The Chris Cuomo Project - Anthony Scaramucci on How Trump Broke American Politics

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Anthony Scaramucci (Founder and Managing Partner, SkyBridge Capital, former White House Communications Director, and author, “Solana Rising: Investing in the Fast Lane of Crypto”) joins Chris Cuomo to break down how Trump’s influence reshaped American politics — from loyalty culture and broken institutions to the money pipelines that fuel the outrage economy. Scaramucci explains why Trumpism still distorts incentives in Washington, why corruption persists across both parties, and how political dysfunction became a profitable business model. Cuomo and Scaramucci also dig into the economics behind the moment — from crypto’s growing role in global finance to how digital markets, speculation, and new technologies intersect with political instability. They explore what a post-Trump GOP might look like, whether voters still reward serious leadership, and why America’s systems keep drifting further from what working people actually need. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, and save more than 50% at http://selectquote.com/chrisc https://rhonutrition.com/discount/CUOMO for 20% sitewide Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/CUOMO Promo Code CUOMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Blockchain, crypto, fortunes are made, fortunes are lost. Why? And what is really worth investing in? And why? I have the answer to that, but I have the same guy who can tell you that, right, to the tune of hundreds of millions invested in his choices, who will also tell you the biggest pitfall in the left trying to beat Donald Trump. You want to hear those answers? Great. So do I. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. So Anthony Scaramucci understands MAGA because he was one of the makers of MAGA. Okay, we all know his story, 11 days in, but he's much more powerful since he's been out. Why? Fairbroker. Guy has made a gazillion dollars in crypto and blockchain. What's the difference? What's the difference between crypto and blockchain? Not a bad question to ask. What do you do, investment-wise? What do we see it becoming? terms of our society. And where are our politics headed? Anthony Scaramucci isn't just a really rich

guy with big friends. He's a double Harvard, right? Harvard business, Harvard Law. And he has been around these players that made MAGA. And now he's a big part of what is opposing MAGA. So he's got a lot to say about a lot that matters. And I was on my game for you, teeing up all the suppositions of what seems to be working and seems to be where we're headed and put it through the lens of the mooch Anthony Scaramucci always a pleasure full disclosure I love Anthony he has been a very good friend to me met professionally but now it is a personal relationship good man been very good to me when many were not you have a new book, I'm told. Even though I'm a friend, I have to be a fair broker. Who writes these books,

Anthony Scaramucci, that you seem to put out about every 17 minutes? Well, I mean, you're going blow up my spot now. You're putting me, you're putting, look at you, typical journalist, okay, came on, you gave me this warm, friendly introduction. Now you're exposing me. It's the Sicilian me. I have a, I have a, I, a big shout out to Max Myers, who is, a producer at CNBC. He helps me with the books. I do edit them. I do write some of them, but I will say that he puts a lot of skeleton and muscle into the book for me. But having said that, I do need somebody at this point in my career to help me do things like that. Of course, a lot of these, if you read the book, a lot of these are interviews of people on Salana and how

Solana came into being, and so I did most of those, but he did help me put the book together. And by the way, he deserves the credit for that. So I'm just teasing you. I appreciate you bringing it up. The productivity is impressive. What you want people to understand better is impressive. It's always been what I think has allowed you to continue to expand your reach is that you're an odd mix. You're a double Harvard guy. You're a lawyer. You're a business. man, your Ivy League educated, you're ridiculously successful, but you still have a very, very common, even parochial feel for politics and people. And that's a great combination, and it's rare. So we share that. I mean, I think you went to Yale, didn't you? I mean, we share

that. Yeah, yeah, but not like you. I mean, you're a very sophisticated guy, but you still understand the retail level of politics and persuasion, and that's a very good thing. So what do you do with this new book that should matter to the lesser among us? Well, I mean, listen, so some of my books are, you know, the one I, you know, wrote, wrote like intensely was from Wall Street to the White House and back. I think I sent that to you. That's me. I put 25 lessons of what I learned from my fall from grace, my debacle, had I had to build myself back up, Chris, and some of the thoughts that went into that process. This is different.

This is a investment book. This is a investment odyssey. This is from not understanding the blockchain, not understanding crypto, not knowing what Solano or Bitcoin is, and then how does a 61, about to be 62-year-old guy, adapt and pivot into something that's a younger person's investment thesis? And so that's really the blood and guts of the book. And I want people to understand this because I was at an event actually earlier today. Larry Fink was being interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin. He had Brian Armstrong. Of course, Larry being the CEO of BlackRock. Brian is a CEO of Coinbase. And they were talking about the future of finance. And there's going to come a day, Chris, that the phones that we're using is going to have a stable coin represented in U.S. dollar. You'll bypass the credit card company. You'll go direct to the vendor, direct to the restaurant. And you'll be using something on your phone as a form of transaction. You know, if you look at something like FISA, you'll buy, serve, which is a large-scale credit card processing company, phenomenal blades and razor

sort of a business, is falling off the cliff because we are using Zell. We are using VEMO. We're doing PayPal wallet, as an example. We're doing things differently because we have the technology to do these things differently, and Solana's going to represent a big piece of that. We're going to tokenize stocks and bonds. So if I, if I, if I, trade a stock right now. Let's say Chris Cuomo wants to buy a stock. It happens to coincidentally be in my portfolio. So you go to buy it. I go to sell it. It matches on the marketplace to take six different vendors before the transfer happens. And it goes through the depository trust corporation. But over the blockchain, Chris, you and I could do that transaction instantaneously.

