11 days. What the deuce happened?
I'm fired by President Trump. I was not the right guy for that job. I'm not a bull. I wasn't kissing Trump's ass like these sick fans. I'm a Republican. I've always been a Republican.
I'm not calling you a sellout.
We have the choir. Don't upset the choir. Amen.
You see the light now. Okay. I mean, you're fantastic, by the way, but go ahead. Keep going.
Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to another long form. We'll do it live. Our guest today is an interesting guy. I know him. He lives in my hometown on Long Island. His name is Anthony Scaramucci. And I've got, I usually don't do extended notes in interviews, but I have to do it because you guys got a resume. It's all over the place and I don't want to get it wrong. He's got a book coming out in September, All the Wrong Moves, an economic book. Anyway, he's a rich guy, so he's worth listening to. Unfortunately for Anthony, his book comes out the same day my book comes out, Confronting America. So, you know, he's got to compete with me.
Collaborate, collaborate, you know.
All right. So, here he is. Anthony Scaramucci. Very impressive resume. A Long Island boy. What town were you born?
So I was raised in Port. I was born in Mineola, Nassau Hospital. I think you remember Nassau Hospital, right? Yep. And my dad was the crane operator out on West Shore Road in Port Washington. If you remember McCormick Sand and Stone and Gotham Sand and Stone down there, there's a beautiful golf course there now. And Ken Langone, someone you and I know well, put a monument there to all of the Irish and Italian immigrants that worked.
It's still an ethnic area.
Yeah, still an ethnic area, but so my dad was a union guy and he was a crane operator there.
I didn't get over to that area till very late in life. I was a Levittown kid. I remember that. So you got a law degree from Harvard. That's impressive.
BA in economics and Tufts.
And then you start your climb in the financial world, Goldman Sachs. You start your own company SkyBridge Capital. You become a very successful, wealthy individual. What would you attribute your success to first of all before we get into the politics which I think are fascinating. But why are you successful? Why?
I would say in the beginning, negative financial, if I would say, I would say a reasonably high IQ. I mean my mother went to the sixth grade and she came back from the parent teacher and said you have some kind of Q thing. I don't know what it is. My mother wasn't educated and I went back to the school, he was a Navy vet. His name was George Kesner. He told me I had a high IQ. So I think that was number one. Number two, there was a lot of financial anxiety in my house, which I think you experienced because I've read some of your books.
We didn't have any money.
Yeah. And so I had a paper out, a Newsday paper out early. I worked at the local Key Food. The supermarket is now Northshore Farms because you're from the area, you know, it's right by D'Agostino's. I worked there from age 13 to age 18. And I was a hustler.
You're a smart guy, born with it. Work hard as many Long Islanders had to do. And then you're lucky though you develop an interest in finance. Yeah. Obviously we're taping this in New York City, the capital of finance in the world.
You develop an interest in this. And you become successful. Were you a good stock picker? I mean what was the basis of success?
It's a great question, but I have to go back a second because I think you'll appreciate this. I was clueless and sheltered by my parents. I was in a blue-collar Italian family. We did certain things at certain times and everybody in the neighborhood, Bill, were putting in sheetrock, clamming, delis, pizzerias, landscaping. That was the neighborhood I grew up in, right? And so, John Zenetti, my guidance counselor, Schreiber High School, Port Washington, went to my parents. I mean, this is old school stuff. They were drinking espresso out of a cast iron pot one night smoking cigarellas in the kitchen and he told them send your son to the private school Tufts University not to the state school Binghamton.
And my father didn't have any money and so he said Anthony will figure it out and so forth. And then my dad did something for me which I think you would admire. He cashed his union life insurance policy to pay your tuition. He gave me a $10,000 check in April of 1982. And that did change my life because I said, 'Oh my god, this is so important to my mom and dad that they would do this.' And they had so much pressure on them financially. You know, it really set a light bulb off in me and I worked very hard at Tufts and that was a piece of luck because Tufts was right down the block from Harvard because you know the area you went to Harvard and the provost of Tufts was very close to some of the people at Harvard. I had high test scores, high grades, got into Harvard Law School, which enabled me to be even considered for a job interview at Goldman Sachs because they typically weren't at that time.
Sure. You saw what upper echelon.
Yeah, but Bill, I went to Harvard in polyester. Just need you to know that I was all poly. I didn't know better. Okay. And so I had to learn those lessons.
Yeah, tracksuits are not good. It wasn't drag suits, but it was definitely like a Brooklyn Undertaker look. Bill. Okay. How many other siblings were there?
So, I have an older brother and I have a younger sister. My older brother got an MBA from NYU.
Yeah. He's a hard worker. He's a good guy. You know, my sister has a fashion business.
Okay. So, then you're a prince of the city. Wolf of Wall Street or whatever, whatever that guy.
