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Interview Only w/ Anthony Scaramucci - All The Wrong Moves That Led To Trump · The Chuck ToddCast

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
0:02
Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
0:06
Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
0:11
Speaker 1: skeptical of that. as you should be. I get it.
0:14
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0:25
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0:28
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0:31
Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
0:34
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1:01
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1:23
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1:25
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1:29
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1:32
Speaker 1: done this. So look, I get it. I think there's
1:36
Speaker 1: all sorts of space. You see a lot of people
1:39
Speaker 1: are throwing themselves in this health care space. What I
1:42
Speaker 1: like about these chapter folks, I've spent time with them.
1:44
Speaker 1: This is a very transparent organization. It is Medicare and
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Speaker 1: all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing. The
1:53
Speaker 1: whole point of this is to make this easier and
1:56
Speaker 1: less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you already
2:00
Speaker 1: have in all of this, point it at your own
2:03
Speaker 1: plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure. And
2:06
Speaker 1: then call chapter. today at 980-734-3985. So joining me now
2:17
Speaker 1: is somebody I've known quite a long time and somebody
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Speaker 1: that The more we get to know each other, the
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Speaker 1: more we might actually describe each other as friends. It's
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Speaker 1: Anthony Scaramucci. You know, in the political world, he's known
2:30
Speaker 1: for his famous 11 days in the Trump administration. But
2:33
Speaker 1: in the finance world, I view him as somebody who's
2:36
Speaker 1: one of the few guys in finance who hasn't lost
2:39
Speaker 1: his mind and who's at least grounded. And I think
2:43
Speaker 1: that it is a fascinating detour from that the world's
2:49
Speaker 1: financial elite have taken. And I want to, there's so
2:52
Speaker 1: much to talk about these days. He's got a new
2:54
Speaker 1: book coming out. And at some point, we're going to
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Speaker 1: talk about that, All the Wrong Moves, it is called.
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Speaker 1: It will be coming out in September. Let me pivot
3:02
Speaker 1: to your book here. It's called All the Wrong Moves,
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Speaker 1: Three Catastrophic Decisions That Led to the Rise of Trump.
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Speaker 1: So I'm going to guess one of them has to
3:14
Speaker 1: do with the financial crisis in 08. Is that right
3:16
Speaker 1: or wrong?
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Speaker 2: Yes. So I'll be brief. I mean, first of all,
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Speaker 2: this book is a three and a half decade, 35
3:23
Speaker 2: year observation. It is a political observation, but it's also
3:29
Speaker 2: an economic observation. So I tried to thread my middle
3:32
Speaker 2: class background. with my education, my time on Wall Street,
3:37
Speaker 2: and my failed White House career. But remember, I was
3:39
Speaker 2: also a three-decade political fundraiser for the Republican Party at
3:43
Speaker 2: the presidential level. So I've tried to synthesize what I've observed.
3:49
Speaker 2: And basically, what's going on right now in terms of
3:51
Speaker 2: the economic tribalism, in my opinion, is a direct result
3:55
Speaker 2: of money. And I put something in the book called
3:57
Speaker 2: The Money Point of View of History. If you follow
4:00
Speaker 2: the money in the country, you can see where things
4:03
Speaker 2: are going. And so the three quick catastrophic decisions, we
4:07
Speaker 2: let China into the World Trade Organization unchecked. So they
4:11
Speaker 2: came in with emerging market privileges like the Dominican Republic.
4:16
Speaker 2: But when they got to the scale of Germany, we
4:18
Speaker 2: never cut them back or never treated them like a
4:21
Speaker 2: Western European nation, a result of which they had sky-high growth.
4:26
Speaker 2: And they became now an economic superpower. And they took
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Speaker 2: advantage of that system and the laxity of Western leaders
4:33
Speaker 2: to check them at the door. Something Trump is right about.
4:37
Speaker 2: The second thing is that we went to war in
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Speaker 2: Iraq and Afghanistan without a tax increase. First time in
4:43
Speaker 2: our history to take on two major wars.
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Speaker 1: Not only with the tax increase, Anthony, we cut taxes.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we did.
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Speaker 1: We cut taxes that year after 9-11.
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Speaker 2: We cut taxes twice. We cut them in March, and
4:59
Speaker 2: then we cut them again in 2003. So Bush cut
5:02
Speaker 2: taxes twice while prosecuting two wars, and this created that
5:07
Speaker 2: deficit spread that we're still dealing with today. Said differently,
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Speaker 2: George Washington to George Walker Bush, $ 7 trillion. $ 7 trillion.
