Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - Can America Survive Another Season of the Trump Show? Variety's Ramin Setoodeh Tells Us

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Would Trump have become President of the United States without The Apprentice? It’s a question he has often considered. Ramin Setoodeh is the journalist that has spoken to Trump the most in recent years, and his new book, Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass is the untold story of the former president’s time as a reality TV star.  Together they discuss everything from Trump’s “severe memory issues” and deepest insecurities to the possibility of a second term, and his real legacy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open book where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word from authors and historians to figures and entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones.

I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. From the RNC to the assassination attempt, there has been a lot of news related to President Trump this past week. My guest, Rameen Situida, is the journalist that has spent the most time with him post-presidency, which he talks about in his new bestseller, Apprentice in Wonderland. Would Trump have really become president of the United States without the apprentice? What cognitive issues did Rameen notice about him during these recent interviews, and will continuing to live life as an entertainer and reality star secured Trump that second term in office? It's a frightening thought. Let's get into it.

I'd like to take a second to recommend my friend Andy Astroy's great podcast, The Back Room. Every episode is a fun, incredibly honest take on our society and the political situation, along with some brilliant guests. I've been honored to join Andy on the show, and you know anywhere that accepts me with no filter deserves a show. Shout out. Okay, so joining us now on Open Book is Rameen Situda. He's the co-editor of Variety, and he's also a best-selling author, his latest book, Apprentice in Wonderland, how Donald Trump and Mark Burnett took America through the looking glass. Remain, it's great to have you on the show. I have so much to talk about because, you know, I know Donald Trump,

I know Mark Burnett, friends with Jeff Zucker, everybody. I mean, you got all the characters in here. It could be a Netflix special. I'm wondering if you're actually going to go in that direction. But let's go to you. Had you get into this business, had you get to be a journalist? Tell us a little bit about your background. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm a huge fan of the podcast. The only thing I've ever wanted to be as a writer ever since I was in grade school,

I would always say I wanted to be an author. I wanted to be a writer. And I got into journalism very young. I was in junior high school. I became the editor-in-chief of my junior high school newspaper. I became editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper, college newspaper. And then in my early 20s, I got a job at Newsweek as a writer. And I was really trying to establish myself, create a beat, have something that I could write about regularly.

And this was in 2004 when I started in Newsweek. And The Apprentice was the biggest show on TV then. It was the hottest show. People loved it. A lot of my friends who were in their 20s saw it as very aspirational because Donald Trump was trying to find the next great business leader. And it allegedly taught you about business. And you would go into the boardroom and you'd learn about how to navigate these tasks that he would give you. And it was really smart reality TV.

It wasn't like Fear Factor or Survivor or some of the other shows that felt like it was just luck. And so I started writing about the show and I started realizing that I could call Donald Trump anytime I wanted and get him to comment on anything I wanted because he was always available. So he didn't have a publicist. I would call Trump Tower. His secretary Norma would patch me straight through to Donald Trump. I talked to him on the weekend. He was going to marry Melania. He took the call from the golf course.

We talked for like two minutes. And he didn't really care where I was from or who I was. He didn't necessarily associate me with any specific publication. He just would take the call from the journalist, give the journalist three quotes, and then hang up. And so that's really how I began covering the apprentice and also how I began my journalism career in 2004. Okay, so we've had similar experiences with him. And so I'll just share mine briefly. I was at NBC.

As a CNBC paid marketing contributor, he was at NBC. He was inviting me to all of his parties. You know, Apprentice had a launch party. Prentice at a finale party. I went to Yankee games with him. He used to hang out with him and Regis Philbin. When I went on my first date with my wife, I was at a Yankee game. And I ran into him.

I said, well, I'm on my first day with this woman. Do you think it's going to work? And Trump looked at him because, yeah, it's definitely going to work. You know, you're just good looking enough for her. It's fairly fucking funny. I thought, and I laughed about it, okay? Yeah. And I always got on with him.

And so it sounds like you got on with him as well. but there's something amiss in his personality. You write about it in the book. So what is it, Rameen? So there is. And I think the thing that was so jarring for me, because we obviously reconnected for this book years later after he left the White House.

