TRANSCRIPT: The Golden Hot Tub
Anthony Scaramucci:
The swamp has a draining?
Ian Bremmer:
I'm not saying it does.
Anthony Scaramucci:
It doesn't though, it's not even a swamp. Let's talk about what it really is.
Ian Bremmer:
What is it really?
Anthony Scaramucci:
It is a drainless, gold-plated hot tub.
Ian Bremmer:
Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer in the middle of Times Square with five-foot Elmo's all around me, it's kind of weird. And welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. I'm host of the weekly show "GZERO World" on YouTube, and in this podcast, we share extended versions of the big interviews from that show. This week, I sit down with Anthony Scaramucci, also known as 'The Mooch.' He's a longtime fixture on Wall Street, but is most famous for his 11-day tenure as White House communications director briefly last summer. He's been in the room with President Trump many, many times, and today, I will ask him about what goes on behind the scenes of the White House, including how Trump makes decisions, and what a summit between Trump and Kim Jong-Un might look like. Let's get to it.
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The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company. Imagine a bank without teller lines, where your banker knows your name and its most prized currency is extraordinary client service. Hear directly from First Republic's clients by visiting firstrepublic.com.
Ian Bremmer:
And I'm with Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, also founded the Scaramucci Post. And of course, for 10 glorious days-
Anthony Scaramucci:
11.
Ian Bremmer:
11, 11, Glorious. 11, ah ah ah, I'm the Count. I love to count.
Anthony Scaramucci:
The guy's trying to chip me. It's unbelievable.
Ian Bremmer:
Oh, you want that extra day?
Anthony Scaramucci:
Why not? It's like 9.1% of my federal career. Why would you chip me out there?
Ian Bremmer:
That's fair. White House communications director.
Anthony Scaramucci:
It was a pretty productive 11 days, let's face it. But in the process of firing people, I got myself fired. But that happens in Washington.
Ian Bremmer:
So you did more in 11 days than many people I know in years.
Anthony Scaramucci:
Yeah. Well, look, one of the weird things about the whole thing is I didn't realize the symbiosis between some of these political hacks that work either in the White House or up on the hill, and their symbiotic relationship with the press, where they just leak like sieves and they use that information as currency inside of Washington.
Ian Bremmer:
Everyone in it for themselves?
Anthony Scaramucci:
People are like, "Okay, I got to stab this guy's eyeball out before he stabs my eyeball out."
Ian Bremmer:
You are also the only man I know that's brought auto-eroticism as a concept to the White House.
Anthony Scaramucci:
Okay, you've never said a curse word, Ian?
Ian Bremmer:
I have.
Anthony Scaramucci:
Look into the camera, you never said a curse word?
Ian Bremmer:
I have. I have.
Anthony Scaramucci:
This guy curses, okay?
Ian Bremmer:
I do.
Anthony Scaramucci:
Most people curse, you think I'm the only guy that curses? You think John Kelly doesn't say curse words? He is a Marine. Whatever I said about Bannon in terms of the auto-eroticism, which obviously he can't do, you know that. But what I said about him is absolutely true. One of the things I've been decent at over my 30-year career is I can identify and evaluate talent pretty quickly, and I can see what people's motivations are pretty quickly.
Ian Bremmer:
Tell me about Trump himself. So all these people that really just can't stand Trump. You know him, you decided to work with him. What are they wrong about?
Anthony Scaramucci:
Okay, first of all, the president is a very gregarious, charming guy. Now, some of your liberal friends or your establishment republicans are choking and they're blowing in a barf bag right now, me saying that, but way more thoughtful than they want to give him credit for. He's got way more common sense, but he also has a backbone. And so he's able to push an agenda or push ideas a lot like Reagan.
Ian Bremmer:
Now, obviously we've seen this charm has worked in his meeting with Emmanuel Macron, clearly the two men get along very well. Hasn't with some others, like Merkel in particular. What do you think that's about?
Anthony Scaramucci:
I'm not Angela Merkel's advisor. But if I was her advisor, I'd say, "Hey, you respect this guy. He's 72 years old. He is the American president. He won a very hard fought campaign. He earned the right to be the American president. Drop the tabloid nonsense and all that stuff that you hear and respect the guy. If you do that, you're going to go really far with him." Macron has decided to do that.