And it's final and it's fully secure. And it's relatively costless, Chris. And so that's going to be a very big part of our future. I wanted to write about it and wanted to introduce my investors to the concepts behind it so that when we make investments and things like this, they're excited about it. So that was the genesis of this book. Yeah, it's really helpful because, one, people need to understand the difference between the cryptocurrencies and the platforms. Blockchain is certainly going to have a durability and a presence, as you outline, in a way that maybe Bitcoin does or does not. I mean, we just saw that huge tank with Bitcoin.

which is part of the reality of what is behind it. It's a real gambling mechanism right now. And Solana is different, even a name people will know Ethereum because Ethereum is still a two-layer platform. This would be a single-layer platform. I guess the difference for people will be leverage, right, Anthony? Not for people in the example that you offer up about, I want to buy, you want to sell, and we're talking about an equity.

But the reason people use credit cards isn't just ease. It's leverage, especially in America. In fact, uniquely so in America is how leveraged people are with retail-level debt. And what does that mean about how this new blockchain technology adapts? And what do people need to know about that level of debt as a function of where our economy really is? Yeah, I mean, so these are great questions. So the debt is very high. The debt, obviously, the corporate debt is reasonably high.

the governmental debt, I think, is too high, right? I'm like the guy, remember Chris, the guy that running for mayor, the rent is too high, you know? I mean, everything's too high. Jimmy. Yeah. But consumer debt is a problem because what happens is the standards, the cost of living has gone up astronomically. You talk about this on your podcast, talk about it on your News Nation's show. And so what ends up happening is people are trying to maintain things and they take out a little bit of credit card debt.

And, of course, you know, what does the credit card company say to you, Chris? They say, you don't have to pay anything for six months, right? Well, what are they doing? They're accruing interest on you at very large levies, 15, 19 percent. And before you know it, you're in the hole and you're trying to pay them back and you can't catch up. And so we do have a lot of leverage in the system. I think we have to work together to figure out a way to create more. I don't know.

I think we need to create more aspiration. We've got to get people in a place of self-determination. I love what the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation did by sending money to people. I know it sounds like a small amount of money, but they're using that as an anchor. I feel like if each kid gets $1,000, $25 million, $25 billion goes out there. Michael and Susan represent six and a quarter of it. I guess the only way to, not with Dell specifically, but what's the obvious pushback? what are these people getting?

What kind, is he going to manage the money? That's not what Michael Dell does. But the only good, what's the boogeyman? The boogeyman is that they're given this money and that somehow this is going to be good for the givers in a way that we need to keep track of. I don't know if that's true with Michael Dell, but do you have concerns about that,

about how this could be a form of corruption, or is it just an unqualified good? Kind of like what Andrew Yang was talking about during his presidential campaign about giving people a stake to help them get out from under. Yeah, it's such a great, I mean, so I think what Andrew's saying, and I think you, look, you're a great champion of the idea of the common person getting ahead and having some level of class mobility and aspiration. I think people are basically now saying, we are in a rich society.

very, you know, you've got people making hundreds of billions of dollars. And so can we create a society of fairness? And again, I don't think either of us, I mean, I'll speak for myself, but I'm not for equal outcomes. I don't believe in that. That's a socialist idea, even a communist idea. But I am for equal opportunity. And so I would love to see children have a platform of health care, have a platform of base level things covered, maybe some savings. Okay, you get them an installed base. of savings, you know. I'll give you a crazy statistic. I was 13 years old in 1977. If you gave me $250 and you let me invest it in the S&P, I'd have $55,000 to that, right? Now, you know, look, inflation is eating up some of that, Chris. I'm not saying that it hasn't, but it's a, it's a, it's a first year tuition payment for college for one of my kids if I needed it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think we got to, we got to teach people how to save. We got to teach people, but we also think if people hope, you know, you start a kid off with something like that and you say, look, you're going to get a good education, you're going to get access to some

decent health care, the financial stress, something cataclysmic happening to you or your family is now off the table, you got people rowing the boat in the same direction. They're going to think that their dreams are going to come true. And it's going to calm down some of the anger and some of the tribalism in the society. I honestly believe that. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Select Quote. I got to tell you, if you have responsibilities in life, you've got to think about insurance, okay?

