This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Anthony Scaramucci, the hedge fund founder, Bitcoin advocate, former White House communications director, and host of The Rest Is Politics US, who has become one of the most influential voices driving institutional adoption of digital assets. You are the founder of SkyBridge Capital where you've made one of the most aggressive pivots on Wall Street from traditional finance into Bitcoin, digital asset infrastructure, and tokenized investment vehicles. In recent months, you projected Bitcoin accelerating towards 180, 200,000. Warned that the US crackdown on crypto is a historic mistake and that politicians are now scrambling to catch up as digital assets move towards a multi-trillion dollar global economy. You've also made headlines for backing major new Bitcoin mining and infrastructure plays, calling the AI revolution Wall Street's blind spot and arguing that we are entering a new era where Bitcoin, AI, and political disruption will redefine wealth creation. Anthony, welcome back to London.
Oh, I mean, first of all, such a generous introduction. Thank you. But secondarily, I love coming on your show. So when my assistant said that Brian Rose wants you back, I'm like, I want to be back there. So thank you.
Look, it's great to have you. I saw you a year ago, I think in Singapore at Solana Breakpoint and of course we had you here back in '19 and then we were there all in between. I think we both kind of ventured into crypto independently and then when I heard about it, I felt like we had a lot more to talk about. So man, so much to talk about today. First of all, we haven't spoke since the election, so I wanted to just give you a moment for maybe to maybe apologize for backing the Democratic party and that atrocious candidate.
All right. Well, listen, Trump is the president. He's my president. I don't know if you're still a US citizen, but he's your president. And so for me, you know, I want him to do well. Okay. I criticized him because I thought there would be some reckless behavior. I'm not in love with the tariffs. I'm happy to explain why. I'm also happy to explain the economic data associated with our current slowdown that's directly related to them. I am in love with the crypto regulation. You know, I would have chosen him over her objectively despite my personal angst with Donald Trump. But he's the president. You guys won. I lost. I'm a gentleman. I wished him well. And you did mention that I'm an investor in these crypto miners. Eric and Don and I have a close relationship. I had Eric Trump at my crypto conference in Wyoming in August. I interviewed Eric on stage. My family put a lot of money into Eric's business. This American Bitcoin miner, the symbol is ABTC. So, I'm not letting the politics get in the way of the business. But if you're saying that I got it wrong, he won and she lost. I got it wrong. I got my comeuppance. But as I teased Eric, Brian, both Eric and I were two for three in the last three elections because I was Trump, Biden, Harris. So I was two for three. He was Trump, Trump, Trump. So we're here now. I think the president, frankly, is doing an okay job. I just don't love the tariffs, you know, and again, if you want me to go into that, I'm happy to explain why.
I mean, he's like 300 days in. I mean, how would you rate it so far? I mean, out of 10, he's more than a five, right?
Yeah. No, I would say he gets a six and a half, seven on lots of things. So, let's talk about the stuff he's done great because I think we want to be fair and objective to him. He has effectively shut down the southern border of the United States. And so, that has caused great lower and middle class angst in the country. It isn't about xenophobia for these people. It's about protecting their jobs and protecting the welfare safety net. And so, I'll quote a conservative economist to you, Milton Friedman, who's no longer with us, but he won the Nobel Prize. He once said that you have to protect your border if you live in a welfare state. The United States does have a safety net. We have elements of welfare in our society. So guess what would happen? Free market forces would dictate, Brian, that people would come across the border to participate in the welfare state. And in order to be fair to your citizens, you have to protect the border. And I'll say something I agree with President Trump on. He says he's for legal immigration. He's against illegal immigration. And so I think if you have a brain and you have some level of common sense, you have to agree with him on that. You know, the fact that the Biden administration opened the border and 10 to 12 million people flooded over the border, I think was a big campaign issue. And by the way, the president's a very good campaigner. He campaigned on one message and one message only, and that was the border. There was other facets to it, but that was the border. So, he gets an A+ on that. I think on the general direction of regulation he gets an A minus on that. I think him and his team understand that we have to propitiously and effectively regulate crypto. We have to provide some slack in the banking system to allow these banks to grow and to protect consumers but also allow the banks to grow. I think he's done a good job in the energy space in terms of understanding what our energy needs are and how to make sure that we become more energy independent relative to potentially