Ian Bremmer:
And Merkel has not.
Anthony Scaramucci:
I think Merkel has not. And so one is landing at Andrews, and the other one's landing at Dulles. He's sending them a message too. "You don't want to respect me? That's cool. I'm not going to respect you."
Ian Bremmer:
The decision to go to Davos, you and I know Davos very well, obviously. But Trump of course, for a long time, talking about the basin, if anything opposed to the globalists. He did very well at Davos. Speech went well, the CEOs were very flattering. First of all, do you think that that was the right choice?
Anthony Scaramucci:
Totally. Listen, that was also very misunderstood about the guy, that was because of sloppy Steve. He was trying to position him away from, "Globalism," he was trying to create this schism. President is a multidimensional guy and he's way more faceted than people want to give him credit for. And what I said, there's a duality to the president where he recognizes that he needs to engage in the global community, he needs to strengthen our alliances and put our adversaries on watch, but he also needs to be the number one salesperson for America to talk about our economy and bring those international CEOs together like he did in Davos.
Anthony Scaramucci:
And the flip side is he's got to be focused on the American worker. And so his message to president, she or Macron or any of these guys, "Help me with the breadbasket of the United States because it'll be great for you, it'll be great for the world." And he brought the largest delegation that's been brought to Davos. And that's the president's antithetical thinking. George W. Bush wouldn't do it, he went to Sharm El-Sheikh, he wouldn't go to Davos. Barack Obama wouldn't do it because they didn't want to be perceived to be an elitist. But the president has a moniker where he's not an elitist, so he can go there. It's like Nixon going to China.
Ian Bremmer:
I get this, but if we've elected a person who specifically says, "I'm going to drain the swamp," and one of the biggest domestic priorities appears to be...
Anthony Scaramucci:
The swamp has a draining?
Ian Bremmer:
I'm not saying it does.
Anthony Scaramucci:
It doesn't though, it's not even a swamp. Let's talk about what it really is.
Ian Bremmer:
What is it really?
Anthony Scaramucci:
It is a drainless, gold-plated hot tub. Now, this is what these guys do. They size you up immediately, it's like a Malcolm Gladwell blank exercise. They say, "Okay, can this guy be bought?" Bought, unbought, bought, unbought? And so if you can be bought, they're like, "Hey man, here's a cigar. Here's a champagne bottle. Get in the hot tub with me." If you can't be bought, they're like, "Okay, lets oppo this guy. Let's hit this guy in the head with a spike. We got to kill this guy. We got to get him off the playing field because he may do something that would be a disaster for us. He may tell the American people the truth."
Ian Bremmer:
So are a lot of people around Trump in the hot tub?
Anthony Scaramucci:
Oh, yeah. Come on, you know that.
Ian Bremmer:
I know, that's why I'm asking you.
Anthony Scaramucci:
It's very frustrating for the president. He's not in the hot tub. This guy lost a billion dollars going down there. A hundred percent. People boycotting his golf courses.
Ian Bremmer:
Then why put the cabinet in place? Why put the billionaires in? Why put the CEOs in? Once you've won, why not actually walk the talk in terms of the people that are going to make decisions for the workers, for the average American?
Anthony Scaramucci:
Okay, but here's the problem. You now have to get people. The barriers to entry to go to Washington are extremely high if you're a successful person. It's really designed for lawyers and lobbyists and academics to go work in Washington than it is for our nation's best business people.
Ian Bremmer:
If you could advise the president right now to do something that would actually make a difference, something that's potentially doable, what would it be?
Anthony Scaramucci:
Well, it's not doable, but this is what I would recommend that he do. I would recommend that he impose mandatory voting in the society like they have in Australia, for example. Yeah, a hundred percent. It's, "Okay, we're going to go to the Australian model, we're going to go mandatory voting, they'll get 85% voter participation," and bam, you will liquefy and dilute the current system of extremis because these are products.
Ian Bremmer:
We seemingly moving the other direction.
Anthony Scaramucci:
I'm sorry?
Ian Bremmer:
We're moving in the other direction. We're trying to find ways to disenfranchise people, make it harder for people to vote.