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Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindest community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. I think that we are in the weak people make hard times part of the struggle cycle. You guys have heard me talk about this before. Weak people make hard times. Hard times make strong people. Strong people make good times. Good times make weak people.

But I see the tribalism as being on the increase. The left has figured out fuck Michelle Obama's. When they go low, we go high. forget that shit you got to beat them at their own game and politics is increasingly designed for social media not for retail politicking there is an inherent flaw with that design a disconnect from the majority which is why we keep getting surprised by polling uh because polling seems suggestive of social media realities and then it doesn't play out that way look at the tennessee special election it's not it up it's head to head she's the aOC of the south

and the populism outrage is now on the left, and he beats her by nine points. Why? Because there is still a disconnect, but I think that that's what's accelerating, Anthony, and I think Trump is one of the early adapters. People will blame him for it, but I don't think that's fair.

I think you hate the game, not just the player, but we're seeing the left now. Look, Chuck Schumer put out a video today. The fucking hypocrisy of Trump, he says. What is that about fucking hypocrisy? What is that? That's him trying to appeal to rage bait. And I think we're accelerating in that direction.

Well, they, I think they're making a mistake. Trump, they're trying to fight fire with fire, right? And so that's the do-some argument. That's now going to be the Chuck Schumer argument. I think there's a better argument out there. And that is here are definitive policies that are going to help you. I think they should get in a boardroom somewhere and say, how did we lose these people?

These people voted for Mario Cuomo. These people voted for Lyndon Johnson. Maybe they voted for Jack Kennedy. Maybe their great grandparents voted for FDR. How did we lose these people? They voted for Bill Clinton. Yeah, they voted for Bill Clinton. When did the baton drop from Bill Clinton to Kamala Harris?

By the way, by the way, they did vote for Joe Biden. Let's not forget that. That's right. In the first election, they voted for Joe Biden. So you have to say to yourself, where are these people now? How did we lose these people? You know, when we go woke, we're going broke politically. And so people get very mad at me for saying that.

I'm just telling you, I'm all for inclusion. I'm all for social liberality. I want people to live the lifestyles and be the people that they actually are in life. I'm not for the righteous declarations from the right, but I'm also not for the righteous declarations from the left where they want to cancel everybody if they don't agree with them. You know, I mean, I've been in meetings where I've said to people, I've been at events with some of your former peers where I've said, well, you know, 80 million people voted for Trump.

Do you want to cancel every one of those people? And they go crazy. Yes, we do. We want to cancel every one of them and they should fall off the cliff. Okay, well, that's not a country. You see that as wokeism and canceling. I see it as the left coming to the realization

that the reason Trump beat them is tapping into populist outrage. Like I said about Michelle Obama, no disrespect to her. she happens to be right in terms of the virtue signal, but this is not a classicist argument. This is a pragmatist, pragmatic argument, which is we have the outrage now. Affordability is our issue. Trump owns the status quo, and we're going to keep bashing them.

That's why they went through the Epstein files. That's why they're all about Venezuela, not about the real issue, which is a president's use of military force without Congress. they're going about war crimes. Why? Because that's the social media level of rage bait that you use. And that's where the left is now. And that is who is resounding on the left. Remember, again, if you accept the assumption that politics has been turned from the retail of what's happening in the community and connecting to the majority to connecting on social media and depending on a lazy media that will use social media as a proxy, for Vox Populi, which happens all the time. Now you see why Medi Hassan, Jank Weiger, are trying to match these Joker pod bros on the right with straight outrage. And you look at the fastest growing podcasts.

You look at the fastest growing influencers. They're all fire breathers. So you see right and left is starting to equalize. Megan Kelly is going to have a formidable foe in these two lefty women in the I've had it podcast. where they'll probably wind up calling her a C-word soon. And they'll get into a nice shouting match and Megan Kelly will take the bait.

And the left wants that outrage. I don't know what it means about who wins the midterms because I still think the issue is affordability because that'll be what blows up, what blows up this canard that social media is reality is affordability and whoever does anything about it. But I do see that the left, my argument was after the show,

shut down. All they should do is talk affordability all the time. But they seem to be more attracted. They'll say we got to do two things at once, but that's a bullshit. That's an excuse more than an explanation. They like the distraction game now. They think they can beat Trump at it. So Trump today, we're going to make ourselves drug free. All right, a laughable that would be great, but it's a laughable promise, especially when you're standing outside Venezuela that has nothing to do with the crux of our drug problem, especially when you just pardoned a major Coke dealer. But he's putting it out there.

Why? Because it distracts from affordability and what's going on with health care. And that has worked very well for him. The question is, can the left capitalize that on that as well in a way that doesn't just make a few of them rich and powerful, but makes them win the midterms? I don't know the answer to that.

