Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Is Trump Insane?" with Anthony Scaramucci

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"Is Trump Insane?" with Anthony Scaramucci · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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Get a humans welcome to say space with dangerous ideas, it's time for the mooch, the mooch.
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Is there a more dangerous conversation to say to a man, why did you go and work for that
0:14
big fat idiot Donald Trump?
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That's the premise of this conversation really.
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The mooch, if you don't recall, was one of a revolving series of cast members of the Trump
0:26
administration and subsequently has become, well, even before the administration began,
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in fact, was probably the most valuable thing to global elites and to money people, which
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is he was one of them who was a translator of Trump, who straddled both worlds.
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He wasn't from Trump crazy land, he's a very successful business person, he's a financier.
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But most recently, he's now a crypto guy, he just got burned by Sam Bankman Fried, the
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huge crypto titan who turned out to be something of a fraud, apparently, I mean, he hasn't
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been convicted yet, but the whole edifice, the whole House of Cards that Sam Bankman
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Fried had constructed, collapsed and people left without their shirts.
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One of those people is sort of Anthony Scaramucci, but it's also sort of hard to know whether
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or not he's completely, what side is he on his, he victim or perpetrator in the whole
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Sam Bankman Fried thing?
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Basically, he and he was, he's a bit of a mentor to Sam Bankman Fried.
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The two of them were on top of the world together, Sam Bankman Fried bought 30% of Anthony
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Scaramucci's company and the two of them went on a tour around the Middle East, a grand
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fundraising tour to raise $2 billion for Sam Bankman Fried so that FTX could buy which
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was Sam Bankman Fried's crypto company that subsequently collapsed so that it could buy
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distressed crypto, then the whole thing fell apart.
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Now, Sam Bankman Fried, who's completely broke owns 30% of Anthony Scaramucci's company.
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So we talk a little bit about that, but it's obviously not the main thing that I want
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to focus on with this guy.
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The main thing that I want to focus on is what the hell it was like to work for a person
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like Trump.
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So let's just go back.
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It's so headspinning to remember those days of the early months of the Trump presidency
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where the whole White House was a revolving dual cast of characters, Sean Spicer, remember
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Sean Spicer, remember Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live as played by Melissa McCarthy.
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Settle down, settle down, settle down.
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Before we begin, I know that myself and the press have gotten up to Rocky Starrie.
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Okay, okay, okay.
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In the sense, when I say Rocky Starrie and I mean it in the sense of Rocky the movie
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because I came out here to punch you.
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And also I don't talk so good.
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That's Melissa McCarthy playing Sean Spicer who preceded Anthony Scaramucci as the White House
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communications director.
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He was succeeded by Hope Hicks after a 10 year.
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Do you remember how long Anthony Scaramucci was a White House communications director of
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11 days, 11 days?
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Here's how that happened.
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I literally want to just read to you how this all went down.
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It'll give you a better understanding of the subsequent conversation on July 21st, 2017.
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President Donald Trump appointed Scaramucci, the White House communications director.
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The White House announcement of Scaramucci said he would report directly to the president
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rather than to the White House chief of staff as White House secretary Sean Spicer had.
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On the day that Scaramucci's appointment was announced, Spicer resigned, getting ahead
4:08
of things, so he can't be fired.
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The New York Times reported that he had done so after advising Trump that he vehemently
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disagreed with the appointment of Scaramucci.
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Trump's chief of staff, Rince Prebus, also had vehement objections to Scaramucci's hiring.
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On July 26, 2017, this is five days after Scaramucci gets the job.
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The journalist Ryan Lizzer reported that Scaramucci called him to try to identify who leaked
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information about a meeting to the New Yorker.
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During the call, Scaramucci revealed some disagreements he had with Prebus and White House
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advisor Steve Bannon.
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Scaramucci believed the conversation to be off the record.
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During the interview and in a tweet immediately afterwards, Scaramucci said he had contacted
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or would be contacting the FBI and the Department of Justice asking them to investigate Prebus
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for allegedly leaking his financial disclosure form to a political reporter.
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Scaramucci later deleted the tweet and the reporter stated publicly that she had obtained
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the information from the US export import bank, in fact.
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On July 28, this is now seven days after Scaramucci has appointed White House Communications
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Director.
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Gee, she'd moved fast.
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Prebus's resignation as the chief of staff was announced.
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It's the person to whom the White House Communications Director is supposed to report.
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But Scaramucci was reporting directly to Trump.
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Prebus said that he had resigned the previous day.
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Also on July 28, Trump announced that he had named retired General John F. Kelly as his
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new chief of staff.
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Three days later on July 31, Trump dismissed Scaramucci from his role as communications director.
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On the recommendation of Kelly, this is the new chief of staff, who wanted him removed
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because he didn't think Scaramucci was disciplined and believed Scaramucci had lost his
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credibility.
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In other words, Scaramucci had lost his credibility because this conversation that he had with
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the New Yorker journalist actually was Ryan Lister at the New Yorker.
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I'm not sure where Ryan was at the time, but anyway, he had a conversation with this journalist.
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He thought it was off the record.
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He threw tons of shade on Steve Bannon and Ryan's Prebus and that obviously was not a
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disciplined thing to do as the communications director.
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So the incoming chief of staff, Kelly goes, Scaramucci's got to go.
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It's only 11 days into the gig.
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Trump goes, okay, out the door.
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As one of his first acts after being sworn in as chief of staff, Kelly reportedly invited
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Scaramucci to his office and told him he was going to be let go.
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An official White House statement indicated that Scaramucci will be leaving his post to
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give chief of staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team.
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Scaramucci's tenure of 11 days is tied for the shortest in history for that position.
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The other person being Jack Kohler who in the Reagan administration lasted the same number
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of days.