5:15
Speaker 2: the last couple of presidents, $ 33 trillion. It's gone out
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Speaker 2: of control. Decision one, WTO. Decision two is fiscal irresponsibility
5:25
Speaker 2: going into two-decade wars. Then the third one is what
5:28
Speaker 2: you brought up, which is the global financial crisis. When
5:32
Speaker 2: we funded the banks, And we gave a trillion dollars,
5:36
Speaker 2: which is approximately $ 1. 7 trillion of today's money. And we
5:40
Speaker 2: gave that money to the banks and left nothing for
5:42
Speaker 2: the middle class or the working poor. No debt relief,
5:46
Speaker 2: no mortgage relief, no rental relief, no credit card interest
5:50
Speaker 2: payment relief. But here's the money for Goldman Sachs and
5:54
Speaker 2: others to pay their bonuses that year. It created a
5:57
Speaker 2: hotbed of anger in the country. You remember Occupy Wall Street.
6:01
Speaker 2: You remember the Tea Party movement. These guys got married,
6:05
Speaker 2: and they made a baby. They named the baby MAGA.
6:08
Speaker 2: And so and so this is not a book about
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Speaker 2: Donald Trump. This is a precursor story about what led
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Speaker 2: to the economic anxiety and led to the economic anger
6:20
Speaker 2: based populism that we're dealing with right now. And as
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Speaker 2: I point out in the book, it's left and right.
6:25
Speaker 2: There's a horseshoe. You know this. I know.
6:29
Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, let's say John McCain defeats Barack
6:31
Speaker 1: Obama in a way. Instead of Donald Trump winning in 16,
6:35
Speaker 1: it's Bernie Sanders that wins in 16. And the Tea
6:38
Speaker 1: Party is just an Occupy Wall Street is more of
6:41
Speaker 1: a left wing phenomenon than it is a right wing phenomenon.
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Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I think that is such a brilliant observation.
6:46
Speaker 2: And I always tell people, you see this horseshoe that
6:49
Speaker 2: we're talking about? It's an uncompleted triangle. It's not a horseshoe.
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Speaker 2: It's a lot closer to a triangle than people want
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Speaker 2: to admit.
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Speaker 1: You you work in that you understand this world of
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Speaker 1: finance as well as anybody that can also translate it
7:05
Speaker 1: into American, as I like to say, not English American.
7:09
Speaker 1: So I've I've been obsessed with the Mark Walter story
7:14
Speaker 1: in part because obviously I'm a huge sports fan. I
7:17
Speaker 1: actually helped start a sports business publication back in the
7:20
Speaker 1: early 90s. So I've I come at it both from
7:23
Speaker 1: my professional interest and personal interest. And the more you
7:26
Speaker 1: dig into it, this idea that life insurance companies have
7:30
Speaker 1: become the new banks of private credit strikes me as
7:36
Speaker 1: a risk in our financial system that we don't know
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Speaker 1: how to price in. Make me feel better about this.
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Speaker 1: Am I overly concerned? Is Mark Walter an outlier, if
7:51
Speaker 1: you will? in this or is this use of life
7:56
Speaker 1: insurance companies basically as a permanent source of money to
8:02
Speaker 1: finance other purchases and things like this? How risky is this?
8:09
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I think there are itinerant risks
8:14
Speaker 2: to taking the direct lending away from the banks. And
8:18
Speaker 2: so the banks blew up in 2008, and a result
8:22
Speaker 2: of which we heavily regulated the banks through Dodd-Frank and
8:26
Speaker 2: all these other things that we did. And then we
8:28
Speaker 2: had this too-big-to-fail test with the banks. And so a
8:32
Speaker 2: lot of the lending went to private equity guys and
8:35
Speaker 2: to life insurance companies. And so in one way, we've
8:39
Speaker 2: made the banks safer so there won't be a systemic crash.
8:43
Speaker 2: But in another way, all of this sort of risky
8:46
Speaker 2: lending went into the direct buckets, which I would say
8:51
Speaker 2: is less systemically risky.
8:53
Speaker 1: Right.
8:54
Speaker 2: But in the situation of life insurance companies, and again,
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Speaker 2: I'm not saying that he did anything wrong. I want
8:59
Speaker 2: to stipulate on your show. 100%.
9:01
Speaker 1: I know we don't have any proof of anything. I
9:04
Speaker 1: actually look at it as I'm glad he's getting scrutiny.
