The Daily Beast Podcast - I Know Why Trump Isn't The Man I Knew: Scaramucci

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Anthony Scaramucci joins the Beast’s Joanna Coles for a no-holds-barred look inside Trump’s turbulent second term. Trump's former first-term Communications Director and longtime Trump confidant-turned-critic calls Trump “the wicked witch of the West Wing” and predicts the moment he finally melts. Scaramucci revisits his infamous 11 days in the White House, missing his son’s birth, and the cost of blind loyalty. He tears into the GOP’s pretenders to Trump’s throne from J.D. Vance’s obsequiousness to Marco Rubio’s shape-shifting. Coles keeps the chaos sharp, pulling out Scaramucci’s rawest insights on power, ego, and redemption. And it all builds to one cutting question: if Trump’s the wicked witch of the West Wing, who’s bold enough to throw the water? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He's the wicked witch of the West Wing when he eventually gets hit with the water, which will happen, because it's still in a pretty amazing country. And when he goes down, then the question is going to be okay, who's going to replace him? And I predict that there will be a fight. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And back by popular demand, a man who has opinions on everything, which is great because everything is going on right now. We have troops in the cities. we have is Jimmy Kimmel. On the air, is Jimmy Kimmel. Off the air, no, he's back. There's so much going on right now. It's a very strange and alarming time to be in America. But someone who

always makes me feel that there is an answer and things will get better is none other than the former White House Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci. He is, of course, the founder of Skybridge Capical, but he also worked for Donald Trump during his campaign and then during Trump 1 as a very important person in the transition, bringing in all sorts of people. Of course, now he says that that was a terrible mistake. But he has a brilliant point of view on how Trump operates. And he's full of thoughts about who is going to succeed Trump. We ended up having a wild ride of a conversation, which went in all sorts of directions.

I wasn't particularly expecting. But I found it stimulating and very optimistic, actually. So if you're feeling bleak about the state of the world, which I do understand, I hope you will feel more optimistic at the end of our conversation. Let's get into it. Anthony Scaramucci, so good to have you back. I want you just to tell our audience why you couldn't do the podcast last week because you were in Italy with your daughter. And what was your daughter doing? Yes.

So my daughter is an opera singer. And she's actually here in New York right now preparing. for tonight, but she was on tour with Andrea Bichelli in Italy. And so my wife and I went over there to see her and to obviously support her. I thought as excuses go, when I called you to say, Anthony, we have to have a conversation. The world is on fire. You were like, darling, I'm in Italy.

My daughter is performing with Andrea Puchelli. And I just thought, you know, well, okay, let him up. I wasn't really trying to brag about her as much as I'm marveling at it. You know, I think it's a wonderful thing for her. and it's well-deserved. But, you know, the goal is to get her into a voice situation and a Disney animation. So let's see if that ever happens in her life. But that's one of our life streams.

The goal of every parent is to get their child into a paying job, Anthony, as long as they're financially independent and hopefully the bigger, the better. The artists have a little bit harder time than that. You and I both know, Joanna. But let's... We both know. We both know, although your hedge fund is... doing just fine. But listen, I wanted to talk to you because there's been so much going on since

we last talked, which was about a month ago. And I think a lot of people think that you only worked for Donald Trump for those famous 11 days when you were White House communications director. But in fact, you were on his campaign for nine months. You were part of his transition team. So this is a man you know well. You've seen him up close. And I want to get into what it's like working with him. But what I wanted to ask you first, because there's been so much discussion about his health and his state of mind, is, is this the Donald Trump that you knew? Well, I mean, it is in some ways, and it isn't. I think it's funny that people would say that, by the way, because so Trump just plucked me out of the public and said, come be my communicator. Of course, I worked for him.

Otherwise, how would I have gotten the job? But because the mooch itself was scaramooch. It's also on the transition team. I know. I know. They helped Mnuchin and those guys build a cabinet. You know, I was on that team with Bannon and Prebus. That's how we got to know and dislike each other, right?

Because those were the worst people I ever met. Mnuchin was great, but Prebis and Bannon were like two disasters. But the truth be told, it is because this is Trump's way. You can watch interviews of him from the 1980s talking about tariffs or trade or things like that. But there is something different because he, has gotten the power drug. You know, he's got, he smoked the, the guanjai, the crack crystal of power. And he's marveling at the fact that he can bully people that are powerful and they

count out to him. Now, you know, Putin's not going to do that. She's not going to do that. A guy like Mark Carney, who's intellectually secure. The prime minister of count it. He's not going to do that. But a lot of these guys are doing that. And they're caving.

