Anthony Scaramucci: Elon Musk’s Trump Exit, Tim Cook’s Tariff Problem

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2025-06-04

YouTube video id: B8zL-ZP73po

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8zL-ZP73po

Where do Elon Musk and Tim Cook stand
with Donald Trump? And where does the
economy go from here? We're joined today
by a special guest. Anthony Scaramucci
is here with us. He is the host of the
rest is politics US, which you can find
on your podcast, Player of Choice. He's
also the founder and managing partner of
Skybridge Capital. And here's he's here
with us in studio to talk about all of
this fascinating breaking news. What a
great time to speak with you, Anthony.
Thanks for being here. It's a big honor
to be here. You got a great studio. You
got a great show. So, uh, I immediately
responded to your DM. I think you DM'd
me, right? Yeah, we just met via DM.
I've been obviously following you for a
while. I listened to you on Cara
Swisser's podcast and, uh, you spoke a
lot with her about how you're from Long
Island. I'm from Long Island. I figured
it was time for us to meet. All right.
Amen. Something about the water on Long
Island that makes everybody crazy. So,
I'll I'll evaluate you at the end of
this and I'll determine if you're as
nuts as the rest of us. So, do you do
you think it's the water? I always
thought it was we're close to New York
City, but we're not quite in New York
City. So, we know we have access to the
show, but we know we're not part of it,
and that makes us angry. Is that your
Long Island? It's interesting. It's an
interesting perspective. So, I I don't
see you that way already. You're giving
off a vibe of a comfortable outsider.
So, there are uncomfortable outsiders
that are angry, but then there are
comfortable outsiders that almost enjoy
the voyerism of being an outsider. But,
I don't know, maybe are you angry? No, I
don't think angry. Maybe angry was the I
you know what I was when I was a kid,
but now I think it's just a healthy chip
on my shoulder. Okay. Because I feel
like when you're from Long Island, you
have to work a little bit harder than
everybody else than the city. I'm all
about that. I agree with that. I do. You
know, you know, you know, you were
talking, we're going to probably talk
about Trump at some point. He's got a
chip on his shoulder. Queens guy because
he was not that dissimilar. But the
difference between Long Island and guys
like Trump is we're comfortable
outsiders. I don't mind. I can't get
into certain country clubs. They
probably would want me to landscape
their greens as opposed to me putt on
them. Totally fine by me. Don't care.
Guys like Trump to get worked up about
that stuff. They're out to prove
something. I'm just happy to be here.
You know, I'm very grateful to be
sitting here, but also maybe the uh I'm
too short to see the glass is anything
other than half full. Like when I look
up at the glass, it looks full to me. So
uh but it's great to be on with you. But
uh and I love Long Island. And do you
still live out there? No, I'm in
Brooklyn now. Okay. Close. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm 2 miles from the house I grew up in.
Amazing. Local boy. Yeah. Well, we still
spend a lot of time there. And then
look, for our international listeners or
those who are in the Bay Area who are
like, "What's all this Long Island
talk?" to start the conversation. Long
Island, Nassau County, Suffach County.
It's right outside the city. You could
take the train in, take the train out,
spend time in the city. I don't know.
Good place. But yeah, like I said, you
grow up there and you realize that
there's something big happening pretty
close that you're not quite a part of.
That motivates a lot of Long Island
people. Yeah, I think it's well said.
All right, so you go from Long Island to
the White House and I just want to start
briefly about your time in the White
House. You spent 11 days there. I'm not
going to short change it. I'm not going
to say 10. Some people have said 10 days
is a scaramucci. Yeah. Hurts my
feelings. And they're not doing the m I
mean you have tech people listening,
right? So that's right. We need to be
these are good math people. If you start
on the 21st and you get your ass fired
on the 31st and you work the 31st,
that's 11 days. Count the days, guys.
Count the date. Don't jip me out of 9.1%
of my federal career. And by the way,
why jip me out of that last egg? Got my
ass fired on that last day. That was a
big important day. Let's not go into too
much depth about what it was like uh in
that moment. But I just want you to give
our listeners and viewers a feel for
what working in the Trump White House
was like. Just a very brief like tell us
the vibe, the experience of those 11
days in the White House cuz we want to
know how it works inside the Trump White
House. So, I don't want to put any hey
geography on it. It's 8 years later, so
I don't want to spin it. I'm just trying
to remember it as clearly as I can
remember it. I will say a couple of
things. Number one, it was very
different than working on the campaign.
At least that was my experience. I had a
decent relationship with Donald Trump.
You're not friends with Donald Trump.
Let me give a news flash. If you got a
tech CEO listening, kiss his ass all you
want. Wait for him at the service
entrance in Mara Lago. write him checks,
do whatever the hell you want. You're
not friends with the guy. He will never
see you as a friend. He sees you as an
object in his field of vision. He's a
transactionalist. And if he can get
something out of you that helps him,
great. If it turns out that five minutes
later you can't help him, he'll run you
over with the car. You Trump is the type
of guy where he could play golf with you
for 45 years. you have a heart attack on
the ninth hole at the halfway house and
he's like, "Who who was that guy, Alex,
I was playing golf with? I don't barely
know the guy. Can we get another guy out
here to finish the round with me?"
That's Donald Trump. Uh, and I knew
that. I had a comfortable enough of a
self-awareness of him and myself. I knew
that. But when I was on the campaign
with him, it was very loosey goosey. It
was very decentralized and we were doing
a lot of different things at the same
time. I was working in communications
and media advocacy. I was working in
fundraising. I was working on speech
writing. I was working on logistics for
some of these rallies. We were doing a
little bit of everything. And the
relationship with Trump because he was
also loosey goosey if that's a term I
could use. It's probably a little
oldfashioned where you could talk. You
could talk to him straight up. You say,
"Well, that idea sucks. Why did you lie
about that?
What are we doing here? This doesn't
make any sense. You know, and and Jared
once said to me, Jared Kushner, he said,
you know, Mooch, he likes talking to you
because you remind him of his dad. You
made your own money. Actually, don't
give a [ __ ] You're here to try to help
them, but you're not here to kiss his
ass. There's so many of these politicos
that go into the situation that are
just, you know, I mean, to put their
whole head up somebody's ass and they
have like a a ring on their neck, you
know, like a ring around the collar,
right? Is that what happens afterwards?
Yeah. I think it's sort of revoling. So,
so what happened to me though, I got
into the
administration foolishly. So, cautionary
tale of young people, uh, don't do
things that are out of your depth or
your experience, but also don't chase
your ego. So, I went into work for Trump
for pride and ego reasons. I grew up
like you out on Long Island. My dad was
a crane operator, went to TUS, Harvard
Law School, built a successful business
on Wall Street, and now I got the chance
to work for the American president. and
he calls you and says, "Come be the
director of communications."