Coleman wasn't like that to be honest. But if you know the guys at Goldman, Coleman or not really?
No, I don't know any of these people. Okay. My whole career has been journalism. I know finance only because of trial and error but I don't know them and I don't hang with them. But you become very well known in the city among the big money makers. Okay.
Well, Rudy Giuliani made, so I'll tell you the story. So, I'm at Goldman. They give me a desk and a telephone. They want me to be in the wealth management practice. I don't know anybody. My dad wears a greenie to work. He's a crane.
You don't know any rich people? How can you be in wealth management?
How could you be in wealth management? Okay. Also, I don't hit a golf ball and I don't swing a tennis racket, right? But I have a degree and reasonably well spoken, reasonably well read. So now what am I going to do? Well, it turns out if you go to political fundraisers, Bill, you meet a lot of wealthy, influential people.
So you start crashing the fundraisers.
Start crashing the fundraisers. And do you remember Joe Margiotta? Yeah. Okay. So, Joe Margiotta controlled my father's union. And so, when I signed up at the Port Washington Post Office for the Selective Service at age 18 and to register for the draft, I turned to my pops. I said, 'Dad, am I a Republican or a Democrat? What am I? I don't know what I am.' 'No, no, G, you're a Republican. You know the Margiotta controls this union, right?' And so, I became a registered Republican, lifelong Republican. Rudy is running for mayor, right? I go to work for him. He loses. I'm young Republicans for Rudy Giuliani. This is 1989. Loses the election. He goes to White and Case, which is not too far from here. And he's going to run again. And I start building a relationship with him. And he's introducing me to people. And then Rudy,
Were you a fundraiser for him?
Yes, I was. I was a young fundraiser. My first political check, Bill, was $250 US to young Republicans for Rudy Giuliani. So then he gets elected mayor and you do you stay with him? That was the best. Oh no, that was the best. So Rudy gets elected mayor, right? I have like the best parking pass in New York City. I mean I can park the car on two wheels on a fire hydrant in front of like Radio City, right? And you know I meet Tony Carbonetti and meet all these different guys. There's another gentleman that I know you know. He goes to church with my father St. Peter's Church 5:00 PM mass every Saturday and that's Ken Langone. And so my father says, 'You know, my son is a young Wall Street guy. Could he come meet you?' And so have him come and meet me. I go to 399 Park. I, you know, the Citicorp building. I think it's the other building. Anyway, I go upstairs to see Kenny and he helps me in my relationship. He introduced me to Dick Grasso. I think he
Are you with Giuliani still where you're doing it? Building contacts now.
Yeah. So I'm with Giuliani as a volunteer. I'm with Giuliani doing some projects for him as a fundraiser. He's going to run for mayor again. And right, he wins the mayor's race in '93. He's going to run again in '97. I'm with him. I'm with his team. And now the city's open. I worked for Bob Dole because of Mayor Giuliani. And this is the weird thing about Rudy.
Why did you want to get into politics when you're making all this money in the private sector?
Well, because I wasn't at the time. I was drawing resources from the political game and its networking to create a clientele at Goldman Sachs.
You were melding the politics and the money. Not unusual in America.
Not unusual in America, but also for somebody like me with that limited upbringing, not tied to a boarding school, didn't know people in that genre. Sure. And I wasn't a country club member.
All right. So, let's then go into politics. So, you get a profile in New York and then you get involved with Barack Obama's campaign. How did that happen?
So, I'm with Dole. I work for Dole. I'm with Pataki even though Rudy left Pataki to go to Cuomo and I think you probably would remember that. I'm with George W. Bush and but I'm not as politically active as a senior fundraiser. Barack Obama is a fellow Harvard Law School, not my classmate. I'm class of '89. He's class of 1991. He's two years behind me, but I know him. We're playing hoops in the Hemingway gym together.
So, you knew him at school?
Knew him in school. Not well. I'm not going to BS you and say I knew him well, but we knew each other. And one of my buddies was working for him and said, you know, come to the University Club and write him a check, help us out. And I said to myself, well, I'll never know a president. I never meet a president of the United States. Let me go and see him. And so I went to go see him at the University Club. It was July of 2007. I handed him a check. I said, you know, we sort of knew each other in law school. I said, you know, I want to be able to tell people that we knew each other really well. Are you okay with that? And Obama looks at me, says, hey, if you double the amount of the check, we'll take it back to Hawaii. Okay. And I ripped up the check and I doubled it. You know, he was a charming guy. Yeah. Let me tell you something, Bill. You helped him immeasurably. I'm going to tell you how you helped him. He accepted an invitation from you to be interviewed by you during the Republican convention.
In 2008. And by the way, that viewership made him attractive to a very large group of independents.
That was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Remember that?