And it's just a reminder to people that the, the prime minister. bullies usually don't win because the rest of the people team up and they go away after the bully. You know, but in Donald Trump's case, though, he's flexing on everybody successfully. And I know enough about his personality. No, he's marveling at that. He's laughing. He's laughing at it, you know. But remember, when the witch got hit with the water in the Wizard of Oz, what happened?

The witch shrunk down. You were left with the witch's hat. That'll be the MAGA hat, the red hat. And then the guards around the witch said, oh, geez, I'm sorry, Dorothy. So this is a full-on personality coat. He's the wicked witch of the West Wing when he eventually gets hit with the water, which will happen because it's still in a pretty amazing country. And there's a lot of people in the country and a lot of people in government that know how bad he is and know what he's doing.

He's very disruptive to the Constitution and very disruptive to the checks and balances of the country. He's going to get hit with the water. and when he goes down, then the question is going to be okay, who's going to replace him? And I predict that there will be a fight. There will be a leadership vacuum in the Republican Party. And there'll be a fight. And we'll see what happens, you know. And I want to be part of that fight.

I want to be in the fight seeing if we can break the populace hold on this party and see if we can return to something more germane and something more relevant that actually helps people. Because right now, everybody that voted for, he is hurt. He's hurting people through the tariffs. He's hurting people with the price increases. He's hurting people with the slow down in the economy. There's a tremendous amount of uncertainty about his economic policy. So the people that voted for him, I mean, I'm blown away. I go to these parties and they're like, yeah, you know, lumber prices are tripled. And so the housing starts are slowed down. But he's our guy. And five years from now, the lumber in the U.S. is going to replace the lumber from Canada. Hey, hey, buddy, it's not how it works. You're in a fully integrated global economy, and the nonsense that Trump is spewing and the bullshit that you're listening to on Fox News aren't the facts on the ground. Okay, so hold on one of the... There you go. Did I just hear you say that you were thinking of running for president?

No, I didn't hear that. I do. I mean, you said you wanted to be part of it, but Anthony. Joanna, I'm trying to... Joanna, I'm running for reelection of my marriage, Joanna. Okay. I'm just trying to stay married. Okay. Remember, I almost got divorced when I was working for Trump. And I missed the birth of my son. I don't know if you remember that. I didn't know you missed the birth of your son. I did. See, people forget the story, but I was on the 24th of July, 2017. I was in West Virginia with the president at a Boy Scout rally. My wife and I were fighting. She was due in August. She, you know, prematurely delivered him. He's a beautiful kid, thank God. He's eight years old. And I couldn't get back to New York.

Even though we were fighting, you know, I was going to be present for the birth. I couldn't get back to New York. There was a no-fly zone around the president. It was an unmitigated disaster. When I got fired from the White House, my wife had already filed for divorce. I missed the birth of my son. And I got literally burned an effigy in the American and global media. And that's what your political adversaries do to you do.

You know, they create these two-dimensional people. you try to flatten you and turn you into the caricature. And I've successfully blown myself back up with all my warts, all my frailty, but I've blown myself back up intellectually. And, you know, if you go into politics, Joanna, you've got to lie. You're a journalist. What do the journalists want to do? They want to seek the truth, right?

Ultimately, that's what you want to do. I'm a truth teller. I like telling people the truth. But don't you think you learn people are already the first thing you've got to do is lie to everybody. I've got five kids. I don't want my kids to stay. Right now my kids are like my dad is a flawed dude. He's a big risk taker.

Sometimes he's falling on his head. He's a public figure. So when he falls on his head, the press goes crazy and they write really crazy shit about him. He isn't, you know, he keeps going. But I don't, if I go into Pondt, he's a, he's a liar like all these other jerkoffs. But you've got, you've probably been through the worst, haven't you? You've been tested by fire. There's going to be a huge.

new ballroom where your five children can ride their bikes and have fun. Yeah, right. Well, so when you say you want to be part of it, what do you mean then? You know, I want to be part of the debate. I want to be part of the debate. I think our generation, which unfortunately includes you and me, we failed the Western civilization. The political class in Europe that is of my vintage has failed this civilization. Okay, we overpromised. We created massive deficit spending, speaking specifically about the United States. The follies in the Middle East were very costly. Right now, to use an American sports analogy, if you'll forgive me, Osama bin Laden is winning the baseball game. It's 6-0, bottom of the 7th inning. We're the home team, and we're down 6-0. Why do I say that? Well, bin Laden wrote on that park.

