The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump Will Destroy Every Member of His Cabinet

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Anthony Scaramucci, the man famously fired by Donald Trump as his director of communications after just 11 days sits down with Joanna Coles to dish on why every one of the current cabinet will suffer his fate—or worse. He predicts the fate of Trump's would-be successors JD Vance, Marco Rubio and more. The Mooch, who campaigned relentlessly against Trump in 2020 and 2024 tells which Democrats can win the White House in 2028, why and what big moves they need to make now. And he tells Democrats to do the unthinkable and get Elon Musk on their side.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, I'm Joanna Coles. I'm the chief content officer of the Daily Beast podcast, and thank you for your 3,000 comments from last week on David Rothcop. We have, I am confident, someone who's going to provoke even more comments this week, Anthony Scaramucci. He's the financier. He's a political commentator. He's a podcast host. And of course, famously, he was the White House Communications Director for Donald Trump during his first presidency. He has a very successful podcast. The rest is politics. But he's a very successful. got so many views about everything. If you ask Anthony any question, he's got a strong point of view on the answer. So let's get into it. Anthony, very pleased that you're joining us. I should say we're recording this on a Monday and you're in London. And here, of course, people are reeling from the news of President Biden's health diagnosis. He's got aggressive prostate cancer which has metastasized to his bones. You've been in the White House. Admittedly, it wasn't for a long time, but you totally understand how the White House works. How realistic is it that President Biden, who was still in office only four and a half months ago,

wouldn't have known that he had a diagnosis of prostate cancer? Well, I'm going to answer it in two different ways. Okay, so I'm going to answer my honest opinion. I don't think it's realistic. And these tests, like the Gleeson score, the PSA tests, and the things that we're doing now from a diagnostic perspective. You told me, Joanna, that he had a very obscure, hard to understand disease, you know, one out of 300 million people have it and they missed it. Okay. But this is something that most men, unfortunately, are going to get before their lifetime is over and he's an elderly man.

So, and also he sent out some weird tweets last year that he sent out one tweet said he was sick. And then they reached retent it to decree, you know, you know, so, so I, I think. think that, you know, so I don't think so, but I'm going to answer it differently now. So that's answer number one. Answer number two, forget about what I think. You know, John Maynard Keynes, the great economist, was brilliant in the U.S. stock market and said, why are you so brilliant? He said, well, it's not for me to judge beauty. I'm in a beauty pageant. It's not for me to judge beauty. It's for me to judge what the other judges think is beautiful. So that's how I pick stocks. And it's not for me to tell you. I'm telling you the other judges, the court of public opinion, nine out of 10 people are going to answer the exact same way that I'm answering the question. So whether it's true or not, and whether if Joe Biden 100% dead to rights just learned about this stage four cancer yesterday, even if that's 100% true, it doesn't matter for the conversation, Joanna, because the people don't believe that. Okay. And that's their reality.

no matter what they're going to say. So, and I would be remiss in saying that my heart goes out to him. He served the country for 50 plus years. He lost his son. His son fought in the wars, the Gulf Wars. I lost his son an untimely death 10 years ago. So my heart goes out to him and his family. But I had an early copy of the Jake Tapper book.

I have it here in my hotel room. Original son. Original son. I read it this weekend. If that is true. And if it is true, this is political Enron. This is a scandal as bad as Watergate. You can't tell me that you're taking oaths to the Constitution.

And you've got somebody now that is not capable of doing the job that he's in. And you're not removing him. Now, we had that experience of Woodrow Wilson about 110 or so years ago. When his wife, in fact, it turned out was basically running. Exactly. Exactly. So we've done it before, but we also know that it's wrong. And we set up additional amendments to our Constitution since then, the 25th Amendment. People said, okay, we don't want the Edith and Woodrow Wilson thing to happen again. So let's not do that. But there's a ton of willing accomplices here that have broken their oaths to the Constitution. And so, okay, you want to rail on Trump. I'm not saying you, Joanne. I'm saying you and the second person. A person wants to rail on Trump, no problem. Trump told 30. 1,000 lies, according to the Washington Post in his four years first term. He's on track to tell 40,000. I mean, it's like the Aaron Judge of lying. I mean, this guy's very consistent, going to

blow out lies left and right. But this is a meta-major lie. Okay. And again, I'm not trying to be what aboutism, but you're telling people that somebody is totally on it and he's not. And it comes out that you guys lie to everybody. It's just a really bad look for them. And it's consequential. I think they've created a real chasm of distrust, which has caused these polling numbers to be bad. Do you think that President Obama, who I know you were at law school with at Harvard, do you think he's also guilty here too? Because yes, there are the advisors around Biden who were criticized, and we know who some of them were. But if you think of of President Obama leading President Biden off the stage when they did one of the big fundraisers in Manhattan, not long before the debate.

To what extent do you think the Democrats were really in the know, the important Democrats were really in the know here? Well, I think they were all in the no. And again, you know, there's a legal, there's a spirit of the law, there's a letter of the law. You know, President Obama is out of office. So he's not one of his cabinet members. He's a private citizen. But he's being president. I understand that he. So the spirit of the law would suggest that he had a responsibility to tell his fellow citizens that a man he selected to be vice president who probably 10 years ago could very capably do the job at age 81. And remember, you know, Joanne, I want to be very sympathetic to Joe Biden. He's had tragedy. in his life, you know, they have studies when you have this level of tragedy in your life, the cortisol in your body, the stress in your body can also manifest itself as you're getting older. He's lost children, untimely car accidents. He lost his first wife in an untimely tragic

car accident. He lost his son. There's a lot going on there. So I want to be sympathetic to him. But yes, I think Obama had a responsibility to tell us that President Biden was incapacitated. but he could say to you on this podcast, well, that's not really my responsibility. I didn't, I wasn't sworn in. These other people were sworn in. Even staff was sworn in. But isn't there a moral responsibility when you're seen, I mean, and to some extent it was it was hiding in plain sight, right?