some rogue nation states that may be our adversaries. And I think he's done a good job of knocking on the door of Europe and saying, 'Hey, you've got to up your defense expenditure. You can't be overly reliant on us.' Okay, so those are in the A minus, B+ category. But when you get to the tariffs, Brian, I don't agree with the tariffs. I'm giving him a C minus on that because the tariffs are being done indiscriminately. He's coming down on April 2nd like Orange Moses from Mount Evil with the tablet and he's presenting this tablet that is very hard to understand and he's operating off of his emotions more than what is practical for the US economy. So if he's upset with Mark Carney, he's going to blast him with higher tariffs. If he gets into a fight with the president of Switzerland, they're stuck for the first 6 months at 39% tariffs. If he doesn't like President Lula, but he likes President Bolsonaro, he sticks 50% tariffs on Brazil. Bessent and his economic team go to him and say, 'You know, Mr. President, they're making a lot of things in Brazil that we're importing that we don't make here in the United States. All you're doing is raising prices for the American consumer.' I'll just give you flat examples. 50% tariff in Brazil. They're the largest exporter of coffee, Brian, into the United States. We had a 22.5% price increase in coffee. Now, last week the president and his team relaxed all the food tariffs. And so, they're just nonsensical. So we have this emotional thing going on. If you want to tell me that the trading system needs to be rightsized and you want to tell me that we need surgical application of tariffs to protect US workers or US markets, yes, I'm all for that. I get that. Robert Lighthizer, the former US trade representative, in his book, No Trade Is Free, does a very good explanation of why we have to have some tariffs and some light protectionism, but I don't think we need to have this emotional thing going on. So that's how I would grade the president. If you want to talk about Ukraine and stuff, he gets an A+ and getting the hostages out of Gaza. A+ on that. Deserves credit for that. I think the Ukraine thing I think is an incomplete. I give him credit for trying to end the war. I certainly want Europe and the freedoms that you enjoy in the UK and freedoms that are being enjoyed in Western Europe to be protected. I don't want European nations to fall back behind the iron curtain. I certainly don't want that. So, we'll have to see how this peace deal manifests itself in the Ukraine. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
I mean, and I understand what you mean. They seem quite whimsical and emotional his application of those tariffs but that also does make it an effective political bargaining tool and he's able to enforce his will correctly or incorrectly on different countries and that can create peace. Of course he argues that it has in say example the Pakistan India and it makes people think twice before they deal with him and that probably empowers in a lot of soft power to America. Do you agree with that?
Okay. And so I do agree with that but like every decision it comes with cost. Yeah. And so if you said to me, could the president inflict that sort of carrot stick mentality with allies and adversaries to get what the United States needs or wants? Yes. But could it also have a potential deleterious impact on the US economy? I would just say let's measure that practically. Let's hit the intersection of using that successfully for diplomatic reasons without overly impairing the US economy. And by the way, while we're talking about this, the Supreme Court is in decision-making mode on whether or not these tariffs are legal if they're inside of the ambit of the president's authority. Now, he did lose that case in the district court. He lost that case in the appellate court. He's got the Supreme Court on his side in terms of there being six conservatives and only three liberals. But it'll be an interesting case because we broke from your residence, Brian. We broke from the Great Britain. I don't think it was called the United Kingdom at the time, but we broke from England as a result of no taxation without representation. And so what's before the court right now, the president is taxing people. He can say otherwise, but what a tariff is, it's a consumption-based tax levied at the port. It's either the American importer, the American company, or the American consumer is paying the tax at the port. And that's what it is. It's not no country's paying it. Let's get out of the disinformation business. And so, what's that issue? Is he allowed to do that without congressional support? So, I'm going to make a prediction on your show. I think the Supreme Court is going to split the baby on that. I think this Supreme Court is going to say the president thought he had the authority and we're going to submit to you that he has that authority up until this date, but he now has to go back to the Congress. I don't think the court is going to say, 'Hey, you tax Brian and Anthony, give him the money back.' I don't think they're going to say that. I think they're going to say, 'Okay, listen, he has authority. He's at the end of the goal line of his authority and so if he wants to continue these tariffs, he's got to go back to the Congress and get their approval.' And so
It would be a loss basically. It would lose them a lot of power if that happened.