I have no idea what that sports analogy means whatsoever, but I don't see how Osama bin Laden actually is winning. Oh, no, he won big time. Let me tell you how he won. He wrote on the dark web that the U.S. would overreact to our terrorist attacks. They would spend their blood and treasure. They would fight over their civil liberties, the Patriot Act. And we blew a hole in our operating budget. We spent $8 trillion in the Middle East, killed millions of people, 10. of thousands of Western soldiers, and we got nowhere, but we've hurt ourselves, and now we're divided, and now we're polarized, and it's led to the rise of populace. Everything that bin Laden predicted that we would do to ourselves to cause a demise of us is happening. He brought down the Soviet Union with our help. He said, now I'm going to turn the gun on you guys,

and you'll fight with yourselves and blow yourselves up. And we don't have any transformational leaders that will sit down and say, dudes, we're playing into the hands of our adversaries. We're letting the social media be manipulated by Russia and China. So, yeah, I think he's, I think he, I think he is winning. Osama bin Laden couldn't have seen the advent of Facebook and TikTok and now the new open AI Sora. That he saw the overreaction of the American government to those acts of terror and which led to, and remember Bush went to war without a tax cut.

But, you know, it was the first time in our history. I mean, we had a small incident in 1965, but it was a much smaller war. We went to war in the Middle East without a tax cut. Moreover, we cut the taxes in March of 2001. And then he didn't restore the taxes. And it was the first time in our history with the war without a tax increase. And he blew a fiscal hole. It led to the global financial crisis.

It led to over borrowing by the Obama administration. Well, it led to the re-it, it led to the Taliban eventually retaking Afghanistan. Our regime change was going from the Taliban to the Taliban in 20 years and blowing seven to eight trillion dollars. But just remember this, okay. George Washington to George W. Bush, $7 trillion. Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, $31 trillion. What the hell are we doing? Okay, what the hell are we actually doing? Okay. And moreover, they got the government shut down now. And so every time they shut down the government and they go to restart it, it's more costly. All right. So if you're going to be involved in thinking about new Republican leadership post Donald Trump, how do you want to counteract the impact of social media, the fact that our adversaries are using it extremely effectively to sow division? And the fact that internally MAGA is also divided?

Well, maybe Macron is right. You know, maybe we gave too much power of the social media companies whose algorithms are set up to make us combative with each other because when we have the heat, you have more listeners and you get more addiction. And maybe, maybe Macron is right that allowing the Russians and the Chinese to influence unduly or the North Koreans, these social media platforms, maybe there needs to be. more regulation of the airwaves like we regulate, you know, television through the FCC. I don't know.

I don't know the answer. I can tell you this, though, there's no short-term answer. I can tell you from my life experience that short-term political situations or short-term political solutions, they don't add up to much. The Chinese, which is still something from their playbook, they think in 10, 20, 30, 50-year units of time. and I don't think there's one problem in the United States that we can't solve with long-term thinking. That includes entitlement spending, the budget, the deficit. It's an unbelievable country.

Okay, I believe in the country's ability to adapt and flex itself again. People always say that about the Chinese, that they plan 100 years. And if you are, you know, I think the last Chinese leader was asked what he thought of the French Revolution. and he said it's too early to tell, right? That's a wonderful kind of example of how they think. But the American political system is not set up like that. The minute a president gets in, he has to start campaigning for his next term. Congress people are there for two years.

So the minute they get there, all they're thinking about is raising money for their next term. We're not set up, actually, to make long-term decisions. So this is where it requires entrepreneurial thinking, right? So that's the zero. And what does an entrepreneur have to do? They have to go from zero to one. Okay. So if you think like an entrepreneur, you've got to get an entrepreneur into the marketplace to bring in the non-voters. As you and I have talked about on your podcast, there's 100 million people. They both the exact same way in every single election, a very powerful voting group.

It's a non-voter. And what you have to do is you have to go into that market because these two cats, the Republicans and the Democrats, they broke the system. They created a very tight duopoly after Ross Perrault scared them in 1992. They made it impossible for third parties to enter the system. They trapped each other in their positions through gerrymandering. They allow each other to gerrymandering. They accuse each other of doing it, but they're both doing it. And it ensures the electability of these incumbents.

So, you know, said differently that Congress has a 14% approval rating. slightly above Kim El-Jung, the North Korean dictator, slightly above it. But yet 95% of the incumbents get reelected. This is because of the way they gerrymander those districts. So there is systemic things that have happened, that have broken the system, that have now led to this widespread cynicism. But you have to get somebody out there. Explain to the American people what happened.

Explain why Chuck Grassley, who's 600 years older than George Washington, and Nancy Pelosi's 500 years older than Martha Washington won't leave the Congress. They won't leave. And we had Diane Feinstein, Mayor Solerrest in the East, they're wheeling her around. We're wheeling her around like she's in an elder care facility because they won't leave because they're addicted to the power, right?