So I think your assessment, and you and I have talked about this privately, is spot on. I think no one knows the answer to that. But I will say this to you, and I've shared this with you privately, you need a galvanizing leader. So I'll give you the good news for the Democrats and the bad news. So the good news for the Democrats is the galvanization is over. You can see that in the Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro argument. like or dislike Trump, he was able to galvanize them and form a coalition of people that don't necessarily get along with each other

even though they're right-leaning. And so that's over. Okay, and so J.D. Vance doesn't represent that, in my opinion, or the other potential frontrunners. But the bad news for the Democrats, guess what? I don't see the galvanizer on their side. If you do speak up, I want to learn from you. I don't see the person that can get AOC in the same pew as,

Chuck Schumer in the same pew as the old clitonites and the moderate Democrats or even the newsombs and say, okay, we're in it together. Let's focus on broad policy as opposed to picking on each other and declaring each other less woke than each other, et cetera. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Roe Nutrition. Now, you've been hearing a lot about NAD, right? NAD Plus, NAD straight, NAD supplement. Why? Because it is one of the most important molecules in your body. All right. Every cell's got a little engine. The mitochondria, remember that? NAD plus is the fuel that engine, that mitochondria runs on. That's going to affect metabolism, recovery, focus, cellular repair, all of it. The problem is your levels are going to

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And there's like Reese's. The answer to the who's the galvanizer, you get through the assuming the Democrats allow us to go through at this time, which was their cardinal sin with the Biden presidency. But I think that they don't believe in getting them all in the same

pew. They believe in getting back the angry, working man and woman that Trump took from them, the old Mario Cuomo vote, and they'll win on that the same way he did. We used to say, can you get someone who gets Democrats and reaches across enough? They don't want to reach across to shit. They want to punch across, and they want to splinter the right because they see, look, this is just human nature, let alone politics or anything approaching political science. Maga is waning. Why?

Because they're in power. You can't be a disruptive outrage force about taking down the system and blowing it up when you control the system. And so MAGA is giving way to what I call mega, which is a bigger, more expansive reaction formation to MAGA. I don't think it's the same as MAGA, but it's people who were pissed off by the effectiveness of MAGA. Look at the no-kings rally. And it was the biggest single day of protest in American history. Why? Because public citizen knows how to do what it does. I don't know if it can keep control of the movement, but kill the rich, destroy the system. That is the coin of the realm right now. And the left believes we don't need a galvanizer. We need a balkanizer. And we got to get our people back, take them back from Trump and ride the pain train of outrage and being pissed off. And I got to tell you, it works. It's very frustrating to watch, Anthony, to see how my reach, you know, and you got to care about it a little bit, it is a business, is limited by my

lack of participation in that dynamic. I know exactly how to double all of my followings in about three months. I know how to do it. And this, I'd have the conversation with you of Anthony, can you ever forgive yourself for working for a Nazi? You say you're fall from grace. You didn't fall from grace. You got graced with an exit from the most evil guy in history who's killing the poor, who hates anyone that has a sun tan that is an orange. And the people with him are a bunch of stupid faux-Christian crackers who have completely destroyed the American democracy.

And too bad the bullet missed. And too bad couldn't swap him with Charles. I'm going to say that a little bit more quietly, but I'm going to say it real loud when I'm with my own, and I'm fucking angry, and I'm ready to knuckle up. And if you hit me, I'm going to sue you because I'm actually a pussy, but I'm going to talk really tough, and I'm going to come after you,

and I'm going to pray on your downfall, and I'm going to attack you on social media every fucking day. And everyone who's a righty, I'm coming to J.D. Vance with his weird wife. Those are the kinds of things that work to get traction on the left. That's what you were part of with that event that you were at with the lefties the other day. That's what they're about. That's why they're all cheering. Oh, finally, they're fighting back.

They're fighting back. I didn't like that part of it at all. I was shocked by it. I'll make you laugh because my driver is a huge fan of yours. He watches you on Patrick Ben David. He's going to be listening to this podcast. He watches News Nation. and he's an up-the-middle guy, you know, so when I talk to him and I walk...

Like most Americans. I walk in to see you, I'm like, you know, he's, oh, you got to tell Chris, I love the objectivity, and I love the bandwidth of the ideology as he's searching for some level of objective fairness. Okay, so you're right, for some reason those people are not dialed in with the fervor as the people that you're describing, but I took him to that event, and I was like, what the hell is going on, okay? And I was asked a question about the tariffs.

And so I was trying to explain the economics beyond the tariffs, what the president's position is, what the economists say about them. And there was a woman in the back, she was going crazy on me. Because it was full jihad.