It would lose him a lot of power on a going forward basis, but I don't think they're going to embarrass him by causing a trillion dollar rebate of these taxes. But I could be wrong on that. But I just, you know, having gone to law school, taken constitutional law and read the briefs. I've read both briefs now, the solicitor general that is opposing the case on behalf of the president, representing the president, and I read the brief from the guys that are accusing them of overstepping their powers. They have the more compelling brief, so we'll have to see what happens. Again, you're making a very good point. He's using this as a device. He's using it as a cudgel and he's using it as a carrot. And you know, he's going to make the case that he's been effective with this. And I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but what I would like to see happen is less economic harm to US citizens and more advantage. That's all. And we'll see, you know, and look, I'm not... Here's the one thing I did learn. I got an 11-day PhD in my fiasco in Washington, but I'll share this with your viewers and listeners. It is a way harder job than it looks like in the show The West Wing, where anytime they portray the American president, this is an unscripted job, Brian. You know, you're working on one thing and then you get an avalanche of crisis that comes in on the other side. And so, my heart goes out to the people that are trying to make these decisions. I've been made wiser, more psychologically minded by some of the things that have happened to me in my life. And I know that these decisions, there's things lurking under the surface, Brian, that you and I don't know about, the BBC and CNN doesn't know about that are influencing the decision making. So look, I want these people to do well. You know, part of me is just so happy to see something getting done in DC. And so I know you go back to the founding fathers and the checks and balances and the three systems of government, but I also see an executive that is oftentimes paralyzed with the legislative branch and, you know, okay, they got the big beautiful bill passed, but are they going to get anything else passed? We'll get to the Clarity Act, which is taking too long. But part of me just loves to see some action for gosh's sake. And obviously Trump is taking that. Of course, the Supreme Court will decide that, but I don't know. You know, part of me just says, 'Wow, at least we're doing something and it doesn't feel like we've been able to do anything for some time.' So, I don't know.
I mean, let me say this, okay? Because again, I want to be balanced, okay? What he did with the Israelis and what he did in Gaza and how he went after Hamas, but also how he also went after the Israelis.
He got them to an agreement and he got the 20 living people back to Israel. Okay. Now, I give him an enormous amount of credit for that and there are very few personalities on the world stage, Brian, that could have done that. Okay. So, he deserves the credit. You know, I'm not a... you people say, 'Oh, you got Trump derangement system. You hate everything about Trump, blah, blah, blah.' And that's not me. I will give him credit where I think credit is due, but I think it's also important to explain things that he's doing that I think, you know, we should think more carefully about. I, you know, the incremental employee is not being hired, Brian. The incremental capital being allocated to a factory or to more equipment or more aircraft is not happening right now. And the reason that is is that there's an uncertainty about the tariffs. There's an uncertainty about what's going to happen. And if you're a corporate CEO or a corporate CFO, you're like, 'Okay, let's wait to hire the next employee. Let's wait for the next growth phase of our business because as you and I both know a big part of your capital allocation is going towards paying taxes.' And so it's slowed things down. You can see it in the employment data. The other thing it's done and this is not me saying it. Just look at the empirical data. Inflation is up. The food prices are up. The president can say that the food prices are down but they're not down. You can just look at the, you know, look, you go here on Long Island, you buy a pot roast. It was $9 to buy the pot roast in 2023. If I go to the King Kullen here, local supermarket, it's $37 to buy the very same pot roast. And so, you know, that's happening. And now, how did that happen? Well, he put restrictions on Australian beef importation. He put restrictions on Brazilian beef importation. He likes the president of Argentina. He gave him a $40 billion peso swap deal to protect the government's budget there and he's letting that beef finally come in. But I mean if you were watching C-SPAN three weeks ago, the senators would have never done this to Donald Trump. They were carving up JD Vance about the beef prices here in the United States. And so again, you know, are you saying... and again, I'll speak very self-interestedly for a moment. I'm in the crypto business. Is Donald Trump by and large, I'm not in love with his meme coin, but is he better for crypto than Kamala Harris or the Democrats? Resounding yes.
Resounding.
By a factor of 10, probably.
Yeah. By... Yeah. Not even. They would have tried to put us all out of business which would have been ridiculous because this is technology that we're going to be adopting. You know, crypto is having about right now... You know, I think Bitcoin's down about 30%. Which is typical of what happens with Bitcoin. But it's still one of the best performing assets in the history of the world. And so, the technology is there. I had a wire money... I'm not going to name the club, but I'm joining one of your fancy pants clubs in the UK.