9:08
Speaker 1: It means the regulators, we can say they were, for
9:12
Speaker 1: the financial crisis, they were asleep. I don't think they
9:14
Speaker 1: were asleep on this one. My concern is that state
9:17
Speaker 1: regulators don't see the whole picture clearly. And there is
9:20
Speaker 1: no national regulator that looks at the insurance industry.
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Speaker 2: I want to explain to people, if you don't mind,
9:24
Speaker 2: in American. I love the definitions. I'm going to explain
9:27
Speaker 2: in American what the allegation is so people can understand
9:30
Speaker 2: it and then how we can potentially correct for it.
9:33
Speaker 2: So the life insurance companies are collecting premiums on your
9:36
Speaker 2: life or my life. Let's say I have a life
9:37
Speaker 2: insurance policy. I'm writing them a check. OK, that goes well.
9:42
Speaker 2: And then the owner can legally lend the money to
9:46
Speaker 2: his other companies. Okay, so now I can put it
9:50
Speaker 2: into the Dodgers or I can put it into my
9:52
Speaker 2: football team or I can put it into a affiliated entity,
9:57
Speaker 2: but it has to be disclosed. Right. What's at issue
10:01
Speaker 2: here is there could have been affiliated exposure, which is,
10:05
Speaker 2: by the way, regulatorily capped, which could have gone over
10:09
Speaker 2: the cap Which means that there was a little, there's
10:13
Speaker 2: a potential, and again, it's an allegation, that there was
10:16
Speaker 2: self-dealing involved. But as you know, where there's smoke, there's fire.
10:20
Speaker 2: He went to go sell the Lakers, and he's done
10:23
Speaker 2: some other things to try to get himself back.
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Speaker 1: Into- Do you think he's an outlier, I guess is
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Speaker 1: the question?
10:29
Speaker 2: Is he an outlier? So that is the best question
10:32
Speaker 2: of the day. I don't know if he's an outlier.
10:35
Speaker 2: I'm going to say that he is not an outlier.
10:37
Speaker 2: And I'm going to say that everybody is Jose Canseco
10:42
Speaker 2: and Mark McGuire. And so just hear me out, okay? Juice.
10:46
Speaker 1: Right, exactly where you're going.
10:47
Speaker 2: Everybody's Jose Canseco. What they're doing is they're using performance
10:51
Speaker 2: enhancement off the books and records in hope of not
10:55
Speaker 2: getting detected. The banks did it in 2008. They were
10:58
Speaker 2: Jose And they were Mark. They juiced their leverage. They
11:03
Speaker 2: took the leverage 35 to 1. It was unsustainable. They
11:06
Speaker 2: had a hiccup. They blew up the system. These guys
11:09
Speaker 2: are in a competition with each other as to see
11:12
Speaker 2: who can get richer. And they want to game the system.
11:16
Speaker 2: And again, I'm not accusing Mark of doing anything. But
11:19
Speaker 2: if you're telling me that there's a panaceality, that there
11:22
Speaker 2: are executives in that space... that have overtipped themselves and
11:27
Speaker 2: have breached what I would call the regulation, I think
11:30
Speaker 2: that that's likely. And I think the good news is
11:34
Speaker 2: that exposure to this may rein that in before it
11:38
Speaker 2: becomes too big of a problem. That's my hope. But
11:41
Speaker 2: if you're telling me, You didn't ask me this question,
11:45
Speaker 2: but I'm going to answer it. You said to me,
11:46
Speaker 2: will there be another looming financial crisis? The answer to
11:50
Speaker 2: that question is unequivocally yes. What it will be, I
11:54
Speaker 2: don't know. But I'm telling you, probably in my lifetime,
11:57
Speaker 2: because we're 18 years out from the global financial crisis,
12:00
Speaker 2: there will likely be another crisis. Maybe it'll be spawned
12:03
Speaker 2: by direct lending, or it'll be spawned by overinvestment in
12:07
Speaker 2: AI infrastructure, or it might be spawned by This sort
12:12
Speaker 2: of stuff that's going on off balance sheet at a
12:15
Speaker 2: lot of companies. But I submit to you because of
12:18
Speaker 2: human nature being what it is, we will likely have
12:21
Speaker 2: another crash and we have to prepare ourselves for it.
12:24
Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here on this. Democrats
12:27
Speaker 1: win both the House and the Senate. How does Trump
12:30
Speaker 1: handle this? And do you expect, because I've always said
12:34
Speaker 1: Trump really doesn't care about the future of the Republican Party.
