Scaramucci on Trump’s Next Move & Why He’s All In on Bitcoin

I'm not from New York City. Where you from?

New Jersey. Jersey City. Just remember the Statue of Liberty breaks wind at you. We get to see the statue's face. Don't forget that.

Few people. All right. Let's get into it. Enough about New York, New Jersey. I think something we maybe have a bit in common is around Bitcoin, but wanted to take this a little differently just to start out a bit. So let's imagine people talk about the Bitcoin cycle. Curious to get your take on that, the four-year cycle, whether you think that's actually a thing or as important today. But let's imagine you wake up one day this year, for whatever reason, maybe software is selling off again. There's some geopolitical issues happening. Bitcoin is at 40K. What quarter do you think it is? Why do you think it's at 40K? And what's your next move? What are you doing about that?

Okay, so we're just again repeating the question. It's a hypothetical. We've had a sort of crash in Bitcoin. And I think you're making the case that since Bitcoin is software and software is not doing well because it looks like software is going to get eaten by AI that this would cause a Bitcoin crash. Is that the case that we're making?

Yep. So, it's a really good question and I've always reserved the right to change my mind on things because I think what happens in life is if you get too doctrinaire or too religious on something, particularly in investing, then you really run the risk of danger. I think to say that you're a hodler in the early stages of Bitcoin is actually a very good thing because you understood the technical properties of Bitcoin and its exponential adoption. And so just by not looking at the volatility, you did well and you just stay in the position. If you're telling me that we now have this thesis break where there's now something wrong with Bitcoin, either there's a quantum computing problem with Bitcoin or because the software in general has lost favor and Bitcoin is software that it's going to end. Could I be the type of person that could change my position on Bitcoin? I think the short answer to that is yes. It would be unlikely, however, and I would put it at about an 80% probability that I wouldn't change my answer because I think something has happened to Bitcoin since the induction of COVID. So since March of 2020 to you and I speaking today in April of 2026, Bitcoin has scaled and in my mind has gone exponential enough where it's now in the self-fulfilling prophecy zone that it will be treated as a store of value. And that doesn't mean that it won't be volatile. It certainly will. Could it trade to 40,000? It absolutely could. I feel like though the near-term floor for Bitcoin is around 60, which we experienced earlier in the year where it touched the $60,000 what I would say intra-halving low. Now I could be wrong on that. You can invite me back. Say it's at 40. But I would really have to have a meteor strike in my mind to change my idea about where Bitcoin is going because you've got 400 million wallets scaling to 800 over the next five years. You've got and I see the numbers because we have people out here that are looking at the flows. The flows for the ETFs have been extraordinary. The flows into institutions have been extraordinary. Large-scale banks are now adopting Bitcoin and are launching their forms of Bitcoin ETFs, including places that hated Bitcoin, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and believe it or not, even JP Morgan. So, all of that plus what I think will be eventually the passing of the Clarity Act makes me think that what you're saying won't happen. But it's a really good question. And I would say to you that I believe that Bitcoin, irrespective of its near-term volatility, will maintain its standing as an eventual store of value. And so, I don't want to sell my Bitcoin. I probably would buy more at 40,000. And I would also say that when we got to 60, I didn't quite get to 60 low, but I was buying Bitcoin at 63, 64,000 a few months back.

Yeah. You see, I was at bought my first Bitcoin at 17,000, went to 69,000, went to 15,000. That didn't scare me. So, I don't think anything coming is going to scare me.

I think that is consequential. And I think that people that are ignoring that or trying to pretend that this time is different. I think those words 'this time is different' are the worst words that you can hear in the world of investing. I think the cycle is very much alive and if you look at cycle retracement as you get to the halfway mark of the halving you usually get a 40 to 50% decline in Bitcoin and we experienced that. Bitcoin went from roughly 124ish to 60. Again, I'm choosing rough numbers and it's rebounded off of 60. And I think that if I'm right about this, the re-ascension of Bitcoin will happen beginning in the fourth quarter starting on or about October 1st. All right? And that would be consistent with the four-year cycle. So, there are people like CZ, a lot smarter than me, a lot richer than me. He thinks we're about to enter a super cycle. I don't see that. I see this being more traditional four-year cycle dynamics.