Irresistible. My wife was like, "You're
crazy. Don't do it." My, you know, my
wife probably hates him like almost as
much as Melania hates him, which is like
through the roof of what we're talking
about here. And she told me not to do
it. We almost got divorced over it,
frankly. But I did it because my pride
was involved and my ego was involved. So
now I'm in there and it's different.
He's president. Guess what? You're not
president. He's president. It's not a
campaign which is like a startup and
it's flat and you could tell hey Alex
you're not doing this right or Alex move
the microphone closer or move the
microphone back. Couldn't do that with
him. He was very he got very tight
somewhat insecure and
mcurial and so it was a lot of flattery.
If you're flattering him you're doing
better. If you're not flattering him
you're not doing well. And I made a lot
of big mistakes there. I was talking to
him the way I'm talking to you now and
the way I talked to him on the campaign
and that was getting me in trouble. And
then finally we got into a fight which I
really can't get into because it was
sort of some national security issues
related to it. And then uh we got into
that fight on Friday. I was fired on
Monday and he had the right to fire me
and I deserve to be fired. And learning
lesson number two uh be accountable. You
know I got fired. I got fired because
he's the president. I'm not the
president. He wanted to do something I
was not comfortable with. He's going to
find somebody that's more comfortable
than me and doing what he wanted to do.
He fired me and life goes on. I tried to
stay loyal to him. Uh I was loyal to him
until 2018. I broke from him uh after
the tweeting related to the women of the
squad. So, you're a New Yorker. Maybe
your friends outside of New York may not
know this, but there are several women,
hard leftleaning women, which I don't
agree with ideologically, but Donald
Trump in 2019 said, "Time to go back to
the countries you originally came from."
Well, three of them were born in the
United States. One was naturalized from
Africa. These were members of the House
of Representatives. And it was a very
harsh nivist, very harsh racist
statement. Uh, and it triggered me a
little bit because my grandmother was
told in the 1920s, "Go back to the
country you originally came from." And
so I was on the Bill Marsha. I was
trying to defend Trump. It was August of
2019 defending him, defending him.
Somebody then asked me a question. Well,
what about
the comments that he made about the
women in the House? And I said, I don't
really like that very much. I I don't
think he should talk like that. It's
nivism. It's racism. And And by the way,
he's American president. You shouldn't
talk like that. The next day he's
lighting my ass up on Twitter. What's
that like when you get put on blast by
Yeah, that that sucks. That sucks. You
You go white as a ghost. Uh you can
pretend otherwise he's the president of
United States. You're not. And when he
hit me on Twitter with his 80 he's got
like maybe I don't know 150 million ex
followers now. But back then 80 million
followers on Twitter. He's hitting you.
You go white. You it it's a nervous
feeling. phone calls. You go. Yeah.
People start calling. What the hell's
going on? I then took a New Yorker's
approach. Okay, you can take a couple
different approaches. I took the New
Yorker's approach and I hit him hard. I
said, "So said the fattest president
since William Howard Tav. I'm a New
Yorker. It got me knocked off of Twitter
for 12 hours. You can't fat shame people
on Twitter." Even though he's ripping me
to pieces. That was before Elon. Yeah,
before Elon. Maybe you can fat fat shame
now on X, but you couldn't fat. I got
knock got knocked off of Twitter for 12
hours. He was all guns ablazing at me. I
was hitting him left and right because I
know all of his weaknesses. So I was
hitting him left and right. And uh then
he started attacking my wife. I was
like, "All right, this is it." You know,
you know, I'm not Ted Cruz. Don't go
after my wife. I'm a New Yorker. But so
through that lens, I mean, it's the
perfect setup to explain what's happened
with Elon. Now Elon is not in the middle
of a, you know, flame war with Trump,
right? Or maybe he is. uh because he did
just say that something about the big
beautiful bill bill. He says it's a
massive outrageous pork filled
congressional spending bill and a
disgusting abomination which is a bill
Trump supports. So we'll get to that in
a moment. Yeah. But Trump's going to be
very careful with him. But through the
lens of what it was like in the White
House, uh how it changes from campaign
to governing. Give us your best insight
into what happened with Elon. He spent
135 days as the special government
employee and you you're I think you had
predicted that he would be there for a
year. So it seems like a little bit
shorter uh than you initially thought. I
got this thing completely wrong. I was
shooting all over the place. I thought
six or seven weeks and I said, "Wow, he
made it six or seven weeks. Maybe he
would make it a year and I got it wrong.
He lasted, as you said, 135 days." And
so just to do the calculation for
everybody listening at home, that's 12.2
two scaramucci. That's important. So
pretty pretty big. It's a long enough
time in Trump world. 12.2.
Walsh the NAT security adviser lasted
9.1.
Okay. So you do calculate
everybody. You got it. Don't you think
you have to just like measure them in
scaramucci? And so uh you know Kevin
McCarthy
24.5 scaramucci as speaker of the house.
So when you're in and around Trump you
get blown up. Definitionally, bad things
start to happen to you, you get
excoriated. I said on CNN in December, I
was on Wolf Blitzer show, "What do you
think's going to happen with Elon?" I
said, "Well, he's going to get hurt."
And the hard right came at me and the
hard right Twitterati or Exerati came at
me and said, "I'm physically threatening
Elon and blah blah blah blah blah." I'm
like, "Actually, guys, I am not
physically threatening Elon. I love
Elon. Full disclosure, I am a investor
in Xi XAI. I was an investor in Twitter.
It got converted into XAI. It's, you
know, sort of Twitter merged with Grock
now. I have a small investment in XAI
prior to that. I have an investment in
SpaceX. Me personally, uh I'm very close
friends with Antonio Gracias who's on
his board and I love Antonio. We worked
at Goldman together and I am a huge Elon
Musk fan. huge. And so when I said he
was going to get hurt, I was basing that
on my life experience as a business
person going to work for Donald Trump
because what happens to you is you get a
360 degree shootout at the OK Corral.
The politicos don't like people like
Elon. And I'm going to give you a number
of reasons why. Number one, he's a very
rich guy. News flash, they are not rich
people. Number two, you can't control
somebody like Elon. He's not a
corruptible guy. Like people say
Washington is a swamp. I don't see it as
a swamp. It's a goldplated hot tub.
Okay, you go into the hot tub, they look
at you and they say, "Can I buy you,
Alex? Are you somebody that's capable of
being bought?" And they size you up like
a 01 switch in a computer. Bought, not
bought. Bought, not bought. Ah, you can
be bought. Okay, here's two bottles of
Crystalall. Come sit in the hot tub.
Let's smoke a Cubano together and we're
going to talk about how we're going to
milk this system to make money for
ourselves. But I understand he's the
richest person in the world or private
citizen in the world. But can't he be
bought in some ways? Contracts with
SpaceX, contracts with Tesla? Not not
does a lot of government business. Yeah,
but I'm just throwing this out there for
not corrupt but he's not a corrupt guy.
