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- [00:04]
A
Welcome, everybody, to the first episode of Lunch with Jamie from 2026. I'm really excited to bring you a conversation I had at the end of 2025 with Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director, podcast host, leads the team at Skybridge. Just a really, really exciting, dynamic guy. Anthony, the son of a crane operator from Long island, went on to Tufts and Harvard, worked in finance, then has made way into politics. Our conversation went all over the place, which is what I was hoping, and we didn't even scratch the surface. He talked about taking me to Rao's if I got to eat with him in New York, which I obviously loved. We talked about his life being a cautionary tale and how not listening to his wife led to his worst decision, which makes a lot of sense. That's true for most of us. He told me about Potomac Fever, which I had never heard, which is this case of when people from Wall street or Silicon Valley come to D.C. thinking they're going to solve all the problems and learn it's not that easy. Talked about the difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2, and in particular what would have happened in Trump 1 after the Susie Wiles interview in Vanity Fair and how she would have been fired that same day. Now Trump 2 things are a little bit different. He talked about his thoughts on presidential candidates in 2028, which went from West Moore to Glenn Youngkin to Gavin Newsom, and even how he wants Mitt Romney to come out of retirement. We talked about the grift of the Trump 2 administration and how Trump himself had put the number at 5 billion a year, which is what he wants make, which I didn't really see, but I'm trusting Anthony. And so I'm putting the over under at 20 billion and I'm taking the over on how much the family will make and significantly over. We'll have to check back into that at the end of the term. And then we also talked about his series Lost Boys with Lunch with Jamie alum Scott Galloway, where they looked at the crisis about young men in the world, which obviously is something very important. And then we finished with his predictions of 2026, which range why IBM is his stock pick to why he thinks comedies like Old School are coming back to Hollywood. He talked about how the Democrats will take the house in 2026, which I think we all are expecting. He's already got one prediction right, which he says George Conway is going to run for Congress, which has come true, but maybe he had a little inside track on that one. All this to say it was a great conversation. We talked about a ton of topics. I can't wait to get this guy back on for part two. Here's my conversation with Anthony Scaramucci. I'm joined today by Anthony Scaramucci, who rose to prominence after 11 day stint as the White House Communications director under the first Trump administration in 2017. But he's a man of many titles. Founder and managing partner at SkyBridge Capital, author of many books, most recently Solana Rising. Additionally, he's the chairman of Salt and if that wasn't enough, he's also a host of a few podcasts, Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci, the rest is Politics, and a limited podcast series called Lost Boys, which he co hosted with Lunch with Jamie alum Scott Galloway. Anthony, welcome to lunch with Jamie. Thank you for joining.
- [03:15]
B
Hey, listen, it's great to be on. It's great to be having lunch with Jamie. Thank you for having me.
- [03:21]
A
Although we're not in person having lunch. If I was in New York City, and this is maybe the hardest question we'll get to all day, and you were taking me to lunch or dinner or any meal, where would you be taking me?
- [03:33]
B
Well, I mean, the hardest place for me to take you would be Rao. So we'd have to really organize that. But I could get you in there, we could go to dinner there. It would have to be a weeknight though, because that's just the way it works for civilians like me. But I'd probably take you to San Pietro right here on 54th street, which is my favorite non Rao Italian restaurant. It's been open for 40 years. And these guys, they grew up near where my grandmother's village was before she left for the US and so it's old school Napoli, Don. You know, Jews and Italians like food, you know, and you would come and hang out with me at a great Italian restaurant.
- [04:10]
A
That sounds amazing. And by the way, if you can get me into Rao's, just let me know when and I will be there. Just like I'll fly out to the.
- [04:17]
B
You've been Rao's before? No.
- [04:18]
A
So I was, I was there one time about, you know, 15 years ago, maybe longer, and my father got a reservation from a friend who called him and said, listen, I'm going. I have surgery in a month and it's the night of my Ray House reservation, so I need someone to take it. Can you take the reservation for me? And I went and we were so excited and of course it was perfect. Tony Danza got up and sang when we were there. I mean, it was like, it was,
- [04:48]
B
that was before Mr. Pellegrino. You know Frank, if you don't remember Frank Pellegrino, but he was the FBI agent in the Sopranos. You went on a Thursday night, they opened up that juice box and guys like Tony Danza, Jimmy Darin, they all went and sang in front of the jukebox with Frank. I've got videos of me doing that. But Frank passed away. Since then, we probably a little bit more low key, but it's still, it's one of the most wonderful places in New York. It's a fixture of New York, but that's where I'd want to take you.