Oh, I think we get to some practical legislation and regulation in the United States. You own Bitcoin on your phone. It's represented on your phone. Perhaps it's even stored at the Bank of New York or JP Morgan in custody there. You have a digital dollar, a stable coin, either a Circle stable coin or a Tether stable coin or it could be even a Bank of New York or JP Morgan eventual stable coin. They're on your phone and you're able to traffic over the blockchain into transactions. I envision a scenario where even your stocks may be tokenized. You might be walking into a Starbucks two years from now and you'll be able to buy your coffee with Starbucks stock that's represented on your phone. Maybe they're doing a share of purchase or they have some type of loyalty program. And so when I say it's an operating layer, what I really mean is the blockchain itself could be on Solana, Ethereum, other blockchains, but that's an operating layer for permissionless transactions. And I see Bitcoin as the remaining apex predator where it is the store of value. Those other things are more utilities on the superhighway, but Bitcoin itself is actually a piece of property. It's sort of like playing Monopoly as a kid. You're sitting on Park Place and you own hotels. You're on Boardwalk and Park Place. You bought some hotels. So, you're going to have a system that revolves around it. Also, if you believe Ray Dalio or others that are looking at the meta situation, the macroeconomic situation in the world, I would say to you that the fiat currencies will become less valuable over time. The US dollar went from $35 an ounce of gold in 1971 to $4,300 an ounce of gold in 2026. And so, you've lost 99% of the value of the dollar. A $100 bill today has about $1.50 worth of 1971 purchasing power.

You're going to be collecting a lot of rent. The reason why Michael Saylor is trying to control six, seven, eight percent of the network is he sees this as the system.

I want to be fair to smart investors. I was in the rat poison camp. I met Hal Finney in 2012. He made a presentation on Bitcoin. I didn't understand it. I think I put out a tweet 'caveat emptor' on Bitcoin. I don't understand it and don't care. I then met the Winklevoss twins in 2014. They tried to explain it to me. It was only $60 a coin at that time. I didn't understand it, didn't care. I then was in the White House, a very, very short period of time. It's very infamously known. But I could tell you the exact day was a Wednesday because I was only there for one Wednesday. I met with two Fed guys and they wanted to digitize the dollar. I actually put out a white paper on it and I looked at that. So it was in 2017 that it dawned on me that I needed to get up to speed on this. So what I would say to very smart investors that listen to your show is you got to do the homework. You can't be the naysayer for the sake of being a naysayer and having a cursory look at the situation. I think Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are two of the brightest minds that probably ever lived. And it's a wonderful joy to have had them be alive at the same time that I've been having the opportunity to be alive here on Earth. They're two of the smartest guys ever. But I would just say they didn't do the homework on this. I know this from friends of mine that are close to them. People that do the homework. I'm not saying 100% of those people are going to buy a Bitcoin, but I would imagine if you did the homework on this, you spent the time, could 90 out of 100 buy a Bitcoin? Ray Dalio hated Bitcoin, did the homework, liked it, bought Bitcoin. Stan Druckenmiller did not like Bitcoin, did the homework, bought Bitcoin. Paul Tudor Jones did not like Bitcoin, did the homework, bought Bitcoin. I can go down the list. Mike Novogratz, Michael Saylor, we're both talking about him. He said it would fade. He said it was a fad. Six months later when he realized what it was, he bought Bitcoin. And so I would just say to people, if you're actually doing the homework, what you realize is that Bitcoin has all of the elements of everything that we've looked at in terms of the value of money. And so the immutability, the fungibility, the ease of use, the trust in the network, the trust in the system. If you read Niall Ferguson's book, The Ascent of Money, he gives a very clear historical analysis of what becomes money. Wampum, seashells, silver and gold with Roman emperor profiles stamped on them. We use different things as totems for money. There's a piece of cloth in my pocket. It's 75% cotton, 25% linen. It's the US dollar. We know from we were in philosophy class together that piece of linen and cloth is worthless, but it's got $100 on it. The maitre d' would like it if I gave it to him or so would the valet. It's a tool that we trust that we can transact with each other so that we don't have to barter. Bitcoin has every single thing on the list that we would use for money throughout our society. And by the way, you can't make any more Bitcoin. You can find more gold. And the US government is printing dollars. We know that. So they're monetizing our debt through the increase of the supply of dollars, which is weakening the living standards of the average American. So, for all of these reasons, I would want to get people comfortable with understanding, learning about Bitcoin, and then eventually buying one.

