Anthony Scaramucci on Trump, MAGA and the US Midterms | The Mishal Husain Show

0:00 Tell you something that Donald Trump did,

0:01 which none of us understood at that time, but he did.

0:04 And you have to give him credit for this, he has phenomenal political instincts.

0:07 Let me say to you this way.

0:09 There is a man that lived on Fifth Avenue in a triplex

0:14 apartment that looked like Louis XIV

0:17 smoked crystal meth and decorated the apartment.

0:20 He saw all the problems in the neighborhood I grew up in, and I missed it.

0:25 Anthony Scaramucci, businessman, podcaster,

0:28 former communications director for Donald Trump.

0:32 You owe your media and podcasting career to him, after those ten days?

0:36 That was the most brutal experience of my life.

0:39 I had a crisis PR person, he told me, look,

0:42 you know you probably should go dark for five years.

0:44 But you know, in life when you make mistakes and you're an entrepreneur and you

0:48 take risks like that, you got to face the music and I did that.

0:53 From Bloomberg weekend, this is The Mishal Husain Show.

0:59 I first heard the name Anthony Scaramucci at the same time,

1:03 I suspect you probably did.

1:05 July 2017, when he was named communications director for Donald Trump,

1:11 a few months into his first presidential term.

1:14 He was clearly going to be a key figure in this White House, I thought.

1:20 Already known by his nickname 'The Mooch'.

1:23 Confident, showy, ready to do battle for the MAGA agenda.

1:28 Only ten days later, he was fired.

1:31 That's part of what we talk about in this conversation.

1:35 How bruising it was, humiliating even.

1:39 Today, Anthony Scaramucci is well known as a podcaster.

1:43 He has his own show, 'Open Book' and co-hosts 'The Rest Is Politics U.S.' While

1:49 also running his own investment firm and being evangelical about crypto.

1:54 He's a big talker.

1:56 And by big, I mean expansive.

1:58 He talks a lot.

1:59 Here we get to find out where that drive comes from.

2:03 The Long Island community of his childhood.

2:06 Although he also admits that he forgot that world for many years,

2:12 after discovering Wall Street.

2:13 We spoke in London.

2:15 He was visiting.

2:16 I was just back from Washington

2:19 and my White House Correspondents Dinner experience.

2:21 And I wanted to start with U.S.

2:24 politics, because we're now less than six months away from the midterms.

2:29 So, I wondered, what does 'The Mooch' think will happen?

2:36 Listen, you know, November is still a long time off,

2:38 so it's very hard to make these predictions.

2:41 If you look at Kalshi or the Polymarkets,

2:44 it looks like the Democrats will win the House.

2:47 But the big problem in American politics right now is the gerrymandering.

2:51 And so for viewers outside the United States,

2:53 the political leaders have the opportunity to redistrict or to cut

2:57 the congressional districts in a way that could favor their party.

3:01 And so even though Donald Trump

3:03 and the Republicans started this redistricting fight,

3:05 Democrats seem to be ahead.

3:08 But I just want you to think about this, we have 435 congressional districts,

3:13 approximately 8% of those through 35 to 40 max, are up for contest.

3:21 So they've done such a powerful job

3:23 of redistricting that they've taken out of the equation,

3:26 a Democrat beating a Republican in a Republican district.

3:30 or a Republican in beating a Democrat in a Democratic district.

3:33 And so think about this, we only have 35 purple districts now.

3:38 So I think that's unfair to the American people.

3:40 And I would just say this rhetorically,

3:42 are we in a real democracy where the politicians are picking the voters?

3:45 I thought the voters were supposed to pick the politicians,

3:48 so we're in sore need of reform.

3:50 And yet there is this possibility isn't there it's not out of the question

3:53 that the Democrats end up taking the Senate as well as the House.

3:57 Or are you really cautious on that?

3:59 I'm a little more cautious on that because

4:01 the red states that have less population in them, you could hear the flurry,

4:06 you can hear some purpling and then they always go back to red, you know.

4:10 The Republican states.

4:11 So, You know, Talarico is going to be running against a- he's a Democrat.

4:14 He's a Democrat in Texas and I believe Texas will stay red.

4:18 So I'm a little more cautious about that.

4:20 If you're telling me James Talarico is going to turn the state of Texas purple,

4:26 where there'll be one Republican and one Democrat from the state,

4:29 that'll be a watershed activity in American politics.

4:32 So I'm a little more cautious about it.

4:35 You know, these machines, they have created a cartel.

4:38 They have a duopoly now.

4:40 The two parties?

4:41 The two parties, yeah.

4:42 And so they they sort of control the landscape.

4:45 They've tightened up their ability to get incumbents re-elected.

4:50 You know, the Congress has a 14 or 15% approval rating.

4:54 So it's like slightly above Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator.

4:58 However, you have a 95% re-incumbency rate.

5:02 So, just imagine you and I open up a restaurant, and our food is terrible.

5:06 We're getting like one star Yelp ratings,

5:08 but we can never get the restaurant closed,

5:11 and we always stay as the two chefs in the restaurant.

5:14 And so that's what's going on in Washington right now.

5:16 And so, you know, I think the Democrats will win.

5:19 The House of Representatives?

5:20 Yeah, I think and I think the Republicans will probably keep the Senate.

5:24 That's my best guess.

5:26 You're still a registered Republican, right?

5:28 I am.

5:29 I mean, you know, so what is your British football team?

5:31 Are you like an Arsenal fan or are you Manchester United?

5:35 Now, you're really cutting to the chase.

5:37 I live in North London, so if I'm anything, I'm probably an Arsenal fan.

5:40 Okay, so for Arsenal fans out there and I don't know how the team does,

5:44 but I'm I'm a New York Mets fan and we're just having a horrific time.

5:47 But you don't leave.

5:49 You know, I'm a New York Jets fan.

5:50 We haven't won the Super Bowl since 1969 you know.

5:53 So the Republican Party, in my mind is in the doldrums.