And I had a wire money, Brian Rose. And guess what? Guess what? It takes three days. I've got to transfer the money from dollars into British pounds and then it's got to season and then it gets wired and 5 days later they'll let me know if the transaction went through. But if I was on the blockchain, zip zip zop and you've got the money wired. And so we have better technology than what we're currently using. And this guy, Paul Atkins, who you may know, he'd be a great guest for you, by the way, if you can get him. But he's the acting SEC chair. He's a personal friend of mine. The president put him in place in January. He's done a brilliant job of revamping and making the SEC fairer and more open to innovation. Gary Gensler, if I can be graphic on your show, sucked as the SEC commissioner, perhaps the worst SEC commissioner in the history of the United States. And he was politically capricious. He was politically arbitrary and he was an ideologue. And frankly, Brian, he lost a lot of lawsuits. That's one of the great geniuses of this system. If an idiot is in charge of the administration of the law like Gary Gensler, you can sue that administrator in a court here in the US and we, you know, the industry won a lot of court cases against Gensler but it was just additional cost, additional acrimony and additional hassle. Yeah. Exactly. So we're in good shape. Listen again he's got three years left to go in his presidency. I'd like to see him do well.
Okay. Okay. And look, on that note, as far as where the Democrats were with crypto and trying to shut that down, I just want to say something else. They were also really pushing the censoring of big tech. And so, we were deplatformed for 25 months off YouTube and we just got back on a month ago. And let's be honest, without a Trump victory, there's no way that would have happened. And so, for me, it's not just like, oh, I think this candidate would be better. I mean, for me it was everything I ever created, what I believe was my fundamental human right and none of that would have happened without that new president and also his lawsuit against YouTube and pushing those people. So I don't know, there was a lot at stake.
You know, you are saying something else that has me worried. Okay. So, first of all, I'm sorry that happened to you, and I'm glad it's been restored, and I'm glad that Elon Musk has tried to create a broader ideological platform at X, but it does beg the question, do these tech companies have too much power? Okay. Because the irony, Brian, you're old enough. I'm old enough to remember the breakup of AT&T. Remember, we had this monolithic phone company. Judge Harold Green broke them up in 1984. And the irony is they were sitting on tremendous amounts of technology and they had tremendous amounts of power. When they got broken up, that technology came out of Bell Laboratory. And the great irony is these Mag 7 tech companies were created directly from that technology. So in other words, if we didn't break up AT&T, those companies wouldn't live. But now they're trying to sit on technology and they're trying to suppress potential competitors. And you know, YouTube is as close to a media monopoly as you could have. And they'll suggest otherwise. But if you're going to be on the internet and you're going to be broadcasting on the internet, if you're not on YouTube, forget about it. And so it just begs the question, do these companies have too much power?
Yeah. Yeah, I mean like Michael Saylor constantly says these are all monopolies and it's impossible to compete with them. They are clearly monopolies, but also you know it was Washington DC telling them to censor me and everybody else as well.
So well, okay, let's state the obvious for your listeners and viewers. There is a connection between Washington and the monopoly. And if the monopoly wants to keep its monopoly, they're going to listen to the people in Washington. Right? So, if the Democrats are saying, 'Censor Brian Rose,' you're going to censor him. If Trump says, 'What the hell are you doing? Bring Brian Rose back.' They're going to bring him back. But here's the thing I would say to you. I don't like that. I want Brian Rose to be in a post-partisan era. I want Brian Rose or Anthony Scaramucci or Elon Musk to be in a post-regulatory era where your voice can and should be heard. And even if I disagree with your voice, and by the way, there are lefties out there that I wholly disagree with, I don't want them silenced, Brian. I want to be able to debate them in the international free marketplace of ideas. I think our ideas are better. Let's debate them.
Yeah. No, it's a great point. And they have way too much power. And look, I'm the first one to admit that when I wasn't on YouTube, I might as well have been in a hole in the ground somewhere, you know, and that's what they used to do back in Argentina. And that's what the mob used to do out in Vegas and I might as well be there because I was erased. And so yeah, it's a great point you make, Scaramucci. And has to be addressed. Thank you. It's been wild. It was 25 months and when it came back about five weeks ago, it was like a time capsule. I was like there's a picture of me and my son in a social post and he was two years younger and all my videos and movies were just popping back. It was crazy. So it's nice to be back. It's nice to be streaming live on these platforms with you. What I love about you is that you get an obituary written about you every couple of years. This is why I have a lot of identification with you. I've had like a financial obituary written about me four or five times, you know, and now that Bitcoin's down, I've got those haters coming out and they're going to write how bad and stupid I am again. But you know, the truth of the matter is persistence matters. You have a lot of young people that listen to your podcast. And so this is a message for the young people. Stay in the game.