And what was so jarring for me is that I did think becoming present in the United States had to inevitably change him, right? He had to be different. But he's the same exact person he always was on the show and as a media fixture, which is he's this kind of silly, goofy guy that became a wrong.

reality star wants to be around famous people, has a very funny sense of humor when he wants, but also isn't that interested or invested in actually doing the hard work necessary to get from point A to point B, right? So he's always just interested in himself, talking about himself, saying the bombastic thing that gets attention, getting as much media attention as possible, but he conducts himself like an actor, playing Donald Trump on a reality show. And I think that's the thing that people need to really focus on in this upcoming election. because we live through four years of the Trump presidency. We know what four years of Trump presidency is like, and we saw a glimpse of that.

We're doing this podcast on the day after the Republican National Convention speech that he gave. And so we saw the real Donald Trump kind of creep out in the speech where he just wants to tell stories, entertain people, rambles, doesn't really have a train of thought. And those are the things that are missing. He's not actually a leader. He just plays one on TV. Well, I mean, it's more dangerous than that, though, too. In my mind, because remember, I was in the White House again in a lot of days, but I was on the campaign for. nine months, the intellectual vacuousness is astonishing. And I would say to say, I want you to

react, despite his success. And he is a very successful man. And he's obviously been the President United States, maybe the President of the United States again. There is a general sadness and insecurity to him. And so do you believe that? Did you see that? Because I certainly saw that. And I'm just wondering what that's about in your mind. absolutely because I think that he is very, he's incredibly insecure. And I write about in the book how a lot of our time is spent with him fixating and thinking about all the celebrities who liked him when he was host of the apprentice and then didn't like him when he was president. Right. So he's upset that one time he invited Matt Midler to his apartment for dinner, but as president, she tweeted negative things about him. He's upset that Deborah Messing one time came up to him at the NBC upfront and said something nice to him. But as president, she wasn't a supporter of his. He's upset that Kim Kardashian was invited to the White House to talk about. prison reform. And then when Joe Biden won in 2020, she posted on Instagram three hearts. And so this is all the behavior of an incredibly insecure person. But I also think if you go through the roots and the origins of show business, I write in the book that he's essentially an insecure

actor that just wants people's attention and approval. And that insecurity creeps up in a lot of his decision making. And he does a lot of things to win the approval of the people that are in his inner circle or the people that he thinks he needs to impress to feel better about himself. So is that a good trait for president of the United States? So if someone like HR McMaster is trying to tell you the difference between the Shia and the Sunni, you don't know. So you're unbelievably insecure. So now you're going to start bullying H.R. McMaster and demeaning him. And you don't want other people to know that you don't know.

Is that a good trait? I mean, no, obviously not. But I also think looking through the lens of Donald Trump is a reality star, he had a safety net, right? He was always able, if you made a decision, there were editors, there were marks. Mark Burnett's producers, they could steer the image of Donald Trump in the right direction. And so the Donald Trump that many Americans think they know is a mirage. And the Donald Trump you are describing and a lot of other political reporters have described is the real Donald Trump. But I also think it's very, very important in the discussion of Donald Trump to clarify

and to continue to remind people that he is a product of reality TV television because a lot of his base and a lot of voters that aren't really paying attention to the reporting that came out of the White House or has forgotten the reporting that came out of the White House, need to realize who Donald Trump really is. I mean, that's that you're basically asking my next question is, why are these people still clinging to him based on that reporting? I think that people like him because he represents something in America that allows people to feel better about themselves, right? Here's a guy who tries to be funny, who was the boss of the boardroom, who seems to be on TV at least, interested in the little guy, even though he's really not.

And he has this relatable quality as a reality star that makes people feel there's something comforting about that. I know to millions of Americans, they're terrified of him. But to his base and to his supporters, the character he played on The Apprentice did represent comfort because it was essentially what people who aren't rich think rich people are like, right? Bombastic, over the top, lives in this gold-en-cased penthouse apartment with this beautiful wife and kids.

And so I think that people are looking at him in a very surface way and his voters see this surface image of Donald Trump. But what I was trying to do in my book is really take you beyond the surface and show you who he really is, which is someone you observe when you spent time with him. And the real Donald Trump is obviously very different and a very frightening figure. Well, let's talk about that. So let's talk about the real Donald Trump, paint the portrait. And also I want you to fill in the color by numbers because we're talking about the mental deficits of Joe Biden. but in your book, you are writing very graphically about the mental deficits of Donald Trump. So paint the picture of who Donald Trump is outside of the prism of reality television.