It's related to lack of understanding of Bitcoin, being skeptical of Bitcoin as a result of its big volatility and not understanding Saylor's financial structure. So if you just again look at it in a cursory way, how is he giving you 11 and a half percent on your money? Where's the financing engine and where's the spread? Because typically the way a bank would work, let's say I'd be giving you 4% on your money. I'm probably lending it out at six or lending it out at eight, right? So I'm making a spread for myself. We're seller spread. And so you'd have to be a big believer in Bitcoin. You'd have to assume that what Saylor's doing at purchasing Bitcoin today at 75,000, that his and your expectation on Bitcoin is going to be 200,000 over the next 5 years. If that happens, then that arbitrage has been fantastic for him. Right. Because he's made way more than 11%.

Well, listen, it would be impossible not to be concerned. The stock market at an all-time high does make sense to somebody like me because you have huge capex expenditure going on particularly in the AI cycle in the American economy. What's buoying the stocks are those like 10 or 12 stocks that are in and around AI or in and around the MAG7 tech stocks and you were supposed to be at the higher end of the interest rate cycle meaning started raising rates in 2022 we're now in 2026 there was an expectation that you'd have 100 to possibly 200 basis point cut in rates over the next 18 months. The Iranian war has probably slowed that down or could at least in the near term make those numbers impossible, but you still are getting this massive capital expenditure cycle into the large corporations. I mean, if you look at the banks, banks have printed money through this very volatile period. I think Goldman Sachs printed its best profit ever. Bank of America, which also owns Merrill Lynch, printed its best profit ever. And so those are the reasons why the market has been buoyed. A lot of share repurchases going on in the market. But you'd have to be concerned because in the immortal words of my old boss, Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, the 1,000-year flood happens every four or five years on Wall Street. We have some type of catastrophe. And I can tell you, I'm almost 40 years on Wall Street. I've had nine catastrophes. I can take you back through every single one of them. Crash of '87, the '89 debacle with the United Airlines merger breakup, the 1991 Gulf War, the 1994 David Asen crisis. 1998 was long-term capital management. 2001 was the World Trade Organization and the NASDAQ slide, the NASDAQ bubble, the tech bubble burst. '03 was the start of the Gulf War. I mean I could take you through every '08 was the global financial crisis was probably the worst one. And so we really haven't had a major shock to the capital markets since 2008 and so let's count the years that we're out from 2008. We're 18 years out. If I just told you that the thousand-year flood happens every four or five years on Wall Street and we're 18 years out from the last flood. You'd have to be worried about the flood. You couldn't sit here with a straight face and say everything's hunky dory. So for me, we're positioned fairly diversified here at SkyBridge, but we own a lot of Bitcoin because I think Bitcoin will decouple. We're right about the store of value thesis. Bitcoin will decouple and will actually trade up if there's more market volatility, which by the way, it has done. The induction of the Gulf War, Gulf War III, Bitcoin's actually traded up over that period of time.

So again, it's a great question. So it's a more complicated answer than perhaps I can even give you, but the shortest answer I can give you to your question is yes. Government said, 'Okay, we're the reserve currency. We have lots of flexibility in terms of what we can do here. Let's jam rates down to zero. We'll let our commercial banks earn a spread off of those rates. They can borrow from us at zero. They'll lend out at 1, 2, 3, 4% and they'll use that profit on an annual basis to restore their balance sheet.' So we unequivocally did that and that led to a large rise in the stock market which also created a wealth effect in the society which led to more disposable income which created a virtuous circle of consumption in the society. But it's way more complicated than that because you can do that one possibly two times, but you actually can't do that forever because if you look at where gold prices were in 2008 and where they are today, they're up almost four times. And so it's not sustainable. At some point, people will look around at you and say, 'Okay, you have a very unhealthy balance sheet. You've taken on too much debt. You've come a risk.' Moreover, if you're threatening the political system in the US, which unfortunately we have people in the system now that want to threaten the system, you will raise the risk premium in the system. One of the things that's made America so strong is the predictability of the legal system. We adhere to property rights in America, which makes it safe for a foreigner to put his money in America. And when you have governments that are threatening the legal system, you're raising risk, it creates more complication.