That was a shrewd move because he had pulled me out of Minneapolis to do it, but I had to take it.
I treated Obama fairly. I mean I'm not sure what anybody says but I understood that he was a liberal man who believed that unlike your background and my background which are similar that the government really helped us that there were, you know, because he said to me one time during an interview, Super Bowl interview, you know you didn't do this on your own Bill, you know you had help from the, and I see Elizabeth Warren now says no I did it, no government helped me do it. I mean, you might have the road out here, but I paid for that road with my tax money. So, that was
Yeah, that's a misnomer. That's bad philosophy.
But I never bought into his vision of how the country should be run. You apparently did.
Okay. So, this is again doesn't reflect well on me, but we're having a very honest interview.
I wrote checks to the following people. Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton in 2000, and Barack Obama. I was a lifelong Republican, but like a Donald Trump writing checks to Kamala Harris or to Chuck Schumer. I lived in New York. It's a Democratic city.
Okay, we know what you're doing.
I've got clients that are saying, 'Hey, you got to write this check or write that check.' So, the buy-in was not there, Bill, but the check was there to fulfill an obligation.
And this is a Democratic town.
And it's a Democratic town. And so that's the political reality of it. My fundamental philosophy, if you're asking me about it, is more grounded on the side of the Republicans. I'm probably more socially libertarian than the average Republican.
Yeah. Because your buddy Ken Langone, the founder of Home Depot, who helped you a lot. Yeah. He's a self-made guy. I didn't want to hear any of this. Phenomenal book. I love capitalism. Kenny wrote a phenomenal book. He didn't want to hear any of this. So I'm a Republican. I've always been a Republican.
Which you kind of sold out a little bit.
Well, by giving money to the opposition, but it was going to help you achieve what you wanted to do.
I probably did, but tell me how I did it.
Okay. So, if you Is that a fair statement?
I'm not calling you a sellout.
No, no, I got it. No, I think you're being fair in the way you're measuring it. I would just say if you were a business executive in New York, which I never would have been, right? Which includes Donald Trump because he, yeah, he talked about it with me. You know, he wrote checks to Kamala Harris for the Senate. A lot of American businessmen that are Republicans have written checks to Democrats in this city. And so if that's a sellout by definition, then I am one. But that's practicality in some ways.
My standards are pretty up there. I never gave a dime to any politician. I'm a Listen, not even George Santos. All right. I never gave a dime to anybody because my job is to watch them, not support them in financial matters. All right. You're with Obama.
All right. But then you see the light now. Okay. I mean, you're fantastic, by the way. But go ahead. Keep going. Not really. And you're not with Obama.
You switch over to Romney.
I gave Obama money, but I'm a lifelong Republican. And I didn't.
Well, tell me about the switch though. So, you're with Obama.
Obama wins. He beats McCain. Yeah.
Okay. And then all of a sudden, Anthony Scaramucci who has now a reputation. Yeah. Okay. You're not some anonymous guy anymore.
Yeah. I'm doing CNBC. You know, I'm going to go and support Romney against Obama. Yeah. Why? Well, listen. First of all, I'm a lifelong Republican. Secondarily, there was one thing that Obama did that I said, 'Wow, if we go in this direction, it'll be very bad for the country.' There was a bankruptcy. General Motors had a bankruptcy. There was a restructuring that included the American government, and the government took equity in the company. Don't have a problem with that. But they jilted the bond holders of a portion of what they were obligated to. And that could have been a huge lawsuit, and maybe those bond holders would have won against the government. They didn't sue, of course, but it was a
It was a taking. You know, you know the Constitution and the most important sacred thing for our economy is our property rights.
So, now you're over back in the Republican side with Romney who gets waxed.
And it was largely his fault he lost. Yeah. And then '16 rolls around. Yeah. How well do you know Trump?
Well, I don't think anybody super well knows him. You know him better than most anybody that I know. I would say that I have a relationship with him. I'm invited. I'm at CNBC as a contributor. He builds The Apprentice. I get invited to those. You know him. Hi Anthony. Hi. Hi Anthony. Well, I'll tell you we did three fundraisers in his triplex apartment for Mitt Romney in 2012. Okay. So I worked along. You conversing with him. I went to a Yankee game with him and Regis Philbin one night, house time box.
Yeah, I have a relationship with him. I wouldn't call us friends.
Okay. But you support Jeb Bush over Trump when Trump makes the run in '16. Why?
Okay. Great quick story. I get invited to breakfast at Trump Tower the day after The Apprentice. And so I'm already with Bush and you know you've been in that office. So Trump's desk is here. I'm sitting here looking up at him and he says to me, 'You know, I was great on The Apprentice last night.' And I'm like, 'Well, you know, I wasn't, I was watching Bill O'Reilly last night. I wasn't watching The Apprentice.' And he's, 'Oh, you were the only one. My ratings were fantastic.' Blah, blah, you know how he talks over this. And then he says, 'But I'm done. It's my last show. I'm running for president.' And I looked at him and the same way we're talking, I laughed at him. I said, 'You're not running for president.' That's what I said to him.
