Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show Podcast, where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories and now the host of the Jack Hopkins Show Podcast, jack Hopkins.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show Podcast. I'm your host, jack Hopkins. Today's guest really doesn't need much of an introduction Anthony Scaramucci. Now I had Anthony on I don't know some months ago and we talked about Trump, we talked about the economy, we talked about the upcoming election, but I've really been itching to get Anthony back on post-election, after Trump won, and talk about what might be different in terms of how he's thinking about things now as compared to the last time that we talked where he thinks the country might be going under Trump, and just get a fresh outlook on everything that's transpired in the last few weeks. So, without further ado, let's get right into this episode and this conversation that I had with Anthony Scaramucci. What are your thoughts on what happened in the election?

Speaker 3: 1:25

Scaramucci, what are your thoughts on what happened in the election? Well, before I answer that, if you don't mind, you were an anti-Trumper. I've watched your Twitter feed, I've been on your show. Why, why were you an anti-Trumper? I'm going to tell you why I am one, but tell me why you were an anti-Trumper and then we'll talk about what happened in the election. Talk about what I fear is going to happen as him, as president, you bet.

Speaker 2: 1:47

The pivotal moment for me. I was a hospital corpsman in the Navy and later went on to do some nursing. So when it comes to medicine, when it comes to human health, I'm a science-based guy, guy and COVID-19, the handling of the pandemic and how he denigrated the scientists, the people who know, and just the other nonsense that he pulled to minimize and conceal, which we later later found out with Bob Woodward that was a pivotal moment for me, as well as his disrespect for our military. I'm a veteran, like I said, it was maybe Hospital Corman. There are other things, but those are the main two factors.

Speaker 3: 2:39

Okay, well, I saw it up close and personal. He's lawless. He has a disregard for the Constitution. Currently, as you and I are speaking on this show, he hasn't signed the ethics agreement. Pursuant to that ethics agreement, he gets a release of capital that goes into his transition team to help him fund his transition and make these personnel decisions. Help him fund his transition and make these personnel decisions. He's going to outside players to fund that.

Speaker 3: 3:08

We don't even know where those people are. I'm not suggesting that they're foreign entities, but how do we know that they're not foreign entities? You've got people that joined the administration last time. They were supposed to shed assets. They did not shed assets. So what ends up happening is you got people. The reason why you're supposed to shed assets you don't want decisions made on your watch that are related to you personally and yet you've got that situation going on.

Speaker 3: 3:34

He's picking people that don't have substance. He's picking them for loyalty reasons as opposed to substantial reasons. I mean, I have nothing against Pete Hegseth. I met him several times. I was on Fox and Friends with him. But if you read about Pete Hegseth or you learn about Pete Hegseth, he's just not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense. He doesn't have the gravitas or the skill set or the administrative background or the experience to be that job, but he's perceived to be loyal to Donald Trump. Tulsi Gabbard the same thing. If anything, you'll lose our international relationships with other espionage organizations, and so that's a bummer as well. So I sit here before you and say I don't want him to be president because I think he would be dangerous for America, bad for our relationships, our allies, and he wants to overly disrupt a system that has worked for a great many of us, including you and me. So those are the reasons. Now he's won the election.

Speaker 3: 4:39

For me on the winning of the election front is the Bitcoin stuff. I own a lot of Bitcoin, so Bitcoin went up. I think the Democrats did a terrible job, frankly, as it related to the regulation of crypto assets and Bitcoin. That's one of the reasons why she lost. $250 million went into the election to support Republicans and Donald Trump that were pro Bitcoin.

Speaker 3: 5:06

Second reason why she lost is that women actually went to the polling booth and voted for their sons, and when they left the polling booth, they said well, why did you vote against the woman that was running for president? They said we don't like the culture, we don't like our sons getting canceled, we don't like the pressure on our brothers and our husbands in the society, and we think that what's going on now culturally is wrong. And then the third reason why she lost is that they actually had a good economic narrative. Jack, I could have told you that narrative. They reshored manufacturing, they built microprocessor foundries in the United States, they had wage growth in lower and middle income people as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, which led to lots of infrastructure rebuild all over the country. And so I could build you an economic narrative that could prove to people yes, the inflation was up. That was a global phenomenon. It wasn't her fault or Joe Biden's fault. In fact, if anything, we were lower on the inflation numbers than the other people. And the other thing I would have said is that, even after you adjust for inflation, your wages went up more than inflation in those categories.