She was saying, I'm normalizing Donald Trump and who the hell do I think I am to normalize Donald Trump? I'm like, well, first of all, I'm not normalizing him, but let me tell you, who did normalize him,

that would be 80 million of your fellow Americans because he, is the normalized president of the United States. Whether you like it or you don't like it, there are two parties, two traditional parties. He was named the nominee of one of the two traditional parties. He was a prior president and he's like Grover Cleveland. He's reassended to the presidency. Well, they didn't like that. Didn't go over well. And I'm like, I got to get the hell out of here out of a back door so I don't get an ice pick in my eye. This is Hitler part two.

Yeah, exactly. He lost early on. when the Germans were too smart for him, but eventually the nationalism, the pain, this is how it happens, and this is how he got back in. And this is anti-constitutional. It's all illegal. I'll give you the take on the tariffs. This is what gets Cuomo applause, even in that fucking crazy factory, is this. These tariffs are illegal, and they have been destructive to the cause of every American family

except the oligarchs at the top. And that's exactly what Trump wanted. He wanted to submarine the economy, crush the consumer to pay for tax cuts for the top. That was always his plan. That is only his plan. He doesn't give a shit about gas and groceries and he will distract you from it and make us hate one another. And we have to hate him even more and get his people out and hopefully some of them get killed or we can prosecute the rest. That's what they want to hear.

Now, here's what sucks for me. I am like the opposite of the tough that I thought mattered. So the tough that matters to me is, yeah, you can talk all you want, Anthony. You say whatever you want. When I see you, we'll see what happens. That is not a model anymore. Certainly not on the left. It's, what do you mean to see what happens?

You're going to hit me? I'll cancel you. I'll sue you. I just want to yell angry shit in your face. I want to take you down on social media. I want to call you names and debase you and win that way. I'm not talking about real violence. I don't want to really fight.

That's the right that says that. Now, the irony is what? There's been a swing in political violence to the left. Why? Because they are the angriest right now. And that's why what pisses me off is you want to talk about Venezuela and whether or not it's a war crime. And Hegseth is obviously bullshit about what happened. And you want his scalp.

I get it. I get it. it that seems like a win for you, but you don't care about the guy who killed the National Guard member and has another one in critical condition. Why? I believe the only good answer for that is one, you don't get a Trump scout that way, and two, you're afraid of pissing off the far-left apologists for Islamists, and those are on the left. So you don't want to fuck with this guy being a Muslim extremist because those are your people. And that's where we are. So I have the wrong kind of tough. I used to be the don't talk tough, act tough. That doesn't work

anymore. There's no act. You don't fight. This isn't a real thing. I'm just going to call you stupid fucking names and I'm going to win that way. And I'm going to get the clicks that prove the win. Well, yes. Yes. Okay. So the answer to the question is yes. You know, that's been an approach. Fox News took that approach on the right. MSNBC now MS now took it on the left. podcasters are doing that. I mean, I don't know your thoughts on Megan Kelly, but I used to go on her show.

I liked Megan. I had a good relationship with her. But Megan is equivocating now in a way that doesn't even make any sense to me. I don't even understand. She's got to stick with rage bait. So you'll see the through thread

is rage bait. Why don't you go after Candace Owens? But it's really bad now. So you... But that's the coin of the realm, Anthony. You want the viewers. So Megan is saying, well, you know, I really do kind of only want to see them killed in the water. Right.

Whether they're on the boat or in the water. But I really just would like to see them suffer. That's what you want? Yeah, they're drug dealers. So, okay, but you have to understand that. They haven't gone through any due process. Nah, fuck due process. Yeah, okay.

And I understand. They're in a boat. It's full of drugs. This is the mistake that the left makes. You went to law school. I went to law school. the whole cornerstone, the whole foundational stone of the temple of individual liberty or the church of individual freedom is based on due process and the presumption of innocence

because the presumption of innocence will allow for some guilty people to pass through that screen, but it's very protective. Yon, yawn, yawn. Here's the truth, Anthony. There is no due process. It's a two-tiered system. and you prosecute who you want, and the system is used by the rich and the influential to bend it towards their will.

These are drug dealers, you fucking kill them. Just like the guy that they sent down to El Salvador, and the Democratic senator went down there and got killed for it. Were they right? He was absolutely right, not to go to El Salvador, but he was right, why? No due process. You don't have due process, you'll never have justice. But that is so emotionally unsatisfying.

unsatisfying. I want the guy to get a bullet in the head. I want to say it. Why? It sounds muscular. It sounds definitive. It sounds like a doer. And that's Megan Kelly. But you see something else in her. She's got to be careful in selling her rage bait to not have it splash back on her with a more rageful person. Hence, deference to Candace Owens. Why? Because she needs Candice. Candice's audience. See, those are her people, so she can't go against one of her own because then she's eating into her own base. She's got to stick to the other side.