Think like a Brian Rose or Anthony Scaramucci. Stay in the game. You know, don't let people detract you from mission. That's basically the big message.
Yeah. Well put. And again, you're super inspiring, Anthony. You've come back from some serious lows and you bounce right back. And I guess it's the attitude that you have just to keep going. You know, we got taken off YouTube. I was just like, let's just pretend we're still up there is what I kind of told my team. And we just kept broadcasting twice a week. Our viewership probably went down by 95%. But I just pretended like everybody was watching and we just kept going and it actually worked out. So there you go. A couple more questions about Trump and then we'll move on because this is about Scaramucci. You know, when you were here a couple years ago or maybe a year ago, you pulled me aside on the way out and you said, 'Brian, I don't know if Trump can actually form a team or keep a team together.' And you know, your comments made a lot of sense to me because in the past, not just you but people were staying with him for 30 days and 40 days and 50 days. In the last 300 days, you know, obviously we've seen a Trump that I don't think anyone expected. So from the speed of light movement to this crazy cabinet with Rubio and Bessent and Lutnick and all these high performance people and then you hear Trump saying the word love a lot and I'm just curious if do you just see the maturation and evolution and maybe just the getting older as a man factor with him and maybe see a different guy than you knew or are you like Brian, he's still the same guy just looks a little different. I'm curious because you actually know him well. People don't know about Mooch that you campaigned for him. You spent your own money for him back in '16.
I know the kid. Look, I still talk to the kids. I know him well. I still talk to the kids. I had a falling out with him. You know, people don't remember this, but he went after my wife on Twitter. I mean, who the hell does that? Okay. So, for me, that's a... I'm Italian from Long Island, Brian. You know the type of person I am. You're going to go after my wife on Twitter. We're going to fight it to the death. Okay. You have a Harvard degree and you're a lawyer. So, let's just keep that in mind.
Exactly. I'm a Harvard degree and a lawyer, but I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood. So, there's a lot of Matt Damon-esque Goodwill Hunting going on in my personality. Okay. So, what I'm saying to you is he's doing something now that I admire. Okay. He was probably nervous in the beginning of his presidency. And I'm taking you back to 2017. I witnessed it. And by the way, who wouldn't be? You're now the president of the United States. And so he was a little intimidated by the job. He probably had too many people in the team that were too establishment oriented for him.
And so he switched up his team for Trump 2. Having said that, I think he's also slower to fire people. Karoline Leavitt said recently that the president doesn't want to fire people on the whims of newspaper reports or mistakes that could be made. You know, Hegseth as an example, that Signal WhatsApp kerfuffle would have fired him for sure in the first term. And I think the president's looking at it like I don't want to give scalps to the liberals and let's keep the team together. And I think that's admirable. I'll give him again, I'm going to give him credit for that. Do I like some of the things that Hegseth is doing? I don't think we should be calling the Department of War. I don't think we should be. It makes us look bad. It's like an insecurity. We should be looking at ourselves as the strongest military, the strongest defense capability in the world. The United States has historically not started wars. We did start one damning war, the Iraq war, which I regret. And I think most people now have decided that was a horrific decision. But when I was growing up in the country, you were growing up in the country, we were told by our social studies teachers, we don't start the wars. We're there to defend democracy. We're there to defend freedom. So I like the words Department of Defense more than Department of War. I don't think we need to call ourselves that. And so we're going to disagree. And I could take you down the list of things culturally that I think matter. You know, words matter in the society, Brian. You know that.
Okay. And you know, words matter for the culture at London Real. They matter for the culture at SkyBridge. They matter for the culture of how the government's going to be run.
True. Maybe he's just projecting power and then getting peace on the back of it. But I make you... your point is made and I appreciate it. What do you make of these Epstein files and the fact that now I guess they're coming public with some caveats and the witch hunt aspect of it and all that. I'm just curious.