He has no there's no Yes. Could he want?
So maybe he's corruptable but not
corrupt. No, I don't see him as even
corruptible. He's he's not he's not that
kind of a guy. He's a
executionoriented entrepreneur. Would he
certainly lobby the government for a
contract? Certainly he would do that.
But he's not a corruptible guy. He
doesn't I mean he could be. I don't know
him that well. I mean he could be. But
I'm just giving you my impression of
him. 61 years on planet Earth, 38 years
in business. I don't see Elon as a
corruptible guy. And I know the way
Washington works, uh, bought can't be
bought. Bought can't be bought. Elon
can't be bought. Okay, we got to
excoriate the guy. So, how are we going
to trash the guy? Well, we're going to
trash his businesses. We're going to
trash him personally. We're going to
leak information on him. Cabinet members
going to leak information on him. Susie
Wilds is going to go after him. Uh, but
I did predict that Trump would never go
after him. There wouldn't be a pirick
demise to Elon like there was to Steve
Bannon or me or Mark Esper or General
Kelly because Elon's a loaded guy and
Trump got several hundred million
dollars out of him to help him win the
campaign and he's not going to want to
piss off Elon too much. You Trump is too
smart of a guy to make Elon into an
adversary. Now that's a separate
conversation. the Democrats, for the
life of me, God almighty, how could you
let Elon leave the tent and that I don't
get. You don't invite him to the EV
thing. Are you guys crazy? Uh you invite
him to the EV thing even if the UAW
president doesn't want him there.
Moreover, you you leave him in the tent.
You let Bobby Kennedy and Elon Musk out
of the tent. And I'm going to use a Long
Island expression that your Silicon
Valley people won't know. You're stunod.
Okay? You know what stunog means? Let me
explain it for our listeners. Yeah.
Well, you stupid. Okay. That's a Italian
uh guttural uh phrase for stupid. Okay.
But so, but let me just finish. You
don't let Johnson, Lyndon Johnson would
have said, keep everybody in the tent
when they got to take a piss. Let the
elephants piss outside the tent. Don't
let an elephant outside the tent that
could piss back into the tent. That was
Elon. It was a disaster for them. But I
don't see him as a corruptible guy. They
didn't see him as a corruptable guy, so
they put the hurt on him the way I
predicted. Again, not a physical hurt,
but they went after him and it was an
inside job there. Uh, make no mistake
about that. That was MAGA people.
Bannon,
Bannon, Bannon went after him right away
from the beginning. Steve Miller went
after him. And these are the people that
have stuck with Trump from the first
term. Also, cabinet members went after
him. You know, they they went after him.
They didn't like the power they had.
Remember, Washington is not like tech
and it's not like Wall Street. See,
you're in tech and you're on Wall
Street. You're on the green team. Okay?
And just for the demonstration purposes,
I'm showing Alex the green, right? Well,
that's Swiss money, but you know, you
get the point. Okay? This is green,
right? This is green. See it? There's a
there's a red party, there's a blue
party, and there's a green party. I'm
not talking about the environment. This
is the party. And so, Silicon Valley,
they know how to play on the green team.
they can get along when necessary if
this is involved. Same on Wall Street.
In Washington, you don't know what's
going on. There's a blue team, a red
team, a yellow team. One guy wants to be
closer to the president. The other guy's
jealous that Elon's traveling with Trump
back and forth to Mara Lago and Air
Force One. They start shooting at the
guy. That's what happened. So you just
think it was an inside job basically
that Trump allies who didn't like Elon's
vision just said just slowly
pushed him out of favor with the
president and these attacks on his
companies were orchestrated right to
think otherwise you don't understand how
it works they orchestrated these attacks
on his companies what about like what he
was there to do um because his signature
project was Doge do you think that was a
success
uh well I don't think it was a failure I
don't think it was as successful as
perhaps as they wanted it to be. I think
I think they learned something that it's
harder to cut the government than people
had anticipated. If you had said to me,
and you could find this in recordings
about me is said, "Well, Doge, what's
going to happen? He's going to find some
things to cut. He's going to find it
harder to cut other things. He's going
to realize that the government is not a
business." You know, it's just a weird
thing. This is eternal. It's like he
tried to do the Twitter cuts when the
government just didn't work. He can't do
that. So, he tried to Let me give a news
flash to the Silicon Valley people
listening in. The government is not a
business. You don't need a businessman
to run the government. You need a policy
wonk to run the government who can build
a consensus and can provide long-term
guidance to a government. You got to
move the aircraft carrier slowly. It's
not going to turn in the water like a
speedboat. And so you have to target
things. You know, Clinton understood
that, you know, we're gonna target the
budget and we're going to get the budget
in a certain sequence so that the growth
of the economy is going to exceed our
spending and when we get to the end of
the Clinton term in 2000, we're printing
a $240 billion budget surplus. Last
budget surplus that the US printed. So
you have to think of the government very
differently than a business. You're a
conductor. You've got an orchestra. On
some days they want to play from the sha
same sheet music. On other days they
don't want to play together. And the the
cacaphony of sounds coming out of the
government is very nasty. And it's your
job to try to calm everybody down and
get them on the same sheet music. It's
harder to do today because we've gotten
way more polarized and there's a lot
more entrenched interests that keep
themselves perpetually in power as
opposed to serving the people. So, so
Elon's stint in the government very well
intended. I think successful. He's
pointed out a lot of mistakes. I think
the declarative statements that he's
making on X today are evidence of his
knowledge and his now worldly
understanding of what goes on in the
government, which is why he is being so
critical. Mhm. He knows that that
spending bill is going to increase the
slope of spending at too fast of a rate
to the growth of the US economy, which
means the deficit is going to widen,
which means that we're stealing from
future generations of Americans, which
is very unfair at this point in our
history. It's very unfair to the next
two generations coming up in in the
country. Okay. Can I give you one more
explanation? By the way, this is not pro
anti- Elon. I'm just trying to like
think through what happened with him.
It's a very consequential moment for him
to I'll tell you some negative things
about Elon, too. I'll tell you positive
and negative. I'm not I'm not trying to
be pro. We're doing this as Yeah.
straightforward analysis. So, tell you
what he got wrong. So, but let me let me
just kind of throw this other idea out
there, which is that maybe it wasn't
maybe there were people within the
government that didn't like what he was
doing. Uh maybe the Democrats, you know,
sort of had it out for his businesses
because he had become so close to Trump.