He, in the time we spent together, he didn't remember the chronology of events. He couldn't remember me between our first and second meeting, which were only a few months apart. He didn't seem to remember a lot of his accomplishments in the White House. He didn't seem to be that interested in a lot of his accomplishments in the White House. he was approaching life and remembering life as an entertainer. So he was excited when he talked about The Apprentice. He was very excited when he talked about ratings, which led to his infixation on crowd size. What I learned in the book was that Jeff Zucker primed him to really look at the ratings

because this was a measure of success. And so every day after the show aired, he would look at the ratings. He would fax the ratings to other executives with his signature. He saw it as a measure of success. And so I think that that insecurity led to him, affirmation. And that is why he's so obsessed with crowdsized. That is why he's so obsessed with ratings. But the real Donald Trump is a man who's playing a character who we're all talking about. And he loves the attention. He loves the press. He loves the buzz about him. And he doesn't believe

there's anything, any such thing is bad publicity. He just wants to be in the conversation. And he wants the spotlight. He wants the big Trump in neon lights. And that is really the way in which he operates. That is the way in which he views, quote, governing. You know, it's interesting because everything you're saying, I experienced. And I guess the thing that I'm worried about is, how did he do it again? Okay, so he fooled the public, out in office, fooled guys like me. I thought he's going to be way more moderate. I thought he'd be way more attentive, more serious. He has just a lot of superficiality. There are two things he likes. He likes attention and he likes money. And when he was on the top half of the folded papers like the Wall Street Journal or the

know, sometimes we'd go on the campaign plane. You'd say, you know, I could never get on the top half of this as frequently as I am. If I was, I mean, maybe the last time I was on the top half is when I filed for bankruptcy. But now every day I'm on the top half, look how great this is it? And I remember thinking, is that why we're doing this? Is it, you know, I mean, aren't we doing this to serve the people? Aren't we doing this to try to make the country better? But there's really none of that, you know.

And I guess, I guess, I guess why isn't that resonating with you? Why can't people see through that is what I'm trying to understand? I mean, again, I got fooled, so I'm not suggesting that there isn't really good protective armor there. But we've now had four years and now eight years of this exposition of him. And it looks like he could win again, Ramead. It does. And I think this is about cultural awareness and being able to speak about Donald Trump in language that people can understand. And I think there's so much reporting about him and there's so much information about him that a lot of people are tuning out.

And I think that you have to look at him going back to the thesis of what I'm our. arguing, if you look at him as a reality star, you know that in our culture, reality stars are in a lot of ways unstoppable. And there's always this opportunity and possibility for redemption. And so, yes, he's been impeached twice. Yes, he's a felon. Yes, there's many other legal cases that we're waiting for clarity on. But he is on his comeback tour. And people have forgotten how scary it was when he was president during COVID. And the Biden presidency, I think, has been, And if you're looking at it in terms of entertainment, maybe safe and slightly boring, which are all good things.

As citizens of the United States, we want a leader who isn't necessarily on our TV screens every single day or interested in only making news about himself. But I think that people have forgotten what it was like and they're looking for excitement and our attention spans are so short. We're constantly looking at videos and social media and there's so much information coming at us that I think people like him because they want to be entertained by him. And he talks about Handwell Lecter and sharks and things that don't even make sense, but it doesn't matter because he's on every screen and people can't escape him.

And that is why I think he's surging in the polls. So he told you, I mean, again, you're reporting this in the book and I believe it, but it sounds so unbelievable for me. This is another problem. It's so nutty. People are like, okay, that's got to be BS. It can't be true, right? I mean, so he tells you in the book that Joan Rivers voted for him.

Of course, he died two years prior to the election. He says, hey, I got to go. I got to go upstairs and handle something related to Afghanistan. He's no longer president. So what is he handling related to get? Unless he's a spy for Vladimir Putin or something like that. And he's obviously going to give Putin some advice or he's talking to the Taliban. Tell me, tell me what's going on there.

What am I missing? So I think for me, the Joan Rivers thing was him obviously just not remembering the chronology of events and speaks to his memory. But when I was talking to him, we were watching clips of The Apprentice together one day in Trump Tower. And he said he had to go upstairs to deal with, quote, the Afghanistan. is how we refer to it. This was in August 2021. To me, that was me seeing him as a performer, right? So he's so used to acting like he is someone who he's not.

