Hello everyone and welcome to Barron's. I'm Andy Serwer. Welcome to our guest, the one, the only Anthony Scaramucci. Kind of needs no introduction. Although, how would you describe yourself? Because Wikipedia says financier and broadcaster. You got this big podcast now, but what do you tell your kids? What do you tell your family? What do you do? They don't mention on Wikipedia they got fired from the White House.
I mean, but also, I mean, this woman just blew right by me and...
We're going to talk about that.
But how would you describe yourself?
She's like a thoroughbred. Never seen a racehorse move like that.
How would I describe myself? I'm an entrepreneur. Obviously, I have a firm, SkyBridge, which you and I know each other forever. And I've sort of accidentally got into the podcasting business, which has been fun for me. And I like writing, and so I've written a few books. And other than that, our conference — you've been to our conference businesses — and so a couple of different things.
Called the Mooch, or is it Mooch, or the Mooch? Do you not mind that?
Well, I mean, I don't mind it, but I'll give you the history of that. There was a German immigrant who was my phys ed teacher in the early 1970s out on Long Island. And if you had a four-syllable last name, there was just like visceral dislike of you emanating from this man. And so he picked one of the syllables of your last name. So if your name was Kryki, you got called Cray. And if your name is Scaramucci, he picked the third syllable of my four-syllable last name and called me Mooch, and it works. And so, you know, it is what it is. I don't mind it, and it's cute enough for me.
Now, I got to be honest. I mean, this is not going to come as a surprise to you, Anthony. Some people say Anthony Scaramucci, he's a little full of bunk. Okay? You know, I mean, he's a little full of it. How would you respond to someone who says that about you?
Well, I mean, I am a little full of it, I think. So I don't get flustered. I guess that's a critical thing to say. I don't know. I think I'm somebody who's pretty authentic, though, you know. I mean, I am full of it. I'm not going to BS people. I'm a salesperson by training. I'm a communicator. Some people will like what I'm saying and then they won't think I'm full of it. And some people will really dislike what I'm saying and they'll say that I'm completely full of it. I guess what I would say to people is get to meet me. Get to know me. I think if you get to know me, get to meet me, I think you'll realize that I'm probably not exactly who you think I am. There'll be a disconnect between what people think of me and who I actually am.
That's often the case, too, isn't it? You mentioned Kayleigh McEnany, and she was the White House press secretary. You lasted 11 days. She lasted what?
Five. I got to give her five, actually. Five. It was 45%, I think, of the... Five over 11 is 0.45. But I feel as though the official score of Scaramucci, you got to round up. Okay? Particularly, you know, she's got a family and seemed like a nice enough person. You could round down, like in the case of Liz Truss, she lasted 4.1 Scaramucci, but you could say four Scaramucci in a situation like that. But what do I think of her?
Yeah. And what did you take on that whole scenario? The whole what happened?
You know, first of all, as I was saying, she was like a thoroughbred. I mean, she came in, she blew up, and then she left. I mean, I sort of feel like she took my mantle of leadership of short-duration White House people. I guess she kicked me out of the Guinness World Book of Records in addition to everything else. But you know what I said about it last week, I still believe, is that she should shut off the social media and she should shut off the news, because you know, as a former Maryland resident, you know that Washington can be a meat grinder, and if you're not ready for Washington and you take things personally in Washington, that would be a really big mistake. And so I certainly wouldn't want that to happen to her, and I wish her well. I think she's a young woman with a family and she's married, and I also believe that the universe did her a favor. And Andy, why do that job, you know, if you're not super comfortable at the podium and you're not super comfortable being an extemporaneous speaker, it's probably not the right job. And I think they collectively made a good decision to allow her to move on.
Right. Set up to fail, maybe, though? I mean, not intentionally, but...
A little bit. I think so, a little bit. You know, I mean, you're a journalist. You know more about that stuff than me, but you know, there were probably people — you know, the shots always come from inside the house. You know, like in the horror movies, the calls are coming from inside the house. You know, Reince Priebus was out to get me from the moment I started on my job. Although, you know, he got fired right alongside of me, and Bannon. So, you know, it's life. You know, you got to be a big boy. You can't go into the NFL, put a helmet on, play NFL football, get a concussion, and then complain about the concussion. You can't go to the White House, work in presidential politics, get unceremoniously fired and put into a meat grinder and complain about it. I would just say that to people: playing the victim in life is not a healthy strategy.
Let me switch and ask you a little bit about the midterms coming up in a couple weeks. Is it going to be that good for the Democrats, do you think, Anthony?
Well, listen, I'm a practical person. I think it will be that good for the Democrats on the House side. I mean, David Axelrod, a little bit smarter than me, would say, don't just look at the top line and the Polymarket. Look at the 435 districts. Go granularly through the districts. I think the Democrats could pick up as many as 15 House seats, and I think they will win the House. I pretty much believe that. I mean, anything can happen in politics, as we both know, but with three weeks left to go, and remember, as somebody that's been a political operative, the Republicans are pulling money out of certain races, which means they're more or less ceding those races to the Democrats, and they're actually trying to put some of that money into some of these Senate races, which are probably more hotly contested. So, betting person, I would say they resoundingly win the House. I think it's a toss-up in the Senate. If you told me the Democrats should win the Senate — if you look at all the metrics, let's say we're flying around and we have this political dashboard and you're looking at the control dials, they don't look good for the Republicans. They look really bad for the president's approval rating, really bad for his approval rating on the economy. And you and I both know this is the only referendum that we have on a president. We have a two-year report card, which is basically a customer complaint desk on the presidency. And so if you look at those numbers, the Democrats should win the House. They should resoundingly win the Senate. But it doesn't look that way to me. And so I would say maybe a tie, and therefore Vance would be the deciding vote.