Uh but maybe the reason why he's left
the left the government is because Doge
wasn't I mean it he aimed to cut
trillions of dollars. He ended up
cutting you know I think a couple
hundred billion maybe and he went to
Wisconsin to try to sway an election. He
failed after spending a lot of money and
his poll numbers were bad. So it's just
simple politics. Yeah. Well I mean but
worse than that worse than that. So
Model S comes out. Uh do you know who
Elon Musk is? 70% of the Americans say
they know who Elon Musk is. Do you have
a favorable opinion of Elon Musk? 70% of
the Americans that know Elon Musk say
they have a favorable opinion of Elon
Musk. He is the Tony Stark of our era.
Most people that know who he is. Wow.
We're glad he's one of us. He's an
American entrepreneur. Half the country
has a favorable opinion of him. You ask
people now, do you know Elon Mus? 90% of
the Americans know who he is. 70% of
those Americans have an unfavorable
opinion of them. So look at the numbers.
You've got a 63% negative opinion and
and when you go into politics, that
happens. And what what if he had talked
to me, not that he would have, but he
had talked to me and said, "Listen,
you're selling cars to progressives.
You're selling cars to people that
believe that you are an environmental
pioneer. you're trying to help heal this
environmental catastrophe that we've
created. And so, you're a hero to these
people. If you're going to side with
Trump, and I get why because the
Democrats are out to lunch, they're uh
breaking your balls on SpaceX launches.
They're torturing you with the electric
car company because of the love affair
they have with the auto worker unions.
And I get why they're doing that to you.
But if you take a chill, this group of
Democrats, this older group of Democrats
is going to pass. And then you could
align yourself with a newer group, like
a Roana group of Democrats, and be a way
better experience for you if you decide
to become politically active. But he
sees the shooting um and god forbid and
thank God Trump wasn't killed in Butler,
PA, July of
2024. And he's like, "Okay, this guy's
going to win." That visual picture of
Trump with his hand up in the air, blood
on his ear, American flag behind him is
a winning picture. Let's just be honest
with everybody. Elon sees this, he
immediately goes out and endorses him.
Shawn Maguire from Sequoia goes out and
endorses him. And now you've created
this portal for other Silicon Valley
people who have typically hid their
political stripes. There were way more
conservatives in Silicon Valley than
they were willing to admit to in 2012 or
2016 or even 2020, but now it's 2024 and
they're like, "Okay, the portal is open.
There's space for David Sachs. There's
space for Chamoth. There's Mark Andre.
Mark Andre. There's space for Elon. I
think Horowitz was there then he backed
off. Right. Okay. And and so now, but
you're with the wrong guy. Let me give
you news flash. You're with the wrong
guy because this is a
transactionalist. It's not just that
he's a narcissist. He's an angry guy. He
hates himself and he's projecting that
hatred into the society and he's a
divisive guy and he's got ill-founded
policies as it relates to economics and
ill-founded policies as it relates to
tariffs. And I know Elon thinks he's an
imbecile. Let me just give you my proof
because it's like geometry in ninth
grade. Elon thinks he's an imbecile. Uh
let me apply the proof. He's tweeting
about Peter Navaro a couple of weeks
ago. He says he says Peter Navaro is as
dumb as a bag of rocks. And then there's
another tweet which I adored. No, no. I
apologize. I just want to personally
apologize to the bag of rocks. Okay, so
you got to love Elon for this. But look
at me. the fingerprint of Peter Navaro
and Donald Trump on trade and economics
is identical. So when you're saying that
someone's an imbecile and the person
that's identical to that person, that
person therefore definitionally also has
to be an imbecile. So So Elon's not a
dummy. He knows these tariffs are wrong.
He knows they're bad for the society.
And he knows this big, beautiful
spending bill is actually atrociously
ugly. Big, but atrociously ugly spending
bill and very harmful long term to the
interests of America and its citizens,
but very good short term for these pigs
in Washington free feeding at the trout.
Yeah. And Anthony, by the way, this is
why it's so great to have you here. And
folks, this is why I wanted to have this
conversation with Anthony. so difficult
to speak about Elon's role in politics.
Uh but here we have a Republican former
communication director of the Trump
White. Why is it difficult? Because he's
a powerful guy and everyone thinks
you're coming in when you speak about
Elon with an axe to grind. But that's
not you. You're an investor in Elon's
companies. So, and I I think that's the
right diagnosis. By the way, by the way,
I have no axe to grind. I Here's what I
glad you're here. I want Elon to go back
to work. I think he is literally the
quintessential American hero
entrepreneur. I think he's a brilliant
visionary. I think he's gotten so many
things right in his career. Uh this XAI,
the Gro stuff is phenomenal. It's helped
me in my business. It's helped me as a
person. Uh I think the stuff he's doing
with Neurolink is going to be
transformative for so many people with
disabilities. We had Nolan Arba, the
first Neurolink patient, on the show a
couple months ago. It's pretty I've said
I've I've seen four technological
miracles in my life. The iPhone, Chachi
PT, driving in a driverless Whimo car
and watching Nolan play a video game and
beat me in a video game. But I I find
that people are nervous about saying
things about Elon because he's a
powerful guy and they don't want to get
in his field of vision and they don't
want to cross him. But I'm I'm, you
know, my attitude is, you know, I want
to be real with people because I think
that really smart people are real with
people and then they gravitate to each
other. Like if I've got a booger in my
nose, do I have a booger in my nose,
Alex? I'll clear Anthony. Okay. But if I
had one, I would want you to say, "Hey,
Mooch, you got a booger in your nose.
This way I could excuse myself and rip
the booger out of my nose." And you got
to be with people in life that are gonna
talk to you straight, but they're gonna
talk to you straight out of love where
they want to help you. And I have, if
anything, I think Tesla's a great
company. I think this robotic stuff he's
doing at Tesla is amazing. I think he
hurt his brand by going into Washington.
And I think there's plenty of time to
repair the brand. The great news about
America, F. Scott Fitzgerald got
something really wrong. Uh he was a
brilliant writer. 100th anniversary of a
Long Island novel, The Great Gatsby.
Yes. Came out in April of 1925.
But Fitzgerald got one major thing
wrong, Alex. He said, "There are no
second acts in American life." Very
famously said that 100 years ago. He got
it wrong. There's hundreds of second and
third acts for sure. There's 10th acts.
You know, Trump is an example of that.
I'm an example of that. I don't know
your life story, but I bet if you had a
shortcoming or a failure, you could pull
yourself together and come back from it.
America loves the comeback. They want
the success story. So, if you invite me
back in a year, I'll make a prediction
on your show. Elon will be flourishing
in a year. Uh his businesses will be
flourishing because he's that kind of a
guy. Uh but you know, politics is a
rough sport, man. And I and and you're
talking to somebody who's got tire
tracks on his back. Yep. Okay. Okay, I
want to So now let's talk a little bit
about Elon's uh economic criticism or or
criticism of this big beautiful bill
because I think it's important for us
also to get into current day policy and
current day politics. Uh so big
beautiful bill it's going to increase
the deficit I think by 3 to5 trillion.