12:37
Speaker 1: Trump always cares about Donald Trump.
12:38
Speaker 2: Doesn't care.
12:39
Speaker 1: First, second, third, fourth.
12:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:43
Speaker 1: What is your expectation of the relationship he tries to
12:46
Speaker 1: have with congressional Democrats? You know, I because I don't
12:53
Speaker 1: think it's going to be I think there's a chance.
12:57
Speaker 1: In his own way, and because he doesn't want to
12:59
Speaker 1: be impeached a third time, right, that he actually tries
13:03
Speaker 1: to find ways to work with Democrats. Maybe I'm smoking
13:08
Speaker 1: hopium this morning, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean.
13:11
Speaker 2: He's going to get impeached. You know, I mean, if
13:14
Speaker 2: they win the House because.
13:16
Speaker 1: Of Blanchard, Hegseth get impeached before him.
13:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're going to come after those guys, too. And
13:22
Speaker 2: I think he's I think he's conviction proof, meaning you're
13:26
Speaker 2: not going to get to the two thirds required to
13:28
Speaker 2: remove him from office. It's not possible given his stronghold
13:31
Speaker 2: on the Republican Party. But I I think I think
13:34
Speaker 2: something different. OK. burying analysis, where you and I agree,
13:39
Speaker 2: he does not care about the Republican Party. In fact,
13:42
Speaker 2: if anything, he wants Gavin Newsom to replace him.
13:44
Speaker 1: Oh, he would love that a Republican couldn't win whose
13:48
Speaker 1: last name wasn't Trump. He would love that.
13:49
Speaker 2: Exactly. He wants to be able to say, you were
13:51
Speaker 2: nothing before I got here, and you're nothing now that
13:54
Speaker 2: I'm gone. And so that's Trump. To not understand that
13:58
Speaker 2: and think he actually wants Vance or Rubio to replace him-
14:01
Speaker 2: You really don't understand the beast that is Donald Trump.
14:04
Speaker 2: So that's number one. So you and I are in
14:06
Speaker 2: agreement with that. Where I diverge from you is he's
14:11
Speaker 2: impeachment likely, but he's conviction unlikely. In fact, I would
14:17
Speaker 2: say they'll never be able to convince conviction proof.
14:21
Speaker 1: Democrats would have to win the Idaho Senate race this
14:23
Speaker 1: cycle with that independent for Republicans to get, oh, wow,
14:28
Speaker 1: maybe we ought to stop and think about this. And
14:31
Speaker 1: As much as I think the independent is going to
14:32
Speaker 1: get into the 40s in Idaho, I really do. I
14:35
Speaker 1: don't think that Mr. Todd Achilles is going to win.
14:49
Speaker 2: Trump's thing is the grift is going to get worse.
14:53
Speaker 2: Trump's thing is, hey, I'm going out in a blaze
14:56
Speaker 2: of glory. And so I'll try to destroy the Western
14:59
Speaker 2: alliance on the way out for some reason, because I
15:02
Speaker 2: have self-hatred about myself and I want to hurt the
15:04
Speaker 2: country and I want to hurt the little guy. I'm
15:07
Speaker 2: going to go out in a blaze of glory, try
15:08
Speaker 2: to make myself $ 20 to $ 40 billion in to the
15:11
Speaker 2: extent that I can. I will pardon myself and my
15:15
Speaker 2: family members. And Joe Biden opened the door for that
15:18
Speaker 2: by pardoning Hunter. And so I'm just certainly going to
15:21
Speaker 2: do that. And those guys were working on peanuts selling
15:24
Speaker 2: $ 50, 000 paintings. We're going to grift $ 40 billion for ourselves
15:28
Speaker 2: off this thing to the extent that we can. Good luck.
15:32
Speaker 2: trying to catch us because we're going to run faster
15:36
Speaker 2: than you guys. I'll be 82 years old or 83
15:40
Speaker 2: years old, and I will be sitting on a pile
15:42
Speaker 2: of money for myself and my family laughing at how
15:46
Speaker 2: successful politics was for me versus my corporate or my
15:50
Speaker 2: business career. That's Donald Trump. OK, to think otherwise, he's
15:54
Speaker 2: not there to serve the public. He's not there to
15:56
Speaker 2: help the Republican Party. He's there to get your mind
15:59
Speaker 2: share and your attention and to make money for himself.