He was literally leading Joe Biden from the stage at Radio City at the big fundraiser they have where they raised $25 million. So it was a very successful fundraiser. but it was clear that the president didn't actually know where he was supposed to. Yeah, I mean, also, but in this book, Original Sin, George Clooney is quoted as saying he stared right at me, didn't know I was. I have executives in New York that I've spoken to longtime Democratic big-time donors. They've said that they've gotten a sheet of glass look from President Biden when they're talking to him. They have his cell phone number in their phones.

They've known them for 30, 40 years. He doesn't recognize them. I would only say on that one that a lot of people in his position, or admittedly, there aren't that many people in the presidential position, but people who meet a lot of people, it's very easy to fail to recognize. Okay, I understand. But I mean, George Clooney is a big leap for me, though. True. Okay. And also, he had been a big fundraiser, too. I want to ask you this. I'm going to push it back to you for a second. This little bit of what aboutism is going to go on now, right?

Because now there are people out there that say Trump is slurring his words. He's walking with an unsteady gang. He's going to ask you about this. Yeah, I'm going to ask you and then you ask me. So here's the problem now. You know, if it comes out in two or three years, yeah, you know, the guy was demented in the White House, but we let it happen. Is this the society that we're going into now? We move the goalposts so far that we're now willing, just because the person's in our tribe, he's on our team.

We're going to stretch ourselves. Now, Trump has told you, by the way, that you can put classified information war plans out on social media apps. No problem. Direct violation of several laws. Privates in the Marine Corps or the Army would be court-martialed, immediately discharged. But Trump is telling you you can be the defense secretary now and have no nothing happened to you, no recourse for that. And so is that where we are now? Have we moved the goalpost so far? from the new Victorian era in our country where we did things properly. Even people like Richard Nixon caught red-handed, bows out, and stays consistent with the Constitution. Are we now going so far to the other side now that it's over? What do you say to that, are we? First of all, you worked with Donald Trump during his first administration. Do you see a decline in him between Trump one and Trump two? A little. I don't, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not, not in the Trump dementia camp, me. You know, I'm in the...

You have not yet been diagnosed with Trump derangement syndrome. Well, they, the Trump people do. I think I have Trump reality syndrome. I think I see him for exactly who he is and what he is. And I see the nefarious nature to him. And I see the madness to him, the smoldering anger to him. You know, there's a lot of pain in that man that he wants to inflict on the society. And he wants to project that into the society. And he wants to project that into the society and he gets pleasure out of inflicting that pain on other people. And so the culture has swung into a populist movement. There's a lot of people that feel left out. When people feel left out, Joanna, they want other people to feel pain. He's become an orange wrecking ball for those

people. He's a, he's an avatar for their anger. Okay, you're going to smash the Daily Beast. Oh, great. You're going to smash Anthony at the rest of politics, U.S., that's great. You're going to take on Stephanie Rule, who's reporting about you accurately in MSNBC, Bruce Springsteen, you know, you're going to go after Bruce. Come on, the boss. But, I mean, you're asking, have we got to that point in the culture? The press is constantly pointing this out, right? Or the independent press is constantly pointing this out. And one of Trump's responses is to go after them. So we've seen him repeatedly go after Caitlin Collins at CNN, repeatedly go after ABC. He's certainly come after the Daily

beast. How does this, you were the White House communications director. What do you think about that policy for his relationship with the press? How is Caroline leave it doing? Well, okay, if you're a MAGA person, she's doing beautifully. If you're a realist and you're an objective person, she stains herself every day with the morose lies. But she's, her assignment is to lie on behalf of the President of the United States, lie with shamelessness, lie with incredulity. And so that's what she's doing. You know, I, she was an intern when I was there that summer. She was 18 or 19 years old, a confident, smart person. She's a talented person, but she's lying with impunity. You know, Spicer was too Catholic for that. He couldn't lie with that level of impunity. He always looked

disheveled and guilt-ridden when he was telling you that the crowd size was bigger than it was, I wasn't going to do that. That's one of the reasons why I got fired. Right. No, I'm a straight shooter and, you know, you can stay young and healthy if you're honest with people. You know, Ed Koch had a great line, Joanna. You're not giving me to cancer. I'm giving you to cancer, you know, meaning, meaning I'm going to tell you what's up and not hold back, you know, and, you know, she does some shameless thing. So Maga World thinks she's doing a good job. I think she's staying, and she'll end up working at Fox News or something like that when this is over. And she'll be in an echo chamber of her self-righteous.

She's hurting the country with the lies. You know, Trump is hurting the country. Shady Vance, the funny part about Vance and Rubio, see, they're not stupid those two, right? They're both Catholics. So there's 50 million voting eligible Catholics in the U.S. 30 million of them have registered. If 5% of the 30 million are Orthodox Catholics, meaning they follow the Pope, they're going to lose one and a half million votes, those two.

You see, that's why they're flying back and forth to the Vatican. They know how close these elections are. And if the Pope turns on them as Father Bob Prevost turned on J.D. Vance as recently as three and a half months ago and said, no, you're absolutely wrong in terms of the selective biases of your love. You know, Jesus' love is universal. So these guys are flying back and forth. They don't want to lose the Catholic vote. And again, even if it's a sliver of it, right? So it's so contrived and it's so transparent.

