Hello, I'm Giles Brandreth and this is the Rosebud Podcast. As part of our America 250 season, today our special guest is Anthony Scaramucci. The Mooch. Welcome to Rosebud. Anthony Scaramucci, do I call you Anthony?
I love the way you say the whole name. Say it just one more time for all of us because I love the way you say it.
And I love saying it. I've been saying it a lot. Can I say in recent days knowing you were coming I've been saying, 'Oh yes, our guest is Anthony Scaramucci.'
I love it. I love the way you say it. Yeah, you can call me Anthony. I've been called Mooch. I've been called worse than Anthony and Mooch. So it's all good. Anything you want to call me.
The 'th' is hard, isn't it? Anthony.
Yeah. Although in some cases, Anthony, I think, or Anthony like Mark Anthony, but again you can say anything you want. I guess the only thing that never happened to me for some reason, no one ever called me Tony. So I've never been called Tony.
And yet as you're going to discover there is an Italian heritage and I think of Italian Tonys as being Tony. Anyway, you are Anthony Scaramucci, born on the 6th of January, 1964.
Nassau Hospital, Mineola, New York.
Anthony Scaramucci, what is your very first memory?
My very first memory is riding the bus. I was probably about two and a half, three years old and I was with my grandmother. Of course she didn't know how to drive and she put me on the bus with her. I can remember it because I was very young, very small, but I could remember the smells on the bus, the metallic smell. I have this vivid memory of her squeezing my hand in this overprotective position where I remember thinking, 'Wow.' I could sense her worry even though I was a young kid.
What was this bus and who was this grandmother? Who was she? The mother?
Her name was Maria Aldorata DeFeo and she was my mom's mother. Unfortunately, I never met my dad's parents. They died before I was born. But I did get to meet my grandfather and my grandmother, or my nonno and my nana as we would have said in our Italian-American community. She died when I was nine, but I was very close to her. I would say that my first nine years on Earth, I was parented by two Catholic and very tough Italian-American women. So I got hit with the wooden spoon. They would do this with their hand, you had to run, you were going to get it.
What is that with your hand? What's happening?
That was a sign of anger in Southern Italy. If my grandmother went like this with her hand, you were getting hit with something. We didn't know what it was, but something was coming.
She did this before it happened.
Yeah, before it happened.
And this was trying to control herself?
Yeah, or it was a signal to you. It was a signal to me.
Look out, something's going to happen.
And it would be a wooden spoon.
Yeah, we got hit with the spoon.
On the hand? On the head? On the...
Yeah, you get hit in the ass, on the side of the head. She'd pull my hair. They were tough, but they were great. She was a wonderful person. She had a lot of Catholic faith. I think I got from her something she didn't know the word for: pronoya. Have you heard of the word pronoya?
It's the opposite of paranoia. The universe is turning towards you. The people around you are there to help you. She had this unstinting faith in that and this unconditional love affair with America. I think she turned me into a pronoyac, if you will.
The bus was actually on Main Street in Port Washington.
Where is Port Washington?
Where I grew up. Port Washington is a hamlet on the North Shore of Long Island. It used to be called Cow Neck. General Washington, that traitor to you and an American patriot to me, quartered troops on the south side of the bay there. After the Revolutionary War, they renamed the town Port Washington after him. The streets I grew up on were very tiny houses, a middle-class area. The streets were named after the founding fathers: Jefferson Street, Adams Street. It was all Italian-Americans, all blue-collar people.
And Italian-Americans, your grandmother, was she first-generation American?
Yeah, definitely first generation. She was born in Italy and came over.
So your mother, what was her name?
Maria, named after her mom. Her maiden name was DeFeo. She met my father in 1953.
And do you know how they met? Literally how they met, the moment they met, your two parents?
They met in a place called Freddy's Restaurant on Port Washington Boulevard. It's not there anymore. It was an old-school New York style diner with coffee stations, a soda fountain, and full circular swivel seats.
And how old were each of them?