These people want to defend drug dealers on the left by calling this a war crime. I want them to bleed out in real time. Yeah. That's what it is. And you see the same on the left. And because that's the coin of the realm. And that's what moves the needle. Trump sucks.

Fuck him. Fuck that. That's the way they talk. And it works, Chris, it's terrible because, you know, listen, I'm, okay, so be a campaign strategist for a moment, be a political theorist for a moment, most people, and there's a lot of people that don't vote, they're not even in the system, but they feel somewhere in the middle. That's what you said earlier. Most Americans are in the middle. So how do you reach those people? how do you form that coalition to see if you can at least shift the culture back to something

that's semi-normal? Or is the culture too far gone, Chris? And this is the new normal, and it's going to continue to get worse. I think that it continues to get worse, in my opinion. Let's just say more, because objectively more. Why? Because as the campaign manager, I say this, Anthony. We're going to do it this way right now, okay?

Once you get your way through the field, then we'll start balancing it out with, here's what I'm for, here's what I'm for, here's what I'm for. But right now, you want to distinguish yourself from the field, you pull a Newsom, which is no more I'm better than this guy, no more you go low, I go high, to show that I'm the sophisticated one. I'm the leader. I'm the biggest man in the room. The biggest man in the room right now is the loudest man in the room.

the biggest man in the room right now on social media plays gotcha uh you play small points you you know you try to own and destroy that's why you have bad comedians playing as middle east experts on the right why because it's all rage bait and little gotchas you know it's a genocide every exaggerated argument is to what it's to play to effect nobody makes huge sweeping arguments in real debate. No, no, no, you've got to be incremental. You've got to be reasonable because otherwise you get exposed as being irrational, as being impractical. That's not what social media is. Social media is memes and one-liners. So right now, Anthony, we're going to be a one-liner machine. We're going to hire these three young jackasses who are going to just own people on social media every day as our

rapid response. And then once we get through the field and we've made everybody else look weak, Now we'll start appealing to the rational and not just the rage baiters, but the Oxford English Dictionary picked rage bait as their word of the year for one reason, even though it's two words. It's a compound noun. They picked as the word of the year. Why? It's use tripled in the last year.

That's where we are. Well, okay. So I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this. Then maybe I don't say, you know, I can't accept. it for some reason. And maybe it's the entrepreneur in me. I look at things as an entrepreneur that's zero to one,

meaning we're starting with nothing. How do we create one out of nothing? And I'm just wondering if there's a, you know, if you go to chat, GBT, Chris, there's a hundred million people that make up a very powerful voting block. Those are the non-voters. They don't vote.

Okay. And so if you could figure out from an entrepreneurial perspective and from a marketing perspective, of how to bring those voters into the pool, into the swimming pool with us, that could be the game change. You know, Elon Musk was talking about America's Party. And I know you know this.

I actually think you reported, I think I learned it from you, that J.D. Vance went to see Elon Musk a few months back and said, hey, cool out on America's party. You put me in this spot. You and Teal, I'm your guy. Can you cool out? And he dropped America's Party.

And then they brought him back into the White House. Okay. so you don't hear the America's Party thing, but if you really listen to what he was saying, whoa, there's a hundred million people that are very dissatisfied, so much so, Chris, that they don't vote. They don't vote.

What if you could get 15 or 20 million of them into the swimming pool, how transformative that would be? Do you buy that argument at all, or you think that those people are gone forever? I buy it as an extension of two good data points, okay? Best door data point that I heard you mentioned the other day. Fastest growing part of the electorate is nonpartisan. We'll call it

independent, but it's just I hate both of these guys. 40 plus percent. Yep. So the plurality is now, fuck these guys. That's a good data point. The second data point, which is not as determinative and not as strong, is there is a turning away from social media. It is slow, but increasing I hear people, especially in the wellness space, Andrew Yang is often an early adapter. He's starting a sell company that lowers your rate if you use less social media. It's funny.

My son said to me, who's 19 studying finance over in Scotland, he says, well, if you use less, of course your rate's going to go down. I said, well, it's true, but it's not that he's charging you less because you're using less data. It's that he's incentivizing you to not be on social media. Now, to him, that's laughable because social media is like an organ in his body.

His phone is in his hand. That generation is fucking lost. They're going to have to figure it out for themselves. But for us, Gen X, for Gen X slash baby boom early side, 45 to 65, let's say, those are the main earners in the American economy. Those are the biggest group of voters in the American economy and the political economy. That group is getting tired of the exhaustive nature of social media, increasingly independent and nonpartisan. That's where the hope is. But we are accelerating away from them right now.