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Leading some commentators to compare similarly short political position ten years in units
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of Scaramucci's, how many Scaramucci's did they last?
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It's a bit like, was it Liz Truss, the British PM, the English, the UK PM who was, she was
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around for so long they were measuring her tenure in the life of a lettuce, a lettuce
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last longer than Liz.
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So that was the mooch and I want you to listen to the very first and only press briefing
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that he ever gave in the White House press room.
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Imagine that podium with the insignia of the White House behind it and the American flag
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and so on.
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So this is less than six months since the Trump administration.
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Do you remember those early days?
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Do you remember the airports clogged with protesters and Muslims trying to get into the
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country and lawyers trying to stop the Trump administration's so-called Muslim ban or
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you know, a haphazard ban on people traveling from, excuse me particular Muslim majority
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countries.
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Do you remember like the rallies, the the women's march, everything that was going
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on, it was absolutely, if you didn't live through that when you were politically aware,
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it was unlike any administration in living memory.
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It was chaos and in walks the mooch and this is his first exchange.
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I think there's been at times a disconnect between the way we see the president and how
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much we love the president and the way some of you perhaps see the president.
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I certainly see the American people probably see the president the way I do, but we want
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to get that message out there and to use a Wall Street expression, there might be an
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arbitrage spread between how well we are doing and how well some of you guys think we're
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doing and we're going to work hard to close that spread.
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That's what I'm done.
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I'll take the question.
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The question is, if many people like him, it will be what's going to be there.
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Two questions for you.
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Number one, what we have seen in his administration so far is the president being his own messenger
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very frequently and that has caused you to know some struggles for the communication staff.
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How do you expect to get this White House back on track?
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Well, I'm going to take a slight issue with the question because actually the White House
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is on track and we're actually I think doing a really good job, well, I actually do think
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we're a missing perspective because we have a whole list of things and I didn't want
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to come out here with our list of accomplishments and start a whole advertisement infomercial
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right now.
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I really just wanted to talk about personnel movement and how we're thinking about things,
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but I think we're doing an amazing job.
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The president himself is always going to be the president.
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I was in the office with him earlier today and we were talking about letting him be
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himself, letting him express his full identity.
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I think he's got some of the best political instincts in the world and perhaps in history.
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If you think about it, he started his political ascent two and two years and two months
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ago and he's done a phenomenal job for the American people.
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So that's the big fan of the press for at least 11 more days, no 10 more days after
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that.
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As I say, we begin by talking about crypto because most of his life, Skyrimucci worked at
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Goldman Sachs, he was an investment bank, he worked in equities and private wealth management.
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He founded several capital management companies and most recently was in bed with Sam
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Beckman-Freed.
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They're now disgraced crypto king slash perhaps the led command who knows Sam owns 30% still,
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I guess, of Skyrimucci's company.
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Please enjoy the one and only.
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Anthony Skyrimucci.
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I mean, let's just stop with where you are now.
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What's going to happen to Sam Beckman-Freed's stake in your company?
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That's a really good question.
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I can only give you what I would like to have happen because I obviously don't know
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what will happen.
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But let me give you like a little bit of backdrop and a little bit of color.
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We sold 30% of the company to Sam through something called Island Bay Holdings.
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They purchased it for 45 million US dollars.
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There was no preferred interest.
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It was common equity in the contract, Josh.
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It said that he could purchase the remaining shares, actually, to be perfectly precise,
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he could purchase up to 85% of it.
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I was going to keep 15 for 250 million.
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He had three years in which to exercise that option.
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The long and short of it is he had no control of the company.
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He had no preferred equity.
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It's not really valuable to anybody to purchase it other than us.
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I'm interested in purchasing it.
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He fraudulently induced us to enter into that contract, obviously, because his reps and
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warranties of who he was and what he was were not accurate.
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That's called fraud and the inducement in the United States.
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I would like to buy that back for a fraction of what I sold it to him for.
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Can the court compel him to do that?
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What happens is, in the bankruptcy estate, the trustees have this as an asset of the
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estate.
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Now, they can put it up for sale.
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Let's say they put it up for auction as an example.
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Be very hard for somebody to bid on it, because number one, I have blocking rights on
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it.
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It's a minority stake, but you can't buy it without my express approval.
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Even if you did buy it, it has no economic interest.
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You're just a minority shareholder of Skybridge.
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You're not going to get paid out, no profits or anything like that.
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We'll have to see what happens, but my guess is a year or two from now, they'll come to
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me and they'll give me the opportunity to buy it at a discount, because I'll waive
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my claim against the estate and my lawsuit against them for fraud.
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They'll make the claim while they have no assets, they're in bankruptcy, and so my fraud
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claim is species.
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My guess is a lot of Sam Asset are actually bubbling up right now, as we speak, including
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his Bitcoin stakes and other positions, so it'll be interesting to see what happens over
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the next two or three years.
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If you're a bull on crypto, I think the creditors of sandbagging free may do better than
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people expect.
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Right.
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Is that good or bad for you, though, because if they have something to share, then does
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that work in favor or against your ability to claw back your 30%.
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Well, I think it works in favor.
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I think that they're looking to get out of this thing as cleanly as possible.
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They know that they had a fraudulent situation going on with me, and so they know that
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I've got an issue with them, and so I do think that, but I don't have to transact.
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I don't have to buy it back from them.
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They can try to sell it to somebody else.
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I can block it.
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I can leave it exactly the way it is right now.
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I can go on and grow my business irrespective of the relationship with sandbagging.
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I can also fork the business and start new businesses in a different entity if I had
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to.
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So, listen, we'll see.
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I've been in bad situations before.
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This isn't the worst situation I've been in.
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How about working for Donald Trump?
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That was a pretty bad situation.
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I want to talk about that, but just before we go, I'm tougher than I look, you know what
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I mean?