I want you to imagine yourself in your old role, that 11-day stretch as president's communications director. And I want you to — air conditioning on — I want you to look right in that camera and pretend that's President Trump and advise him on what he should do for his strategy to improve the Republicans' chances in the midterms. Go ahead.
Well, you got probably seven or eight hundred million dollars, Mr. President, of money that you raised in this MAGA PAC. Unleash the whole thing. You told a little bit of a fib this morning that you were going to put out 400 million. You and I both know you very well, and we know you're not going to do that, but that's what you really need to do. You're claiming that you're going to do 18 rallies between now and Election Day. I would probably dial that down to zero rallies. And just — it's a little weird. Stop talking about the masculine parts of different candidates. I just think it's coming across a little weird. Maybe you're getting some laugh lines out of that, but I don't think it's working for you. So those would be some of the things I would say to him, among other things. And there would probably be a few curse words in there that I'm leaving out because this is the Barron's podcast.
All right. Thank you. A family project. It's a family show. So let me ask you a question. You've been against Trump since what, August 2019? Basically, you turned. But you know, I look at the stock market, Anthony, especially... Yeah. Isn't Trump good for the stock market?
Well, you know, Biden was good for the stock market. But I mean, you know, you had a trajectory going on after Biden left where rates were going lower, and you had a trajectory going on where inflation was actually going lower. I could make the case to you that if the president just left well enough alone, he focused on the border, which I think most Americans wanted him to do — you know, tighten up the border, less illegal immigration — you would probably be doing a lot better. You know, you had the 10-year before this war started was at like 3.96 on February 26th, 27th of 2026. It could have trended lower. Gas prices obviously were in the threes. The tariff situation has been, I think, an unmitigated disaster on a number of different fronts because it's hurt American industry, but also a lot of the stuff was illegal, and even the new tariffs where he's trying to assert authority under the national security code, they're probably also illegal. So I think he made a mess of things with the tariffs. You and I both know you want to get those tariffs done, you got to get them through Congress, and he didn't do that. That's taxation without representation.
And I think you know this and I know this, and perhaps your viewers know this, is that we personalize onto the president something that's quite situational. So when George Bush was running into a recession as a result of the Gulf War, it was George Herbert Walker Bush's recession. And then when Clinton got a hold of the economy and it recovered, it was his economic boom, but it was probably just cyclical, and we were personalizing something onto those candidates that was situational. But I think this is self-harm. The president has inflicted self-harm on the economy. The stock market is doing well. I think it could be doing a lot better with a 3.96 10-year as opposed to a plus five or over 10-year, which he caused, frankly. And I think that the bottom part of the K — which some of the tax cuts in the big beautiful spending bill has actually helped the bottom part of the K — but really from an adjusted inflation basis, they really are not doing well. And so I would make the case to you that the rich getting richer, while I love that and I'm a stock market participant, a lot of our fellow Americans are not, and they're just not doing well. So to me, I think it's situational that the market's up. It's an induction of capital spending in AI, power centers, energy, etc., not necessarily related to the president.
I mean, you've said also, Anthony, that you kind of at various points of time, like, Trump is — this is it. This is kind of — he's finally done himself in, and he seemingly hasn't. Or are we in a slow burn?
Well, I mean, he is a very successful politician. I mean, we have to stipulate this: that whether you like Donald Trump or dislike Donald Trump, we're 26 years into the 21st century, he is the looming figure of our time. He'll be on the stage because of this interregnum period for 12 years. And so he is the looming figure. And he's also altered the way America is imaged around the world, and he's altered our brand internationally. And I think he's also affected the way we see ourselves even internally. And if you look at the polling numbers, 70-plus percent of the people feel that the country is not going in the right direction. 80-plus percent of the people feel that the government's corrupt. So, you know, but has he done himself in? Yes and no. I think his approval ratings are really bad, but he's got two years left to go. He's not going anywhere. If he becomes a lame duck — if he loses Congress, let's say he loses both houses, he'll be somewhat neutered, but he'll be more bombastic, more potentially dangerous.
Let's talk about 2028 then, Anthony. And it's sort of a four-part question, but don't worry, it's easy to remember. Who would you like to see the Democrats run, and who do you think will win? And same with Republicans: who do you like, and who do you think will win? Who do you think will be the presidential nominee in both parties?
Yeah, very hard to call that. So I just let people know that I get this wrong always. So if you asked me that in 2008, I would have said the nominees would be Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Imagine that. And you and I are old enough to remember Rudy's popularity after 9/11. And so I would have clearly gotten that wrong. And by the way, those were the two frontrunners. If you were going to go back and adjust to 2007, okay, and you said, 'Okay, who's going to be the two frontrunners?' Well, that's what the polling looked like. And so now we're fast-forwarding to 2026. I sort of feel like Newsom would be the best candidate for them.
Really? You've got people upstairs here that light him up every night on Fox News.