I wanted to ask you about Elon Musk. I wanted your impression of how he had done. And also, you were in and out of the White House fast. He's now spun out of the White House. What is your advice for him in terms of his image rehab? Well, he'll never take my advice, but my advice is the advice I gave Gavin Newsome, bring him back. this guy was a lifelong Democrat. He was a builder of electric cars. There is no way Lyndon Johnson would have led Elon Musk or Bobby Kennedy Jr. out of his party. Johnson had a great line. I want all the elephants in the tent. This way, when they got a piss, they'll piss outside the tent. Don't let an elephant outside the tent. They may piss into the tent. But don't you think that Elon might have damaged himself too much to be taken back by the Democrats? Why would the Democrats, That's one's bringing back off to Doge.

Well, well, Joanna, that's the problem with the Democrats. See, they're so self-righteous and they're so quick to cancel everybody. Bring them back. Okay, make them the prodigal son. Say, Elon, okay, you screwed up with Doge, but you are delivering transformative cars and transformative rocketry. And we made a mistake by not inviting you to the electric vehicle summit. And we want the $44 billion bullhorn, the bugle that you own,

to be more neutral, come back into the party, refurbish your brand, and invite them back. The Democrats want to cancel everybody. You know, I was told by two Democrats. It was such an interesting. It's a brilliant piece of laughter. What the hell are you guys doing? Stop the righteousness and get into the common sense, real politics. Bring Bobby, whose family's lifeline.

Come on. It's Bobby and Jack Kennedy. You're taking the sun and kicking him out of the party? letting them work for Trump. What the hell's wrong with you guys? They wouldn't even take the guy's call. So are you now? Are you, I mean, have the Democrats taken you back? I know you've got you. First of all, I've been a registered Republican. I gave Obama money because we went to school together. Yeah, and you supported Hillary at one point. I did, but for the Senate. Everyone says that. I've supported her for the Senate. Okay, but you supported Joe Biden and Kamala. Well, yeah, because I'm, I'm, my priority is my patriotism, patriotism and love of country first.

over partisanship, I know how dangerous Donald Trump is. So I would like the Constitution to sustain itself. We probably need a few amendments and some refurbishment of the Constitution, but I don't want a project 2025 destruction of the Constitution and an assault on our decentralized government because there's a bunch of right-wing loons. Why do you, or do you think the Democrats have learned from their sanctimony? I mean, You're completely right about the council culture. The Democrats are trying to, they're searching for a more perfect form of progressive socialism. You know, we didn't quite get the progressive socialism perfect.

So Bernie and I are going to go out on the road and see if we can perfect it. And they're like, what do you guys? And by the way, Trump's laughing at that. Just so, you know, Trump is laughing at them because he knows where the country is. He knows it's primarily a center-right country. You know what Trump once told me about his base? Can I tell you what he said? Tell him.

Okay. He said, you know, you guys on Wall Street are a bunch of imbecils. I said, okay, why is that? He said, well, you're a social liberal and you're a fiscal conservative. I said, that's true. That's how I see myself. Socially inclusive, fiscally responsible. He goes, yeah, you're a dummy.

You know what my base is? No, what's your base, Mr. Trump? my base is socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Because is everyone going to understand that? He understands his base better than you do and better than I do, frankly. And so they want a tighter restriction on abortion and they want unlimited government spending. There were placards and signs they're in the Tea Party revolution. Get your government hands off of my Medicare.

Yeah, I remember that. Excuse me. That's a government program. Oh, it is. Okay, let me put the sign down. Well, and they're not in favor of gay marriage. And they're not in favor of gay marriage, which is a big problem for Buttigieg. Buttig is their most talented guy, perhaps, but he's gay.

And that's going to be a problem for him in a general election. And by the way, I'll probably get canceled now that I said that, you know, because, but I don't care. I would vote for him. It doesn't matter to me, but I'm just being honest about the culture and the zeitguess of the American society that we live in. And so if I were a Democrat, and I told him. newsomeness, have a summit meeting, get your act together, make your party open its tent,

become pro-democracy, pro-constitution, pro-America, and bring everybody in that's not MAGA. Okay, and this is what we did. We did this once before in the 1850s. We created a new party at 1856 called the Republicans. And the Republicans went after the wigs that were abolitionists, and they went after the Democrats that were abolitionists and they put them in the same party and they killed the wigs. They killed the wig. What did Gavin Newsom say when you suggested?

It was very honest. He says it was very hard to do. We have very, here are the moves. I'm right, you're wrong, I'm righteous. Move number two, oh, you said something I didn't like. You're canceled. Can't go to my reindeer games. So I helped Vice President Harris on the debate prep.

I had lines in there that she deployed. They invited me to the spin room. to help her in the spin room. How interesting. On the night of the debate. And were they confident that they were going to win the election at that point? I don't think they were confident that they were going to lose the election. I never thought that they thought that they were going to outright win the election.

I thought that they thought that their ground game was more nuanced and was broader than Trump's. And I thought that they thought they could beat them on the ground. I thought they were always worried that she only got 107 days to me. make her case to the American people. And one thing that the Democrats do to each other, they eat each other's young. So when Hillary Clinton gets nominated for the presidency, the Sanders people, some of them go vote for Trump, and some of them don't show up. They're Bernie brought this. Yeah, they don't get the crossover voting. You know, to Clinton's

credit, she campaigned for Obama, and a lot of her primary voters in 2008 went for. And she went for Obama. Okay, you know what the Republicans do? They move like the march of the wooden soldiers, okay. Okay, my guy's out? Who's your guy? I'm voting for your guy. Okay. And so you're not giving yourselves a chance if you're not willing to give the opponent that you lost to the crossover vote. Okay, so Anthony, you think that Pete Buttigieg can't probably get elected because he's gay. Who, when you look out across the- I'm dead now, Joanna. That's going to be the headline that comes out of this. There are many headlines that are going to come out. But I just want to clarify that.