You're just doing this for publicity. And by the way, that night on your show, because I watch your show every night, he was at 2% in the polls. You were showing polls.
And I said, 'You're at 2% in the polls.' And then he said something that I will never forget, Bill. He looked at me. He said, 'You know, I'm at 2% of the polls. Guys like you and O'Reilly, you think I'm not running, but I'm serious. I'm going to go right to the top of the polls and I'm going to win.' And he goes, 'You're good on TV and you're a New Yorker. You should come work for me. I don't need a lot of money from you.'
Yeah, he recruited me. And I said to him, I said, 'Mr. Trump, I'm with the Bushes. I'm with Jeb.' Don't you think Jeb has low energy? Is that how he talks, right? I said, 'No, I don't think so.' Turned out he did. And then he said, 'Okay, I tell you what. If he comes out of the race, I want you to come work for me.' And I leaned over. I shook his hand. And I think you remember his assistant, Rona. He came out of the race. I think Bush lost the South Carolina primary if I remember correctly. Trump called me. I had Romney's deck of all the donors with me.
Ah, okay.
And I went to Trump Tower with Scott Brown. Do you remember Scott Brown?
Sure. The senator from Massachusetts.
Exactly. So Scott and I were at Tufts together and so I arrived at Trump Tower with my Romney deck and Scott Brown and I said, 'Mr. Trump, this is what we can do. Here's what we can do. Here's the reach that we have. I'll start calling these people.' He wanted me to be finance chair, but I was working at Fox News at the time as the host of Wall Street Week. So, I don't know if you remember that show, but it was on Fox Business, right? I bought the show from the Ruka family. I went to Roger Ailes with the show and I said, you know, I would like to be the interviewer to all of these business people. We put it on Friday nights at 8 o'clock and then we ran reruns on the weekend and Roger took the show from me. And I said, 'Mr. Trump, if I do that, I won't be able to host the show.' I wanted to stay hosting the show. So, we recruited Steven Mnuchin. I was on the finance committee and then I went to work for Mr. Trump. I raised him a lot of money. I provided
And he didn't hold it against you that you were a Jeb supporter or anything. Did
Again, I always want to be fair here. In fairness to him, he respected the loyalty to Jeb. He knew he was coming into the race late and he was like, 'When he's out of the race, I want you to come over to work for me.' And I did. I shook his hand. I went and did that.
So then he wins. He wins. Yeah. Surprisingly, you were shocked.
I think he was too. You know, I'll tell you surprised. Yeah. 6:00 p.m. I can tell you exactly where I was, sir. 6 p.m. November the 8th, 24th floor, Trump Tower. I was standing outside his office in the portico there. And he looked at me said, 'What are you doing tomorrow?' I said, 'Well, what do you mean I'm doing?' He told me he was going to play golf. He thought for sure he was losing. And I looked at him. I said, 'Well, okay, if you're going to play golf, I'm going back to work.' And by 3:00 in the morning Wednesday, you know, he was the president-elect of the United States and he was given
He was shocked and I wrote about that in Confronting the Presidents and also in The United States of Trump because Hillary had set up this big Jacob Javits thing that she was kind of a big blowout there.
And okay, so by the way, she was so shocked she didn't make a concession speech that night. I remember that. Yeah. She waited till the next day.
But you know what, sir? We didn't sleep that night. I was with Trump at 11:00 a.m. in his office. He never sleeps the next day, but none of us did that night and we were all standing there and, you know, he got double the Secret Service detail. It was a very, you know, it was a very exciting period of time.
Okay. So, a couple months later, he's inaugurated and you're down in DC and you get appointed Office of Public Liaison. I don't know what that is. What is that? What do you do?
So the OPL job is effectively like you're like a mini commerce secretary inside the White House and what Trump wanted me to do is be his chief networking officer. He saw me as having good networking skills and it's public and private. So you're helping the president lay on to governmental officials and you're helping him lay on to CEOs.
Then you get appointed White House Communications.
Okay. So I just want to be clear I don't get the job. So Priebus blocks the job for the liaison job. Yes. I don't get it. So he puts some other person in the job. Trump calls me. I have a blue badge. Okay. That means I have access to the residence. I have access to the West Wing. You know, I have the lanyard, the whole thing. And Trump tells me to keep the badge. I said, 'Keep the badge?' He didn't give me the job. Yeah. No, keep the badge. You've got the security clearance. Keep the badge. Come back. We'll find something. We're going to find something for you. I want you to come down and work for me.