5:56 We have a huge losing streak going on intellectually.

5:59 You know, Donald Trump hijacked that party.

6:02 He decapitated what was once known as the Republican Party.

6:06 And he did sort of this M&A transaction

6:09 where he installed this right wing populist party.

6:14 It's called the Republican Party,

6:16 but it's really the MAGA party and it's the personality cult of Donald Trump.

6:20 And so I'm of the belief when

6:23 his political personality extinguishes sometime in 2028,

6:27 there'll be an ideological battle for that party again,

6:31 in terms of who will be running that party.

6:33 But I'm wondering why- So, I'm a loyal, I'm a loyalist.

6:36 Yeah.

6:37 But, I'm wondering why you're not more active

6:39 in the zone of trying to find that next Republican?

6:42 Because what I see you doing is not just,

6:46 I know you voted for Biden and then Harris right,

6:48 in the last two presidential elections?

6:49 I just think Trump is too dangerous.

6:51 I think obviously it's funny because I'm sure- and you have history with him,

6:55 which is, which we'll get into.

6:57 But all my Wall Street buddies voted for him and now

6:59 they're all regretting the fact that they voted for him.

7:02 So, you know, it's just one of those things.

7:04 Are they all regretting that they voted for him?

7:06 I mean, a lot of them have done, doing well out of the markets.

7:09 I think most people are regretting it.

7:11 Yeah.

7:11 I'm of the belief that prices are higher.

7:15 We have an oil crisis going on right now.

7:18 He imposed illegal tariffs which raise the pricing umbrella

7:21 for all the lower middle income people that voted for him.

7:24 You're in a quagmire of a war,

7:26 it's going to be very difficult to disengage the United States from that war.

7:30 You've weakened our relationships with our European allies, our Gulf allies.

7:35 He's put us in a very vulnerable state as a country and an economy.

7:40 If you want to make the case that the banks

7:43 have record profits in the short term, sure.

7:45 But he's also suing some of the banking executives.

7:48 You know, this is a very difficult time in the country

7:51 where you are losing the predictive capability of our justice system.

7:55 You're losing the predictive capability of what our civil rights

7:59 are and what our free speech rights are in the country.

8:02 For those reasons, it's very, very bad for business.

8:05 So, yeah, I think a lot of people are regretting it.

8:07 But that's also why I'm asking you that given you're still a Republican,

8:12 why are you not more actively searching for the Republican

8:16 that you would like to succeed Donald Trump?

8:18 Because these are the last two years of his presidency.

8:22 I think it's early.

8:23 You know, we have to get through the midterms.

8:25 We have to really look at the landscape of who's going to be running,

8:28 you know, is Glenn Youngkin running?

8:30 And will he have the umbrella?

8:33 You know, one of the biggest things that you need,

8:35 if not the most important thing that you need to be the president,

8:38 United States, is name recognition.

8:39 And so just remember the type of electorate that you're dealing with.

8:42 You know, the people that are listening to your show or watching your show,

8:45 they're very sophisticated.

8:46 They're very up to speed in the world of American politics.

8:50 But the average voter is really not you know,

8:54 they make that decision in the week prior to the presidential election.

8:57 And Donald Trump had that name recognition because of television.

9:00 He was the most famous guy in 2016.

9:03 But by 2024, he was the most famous person on the planet.

9:08 I would stipulate that.

9:09 I mean, you may say that was a rock star

9:11 here or there that has more followers on social media.

9:14 But he was a very well-recognized name.

9:17 And so we have to see, you have to see, who emerges.

9:21 Also, I think the war is going to hurt

9:24 the people that are close to Donald Trump.

9:26 You know, I think Rubio and I have said this on our podcast.

9:29 I think Rubio and Vance are going to be

9:32 victimized by Trump in ways they haven't totally predicted yet.

9:35 You know, he's already started with Vance

9:37 with the attack on the Pope and you know,

9:40 hitting Vance because he knows Vance has got

9:42 a book coming out on his conversion to the catholicism.

9:46 He doesn't, doesn't want to build J.D.

9:50 Vance up into the next president and his successor?

9:52 No, course not.

9:52 Why not?

9:53 This is not- his personality is you guys were nothing before I

9:57 got on this stage and I've carried you for the last 12 years.

10:02 And the 2020 election was rigged and everyone knows it.

10:06 And I should have won that election as well.

10:09 And I've returned to the presidency carrying all the Republicans on my back.

10:13 You were nobody's before I got here.

10:15 You'll be nobody's after me.

10:17 That's Donald Trump's personality and to not

10:20 understand that is to not understand Donald Trump.

10:23 And let me give two quick examples.

10:27 Cornyn, he is 35 years in the Senate from the state of Texas.

10:32 99% of the time he voted with Donald Trump.

10:35 1% of the time he didn't.

10:37 Trump dusted him.

10:39 Crenshaw, House of Representatives, Army vet, lost his eye in combat.

10:43 99% of the time, he voted with Donald Trump.

10:46 1% of the time he didn't, Trump endorsed the other candidate.

10:49 He lost the primary to return to the House of Representatives.

10:53 You have to understand the nature of Donald

10:56 Trump and what's still going on as we

10:59 try to normalize him and sane wash him and put him into a bucket.

11:03 Oh, he's a Republican.

11:04 He'll want a Republican to succeed him or he'll want J.D.

11:07 Vance o r Marco Rubio.

11:08 He doesn't want those guys to succeed him.

11:11 Let's say he has a successful remaining two years of his presidency,

11:14 which seems unlikely, but let's say he did.

11:16 He wouldn't want those guys taking any

11:17 credit for anything that happened in the administration.

11:20 It's an administration of one person.

11:23 And there's one spotlight on.

11:25 You met him years ago, didn't you, I think?

11:27 Is it way back even in the nineties in New York?

11:31 Well, he would not have remembered that.

11:34 I was a young man working at Goldman Sachs.

11:36 My boss took me to see him.

