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

Tell you something that Donald Trump did, which none of us understood at that time, but he did. And you have to give him credit for this, he has phenomenal political instincts. Let me say to you this way. There is a man that lived on Fifth Avenue in a triplex apartment that looked like Louis XIV smoked crystal meth and decorated the apartment. He saw all the problems in the neighborhood I grew up in, and I missed it.

That was the most brutal experience of my life. I had a crisis PR person, he told me, look, you know you probably should go dark for five years. But you know, in life when you make mistakes and you're an entrepreneur and you take risks like that, you got to face the music and I did that.

Listen, you know, November is still a long time off, so it's very hard to make these predictions. If you look at Kalshi or the Polymarkets, it looks like the Democrats will win the House. But the big problem in American politics right now is the gerrymandering. And so for viewers outside the United States, the political leaders have the opportunity to redistrict or to cut the congressional districts in a way that could favor their party. And so even though Donald Trump and the Republicans started this redistricting fight, Democrats seem to be ahead. But I just want you to think about this, we have 435 congressional districts, approximately 8% of those, 35 to 40 max, are up for contest. So they've done such a powerful job of redistricting that they've taken out of the equation a Democrat beating a Republican in a Republican district, or a Republican beating a Democrat in a Democratic district. And so think about this, we only have 35 purple districts now. So I think that's unfair to the American people. And I would just say this rhetorically, are we in a real democracy where the politicians are picking the voters? I thought the voters were supposed to pick the politicians, so we're in sore need of reform.

I'm a little more cautious on that because the red states that have less population in them, you could hear the flurry, you can hear some purpling and then they always go back to red, you know. The Republican states. So, you know, Talarico is going to be running against a - he's a Democrat. He's a Democrat in Texas and I believe Texas will stay red. So I'm a little more cautious about that. If you're telling me James Talarico is going to turn the state of Texas purple, where there'll be one Republican and one Democrat from the state, that'll be a watershed activity in American politics. So I'm a little more cautious about it. You know, these machines, they have created a cartel. They have a duopoly now.

The two parties, yeah. And so they sort of control the landscape. They've tightened up their ability to get incumbents re-elected. You know, the Congress has a 14 or 15% approval rating. So it's like slightly above Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator. However, you have a 95% re-incumbency rate. So, just imagine you and I open up a restaurant, and our food is terrible. We're getting like one star Yelp ratings, but we can never get the restaurant closed, and we always stay as the two chefs in the restaurant. And so that's what's going on in Washington right now. And so, you know, I think the Democrats will win the House of Representatives. Yeah, I think and I think the Republicans will probably keep the Senate. That's my best guess.

I am.

Now, you're really cutting to the chase. I live in North London, so if I'm anything, I'm probably an Arsenal fan. Okay, so for Arsenal fans out there and I don't know how the team does, but I'm a New York Mets fan and we're just having a horrific time. But you don't leave. You know, I'm a New York Jets fan. We haven't won the Super Bowl since 1969, you know. So the Republican Party, in my mind is in the doldrums. We have a huge losing streak going on intellectually. You know, Donald Trump hijacked that party. He decapitated what was once known as the Republican Party. And he did sort of this M&A transaction where he installed this right wing populist party. It's called the Republican Party, but it's really the MAGA party and it's the personality cult of Donald Trump. And so I'm of the belief when his political personality extinguishes sometime in 2028, there'll be an ideological battle for that party again, in terms of who will be running that party. But I'm wondering why - So, I'm a loyal, I'm a loyalist. Yeah.

I just think Trump is too dangerous. I think obviously it's funny because I'm sure - and you have history with him, which is, which we'll get into. But all my Wall Street buddies voted for him and now they're all regretting the fact that they voted for him. So, you know, it's just one of those things.

I think most people are regretting it. Yeah. I'm of the belief that prices are higher. We have an oil crisis going on right now. He imposed illegal tariffs which raise the pricing umbrella for all the lower middle income people that voted for him. You're in a quagmire of a war, it's going to be very difficult to disengage the United States from that war. You've weakened our relationships with our European allies, our Gulf allies. He's put us in a very vulnerable state as a country and an economy. If you want to make the case that the banks have record profits in the short term, sure. But he's also suing some of the banking executives. You know, this is a very difficult time in the country where you are losing the predictive capability of our justice system. You're losing the predictive capability of what our civil rights are and what our free speech rights are in the country. For those reasons, it's very, very bad for business. So, yeah, I think a lot of people are regretting it.