Uh Elon says I'm sorry I can't stand it
anymore. This is on Tuesday. This
massive outrageous pork filled
congressional spending bill is a
disgusting abomination. Shame on those
who voted for it. you know, uh, you did
wrong. Uh, you know it. He says it will
will massively increase the already
gigantic budget deficit to $2.5
trillion. I think it's even more than
that. And burden American citizens with
crushingly I think even by 2.5 trillion.
And burden American citizens with
crushingly unsustainable debt. Anthony,
you're a business person. Um, just you
know, for years people ignored this
mounting debt that the US had. Now I
think we're about to hit a moment where
the country is going to pay a trillion
dollars a year or more just in the
interest payment on debt which is I
think close to a fifth of all US
government spending. So can you talk
about this this brand new consensus I
think that is emerging in the business
world about why all this deficit
spending might not be wise. Well, first
thing I'm going to say is buy Bitcoin.
That's the first thing I'm going to say.
And a lot of people that really analyze
and study this understand why. But the
second thing I'm the second thing I'm
going to say to you is that
u this is a fixable thing. But we have a
disease now in the system. And the
disease is one born from
complacency. And so I I want to
articulate this for your listeners. They
can understand it because if they're
actionable, they can help fix it. And so
what basically happened is Ross Perau
ran for office in
1992. He won 19.9% of the vote. Bill
Clinton became the president, but they
ska he scared the living daylights out
of the two parties. So the two parties
got together and created this bone
crushing duopoly. They strengthened
themselves in a way that has prevented
for 33 years a third party to come on
the scene to try to liquidate the
extremists of the two parties. And so
what ended up happening is they allowed
each other to gerrymander. They gave
each other breaks on each other's
situations. The fat tales of the
extremists of the two parties started to
run things and now they've stayed in
perpetual power. So Chuck Grassley, I
think he was like George Washington's
great-grandfather, maybe he's like 900
years old. He's in the Congress. He'll
he'll be there for another hundred
years, I guess. Uh Nancy Pelosi's 85. Uh
Schumer 75. Trump on his way to 79.
Biden 81. They don't want to leave. They
don't want to leave. And they're all
there in the sclerosis. And to keep the
sclerosis going, they pile on the pork
and they pile on the spending. And it's
an unstoppable train to quote the
economist Lynn Alden. And why is this
important to bring up? Because it wasn't
that way. You know, after Reagan did the
deficit spending to help bring down the
Iron
Curtain, George Herbert Walker Bush
passed with the help of Dick Gart these
pay as you go legislation. and pay as
you go was a guard rail on the Congress.
He said, "We got too much deficit
spending. If you want a social program,
no problem. Have to raise taxes. If
you're a Republican, you want to cut
taxes, no problem. You have to find
something in the budget to cut. We got
to have guard rails on the system." And
Clinton adhered to those guardrails.
But this group of drunkards has pulled
the guard rails off the system and
they're spending like maniacs and you
can't get the economic growth to track
the spending, but they won't stop the
spending. And they will tell you that
something's been cut, something's
growing at 6%, but they had it targeted
at 8% and they'll tell you it was cut by
2%. even though it's growing by six. So
you have to really understand what they
do in Washington, which Elon does and
he's looking at it and he's saying,
"Okay, this is
catastrophic for my fellow citizens of
the United States. You have to stop what
you're doing." Now, the flip side is he
also knows you can't pull the rug on
people because if you pull the rug on
people, it'll be deconumptive. It could
touch off a recession, but you could
slow the growth. You could slow the
growth and you could reimpose the pay as
you go legislation from the 1990s and it
would take about 20 years and you could
bring the deficit down. Now that's the
bad news for the politicians because
they don't want to tell all the
Americans that. But you can't fix this
thing in two weeks. You can't cut a
trillion dollars or Lutnik was saying
two trillion and you can't take the
chainsaw out. You're going to hurt
people if you do that. But you can set
it up so that the growth of the budget
slows and the economy outpaces the
growth. You could do that and you could
fix it. So this bill is an
abomination. And what this bill is doing
is it's wildly increasing the growth of
deficit spending. And you brought this
up, Alex, and let's just point this out
to people. If you get a rise in interest
rates, you could be spending one and a
half trillion dollars on interest,
you're only taking in three and a half
to four trillion dollars in tax
revenues, okay? Max 5 trillion. You're
spending six or seven trillion depending
on what's going on. Not
sustainable. No way, no. Moreover, if
you have a nutty
president that wants to declare war on
everybody, he's the Admiral
Yamamoto. He's got a Pearl Harbor attack
going. Uh, trade war one has been
started by Admiral Yamamoto Trump. Okay?
And he's hitting everybody in a 360
degree move. So, he's going after our
allies and he's going after our
adversaries in this maniacal way. He's
like orange Moses coming down from Mount
Evil with the tablet. He's walking in
with the tablet. Nobody understands the
tablet. Everybody's afraid of him. And
he's got 145% tariffs and tariffs on the
penguins and all this crazy [ __ ] that
you got to tear off the penguins. Yeah.
Absolutely crazy [ __ ] So he's sitting
there with the orange orange Moses, you
know, ten commandments of tariffs and
people are looking around at the rest of
us, the rest of the world going, "Wow,
this is a disaster for the United
States." But he could have said, "Hey,
uh, the Chinese, which is true, they
were supposed to buy certain
agricultural products. They signed a
deal with me back in
20189. They didn't live up to it. The
minute Joe Biden came in, they stopped
obligating themselves to the agreement."
And so I need to go back to them in a
tough way and enforce that. But before I
do that, let me call my European allies.
Let me call my Canadian friends and let
me say, "Hey guys, let's team up." And
now there's a billion of us and let's go
after our economic adversary, China. But
he didn't do that. Okay? And so now he's
got the Canadians mad at us. All the
Europeans mad at us. The Greenlanders
are mad at us. The Panameadians are mad
at us. It's just
totally freakishly irrational.
and unnecessary, but he's got a group of
sickopants in the room that won't tell
him the truth. Okay, so I definitely
want to cover tariffs also, but let's
just go back to deficit for a minute. I
mean, the argument that's gotten
politicians or the people who the
ideological supporters of this deficit
spending to the point where we're at
now, which I I think is nuts. Um the the
level of debt we have, the argument that
they've made is the US has the reserve
currency, so we can just keep borrowing
and everything will be fine. we can
print dollars and we can pay it off
whenever. Um, but that seems to have
sort of crossed into territory where
people don't believe that anymore.