11:40 This was during some real struggles for him,

11:43 during the casino restructuring and some of the bankruptcies,

11:46 and he was looking for financing.

11:48 And, you know, I looked up to him.

11:51 I'm not somebody that like whitewashes or tries to recolor our history.

11:54 You know, I read 'The Art of the Deal',

11:57 I think I was a law school student when it came out.

12:00 Trump was from Queens.

12:00 I was from even further out.

12:02 And so we looked up to Donald Trump.

12:05 You know, the rappers sang songs about Donald Trump.

12:08 We admired his bravado and his risk taking and his image making.

12:12 And so at age 31, when I met him for the first time,

12:16 it was a very impressionable meeting for me.

12:19 I'm sure he had no recollection of the meeting, but years later,

12:22 I was working at CNBC as a, you know, one of those paid contributors,

12:27 and then I got invited to 'The Apprentice'

12:30 parties and I got invited to 'The Apprentice' finale,

12:34 and we did a couple of fundraising events together,

12:37 including Robinhood, and then we sort of developed a relationship.

12:40 And then very famously in 2012,

12:43 I was co-finance chair for Mitt Romney for New York.

12:47 And so we did two political fundraisers

12:50 in Donald Trump's triplex apartment for Governor Romney.

12:53 And by the way, you know,

12:56 Donald Trump did a really good job raising money for Mitt Romney.

13:00 It seems extraordinary now to think of that.

13:01 And I'll tell you something that Donald Trump did,

13:03 which none of us understood at that time, but he did and you have to give

13:07 him credit for this, he has phenomenal political instincts.

13:10 Mitt was in trouble.

13:11 He had lost in South Carolina to Newt Gingrich,

13:13 and he was now coming into the Super Tuesday primaries.

13:17 It was a big opportunity for Mitt.

13:19 And Trump offered to do what are called robocalls

13:22 for him in parts of rural and blue collar Michigan.

13:29 And we looked at that and said, well, why the hell would we need that?

13:32 And Trump said, no, no, trust me, you need it.

13:35 And he made these robocalls.

13:36 And so if you were home and the phone rang, it goes, hey I'm Donald Trump.

13:40 It was on a recorded message- I want you to vote for Mitt Romney.

13:44 It had an unbelievable impact on that primary.

13:46 And it was the first for me,

13:48 it was the first origin story of understanding the populist movement that was

13:54 happening in the United States and at that time, we'll call him Mr.

13:58 Trump because he wasn't president yet.

13:59 Mr.

14:00 Trump's understanding of it and his hold on it.

14:03 And so that's when we actually became close.

14:05 That's when we started to develop a relationship and then talk

14:08 to each other and see each other at restaurants and so forth.

14:12 So that period between 2012 and 2017,

14:16 when he brought you into the White House as his communications director?

14:19 Yeah?

14:19 By then you were a true believer, weren't you?

14:22 You were team MAGA?

14:25 Or was that a front at that point?

14:28 No, I think you have to.

14:30 I think I did something I have to own for the rest of my life.

14:32 I'm a very honest person.

14:33 I wasn't Team MAGA.

14:35 I had worked for Governor Walker from Wisconsin.

14:38 When Scott dropped out of the race, I went to work for Jeb Bush.

14:42 And so I'll just set the scene for you.

14:44 In March of 2015, Donald Trump called me.

14:46 I went to his office, had breakfast with him.

14:49 I always tease him about this.

14:50 His desk is up here.

14:52 Mishal, your chair is down there.

14:54 So you're you're looking up at him.

14:56 Okay.

14:56 That's how he had the the office set up.

14:58 And I'm looking up at him and he's saying, you know, I'm running for president.

15:02 I just finished my time with 'The Apprentice'.

15:05 And I looked at him like he was crazy.

15:06 I said, you're not running for president.

15:07 I said, that's just like a publicity stunt?

15:09 Oh, no.

15:10 You think that everybody thinks that's why I'm so low in the polls.

15:13 But when I announce that I'm running,

15:14 I'm going to go right to the top of the polls.

15:17 And I laughed and said, that's not going to happen.

15:20 And he said, no, I've got Corey Lewandowski downstairs.

15:22 He's running my campaign.

15:24 Why don't you go meet with him?

15:26 And I said, Listen, Mr.

15:27 Trump, I'm working for Jeb.

15:29 And he said, don't you think he has low energy?

15:31 And I said, No, actually, I don't think he has low energy.

15:35 And he says, okay, I'll tell you what, I get the loyalty.

15:38 You're longtime Republican.

15:40 When Jeb comes out of the race, will you come work for me?

15:43 And right then and there, I reached over, I shook his hand.

15:46 I said, yes, I will come work for you.

15:47 And Jeb got knocked out of the race in South Carolina.

15:53 Mr.

15:53 Trump called me.

15:54 I had a little presentation for him,

15:56 how I could help him find those Romney donors.

15:59 And then we did our first event in Albuquerque,

16:02 New Mexico, and then that's when I got the MAGA fever.

16:06 And so what was MAGA fever for me?

16:09 Donald Trump was talking to my dad and my dad was born in 1935.

16:14 He was born in a coal mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania.

16:18 He wasn't college educated.

16:20 He went on to become a crane operator on Long Island.

16:23 He spent 41 years in the union.

16:25 But he had a high paying job.

16:28 We had a tiny little house on Long Island,

16:30 and we lived a good part of the American dream.

16:32 And I would never dishonor my dad by telling you we grew up poor.

16:35 We did not grow up poor.

16:37 But what I mean by he was talking to my dad.

16:39 These were guys that, like my dad instead,

16:41 of being born in 1935, they were born in 65 or 75.

16:47 And I was talking to these people in Albuquerque, New Mexico,

16:50 and they were letting me know

16:53 that that once economically aspirational blue collar family,

16:56 the one I grew up in, doesn't exist in America anymore.

17:00 These families went from economically

17:03 aspirational to economically desperational.

17:05 And one young man said something to me that I will never forget.

17:09 He said, you think you're in New Mexico?