I think it's early. You know, we have to get through the midterms. We have to really look at the landscape of who's going to be running, you know, is Glenn Youngkin running? And will he have the umbrella? You know, one of the biggest things that you need, if not the most important thing that you need to be the president, United States, is name recognition. And so just remember the type of electorate that you're dealing with. You know, the people that are listening to your show or watching your show, they're very sophisticated. They're very up to speed in the world of American politics. But the average voter is really not, you know, they make that decision in the week prior to the presidential election. And Donald Trump had that name recognition because of television. He was the most famous guy in 2016. But by 2024, he was the most famous person on the planet. I would stipulate that. I mean, you may say that was a rock star here or there that has more followers on social media. But he was a very well-recognized name. And so we have to see, you have to see, who emerges. Also, I think the war is going to hurt the people that are close to Donald Trump. You know, I think Rubio and I have said this on our podcast. I think Rubio and Vance are going to be victimized by Trump in ways they haven't totally predicted yet. You know, he's already started with Vance with the attack on the Pope and you know, hitting Vance because he knows Vance has got a book coming out on his conversion to the catholicism.

No, of course not. Why not? This is not - his personality is you guys were nothing before I got on this stage and I've carried you for the last 12 years. And the 2020 election was rigged and everyone knows it. And I should have won that election as well. And I've returned to the presidency carrying all the Republicans on my back. You were nobody's before I got here. You'll be nobody's after me. That's Donald Trump's personality and to not understand that is to not understand Donald Trump. And let me give two quick examples. Cornyn, he is 35 years in the Senate from the state of Texas. 99% of the time he voted with Donald Trump. 1% of the time he didn't. Trump dusted him. Crenshaw, House of Representatives, Army vet, lost his eye in combat. 99% of the time, he voted with Donald Trump. 1% of the time he didn't, Trump endorsed the other candidate. He lost the primary to return to the House of Representatives. You have to understand the nature of Donald Trump and what's still going on as we try to normalize him and sane wash him and put him into a bucket. Oh, he's a Republican. He'll want a Republican to succeed him or he'll want J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio. He doesn't want those guys to succeed him. Let's say he has a successful remaining two years of his presidency, which seems unlikely, but let's say he did. He wouldn't want those guys taking any credit for anything that happened in the administration. It's an administration of one person. And there's one spotlight on.

Well, he would not have remembered that. I was a young man working at Goldman Sachs. My boss took me to see him. This was during some real struggles for him, during the casino restructuring and some of the bankruptcies, and he was looking for financing. And, you know, I looked up to him. I'm not somebody that like whitewashes or tries to recolor our history. You know, I read 'The Art of the Deal', I think I was a law school student when it came out. Trump was from Queens. I was from even further out. And so we looked up to Donald Trump. You know, the rappers sang songs about Donald Trump. We admired his bravado and his risk taking and his image making. And so at age 31, when I met him for the first time, it was a very impressionable meeting for me. I'm sure he had no recollection of the meeting, but years later, I was working at CNBC as a, you know, one of those paid contributors, and then I got invited to 'The Apprentice' parties and I got invited to 'The Apprentice' finale, and we did a couple of fundraising events together, including Robinhood, and then we sort of developed a relationship. And then very famously in 2012, I was co-finance chair for Mitt Romney for New York. And so we did two political fundraisers in Donald Trump's triplex apartment for Governor Romney. And by the way, you know, Donald Trump did a really good job raising money for Mitt Romney. It seems extraordinary now to think of that. And I'll tell you something that Donald Trump did, which none of us understood at that time, but he did and you have to give him credit for this, he has phenomenal political instincts. Mitt was in trouble. He had lost in South Carolina to Newt Gingrich, and he was now coming into the Super Tuesday primaries. It was a big opportunity for Mitt. And Trump offered to do what are called robocalls for him in parts of rural and blue collar Michigan. And we looked at that and said, well, why the hell would we need that? And Trump said, no, no, trust me, you need it. And he made these robocalls. And so if you were home and the phone rang, it goes, hey I'm Donald Trump. It was on a recorded message - I want you to vote for Mitt Romney. It had an unbelievable impact on that primary. And it was the first for me, it was the first origin story of understanding the populist movement that was happening in the United States and at that time, we'll call him Mr. Trump because he wasn't president yet. Mr. Trump's understanding of it and his hold on it. And so that's when we actually became close. That's when we started to develop a relationship and then talk to each other and see each other at restaurants and so forth.