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I think people generally have an impression of you as being a tough guy, Anthony.
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Has some of the cloud around Sam rubbed off on you?
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I mean, has some of the shit kind of got stuck to your show as well?
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Yeah, I think so.
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I think it hurt me.
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No question.
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I've gotten a series of negative articles written about me and my association with him.
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I think some people have a tendency to revise history.
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I'll remind you and your podcast listeners that he was a darling of Wall Street.
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He was a darling of the political class in Washington.
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He was well received by everybody, including Gary Gensler.
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His mom was very close friends with Elizabeth Warren.
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He was perceived as a white knight prior to his downfall and the debacle that ensued.
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And so we have a tendency to revise history.
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Yeah.
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I think there is a difference, isn't there, Anthony, between being friendly with someone
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and sort of drinking the cool aid and proactively going into a 30% deal where they buy a portion
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of your company.
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And then you go traipsing around internationally on trips with them, raising funds alongside
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them.
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That's just worse optics.
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Is it though?
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I mean, isn't it worse for the people that gave it?
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He gave me the money, you know, I received the money from him.
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You don't think it's worse optics for a venture capitalist that did due diligence on him,
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gave him several hundred million dollars of their money and then had to immediately
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write it off to zero.
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I'm almost like that person is more incompetent because they ended up losing their shirt
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and you didn't.
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But in terms of going around trying to raise money from other people, I think that's
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what I mean is bad optics.
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It looks bad to be standing too.
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But I mean, you know, I'm obviously living under a blessed star because the trip that
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you're talking about, the one that I made with them to the Middle East exposed it.
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And so none of those people that we talked to had made any investments with them and
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in fact, if anything, most of those people where I have multiple decade relationships with
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those people are actually helping me at this moment, you know, their friends of mine and
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they recognize that, you know, people can be misled and there can be things that, you
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know, happen to people in life that are serpitious.
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I certainly didn't do anything serpitious.
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I've lived a life of high integrity and I think what I would tell your podcast listeners,
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if you have integrity, you will always have opportunity.
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And so I can't tell you the number of things that have been shown to me over the last six
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months since the Sam debacle.
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And Skybridge will go on and will be a different and in some way stronger place as a result
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of what happened.
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But yeah, listen, that was a bad situation.
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I don't, I don't sure to go with things, Josh, I tell people straight up, bad situation,
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hurt me reputationally, certainly for people that do not know me or, you know, I get a lot
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of haters because I'm a non-conformist and that typically engenders a lot of hate.
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You know what tall poppy syndrome is, right?
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You remember that, Josh?
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Absolutely.
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Well, that's much better in time.
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Yeah, exactly.
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So, you know, I, I know what tall poppy syndrome is, the Italian is called the Melocchio.
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And I'm a big boy.
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I know how to take a punch.
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I also know how to give a punch and, you know, listen, I own my mistakes.
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I'm very open with people about what happened.
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I certainly wish I could go back and not have constructed that deal with him.
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I was speaking at the Australian Davos conference over the weekend.
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It was two o'clock in the morning here in the U.S., and I'm sorry about the location
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of my continent.
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It's deeply inconvenient for me as well.
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It's all good, but, you know, I'm down there speaking and this woman was basically on
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the stage.
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I was coming in on Zoom and she was trying to explain to me how incompetent and stupid
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I am.
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And I very politely said to her, okay, maybe you could have said no to the $45 million
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that you're looking at his audit and going into his data room and having your auditors
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confer with his auditors about his audited financials.
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And maybe you would have said no to the $45 million, but I didn't.
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And so, you know, but I'd like to see what you would really say if you were there in
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the moment where someone's offering you $45 million with $45 million.
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Well, I mean, people are always going to, you know, I think you're an easy target.
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You've always been an easy target just because you're a contrarian person who doesn't know
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any particular line.
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And so, whether it's politically or economically, people are going to take pot shots at you
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because, you know, you don't play their game.
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Yeah.
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That's all good.
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I don't want to talk politics.
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I don't know.
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We're limited on time.
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Take me back to, here's a piece from the Washington Post, July 21st, 2017, actually, here
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it is May 9th, 2016, that it made, that makes more sense.
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Anthony Saramucci, a high profile New York investor and a leading fundraiser on several
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past Republican presidential campaigns, said Monday that he has signed on to join Donald
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Trump's NACE International Finance Committee, Saramucci becomes one of the first traditional
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Republican bundlers to join the Trump campaign and commit to raising money for the party's
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presumptive nominee who's struggling to unite the fractured party for the general election.
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This is before the general election, obviously, this is May of that year when a lot of people
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didn't think the Republicans could win, well, certainly didn't think that Trump could win
20:05
that election.
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What were you doing?
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What were you angling for?
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What's that play?
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Well, I mean, I think you need more of the backstory, you know, I grew up in a blue collar
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neighborhood.
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My dad was a crane operator.
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He was an hourly worker and a union.
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And so when I got out of Harvard Law School and joined Goldman Sachs, I didn't have the
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connections that some of my contemporaries had.
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And you know, I never hit a golf ball, never swung a tennis racket.
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And I had to come up with a way to meet people.
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I was in the high net worth area at Goldman, the brokerage business, they gave me a desk
20:38
in a telephone and they said, go out and find wealthy people and have them open accounts
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with Goldman.
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But I didn't know any wealthy people.
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So my one entree into that, Josh, was politics.
20:48
And so I wrote my first check in 1989.
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I was 25 years old to Rudolph Giuliani.
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He was running for mayor of New York.
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He lost that election.
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And that was actually pretty good news for me because him losing that election enabled
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me to spend some time with him, quality time.
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And when he geared up for the 93 election, I was a big fundraiser for him, at least at
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my age.