- [05:16]
A
I agree completely. So you have so many different walks of life that you go down now and so many topics I want to cover with you. But I did hear you recently talk about your moment from the pre election night with Donald Trump to sort of the end of your 11 day stint. And I'm wondering if you would mind kind of walking my audience through that journey for you.
- [05:45]
B
Well, I mean, listen, I'm going to feel a tiny bit further back because I think it's important to understand the history that I've had with the Republican Party. So, I mean, I am a nobody from nowhere. I grew up on Long Island. My father was a crane operator and my mother was a makeup artist. I went to Tufts and Harvard Law School. And when I got to Goldman Sachs, I failed at my first job in investment banking. They actually fired me. And then luckily enough they rehired me into private banking. And so I was in private banking. I didn't have a Rolodex, but I can hustle. And I was trying to figure out a way to meet influential people. Well, Jamie, I don't swing a golf club. I don't swing a tennis racket. I had no experience, never been inside a country club. So I went into politics. I wrote my first check to Rudy Giuliani in 1993 for $250. It got me into the salons of the influential in New York. He won that election, which gave me some gravitas. I then went to go work for Pataki and then I worked for Bob Dole. And I had this whole legacy of working for what I would call establishment Republicans. And so I was with Jeb Bush on the 2016 campaign and Trump bounced Bush out of the race. He called me and asked me to join his campaign. And I made a series of mistakes in my life, but that was mistake number one because I could have just said, hey, God, Bless you. I'm sort of establishment Republican. I'm not into white nationalism. I'm not at the white national populism, but I didn't do that. And I think this is a big cautionary tale for your viewers and listeners. That's where my pride and my ego kicked in. And I wanted to experience a presidential campaign in its full glory. And I flew around on President Trump's, then Mr. Trump's plane. So it's very important to understand that piece of it, because I worked on comms for that campaign. Fundraising, position papers, logistical management, in terms of, like, where we're going to put the bunting and things like that. We had a very small, short staff campaign. The Clinton campaign outspent us 2 to 1. They outmanned us 3 to 1. So this was like a presidential guerrilla operation, if you will. And I was pretty close to him. I used to talk to him every night like he does with Scott Bessant or Howard Lutnick. Today he'd call me 11 o' clock at night. We had a bilateral relationship where we were able to go back and forth with each other. Jared Kushner once said to me that Trump liked me because I reminded him of Fred Trump. I made my own money, didn't honestly care $0.02 what people thought of me. I would tell you my opinion whether you liked it or not, and wasn't a sycophant. And so that worked during the campaign. He won. He named me to the transition team. And then my ego really got the best of me because I started believing I had something that's called Potomac Fever. Jamie, you know what Potomac Fever is?
- [08:46]
A
I don't.
- [08:46]
B
Okay, so Potomac Fever is when you think your shit does not stink and you're going to come down from Wall street because you're smarter than everybody. Washington is a group of dummies, but not you. You're a genius. You know, you're coming from Silicon Valley. Washington is a group of dummies. I'm a superior technologist, and I'm a rich guy. I'm going to descend on Washington and fix Washington. Right? It's called Potomac Fever. You're going to cross the river Potomac, and you're going to change Washington.
- [09:15]
A
Ha ha.
- [09:16]
B
Because that doesn't happen. Washington changes you. And one of the sick parts about Potomac Fever, one of the symptoms is you don't know you have Potomac Fever. That's sick part of it. Okay. And so you know Howard Buttlick, I mean, I think his name is Lutnick, but I call him Buttlick. You know, or, you know, someone like Scott Besant or a guy like Elon Musk, they all have Potomac Fever, okay? And so they hit Washington. In Elon's case, you know, I lasted one Scaramucci, which is 11 days. Elon. I mean, I like Elon. He lasted 11.8 Scaramucci. But we round up for the people we like. So that was like 12. And so what happens if you're not careful with your pride and your ego? Your pride and your ego can get the best of you. And so I had this false narrative going in my head. I was going to help out. I was going to go work for the President, United States, fly around on Air Force One, do press conferences from the Brady Press Room. And Jamie, you know, my wife hates Trump, like almost as much as Melania hates him. So it's, I mean, that's a very high standard of hatred. I mean, it's like Eastern European hatred, which is like permanent, like, you know, generational hatred. And I didn't listen to her. I ended up go work for Trump. I got fired after 11 days. But here's the message in that story. I tried to stay loyal to him. I'm a long serving Republican. I've been in the Republican Party for 40 years. And I tried to stay loyal to him, but it became impossible because I thought the stuff that he was doing and the way he was handling himself, even if you like certain policies, which they're now even more narrow, the policies you couldn't stand as a principal person for the behavior. And look, I know this is going to be coming out in January. I just say the Rob Reiner rhetoric that came out of Donald Trump's mouth after the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife and this unfortunate situation with their very troubled son. The notion that somebody who's the leader of the free world and the president of the country could talk like that, okay, to me is like so reprehensible that, you know, I'm surprised that more people aren't speaking out about it, to be honest. So, so that's my story. That's the arc of my story. Ambition, pride, egocentrism. This is a cautionary tale for people who believe their own bullshit, like I once did. And so that humbling experience of getting fired like that made me more psychologically minded, more self aware, more empathetic. But it was a real comedown, Jamie. And, you know, it's life, you know, what are you going to do? You know, I learned a lot about myself and I also learned a lot about My friendships going through that.