You know, listen, it's a horrific thing. Okay. When you go through the victim's testimonies and when you go through the actual cases and the Ghislaine Maxwell conviction and you go through the earlier conviction in 2008 of Jeff Epstein and then the subsequent accusations and the imprisonment of Jeff Epstein. This is an absolutely horrific thing. Is Donald Trump himself implicated? I think it's very fair to say and it's inside of the facts of the story that he had a relationship with Jeff Epstein. Many of these billionaire socialites in the 80s and 90s did. So you have to acknowledge that. Did Trump trip over the line into nefarious behavior? I think there's absolutely no smoking gun on that. And so to accuse him of that I think is a bridge too far. But unless you're telling me there is that information that's going to come out, and I predict that there won't be, I don't see this harming the president. I think, I said this on my own podcast. I think the president has been off his game on the Epstein thing. And just hear me out for a second because he was on his back foot trying to contain the information. Now, maybe that was to protect some of his donors. Maybe that was to protect some of the people that he's close to. I don't know. But it wasn't protecting him. You know, his best move was the move that he pulled on Sunday. And I said this 10 days prior. I said if the president knowing him the way I know him, if he was on his game, he would tell the Congress, 'Release the goddamn Epstein files.' Because then he could go to his people and say, 'I'm not in the file. I just said to release it.' You see what I mean? So, I think him holding it back makes people think, well, if he's holding it back, he must be hiding something. So, we'll have to see how it unfolds. But you ask me a straight up question, I'll give you a straight up answer. I do not think that this is going to be super harmful to the president. I do think, however, though, and people should be aware of this, that he's going to lame duck in 12 months. And so, we can send out Trump 2028 hats. We can send out four more year hats. Steve Bannon can come on your show or other shows and say that he's gonna be the president in 2028. He will not be the president in 2028.
Bannon's wrong about a lot of things. You know, I think he's like the worst person I've ever met. I would love to have a show where it was you, me, and Bannon on the show together. Okay, he won't, of course, do that because he knows I know him and so I know all of his moves. Okay, you know him from back in the day back in '17. I know him back in the day and I know his moves and I know his whole white national supremacy nonsense. And by the way, I also know the president's pissed at him because remember I still talk to a lot of MAGA people and the president doesn't like the undue attention that Bannon is putting on himself by saying all this nonsense. Now Trump likes trolling. Trump likes to do three things, Brian. Don't ever forget this about Trump. He wants your attention. That's numero uno. He wants to make a little bit of money for himself. Okay? And he wants to troll and trigger his haters. Those are the three things that Trump likes to do. So, you know, yes, telling people Trump 28 and putting the hat in front of Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer, it's A+ trolling, okay? But he's not running in 2028. And so, what ends up happening, he's going to start to lame duck. Ted Cruz today as I am speaking to you here in New York is floating the possibility of running for president in 2028 and there's going to be some jockeying now as these people prepare for the 2028 elections and the potential candidates there.
And that's why you said you saw kind of the Marjorie Taylor Greene effect and everyone's trying to figure out what their voice is going to be in a post...
100% they're breaking from Trump. They're going to break. But by the way, that is exactly what's happened in the modern era going back to Herbert Hoover, right? You know, you get into the lame duck position and then people say, 'Well, this is how I'm differentiating myself. I want to be president.' Brian, you know, a lot of politicians, there are people waking up in Washington right now, looking in the mirror, getting themselves dressed, and they see the 48th president. Okay, they do. It could be a dog. It could be an elected dog catcher or it could be a senior senator, but they look in the mirror and say, 'I'm going to be the 48th president.'
So Trump's not, you know...
Even though Vance probably has over 50% chance if you went to Polymarket right now. I think Vance has a 50% chance, but I'm going to stipulate to you that Vance will not be the guy because he's too close to Trump. And what Trump has a tendency to do, he's a Shakespearean figure. He has a tendency to eat his young. If you go through st...
That was the old Trump, Mooch.
Okay. Well, let's see. Let's see. I got Vance like in the movie Fargo where his ass is going into the wood chipper and he's gonna get chopped up by Trump. And by the way, Rubio, you don't believe me? If you don't believe me, call Mike Pence. Ask Mike Pence how his political career is going having been Trump's first vice president. Now, you're...
He brought that on himself.
All right. Well, you're saying that Trump is going to treat Vance differently and I'm telling you Trump is Shakespearean. He doesn't like younger people replacing him. You know, if you told me that Don Trump Jr. was replacing him, he would be okay with that. Eric Trump, he would be okay with. I don't think he's okay with Vance. And I think he's going to... And by the way, Trump is a type of personality, and you may not like this, but Trump is the type of personality where almost if the Democrats win, there'll be some smug satisfaction. Here's the narrative. You Republicans were nothing without me. I jumped in and I galvanized you. Won two presidencies. And now that I'm gone, you're nothing without me again, you know. And so he's a lot like that, my brother.