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And then he introduced me to Governor Prataki and then I met George W. Bush and then
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I met Mitt Romney.
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And so I was with Jeff Bush's campaign when Bush dropped out, Trump called to recruit
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me.
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I had known Mr. Trump through the New York charity circuit.
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I had attended a few Yankee games with him.
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I sat at the same table as him at some charities together.
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We'd both worked at NBC.
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I was at CNBC.
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He was working at the apprentice at the time.
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So we had a very good rapport.
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I met him at Trump Tower, the future ambassador to New Zealand, Scott Brown, who's a tough
21:49
classmate of mine, was in the meeting with me.
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And we talked to Mr. Trump about working for him.
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And I made a decision rightly or wrongly to stay loyal to the Republican party and to
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work for Mr. Trump.
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There were only two choices in that campaign.
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I've been a lifelong Republican.
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And so I went to work for Mr. Trump.
22:11
Because there are also two reports that you were an Obama supporter in Obama's first
22:15
term and that you were a Democrat up until basically the financial crisis.
22:19
So basically what happens to you when you go into politics, you get a tremendous amount
22:23
of misinformation that is bled into the system and fed to people, some of that stuff actually
22:30
came from opposition research from my fellow Republicans that didn't like me or felt somewhat
22:36
threatened by me, particularly my direct relationship with Donald Trump.
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Remember, I built my own business, have my own money, I'm financially independent.
22:45
And so I talked to Trump very candidly.
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I didn't kiss his ass like some of these political operatives did.
22:51
And some of those guys, it's a very vicious sport, Josh.
22:56
Some of those guys were trying to come up with opposition research and different negative
23:00
angles on me.
23:02
Never was a Democrat.
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I registered as a Republican in 1982, that was my 18th year of life, registered for the
23:09
draft and for the Republican party, been a lifelong Republican, that's 41 years as a Republican.
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In 2008, when I was less involved in the national political scene, a former acquaintance
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of mine that I had gone to law school with, Barack Obama was running for the United States
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presidency.
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Two of my friends that were close to him asked me to support him.
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I knew him, liked him enough, was agnostic to national politics.
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I was more focused on New York state politics.
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I raised him some money, gave him some money.
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I didn't love his policies, which is why in a weird way, he, the decision to get Barack
23:52
Obama money, thrusted me into the national political fundraising arena.
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I went to go work for Governor Romney in 2012, and then as I said, Jeb Bush in 2016 before
24:03
working for Trump, but you, you're asking very good questions, so I want to answer, but
24:07
provide some guidance.
24:08
I mean, there's no, yeah, there's no harm in having supported Obama and then supporting
24:12
Romney and then, and then, and then feeling like your allegiances with the Republican party.
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When you, so when you say that you had just kind of a rapport with Trump, prior to politics,
24:21
just from social circles in New York, what did you make of the guy during the apprentice
24:24
years when you were hanging out at, I don't know, bull games?
24:27
So he's a, he is a very charming guy, very charming guy, and he, he can be a credibly
24:34
charming and ingratiating what he wants to be.
24:38
And I had a good relationship with him, you know, I had a rapport with him.
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One of his family members said to me that he said to them that I reminded him of Fred
24:51
Trump, meaning I started with nothing and built myself up from something, and so he
24:55
had a respect for that.
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And so we had a good rapport.
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I had a very direct, you know, have his cell phone number, called him regularly.
25:06
He asked me for advice on different things.
25:08
I told him the truth.
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I didn't guess his ass.
25:10
I thought he was going in a direction that didn't make sense.
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I tried to explain to him why I thought that.
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I guess the only thing that was a little weird about him and remains weird about him is
25:20
the insecurities.
25:21
You know, he's a morocally insecure guy, you know, I have my own podcast called Open Book
25:26
where we interview people like Andrew Cuomo, Chris Cuomo, Kevin O'Leary, you know, you
25:32
know, fun people like Barbara Eden who was I, I dream a genie, and you get to know these
25:36
people a little bit.
25:37
They don't have Trump's insecurities.
25:38
I've never met somebody as successful as Donald Trump, obviously ascended to the American
25:44
presidency that is literally as insecure as he is.
25:48
He also probably has a reading disability.
25:50
He's not a good reader.
25:53
He's not well read.
25:54
And so when you are talking to him about things, if he feels he's outside of his realm,
25:59
he starts to bully you.
26:00
And so I was in situations on the Trump plane.
26:04
Somebody was trying to explain to him what the psych's picot treaty was, the treaty that
26:08
the French and the UK government cut on the evacuation of Palestine and the Middle East
26:15
in general.
26:16
Because Trump wasn't aware of it.
26:18
He started bullying the intellectual that was explaining it to him.
26:21
And I stopped the conversation and said, Hey, Mr. Trump, do you remember Lawrence of
26:26
Arabia when Peter O'2 played Lawrence in the movie?
26:30
Oh, yeah, that was a great movie.
26:32
I remember what the movie was about.
26:34
And then I was able to explain to him what the psych's picot treaty was without him.
26:38
How did you feel?
26:39
It was Christ.
26:40
It's like Teo dealing with a toddler.
26:42
It's like to remember that book we read it.
26:45
You can't tell him, you can't tell him things directly.
26:48
I was in, it's not important to know the name, but I was in the Oval Office with a member
26:55
of his team who was trying to explain the difference between a Shia Muslim and a Sunni Muslim.
27:01
And he didn't want to hear it, and he didn't want them to know that he didn't know it.
27:07
And so this morose insecurity and this bullying aspect of his personality made him a very
27:12
bad manager is very poor executive management skills.
27:17
And you know, I'll say something about him that people close to him really get.
27:21
He does not like people, Josh, doesn't like them, okay?
27:25
Barack Obama, he's a little aloof, but generally likes people.