- [12:05]
A
I really appreciate that. That is really helpful to set the table on the context, you know, the. In regards to the tragic and just devastating murder of Rob Reiner, I had a couple of Trump supporters who DM'd me, and in response, I posted something about it, and they said that they were horrified by Trump's statements. And it just sort of blew me away that they were surprised by his statements. And that's pretty as low as he's gone. I've seen him go in some ways, but at this point, I'm not sure why anybody surprised anything. Right. He set us up, you know, in. In the original 2016 campaign. Right. Which I could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and nobody would care. So. So why. Why would you be surprised about him saying anything? I mean, he's talked about murdering people. He's talked about hanging Mark Kelly for things. He's talking to me. You know, he's supported the General Milley.
- [13:08]
B
Wants to hang General Milley.
- [13:09]
A
Yeah. I mean, so I'm. So I'm sort of. I'm perplexed by people who are very smart, interesting, influential people who get surprised by statements out of Donald Trump.
- [13:21]
B
Yeah.
- [13:22]
A
You know, so, I mean, I think, listen, those. Those people being supportive of him because they. It benefits their pockets and benefits them. You know, that's their choice. But, yeah, being surprised by things that are. Come out of his mouth at this point seems kind of shocking.
- [13:39]
B
So, I mean, could I respond to that? I think it's very important to understand the cognitive dissonance that goes on, because Donald Trump is a great goalpost mover. So you're a Republican, and you're running against a Democrat or you're a Democrat or a Republican. Well, I'm a Republican. Well, Trump is repugnant. He's saying really bad things about Mexicans. He's repugnant. He's saying really bad things about Latinos, or he wants to ban Muslims from the country. He's repugnant. And what you do is you do this equivocation and your personality, and you move the goalposts with him. Okay. And you do that because you say, oh, well, he's a Republican, I'm a Republican. And even though his style and his personality is repugnant, his policies are Republican. So I'm gonna stay with him. And so I stayed too long, frankly. I broke in 2019, two years after my firing. I mean, I didn't want to be that baby Jamie, where I got fired, turned on the president. I said, no, let me try to be loyal to him. I stayed for two extra years. And then he started saying that the women of the squad, these are four liberal congresswomen, three are black, one is Hispanic, three are born in the country, one is naturalized from Africa, that these women should go back to the countries they originally came from. He's still saying it, by the way. And I said, okay, that's American nativism. They may have said that to your grandparents. They certainly said it to my grandparents. They wanted them back in Italy. It's a form of racism. I spoke out against it. He hit me on Twitter. I hit him back. I think I called him the fattest president since William are Taft, because I know he hates being so effing fat. And then the fight started and, you know, I lasted and went too far. So this is what happens to you. These people are sitting there and maybe the Reiner thing is too far for them. And you're looking at them saying, well, that's too far for you. You probably should have left when he said the Mexicans are rapists in June of 2015 when he started the process of running for president. But this is a very important thing for your listeners to understand about this country. This is the country, okay? We have had a veneer of aspirational rhetoric. We've had a yoke of soaring idealism and American concepts of American exceptionalism, but underneath that, there's a group of unsavory people. I'm not saying it's the majority of the country. It may be now, he won the popular vote a year ago, but it is. A very large group of the country are nativistic. A very large group of the country are isolationists. A very large group of the country are race baiting and have issues related to other races. They're anti immigration. I'm not just talking about illegal immigration. I'm talking about legal immigration. And so we gotta get our arms around that as a society, and we have to have a reckoning. And I sort of weirdly feel that Donald Trump represents that for us. I feel like he's gonna force us now to have this reckoning with ourselves and then hopefully some type of redemption and reconciliation.