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is by becoming part of what divides. I want them to succeed. I'm not angry at these guys. I'm not angry at Don. Whatever happened in the past happened. Our relationships are different now, but I don't have any animus. But what they're doing is playing the game of division. And, you know, every time I see a video from any of these guys doing this,

and they're doing this with their fingers, and now that I told you this, you'll see this all over the place. And they're playing a clip of someone saying something that they want to mock, and that's all they're doing. And it'll get more clips. than you or I putting out the cure to AIDS. It's, it's, that's what works on social media. That's how you get paid.

That's how you get a million subscribers on YouTube. And you make, you know, a million bucks, two million bucks a year all in. And that's what they want. Listen, I mean, look, we have a mutual friend. He's on your show a lot. He's one of my neighbors. And Bill O'Reilly and I don't agree on everything. But we agree to disagree, agreeably.

And what I would say about him, he understood this earlier than most. he got in this lane. Sean Hannity got in this lane. They don't deviate from their positions because it's good for their brand and it's good for the adhesion Chris to their brand. The problem with what you're saying, you know, they have a Velcrope brand. People stick to them. You and I have a sticky post-it brand where they come off us quickly because you're saying things that are too reasonable and it's not igniting that primordial fire inside the brain. Because it's good and evil for them. And that makes politics really simple. And look, what's the problem with that? Well, okay, you're about good and evil. Yeah, yeah. You're about morality.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. But only on their side. On your side, you're okay with anything. And this is more true about MAGA than it is about mega. This is more true on the right than it is on the left. And I know People would disagree with that, but hear me out. Yes, I agree. Donald Trump is Exhibit A, and it's the end of my evidence list. Why? Because you don't give a fuck what he says or does. And if someone with a D after their name said and did what he does and says, you would go bat shit crazy.

And while that worked for you for a while, you also created your enemy. And now the left has seized on that. And they are increasingly that. way. As long as you're fighting against MAGA, they'll probably still cancel you if you get an allegation against you or something like that because they're still woke, but they're moving in the direction of absolutist. And as long as you're against them, we're okay. Like Jenk Weeger, the left hated him. They canceled them. They wanted him out of the election. He's bad. He's got women allegations or whatever bullshit it was. He's gruff. He's misogynistic. These were the

allegations. I'm not opining. Now he's back. Why? Israel's bad. Trump is bad. Fuck Maga. Fuck the Democrats. Right. Let's take over this fucking thing. Yeah, yeah. Again, he's, you know, look, he's somebody I've been on the air with. I've been on your show with. I disagree with the sum of his points, but I don't think he should be canceled any more than some of these people on the right should be canceled. I think that sort of screed that we're doing is terrible. You know, you mentioned Charlie Kirk earlier. I just want to get to that. I think that that's an unspeakable track. tragedy. We've had political assassinations, but you're now telling me we're moving into the realm of pundant assassinations. Is that what we're going to do to each other now? There'll be more of that, too, by the way. There's going to be more violence. I agree with that. There's going to be more violence. It's very unsettling, and it's very, it's very unfair. We don't reject it. What happens? If a lefty does something to a righty, you'll hear the left say, this is unacceptable.

I reject this. That's the word, though. Unacceptable, heartbreaking. If a righty does something to a lefty, evil, murderers, butchers, Nazis. So why the minimum, when it's someone who seems to be from the left and the maximum when someone seems from the right? I thought you were moral. I thought you were a pure agent. They're not free agents.

They're not free agents. They're about fealty to one side. And I get it. I just reject it. because, you know, I'm not as big a fan of the founding fathers as a lot of people in our political punditry pretend to be. Why? Because I think they were men of their time. And it's amazing what they did and how they did it. But they were men of their time. And then if you want to pick at them, you're going to find real flaws by today's standards with all of them, including

Lincoln, who I understand better than most, because my father was a Lincoln scholar and talked to me about nothing but him for about 18 years. But, so I'm not as big a buyer of them as some people are. But George Washington had two of the greatest minds in our political history. Madison and Hamilton write his farewell address. It was written in two parts because he was going to give it once, and then he stayed for another term, and then he gave it. One third of that message is avoid parties and every sectarian value,

that they will dominate, you just have to be a country, stay away from the sectarian. He was right. we are killing ourselves with exactly what he warned against. So how would, you know, it's such a good point, and you mentioned this to me over coffee this week, and I was dying to ask you this question. I'm going to do it here on the podcast. How would that work? Getting rid of the parties?

Yeah, how could you get rid of the parties? Well, it would be impractical. People always find a way to coalesce with. Yeah, but I'm fine with that. I'm fine with, look, in a parliamentary structure, what you see is there are coalitions. coalitions are built by cycle, right? And then you go in and the coalition falls apart and you call for elections and you do it again. I think that that is a better way than our way and it is not a mistake that the older democracies are all that way.