17:12 He said, new New Mexico.

17:14 That would be Mexico, because that's where our factory moved.

17:18 My dad worked there for 30 years.

17:20 I was there for 12.

17:22 The factory moved and we blighted these towns, We blighted these cities.

17:28 And I thought and I got it wrong, of course, but I thought.

17:34 Okay.

17:34 I'm going to work for Donald Trump.

17:37 He sees something about America that we need to fix.

17:40 We need to reconnect these people who are angry.

17:43 And perhaps you have those people that are leaning

17:46 on people like Nigel Farage here in this country.

17:48 But I said, we're going to reconnect those people.

17:51 So, yes, I bought in.

17:54 I spent 71 days on the campaign trail with him, did 71 stops.

18:00 I did countless hours of media advocacy

18:03 for him and a tremendous amount of fundraising,

18:06 so much so that when he won, he named me to his executive transition team.

18:11 The thing that surprises me is that because of your background,

18:15 because of seeing how hard your father worked and the community around you.

18:18 Had you really never thought along these lines before you

18:22 saw Donald Trump and voters respond to him in that way?

18:27 You lived the American dream right yourself

18:30 because you got rich compared to your father.

18:32 So this is a very important point.

18:35 And this is something that, again, it doesn't reflect well on me,

18:38 but it's important for me to share with you.

18:40 That neighborhood that I was in, in Port Washington.

18:42 There were Sheetrock installers and plumbers

18:45 and crane operators and landscapers.

18:47 But I left that neighborhood.

18:49 I went to Tufts University, and Harvard Law School,

18:51 Wall Street and seven years at Goldman Sachs.

18:53 And then I built my own hedge fund business,

18:55 and then I got invited to the World Economic Forum to speak.

18:59 And I created a whole activity thing there.

19:03 And I started hanging out in the salons of the wealthy.

19:06 My point is, when you hang out with a certain group of people,

19:10 you pick up the collective biases of those people.

19:12 You forget where you came from?

19:14 And you forget where you came from.

19:16 And I'll tell you another quick story,

19:17 which is also relevant to his and his instincts versus mine.

19:20 I'm on the plane.

19:21 We're flying somewhere else,

19:22 and I'm reading something that was prepared by SkyBridge's economic team.

19:27 SkyBridge is your firm.

19:28 What are you reading?

19:30 I'm reading about the Brexit.

19:32 He goes, You're an idiot.

19:34 I said, I'm an idiot.

19:35 I know I'm an idiot, but why am I an idiot?

19:37 He goes, I'll tell you what's in that report.

19:39 That report is saying that it's economically

19:41 wrong and economically irrational for the British citizens,

19:46 the UK citizens to Brexit.

19:48 Isn't that what it says?

19:50 I say, yes, it is.

19:51 And I have all the backup data here.

19:53 He goes, yeah, that's ridiculous.

19:54 They're going to Brexit.

19:55 I said, why are you saying that?

19:58 He says, haven't you been traveling around with me to all of these cities?

20:02 You don't think that they have those cities and those towns in the U.K.?

20:06 Okay.

20:07 And that was late May of 2016.

20:12 By the end of June, this country had Brexited and he got that.

20:16 I didn't get it.

20:17 And so, you know, let me let me say it to you this way.

20:20 There was a man that lived adjacent to the Tiffany store

20:24 on Fifth Avenue in a triplex apartment that looked like Louis XIV,

20:29 smoked crystal meth and decorated the apartment.

20:34 He saw all the problems in the neighborhood I grew up in, and I missed it.

20:37 So I think then you would credit him with these two things, perhaps.

20:42 One is that he showed you something that you otherwise

20:46 hadn't seen because of your professional experience and your new world.

20:51 And the second thing is you owe your media and podcasting career to him after

20:56 those ten days that you were in the White

20:58 House and actually the way he fired you?

21:02 Yeah, well, yes, I mean, so really,

21:04 because it's a little bit of a silver lining, I guess, in some ways.

21:08 But, you know, the truth of the matter is

21:11 that that was the most brutal experience of my life.

21:14 We can talk about it and we can revise it.

21:17 It's nine years later because, oh, that worked out great for me.

21:21 I have this nice podcast business and you and I are

21:23 hanging out in this beautiful studio and talking on your wonderful show.

21:27 So, it worked out great for me.

21:29 But let me set the scene for you and your viewers and listeners.

21:32 I am fighting with him in the White House, as predicted by my wife,

21:37 that our personalities would not gel in a situation like that.

21:42 Remember in the campaign where I was a volunteer of his, we

21:46 were two New Yorkers and two entrepreneurs taking risks in a campaign.

21:50 And it used to bother people that I could have this sort of bilateral

21:54 direct conversation with him because there was a lot of sycophants around him,

21:58 but he wanted sycophants in the White House.

22:01 And so there I was with him,

22:03 and on that Friday he called me a deep- stater and I was like,

22:06 well, I'm not a deep-stater.

22:07 I mean, I think I went to Washington one time on a field trip.

22:10 I'm definitely not a deep-stater,

22:12 but I didn't want to do things the way he wanted to do them.

22:16 Okay?

22:17 I had actually taken constitutional law in law school and I had a thought

22:21 process about it being the institution

22:23 of the presidency and you're a caretaker of it.

22:26 I'm not necessarily working for you as much as I'm working

22:29 for the American people and want to abide to the Constitution.

22:32 Well, 11 days later,

22:33 I got fired and I blamed myself for the firing and all that other stuff.

22:37 I never blame anybody, him or anybody else.

22:40 But it's important to tell this part of the story because that was brutal.

22:45 My wife and I were fighting.

22:46 She had filed for divorce on me.

22:48 I missed the birth of my son, Mishal.

22:52 He was born on July 24, 2017.

22:55 I was at the Boy Scouts event with Donald Trump in West Virginia.

23:00 You couldn't leave the event for the birth of your child?

23:03 There was no way out of the event.