27:29
Bill Clinton loves people, George W. Bush loves people.
27:34
Ronald Reagan obviously loved people.
27:37
This man did not like people.
27:39
It's evident by the way he treats people.
27:40
He's asymmetrically loyal to people.
27:43
And I will say this to you, anybody that was independent, had their own business, had their
27:48
own money, had their own career like a general spoke out against his nonsense.
27:54
It was only the people that were beholden to him who had economic relationship with him or had a
28:02
sorry for those sirens and you want to what city are you in?
28:05
Are you in Bairou or you know, I'm in New York City.
28:08
So you're going to hear a little bit of that in the background, sorry for that.
28:11
But anybody that had a relationship with him that was independent spoke honestly about him
28:17
and said that he would be a threat to the American democracy, and he would be a threat in
28:21
his second term.
28:22
I'm a lifelong Republican, but I'm a patriot first.
28:25
I'm a partisan second, and there was no way that I could back Mr. Trump's second term.
28:31
And by the way, when he started attacking me, it was sort of foolish of him because I was actually
28:36
defending him on the Bill Marshall.
28:38
One question was asked to me about the four congresswoman that he was berating.
28:43
On Twitter, I said, geez, I wish the president wouldn't speak like that.
28:47
That's American nativism.
28:48
They used to say that to my Italian grandmother to go back to the country she originally came from.
28:53
That's American nativism.
28:54
It's not something that the American president should be speaking.
28:59
Bill Maure turned to me and said, well, he's going to light you up tomorrow on Twitter.
29:03
I said, Bill, there's no way.
29:04
I just spent my whole night defending him.
29:07
He said, nah, you went seven for eight for Trump.
29:09
You got to go 13 for 10, which is mathematically impossible, Josh.
29:13
And so you got to do that.
29:16
And since you didn't do that, he's going to light you up tomorrow on Twitter.
29:19
I bet him dinner.
29:20
I lost the bet.
29:21
He was lighting me up on Twitter, but Josh, I'm a New Yorker.
29:24
And this is when you hold what position and what stage is this?
29:28
I'm fired.
29:30
I'm fired.
29:31
I've been fired from the White House.
29:33
I'm loyal to him on television.
29:34
I'm on television pundit, supporting him, defending him on a lot of different networks.
29:41
I'm two years in his defense, fired on the 31st of July.
29:45
It's August 8th of 2019.
29:48
I'm two years in his defense.
29:49
I said one thing on the Bill Maure show that he didn't like
29:53
after saying seven things that I think he would have liked.
29:57
And so he started viciously attacking me on Twitter.
30:00
Well, I'm a New Yorker.
30:01
You know, I'm not Ted Cruz or one of these crybabies, right?
30:04
So I think I responded by calling him the
30:07
fattest president since William Howard Taft,
30:09
just because I know he hates being so fat.
30:11
And you know, he didn't like that.
30:13
So he fired back at me.
30:14
And I said, wow, you must be getting really old
30:16
because these troll responses are slow and somewhat dim would it.
30:22
You know, because I know he hates being old.
30:24
And then he went after my wife.
30:25
I mean, who the hell does that?
30:26
So once he went after my wife, I unloaded on him.
30:29
I said, well, I was on that show with Stormy Daniels.
30:32
And my nickname for you is tiny.
30:34
After talking to Stormy, my nickname for you is tiny Trump.
30:38
Okay, because we know that's got to be the reason for all that
30:42
overmasculinity and high heels.
30:45
He's got two and a half inch heels in his shoe.
30:48
And he's got the red orange war paint on his head
30:52
and the different spray tans and so forth.
30:55
This is a guy that's overcompensating for a lot of different things.
30:59
And then the fight really started.
31:00
But I'm of New Yorker.
31:02
So if you're going to fight with me,
31:03
first of all, I don't like throwing the first punch.
31:05
But if you're going to fight with me,
31:07
I'm ready to go.
31:08
No problem.
31:08
And so I stayed on it until he lost that election.
31:12
And as I like to point out to him and his friends,
31:14
obviously, you couldn't win the election without my support.
31:17
Which is sarcastic, of course.
31:18
But it's just it's just a way of fucking with him a little bit.
31:21
Well, I mean, I'm glad that I'm glad that we're elevating
31:23
the discourse in America at the knee.
31:25
This is important.
31:26
These are important issues.
31:27
Let it go.
31:28
You can go.
31:29
I can go high or low.
31:30
We can talk about the sides.
31:31
Peekos 3D.
31:32
We can talk about our.
31:34
But what's interesting to me is like you say a nuclear triad is,
31:38
you know, I'm not.
31:39
I'm not.
31:40
But I can also I can also slap somebody around when they're slapping me.
31:43
You know, but when you when you say like he goes after your wife,
31:46
like, who does that?
31:47
The answer to the question, who does that?
31:48
Is Donald Trump obviously does that?
31:51
And was well known to do things like that.
31:54
And that's why he's about his character.
31:56
Among all we are doing on in his administration in the first place.
32:00
So one of my deeper regrets, and again,
32:04
I'm a person that's willing to own my mistakes in life.
32:06
One of my deeper regrets is that I let my pride and ego
32:10
get the best of me, Josh.
32:11
I grew up in a blue collar family, built two successful businesses.
32:15
I got the offer to work in the White House for the American president.
32:19
And I mean, it's not shaming this.
32:20
I don't want to make it sound like I'm sort of trying to throw you under the bus here.
32:24
But I am interested in what was going to be.
32:26
I don't think there's any shame.
32:27
I think there's a cautionary tale for people.
32:29
I have a buddy of mine who was offered a very senior job.
32:33
He met with Trump twice and he said, this is not for me.
32:37
And I'm not going to take the job.