Speaker 3: 6:24

Why they were not able to get that economic narrative out is beyond me. I don't understand it. And they had a very good ground game. They've spent billions of dollars billion and a half billion seven. They had a very good ground game, but I don't think it was as effective as Trump's ground game and what Elon Musk was doing for them in Pennsylvania. So she lost. If you really want to be fair to her, you would say wow, that was an unfair situation. She had 107 days to run for president. She's running against not a famous person, but the most famous person in the world Right, a person that has 100% name saturation in the US and is globally known. She was not globally known and the day before the election, the most searchable phrase related to the election on Google was did Joe Biden drop out? Did he drop out? So I just want you to think about that. A lot of low information voters. They make the decision last minute and they chose Trump, but they chose Trump by this much, sir Right, it wasn't this much.

Speaker 3: 7:33

It was this much, so that's where we are.

Speaker 2: 7:36

Yeah, and you say something there that I think gets skipped over a lot. When I was a kid, the one person who everybody knew, no matter where you went, was Elvis. Right, it didn't matter what country, where you went, everybody knew Elvis, and I said that to my wife about a month ago. I said you know, I said that, not comparing him in any other way other than name recognition Donald Trump is the Elvis of the world right now.

Speaker 3: 8:06

No, there's no question. I mean and listen, he got the people to the rallies. 100% name recognition, jack. I've worked on six presidential campaigns, 24 years of working on this. The number one thing that you need to be president is name recognition. It's ahead of money. Remember, trump spent less money than her Right working on this. The number one thing that you need to be president is name recognition. It's ahead of money. Remember, trump spent less money than her and Trump spent less money than Hillary Clinton to win those two campaigns. So you have the name recognition you can best people and he did it.

Speaker 3: 8:40

But is it a mandate? He's got one more member of the House of Representatives than the Democrats. He's got a few senators more than the Democrats and he won the vote minusculely. I think he won it by 2.3 to 2.5 million. I know it's still being tabulated, but you get my point. Sure, this is not a mandate. Anybody that tells you that this is not this is not a mandate. Anybody that tells you that this is a mandate doesn't understand the thing and so he's going to try to force things. I don't think he's going to be that successful. You know matt gates. They already got rid of him. Uh, I think hexeth is going. I know they're going to last gasp with him, but I think he's going. Uh, what will happen to tulsi gabbard? I don't know, uh, cash patel I think he's going. What will happen to Tulsi Gabbard? I don't know. Kash Patel, I think it's a big problem. They say Kash Patel is going to get confirmed. He's going to run the FBI. He has an enemies list. He just brought a lawsuit against Olivia Troy.

Speaker 3: 9:37

I saw that, and he's going to sue her for defamation. So what is he going to do? He's taking that out. She has a First Amendment right. He is a public figure, he's not a non-public figure, and so she has a First Amendment right to express her voice against his. What are you going to do Now? She's going to lawyer up against him. She'll probably win the case. But what if he's the FBI director? What the hell happens then?

Speaker 3: 10:08

I think it's a very dangerous situation, frankly, and I'm very worried about it for the country. By the way, as a trained economist, you start going after quote unquote Trump's adversaries or you start going after his enemies' lifts. You'll stultify people in this country. They'll be fearful to speak out. They'll be thinking about their businesses more cautiously. Don't take for granted these freedoms that we have. They spill over into economic innovation.

Speaker 2: 10:40

Yeah, it's interesting you say this because there are a couple of potential podcast guests that were geared up and ready to go but, knowing that we were going to be talking about Trump, one of them has backed out and said you know, I'm just not comfortable, and I think that says a lot about this moment where we are in the United States of America, that somebody has to think that about their own president. How much.