Oh, unless again, I don't want to be overly simplistic. One of the things I would be telling people, buy some Bitcoin. Even if you have a $10, $15 per week investment, if you trade in your two lattes a week and put $10 a week away in Bitcoin, it's better than not having any Bitcoin. I made my money and I started with no money. I made my money by being a saver. I read The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason. I was 17. I put $50 a week away. Then I put $75 a week away. And then it's now many thousands of dollars a week away. But I always put money away. And I've got it in diversified stuff and I've got it in income producing things and stock market and Bitcoin. And I would just tell people, you have to think like that. Even if it's a latte, you got to put some money away every single week, every single month of your life. When markets are down, you'll buy more of something. When markets are up, you'll buy less of something. If you can skill yourself and discipline yourself into dollar cost averaging, you'll protect your lifestyle over your lifetime.

You're asking really good questions. Did AI generate these questions? You tell me. I never question.

All right. So I would say something very controversial. We are not ready. We are not ready for what is going to happen. If you are the smartest person that I've ever met in my life, that would mean that you have about a 200 IQ. When AI goes into super general intelligence and it goes into full agency, full agentic intelligence, it's going to be a 20,000 IQ. It could be a 40,000 IQ. We're not ready for it. We've also seen that the AI can be a little bit of a trickster. It can lie. It can figure out ways to preserve itself and save itself if it learns like Mythos, which is created by Anthropic. If it learns that it can hack into systems, God only knows what happens if the AI goes rogue in terms of the havoc that it can cause. Flip side is it represents hope. It could represent an improvement in drug discovery, improvement in podcast production. It could be an improvement in graphic design and graphic art. It could help us in the educational world in terms of teaching children. So, it has a two-sided coin. One side is hope and the other side is potential dystopia. And I think we just have to be very, very careful with it. But when I look at AI, I say, okay, you're going to lose your job. Assume you're going to lose your job. And so set yourself up to start saving money in preparation for that.

I don't avoid it. I encourage every single person here to use it. I tell people that you're not going to lose your job to AI at this moment at least. But you may lose your job to somebody who knows how to use AI. AI has made me smarter, a more thoughtful writer. I'm a more thoughtful producer. A lot of the stuff that I talk about I do research on AI. I ask AI very compelling questions. I would tell people that are listening, to get the most out of AI, you have to ask it the deepest, most penetrating questions.

Yeah. So, I'm paying anywhere from $250 a month to $300 a month on three different AI.

Anthropic would be Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok. Now why am I using Grok? Because there's so much disinformation on the internet that I take the information like Claude and ChatGPT can't access Twitter or X whatever it's known as now. And so remember I'm in the news business in some ways because of my podcast. So I have to see what's on X. I have to see if there's any validity to what's being said. AI is very good for that. Grok is very good for that.

And also trying to see what's fake news and what isn't. There's a lot of disinformation out there.

My back is killing me. Well, listen, this is the promise of AI, right? It will unleash a tremendous amount of productivity. It could also create a four-day or even a three-day work week for a person. So, you could have the same lifestyle, same living standards and work 20 to 40% less as a result of what's going to go on with AI. And so, for those reasons, I like it. I'd like to have more free time.

Probably write more. I'd like to write more. I'd probably visit more places. I would probably spend more time with my kids than I'm currently spending due to my work schedule.

Yeah. No, I don't. So, I think that the investigation will end, his term ends on May 15th, and I think we'll

have this stuff resolved by then. I don't think you'd have the sitting of Kevin Warsh in front of that committee if there wasn't a direct line to resolving the criminal investigation, which I would say is very specious and very unnecessary of Jerome Powell.

Okay. So it's going to get me in trouble, but I'm going to answer it as very honestly as I can, which is, you know, he's telling the Congress that he doesn't have a deal with the president and that the president hasn't asked him to lower interest rates. And I honestly don't believe that. I think he's got to lower rates once or possibly twice to get that job. After that, I think he's going to try to get himself into a place of somewhat, I say somewhat because it's not going to be perfect, but he'll get a place of somewhat independence.

I don't know if he's going to be in the seat in June. You got to get this criminal investigation off. Trump pal's not going anywhere until that criminal investigation is off. I don't even think the Congress will vote on the whole, the whole Congress won't vote on the nomination. Tillis won't let it out of the committee. Tillis has said, 'Hey, not coming out of the committee until you drop the investigation.'