23:05 She went into premature labor and he landed the plane.

23:09 We drove 35 miles away from the plane into a campground.

23:12 And even if I got back to the plane, there was a 60 mile no fly zone.

23:18 There was just no way back.

23:20 Okay.

23:20 So I had a series of colossal disasters happen to me sequentially.

23:26 I can feel the perspiration as I'm speaking about it,

23:30 but I was in a potential divorce.

23:33 Missed the birth of my son,

23:35 got fired from the White House after 11 days, and I got torched by everybody.

23:40 I had a crisis PR person that told me

23:43 to buy a villa in, I mean, God bless the guy,

23:45 who told me to go buy a villa in Tuscany

23:49 and come back to the United States in 2022.

23:52 You're never going to be able to rebuild your career or your media reputation.

23:57 And, you know, you probably should go dark for five years.

24:00 But, you know, in life,

24:01 when you make mistakes and you're an entrepreneur and you

24:04 take risks like that, you got to face the music.

24:06 And I did that.

24:08 So, yes, I do have a podcast business and I do

24:11 have things like that, but I paid the price for those things.

24:14 Yeah, it was very public and, and I can

24:16 see that there was a really humiliating aspect to it.

24:19 I am so glad that you brought up the word humiliating because I thought you

24:22 were going to be a little bit too British and not bring up that word.

24:28 But it was humiliating.

24:30 I like the way you say it better because you have a nicer accent than me.

24:33 But it was humiliating.

24:34 But wasn't it Donald Trump who also once told you essentially, no,

24:39 that bad publicity is still publicity and that negative

24:42 press stories still have their value because you have look,

24:45 you've got your own business now.

24:47 You've done your homework.

24:47 You've done your homework.

24:49 He did say that, he has said that.

24:50 He's repeatedly said that I mean,

24:52 does it help you be the frontman and get attraction for your firm?

24:57 I think it hurts Your name is really well known.

25:01 I think it hurts and helps.

25:02 My 34-year-old son who went to Stanford Business School says to me,

25:06 Dad, you really you're killing me.

25:09 You're killing my networking opportunities.

25:10 I said, why?

25:11 He goes, well, the Republicans hate you you,

25:13 because you were once with Trump and you left Trump.

25:16 He goes, the Democrats- forget it.

25:18 They hate you because you were once with Trump.

25:20 He goes, you've got me in like, networking purgatory.

25:24 So, so it helps and it hurts.

25:27 It's a little bit of both.

25:28 You're going to get some people and you're going to lose some people.

25:32 And that's life.

25:33 I don't, I'm not worried about that aspect of it.

25:36 Is the other really hard moment that you've had,

25:39 which is possibly comparable over your association with Sam Bankman-Fried,

25:45 who's now been sentenced over his defrauding

25:48 of investors and customers in his cryptocurrency business.

25:53 Because you believed in him, you were business partners, you were close to him.

25:58 I liked him.

25:59 And then, there was a massive fallout on you and your firm from his downfall.

26:04 Yeah.

26:04 I mean, and, you know,

26:05 there were some nasty articles written by Bloomberg, frankly.

26:08 And by the way, I'm a free speech absolutist

26:11 and so those reporters had the right to write those articles.

26:15 And they're allowed to write whatever they want to write.

26:18 You know, if you're a public figure, you have to be a big person and you have

26:24 to accept the criticism and the potential praise of what's going on.

26:28 But, you know, the one problem when you're a high profile person,

26:32 however, your your failures go around the world in five seconds.

26:36 So, before you can tie your shoelaces, okay?

26:39 Your successes are generally understated and that's fine.

26:42 But those are two, to me, colossal failure in my career.

26:47 You know, mis-sizing, not understanding Trump appropriately.

26:52 I've, well explained that and I'm happy to continue to explain it.

26:56 Sam Bankman-Fried is a different story.

26:59 Sam was, Sam had 25 investors that had given

27:04 him approximately billion to fund FDX and these were sovereign,

27:08 I'm not going to name them because they always

27:09 get mad at me when I actually name the names.

27:11 But these were sovereign wealth funds,

27:13 venture capitalists, billionaire investors, billionaire family offices.

27:19 And I had a rapport with Sam, and I had a rapport with Sam's mom and dad,

27:25 who were Stanford Law School professors who knew some

27:28 of the faculty at Harvard Law School, that taught me.

27:33 And so I felt I had a keiretsu or a connection into the family.

27:38 And while Sam was somewhat odd, I thought he was brilliant.

27:43 And I'm going to say something that makes me look bad.

27:45 I thought he was ethical, a little odd, but ethical.

27:48 And I thought his father,

27:50 who was a tax attorney and his mother who taught ethics at Stanford Law School,

27:55 I made false assumptions.

27:57 And so- but remember, he gave me the money.

28:00 I didn't I didn't give him the money.

28:02 He bought a stake in your firm.

28:03 He did.

28:04 He came to our conference.

28:05 He liked our business.

28:06 He liked our crypto exposure.

28:08 And you talked about him as the next JP

28:10 Morgan or the JP Morgan of the modern age.

28:12 I think I said that to Bloomberg.

28:14 I thought because he was bailing out at the time.

28:17 If you remember what happened in the crisis of 190,7 John Pierpont Morgan,

28:21 before the establishment of the Federal Reserve stepped in and cleared

28:26 a lot of credit that was potentially defaulting in the panic of 1907.

28:31 And so we were having that sort of crisis in 2022,

28:35 and Sam had positioned himself that way.

28:38 So, yes, I did say that, you know,

28:40 the great irony now in Sam's investment portfolio, he filed for bankruptcy.

28:45 It was a 7bn company when the company collapsed.

28:50 His investment portfolio, his balance sheet today is worth 14bn meaning

28:55 if they had just kept the balance sheet together.

28:57 But the reason why he didn't get a retrial is that he broke the law.

29:01 He moved customer accounts from one place into another place,

29:06 his own account, which is wholly and totally inappropriate.