Speaker 3: 11:12

Anthony. I appreciate you. Very sad for me. You're basically saying that one of the two candidates has threatened people. That candidate won and now people do feel threatened.

Speaker 2: 11:23

Yeah, yeah, I do. How friendly or not will Donald Trump be to a company like NVIDIA, with the relationship that NVIDIA has with China and Trump threatening the tariffs, how user friendly will he be for the biggest company in the United States right now?

Speaker 3: 11:45

Well, I mean, you know how this man Post, a couple of days before the election, him and Trump had an agreement he wouldn't endorse anybody and Trump would meet with people from blue origin. He's now at the deal book conference yesterday and he's saying Trump's going to do a great job. And I'm very optimistic about Trump. Why is he doing that? He doesn't want a problem with Trump. You don't get to be a billionaire jack. Okay, if you can't flip on a dime and go in a direction that, uh, is more economically beneficial to you and your family, I could stand down. You know joe scorborough, he's the morning joe host. He ran down to mar-a-lago said yeah, I said a lot of stuff about you. I was just kidding. I got to go back to my network and say less stuff about you. Yeah, I don't know, is that the way to live in America? I don't know. I don't think it is.

Speaker 2: 12:55

No, no, I don't either. If I came to you now as a financial guy, what would be the? Would there be a difference? Let me ask it like that Would there be a difference in how you suggested that I invest my money now compared to before the election?

Speaker 3: 13:15

So I am bullish and I'm bullish. If you told me Harris won, I would say I'm bullish, and if you tell me Trump won, I'm bullish. The marketplace perceives Trump as more stock market friendly than Harris. They see less regulation and they see more tax cuts, more corporate tax cuts, and so they're sort of very bullish. But I was bullish either way. There's a lot of great things are happening. The overhang of COVID is over, interest rates are going to be coming down, lots of disinflationary technology going to enter the marketplace. Obviously I'm bullish on the crypto markets. I just wrote a new book about Bitcoin and these digital assets. So I was bullish one way or the other.

Speaker 3: 14:02

It didn't matter to me which jockey got on top of the US economic horse. I really thought we were going to be fine. I still think so, and I will tell people that you have to invest. You could have gotten into the world of investing when I did in 1990. I said, oh man, everything's so expensive. What the hell am I doing here? I've missed the boat. If you bought Apple computer in 1990, only $15,000 on Apple Computer would make you a multimillionaire today. So I tell people you have to invest. You have to hold your nose Dollar cost average in every month. You'll be buying at high prices when they're high. When markets come down, you'll be buying more at the same price, I mean at the same dollar amount. So to me, you got to invest. If you don't invest, you're going to miss out.

Speaker 2: 14:55

Sure, knowing Donald Trump as you do, will the relationship between Elon Musk and Donald eventually sour to the point to where they just have to sever ties, or that Donald decides they have to sever ties?

Speaker 3: 15:13

I think the relationship is already strained, and so I think that you know he did something that people are starting to catch on to. He put Elon and Vivek in Siberia. He gave them a job at a department that doesn't exist, and he's telling people that he's going to have this department of governmental efficiency, but it's not really part of the government. It would have to be mandated and voted into existence by the Congress, and so these are two guys he didn't want in the cabinet, these are two guys he didn't want in real jobs inside the White House, and so he gave them a job off in Siberia.

Speaker 3: 15:50

Now I'm old enough to remember Simpson-Bowles and I'm old enough to remember the Grace Commission. These were two studies that were done by private citizens on behalf of the American government on what the government could do to save or to cut the budget. Both of those commissions or studies ended up in the paper shredder and what you're going to find. It's very hard to cut the budget. Lots of things are legally protected inside the budget, and can they cut a few things here and there? Sure. Is that necessarily going to help the overall deficit? Doubtful, and so I think Trump knew what he was doing when he put the two of them in Siberia.

Speaker 2: 16:30

Yeah, so is there a chance then? And I know you can't say for certain but with Social Security, with veterans benefits, are these in some degree typical Trump bluster? In some degree typical trump bluster? And, like you said, when it really gets down to it, there are more obstacles in the way than either he realizes or that will just trip him up along the way, even if he already knows they exist and that it won't be as horrific as a lot of people are concerned that it could be.