Anthony Scaramucci:
Some people say, "Well, that's a right leaning thing, that they're making it harder." I don't agree with that. The left has done a very good job hiding behind that. They don't want any more people voting than the right does. Because if you have a lower voter turnout and you have voter apathy, the jokers can stay permanently in power. Either side, if they're going to be brutally on honest with the American people, say, "No, we don't want anybody voting. Why would we want anybody voting?"
Ian Bremmer:
The fact that the media is in a constant state of apoplexy with Trump, and Trump also seems to relish that fight. Do you think he's handling it well? Do you think it's been good for him?
Anthony Scaramucci:
Well, it's been very good for him, it's been very bad for them.
Ian Bremmer:
He says it's good for them. He says they're making a lot of money, they got eyeballs.
Anthony Scaramucci:
Well, it's good for them as it relates to ratings. It's bad for them as a race, as a psychology because they're out of their minds. It's like a Greek tragedy. It's like watching somebody through their anger and frustration blind themselves and then cry in their own soup. It's crazy. No one listens to me, which is fine, but if I were them, I would deescalate. And frankly, if I was the president, I would deescalate. There's no reason to have this level of hostility on either side. The president for 45 years had a great relationship with the media, there's no reason why he can't continue to have a great relationship with the media. I would like the president out of the corner of conservative media, and once again, back across the whole media spectrum because he's a larger than life figure, he's a television star.
Anthony Scaramucci:
He had 15 years on a major network with high ratings. And I think he needs to do that to appeal his common sense wisdom to moderates and independence, who probably still like him or pause and reflect and say, "Wait a minute, the economy's doing way better, tax cut seems to be working. He looks like he's solving the North Korean problem, which was an intractable problem." Make a prediction on your podcast. He'll solve the Iranian problem. And so to me, people look at that and say, "That's really good. Let's get him out of his corner that he's painted in."
Ian Bremmer:
Of the people around Trump right now, who's the one or two or three that you would say, "Here's someone that I'm so glad is there fighting the good fight, defending..."
Anthony Scaramucci:
Jim Mattis is one of them, Mike Pompeo's another. Mike's a phenomenal guy. Steve Mnuchin's been a friend of mine for 30 years. He's a very, very, very smart guy, and he has a very good understanding of the president. He has a very good understanding of directionally, where the policies should go to make the American workers prosper and to make American companies prosper. Remember, there's a synthesis. We can't split it. That's what I hated about Bannon. We have globalists and we have nationalists. No, we don't. We have to have harmony between both groups. And that's something that the president really understands.
Ian Bremmer:
Is The Mooch only 11 days because you're fundamentally a populist?
Anthony Scaramucci:
No, I'm 11 days because I was reporting directly to the president, and when John Kelly got the job, he had to assert his militaristic, military muscles and fire me.
Ian Bremmer:
I asked that though because given what you're saying...
Anthony Scaramucci:
I'm not a populous.
Ian Bremmer:
But given the fact that you are trying to fight for the common man at a time when you're saying that everyone in there is in the golden hot tub, that implies that the system is sufficiently broken, that you just weren't going to make it for a period of time.
Anthony Scaramucci:
No, no. Populism always ends up as a failed concept because at the end of the day, you have to integrate and you have to synthesize the establishment with the common cause of the American people. You have to create that synthesis. You can't be on one side or the other. What's interesting about my life is I grew up in a blue collar family, and then I went to Harvard Law School and I lived in these hedge fund salons and went to Davos with people like you and seen all the action at the top. You have to synthesize the two. You have to make both sides feel non-threatened. One problem with populism is that it's too threatening to the established powers that are inside the system.
Ian Bremmer:
Anthony Scaramucci, good to you.
Anthony Scaramucci:
Good to be here, thank you.
Ian Bremmer:
Thanks, 11.
Ian Bremmer:
That's your show this week. Come back next week, GZERO World going to bring you Jonah Goldberg from the National Review. Fascinating guy, a lot to talk about. See you then.
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The GZERO world is brought to you by our founding sponsor. First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company. Imagine a bank without teller lines, where your banker knows your name and its most prized currency is extraordinary client service. Hear directly from First Republic's clients by visiting firstrepublic.com.