29:11 But again, imagine the situation for me.

29:14 I'm making an announcement that Sam's buying

29:17 a piece of my business in September,

29:19 and I'm talking about this strategic collaboration.

29:22 Eight weeks later, I've got to go down to The Bahamas

29:24 and visit with him and his father and realize that he's committed fraud.

29:29 And I've got to go face the music again.

29:31 So I have to go back on television and say, yeah, I think this guy,

29:35 he's entitled to a trial and he's innocent

29:38 until proven guilty in the court of law.

29:41 But I think he's done some really bad things here.

29:43 I think he's a bad actor, so that's a painful thing to do.

29:47 The thing that surprises me is that after the shock of that moment and it's

29:52 a business shock and it's a personal shock because you thought you knew the man,

29:57 you still today have a high percentage of your personal

30:01 wealth and your business wrapped up in digital assets,

30:05 including particularly Bitcoin.

30:06 And there has been this significant tumble from the tail

30:10 end of last year to February in the value of that.

30:14 So.

30:15 Do you like Bitcoin?

30:18 Well, I mean, I'm not an expert.

30:21 Do you own Bitcoin?

30:23 I don't.

30:23 Well, this is a you've written a whole book on it,

30:25 but you obviously own a lot of Bitcoin and is there any point where

30:29 you thought too much of my personal wealth is is tied up in this?

30:33 well.

30:34 you'll have to invite me back in five years

30:35 and make a determination if I'm right or wrong.

30:38 But I made a decision in October, November of 2020 that we were going to flip

30:43 a portion of our assets into digital assets.

30:46 A big piece of it was going to be in Bitcoin.

30:48 We're buying those coins at 5,000, 6,000, 7,000.

30:52 They went to $69,000 by November of 2021.

30:56 We look like geniuses and then they collapse

30:59 with the FDX crisis and went back to 5,000.

31:03 So, depending on the point that you're in, you

31:05 either look like a genius or a dummy.

31:07 But I mean, I bought these coins of 6,000.

31:10 They're trading at about $78,000 today.

31:13 And you could say to me, well, you know, they were once trading at 26,000.

31:16 So you're a dummy once again.

31:18 But again, I don't want to judge it that way.

31:20 I want to judge it over a five or ten year period of time.

31:23 I think this is a transformative technology.

31:26 So, yeah, I own it.

31:28 And Sam didn't dissuade me even though he

31:32 caused alongside of a huge deleveraging in the market,

31:37 he caused a crash in Bitcoin.

31:40 Bitcoin rallied back.

31:41 I think the United States will get the legislation and the regulation right

31:44 and I think Bitcoin will be part of our long term asset allocation structure.

31:49 Got it.

31:49 So to you, it's not a risk,

31:52 it's the future and it's and it's a future that you're invested in?

31:56 I think it's the future I think you have to, I

31:58 think you have to take the time to understand it.

32:01 People that are my age, I'm 62.

32:03 If you're my age or older, you either don't have the patience for it

32:07 or you think it's a cryptograph that's absolutely worthless.

32:10 I was on the Bill Maher show with my old boss, Lloyd Blankfein.

32:14 Who would be a great guest on your show by the way,

32:17 and he had just written a new book and Bill

32:19 Maher and Lloyd Blankfein combined age of like 160 hate Bitcoin.

32:25 And they're sitting there laying into me over Bitcoin.

32:28 And I said the same thing to them that I'll say to you, do the homework.

32:32 When you're done doing the homework less, then have the real conversation.

32:36 So you know who's doing the homework?

32:38 The 30 year olds, the 40 year olds and you

32:41 know where they're going to be in ten years.

32:42 They're going to be in positions of power in the asset management business.

32:47 And so let's see if I'm right.

32:49 Can I take you right back to the way you grew up, though?

32:53 Because I was really struck reading your book, not the Bitcoin book,

32:56 the 'From Wall Street to the White House

32:58 and Back' where you write about coming home in 1974

33:02 and hearing your parents argue about money and then

33:05 starting a paper round and you're only ten years old?

33:09 I was 11 years old.

33:11 Yeah.

33:11 And, and essentially how hard you worked,

33:15 how you persuaded houses that they could do with an extra paper a week,

33:19 not just the one paper a week they were getting.

33:21 It was an easy route because these were all like blue collar rowhouses.

33:25 Near your own?

33:26 Blue collar apartments, yeah, yeah,

33:28 it was it was easy to go up and down the steps

33:31 and knock on the doors and guilt all of these women.

33:33 But tell me what was driving you at that time?

33:35 Was it a vulnerability seeing your parents vulnerable or was it

33:39 a real desire to lead a different life from your parents?

33:43 Well, I think it was both.

33:45 I started my paper route in February of 1975.

33:48 I had it until the end of 1977.

33:51 And I created in that area one of the larger residential paper routes,

33:55 because what I did was I went to my boss, Mr.

33:58 Fusco, who's passed on unfortunately.

34:00 He was an awesome guy.

34:02 And I say I need thirty free papers every Wednesday.

34:05 And he's like, what do you need them for?

34:06 I said, I'm going to go up and down these apartments.

34:09 I got to ring doorbells and I'm going to ask, you know, the Mrs.

34:12 Sheridans and the Mrs.

34:14 McGillicuddies and the Mrs.

34:16 Zampollis to subscribe to Newsday.

34:18 And and so I used to drop off a free paper,

34:21 and the next day I'd ring the doorbell.

34:23 I said, did you enjoy the paper?

34:24 And I had everybody's name and I had like, a check mark of who I collected from.

34:28 I used to collect on Fridays.

34:30 And Mrs.

34:31 Sheridan from Sheridan Electric was the best tipper,

34:34 and I will always remember her fondly.

34:37 It was .40 okay to have a daily and Sunday in 1976,

34:41 and when I used to ring the doorbell on a Friday,

34:44 she gave me a $5 bill and I was the happiest, happiest camper.