He's so used to acting like when he was president, he was the president. He would say things that weren't true to make himself seem more important. And I'm sure you saw that working for him. He always exaggerated things, you know. He did say something very human to me, though, which I will share with you. It was my first day on the job. I had finished my press conference. I walked back up into from, from,

lower press up into the Oval Office. And I was standing there. There's this beautiful plaster of Paris seal on the ceiling of the Oval Office of the President, you know, the presidential seal. And he looked up at it. He looked at me. He goes, can you believe we're doing this here in the Oval Office? And then he said something that was actually really funny. He goes, you know, you like action and I like action. You can't believe the action that you get here. It was very like, you know, it was very New York. And it was very, and I was looking at it. I'm like, yeah, I like action. But we're, this is a serious. I mean, this is. I mean, this is. This is it. This is a big job here. We've got to help the American people, you know.

But to him, it's all a TV set, right? It's all a movie set. I wasn't thinking about it that way. He was like thinking about, okay, how's my photo op going to look today? Am I going to look okay? Is this going to look right? He wasn't thinking about you know what I mean? I'm sad about it. I want to honestly, you know, I don't dislike the guy. Everyone says I must dislike. I don't dislike the guy. I'm sad about. what he is and what the culture has become to connect him into the most important job that we have in our country, if not the world. So I'm just a little sad about it. And your book is so insightful because it provides a perspective of how this happened in our culture and how this happened in our

society. So are you also sad about him being in this situation where she clearly can't navigate? It's enjoyable sometimes spending time with him. It's funny. He says interesting things. He goes on long tangents, but he's not boring. But do you feel that he's in the situation that he clearly can't navigate on his own? You know, listen, he's going to get, he's going to get destroyed by this guy, J.D. Vance. Okay, he's going to get destroyed. First of all, J.D. Vance is a lot smarter than him. He's not his experience.

He's a lot smarter than him. J.D. Vance is like, Uber ambitious. And when Trump realizes how smart Vance is, remember that blonde woman? He knocked off the apprentice after season two because she was getting too much attention. Yeah. He's going to give J.D. Vance, one of those cartoon punches in the head where he gets knocked off the screen. You follow, again, metaphorically, but that's him. He's never going to be able to tolerate a guy like J.D. Vance that actually knows the difference between a Shia and a Sunni, knows what the Sykes-Pico's treaty is that set up the Middle East after World War I. He's going to freak out. I predicted that he's going to try to fire J.D. Vance within a year if he becomes president, which, you know, technically he can't do.

No, you can't know, J.D. Vance is now on the ballot with him, but he will disgrace, besmirch, and berate J.D. Vance. If he wins the presidency, he will be disgraced besmirch and degrade J.D. Vance. I guarantee because he won't be able to handle the guy's personality. And Vance is a very ambitious guy, you know? So. And I think he selected Vance because it was good casting, right? Because Mike Pence was older and he wanted someone who was younger and he was thinking about it in terms again, everything is in casting. He talked a lot about casting, central casting, how he picked people on the print. They showed him pictures of Vance in different fashion statements, you know. And, you know, he hates beards, by the way. He's like George Steinbrenner, but he's accepted that younger people like his sons wear beards. But he doesn't like him. You know what I mean?

So he's very clear about that. He's like this George Steinbrenner figure that way. Step back for a second, though. Talk about last night's speech. It was very long, but it was subdued. It was a little humble. He was almost shot and killed. And that would have been a horrific story for America.

Thank the Lord that that did not happen. God forbid. But he was wounded. And he was close enough to death, you know, a head turn, a re-guidance, and a readjustment of the win by the sniper. And we would be in a totally different and, in my mind, tragic debacle of a situation. But he seemed very humble and subdued last night. What's your reaction to that?

I thought the first act of a speech when he came out and he was. Part of the being subdued, I think, is also part of him being a performer. So he realizes, given that the entire country is now feeling sympathetic towards him, we are all grateful that he's with us. Tragedy didn't happen at the campaign event last weekend. So I think part of it was performative, right? He was playing into that. And I thought the first half of the speech or the first third of the speech was very effective

and very powerful when he was recounting what happened and thinking that by the grace of God, he was with us and the statements that he was making and the tone of the speech. speech was very effective and he's a very good storyteller when he wants to be. But the problem with the speech was that it wouldn't end. And the second half of it or the second two-thirds of it felt like he went back to being the Trump that we remember from the previous time he was in the White House where he rambled. He was giving us his lines about immigrants invading the United States, illegal immigrants invading the United States. He didn't really have any policy that he was presenting to American people other than broad things like we're going to stop inflation. We're going to help the

auto industry. Like these were just buzz. words that he was using, but clearly he doesn't have a plan to do all the things that he was talking about. And I think that what we saw was that all the energy and all the momentum that he had and convention, for the most part, was a very effective convention, kind of drained out of the room. And so when we got to the end, it was like watching a season of a show that needed to maybe be canceled. It went on for too long. He had no point of view. He had no argument. He had no appeal to why he wants to be present again. Why does he want to be present again? That's a question that people often ask me. And it's because of the fame, because he wants to be in the spotlight.