I like Pete Buttigieg, and I would vote for him tonight. And he's a very effective spokesperson. And I think he's their most talented person. And I would vote for him tonight. Okay. So I just want to make sure that's also in there. I have no problem with him. I'm just telling you as a political realist,

having traveled into these areas, 71 campaign stops with Donald Trump, 30 years of presidential politics under my belt as a fundraiser or a media advocate, shaking hands with countless people, red people and blue people and purple people, it's going to be hard for him because there's a Christian conservatism, there's a Christian orthodoxy, there's literal interpretations that are going on in this country related to the Bible. And it's going to be hard for him. And by the way, I think it's unfair. I was one of the people that, raised money in 2008 to flip those Republican senators in New York to make the same-sex marriage legal in New York. I have gay family members like everyone else does. I want there to be equality. I'd love to

see him prove me wrong. How about that? Well, and I would love to see Trasdainer's first gentleman, actually. I think they would be an interesting couple. But Pete is one candidate, and who knows whether or not he can overcome the social conservatism, that it's still very much part of the bedrock of America. Who are the other candidates that you think might be viable? Is Gavin used to be? I think I think Gavin is viable. I think he is a attractive guy in so many different ways.

Okay, I'm not talking about his physicality. I think he's got good messaging. He's a good governor. He ran, he runs, you know, they give California. California and globalism. need to fire their ad campaign director and they need new air campaigns, okay? The negative publicity around globalism is ridiculous. Who the hell won that narrative? Globalism has helped the society. It's made people richer. It's lifted billions of people out of poverty. Globalism, which is what our

grandparents, our neo-Victorian grandparents, like Atkinson and Marshall and Truman and Eisenhower, they wanted this for us. And it's been successful in taming the internecerness and tribal conflicts out there. This systemic rise of nationalism now, born from a lack of memory of the war, is a problem for us. And good leadership would teach people how to cheat history, to remind them of the civic virtue of our unity, as opposed to using it as a political trope, our differences, which poor leaders like Donald Trump do. And they lean into the America first idea. And they want to create hatred and they want to divide everybody.

This is stupid, okay? But secondarily, California, California is the fourth largest economy in the world if you took it out of the United States. You don't want to give Newsom any credit for that? Yeah, does California have, you know, Jamie Diamond calls it blue tape because it's mostly inspired by Democrats. It's not red tape. They stop building. They have all these environmental codes that are useless and nonsensical. and they do need reform and they need bail reform,

but California is an amazing economic enterprise. And Gavin would be a very good president if he could win the presidency. But the labeling of a California liberal, ask Kamala Harris about the labeling of a California liberal and so if you don't think this country is center right, think of what I just said about the word to California liberal. I want to push back on you on one thing,

which is the whole concept. of the California liberal is parts of Los Angeles and parts of San Francisco, which feel unlivable, right? And you have homeless cities. No question. They're openly taking drugs in the center of San Francisco. Yes, they've got a new mayor now, Daniel Lorry, who appears to be doing a very good job. But you think of, you know, Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles in Ghana, despite the fact she'd been told the Santa Ana Wins were about to deliver a firestorm like nobody'd seen before. And you can see why people feel that Democrats have had control of California for the last 20 years.

And it feels chaotic to a lot of people to live there. There's pressure on water. There's pressure on the climate. The cities are, there are places that you can't go. So I can see why California liberals have got the reputation they have. Listen, I'm stepping over homeless people here in New York. And, you know, I mean, I was outside the Nick game the other night. It smelled like a skunk out there.

I mean, we just got a nation of pot smokers. I'm not I'm not in love with the fact that I can't go into the local drugstore without having to get somebody unlock the plastic to get me. So I got it. There's a failure. And that's a democratic rule. I mean, we've had the democratic bears, democratic governors. Okay, but if you had, let me test this messaging on you, okay. Democrats have made a mistake.

They overtipped, okay, due to virtue and empathy on bail reform. they have to come back to the middle. Democrats have overtipped on certain environmental measures and blue tape in California. They have to come back to the middle. But do Americans want more inclusion? Do Americans want a fair, more aspirational, progressive society? Remember, the word progressive was started by a Republican named Teddy Roosevelt. Do we want that?

And I believe that the answer is, yes, we want that version. versus authoritarianism. We want that versus neopopulism that splits the country. The first name of the country is united. It's not the disunited states of America. There are ways to fix these problems if we stop bickering and we get in the middle. And oh, by the way, there'll be five things that I want that you will hate. And there will be five things that you may want that I will hate. But can we reach a consensus together or should we tribally beat each other's brains in? to the point where we run a $40 trillion budget deficit, we lose our standing with our allies,

we create a dysfunctional trading system in the world because we have one orange maniac that doesn't understand the economic principles that started post-second World War order, the rules-based society that has created tremendous prosperity and tremendous innovation globally. So come on, guys, come on. We're smarter than this.

We're not smarter than this? Of course, we're smarter than that. Anthony, just hold on one second. We need to take a break to make some money for the podcast by hearing these messages. Big thank you to our sponsors. Once more, we're picking up the conversation with Anthony Scaramucci. Who can take the Democrats to the place that you want them to go? Who can unite the party?

Who can say we should bring back Elon Musk? We should include earning an AOC. I don't know, but I would say the Democrats do better with people in their 40s. Jack Kennedy, Barack Obama when he was in his 40s, Bill Clinton, 46, Obama 47, Jack Kennedy, 43. So you're saying Gavin Newsom's too old. What about Gretchen We're in? Well, you know, listen, I'm, you know, I'm probably dead here. I'm probably going to get canceled now because of you, Joanne. He's already been canceled because of it. I've been canceled a few times. You're going to be the big. You're going to get canceled because of yourself.