Or maybe he's older and wiser and more practical. Let's see.
That's your narrative. I'm in the leopard doesn't change their spots very much narrative. But let's see what happens. Hopefully, you'll invite me back. Maybe you'll be able to call me on my shit if I'm wrong.
Yeah, let's go. Vance Rubio, come on. For the big win. What was I going to ask you? Today in Washington, Trump is meeting with your mayor of New York City, Mamdani.
What do you make of Mamdani in general? And then what do you make of the meeting?
I think the meeting is going to go very well because I do know Trump's personality. I think Trump likes winners and Mamdani won the race handily. Okay, let's just go over that. I was for Andrew Cuomo. I grew up with Andrew, love Andrew and Chris and I wanted Andrew to win. But Mamdani ran a more effective campaign and he beat the combined electoral results, the number of votes between Siwa and Cuomo. Mamdani got more than both of them. So he clearly won the race. Voter turnout was up and so forth. I think he's inexperienced and the jury's out. I don't like the fact that he's going to be mayor. If you're asking me, if I was hiring somebody for that very complex job, I wouldn't hire somebody with Mamdani's resume, but he made it and he organized a really good campaign. But here's the thing I would say to you and anybody listening, he's a lot like Trump. Remember I said Trump ran on immigration. What's the issue? Immigration. Mamdani, again, like or dislike him, he ran on one issue, Brian, affordability. You're an anti-semite. Here's a record of you being anti-semitic. Affordability. You hate cops. Here's you on record. You're going to defund the police. Let's get the conversation back to affordability. And so, there was a very resonating message. The younger people that live in this city, Brian, they can barely afford their rent and their groceries, and they're pissed off. And they're also pissed off generationally, Brian. They think our generation, you and me, sort of the elder people have failed them. And so they're like, 'Hey, you guys suck. Let's try somebody from our generation to see if we can fix this.' So for all those reasons, he's the mayor and I am a New Yorker. Okay? And I'm going to stipulate to you right now, I'm not a Floridian. I live in New York. I pay my taxes in New York. And I told Spike Lee after the election, I will shut the lights off in the city alongside of you. Meaning, you know, we're not leaving. He's not leaving. I'm not leaving. And so, I want the guy to do well. But if he's going to go hard democratic socialist, listen to Donald Trump because Donald Trump has very good political instincts. Trump said if this guy wins, goes hard democratic socialist, he'll be the poster boy for failed policies. He'll be the poster boy for insanity on the left and it'll give the Republicans an opportunity to control the card table for many years. And I'll just say one last thing about New York because I know this place well. He will get fired in four years. This is not San Francisco. It's not Chicago. It's not Detroit. This is New York. Okay. You better perform. You better... the people are upset about the cleanliness of the city, the homelessness, and the crime. You better perform. If you don't perform, you're going to get your ass kicked and fired. And again, he's not a dummy because Jessica Tish, who's our police commissioner, who I think has got an 80% approval rating, by the way, she's done a great job of supporting our police officers, men and women, and she's done a great job of containing crime. He's decided to leave her in place, which is his first good personnel decision in my mind. So, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Like I said to you earlier, I wasn't with Trump this election. He won the election. I want him to do well as president. I was not with Mamdani. Shows you my political acumen sucks, Brian. But that's fine. I wasn't with Mamdani, but I do want him to do well because he's my mayor now and I'm a New Yorker.
How does it feel when you walk in Midtown Manhattan? How does it feel there now? Do you feel like there's friends that are missing that have done the Florida defection? Does it feel less safe? Are there stores that are empty? I'm just curious because I haven't lived there in 20 years.
Okay, so let me set the scene for you. It's not as bad as being reported. You know, the media has a tendency to exaggerate stuff.
Same with London, right? They go, 'Oh, everyone's getting stabbed with a knife in London and everything's horrific' and then you and I are walking on the street. What are they talking about? Right?
You haven't been stabbed lately in London, right? No. But you probably don't wear your finest watch in London. Maybe you do.