He wants people to talk about him. So I actually found it to be not as effective as I thought it would be watching the first half. And the other thing I thought about and realized was that if Joe Biden had not been in such a bad state during the debate, the real Donald Trump would have come out. We didn't see the real Donald Trump during the debate, right? Trump came into the debate, saw that Joe Biden was in a bad place and just kind of stepped back and let Joe Biden take one of the rare times where he didn't want to take the spotlight, right? He could see that Joe Biden was not doing well. And so we allow Joe Biden to not do well in front of the American people. But we didn't see the real Trump at the debate.

And we started to steal the real Donald Trump last night at the convention. And I think this is important for Democrats because there's a sense that this is inevitable and Donald Trump's going to be president again. But it's not. And I think the American people need to be reminded of what it was like under his presidency. You think Joe Biden stays in the race? And again, of course, we're talking when there's some speculation that he's leaving. It's just your thoughts.

I think that he clearly does. Joe Biden doesn't want to leave the race. He wants to stay in the race. He thinks there's a path for him to succeed. But I do think it's looking like he's going to maybe step aside and let someone else run for, running against Donald Trump. Can Camel Harris beat Donald Trump? I think that the thing about Camilla Harris coming in and trying to beat Donald Trump is that Donald Trump is going to be energized by having a new opponent. And so I think they're going to have to have a very strong message as to the dangers that Donald Trump represents.

And I think the problem that Joe Biden has right now is that there isn't strong messaging. No, he can't advocate. He can't get off the prompter. So he can't advocate. He's actually got a great legislative agenda. The economy's booming. The stock market's at an all-time high. Employment data is improving.

There's so many great things going on for the president. But he can't get out there, rebut the nonsense and lies coming out of Trump's mouth. And he can't advocate for what he's doing. So it just makes me worry. I do think Trump's going to lose, by the way. That's just my personal opinion because I really think that there's a majority of people, even in those swing states, sensible people, I don't want to return to the hysteria, even though they may enjoy some of it from a talking at the water cooler sense. I don't think that they want to go through it again. But we'll have to see. Talk about some of the revelations in this book. It's a phenomenal book, Rame. Thank you. I've got to go back and read some of the other things that you've written now as a result of reading this. But you're talking about watching The Apprentice with Donald Trump. You also mentioned that he starts out with a $25,000 per episode salary. He wants to get paid like the friend's stars.

Tell us a little bit about the evolution of his salary. Talk about his reaction, watching The Apprentice with you. So I think people have to remember when Donald Trump started on The Apprentice. This was in 2004. He was doing things like doing cameos on the nanny or the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. He was showing up in home alone. He was known, but he wasn't known in the way that he was known as a result of reality TV.

And so Mark Burnett was a very successful producer at the time. Survivor was the biggest show in America. And he wanted to do essentially a version of Survivor set in New York City, which he considered a dangerous jungle, but a different jungle because it was a city of New York and it was a tough place. And he wanted a business leader to represent what the highest apex of business. And he came up the idea of pitching this show to Donald Trump. Donald Trump agreed without even consulting with his agent, who is also Regis Philman's

agent. And they agreed to $25,000 an episode. And when the show blew up and became huge and millions of people were watching, Trump went to Jeff Zucker and said, I want to be making what the entire cast of friends are making. And at the time, each friend was making a million dollars an episode. So Donald Trump asked for $6 million an episode, which is a ridiculous amount of money for reality TV star, even now. And they got into a fight and a back and forth. But he continued on. He obviously didn't get that much money.