No, this could be a big case, because you've. provoked me to answer these questions truthfully. So this could be a big cancelization for me, which is fine. It's the second cancellation. Yes, it won't be the first time it'd been canceled. I'd probably be able to come back from it. But let me just say this to you, okay? She's a very effective governor. She's a very effective administrator. She has no Riz. You know what the Riz is, girl? You know what the RIS is? Charisma. Yeah, no Riz. Okay, forget it. Wich and Whitman has no Riz. Interesting. She has no Riz. Come on. You don't do this. Look at me. You don't do this. You don't cover your face when you're in the Oval

office. You put memes out after it. You have got Riz. I agree with you about Riz. I agree with you. This is a celebrity competition at this point. Gavin's got Riz, but Gavin's got to get off the Hamlet shit, and he's got to commit, and he's got to go hard at it. Buda Jegh has Riz, but, you know, he's going to have to do what Obama and Jack Kennedy did. He's going to have to say, okay, I'm gay. It's not going to matter how I govern. Same way Kennedy said I'm Catholic. It's not going to matter. By the way, if you haven't noticed, I'm black.

And Jeremiah Wright is my reverend, and I don't give a shit. And that's not going to influence how I govern. I'm a middle name. It's Hussein. Yes, you're going to need that. Right, exactly. You're going to need that transcendental moment for Buttigieg for the arrest of the people say, you know what?

I don't care what he does with his personal life, which I honestly don't. He's going to be a good administrator. He's a smart guy. He's great on policy. He's very thoughtful. And, you know, a Buttigieg is a same thing. a pair of hands where I believe he would pick the... Let me ask you one thing on Pete, which is...

I knew some Buttigieg ticket. Okay, now the women will be mad at me for saying that, probably. But I just think that you probably, if I were them, I would probably do something like that. Okay, I think that would be formidable. We had on the podcast last week, David Rothkopf, who made the point that actually all the FAA problems, really, it's unfair to leave at the door of Sean Dutley, the current transport secretary, that actually people... Buttejedge as the previous transport secretary should have been figuring this out, should have

been investing in the technology, especially at which is the biggest airspace in the country. So that would hurt him in an upcoming presidential race? I mean, he's not going to kill him. I mean, because again, listen, Trump has been literally shot at. Trump has been literally, you know, convicted as a felon. And he is lit and he got there, you know, so it doesn't matter. There's a feel here. There's a feel here. Okay. And you think Pete and Gavin could be a winning combination? Possibly, yeah. Is anybody else? What about Alyssa Slotkin that the party put forward to respond to Trump after the state of the union?

So she seems very capable, but do you know the number one thing you need to win the presidency? The number one thing you need. Name recognition. That's it. Name recognition. I would argue she doesn't have quite enough Riz either. She may agree with Riz, but right now. it doesn't feel like she doesn't have the name recognition, you know. And so and but, but, you know, look,

you also remember, in fairness to Vice President Harris, at that time, she's running against the most famous person in the world. Hillary Clinton was running against a top 100 famous guy. Okay. But now he is the most famous person in the world. Well, he's not going to be running again. Do you think, no, no, no, I understand that. But I'm just saying, you got to understand what you're up against. These other guys are going to push themselves very hard in the next three and a half years to get their fame and notoriety out there. If you had to put money on it right now, who do you think would be Trump's successor? Nobody in Trump's cabinet is going to be Trump's successor. That's my prediction.

Wait, observate. What a brilliant observation. Because he's going to see them off, right? Yes, he's going to put them all in the wood chipper. He's going to disgrace every one of them. You ever see that scene in Fargo? I mean, he put Vance in the wood chipper twice so far. and Vance is walking around within any feet because he chopped up his feet.

We're only going to pardon the nonviolent J. Sixners. Trump gets pissed as I'll show you, you know, and then yells. He's like a boss from hell. He's the boss from hell. Everything you say he undermined. Yes, he has to. So Vance is Penn, so he's going to become irrelevant. Rubio is going to become irrelevant because he's lost the plot.

He has no principles and he's completely disingenuous. And he's lost his soul at this point. Yeah, any politician that could come in there would just cut him to ribbons. You know, it's not going to be Chris Christie. It's not going to be Haley. It'll have to be a younger. It could be a Yonkin. Glenn Yonkin, right.

Or could it be Donald Trump Jr.? So I don't think, by the way, he is very popular with MAGA, but I don't think he wants, I don't think he's going to cross the Rubicon into that realm of the political world. I just don't see him doing it. But if he does it, he could get the nomination. And then you're going to have to go against him because he's very popular with the MAGA people. And he's got great name recognition. Yeah. So I mean, that's a possibility. But I don't, I don't see him wanting to do it, frankly. So I think that's one thing you say that you want to do to keep your name out there. But I don't think down deep he really wants to do it.

I have one more question for you on politics. I just wanted to know when you're in a room with Donald Trump. What is, is everybody sort of against each other? Is it every man for himself? Or is there a sense of camaraderie? Like, this is the mad king. We're all sort of texting under the table. We're all eye rolling at each other. We're all looking at each other. No, the Trump won was MAGA working for Trump, R and C working against Trump. Trump gets the nomination. R&C gets dragged into the win. And now because the R&C is the R&C, they put guys like Previs and they cook guys like spice,

you know, I call him Liar Spice. Like every Spice girl's got a nickname. His is like liar Spice, right? You never seen anybody lie. Like the poor son of a bitch doesn't even lie right, you know, at least Trump can lie with just perfect shamelessness, right? But so those guys merged with MAGA, and that's why the blowups started.