Speaker 3: 17:10

Yeah. Well, I mean, here's what I would say. I would say that it's strained. Already Trump has gotten bored of Elon. Trump's tried to put him out in Siberia. Elon's one of the richest people in the world, and so Trump is going to bite his tongue more with Elon than he would with the average person that he's bored by.

Speaker 3: 17:34

So could this end in a year? Yeah, I think both these guys are smart, though, and so I think when it ends and it will end I don't think it's going to end in a firebomb or some type of cataclysm I think Elon's going to say okay, I am not really on the inside, I'm not really being listened to. Instead of complaining about that, they're helping me shoot rockets into outer space, and so I'm going to keep my mouth shut. And I think Trump is going to say you know, I'm going to go down there and cheer on some of these rockets that get shot into outer space. So I don't think the general public is going to see it as a great falling out, but I do think that they're going to draw distance between each other.

Speaker 2: 18:16

Yeah, what happens to the US economy? Let's just take Social Security, for example. Let's say there are massive cuts to Social Security. What kind of impact does that have on the economy overall?

Speaker 3: 18:33

uh well, I mean, you know, I, I think it would be devastating. I, I don't, I don't. First of all, trump is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Right, he doesn't want to tax social security. That's what he said during the campaign. That's a 450 billion dollar, uh, adjustment to the budget, so that's more deficit spending. If he doesn't tax it, now they're talking about cutting it. Uh, I don't know. Yeah, I, I, I would say to you that that would be absolutely devastating to lower and middle income elderly people and I think it would cause a crisis of economic confidence, you know. So.

Speaker 3: 19:14

I don't know, I don't know. Right, is he dumb enough to do that? I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:21

What are your thoughts on these threats to? And? I saw you on the BBC here a while back and I heard you mention you know. You said hey, I'm one of the people who signed. You know, I was one of the people who went against Trump. I was on that list. How worried are you?

Speaker 3: 19:42

I guess I should be more worried. But I'm not worried. I mean more people. Let me put it this way there's people that are way more worried than me. Jack, I'm not worried. I'm an American, I'm a New Yorker. You're going to come after me and put me in jail or have some type of show trial for me because I exercise my First Amendment rights. Okay, let's do it. Let's see where it goes.

Speaker 2: 20:04

Right.

Speaker 3: 20:04

I don't know, are you going to execute me for that? I don't know. Yeah, you're going to totally change the dynamic of the country and you're going to turn the country into something that it's never been. And if you want to do that, because one man won an election very narrowly, by a couple hundred thousand votes, okay, go do it. But I think it's a mistake, and I think it would be a bigger mistake for people like you and me not to continue to exercise our first amendment rights. I think we owe that to people, that we continue to talk, and so I'm happy to come on your podcast.

Speaker 2: 20:40

Yeah, well, I appreciate that and that's pretty much in line with my thinking, in that I get up each day and I monitor myself right now to make sure that I'm not adjusting, that I'm not starting to pull back and that I'm still delivering in the style that I've always delivered, because, as you said and I think that was just tagged it perfectly that's what people deserve. That was just tagged it perfectly. That's what people deserve. They deserve to see people who are pushing forward and not backing down, because you know as well as anybody how social psychology works. You know people look to see what other people are doing, to see what they should do, and when they see people that they admire or they follow starting to cave, I think it could be devastating. So I think we have a duty to not change I completely, I completely agree and I think it.

Speaker 3: 21:43

I think it's also um. So I don't know. I think it's so un-American. What they're talking about is so un-American that if you start to conform your behavior to a group of bullies, I think it's a disaster, you know, yeah. So let's see, let's see what happens.

Speaker 2: 22:04

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 22:24

What would you? I think I already know the answer, but what would you say if Trump called you? Today and said 0.0% chance that that could ever happen. He's still calling me out on Truth Social. About two weeks ago he called me a major loser, so that's a sign of love. You know that, Jack.

Speaker 2: 22:38

You bet.