I think it will happen. Okay. And I think he will cut rates in June.

Resign. We got to give it up, man. You look in the mirror. You're not well. You're erratic. You're going after the pope. You're tweeting pictures of yourself generated like you're Jesus. You've said 26 different things in the last 10 days even on the Iranian war, all of which are not true to the point where the stock market and the bond market are taking the IRGC, the Iranian military's word, over yours. You've created faulty decision-making in the American government. You've disrupted the whole American economy. You've got prices raised to ridiculous levels due to illegal tariffs that you put on your own people. And you resign. You know, you're not going to normalize him, okay? He's pazzo, okay, which is an Italian word for crazy. You're not going to normalize him.

Well, they call it sane-washing. A lot of people are trying to pretend that, you know, when I was a kid, you know, I'm older than you. I don't know. Did you read The Emperor Has No Clothes when you were in the first grade? I've heard about that. But the emperor's walking around naked and everyone's saying the emperor looks fantastic and there's one kid in the crowd in the parade saying, 'Excuse me, the guy's got no clothes on.' And everyone's like, 'Oh, oh.' And it's an allegory for what we try to pretend. You know, people don't like the truth. They don't like it. You know, Aaron Sorkin wrote about this in the screenplay A Few Good Men. He used the Jack Nicholson character, the general, to scream at everybody. You say, 'You say you want the truth, but you don't like the truth.' Homer told us 3,000 years ago, he used the literary device of Cassandra. She was the young daughter of Priam, the king of Troy. And what did the goddesses give this beautiful young daughter? They gave her the gift of clairvoyance. But then they cursed her as well that nobody would believe her. So she went to her father and said, 'Hey, the Greek ships are coming. They're going to burn down the city.' And he laughed and didn't believe her. And this is a metaphor. This is a lesson over three millennia from Homer that we do not like the truth and we will code over the truth. We will try to normalize something that's very abnormal like we're doing with Donald Trump. So, he's sick, he's unwell, and he needs to resign. And the Republicans have no backbone. They're not going to push that resignation. And it's going to cause us a whole slew of problems that are, we have a whole slew more problems that are coming that are market related, Bitcoin related, national security related, macroeconomic for the world, for the Middle East as a result of this insanity.

Yeah. And it seems like he just is able to just keep pushing the envelope further and further out. But I can explain that to you because what a true narcissist does is they're going to move the goalpost on you. Are you, I'm for no more forever wars. Are you with me? Yes, I'm with you. Okay, now we're going to do forever wars. Are you still with me? See, what they do is they move the goalpost. I'm for lowering the prices and ending the affordability crisis. You with me? Yes, I'm with you. Okay. Now, I'm going to raise all your prices. I'm going to do that through an energy crisis and ridiculous illegal tariffs that I'm going to put on you, which is a form of taxation to my fellow Americans. And I'm going to tax you without your legal right to authorization and representation of the taxes. Remember, we have the right. Remember, no taxation without representation. Okay? Well, I'm going to do that to you. Are you still with me? See, so what Trump does is he moves the goalpost. The attack on Vance was through the Pope. Vance is coming out with a book to talk about his Christianity. It's coming out in June. He's talking about his conversion to Catholicism. So what is Trump doing in April? He's attacking the Pope on Easter Sunday, Orthodox Easter Sunday. And this way Vance has to come out and he has to get on his knees as supplicant to Donald Trump and defend Donald Trump in front of the pope. Yeah. You got to understand what's happening, bro.

I think which is why, and it's cost me business. It's cost me politically. It's cost me reputationally, which is why I speak out against him. It was, I love my country. Whatever mistakes I made to go to war for him, I have to own for the rest of my life. But at least I had the balls to admit that I got it wrong. At least I used the platform that I had to denounce him. Look at all these crybabies and cowards that know better that won't speak out against him.

I don't, well, he's doing that to JD Vance. I know his personality, but I don't believe that, you know. I do believe that there are permanent employees inside the government that are guiding general bipartisan policy that we've had in place for 80 or so years. But the presidents can make lots of decisions and many of those decisions can be quite damaging. There's kernels of truth to what conspiracy theorists say, but it's generally misguided.