And so what you have to do is you have to break that system. So to me, I actually think younger people in their 40s should be taking on these jobs. I'm in my 60s. I'm happy to help. I'm happy to offer advice. I'm happy to help people think about the long-term plan that we need to fix the government. But let's get some younger people in the mix who understand where they want to take the world.

Okay. And we can fix it. But we're not going to fix it in the current stasis. You're going to need to amend the Constitution and end Citizens United. And for your listeners outside the United States, that's a ridiculous Supreme Court decision rendered in January of 2010 that gives unlimited amounts of money supply into political causes, which has been a disaster for the country because all the legislation has skewed to big business, big pharma, tax cuts for the rich, big wealthy,

and they don't give a shit about the average citizen anymore. The big, beautiful spending bill gave a $7,000 benefit if you were making over a million a year, and a $700 deduction in benefits, if you were making less than $50,000. And by the way, by the way, 30% of the people supported it. They voted on it anyway because look at me. That's an Italian expression. For those of you that are listening at home,

I just flipped Joanna off with my chin. Okay, because that's what the politicians are doing. But, you know, the best thing Donald Trump has going for him, the last decade, Joanna, the Democrats, that's the best thing he's got going for him. They're scolds. They want to cancel everybody. They're righteous.

You know, they didn't want to, they didn't want my help. I once worked for Donald Trump. How about opening the tent and redefining the party as a pro-democracy, pro-constitution party? No, no, we can't do that. We've got to fight with each other and have lip-miss tests inside the party. I mean, and he laughs. My God, is he laugh at them. He thinks it's great.

He's hoping Mondami wins by a landslide here in New York so that they can use Mondani's programs as a punching bag to further consolidate the hard right. All right. So I want to come back to Mam Darnie, but before we do, let's talk about some of the people in his cabinet right now. Because they're clearly going to be circling each other. They're already circling each other to succeed him. Pete Higgsett's speech to the generals last week felt like a platform that he was running on. Yeah. He's too insecure of a guy, though.

I mean, you're a good student of body language, and he's a good looking guy. He's obviously in good physical shape, but he's a mental midget. I mean, he's just too insecure of a guy. He doesn't have the capability, he doesn't have the wealth of knowledge, the understanding of the American population. And he's got this overbite of forceful exaggeration. Or to quote Trump, what the hell is he doing with his hands? Too much hand movement. Too much hand movement.

So, HECSeth is out. Okay, go to the next one. What about Marco Rubio? No shot because Marco Rubio is a weather vein, okay? And Marco Rubio was once standing next to Jeb Bush and George W. Bush, and he was talking from a Republican Reaganess playbook. And now all of a sudden he's MAGA. And people look at him with great levels of disingenuousness. He doesn't have the ability.

Remember, whether you like Trump or you don't like Trump, this is what I stand for. And you create a coalition by standing for something. was Hillary Clinton's problem. You can't be a Cub fan in Chicago and a Met fan or a Yankee fan in New York because people know you're, you're bullshitting them. They don't like it. Okay. And so Ruby, okay, that one's done.

Okay. What about J.D. Vance when 2016 was calling Trump Hitler? So J.D. Vance looks very promising right now because he's in the lane. He just had dinner with Trump at the residence, the Naval Observatory, the vice president's residence. and he looks very promising right now, but he will implode. He will go into the Trump wood chipper.

You ever seen Fargo where to put in the guy to that woodbubber? Yeah. Yeah, so that's what's going to happen to him because like William Shakespeare wrote about, the old guy does not want the new guy

to replace him. Trump is such a nihilist that he'd actually like the Democrats to reprise him. And people say, what are he talking about? No, no. He's right.

Remember, the Republican Party is successful because I, Donald Trump, made it successful. Once he leaves the stage, he wants it to implode. That's what these people are like, you know? I mean, that's their personalities, you know. Remember, I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler, but in April of 1945, when they were sitting with Hitler, said, look, it's over.

Hitler turned to his generals. Okay, Michael Beshlov wrote about this 20 years ago. Hitler turned to his general and said, flood the coal mines and bring down the electrical grid in the urban areas. And they looked at him, said, what the hell are you talking about? Well, if we're not going to have a thousand-year right that I'm running,

I want them having a higher thing to cave. Right. Okay, so people are nuts. You know people are nuts. So he's going to go scorched earth on the Republican Party rather than have anyone. Then the fight's going to start. So anybody that you think, anybody that Trump has read about that is a quote-unquote supposed successor to him, whose last name is not Trump, he will figure out a way to eviscerate over the next 36 months.