32:39
And I looked at him incredulously and said, why are you not going to take the job?
32:43
He said, because I won't be able to handle Trump.
32:45
We'll get into a fight and Trump will end up firing me.
32:49
And I won't be able to live with myself for that embarrassment.
32:52
So I'm not going to take the job.
32:55
I foolishly hit the override switch on all of that rational thinking.
33:00
I said, I don't know, I'm going to take the job.
33:01
I'm going to get a chance to work for the American president.
33:04
Just back up a little bit, Anthony, before you get a job off of him,
33:07
Trump, because I'm interested in your transition from financier to political actor.
33:13
Like you, you mentioned that you were working for Jeff Bush in 2016.
33:17
Before that, you were all volunteer work, all fundraising, fundraising volunteer.
33:23
But you were a super rich, super successful guy,
33:28
well-known and financial.
33:29
I mean, you'd achieved everything that you could want to achieve in business.
33:34
You know, you say you've been a lifelong Republican,
33:36
but you hadn't been active in trying to seek political office or anything.
33:39
You had a wrong office, but now you're on the Walker campaign.
33:43
Then that tanks, you go to the Bush campaign, the Jeb Bush campaign,
33:46
that tanks, you end up on the Trump campaign.
33:49
What was the play here?
33:50
Like you'd already been wildly successful in business.
33:52
Did you say a future like, did you want to be treasury secretary?
33:55
No, no, no, I didn't want to be treasury secretary.
33:58
I could have potentially had the opportunity to become our secretary.
34:01
I didn't think I was well suited for that.
34:04
My mistakes are mistakes of ego and pride.
34:08
I had no interest in working for the White House.
34:11
Trump won on November the 8th, on Wednesday November the 9th.
34:14
He said to me, I want you to come down and watch and work with me.
34:17
I said, no, I'm hosting Wall Street Week.
34:20
I have a nice business.
34:21
It's very flattering, but I have no interest.
34:22
Then on that Friday, unbeknownst to me, he announced his 16 person executive transition team.
34:29
I was on it.
34:31
I then called him.
34:31
I said, what the hell are you doing?
34:33
And he said, aha, aha, I'm the president elect.
34:35
And you know, I'm your president now.
34:37
You got to help me.
34:39
And so I joined that transition team.
34:41
I worked with Steve Manuchin to help staff the treasury,
34:44
among other things that we did together.
34:46
And you know, and then Trump offered me the job of being the White House liaison.
34:52
Mr. Prebus, who was his chief of staff, did not like me.
34:56
Now I'm a little bit of a...
34:58
I don't want to read how...
34:59
Honestly, it was so chaotic those days.
35:02
And so chaotic even just to witness that I can't imagine the twos and froze between
35:08
Prebus and Trump and you.
35:09
Anyway, that job was snatched away from you.
35:11
The job was snatched away from me.
35:13
So then I called Trump and said, this guy's an asshole.
35:16
And when you're ready to get rid of him, hire me.
35:18
I'll take care of it for you.
35:19
And that was a big mistake.
35:20
I shouldn't have done that.
35:21
Do you remember the first press conference when you appointed press secretary?
35:27
Oh, very well.
35:27
Yeah, that was a fun day for me.
35:30
I obviously, you know, according to the White House,
35:34
again, I don't know if this is true or not.
35:35
40 million people globally tuned in to watch that.
35:38
So, you know, and again, I can speak extemporaneously.
35:43
And I took the questions from the press to the best of my capability.
35:47
This probably would be lost on most people.
35:49
But the first question, I, you know, I pointed to CNN.
35:54
Because CNN had napping called on for three months by Sean Spicer.
35:58
He was quote unquote mad at them and he was punishing them.
36:01
And I was trying to restart the relationship between the White House
36:05
and the press, but that probably also got me in trouble as well.
36:09
Because I saw the press differently than Mr. Trump.
36:11
We're in a free society.
36:12
I believe in the free press and the press's job is to hold people
36:17
in office accountable at a result of which, you know,
36:21
you have to have a relationship with them whether you like it or not.
36:23
How did you feel about us out of the night lives in personation of Sean Spicer?
36:29
Well, I thought he was a, you know, we allowed a curse on this podcast.
36:32
They're probably not right.
36:33
I thought Sean was one of the big dicks of all time.
36:36
And my nickname for him was liar spice.
36:40
You know, every spice girl's got a nickname.
36:41
So his was liar spice.
36:44
I never met a bigger liar than him, you know, different from previous.
36:47
Previous is more like a Richie Cunningham from Happy Days.
36:51
He tried to pretend he was from Wisconsin, but he was like a mob boss.
36:54
He was a different guy.
36:56
But Spicer, when they were making fun of him, I enjoyed it.
36:59
Because I thought he was a complete asshole.
37:01
And the only thing that I regret is I didn't get a chance to fire Spicer
37:06
before he quit.
37:07
The minute that Trump hired me, he said, holy shit, I quit.
37:11
Because he didn't, he didn't have to do it anyway.
37:15
One less person I needed to fire, but he was a complete asshole.
37:19
What how shell shocked will you?
37:21
Well, how unsurprised will you when 11 days later you are up to?
37:25
I, I, when I talked to that reporter,
37:29
and this is somebody I just, again, part of the backstory,
37:32
knew the family for 50 years.
37:34
My father had worked with his dad in the construction industry on Long Island.
37:39
He knew me. I knew him.
37:41
I talked to him off the cuff.
37:42
That is my mistake.
37:43
I own that.
37:44
Don't blame anybody by myself.
37:46
When he told me he was running to CNN with the recording of our conversation,
37:52
I said, okay, well, that's going to get me fired.
37:55
And so that'll end my tenure.
37:57
It'll obviously end my relationship with you and your family.