And that's why the, you know, Ultimately, Trump won the establishment Republicans beat Donald Trump. And that's why it was a halfway decent presidency wasn't a complete disaster. The spirit animal of the family for Trump won was Jared Kushner. It's a sober guy. He's balanced. He's trying to solve problems. Abraham Accords.

The spirit animal from the family for Trump, too, is Don Jr. And Don is all about MAGA, make Trump, allow Trump to be Trump, or you passing the MAGA litmus test. Yes, I am. Woof. And then they go and do everything that they're told to do like a good little doggy. You see what I'm saying? And so that's why this has become such an unmitigated disaster because he's coming down from Mount Evil with the unholy tablet. You know, he's like Orange Moses with the unholy tariff tablet.

it and he's like, nobody even understands it, but they're all out there pretending that they do. Right. Is there any logic to the terrorist? You're a finance guy. What are you... There's no logic to the tariffs. It's just literally ridiculous with him and Navarro came up with to the point where, you know, Bessent was beside himself. The good news is Trump has gotten bored now of the whole thing. And he realized, remember, there's one angel on Trump's shoulder saying, you know, I could do a halfway decent job about this. I still have some popularity. And then there's a devil on the other side. It says, you know, I can make $200 billion for my family. Where am I going to rate this money in from? And that's what's going on all day with Trump. You know, he's he plays to his

star sign perfectly. He's a Gemini. There are two people trapped inside one body. And you got one good side and one really rotten side. And that's the fight all day. But you asked a really good question. And Trump, one, they're texting under the table. The guy's nuts. He's George III. Let's cut the nonsense. Trump two is, hey, I like flying on Air Force One. What are we doing today?

What are we going to fuck up today on planet Earth? Oh, wait a minute. I may have to run for president. I don't want to piss off the Pope. Let me fly to the Vatican. Oh, how depressing. How much money do you think Trump personally made from his trip to the Middle East last week? Well, I mean, listen, the $400 million dollar plan.

plane was a distraction. Joanna, look over here. Look over here. The 400 million dollar now playing. While I'm making a couple billion from my family with real estate deals and side deals and charity donations and all kinds of stuff. I mean, if you don't, if you don't see that, I mean, I don't understand why the media takes the bait every time. Okay. I mean, he tells you his playbook. He then operates the playbook and the people act in the same absurd, predictable way. I don't know. You tell you. Tell me, why is that? Well, that's why I'm asking you the question, right?

Because clearly there's something going on over here, but there's a reason that he's there. I think your point is. He's just the middle. He's got a small Chinese company that's writing him a big check into his mean coin so they can go to dinner with him. Right? He controls 80% of the mean coin. They've made a billion dollars off the crypto stuff. And the markets have been rolling back and forth.

How long does this go on for? Well, the other thing is they're trading the market. So you look at the options activity. They're trade in the market. So like tariffs on, short the market. Okay, we're going to take the tariffs off in a few hours. Go along the mortgage. Tariffs off.

It's like karate kid. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off. So what are your friends in finance? You run a financial advisory, scry. What are people saying? They're scared shit of Trump. Scared shit of Trump.

He took out all their lawyers. Okay, he scolded all their lawyers and got settlements from all of them. Their boards are telling them. their boards are telling them, hey, don't say a word about the guy. He'll come after your family. He'll come after your business. Keep your mouth shut.

And they call me and they say, okay, all right, I voted for the guy, but you were right. I didn't expect he would be this bad. That's what they say. Okay. And then you got guys like Bill Ackman. You got guys like Bill Ackman.

And I feel bad for the guy because it's like when I read his tweets, it's like his tongue came out like a bow tie. The words are so twisted. You're like looking at him, oh my God, the poor guy, he's got a lie like. like this. But it's ego-based. It's all ego-based. I got something long rather than say,

hey, I got this wrong. The guy's a maniac. They try to pretend that he's not, and then they're making pretzels and bow ties with their tongues. And you're a very good example of someone who went from being a supporter of his, or certainly working for him, to being a... No, he's a big supporter. I'm not a... I'm not a barrage of my life. I've come from nothing. I've come from nothing. I've made some good decisions in my life and some bad decisions. You know, my wife hates Trump almost as much as Melania hates him. And I'm talking, that's like way up here. I mean, it's incredible amounts of hatred. And she didn't want me to do it. I almost got divorced over it. I had this conversation with you and Gay Talese that one day at the universe or the paddle tennis

club, wherever it was. I'm not proud of the decision, but I own the decision. I saw him as potentially helping the people I grew up with. I thought he was going to help them. I got it wrong. And then I tried to stay loyal to him after I got fired. I was loyal to him for two years after I got fired. It became impossible. I love my country more than I'm a partisan. I'm a patriot first and a partisan second. I'm sorry. I can't allow somebody to do this. We're now calling it out. Anthony, my point is you were you were a staunch supporter of him. You went to being an outspoken critic. And guess what? You're still standing. You still have a business. You're still operation. In fact, you're more successful than ever. You've got very strong points of view of it.

Why is everybody so scared of him? Why can't people push back? Okay. So, I mean, there could be something to the fact that he knows that he attacked my wife on Twitter and he knows I'm a New Yorker. I would never tolerate something like that. And so they more or less leave me alone. They know I'm not interested in political office. They know I'm a political pundit and a business person. Okay. I'm not at, I'm not at a big money center bank. If I was at a big money center bank mouthing off, I think they would come hard at me. They come hard at Springsteen because he controls a slice of the culture. You see what I mean?