And we are one of the only binary ones, even if you have primarily two factions, because look, that zero sum is the most natural kind of competition. Every fight is two people. But it's who's on their side. talking about armies. Now you're talking about warfare. Now you're talking about allies. And that's where we have to get. I would make the two-party system illegal. And I would move not formatively because you'll never get it done. But you have to find ways and the money is the key. And the state control of districting is the key. If you can get districts designed by commission, not by state. And if you can get money out of it, now you'll have coalition structure.

And you'll get out of the situation where you have 20% approval of Congress and 95% seat retention. That's only because of control of money in districts. It's really incredible, Chris, when you put it that way, right? Well, I appreciate being on. I want to come back and I want to get you on my podcast, brother. And thank you for having me today. I'm happy to do it. And I'm really happy.

I do not believe you had to fall from great. You were a scapegoat, which is very common in Trump world, and you are the only person in the political landscape that took a setback and turned it into an amazing advance in reach and resonance. You are one of the only recognized fair brokers in the game. Everybody knows you're a conservative, right? You're a Wall Street, Richie Rich, you know, with you aging backwards. You know, you're one of those guys. But you are reasonable. Yeah.

I know. I've been a lifetime Republican. I mean, it doesn't mean I haven't supported Democrats. It doesn't mean I haven't supported Democrats like your brother. You know, I have a, Chris, I've got something. Before we go, I got to show this to you. Okay. This is your brother. I don't if you can see this from the thing. Yeah. This is your brother from his first time that he ran for governor. Yeah. Okay. And he ran against the city controller or the state controller, I should say. And I was one of his early donors. You know what I mean? So I'm, I want to. I want to. to go with good people. It's not just ideology, but I appreciate you having me on, and I'll see you soon, man. You will, and I appreciate the time and to remind people, one of the reasons that Anthony does that is he's something that is a dying breed in our society, which is he's a white guy, but he's also an ethnic. He's an Italian, and the identity matters. And that's something that in whiteness now, we're all just white. We're not allowed to be anything else, but some of us still are. Anthony, all the best. Thank you for making time for me today. Amen. Love you, men.

Smart guy. I'm not objective because I love him and he's a great friend. And let me tell you something. When do you know if somebody's a great friend? When times are bad, when times are tough. Who takes your call? Who comes and finds you? Who does for you? Anthony Scaramucci checks all of those boxes for me, for my brother, and for anything I've ever asked him. And do I still chase after him and question what he believes in? Of course, that's what friendship's about. If you're not testing each other, you're not really passing the test of being good friends. But what an interesting perspective.

And if you read the book, Solana, as I did, not about the town in California, but about the blockchain base and what it can mean, the platform of how we do business is going to change. What you invest in in terms of crypto and taking over the dollar, that's a different proposition. And you have to learn to distinguish between the two opportunities. and you have to learn to figure out what's working in the moment in politics versus where are we really headed. These are big questions, and that's why they take time. If you are a critical thinker, that's what we're about here, okay? And when I say here, I mean in America, okay?

We are not lemmings. We are not sheeple, not naturally. We are individualists. We don't want people telling us what to do, okay? And you may not want to tell other people what to do either. I mean, that's the position I find myself in. I'm not a leader. I don't want to lead.

And I'm not a follower. But I love being on a team. I love a joint effort. Why? I'm a critical thinker. I am different, okay? And different is a good thing these days because the sameness is killing us. I am a free agent.

In terms of my practitioner status as a philosopher and trying to learn the different rules and how to apply them to my life to get my life to be or even resemble what I think it should, you got to be into philosophy. You got to be a free agent, meaning you understand your choices and that you live and die by your choices and how you adjust those choices. You got to be a critical thinker. You've got to be different than what you reject and oppose in your life. That's why I'm selling this gear so that we can crowdsource some money and give it away to funds that we can all contributions and efforts that we can all feel good about. We gave away 30 grand this year through the money that I made from you. Huge tax problem for me, by the way, but I'll figure

that out. Thank you for checking me out here at the Chris Cuomo Project, spread the word, get more subscribers on YouTube so that I can have more money to use to do what we want to do. Remember, this isn't how I pay my bills. It's how I pay people back for what they're doing in society. So I'll see you here. I'll see you on the substack where we're giving a lot of special offerings of access to me with your questions, with your concerns, but also wellness stuff, 50 plus fitness. I wear two hats, okay? Both of them are fundamental to me. What I work on with my mind and my intellectual construct is every bit in equal fervor, if not really greater, in my passion for wellness. I'm not necessarily because I'm a longevity guy and want to live to be 110. I don't

think I do. But I want to keep performing the way I, minimum standard of what I need to, to still be me as long as I can. To me, that's different than longevity. So if you're into that, check me out on Substack, okay? Everything's very affordable. I'll see you here. I'll see you on News Nation, 8p and 11P every weekday night. And I'll see you on Substack, Instagram, and TikTok, Facebook. I'm everywhere. Come and play. Let's get after. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.