Yeah. So, I don't 100% buy that. I would
say we're not there yet. Okay. I think
they're still okay with it. It's still
the tallest of the shortest people,
right? Can't use the word [ __ ]
anymore, so we'll just say the tallest
of the shortest people. Breaking all the
rules. You're going to get me
demonetized, man. No, I'm kidding. You
get demonetized. All right, we'll bleep
that out. We'll be fine. All right,
bleep it out. I'm not trying to
demonetize you. I'm just trying to say
that, you know, I hear you. We're the
tallest, shortest person in the room.
So, we're probably still okay. So, I
don't 100% buy that, but we are going to
get to that point. Okay, it's a year,
two years out on this
trajectory. And also, Trump is trying to
Brexit us from the rest of the world.
And so, he's trying to cut our air
supply with the rest of the world. And
when the UK Brexited from Europe, they
became weaker. They became uh poorer.
They have less disposable income in the
country and they have really bad morale
in the country as a result of what they
did. And Trump's trying to do that to us
because this is a populist emotionally
driven idea. So if you have big
beautiful spending and you have an
American Brexit at the same time where
you're trying to isolate us from the
rest of the world, you're going to cause
capital movement on the margin to move
away from the United States and the
interest rate will go further and then
the interest rate will go. That's why
Jamie Diamond is saying that bonds are
going to have a reaction to this because
of those two forces in combination.
Well, 100%. Well, he's not stupid and
he's he should be president, frankly.
But he he's he's not stupid. He he
knows. And again, all of these things
are fixable. One of the best lines ever
uttered from a presidential podium was
in June of 1963 at American University.
Jack Kennedy got to the podium and the
flowing robe at a commencement address
and he basically said that these
problems are created by us and so
therefore we can fix the problems. It's
not like the earth is opening up and
it's swallowing us. It's not a natural
disaster. We're creating this as
disaster. He was really talking about
nuclear weapons and nuclear
proliferation and he wanted a test ban
treaty to stop the testing of these
bombs because it was it was poisoning
the water and the air that we lived in.
But this is a different thing. This is a
catastrophe of mismanagement. This is a
catastrophe of political
expediency. You don't have people in
Washington like Elon Musk who are trying
to tell people the truth and they don't
want to do it right. And this is the
reason why they went after Musk because
they know Musk is the truth. Musk is a
truth teller. So he's telling you the
truth. this is a disaster and oh by the
way you know it's a disaster but you're
acting with one indifference because you
want to stay in power right okay let me
let me read to you a response that I
heard from a tech CEO who supports Trump
and supports these tariffs and I'm
curious what your perspective is because
I think this sort of sums up the
ideological uh backing of of why this
trade war is happening he said every
nation in the past that's run a really
aggressive trade deficit for a long
period of time bankrupts itself. When
you're sending all your wealth overseas
such that the overse overseas entity can
own your property and equity, you're in
a very tricky position. What do you
think about that? Well, I mean, I think
it's a little bit bullshitty and I think
it's a little bit too simplistic, but it
sounds like you think there's some some
truth behind there. There there there
are colonel, this is the brilliance of
Trump. There's kernels of truth to what
he's saying, okay? But it's a little
bullshitty. Okay. So, so understand
something. You you had to even the
playing field. Trump is correct about
that. But understand what America got
from the whole experience. We ended the
Second World War with 2% of the world's
population, 50% of the world's GDP. I
got that from Grock, by the way, so you
can verify it. And we made a decision
that we needed to help the rest of the
world. We didn't want another Versailles
experience where our vanquished
adversaries were impoverished and taken
over by Joe Stalin. We didn't want that.
So, we created the General Agreement of
Trade and Tariffs. We made it uneven. We
allowed free trade to flow into the
United States unfettered by and large.
And we accepted protectionism from other
countries. You can read Robert
Lighheiser's book, No Trade Is Free to
understand the history of this. Now, he
would argue in the book that that was
unfair to the US, but the US leadership
like Dean Agson, Truman, etc. argued
that this would create rising living
standards and it would eliminate higher
risk of another global conflict because
if we're all integrating and eating
together at the same table, probably not
going to shoot each other. Tom
Freriedman said it differently. Two
countries that have a McDonald's in each
country typically don't fight with each
other. He said they never go to war, but
that's changed. Yeah. The Ukraine and
Russia. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So that
changed. But it's a decent rule though.
But it was a decent rule. So what your
CFO or your CEO is saying is sort of
true, but you
can't
change the system and it's ignoring what
William F.B. Buckley would say to you
and others that you
are creating the deficit because you're
getting a good from the other country
that is of value to you. Moreover, if
what this gentleman was saying is 100%
true, we would have had a downward shift
in our economic supremacy, we would have
had a downward shift in the supremacy of
the dollar. And we didn't have that.
You've had 1980 to today, 45 years, 26%
of the world's GDP, 4 and a.5% of the
world's population. And so it's evidence
that the policies that we have in place
do work for the country. But we made a
mistake. We were we were fixing the
deficit problem uh at the end of the
year 2000, 25 years ago. But then bin
Laden hit us right here in this location
that you and I are speaking from. We
overreacted, if we're going to be
brutally honest, with hindsight now, and
we declared war in two different places,
spent 7 trillion dollars, killed
hundreds of thousands of people, lost
seven or 10,000 Americans in the wars,
20-year wars to nowhere, trillions of
dollars of spending, decoupled ourselves
from pay as you go, and we've now lost
the plot. So what he's
saying, I agree that we have
to rightsize things. I agree that we
have to surgically go through the
tariffs and make them fairer to the
American worker. But we don't have to do
that and wreck our standing in goodwill,
particularly with our allies. We don't
have to do that. Okay? We are a beacon
for freedom for man and woman. Uh
Lincoln said we're the last best hope
for mankind. It's the most interesting
political experiment in the world. Uh
the US the US we have
5.7 billion people in the world living
under some form of autocracy right now.
And we have we have to be a beacon and
an anchor of leadership for the free
world. We have to fortify and we have to
help them. Now did we do some things
wrong? Could we have changed some of the
protocols at USID? Certainly. Could we
rightsize some of the tariffs? No
question. But why blow up the whole
apple cart that has led to us having 30
plus trillion dollars of GDP for a
population of 330 million people? Why
why do that? I think it's absolutely
asinine. And um and and and whoever said
that, by the way, will come around.
Okay. Okay. The same way I predicted
Musk would get there with Trump, which
he's there right now. This person,
whoever this person is, invite him on
the podcast a year from now. Like, wow.