Speaker 3: 22:39

Your ex is that you're still on the mind of your ex. They're still writing about you.

Speaker 2: 22:44

Absolutely.

Speaker 3: 22:45

Okay, so that's a sign of love, but I would never go back because I had to repair my family, I had to repair my business and I'm not really that. The great irony of my life is I'm not really that into politics. I've always been a Wall Street entrepreneur. I'm not really a politico. I'm 60 years old. If I wanted to be into politics, I would have done something in my early 20s or 30s. I never did that. I got into it by accident. I was a longtime political fundraiser. I used to do a lot of television for Trump, and so he asked me to go work for him and I got enticed. It was an ego-based decision. Jack, I tell people don't make decisions based on your ego. I did and look where it got me, look at what it cost me, and so, no, I wouldn't go work for him because it's just too dangerous a situation and too damaging to my family.

Speaker 2: 23:50

Seth. That I think is important to highlight because, as a former Republican, as somebody who's been fighting in the Democratic Party, now for gosh six years.

Speaker 2: 23:57

The one thing that I see that happens so often in this party is people get caught up in the things that, yeah, I get it, that they matter and they matter a lot to you, yes, but, but you're missing something maybe even more important, like with pete you mentioned he's not qualified, he doesn't have the experience, he, he doesn't have the knowledge. Now, I know that the the real popular thing to attack him on right now is, you know, the sexual conquest or the misconduct or the rapes, whatever the allegations are, that they forget to look and go. Oh, and even if that wasn't true, the guy still just is not qualified.

Speaker 3: 24:54

It's got nothing to do with the rapes and the drunkenness. I mean, he's a Fox News weekend host, right? That's just not the guy to run the pentagon, okay, sorry, right. Well, he's going to be loyal to me and if I tell him to bring the american military into lafayette square and shoot at american citizens while they're exercising their legal right to protest, he'll do that. Yeah, I couldn't get mark esper to do that, I couldn't get mark milley to do that, but you know, I want somebody that's going to be super loyal to me that will do something like that.

Speaker 3: 25:25

Yeah, I see the whole thing is ridiculous, Mitt.

Speaker 2: 25:27

Didn't they just pick Monica Crowley for ambassador? I think?

Speaker 3: 25:32

Yeah, where's she?

Speaker 2: 25:33

going. No, I can't remember what country she. Yeah she's a loyalist of his. Yeah, yeah. So Fox and Rupert, I guess the lawsuit the defamation lawsuit didn't really put a chink in Rupert's armor in terms of how closely he's married to the truth. Is that just the nature of the business you?

Speaker 3: 26:04

know I hate to be so cynical, right, but you know that that's the nature of the business. You know I hate to be so cynical, right, but you know that that's the nature of the business. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:11

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 26:11

It's the facts.

Speaker 2: 26:12

Right, right. What do you think we'll see in the first month of Trump?

Speaker 3: 26:19

So that's a really good question. So I'm going to say one thing optimistic and one thing realistic. And so the optimistic is he's 78 years old. So I'm going to say one thing optimistic and one thing realistic. And so the optimistic is he's 78 years old. He's told people that he wants to go play golf and he's told people that he won, and he's never really had the love affair with governing. It was more about winning. Okay, and so there's that. And then the other thing is the more realistic is he starts doing things that you and I don't like. There's executive action after executive action, there's deportations, there's retribution against his enemies, there's a whole host of things that he does that are ridiculous. So there's those two things. By the way, stock market has said those things are not going to happen. Okay, stock market has said that he is going in a benign direction. He's going to run things like a moderate centrist Republican.

Speaker 2: 27:19

That's what the stock market has said, is the stock market normally a pretty good indicator.

Speaker 3: 27:26

Pretty much, yeah, pretty good, pretty good. You know, the markets were telling you that he was winning in October, november.

Speaker 2: 27:33

Interesting yeah, interesting, anthony. Look, I know you've got a crazy day going on, as always.

Speaker 3: 27:40

No, it's great to be on with you. Thank you, I hope we can do this again. Keep up the good work, though, Jack. You got to stay in there, man no matter what.

Speaker 2: 27:47

I will.