No, I think you have to. I think I did something I have to own for the rest of my life. I'm a very honest person. I wasn't Team MAGA. I had worked for Governor Walker from Wisconsin. When Scott dropped out of the race, I went to work for Jeb Bush. And so I'll just set the scene for you. In March of 2015, Donald Trump called me. I went to his office, had breakfast with him. I always tease him about this. His desk is up here. Mishal, your chair is down there. So you're looking up at him. Okay. That's how he had the office set up. And I'm looking up at him and he's saying, you know, I'm running for president. I just finished my time with 'The Apprentice'. And I looked at him like he was crazy. I said, you're not running for president. I said, that's just like a publicity stunt? Oh, no. You think that everybody thinks that's why I'm so low in the polls. But when I announce that I'm running, I'm going to go right to the top of the polls. And I laughed and said, that's not going to happen. And he said, no, I've got Corey Lewandowski downstairs. He's running my campaign. Why don't you go meet with him? And I said, Listen, Mr. Trump, I'm working for Jeb. And he said, don't you think he has low energy? And I said, No, actually, I don't think he has low energy. And he says, okay, I'll tell you what, I get the loyalty. You're longtime Republican. When Jeb comes out of the race, will you come work for me? And right then and there, I reached over, I shook his hand. I said, yes, I will come work for you. And Jeb got knocked out of the race in South Carolina. Mr. Trump called me. I had a little presentation for him, how I could help him find those Romney donors. And then we did our first event in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then that's when I got the MAGA fever. And so what was MAGA fever for me? Donald Trump was talking to my dad and my dad was born in 1935. He was born in a coal mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania. He wasn't college educated. He went on to become a crane operator on Long Island. He spent 41 years in the union. But he had a high paying job. We had a tiny little house on Long Island, and we lived a good part of the American dream. And I would never dishonor my dad by telling you we grew up poor. We did not grow up poor. But what I mean by he was talking to my dad. These were guys that, like my dad instead, of being born in 1935, they were born in 65 or 75. And I was talking to these people in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and they were letting me know that that once economically aspirational blue collar family, the one I grew up in, doesn't exist in America anymore. These families went from economically aspirational to economically desperational. And one young man said something to me that I will never forget. He said, you think you're in New Mexico? He said, new New Mexico. That would be Mexico, because that's where our factory moved. My dad worked there for 30 years. I was there for 12. The factory moved and we blighted these towns, we blighted these cities. And I thought and I got it wrong, of course, but I thought. Okay. I'm going to work for Donald Trump. He sees something about America that we need to fix. We need to reconnect these people who are angry. And perhaps you have those people that are leaning on people like Nigel Farage here in this country. But I said, we're going to reconnect those people. So, yes, I bought in. I spent 71 days on the campaign trail with him, did 71 stops. I did countless hours of media advocacy for him and a tremendous amount of fundraising, so much so that when he won, he named me to his executive transition team.

So this is a very important point. And this is something that, again, it doesn't reflect well on me, but it's important for me to share with you. That neighborhood that I was in, in Port Washington. There were Sheetrock installers and plumbers and crane operators and landscapers. But I left that neighborhood. I went to Tufts University, and Harvard Law School, Wall Street and seven years at Goldman Sachs. And then I built my own hedge fund business, and then I got invited to the World Economic Forum to speak. And I created a whole activity thing there. And I started hanging out in the salons of the wealthy. My point is, when you hang out with a certain group of people, you pick up the collective biases of those people. You forget where you came from? And you forget where you came from. And I'll tell you another quick story, which is also relevant to his and his instincts versus mine. I'm on the plane. We're flying somewhere else, and I'm reading something that was prepared by SkyBridge's economic team.

I'm reading about the Brexit. He goes, You're an idiot. I said, I'm an idiot, I know I'm an idiot, but why am I an idiot? He goes, I'll tell you what's in that report. That report is saying that it's economically wrong and economically irrational for the British citizens, the UK citizens to Brexit. Isn't that what it says? I say, yes, it is. And I have all the backup data here. He goes, yeah, that's ridiculous. They're going to Brexit. I said, why are you saying that? He says, haven't you been traveling around with me to all of these cities? You don't think that they have those cities and those towns in the U.K.? Okay. And that was late May of 2016. By the end of June, this country had Brexited and he got that. I didn't get it. And so, you know, let me say it to you this way. There was a man that lived adjacent to the Tiffany store on Fifth Avenue in a triplex apartment that looked like Louis XIV, smoked crystal meth and decorated the apartment. He saw all the problems in the neighborhood I grew up in, and I missed it.