But what was so groundbreaking about the show was that Mark Burnett structured the deal so that Trump and Burnett got all the product. placement revenue on the show because back then they didn't know how much money that was really worth. So every week there was a new challenge and there was a new sponsor and they would come in a car company, a toy company, a fashion late brand and they would give that money straight to Donald Trump and Mark Burnett. And that is why there was so much product placement on a show because they really pack the show with as much advertisers as they could because they were really running two businesses. It was a reality show, but it was also essentially an advertising agency. And that is how Donald Trump made a lot of money that he made while he was on the show. I have a lot of respect for

you because you write objectively. And so tell us why Burnett casts Trump. Burnett was looking for someone that could be a business leader, play a business leader, be brash, be over the top. You have to remember back then it was like Simon Cowell on American Idol, right? He was mean, but he was so mean that people liked him. And Donald Trump also had a similar quality where he could improvise in the boardroom. He didn't seem to care.

He was who he was. He was a tough New Yorker. And it really worked on reality TV. And going back and working on this book, I went back and rewatched many of the seasons of the show. And the show is still very entertaining. Donald Trump is very good on the show. He is a good reality star. We do have to give him credit for what he's good at.

He's a very good reality star. He's good at reacting in the moment, saying funny things, captivating people's attention. And he also has this fatherly figure that he can project when he wants to make people like him and feel like, okay, he's invested in these underlings. They're trying to be the next apprentice. and all of that was very effective. And Burnett tried to do it with Martha Stewart. There was a Martha Stewart spin-off.

It didn't work. They tried to do it after Trump became present with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It didn't work. So what Donald Trump did on the apprentice wasn't the easiest thing in the world. And he was very fixated on the failures of Martha Stewart and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But again, these are different skills than running the country. But you point out in the book that this is literally his crowning achievement, right? Because he inherits a lot of money.

He has some success with Trump Tower. He generally has bad success in business. He fails with the airplane, the airlines. He fails in the casino business. Most of the things he touches goes wrong. He knows this, which is why he has a lot of internal self-hatred. But he is an attention seeker, and he has enough fame where Burnett says, hey, this guy's going to propel my show.

You know, when I met with Mark Burnett, I asked him why he cast at Trump. He said there was no other business leader out there that had written a few books that had some level of notoriety as a result of the fame that Donald Trump was seeking. And so, you know, I get Burnett a lot of credit, frankly, for casting him because he was perfectly casted in that show. And by the way, okay, he was a fun guy back in the day, Ramin to hang out with. I'm never going to besmirch that. Okay, when I used to hang out with him, he had a good sense of humor, there's a garrulousness to him. He's even charming to the people that he lights up on Twitter.

He's a little nervous that way. He doesn't like confrontation. So if he's confronting somebody over the, you know, the mouse or the claspers, clicks on the board, he can do it, but he doesn't like it in his face. Have you experienced that as well? I think he has this Bill Clinton quality where he has this very, if he wants to turn it on, he can be very charismatic. He can seem like he's very invested in you. He can talk about anything. He can talk to anyone. And yes, I noticed that he was always calculating and doing the mental math about who to go after. If someone had not gone after him, he would go easy on them in his

stories to me. But if someone had gone after him or he felt like he had a score to settle or he thought that, okay, I can use this feud that I'm creating to get more headlines and attention, then he says the things that he says and it's all strategic. He's playing a publicity game. No, you're right. But listen, he started coming at me on Twitter. I guess he must have thought I was Ted Cruz. Once I started demolishing him on Twitter, he went into complete retreat because back down, yeah. He didn't like it. You know, I was calling him the fattest presidents as William Bauer Taft. I think I said he was tiny Trump. after meeting with Stormy Daniels, we understand where all the insecurity comes from.

I mean, I was hitting him, you know, in a way that he's not used to. And so he immediately went into retreat because all it was doing was creating negative policy. You know, he hates the negative publicity. People think Donald Trump believes all publicity is good publicity is not. He hates negative publicity. What do you think happens? What is Trump's legacy?

I think his legacy is that he is America's first reality TV president. He is clearly a product of this reality TV digital Instagram age in which everyone wants to be famous for the sake of being famous. And I think that it represented a turning point in our culture when he became president. It was a very scary time in America when he became president during COVID. And I think he is the influencer president, if that makes sense, right? We are in the age of influencers and he is the influencer president, the first influencer president that we had. Okay. I'm down to the part of the podcast where we have our five things.