37:59
If that's what you want to do, it's very transactional of you to do that.
38:03
And he said, oh, no, I'm definitely doing that.
38:05
And the next day he did that, Trump liked it.
38:09
And you probably not surprised by that.
38:11
You know, what I said about Bannon, and look at what Bannon is today,
38:14
six years later, Trump liked it.
38:16
But John Kelly felt that he needed to assert himself.
38:19
He needed more order in the White House when he was named Chief of Staff.
38:23
His first official act was to fire me.
38:25
And I accepted it graciously.
38:27
I shook his hand and I said, John, I hope we'll have the opportunity to be friends after this.
38:32
And John and I are friends.
38:34
He's come to my conferences.
38:36
I'm about to go to the Leatherneck fundraiser with John and Karen Kelly.
38:41
I didn't take it personally.
38:42
I think John had the right to pick the people that was going to work with him.
38:47
The irony there was I probably could have helped him with Trump.
38:50
He had a miserable 18 months, which is well documented.
38:53
But that's life.
38:54
Life goes on.
38:55
I'm a big boy.
38:56
You don't go into politics.
38:57
It expect roses and wine.
39:00
You expect to get your ass kicked a little bit.
39:02
I got my ass kicked and I moved on.
39:04
Yes, the Saturday live, I liked it.
39:08
I didn't mind them making fun of me.
39:11
And I certainly loved when they were making fun of Spicer.
39:13
Anthony, we only got 10 minutes left.
39:15
So I want to do a rapid fire around it.
39:17
You mentioned integrity, that being fundamental to you.
39:22
Let's talk about people with integrity.
39:23
Does Biden have integrity?
39:28
Yeah, I mean, look, there's different strains of integrity.
39:31
He's a politician.
39:32
But yes, I do think he's by and large a good person.
39:35
I've known him for 30 years.
39:37
And I think the problem for President Biden is he's probably only has
39:42
five good hours a day, Josh.
39:44
He's 80 years old.
39:46
And so I think things are slipping between the lipping cup
39:50
after that in terms of concentration.
39:52
But yes, by and large, I think he has integrity.
39:54
Does the Santos have integrity?
40:00
He's a bully.
40:01
I'm not a big fan to be honest.
40:03
I would say I don't know him personally to really evaluate the integrity piece.
40:09
But when you're flying people, human beings around the country and sending them up the
40:14
Martha's vineyard for political purposes, not a fan of that.
40:17
That could have been my grandmother.
40:18
I don't like that.
40:19
So I think he's a bully.
40:21
Who would be your preferred Republican nominee?
40:26
Well, you know, we have to see who emerges.
40:29
You know, it may not even be the people that they're talking about right now.
40:32
But if you take part of the world and you could wave a message.
40:34
Well, I would take Pompeo over to the Sanctus.
40:37
He's a way smarter guy.
40:39
He's more well-versed CIA director, etc.
40:42
He, you know, he's very smart guy.
40:44
No, I'm a long time.
40:45
I would take Nikki Governor Haley over him.
40:49
She's a little bit more political than Pompeo.
40:52
I think that's a little bit of a dangerous thing with your president.
40:55
You have to be very principled.
40:57
I would take Chris Christie over to them.
40:59
You know, I think Chris Christie is a very talented guy.
41:02
And he's probably the right guy for our time.
41:05
I think his weight is a factor in these things.
41:07
It probably doesn't have the best look on TV.
41:11
And I think that hurts him.
41:11
You remember, these are popularity contests with the American people.
41:14
It's not a hiring decision.
41:16
But no, I think Ron is a little bit of a bully.
41:19
And I think you got to have somebody in that job that's tough but fair.
41:23
But not a bully.
41:24
Someone that actually likes people.
41:26
Well, the United States be better in 50 years or worse than it is today.
41:30
Way better.
41:33
Because it's just this interesting country that goes through these ups and downs cycles.
41:38
And there's just too much immigration.
41:40
And there's too much renewal in the country.
41:44
It's this vast experiment.
41:45
It's what Lincoln said.
41:46
It's the last best hope for mankind.
41:49
And it'll be way better.
41:51
Because despite the current political tribalism
41:54
and all the different nonsense related to social media,
41:58
this country has a tendency to dip and then renew itself.
42:02
It dipped and renewed itself in the 1970s into the 80s.
42:05
It did the same thing right after the Civil War.
42:08
The Civil War was a catastrophe for the United States.
42:10
I'll go what happened to the U.S.
42:12
after the Civil War.
42:13
The two war war.
42:14
I mean, I was going to say, isn't the Civil War a counter example
42:17
to the idea that the U.S.
42:18
can always bring itself back together from the brink?
42:21
Well, I mean, it did, didn't it?
42:23
I mean, after a war.
42:25
Yeah, the union held.
42:26
The union held.
42:27
And so, you know, I wouldn't be very reassured
42:32
if in 50 years we were looking back and going,
42:34
yeah, things out heaps better.
42:35
Sure, we had to go through a massive Civil War
42:37
in the middle of the 21st century.
42:38
But I hope we don't have to do that.
42:42
But, you know, the country, you know,
42:45
listen, you know, I'm sure the people
42:46
that live through the atrocity of that war
42:48
don't feel this way.
42:49
But a historian reflecting back on the country,
42:52
the stain of slavery and the original documents
42:55
and the ensuing war and the right to secede by the South,
42:59
which was revoked by white versus Texas
43:02
in 1869, there was a lot that led up to that war.
43:07
But keeping the union and keeping this continent
43:10
as the one force, the imperialism of that, if you will,
43:14
made it a very powerful country and made it a country
43:18
where people like me who are from families of immigrants,
43:21
you know, my family didn't come at a prison
43:25
like some of the Australians,
43:26
but we were coming out of some very poor places in Italy.