Yeah, well, yes, I mean, so really, because it's a little bit of a silver lining, I guess, in some ways. But, you know, the truth of the matter is that that was the most brutal experience of my life. We can talk about it and we can revise it. It's nine years later because, oh, that worked out great for me. I have this nice podcast business and you and I are hanging out in this beautiful studio and talking on your wonderful show. So, it worked out great for me. But let me set the scene for you and your viewers and listeners. I am fighting with him in the White House, as predicted by my wife, that our personalities would not gel in a situation like that. Remember in the campaign where I was a volunteer of his, we were two New Yorkers and two entrepreneurs taking risks in a campaign. And it used to bother people that I could have this sort of bilateral direct conversation with him because there was a lot of sycophants around him, but he wanted sycophants in the White House. And so there I was with him, and on that Friday he called me a deep-stater and I was like, well, I'm not a deep-stater. I mean, I think I went to Washington one time on a field trip. I'm definitely not a deep-stater, but I didn't want to do things the way he wanted to do them. Okay? I had actually taken constitutional law in law school and I had a thought process about it being the institution of the presidency and you're a caretaker of it. I'm not necessarily working for you as much as I'm working for the American people and want to abide to the Constitution. Well, 11 days later, I got fired and I blamed myself for the firing and all that other stuff. I never blame anybody, him or anybody else. But it's important to tell this part of the story because that was brutal. My wife and I were fighting. She had filed for divorce on me. I missed the birth of my son, Mishal. He was born on July 24, 2017. I was at the Boy Scouts event with Donald Trump in West Virginia.

There was no way out of the event. She went into premature labor and he landed the plane. We drove 35 miles away from the plane into a campground. And even if I got back to the plane, there was a 60 mile no fly zone. There was just no way back. Okay. So I had a series of colossal disasters happen to me sequentially. I can feel the perspiration as I'm speaking about it, but I was in a potential divorce. Missed the birth of my son, got fired from the White House after 11 days, and I got torched by everybody. I had a crisis PR person that told me to buy a villa in, I mean, God bless the guy, who told me to go buy a villa in Tuscany and come back to the United States in 2022. You're never going to be able to rebuild your career or your media reputation. And, you know, you probably should go dark for five years. But, you know, in life, when you make mistakes and you're an entrepreneur and you take risks like that, you got to face the music. And I did that. So, yes, I do have a podcast business and I do have things like that, but I paid the price for those things.

I am so glad that you brought up the word humiliating because I thought you were going to be a little bit too British and not bring up that word. But it was humiliating. I like the way you say it better because you have a nicer accent than me. But it was humiliating.

You've done your homework. He did say that, he has said that. He's repeatedly said that. I mean, does it help you be the frontman and get attraction for your firm? I think it hurts. Your name is really well known. I think it hurts and helps. My 34-year-old son who went to Stanford Business School says to me, Dad, you really you're killing me. You're killing my networking opportunities. I said, why? He goes, well, the Republicans hate you, because you were once with Trump and you left Trump. He goes, the Democrats - forget it. They hate you because you were once with Trump. He goes, you've got me in like, networking purgatory. So, so it helps and it hurts. It's a little bit of both. You're going to get some people and you're going to lose some people. And that's life. I don't, I'm not worried about that aspect of it.

I liked him. And then, there was a massive fallout on you and your firm from his downfall. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, there were some nasty articles written by Bloomberg, frankly. And by the way, I'm a free speech absolutist and so those reporters had the right to write those articles. And they're allowed to write whatever they want to write. You know, if you're a public figure, you have to be a big person and you have to accept the criticism and the potential praise of what's going on. But, you know, the one problem when you're a high profile person, however, your failures go around the world in five seconds. So, before you can tie your shoelaces, okay? Your successes are generally understated and that's fine. But those are two, to me, colossal failure in my career. You know, mis-sizing, not understanding Trump appropriately. I've well explained that and I'm happy to continue to explain it. Sam Bankman-Fried is a different story. Sam was, Sam had 25 investors that had given him approximately a billion to fund FDX and these were sovereign, I'm not going to name them because they always get mad at me when I actually name the names. But these were sovereign wealth funds, venture capitalists, billionaire investors, billionaire family offices. And I had a rapport with Sam, and I had a rapport with Sam's mom and dad, who were Stanford Law School professors who knew some of the faculty at Harvard Law School, that taught me. And so I felt I had a keiretsu or a connection into the family. And while Sam was somewhat odd, I thought he was brilliant. And I'm going to say something that makes me look bad. I thought he was ethical, a little odd, but ethical. And I thought his father, who was a tax attorney and his mother who taught ethics at Stanford Law School, I made false assumptions. And so - but remember, he gave me the money. I didn't give him the money.

He did. He came to our conference. He liked our business. He liked our crypto exposure.