16:02
Speaker 2: Those are the only two things he cares about. And
16:04
Speaker 2: if you think he cares about something differently, either you
16:07
Speaker 2: don't know him. Or you're living in your own reality
16:10
Speaker 2: distortion field. So those are the things that are going
16:13
Speaker 2: to happen. And it's sad for me to watch because
16:16
Speaker 2: that level of corruption is hurting the nine-year-old version of me.
16:22
Speaker 2: Because whatever I thought of Richard Nixon, I was 10
16:25
Speaker 2: years old when he resigned. I was like, all right,
16:28
Speaker 2: I did something wrong, but the general processes of the
16:31
Speaker 2: meritocracy lived in the country. When you have this level
16:35
Speaker 2: of transparent, full-throated corruption, the little guy looks up at
16:41
Speaker 2: that and says, okay, there's no room for me at
16:43
Speaker 2: the top.
16:44
Speaker 1: Well, not only that, but is there even a rule
16:47
Speaker 1: of law, right? Exactly.
16:48
Speaker 2: There's no rule of law. There's no fairness. You once
16:53
Speaker 2: took blue collar aspirational people and you turned them into
16:57
Speaker 2: blue collar economically desperational people. And that to me sucks
17:02
Speaker 2: because I grew up like that, Chuck. And I would
17:04
Speaker 2: want people that grew up today in the 2026s to
17:09
Speaker 2: have the same opportunity.
17:10
Speaker 1: When was the last time you read your Victor Hugo?
17:12
Speaker 1: I feel like we're getting ready for the French Revolution.
17:15
Speaker 1: At times.
17:16
Speaker 2: Well, remember something, you know, remember something. You don't take
17:18
Speaker 2: care of the people. They come after you with a
17:21
Speaker 2: tiki torch and a pitchfork. You know, I think it's smart.
17:25
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. My wife points this out all
17:27
Speaker 1: the time. She thinks it's she goes, you know, with
17:29
Speaker 1: the with Kushner, with Jared looking for a place to
17:32
Speaker 1: live in Albania or she goes, yeah.
17:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:35
Speaker 1: Anybody related to Trump's going to have to find a
17:37
Speaker 1: place overseas because nobody is going to welcome them in
17:40
Speaker 1: America in 10 years.
17:41
Speaker 2: Well, I think that are both going to want that
17:44
Speaker 2: tax haven for themselves. They really don't care. And I
17:47
Speaker 2: also think, look what he's doing with Hakeem Jeffries. He's
17:49
Speaker 2: trying to meet with Hakeem Jeffries.
17:50
Speaker 1: Is that about Jared or is it about Trump?
17:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. The message is get the gun on Trump. I'm
17:56
Speaker 2: leaving the country. You know, that's the message. I get it.
18:00
Speaker 2: I know what these guys are about, and it sucks,
18:04
Speaker 2: to be honest. I wish they weren't about that, but
18:07
Speaker 2: we got to them because of all the wrong moves.
18:11
Speaker 1: No, that's right.
18:12
Speaker 2: I think it's very important. I'm tying it back to
18:13
Speaker 2: the book for a reason. Read the book. You look
18:16
Speaker 2: at the book and say, OK, he he threaded things
18:18
Speaker 2: together that are not normally threaded. And this is a
18:22
Speaker 2: briefing book for somebody. If you want to know how
18:24
Speaker 2: we got to Trump and Mondani, read this and you'll
18:28
Speaker 2: see the mistakes. And we make good, good hearted, well-intended people.
18:32
Speaker 2: That's right. On both sides, Chuck. Believe me, I've made.
18:36
Speaker 1: I could make the argument. This basically goes back to
18:39
Speaker 1: the we we we didn't know how to win. We
18:41
Speaker 1: didn't know how to. We won the Cold War and
18:45
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do next.
18:47
Speaker 2: We won the Cold War, but we also got a
18:49
Speaker 2: little arrogant. What happens when you're getting things right, you
18:52
Speaker 2: get a little arrogant. I got something right when I
18:55
Speaker 2: was 27 in biotech. I thought I was a biotech guru,
18:59
Speaker 2: and I blew my doors off my own personal account
19:02
Speaker 2: by thinking that. So we get a little arrogant. I
19:04
Speaker 2: think that's the message of the whole thing. Amen.
19:07
Speaker 1: If you gamble, you know that all the time. Mr. Scaramucci,
19:10
Speaker 1: it's always a pleasure, sir. Congrats on the book, my friend.
19:13
Speaker 2: Thank you. I really, really appreciate you inviting me on. Thanks, Chuck.