She was 16. He was 18. She was dating somebody. He was soliciting her. He convinced her and two of her classmates, because he had a car, to go to Jones Beach. He got a flat tire on the way. He was out changing the tire, she was yelling at him, and he took his greasy hands and put the grease on her white t-shirt. I don't know why that attracted my mother to him, but they got married.
How quickly did they get married?
She met him in '53, got married on January 20th, 1957. They dated on and off for the first two years, then got more serious. They married at the local church, had the reception at a local restaurant.
Were families enthusiastic about it?
No. My grandfather thought my dad was too poor to marry. My grandfather had made a little money as a car mechanic, owned a few houses. He thought my dad was too poor for my mother. She was dating the son of a judge, which my grandfather approved of. My father was a scrappy poor kid from northeastern Pennsylvania, a nobody in my grandfather's mind. So he didn't approve.
But you say your dad was a bit of a hustler. And so he got usually what he wanted anyway.
He was a hard worker, persistent, charming, good-looking. He got what he wanted. But they had a rough marriage. I'm not going to mince words on the Rosebud podcast. They were married too young, personality mismatch, which happened a lot in Italian Catholic families.
Why did they have a rough marriage? And was it rough from the beginning?
I'm a real estate investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Look at the pinky, see? But here's the problem with that. That's what really happened to me. Because what ended up happening is I sucked at the job.
And so now I'm in the job, working very hard, but I don't really understand it that well. The firm goes into a downturn because of the Iraq war. The partner running the area fired me on February 1st, 1991. He took me to his apartment, got me a beer, and said, 'You're fired. You actually suck at the job. You need a different job.' I asked him to be a reference. I went to the bank, got four rolls of quarters, and called people from pay phones looking for a job. I was 27, humiliated. A friend told me about an opening at Goldman in a different area. I called the guy who fired me, and he got me the interview. I got rehired, but they gave me an $11,000 severance check which I had already spent. The personnel person marked it as an interdepartmental transfer. I spent seven years at Goldman, then left to start my own company.
And where we are now with the latest company, which is SkyBridge. We can't go through all the ups and downs of your career. That is worth what SkyBridge now? This is the ultimate company that you built, the business.
I don't know. It's probably worth a couple hundred million dollars. It's a private company. When I was going into the White House, I had an offer to purchase the company at $250 million. I didn't do that because I got fired so quickly and didn't want to give up the company. So I went back to it.
How do you end up at the White House? How does that happen?
I ended up in the White House because I'm a prolific political fundraiser. I've raised a ton of money for different politicians. I was working for Jeb Bush. I know Trump for multiple decades.
Jeb Bush was in Florida. Was he?
Jeb Bush was the governor of Florida, son of George Herbert Walker Bush and brother of George Walker Bush. He was running for president in '16, a very successful governor, and raised a boatload of money.
And yeah, he got slayed by Trump. Trump called me and said, 'Hey, come work for me.'
Again, it was Trump called you. This is a phone call.
From Trump. Who is? Had you met him over the years?
Yeah, so I had a relationship. I would never qualify myself as a friend of Donald Trump's. If you're qualifying yourself as a friend, you're exaggerating or lack self-awareness. He doesn't have friends. You're a transaction in his field of view. Transact with him at your peril. Everybody gets blown up. There's a carousel of people that join the Trump chorus, get backstabbed, and lit up. That's what happens.
So, phone call comes through. You have breakfast. You have breakfast.
I got it. Good. So, I got to breakfast.
And what do you have for breakfast?
I just have coffee, actually. It's a late breakfast. I go to the 26th floor of Trump Tower. He's sitting at his desk, perched up high, and your chair is down low. You're looking up at him. He's telling me this was the day after The Apprentice finale.
Which is his big TV show.
Big TV show. He asked if I saw him on The Apprentice. I said no. He said the ratings were fantastic. Then he said, 'But that's over now, I'm running for president.' I laughed and said, 'You're not running for president. Fox News had you at 2% in the polls.' He said, 'That's because people like you don't believe me. When I announce, I'll shoot to the top and win. You should come work for me.'