Anthony, hold for one second. We're just going to take some messages from our sponsors. And we're back with Anthony Scaramucci talking about who will succeed Donald Trump. What about someone coming in from the outside like Erica Kirk? Well, listen, you know, I have to tell you that she's very impressive to me. Okay. And I knew Charlie and had my differences with Charlie. I surely didn't like some of the things that Charlie said, but I did respect Charlie's right to say.

those things and I don't think anybody should die from political violence or we're now going to shoot in each other because they don't like what each other are saying, you know, and don't don't underestimate the power of Charlie Kirk and don't underestimate the exponential support that Charlie was getting from younger people in the country. So as that power was going exponential, you know, somebody purposefully took him out. I don't think it's just, I think, well, I think there's more to the story than we're hearing. Really? You're part of the Charlie Kirk conspiracy that you don't think it was

just Tyler Robinson. No, I didn't say that because I don't know. I didn't say that. But you said you thought there was more to it than meets the eye. I do. I think it's more to it because he was going exponential. He was going exponential, a result of which when someone becomes that powerful,

they're not controlled anymore. Okay, so again, I'm not, it could be, the guy that killed them and the prima facie facts are what they are. But I'm just saying, let's wait for more information to unfold because there's some inconsistencies in those facts. Also, when you look at those text messages, I have finally found something that I agree with Steve Bannonon. No kid writes like that, Joanna. No kid ever. No stick. And I got a lot of kids. And by the way, in order to impress each other, they butcher the grammar. That are writing clear, complete sentences. So, you know, some of the

stuff I'm not 100% buying, but we'll see. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I don't buy into all that bullshit. I believe in science. I know the earth has been been affected by human consumption of fossil fuels. I'm not an idiot. But let's get the gun back on the bird. Erica Kirk is impressive to me. Could she run for something? Sure. Does she want to be the President of the United States? She's 36 years old. I don't think we're going to be electing somebody president at 36 or 40. But who the hell knows? The country's changing.

And, you know, this is the country where the impossible becomes very possible. But, okay, Erica Trump is, I'm sorry, Erica Kirk, to me. Right. And let's see, let's see how her political career unfolds. Would Trump ever let one of his children become president after? He would want that. Oh, you think he would want that?

Yes, absolutely. No, he would want. one of his children to be successor. I think Eric gave an interview in the FT that he's open-minded to the idea. I think they want to make money, though. I think it's very clear. Well, I think they're making money, aren't they? I mean, by the time Trump would be, Trump senior would be ready to go.

Yeah, they're making money, which keep your eye on the midterms, right? Because if, you know, Trump will go wild. You know, if he loses the House, no problem. But if he loses the House and Senate, big problem. Because then these investigations are going to be wide open. And the Epstein stuff is going to be wide open. And, you know, Trump could be accused of all types of Imelman's clause violations. And it could be quite ugly for all the things that his apparatchiks are willing to overlook, which are rule breaking, probably wouldn't be overlooked by the people if they got control of the House and Senate.

So look for Trump to be more crazy. And by the way, I'll make a prediction on your show. After the midterms, Trump is going to be... However crazy you think he has been in, the first... Could he get any crazy? What could he do in? How do it get crazy here? Anthony, what can he do that?

He's going to... He's going to pay more national guardsmen. He's going to take more money for himself. It's going to be the last two years of him being able to have a money grab in the last two years of him getting the world's attention. and he'll be 81, 82 years old. It'll be lighting firecrackers everywhere and shooting off sky rockets everywhere to set your hair on fire.

You know, Trump sucks for everything, but you know what he's great for, Joanna? The podcast business, girl. It's great for the podcast business. Because you've got people listening to you. They're like, shit, you know, Joanna's cheaper than my therapist. Let me listen to her for 35 minutes, you know.

Well, and they like hearing people come on and paint a post-Trump view, too, because it reminds us that the world will continue. If there were to be, which Trump's son would it be? I'm assuming it's not going to be Ivanka because she said she doesn't like politics. It's too rough of a business, and she sort of exited the stage. The two boys, Eric and Don Jr. are still hanging around and obviously doing a lot of business. I think Don Jr., who is very well loved by the base, you know, you could.

see a situation where Vance recognizes that he's going into the Trump woodchipper, and Vance tries to enlist Jr.'s help and says, hey, man, and he goes to Trump. He says, we're going to get a Trump on the ticket, and it's a Vance Trump ticket with Don Trump Jr. That's not impossible. You know, embarrassing. Vance is going to have to do some things to keep himself out of the woodchipper, and I think, you know, Trump, it's got to be Trump related. And by the way, remember Trump that was a blonde woman? I got to get her name.