famous words. I'm going to read you the words you're going to react. Okay. They're all cold from your book. Okay. You're ready? Okay. Yeah. Okay. The view, as in the television show, the view. So Donald Trump was obsessed with the view. He watched the view. He got into fight with Rosie O'Donnell. And it was a place where he went to talk about The Apprentice a lot and also teased his candidacy in 2012, which he obviously didn't run then. But he was a huge fan of the show and Barbara Walters. Yeah, and he was on it a lot and Barbara Walters liked him. You know, and they got on Barbara Walters and him. I don't know if she would have liked him as president, but she did, she did get on with him. He, you know, Regis liked him. You know, and Regis was a good guy. I don't

remember Regis and I had a great relationship with him. Mark Burnett. Mark Burnett is the ultimate reality power player. And I think one of the reasons why he's not speaking publicly about Trump, he wants to say in Trump's good graces, but he also wants Hollywood to like him and accept him. And so he's in this very strange place in the last few years, but he's the reason why Donald Trump is president in the United States. He is. And I, you know, I like Mark. I got along with Mark. Mark's a very, very smart guy. And we'll have to see where things go from here. The Apprentice. I think The Apprentice is the most influential TV show in the history of the United States. I think it created Donald Trump. Is the reason why Donald Trump is president. We talked about this.

Eric Trump agreed that it set the template for the campaign for the entire family. And if he had not starred on the show, Donald Trump even told me that he may not have ever run for president, which was his way of acknowledging that he wouldn't have been present without the show. Okay, so I'm going to tell you the second most important show. You ready? Yeah. The second most important show? Yeah. General Electric Theater. And you're going to say, what the hell do I mean by that? Do you know what I mean by that? Yeah, yeah, I do. But why is that the second most important show?

Because Ronald Reagan was the host of General Electric Theater. Oh, right. Right. He was seen in every. Everybody's living room. And this is one. There was only a couple of television stations and the rating for massive. So when he went to run for governor in California, everybody knew who he was as a result of general electric theater, which was a show hosted by Ronald Reagan in the 1950s. I think the TV, we can't underestimate how important TV is. Even today with all the podcasts and the TV, the TV is a big medium, particularly for older people.

Okay, so we're down on the last two, the boardroom. I say the boardroom, you say what? I say, I mean, I don't even know how to say it in a quick way because it was Donald Trump's safe space, right? It was where he felt the most powerful. He felt like he was king there. Really, really true. And he was great in that setting. You know, look, you have to be honest about this shit.

Donald Trump, that's my last one. Donald Trump, I say Donald Trump, you say what? Exhausting. I think that, you know, and that's the key. For the Democrats, right? We have to remind people that this is a show that people don't want to watch anymore. They think they want to watch it because they're bored right now with Biden and the White House and everything is calm. But we don't need another season of the Trump show.

We really don't and we may not survive it. That's the thing that's so scary. And that's what everyone's message needs to be as we look ahead to November. I see sadness. I know this sounds crazy, but I think it's a compilation of sadness. Also, he doesn't look well. Last night's speech, I know the guy a long time. That bullet that grazed him is hurting him psychologically. And it's also, I think it's affected him from a stress point of view. And you wouldn't

wish that on anybody. Remain, what's next for Donald Trump? Does he win this election? In reporting this book, I did have it. It did feel like there was a very good chance he could win the election. And I think a lot will depend on what the Democrats do. But I think that there's clearly a path for Donald Trump to take the White House back. And I think that's very alarming and scary. And no one thought that was possible four years ago. And I think we have to understand and explore why that's possible. And I think it's really, really key because I wrote this book in the broadest way possible so that people could understand Donald Trump. But in talking about Donald Trump and if the Democrats are really wanting to challenge Donald Trump, they have to speak

in language that appeals to Americans throughout the country. Well, it's a phenomenal book. I could interview you for hours. Unfortunately, I have a time segment on this damn thing. So the title of the book is Apprentice in Wonderland, How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett took America through the looking glass, written by Ramin Situza. Thank you so much for joining me today. It was an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it. Rameen has written a phenomenal book. As I said, Trump likes two things the most, attention and money. And what Rameen and I both saw in our interaction with Donald Trump is a tremendous amount of insecurity and a tremendous amount of superficiality. But there's also a chip on his shoulder. He wants to prove to his enemies and his detractors that he can be in their lives, whether they like it or not. It's a driving force for him.

And I got to tell you, he's the incredible political animal. He's got great political instincts. If he just had an ounce more of intellectual curiosity or an ounce more. of willingness to help or want to serve the public, I would have imagined him as a great political figure. But unfortunately, it's a sorted situation as what was pointed out in this book this week. It's a great book. Please go out and get it. The title of the book is Apprentice in Wonderland. What a great story. Ma? Yes, baby. What's that sound in the background? You got the vacuum on? What are you doing?