Yeah. You know, you know, he he he'll
come around. He'll see what I see. Uh we
should have we should have him back. He
wasn't it was a just a sort of
newsletter interview. Uh but he should
come back again. So, I I want to take a
break and on the other side of this
break, we only have a few minutes left,
but talk about one company in particular
uh that you can look at through this
lens of trade, which is Apple. And I
also want to make sure to shout out your
show again. It's called The Rest The
Rest Is Politics US. And you also have a
show with Scott Galloway, a limited run,
I think, about uh American men. Is that
correct? Lost Boys. Yeah. So, Scott,
Scott and I are close friends. And uh we
did a six-part miniseries on what's
going on with males age 18 to 30. Uh we
got to pull these guys out of the
depression that a lot of them are in and
the lack of self-confidence and u you
know there's been an attack. Listen, I'm
all about making the society fairer and
having there be more equity in the
society, but I don't think we realize
what we did to white males in the last
15 years. And and guess what? 46% of the
women in the country voted for Donald
Trump. 54% of the white women. And when
you ask them why they voted for him, you
know, we're tired of our men getting
picked on in this culture. And it's had
a big impact on men. And so Scott and I
did a six-part miniseries called Lost
Boys, interviewing a lot of very clever
people, sociologists, psychologists,
etc. And uh you know, I it's near and
dear to my heart. I have four sons. I
want them to grow up and uh be fair and
kind to people, but I also want them to
have a lot of self-confidence. Okay. So,
definitely wanted to shout that out.
Let's take a quick break and come back
and talk about Apple. And we're back
here on Big Technology Podcast with
Anthony Scaramucci. Anthony, so great to
have you here. Um, so let's just pick up
our conversation. Is it though? I mean,
am I blowing up your podcast? I mean, am
I going to get you demonetized with some
of my uh maybe this one video, but I
don't care. All right. Uh All right. All
right. Yeah. Bleep bleep out the stuff
you don't like. It's okay. No, I'm not
complaining. Uh, but I do want to talk
to you about Apple because we just
talked previously about the trade
relationships that we've had and Apple I
think sort of epitomizes this
conversation of like the US creates the
IP, makes the products in China and even
if all this stuff is made out, you know,
made elsewhere, the US gets the better
deal. I'm curious to hear two things
from you. First of all, uh, what do you
think about that trade-off? And then
second, you know, one of the most
interesting narratives that we've seen
uh people follow that follow this
podcast is the relationship that Tim
Cook has had with Trump. So I'd love to
hear your perspective on what might be
happening there.
Well, again, it's very transactional. So
when Trump needs him, he'll bring him to
the White House. He'll call him Tim
Apple. When he wants to showcase
American manufacturing, he'll fly to
Texas with his daughter and they'll tour
a factory together. Uh, and when Trump
feels like he wants to beat up on him
because he wants to beat up on
everybody, you know, you know, let me
give it, you know, Mark Zuckerberg a
memo. You can do whatever you want to do
and you lay in front of him if you want
and the Washington Post can give up
their editorial content. It's not going
to matter. If he's going to come for
you, he's coming for you. There's
nothing you're going to be able to do.
There's no push buttons. I mean, maybe
you can go play golf with him and kiss
his ass on the golf course all day. Uh,
you know, Shinszo Abbe, may his soul,
rest in peace, great guy. Uh, Trump
liked him. They played golf and he
flattered him all day on the golf
course. I guess maybe that, but you
know, to me, I don't think that's even
workable. Just go do your job, practice
your business, work as hard as you can.
This cat is going to be gone in three
and a half years from the system. and
see if you can work with other political
leaders to find people that are more
common senseoriented about the economy
and not as vengeful and as shortsighted
as Donald Trump. That would be my
message to the Apple people. I would
also say to Tim Cook, I would say you've
done a really good job, a phenomenal job
post Steve Jobs and you had rules. What
were the rules? The US set it up. The US
let China into the WTO. The US created
the trading system that we're now living
in. And if we made some mistakes, let's
correct them. But you can't take a
manufacturing company like Apple and bam
bam change it in five minutes. It just
doesn't work that way. So, if you need
guidance from our government to say,
"Listen, we'd really like to get your
factory out of China and we'd like to
get it back here to the United States or
we'd like to get you into another part
of the world." You got to give them some
time to do that. Okay. The same way you
gave them time to move it off the shore
of the US. Can I tell a quick story? I
know we're running out of time, but I
want to tell the story because it's a
illustration of how stupid I am as a
person, and it's a good cautionary tale
for others. In 1999, I was 35 years old.
I was on Wall Street and I believed in
the lower cost of capital, lower cost of
labor ideas at that time. And we were
going to
offshore manufacturing to lower the cost
of
the per unit of manufacturing which was
going to benefit the American consumer
and benefit the American shareholder. At
that moment in time, there was a protest
in Seattle. You may WTO protest. It was
the Teamsters and the Turtles. Yeah. The
Teamsters and the Turtles. Ralph Nater
went up there and they said, "Please do
not let China into the WTO." And at 29,
I very smuggly was like, "Look at these
socialist bozos. What do they know?" And
they were right, Alex, and I was wrong.
And the bozos turned to be turned out to
be us on Wall Street. And I say this to
you with great humility because we
should have had a hybrid strategy in
place. And we should have said, "Okay,
China, we're going to let you in to help
you urbanize some parts of your
population to raise your living
standards, but we're going to check a
lot of things that you're doing at the
door to protect these American workers."
We did not do that. Donald Trump is
right about that. That was a shortcoming
of the
establishment. And I always attribute
this to the establishment's indifference
born from their very strong duopoly.
They weren't listening to the people. So
much so that the the
grandparents and the great-grandparents
of the Trump supporters voted for Lyndon
Johnson and they voted for FDR, but they
turned and switched parties and voted
for Donald Trump. So, we got this wrong.
But you can't blame Tim Cook for this.
This was our idea
1999. This is the roll out of the idea
over 15 or 20 years. Really ended in 17
when Trump called it out. So from 1999
to 17, this is what we were doing. And
Apple did what they thought was the
right thing to do for themselves, their
shareholders, and their customers. And
so I don't like seeing Apple, which is
one of the greatest American companies
in the history of mankind, on its back
foot. I want Apple on its front foot.
And I want Apple explaining that to the
American people. I want Apple explaining
that you want to bring the iPhone back,
great. It's going to cost $3,500 an
iPhone. And I don't think we're ready to
do that. And I think we need to come up
with a plan that's more sensical than
this reactionary thing that we're doing.
And I just want to make one last point.
You could have said to people, "Hey, I'm
going to give you a 50-year tax
abatement, you know, and here's US
federal land, and we're going to build a
city. We're going to put plumbing and
architecture and a power plant, and
we're going to work alongside of you and
Apple and Taiwan semiconductor. You guys
come back. You come back. We're going to
give you this tax abatement and you're
going to create hundreds of thousands of
jobs and we'll collect the taxes off the
taxpayers that you're paying in salary
and take the taxes from you guys
yourselves. And then we could do
something that Clinton always wanted to
do, have a sort of omnibus 15% corporate
tax, which would help us in places like
Ireland and other places like that,
create more tax equity in the system.