First season, Apprentice. She was doing a great job on the show. And she's very well regarded. She's getting a lot of speaking gigs, a lot of speaking gigs. Trump went crazy. Boom, boom, shot her and brought Ivanka in to replace her. Okay? So anybody that thinks Trump doesn't do this, go call Mike Pence.

Ask him how his political career is going, Joanna. I say, hey, Mike. And what was it like to be the VP there? Yeah. I mean, I think we would, we might ask, mother Pence too because mother pence had strong feelings about it but but also isn't that the great skill of the brilliant television producer it's what shonda rhymes always does just as you fall in love with the character she has them moan down by a truck exactly so he's very good at that keeping people

on their toes is unexpected and also it keeps your attention conflict conflict conflict we got to have a conflict with the south african president got to have a conflict with Voldem or Zelensky, got to have caught it. But then if you're going to be in his presence, you've got to manage it. It's like Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. They walk in. He's throwing Trump, 2008 hats around. They've got to stand up and leave.

They say, okay, Mr. President, you're not being serious. Call me back when you're being serious. Call me back. But you're not being serious right now. Okay. So you've worked with him. How should his cabinet be handling him? because all you see is them fawning over him.

And as you say, he's laughing at their heads of industry, you say, who are doing this too. So the tech leaders who sit for the tech dinner that he had at the White House or that was summoned in to Windsor Castle, how should people exude enough independence working with him and not have to fawn all over him to keep his respect? Those days are long over. Are you texting? Are you texting and podding at the same time? I tell my 1 o'clock that I'm running late. You're texting and podding at the same time.

I have to tell my 1 o'clock that I'm running late because I want to finish this conversation with you. I apologize. And the conversation's going in wild places I wasn't expecting, not least that you're going to be involved in selecting the new candidate, which I'm excited about. I'm going to definitely put some money where my mouth is and I'm going to definitely work with some people to see if we can. can rest control of this populist party and turn it back into something that's actually effective for the people that voted for it. Okay, that's all I'm saying. I know the people that voted for it because I grew up with them.

I would like the party to be affected for them, and I wouldn't like them to be conned by the party. Hey, you come vote for us and we're going to give tax cuts to the rich and fat cats and corporate welfare breaks and give you nothing. Okay. So I have a serious question. Back to the question that you were asking. I apologize for texting, but I had to let the guy know I was running late. It's fine. Don't worry. I'm teasing you.

I'm teasing you. But it's always that thing when you're on Zoom and you see someone's eye line go down. I'd rather do that because I got to let the people, I got to let people know them late. But here's what I would say to you, Joanna, you were asking a question about his success source. And unless the person's name is Trump, he doesn't give two sense about it. That's my point. Okay, and that's been his operating system forever. It is about me. Enough of me talking about me.

What do you think of me? That is Donald Trump. Okay. And so you have to understand that there's one spotlight on. It's a one-man show. And all those people that you ask me about, they have to kiss his ass now because Trump, too, is about equivocating to Donald Trump. And his attitude now, he didn't have this attitude in Trump, one. trying to work in the system and you're trying to listen to some people.

Trump, too, is you kiss my ass or you leave. Kiss my ass, you leave. And they're all like this. Woof. How are they able to? What is the most effective way to push back against Donald Trump? Since we've last spoke, we had the brief Kimmel moment where Kimmel was dropped and then he was back by popular demand.

That felt like it might be a moment. How are you supposed to push back against Donald Trump? What's effective? Okay. So what's effective is recognizing that there is tremendous opposition, and what's effective is recognizing that he is not as powerful as you think he's. He only has power over you. If you think he has power over you, Robert Harris, who is a British fiction writer, Robert Schnovelist, fantastic. He wrote a book, he wrote a book about seven years ago called Munich. And he has a tremendous amount of research for the book.

It was historical fiction, but there was one piece of fact that he made very relevant in that book. The bureaucrats and the establishment governmental officials in Germany hated Adolf Hitler. And if you looked at their notes and you looked at all of their private papers with each other that were discovered after the war, they were expecting Chamberlain to come in and muscle Hitler. And they were ready to breach Hitler from inside. Okay, but Chamberlain came in and weakened to Hitler. And so the message to Bob Eiger and others muscle up and take the son of a bitch on, and he'll crack like the wicked wists of the West.