You know, a big money center bank, they'd go hard. Right, but Springsteen also goes straight back at Trump. I mean, what is it about? I mean, because he's an artist. See, I love him because he's telling you, I'm an artist. This is what I feel. This is the love I have for my country, and I don't care. Okay.

And so it's like I say to my wife, I'm named after somebody that landed on Normandy Beach 81 years ago. My uncle Anthony. Right. He was decorated as a World War II veteran, won the Purple Heart, okay, got the Congress, not the Congressional Matter Order, but the Silver Star. He got the court of gear from France. And he was, you know, I mean, I don't know. was a role model. If he could fight for the country, I'm going to fight for the country. Why aren't business people more able to stand up?

They're afraid and they have equivocated. I could have easily, Joanna, I could have easily gone back to my job, kept my mouth shut, gone to the Hamptons, hung out, not been on the Daily Beast podcast, and just relax. I could have done that. Or I could say, hey, this is not right. I got to where I am because of the Constitution, the flat, decentralized nature of the government. You know, I'm talking to you from London. You have a monarchial structure here and you have a class system. I know. That's why I moved to America. Okay, but the results of which the country went hard left, okay, because the country went hard left because the people said, hey, I can't get ahead. They're qualifying my accent. I'm from Bethnal Green. They won't let me get ahead.

from here my father was a baker I can't get ahead so the country has gone to the left in the United States because the system is flat there's no monarch you know yeah there are people that have money but everybody in the United States is new money firstly everybody in the United States Joanna is an outsider definitely unless you're a Native American and so so now there's a flatter more aspirational system this guy and Curtis Yorvin and these guys want to go to a monarchial structure, that want to make Trump a mad king. That's what you guys want to do to the country that's created the most success and the most wealth in the history of mankind. So I'm sorry, I have to speak out against that. I have got five children and I've got

family that I respect. Of course I got to speak out against that. My mother, Carol Brady call from the Brady bunch. She wants my mother's walnut paneling back. Okay. I bet there. You know, when I took Caddy Kay to my mother's house, okay, I mean, her mouth dropped. I was like, Caddy, where the hell do you think I grew up? You got a linoleum floor. My mother won't let me renovate it. It's a hallway kitchen. There's one working bathroom.

I'm not saying we grew up poor. I would never dishonor my dad by telling you I grew up, but that's how we grew up. And look at what I'm doing now in America. It's because of America, Joanna. Yeah, I'm reasonably smart and went to fancy schools. But without America, if my father was a baker in Italy, That's what I'm going to be, Joanna, a baker, okay? And so now what do you got to do?

You want to change the whole system? Guys, you don't want to change the system. Trust me, don't be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you wish for. You want an oligarchic system with a bunch of jerk-offs at the top worth a trillion dollars and everybody else left out? Come on, guys. All right.

So, Anthony, you mentioned Katie Kay. She's obviously your partner in your very successful podcast. The rest is politics. You've also got a new podcast with Scott Galloway, Prof Scott G. Tell us about it. What made you decide to do it? It's called The Lost Boys. Yeah.

So just to be clear with everybody, the rest of politics is sort of a serial podcast. It comes out once or twice a week. We do some special episodes. But the one I did with Scott is actually just a six-part series. Now, we have talked to some documentaries about potentially turning it into a streaming series. It's going to be a documentary on what's going on with our men in our society right now. There has been a pendulum that has swung hard against white males in the society. There's no advocacy for them.

And women can poo-poo that or whatever. But I'm telling you right now, 46% of the women in the United States voted for Donald Trump. 54% of the white women voted for Donald Trump. When they were asked why, they said, oh, no, I voted for my son. I voted for my husband. I voted for my brother because I want the cancel culture to end. And I want the nonsense in the country to stop. And he represents me.

He's the Napoleon of the culture war. I find that personally very depressing. I look around at the cabinet of people and think this shocking that there are more women there. You look at the tables, supposedly deciding the future of Ukraine and Russia or Gaza and Israel, and you just think, why are there no women at the negotiating table? I think there should be, I think there should be more women. The Fiona Hills of the world are very talented, very capable. The Hillary Clintons of the world are very talented, very talented, and capable. But there's a culture of war going on, and it's hurt boys. I'll give you the stats. If you're 18 to 30, and you're a

white male in this country, you have a 30% higher likelihood of committing suicide. That's a standard. That's an accurate number. I like to say I love men. I even gave birth to two white men who are in that thing. And yes, certainly there is a lot of pressure on white men, but which look around are still running things. White men are still running things. And now everybody's being forced to get DEI from. So all the people that made progress making less progress. Well, I mean, that's, again, that's the failure of the Democratic Party not to organize and coalesce. While Trump is telling 40,000 lies, they told the big lie. Okay, you got a guy very sick who can barely put sentences together and you're propping him up when you should have said, hey, I'm really sorry.

You've got cancer. We've got to open up the primary. We can't let you run. But I hear you on the, the, that white men feel that they have been discriminated against. And yet the reality is that one in three black men will end up going to jail. Well, again, it's called lost boys because it's black and white boys. It's not just white men.

I'm using that category to tell you where a problem is. You know, there's a, if this goes well, I have another idea that I probably will present to Scott or somebody else to talk about urban violence. and the gun crime and how black males are also struggling. So this is not meant to just be about one group. We have men in the country that have lost a step that are not getting married, they can't find their footing in careers. They feel depressed.

They've lost their self-confidence. And we've interviewed experts and gone to people in the culture and in the world of children, guys like Richard Reeves, who wrote a book about this, to talk about what is going on to raise more awareness, because when you raise more awareness, you fix problems. When Rosa Parks says, hey, I'm too tired.