I said, 'I still don't believe you. I think it's a publicity stunt. I'm with Jeb Bush and it would be disloyal to break.' To Trump's credit, he respected that. He said, 'If I knock Jeb out of the race, will you come work for me?' I made a stupid decision and said yes. He knocked Jeb out, his assistant called me, and I went to work for him.
And you went to work for him as a fundraiser because that was your record.
Yeah, I went to work for him as a fundraiser. I was also hosting a show for Fox Business called Wall Street Week and was a business commentator. So I provided media support and advocacy, raised money, reviewed speeches, and so forth.
He calling the shots? Did he phone you? How did it work?
He called me. He always called me Anthony. I never called him Donald; I called him Mr. Trump, and later Mr. President.
And I've been told by many people his personal manner is quite charming.
And he has good sense of humor?
He's got a good sense of humor. He can be charming in small spaces. I got on with him. I worked for him for 9 months, did 71 campaign stops, raised lots of money. Jared Kushner said Trump said I reminded him of Fred Trump because I built my own business. I was direct with him. He appreciated that during the campaign, but not in the White House.
So, you become He appointed you as the communication secretary.
The first move was he made me part of the executive transition committee. For 12 weeks, I interviewed cabinet and sub-cabinet officials, worked on building the cabinet and ambassadorships.
And you were excited because you thought he's a president now. Did you think this is going to work?
I didn't think he was going to win. He didn't think he was going to win either. When he won, we were all shocked. We had to build the cabinet in a manic rush. That's when the hook went through my eyeball. I let my pride and ego get the best of me. My wife thought Trump was batshit crazy and told me not to do it. I didn't listen and paid the price.
And how did you pay the price? Because you do eventually, once he actually becomes president, you were appointed. What was your role?
I was the OPL director, Office of Public Liaison. I was supposed to network for the president, build relationships with government officials and business leaders. But Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, didn't like me. He was passive-aggressive, stabbing me in the back. I called him out, which made it worse. I had the blue badge and access to the White House from January 20th until I got fired. Trump told me not to give up the badge, he'd find me a job. On July 20th, he called me in for lunch.
I had a club sandwich. Trump didn't eat anything, just drank 14 Diet Cokes. He said, 'I want you to come work for me. You're right about Priebus and Bannon. I got to get rid of them.' I said okay. He asked what offices were available, and the communications director office was open. He said, 'You're my communications director.' I said I had no experience. He said, 'Relax, you'll figure it out.' That was the height of my stupidity. The next day, the White House ops guy told Priebus and Bannon. They called me non-stop. The next morning, we met in the chief of staff's office. They ripped into me, but I said Trump wants me. That was pride and ego.
But Trump might have been right. You might have done the job well. Why did it How was your first day like?
I was never going to be able to do the job well because the knives were already out. Trump did something on the first day that made it impossible. He told Priebus, 'I don't want your filth and your stink on him,' and said I report directly to him. That was bad because when the new chief of staff came in, he wouldn't like it. John Kelly fired me as one of his first acts. But John and I are good friends now. It's important not to take it personally.
So, you felt you weren't able to do the job, but you were hooked in. They didn't want you in there, certainly not having direct contact with the president. Why did he let you go since he decided you were going to be
Trump let me go because I was fighting with him.
Trump had decided to do things his way, some of which may cross constitutional lines. He pushed me to do things I wasn't capable of, like lying about the inaugural crowd size. I refused because I have a reputation on Wall Street. I pissed him off. Kelly was honest that it wouldn't work. So I got fired. Then I got lit up by late-night comedians and cable news. It was brutal.
9 years later, we're still talking about it. It was brutal.
But did you feel humiliated by it?
Oh, very much so. Among many other feelings: humiliation, shame, self-consciousness, awkwardness, pissed-offness at myself for falling into an ego trap. I also had a problem with my wife and missed the birth of my son James.
Tell us about your wife. This is your first wife?