No, I have the kids here on Monday. What are the kids meaning? You know, Ruth and Cecilis. blow dryer on or something or what are you doing? The vacuum cleaner is on. All right, shut the vacuum off. I got to talk to you about the podcast. All right, hold on. Michelle, we're trying to talk to me. I'll tell you in a minute, okay?

All right. All right. You ready to come on a podcast? Yeah, go ahead. All right, go ahead. So, Ma, did you ever watch Donald Trump and The Apprentice or no? No. And the apprentice, no.

Do you remember the show, though, right? Yeah, of course. Okay. But I never watched them. But you think the show made him extra famous, right? Or no? Well, he's a cover-up because he's a bully. You don't see the real person.

Right. So there's a little bit of an insecurity, right? Most bullies are insecure, right? Yeah, right. To me, you know, he acts for checks. Well, why do you think he's so insecure, Ma? What do you think the reason is? I read his background, and I think that his brother was an alcoholic.

Okay, so you think the father gave him a hard time, so he never felt like a whole person, right? Like he was somebody. So that's why he's got to prove. to the world that he's somebody. It's almost like his father thought he was a nobody, so let me prove to the world that I'm a somebody, right? Yeah. But he should be straightened out. I think he would be very good, but his mouth ruins him the way he's thoroughly, and he said that the veterans that one day, which my brother, why would you say they were suckers? Well, Ma, he definitely said it. Now he's lying to say he didn't say it, but he said it to General

Kelly, you know, General Kelly and I are good friends. There's no way General Kelly would lie about that. a dress he would have been better off as a human being saying I made a drastic mistake was a slip of the tongue and I couldn't have never been able to do it and I give them a lot of credit that they did it right my brother had trap in his leg because of life and I think that he should have been commended that he did it not that he was a sucker to do it he was saving the country right if people were really astute they would go back to that and they would look at him like he's a loser he's a loser right you know you don't say that Right, they see the insecurity. What do you think of the assassination attempt, Ma? I think it was terrible, though. I do think it was terrible. Yeah, no, of course. Nobody wants that, God forbid, you know.

Yeah, no, I think it's terrible. But he got very lucky that he turned his head, right? Thank God, right? Yeah, he could have been apparently lucky that nothing happened to him. He really was very much. Okay, so you think it's going to change him or make him different or it's not going to do anything? No, I think that down deeply knows that it could happen again. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. I think it might change. I think it could change them a little bit. Yeah, I do. In my opinion, but for you, no, unfortunately or unfortunately, you took after me with your temperament. You take a lot of crap, and then when it's enough, you explode, and then you say it just the way it is. Yeah, no, he's a dummy, ma. He's a dummy.

It's a shame that this is the choices, but all right, I just thought I would check in with you because I know you're a good analyst. Where did you get your psychology degree from, ma? Everyone tells me that, though. I'm not kidding, though. It's like weird, but I like to read about people's minds a lot. And I think that Trump has an insecurity because if he wasn't insecure, he wouldn't be such a bully. He wouldn't have to be a bully. Right.

Amen. And people that are the average person don't get it, but the ones that are really intellectual understand. And I'm not trying to put the average person down because I'm average. Me too, Ma. I'm not trying to put it. Look, the way we grew up, I respect everybody. but I just think he's very dangerous. All right.

You like being the star of the podcast? Yes. You do. Of course you do. Why do you like being the star of the podcast? I don't have too much gray in my personality, and sometimes that gets me in trouble. But, you know, very black and white,

and I kind of say what I think, and either you like it or you don't. All right. All right. Well, most people like it, Ma. When I walk into a room now, they talk about you. They don't even want to talk about me. You're kidding me.

You know you like it. You know you like it. Well, you took after me completely. You have a stance. You're an interesting. intellectual, you're good looking, and you don't bullshit. You say it the way it is, and I think that you should be admired for that. All right.

Thank you, Ma. That's how I feel. All right, I love you, Ma. I mean, I'm not kidding. I really feel that. I feel like you have an inner sense and that you don't discriminate people and you look at the person for what they are, and you treat the person equal because you're a real American to me. You're a real born American. All right.

I love you, ma. Thank you, ma. Love you, baby. All right. Turn the vacuum clean. are back on. All right? Okay. All right. Love you, Mom. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your

podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week. Thank you.