34:49 And that's the reason why I always try

34:50 to tip everybody really well when I'm in a restaurant,

34:52 or- Because you remember what it's like?

34:55 Of course.

34:56 Where it makes all the difference.

34:57 And I gave the money to my mother, you know?

34:59 I mean, it was probably making $50, $60 a week,

35:02 kept 5 for myself and gave it to my mom and dad.

35:06 There's another part of your book which I was really sad to read,

35:10 which is the you widely known as 'The Mooch'.

35:13 But tell me about how you first got that name?

35:16 Who first called you that?

35:17 Why is that sad to read?

35:19 It's sad to read because this racism in it,

35:21 that you write in the book that it's one

35:24 of your teachers in school who doesn't like the ethnic sounding names.

35:29 He doesn't like the Italians, he doesn't like the Irish.

35:32 He didn't like the Polish either.

35:34 I mean, he decided that if you had a four syllable last name,

35:37 that was like a little bit too long for him.

35:40 And so he took one of the syllables of your name,

35:42 and that's what he calls you by.

35:44 And but, you know, listen, that's life.

35:48 But you didn't like it at the time, did you?

35:50 At the time- You then used it and credit to you for doing that.

35:55 I was nine years old, so it wasn't like did I like it?

35:58 Or did I dislike it?

36:00 It was a different era of life.

36:02 I've just bring up the point that like when

36:04 people were like when I came on the stage, at The White House press room,

36:08 and I gave the press conference- oh he's 'The Mooch',

36:10 and they were saying it derisively.

36:12 And I'm like, Dude, I've been called 'The Mooch' since 1972.

36:15 It's not bothering me.

36:16 You got to find something else to bother

36:17 me because that one's not going to bother me.

36:19 So.

36:20 But.

36:20 But he gave me that name.

36:22 But there were worse names than that one.

36:24 Trust me, that he was giving out to people.

36:25 But here's the thing.

36:27 I mean, you can't be a baby and you can't play a victim in life.

36:32 If you're going to go work for Donald Trump.

36:34 You're going to go work in presidential

36:36 politics and you get blown out like that.

36:38 You can't be a baby.

36:39 It's like me being an American football player

36:41 and playing in the NFL and saying that, okay,

36:44 I'm upset now that I got a concussion.

36:47 Well, guess what?

36:48 Everybody gets a concussion.

36:49 So, I mean, that was life in the 1970s on Long Island.

36:53 I'm not complaining about them I'm just explaining what happened.

36:56 And the kinds of people who you grew

36:59 up with, communities which are still like that today,

37:01 into which MAGA very successfully reached.

37:05 What do you think is going to happen in the next election?

37:09 Because we've already talked about the midterms,

37:10 but let's look at the next election.

37:11 Do you think the Democrats can win them back?

37:13 They don't have the right leadership right now to win them back.

37:15 I mean, the best thing that the Republicans

37:17 have going for them are the Democrats.

37:19 I mean.

37:20 You don't see a single potential credible nominee.

37:23 Remember, the reaction formation to that story in my book is to make sure

37:28 that there's a female candidate to be president

37:31 or to make sure- or Vice President Harris,

37:34 who I voted for, and I helped her on her campaign debate prep.

37:38 She writes in her book 107 Days.

37:40 She didn't pick people, Pete Buttigieg, because he was gay.

37:43 She wrote it.

37:45 We got to stop doing all of that.

37:46 In others.

37:47 We have to stop overcorrecting for the racism and then

37:51 we have to stop over like doing the identity, gender, sexual orientation.

37:56 So, just pick the best communicator?

37:59 Best athletes, best communicators,

38:01 policy makers who can build a consensus, who can delegate.

38:06 You know, there's 5000 people in the executive branch.

38:09 We've got our decision making down to a decision maker of one now.

38:13 There's one person at the State Department, that's Donald Trump.

38:16 There's one person at the White House, Donald Trump.

38:19 There's one person at the Pentagon, Donald Trump.

38:21 So we have to get back on the playing

38:25 field with something way more American and way more pluralistic.

38:29 And the way to do that is put the best athletes in the game

38:33 and stop trying to overcorrect and try to whitewash what happened in the past.

38:38 You know, I mean, the statues of the statues leave them alone.

38:42 That's part of our history.

38:43 Let's go forward with the right with the right ideas for the vision.

38:47 But any Democrat would say that that's exactly what they're going to do.

38:51 And they haven't done that.

38:52 They haven't done that.

38:53 Well, I guess maybe they say it's early.

38:55 Like you say for the Republicans.

38:56 This is a circle and this is they're in a circular firing squad.

39:00 They treat Newsom like he's further to the right than Orban.

39:03 If you're in, if you're in the AOC or Zohran Mamdani's camp,

39:07 you know, Newsom is Viktor Orban.

39:10 I mean, you got to really look at it for what it is.

39:12 Cut it out, guys.

39:13 Focus on the principle.

39:15 Stop attacking each other and line up.

39:17 You know, what the Republicans do are way better job of than the Democrats.

39:21 They line up Mishal.

39:23 Okay.

39:24 Ted Cruz wanted to strangle Donald Trump.

39:27 He lined up with him.

39:29 Okay.

39:29 And they all line up together.

39:30 You got to learn to do that in politics.

39:32 That's what- But I think you don't really like

39:34 that about all of those who've lined up under Donald Trump.

39:37 I don't like it because they're hurting the country.

39:41 I don't like it because they're subverting the Constitution.

39:44 If you told me that Donald Trump was a transformational, healing,

39:49 regenerative leader who was seeking an American renewal and that was

39:55 going to help reform America and make it better, then of course I like it.

39:59 You got to give up something at the table for the other side.

40:02 That was the nature and the existence of what the founders wanted.

40:06 It wasn't, let me beat you into submission

40:09 and let me own you culturally in the culture war.

40:13 That wasn't the goal of the whole thing.

40:15 But I think you're saying- I'm optimistic, by the way.

40:17 On the Democrats finding someone who can challenge the next?

