally destroyed.
My wife had filed for divorce. People don’t remember this, but I missed the birth of my son. My son was born on the 24th of July, 2017. I was at the West Virginia Boy Scout event. Do you remember that event? Because you were covering the White House. There was a 60 mile no fly zone around the Air Force One.
We were fighting. She had filed for divorce on me, but I was still going to be there for the birth of the baby. And she delivered the baby three weeks early and I missed the birth of my son. Okay. So if you think you’re having a bad day, if it’s not a health related thing, okay. I had to leave the White House, repair my business, repair my marriage, which thankfully, we’re still married eight years later, thank God for both of us.
And I had to go rebuild my entire career. And if you think that’s an easy thing to do, I’m telling you it isn’t. I’m glad I did it. And you’re right, you know, I’m not looking back with regret, but that’s a question that was asked and I’m going to answer the question.
The Thing I’m Most Proud Of
The thing I’m the most proud of is helping Andrew Cuomo. In 2008, he was the governor of New York and he was trying to pass same sex marriage in New York. And he needed conservative Republicans to get together and to help a group of Republicans in the assembly that were willing to vote on the same sex marriage.
And these were guys I knew that I was a political funder of. And I went to work with a group of hedge fund guys and got those guys the money that they needed and helped them get reelected. And they voted for the same sex marriage in New York, which led to the national same sex marriage.
Because, you know, I’m not here to opine on people’s lifestyles and things like that. I had gay family members. I can only speak to my own personal experience. I did not choose my sexual orientation. And I think everybody should have a right to be who they are here on planet Earth, especially in a free society. So that’s the thing I’m the most proud of.
Solving American Partisanship
MODERATOR: You’ve got one minute to deal with the issue, the tiny little issue of partisanship in America right now. What would be the unifying…
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: You got to have national service. It’s going to take 25 years to clear it up. But you’re leaving high school, doesn’t matter if it’s a public school, a boarding school, it doesn’t matter. You got to make an 18 month commitment to serve the United States.
You don’t have to go into the American military, but you got to go somewhere in the United States with a group of people from the United States that are not from your area. So the New Yorkers have to be with the North Dakotans and the Californians have to be with the Floridians.
And you’ve got to create the environment that we had at the end of the Second World War where everybody fought in the war together and they realized how much they had in common with each other and they bonded. It would take 25 years to cure it.
This is the big problem in America. Everybody wants a short term solution. The Chinese do not think like that. They think in 25, 50, 75 year periods of time. We can fix these problems, but we need long term solutions. So that’s how I would do that.
The Air Force One Story
MODERATOR: And lastly, Tilly. Yeah, we need, we need Tilly’s unseeable tail. Yeah.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: How we doing tonight though? We’re having a good time though, right? I hope so. I mean, you know, because this story is going to end badly for me. So I just want to make sure everybody had a good time. It’s probably going to change your opinion of me, but I tell the story.
So I’m working for Trump and it’s… this is happening on a Tuesday. You know how I know? Because I was only there for one Tuesday, so that’s how I know. And there I was on Air Force One and we were flying to Youngstown, Ohio. And you’ve been on Air Force One, I’m assuming, right?
MODERATOR: Never. I got the M&Ms, but I never wanted to fly.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: All right, so I’m on Air Force One. And so the plane is an older plane, but it’s a beautiful plane. And there’s a big Cabinet room, there’s members of the press in the back, there’s a Cabinet room, there’s a room for the Chief of Staff. The President has an office.
And then in the front of the cabin, there’s a, you know, like a full apartment, effectively an apartment. You know, he’s got a bathroom, even a small kitchenette and a master bedroom there. And it’s well appointed. They always say about Air Force One, the plane is designed for one traveler and that’s the President. Everyone else, you know, has to work around the President.
So I’m in the Cabinet Room and one of the Secret Service guys calls me and says, “Hey, the President would like to see you.” So I said, okay, get up. I go into the… and you’ve probably seen this on TV. He’s wearing the bomber jacket, he’s sitting at the desk. I walk into the room and I’m a little hoarse and Trump’s looking at me and I’m talking, and he’s, “You sick?”
I said, “No, I’m not sick.” He goes, “You sound a little hoarse.” Now he’s pressing buttons and shit. I don’t know what he’s doing. Okay? Next thing you know, the attending physician, Ronny Jackson, you remember him?
MODERATOR: Yes.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Okay. Another lunatic. He comes in, okay? And Trump looks at him. He says, “There’s something wrong with Scaramucci. He’s obviously sick. You know, I’m a germaphobe. Get him into the sick bay and figure out what the hell’s wrong with him,” okay?
So now I’m like, “I’m not sick.” He says, “No, you are sick. Go to the sick bay.” So now I’m walking down the corridor to Air Force One, and I didn’t know this, and since you hadn’t been on, maybe you didn’t know this, but the larger Air Force One, the 747, has a hospital bay and has these two sliding doors, and there’s a full operating table in there.
And the President’s blood type is in the refrigerator. And Lyndon Johnson legislated this after the Kennedy assassination. So there’s two attending nurses, surgical nurses, and a surgeon and the White House physician. And I’m standing there, and the guy says to me, Ronny Jackson, he says, “Open your mouth. I want to look in your mouth.”
Open my mouth? He says, “Okay, that’s great.” He says, “Turn around and pull down your pants.” I said, “Pull down my pants?” I said, “I’m not here for a proctology exam. I got a sore throat.” “Just shut up and pull down your pants.”
I said, ladies and gentlemen, we’re flying at 700 miles an hour on Air Force One. I’m holding onto a rail with my ass hanging out on Air Force One, and… and he gives me two shots in my ass. And then he says, “The first shot was penicillin. I don’t know if you have a strep throat or not, but I gave you enough penicillin to, like, cure a horse.”
He said, “The second shot was Kenalog. You got a little bit of inflammation on your vocal cords. And so in about six hours, you won’t have any inflammation on your vocal cords.” And I said, “But you don’t even know if I have strep throat or not.” He goes, “Yeah, no, but I gave you the shot. I’m going to go tell the President. I gave you enough penicillin to kill a horse. Let’s go back to the office.”
And I walked back into the office, and Ronnie said, “He’s fine. I put two shots in his ass, he can continue the meeting.” That’s the story. Can’t make that up.
MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, Anthony Scaramucci.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Guys, thank you for coming.
MODERATOR: Thank you.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Come on, give me a hug.
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