Okay, don't empower him like Chamberlain did Hitler. Take him on. So what do you... And so you have to draw a line. Okay, and I'm going to tell you something very encouraging before we leave this show. When I talk to the lobbyists, okay, and I got a lot of friends. that are lobbyists. You know what they tell me? Yeah, the CEO is out there kissing Trump's ass. He's sitting in the stupid, you know, circle with him and roof saying whatever hell Trump wants.

Then his staff is calling me and saying, this guy's fucking nuts. Can you make this go away? Call the Congress. Call the AIDS inside the White House. And people are underestimating the amount of money that's getting spent in Washington by the Fortune 500 and other businesses to Stop Donald Trump's nonsense. Okay. Well, that's... And by the way, that's going to... By the way, also, I'm an economist, as you know, trained as an economist.

Harmony's going to fall off the cliff shortly. Because one of the things we do at Skybridge is we look at the forward shipments coming into the ports, all the flatbed trucks that are being organized and getting ready for the next six months of shipments. It's going way down. Way down. And so when the economy weakens, he's going to get blamed for it. He's going to be heading into the midterms with a weaker economy, which is why he wants to jam rates down 400 basis points. But there's an opportunity here.

So my message to people is muscle up, cut the nonsense, think like a more corny, grow a backbone the way Bob Eager displayed last week, and you'll knock this guy on his ass. But if you're going to sit there cowering in fear, he's the president and you're not, then you're going to be in trouble. You're going to fulfill something about the situation that does not need to be fulfilled. And, Anthony, we're just going to take some ads. And we're back with Anthony Scaramucci. So if you're Bill Gates and you're sitting at the tech dinner that he had and you end up thanking the president for creating this incredible environment for everybody to come back together and you just look like a forning toady, what would standing up look like? Well, they're not going to stand up because that's how they get to be billionaires. You don't get to be billionaires on principle, Joanna.

You get to be billionaires by being equivocating and knowing how to work the system. So you're not going to expect any of those guys to stand up. What they're doing is they're standing up behind his family at the inauguration. And they're writing checks because they don't want their companies broken up by the FTC. Right. And they don't want to have harm to them. And their wives are telling them, hey, we're on the yacht in the Mediterranean. Hello, we're on the yacht in the Mediterranean.

What do you want to do? Pay the guy off. Make him go away. Okay. The people that stand up or people like you or people like me who actually don't give that much about money and are focused more on the principle and the philosophy and somebody like me that has an unconditional love affair with my country. And I've had brave people in my family fight for the country. The person I'm named after was on Normandy Beach 80 years ago, 81 years ago.

I'm not going to stand up for the country and not tell people the truth about what the hell is going. going on? Am I going to stand up to Trump? Come on. Give me a break. Give me a break. They still work for us, Joanna. We don't work for them. It's not Putin's America yet. Yes. Let's make sure that it isn't. Let's make sure that it isn't. All right. So final serious question, because I know you've got thousands of texts coming at you and we've massively overrun, but always so much, so much fun to talk to you. Is it too late? Do you think it's not too late because there's super smart people in the country and they know elements of the system are broken. And it's not too late because this is a country that is incredibly neuroly plastic.

This country adapts. We started out with slavery. We ended the slavery. 600,000 people died in order for that to happen, but we ended it. We have race in the country, certainly. Has it gotten better it has. It's gotten better for women. It's gotten better for blacks.

Okay, we have a wave of xenophobia hitting the country right now. Most people do not like it. They do not like the ICE videos of people getting detained. and they don't like the violence associated with it. It's a good country. Most of the people in this country came here for a reason or their families came here for a reason and we can make the place better.

So I don't accept that it's over. I don't buy into the system. Moreover, I'm an entrepreneur. So I had to create a company from nothing and turn it into something over 20 years. So don't tell me from a political perspective that we cannot do that. I believe that we can do that.

need a fresher perspective. We need more honest people. If you laid out for the American people what's really going on, many of those people say, you know, I've had enough. Let's go with this slate of changes. Lincoln said something great about the Americans. I think Douglas in one of the debates said that the Americans weren't that smart. And Lincoln said, well, you're underestimated the Americans. Do you know what the Americans have? In the immortal words of Abraham, Lincoln, they got a very good nose and they can smell a rotting cadaver in their basement. And that rotting cadaver is this current bipartisan government and this current bipartisan political class

which has got the government shut down, wildly overspending, lurching in every which direction to feed themselves at the trial of the lobbyists, the military industrial complex, big food and big pharma. And we've got to put it to an end. And by the way, we've got to put it to an end in order to ensure the prosperity and the further frivability of the country.

country. So we're going to, we've got to work on that. The weird thing about, the weird thing about Trump, he's caused so much damage that he's finally got people that were generally disinterested in indifferent to politics. Say, okay, whoa, okay, I got to get involved somehow. I got to, I got to get involved somehow before this thing runs amok and my children and grandchildren are in a disaster zone where there's people living in McMansions in security perimeters and everyone else is doing poorly. We don't want that in this country. Okay, well, that's a very positive note on which to end our conversation. I was going to end it on comments that people left last time you were on the podcast.