No, I don't. I don't wear my finest watch in London. I don't wear my finest watch in New York. Unfortunately, I can't speak for London, but I can speak for New York. The bail reform, which incidentally was signed into law by Andrew Cuomo, has crippled the city. Okay? And if I were the police commissioner, and let me channel my Jessica Tish for a second, I would tell people, we know the criminals. We have six or 7,000 professional criminals. Remember, like London, we have cameras everywhere. We know the people that are looting the stores. We know the people that are pickpocketing people. And...
You have cameras now. Everywhere.
Most places. Yeah. Not as proliferate as it is in London, but in most places it's pretty good now. And whether you talk to Bill Bratton, the former police commissioner, or Commissioner Tish, our current one, they'll tell you, 'We know where the criminals are. Give us permission to lock them up or give us permission to knock them to the ground and your quality of life will go up and your crime will go down.' Okay, so we do know this and the question is are we going to do that or not? And I would argue this isn't racism. You know, this is not racism. Stop the crime, higher quality of life in the city, whether it's London or New York. So, I will say to you, walking on the street in New York, it is safer and better than it was 5 years ago. And again, we're going back to the COVID era and the pre-COVID era. And I would say that the crane operation, because I do look at this, Brian, if you look at New York, you got six times the level of cranes going in New York than you do in any other city in the United States, including Miami. Okay. But you mentioned Florida. So, let's go over those statistics. I think these are relevant. And if I were an adviser to Mamdani, I would say be careful because you've had 600,000 people leave the city in the last three years. And those 600,000 people, guess what? The rich are the most mobile...
And they are leaving. A lot of those people went to Dallas. Some of those people went to Tennessee. Most of those people went to Florida. And why? Taxes, safety, cleanliness, politics, policy, you know, all of those different reasons and frustration with New York, frustration with the goods. And remember, taxes are a price for goods and services from your government. And if you're going to tax me and not deliver the goods and services, there's a disconnect and at some point people will leave until you get the arbitrage tightened between what you're charging and what you're delivering. And so, 600 people leaving is a big blow. I'll give you the stats worth considering. The top 1% of the New York City residents in terms of their income pay 48% of the taxes, Brian. And so, you got to be very careful. Mayor, mayor-elect, please be careful. If you're going to have free groceries, free bus rides, you're going to exorbitantly tax these people, and then you're going to allow people to prey on them, prey on them in their homes and break into their stores and have no recompense and no deterrence, they're going to leave. They're going to pick up and leave and they're going to build their businesses and their families elsewhere. And so I don't want that to happen. And so hopefully he gets it. You know, there is a, I'd say it's a low probability. I don't know what it is in the poly market, but there is a probability. This is a cunning young kid. He could have campaigned hard left. If he goes to a moderate position, he may end up being the mayor for two terms.
He won't be the mayor for two terms. If he says, 'I'm a communist and I want to disavow private property and I want to see if I can push JP Morgan out of the city because I hate bankers.' He's not going to make it.
Yeah. No, I agree. He looks like he wants to survive and that could be great for everybody. Right. Right. And it's interesting when you're describing this microcosm of New York City. I'm having flashbacks to what's happening in the UK. You know, you got this Labour government that is now trying to raise the taxes on the wealthy and when they go to count up the receipts, they realize that there's no more money because all the wealthy left. Except now for us it's happening countrywide, but maybe mostly London city statewide. Are they going to reverse that or they're sticking with that? Because that was a politically motivated, that was an envy move.
That was, we're envious of these people so let's throw them out of the country and self-harm ourselves. For some reason the UK believes in self-harm. So I don't know why they're doing that, but go ahead.
Yeah, there's a lot of psychology there. We can go into it for a whole episode. Look, I know they got pushback from the city for that, but I don't see that reversing anytime soon. And again, the Labour Party is here for four more years, whether it's the same prime minister or not. They look, they were going to do a couple other things tax-wise that they have backed off on but the whole, you know, all the foreign nationals that were here have pretty much bolted from Milan, Dubai and other places. So we'll just see how further they ride this. Like I said they seem to be getting some feedback and I think they're not raising the upper tax rate in this budget and a few other things but let's see. But it's still going the wrong way. And look, you know, I spent a lot of time in Dubai. I know you've been going to Abu Dhabi for much longer than I've been going there, but when you're in a place like Dubai that is kind of on the come up and you come back and you look at Europe, which is on the downslope, and I don't see it reversing anytime soon, it's kind of depressing and I think the city and the country feel it. I don't know if you feel it when you come here, but it's something that's definitely real.