I'm not sitting in the bag of the bus. And then all of a sudden, people arrest the country. Wait, even, what are they doing to these people? Okay, we got to stop that. What are your solutions to, improve the morale of boys and men. So great question, and it's tied to a number of different things. But the first thing you have to do when you have a problem is raise the awareness.

Once it's okay for you to have the problem, imagine if I was suffering from depression and I went to my wife or I went to you and see you were a close friend of mine, I am suffering from depression. Okay, now you're going to go out and try to help me, help me resolve it, or maybe it's chemical or maybe it's behavioral, maybe any cognitive behavioral therapy. There's a whole slew of equipment. And then now there's a support mechanism. But if I can't tell you that I have that depression, because I feel there's a stigma to it or there's a social cue that's off now and I'm going to be judged, okay, that's a big problem. So the first thing you have to do is,

hey, you feel like this? It's okay to feel like this. There's a lot of people that feel like this, let us go out there and explain to all the people who feel like this. These are the symptoms of what you're feeling. Okay, I feel like that. Okay, great. Here's what we're going to do. Here's how we're going to work on self-esteem. Here are programs. Here are ideas. Here's a mentoring program. These are volunteers that are going to work with you to build your career, help your resume, help you find a job. We're going to plug you into a more supportive network. But step one, is we're going to launch this six-part mini-series. There are apps now where you can shut down the social media.

The social media is basically like lung cancer for the brain. You know, you should have a surgeon general's warning on it because what ends up happening, your kid gets locked into it. It feels FOMO, feels bad, getting cyber bullied in a way that you don't understand akin to that Netflix show that took place in the UK with the young adolescent. You know, it's stuff like this that I think we can do to make. things better. We dropped the first episode on the 15th. We're dropping another one on the 22nd. It's, again, it's six parts. I actually, the last episode I interviewed my wife, who is raising two boys.

And she's quite vulnerable in the show where she's like, maybe I'm doing too much. Maybe I'm not letting him do enough chores. Or maybe I'm, you know, the laptop's unplugged at night. And my mother would have left suffer the consequences of an unplugged laptop and I'm running to plug it in. You know, maybe there's something we all need to think about in terms of the way we're handling ourselves that can get people to feel more aspirational or better about themselves. I don't know. I can't wait to watch it, actually, and to listen to it. Will you come back?

When the sixth episode has aired, will you come back and talk to us about what you've learned from the way? The hair and makeup looks great, by the way. Am I going to get hair and makeup? Am I going to get hair and makeup? This is my hair and makeup. I just did it in the daily big part of it. I feel like my agent promised me good hair and makeup for this pocket.

I've got to go complain to my agent. I think what you're reacting to is I've got lipstick on. And do you know why? Because some of the comments last week from our conversation with David Rothkoff, we had 3,000 comments from people, but some of them were about why isn't Joanna Cole's wearing makeup. So I'm trying to make any of it. I feel under made up and under-moisterized for this podcast. But it's okay.

Listen, there's almost no one who's more interesting to talk to about what on earth is going on in America right now, especially from the point of view of caring about America and caring for the future of Americans. So I'm hugely... But I do, Joanne. I love the country. And, you know, I love people. You know, my grandmother had a great land. I'll leave you with two great lines to think about it.

Well, Anthony, why aren't you running for office? Well, first of all, I'm running for re-election in my marriage. Okay, that's number one. Okay. I mean, who knows? I could get fucking term limited on the marriage. what the hell knows. So, you know, it's a constant campaign. Well, you came close, you came close, isn't you, to getting divorced? And then you reel back.

Then you reel back. We almost got divorced. We repaired our marriage. Thank God it's better than ever. But, you know, my wife hates politics. I'm not going to tell you otherwise. And then the second thing, which I also think is an important thing, is that if you go and run for office, then you've got to start lying. Guaranteed you're going to start lying. You can't get out of it. Isn't there a possibility that actually the person who comes along next is going to be refreshingly honest and open and that we all had to people in office don't have to be perfect right they just have to be able to do the job and we shouldn't be looking for people to be perfect because we'll be perennially disappointed yeah no exactly it's realistic about you're not electing jesus you're trying to elect a problem solver who can who can help you but also you want to

elect somebody that you know you're like all right the guy or the woman is going to do their best to make a great decision. And I'm not looking to line their pockets. They're like, okay, I'm here to serve the people. I had a great life. I'm going to try to serve the people. You know, I don't know. We'll have to see what happens, you know.

It seems to be like that's the beginning of a campaign. No, no, no, no. I'm not, come on. Come on. Please. You know what? I'm doing just fine. I don't need, please.

I don't need another meteor strike like I got in 2017. All right. Well, I appreciate it, Joanne. It's great to be on with you. Congratulations on. everything you're doing. Well, back at you, back at you, and we will see you soon. And good luck with the lost boys. Thank you. And I will come back. Good. I'd love to have you back. All right, come back and tell us what you've learned. So much to unpack there. I was just thinking about all

the headlines that Anthony is going to make in the Daily Beast, not least from President Obama should have intervened faster with the decline in Joe Biden's health to his new podcast series, for lost boys and the help that men need and the fact that women voted for Donald Trump because they were actually voting in support of their sons and their husbands to his ability to talk about what it means to be an American from a modest background who's had amazing opportunities and acknowledging them. There is so much underappreciation of luck and of the American system itself, of great public education, of great public American community.

communities that fuel the ability to progress in America. And I thought his enthusiasm for a Gavin Newsom and a Pete Buttigieg ticket was also really interesting. And he's coming out early and saying it. So next episode, which will be on Thursday, is with James Carville. Join us then. So if you like this podcast, please like. Please subscribe to it. Subscribe to The Daily Beast.

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