In fact, I'm going to give you a couple because what was fun about them was that everybody was expecting to feel hostile to you. And in fact, they liked you. So, Joanna. I had my way about people wanting to feel hostile to me. Trust me. Joanna, I didn't like Anthony Scaramucci before this interview, but you showed what he is really like. I like him now. you're doing a great job of helping U.S. citizens understand what's happening to our country.

Oh, I appreciate. I love Anthony, but I don't think he realizes that the rest of the world is moving on and won't easily forgive America. Joanna, this is my favorite interview from The Daily Beast. It's novel to hear an honest, integrous, blunt, true man who shoots straight from the hip and is uninterested in painting himself in the best light. I can't wait to hear more from Anthony. Let's very low.

First of all, those are sweet comments. Thousands of comments. Well, first of all, very sweet comments that I'm grateful for, but I want to go to that second comment where unfortunately I do believe that that person is right. I do believe that we have dug a hole for ourselves, okay? You know, since we're talking about Bob Iger, ask them about attendance at Disney

because the Canadians are not showing up like they've traditionally showed up. You know, I took my kids on the Disney cruise, typical driver that always picks me up every year. How's it going? He says, no, my business is down 20%. The Canadians are just not showing up at Port Canaveral or Orlando. And when I travel in Europe or I travel in Asia, the damage is, there's recognizable damage.

This is Putin's been instructed by Putin to bash our allies and to make them feel insecure about their relationship, their long-term relationship with the United States. And Putin's boy has helped to do that. And that means that the next group of leaders is going to have a hard time because, you know, what does Buffett say about a reputation? 20 years to build or in the case of the United States, 80 years to build, you can lose it in 10 minutes. And so that woman or man, whoever wrote that comment is dead on, Joanna. And we have to dig in here and work on the restoration and the renewal of what America means to the rest of the world. this nonsense that Trump is presenting, I don't really think that that's it.

Ultimately, I don't think Americans want to be thought of like that. But we're dug in, right? We're dug in. We're dug in. We're dug in. All right. I hope to see you very soon. Enjoy your...

It's always a pleasure to be on with you. Yeah, and please send me the... I want to see your daughter singing with Andrea Bouchelli. Okay, yeah, I'll send that to you right now. Good. And something to... I'm obviously a braggadocious father, so I'm literally... That'll be my next test that you'll notice that I'll be doing while I'm on Zoom with you.

Okay, but there's always something good about hearing new music. It's uplifting and we need uplifting things. Listen, I mean, you know, I'm an optimist for one simple reason. The country has a dynamism still, and the country is really an entrepreneur's country. Lots of risk-taking for the generations to get here. Lots of risk-taking. And people know that something is broken. And by the way, I'm indicting both.

parties here. I'm not just leaning on Trump. We've got reasons why Trump rose to power, but we've also got to look at both sides of this thing and say, wow, this has really not been good for the Americans. And we can fix it. I do believe that. Good. We can fix it. See you soon. Be well. Thank you, joining. Bye. I love Anthony's energy and his optimism and his determination to fix it. His parents were immigrant. You heard him say that his grandfather actually fought on the beaches of Normandy. And I also thought, referring to Robert Harris's book, Munich, and the expectation that people had around Adolf Hitler that Neville Chamberlain, the Premier of Britain, the Prime Minister of Britain, was actually coming in to save them and to help them get rid of

Adolf Hitler. And in fact, then they just solidified his position was also a very interesting reference and that is a very good book. To be fair, all Robert Harris' books are pretty good. He also wrote Conclave. Brilliant timing with the film and then the poor previous Pope's untimely death. Anyway, thank you for joining us if you have been. Don't forget, leave us a comment, but more importantly, subscribe to The Daily Beast, wherever you are. We are independent media and we appreciate your support. We love reading your comments and we do read them. I read them. Michael Wolf reads them. Our team reads them and they mean a lot. And also you give us very good suggestions for points of view and also people to interview.

As our first lady would have us say, be beast. And a special thank you to our be beast level of YouTube members, Karen White, Heidi Riley, Connie Rutherford, Sharon Shipley, Andrea Hodel, and someone who goes by the name of Free DC. And thank you to our production team, as always, Devin Roderino, Anna von Erson, and our editor, Jesse Millwood. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover

what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.