43:30
And the Australians came off boats since the Second World War
43:34
as well as penniless.
43:35
No, I know they're like, I know I know they're all criminals,
43:38
but I know they like to say that to people
43:40
because they think that about the criminal.
43:41
Exactly.
43:42
We like, we wear it.
43:43
We wear it as a badge of honor, Anthony.
43:45
This idea of the world.
43:46
I love the Aussies.
43:49
I get along with them.
43:50
They know how to give it and they know how to,
43:52
they know also how to take it.
43:53
Yeah, yeah.
43:54
This is the world's reality between the Italian Americans
43:56
and Aussies.
43:57
No doubt about that.
43:58
But my thing is, this is an amazing country.
44:01
It'll be made better.
44:03
We do need some sparky leadership,
44:05
though, we need some transformative leadership.
44:08
I'll submit to you something that you should think about.
44:10
You're not an American,
44:11
but the Americans have 27 amendments to their constitution.
44:16
It's a 246 year old country.
44:19
That's 27 amendments.
44:20
That's one amendment every 8.7 years.
44:23
Yet we have not had a real amendment
44:26
to the Constitution since the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
44:30
That is, that is criminal.
44:33
The constitution was designed to be a living document
44:36
to adapt with the times.
44:38
We've allowed the politicians to make us very tribal.
44:41
They do that through Jerry Mandering,
44:43
the election campaign finance,
44:46
this citizen united Supreme Court cases
44:49
and atrocity for the United States.
44:51
It's not only just an atrocity.
44:55
I mean, the way the money is getting spent
44:56
and how it's getting spent is just,
44:59
to me, I think it will be eventually repealed
45:02
the same way Plessy First is Ferguson
45:04
was repealed by Brown versus the Board of Education.
45:07
But these things have to happen.
45:09
I predict that they will.
45:11
And yes, and I do think the country will be made better.
45:13
What's the, to the people who still support Donald Trump?
45:17
Why are they supporting Donald Trump?
45:19
They're pissed.
45:20
They have disaffected from the American society.
45:23
The, listen, I know those people.
45:26
I grew up with those people.
45:27
You know, when I was growing up,
45:29
I was in an aspirational blue collar family.
45:32
Those very same people feel economically desparational.
45:35
If you ask those people if their children
45:37
are going to do better than them,
45:38
they invariably say no.
45:40
And I think it's a big issue.
45:42
And Donald Trump is an avatar of their anger.
45:45
He represents them by sticking a finger
45:49
in the eye of the political, business,
45:53
media establishments of the country.
45:56
And that's why he has a very strong hold.
45:58
You didn't ask me this,
45:59
but I predict he'll win the nomination.
46:01
Because if you have seven or eight guys, Josh,
46:04
going up against him,
46:05
he has a 15 to 20% hold on the party.
46:09
How is, how are they going to beat him?
46:11
If you have the Santa's going up against him,
46:13
you know, one-on-one, maybe he can beat him.
46:16
But I don't think he can beat him with seven guys on the stage.
46:18
Each one of those guys are good three to five percent.
46:21
And Mr. Trump will get his 20% and win.
46:23
Well, maybe they do what the Democrats did last time.
46:26
And they all just agreed to drop out at some point.
46:28
Exactly. That's exactly right.
46:29
See, they did that so that Biden could be compared to Bernie Sanders
46:34
Exactly.
46:34
And the any beat him.
46:37
I hope they have the,
46:39
there he goes in the right place to do exactly that.
46:41
Because if they don't do that, Trump will win.
46:43
The last question, Anthony,
46:45
if you could go back to 2016 and tell yourself something.
46:49
Well, just tell yourself.
46:52
Well, listen, it was a mistake to work for Mr. Trump,
46:55
but I am grateful that I had the opportunity to work for him.
46:58
So I probably wouldn't do it ever again.
47:00
I would actually, despite all the pain it caused me,
47:03
and it almost caused me to lose my marriage.
47:04
I think my marriage is stronger today.
47:07
I think he gave me a platform to speak out against him,
47:10
which sometimes in life, that's what happens.
47:15
But here's what I would say to you.
47:20
Life happens to you.
47:21
You have to react to life the way it happens to you.
47:24
And I don't want to change anything about my life.
47:26
I've been a very blessed person on planet Earth.
47:28
I've had some setbacks.
47:30
I'm a high profile person.
47:32
So my setbacks get magnified more than my successes.
47:36
But I got to tell you, I love where I am.
47:39
And I'm grateful for all of the experiences.
47:41
You know, I've read the presidential daily brief.
47:43
I flown on Air Force One.
47:44
I did a press conference from the White House press room.
47:49
I don't know.
47:50
Not too many people could say they'd done those things in life.
47:52
It was a tough experience, but it's not one I would replace.
47:56
Anthony, great to talk to you.
47:57
Thanks for being on the show.
47:59
Same here. I really enjoyed it, Joshua.
48:00
You're a great interviewer, by the way.
48:02
You're a little bit of a ballbuster.
48:05
Remind me of the guy that does hard talk on BBC.
48:09
Oh, yeah. Well, that's it.
48:10
You know, Steve Hunt.
48:11
Yeah, you're a little bit of, you're very well researched.
48:15
And you're, I used to call that BBC break balls when I went on that show.
48:18
Yeah, you're a little bit of a ballbuster like him.
48:21
And it's enjoyable.
48:22
So I don't totally get that.
48:23
It's all in good nature.
48:24
And I know that you're like, time to go.
48:25
No, no, you're an Aussie.
48:27
I appreciate it.
48:28
That's right.
48:29
Hopefully we'll get a beer together one next time.
48:30
Exactly.
48:31
Give me a call when you're in Sydney.
48:32
Thanks.
48:33
You got to watch.
48:39
You