40:20 I don't know who it's going to be,

40:23 but I will predict on your show that you will see

40:26 a very surprising American renewal because it's a very, very young country.

40:33 It doesn't have an anchored culture.

40:36 It's an experiment, multi-ethnic experiment.

40:40 And what happens in the country, is when we lose our generational memory,

40:44 once every 80 years, we get hit very hard.

40:47 But the renewal on the left or the right, I'm not sure yet.

40:50 We'll have to see.

40:51 It could be a Republican, you know, you could invite me back.

40:54 I'll say, hey, there's a young Republican that is

40:56 helping people understand where the country has to go,

41:00 or there's a young Democrat.

41:02 You know, Buttigieg as an example, to me is a very formidable.

41:07 Incredibly talented politician.

41:09 He's also served in the American military.

41:12 He's an articulate man.

41:14 He understands policy.

41:17 Okay.

41:17 But he is gay.

41:19 Okay.

41:19 And he can't get the African American community at this moment to vote for him.

41:24 But maybe they will.

41:25 Maybe there will be a transformation.

41:27 But he's somebody that I would look at and say, okay,

41:30 that guy has the right timber and he has

41:32 the right ingredients to be a really good president.

41:34 But I'm telling you that we go through it.

41:38 80 years after the Revolutionary War, we had the Civil War.

41:41 80 years after that, we had the Great Depression.

41:44 And that led to the Second World War.

41:47 We're now 80 years out from that war,

41:50 and this country is getting dunked because we've lost

41:53 our generational memory about the institutions and the processes that matter.

41:58 And so now we need a leader come in and explain

42:02 that to the people and say we have to return to the process.

42:06 Okay.

42:06 And Trump is helping us do that, by the way,

42:09 because he's out there doing the opposite,

42:12 that people instinctively know that this is not right.

42:16 This is why these elections are not going his way.

42:19 This is why the approval ratings are way down.

42:21 He's got a 34%, 35% approval rating.

42:24 He's helping us.

42:25 Trump is forcing, you know,

42:27 how Trump made me famous and allowed me to have a podcast.

42:31 He's actually forcing the American people to have

42:34 a moral and cultural reckoning with itself.

42:37 And every time we've done that, we've sought redemption and renewal.

42:42 And I predict that that will happen.

42:44 Or the next American president, whoever they are,

42:46 might well use executive power to some extent,

42:52 to the degree that Donald Trump has used it, because that's been normalized?

42:56 And no question and by the way, they will go after their political adversaries.

43:01 You know, he's created a playbook where the next American president

43:05 could use that very same playbook the way he's used it.

43:09 That's why I'm not sure that the next

43:10 American president will be a reaction to this.

43:14 Now we're in a pendulum.

43:15 But I have faith in the country.

43:18 Okay?

43:19 My grandparents had an unconditional love of this country.

43:23 I'm from a family of coal miners and peasant farmers and day workers.

43:28 But I'm sitting here at Bloomberg talking to you.

43:31 Okay.

43:31 That is American dream.

43:33 That is the dream.

43:34 And that is the promise of America.

43:35 And so and by the way, I'm too short to see the glass anything other

43:39 than half full when I look at the glass.

43:40 It looks full to me.

43:42 Okay.

43:42 So I'm going to make the bet that we're going to figure it out.

43:46 The American people can smell a rotting cadaver in their basement.

43:50 There's rot going on right now.

43:53 They don't like the situation.

43:55 They voted.

43:56 Look at what's going on.

43:57 They voted Biden out.

43:58 They put the Republican back in.

43:59 They're going from Republican to Democrat to Republican

44:02 because they want to throw all the bums out.

44:06 They're upset with everybody.

44:08 Both parties have negative approval ratings.

44:11 So imagine if we could get somebody in there

44:14 that can communicate to the people and say,

44:16 okay, listen, we got to go back to the processes, okay?

44:19 What Cicero said 2600 years ago, we're slaves to the law in order to be free.

44:25 Look at what happened to Viktor Orban.

44:27 He rigged the elections, he gamed the system, he gamed the banks,

44:30 and he still lost because the people can smell a rotting cadaver.

44:36 Okay.

44:36 And we've got to find leadership in this country

44:38 that can explain that to the people.

44:40 And I think we have people in the country that that would respond to that.

44:44 Do you keep reading the classics?

44:46 Is that your choice of reading these days?

44:48 I read everything despite this Italian exoskeleton from Long Island,

44:52 I'm actually just like a bookworm.

44:54 What are you reading right now?

44:56 Well, I believe it or not, over on the plane over here,

44:59 I re-read the Autobiography of Ben Franklin because H.W.

45:03 Brands has a book out called American Patriarch.

45:06 This is a very famous historian from SMU.

45:10 He's writing about George Washington's life.

45:13 This time he's written about Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt and FDR,

45:18 etcetera- some Ronald Reagan.

45:21 But this book, I think, is very well timed,

45:23 because we're heading into the 250th anniversary of the country.

45:26 And Washington is still seen by many Americans as cast in marble.

45:32 And I think this book is definitional of Washington

45:36 in terms of what Washington actually wanted for the country.

45:39 There's a lot of messages in there that could resonate for today.

45:43 But one of the more unique things

45:44 about Washington was the relationship with Franklin,

45:46 because ultimately he needed Franklin to go to France and sort

45:50 of codify that treaty and get the help of Lafayette.

45:53 And so what am I reading right now?

45:56 I just finished The American Patriot by H.W.

45:58 Brands, and I'm rereading Ben Franklin's

46:01 autobiography because I find that Franklin

46:05 is really the first mover in the self-improvement market in the United States.

46:11 He is the original Horatio.

46:13 Does history help with the present?

46:16 Do you see things that you can use or is it an escape from the present?

46:22 It's a guide.

46:22 I think you have to understand that history makes you a better

46:26 investor and it makes you a better thinker about the world.

46:28 Anthony Scaramucci, thank you.

46:30 Such a pleasure to be with you and congratulations on your show.