And you could have your cake and you
could eat it too. But we got Donald
Trump yelling and screaming, flexing,
sharp oboing people, going out on Truth
Social like a maniac. And he scares the
living [ __ ] out of these people. And so
they
won't they won't operate offensively.
And so my message to them is start
playing a little offense. He's a
decaying he's a decaying political
asset. He's got three and a half years
to go.
uh get focused on who's going to replace
them and make sure you've got money
behind smart, clearthinking people who
who are going to help your company, help
your employees, help America instead of
this nonsense that we're perpetrating
right now. It could happen. I mean, it's
just going to be tough for them. Like
the idea that they're going to Apple
will make any big changes to their
operation is doesn't seem feasible to
me. It's not even fair, though. But you
got to start saying that. You got to
say, "Look, I'm really sorry. Can't do
it. This is what you guys told me to do.
We went and did it. Now you want me to
do something different. I'm open to it,
but I can't do it in five minutes. It's
just not going to happen. So, if you
want to criticize me for something you
told me to do and I ended up doing it
and now I you want me to do something
different, okay, but I need more than
five minutes to reset myself. Yeah. Even
this whole India thing, it's like
they're moving to India, but they have
Foxcon that's setting up the assembly
product process in India. They're not
really moving to India. They're just,
you know, well, that's a lot of what's
going on. There's a lot of tariff
washing, right? I mean, tariff washing.
Exactly. Right. They're sending the
stuff to Vietnam. It's getting completed
Vietnam. It gets sent over. They're
sending stuff. They're sending parts to
Mexico. It's coming through NAFTA. Yeah.
I mean, guys, come on. I mean, come on.
Why don't we stop it? We all know what
we're doing to each other. Why don't we
stop it? And why don't we come up with
fairness and some
moderation and so that we can set a
course trajectory that lasts longer than
two minutes. And let's say, okay, this
is our 10-year plan, and this is what we
should be doing over the next 10 years,
which will help heal the upside down
nature of the deficit spending, rightize
some of the entitlement issues, fix the
trajectory, and we could do it, but we
don't want to do that. and they don't
want to do that because they want to
stay in perpetual power, right? And
they've got all these lobbyists in there
in a feeding frenzy. We didn't get the
Citizens United, but that's another
effed up thing that we did, you know,
where you got uh all this money flowing
in the politics. It's impossible for the
little guy that we've created this
separate but equal democracy. Look at
the legislative agenda in the Congress
since January of 2010 when Citizens
United was rendered. It's all skewed to
big business, big pharma, big food, uh,
corporate welfare,
kleptocracy. None of it's for the little
guys because the little guys no longer
have enough money in the game. Totally
predictable outcome. Yeah. Terrible.
Okay, so we have two minutes left. I got
two questions for you. Go ahead. Are you
going to go back into politics? The way
that you're talking makes it sound like
you want to. No, I can't go back into
pol. I'm trying to trying to You just
said earlier that anyone can have a
second life in American life. Yeah, but
I'm trying to stay married. I'm trying
to have a second life in my marriage.
Okay. Okay. I'm running for reelection
in my marriage. You know, my wife
literally filed for divorce on me.
Deservedly so, by the way. During the 11
days. Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually maybe
10 days prior to the 11 days. Yeah. It
was it was a brutal time. Oh god. It was
a brutal time for us. We love each
other. Would like to stay married. I got
to raise my kids. But yeah. No, I'm But
I'm not a politician. You know, the
minute you go into politics, I got to
start lying. Yeah. You know, I might I
don't want to. Maybe not, though. No, I
don't see that. You got to the minute
you you start, you know, when a
politician is lying when his mouth is
moving. You know that, right? Of course.
What was the second question? What's
going to happen with Bitcoin?
I I I mean 100,000 to me always seemed
like it was in play, but what happens is
this because like you have the
administration that's running toward
Bitcoin right now. This seems like it's
the best that it's going to get
potentially. I mean, let me throw that
out there and see what you think. Well,
I mean, listen, I mean, I I don't know.
I mean, I'm a long-term bull on Bitcoin.
Uh, I don't see the freight train of
spending stopping. And so, that's a
drunk driving accident about to happen.
The central banks are drunk driving with
the currency. The legislature and the
president are drunk driving with the
fiscal budget. And so, you're going to
you you just told me that we're going to
print more and more money, right, and
it's going to cause a debt crisis. But
doesn't Bitcoin cause a bigger crisis
because it removes the power from the
Fed? Oh, I see it very opposite. I think
Bitcoin, if anything, could check the
power? Okay. I think I think I think
sometimes the person because of our
proclivities towards excess, the person
needs guard rails and the person needs a
system in place that they can't control
to protect them from their worst
instincts. And so Bitcoin is I think is
a disciplinary
mechanism and we'll probably end up
having Bitcoin on the corporate B on the
fiscal balance sheet of the United
States. We'll probably have Bitcoin uh
as a form of currency, some form of
store of value transfer into stable
coins at some point. U and I think that
uh you're right. It sounds like you're a
Bitcoin skeptic and I think people
should be. Oh, I'm just trying to ask
the questions here that would sort of
get I think you're right. There's a lot
of great news in the system, so maybe
it's fully priced, but I don't see it
that way. I see it as a very early in
the game and I see Bitcoin as a asset
class. I guess the question, let me
throw it back to you and your listeners,
okay? Is Bitcoin an asset class? Yes or
no? If it's not an asset class and it's
just another investment, then you're
probably right. you know, it's up there
in market capitalization alongside of
Apple and Microsoft and Bologone and
Nvidia, but it's up there. But if it's
an asset class, then it's going to trade
to where gold is trading. And gold is at
23 or 24 trillion right now, and Bitcoin
is at two trillion. And so, I'm not, you
know, if you bring Sailor on, who I
adore, I love Michael Sailor, right?
He'll tell you it's the operating layer
for the future of money. He'll tell you
it's digital property. He'll tell you
it's going to $13 million a coin. He's a
lot more confident than me. And let's
face it, he's a lot smarter than I am. I
just look at it and say, "Okay, this is
going to be with us. It's getting
adopted." And I think it becomes an
asset class. I think it's a million
dollars a coin and I have a $20,000 cost
basis in it and I'm going to hold it.
All right. The shows are the rest is
Politics US and Lost Boys. You can find
them both on your podcast app of choice.
Anthony Scaramucci, great to see you. I
hope you come back. Hey, I hope I get
invited back. I always say too much
controversy, you know. Real pleasure to
be with you. I'm a huge fan. Likewise.
Strong Island, man. Strong Island. All
right, everybody. Thank you for
listening. We'll be back next on Friday
to break down the week's news with a
WWDC preview. And then I will be live or
coming to you from WWDC in Silicon
Valley next week. Thanks for listening
and we'll see you next time on Big
Technology Podcast.