- [16:58]
A
Yeah, you know, that's really interesting. And I think, you know, I always said Donald Trump really wasn't responsible for sort of any of the majority of sort of the sentiment that was coming out. It was. He just pulled the band aid off, right? And he just. He just. He just sort of. It was festering there. And he, you know, he might have added some lighter fluid. But the kindling and the, and the, and the sparks were there already. And, you know, somebody even said to me one point, I wouldn't go this far, but it almost potentially couldn't have looked at a good thing that he ripped the bandit off when he did, because if it had festered another 4, 8, 12, whatever amount of time, it could have been even worse. You know, I mean, I don't know how you get worse than January 6th, to be honest, but that's what would have, what would have happened potentially. You know, I, one thing I'll push back a little bit, though, is that I genuinely, I'm eternally hopeful and eternally optimistic. And you see this a little bit in statistics, right? Where in general, I do believe Americans, American population, the voting population wants the best for the people of America. And even though they may have their biases, even when you see things, you know, in this moment, obviously gun reform is top of mind, obviously, for these horrific shootings that we're experiencing. The, even the average nra, you know, supporter believes in common sense gun laws, right? I mean, the, you know, the average person in America, I believe, does want to treat people with kindness and does believe in wanting the best for people, you know, the thing that they don't want. And this is where I just had a conversation with Sarah McBride, who, who I thought really did a great job of synthesizing them things where the Democrat and Republican kind of difference became, is that the Democrats started saying, you know, okay, you know, you're the, you're the, because you said something, you're the bad person. We love everybody else, but you're the bad person because of some small thing you said or thought. And whereas Republicans said, you know what we like, we like, we're fine with what you said. We just hate everybody else, but we kind of like you no matter what you said. So you could be racist, you could be sexist, you could be homophobic, you could be, you know, Nash, whatever it is, and that's okay. Everybody else is just awful. But, and it was a very interesting statement she made, and I thought it was really smart. So I don't know, what's your kind of take just on the, you know, on the kind of population.
- [19:41]
B
I mean, I'm, I'm smiling because we are generally okay with each other in front of each other, but when we are clothed in anonymity, we have a tendency to go off on each other in social media. We've also let our adversaries into our social media. So we have weapons grade intelligence technology known as TikTok. In addition to weapons grade intelligence gathering, it's also weapons grade propaganda. So we've got a reasonable percentage of white males below the age of 30 that think the moon landing is fake. They also think Osama bin Laden is some kind of revolutionary to be admired as opposed to a terrorist who took down the World Trade Center. So you have big tech which hasn't gotten its wake up call, even though there's a country that's a whole continent by the name of Australia that has now banned big tech social media for people below the age of 18. The UK government is now thinking about this. This stuff is extremely dangerous. It's monolithic in terms of how they run the rage in the algorithms, because the rage is what keeps people transfixed and the emotional charge is what keeps people's eyeballs on the website. So, so, and they have no interest in changing it. And they've spent so much money lobbying the government that the government may not necessarily change it. And they certainly, you know, these companies would have been broken up in past cultures in America. You know, you talk about the Supreme Court being a statement of the culture through the weather, not a specific daily forecast. The Americans would have broken up these seven companies. You know, I'm old enough to remember when Judge Harold Green broke up AT&T, which ironically unleashed the technology. They were sitting on all of this technology. They unleashed the technology that created the Mag 7. So everything you're saying is correct. Face to face there's levels of harmony. Face to face, there's levels of niceness. And in general, I think the American people, when they're polled, they want a centrist government. When they're polled, they want fairer, more exacting gun control laws. It's not a perfect system. You know, if you think about the best of class western liberal gun control laws, that's Australia. Yet we had these anti Semitic rage killings over the weekend which are also reprehensible. But we've had far fewer of them in Australia because of the way the gun control is mandated there. So, but you know, even though the American people want it, the money that goes to the politicians is tied to allowing the kids to get shot in school. So if the incentive is I can allow the kid to get shot in school, but I can get reelected, shoot the kid in school, give me the money, I want to get reelected. And so we've lost our way, Jamie, in terms of the public service. We have people in place now that are serving themselves. They're insider stock trading, they're Flipping different types of stocks pursuant to legislation that they have the heads up on before everybody else. They're taking money in godless amounts of money. They're a gerontocracy. And listen, I have no problem, I'm not an ageist sort of a person, but I do think if you're staying too long in the government, you get stale, you get complacent. And we know something about power. Jamie, Lord Acton was right about power. Power corrupts. Okay. And what did he say? An absolute power corrupts absolutely. And so you put somebody into Congress for 40 years, they're going to do loose and fast things that are potentially harmful to the public in their effort to self serve. And by the way, we gave Trump another chance at the White House. He went in the first 10 months of his second term to rack up $4 billion for himself. And I'm sure we're low by half. So to me, yes, in a face to face environment, do we bully each other? We generally don't. If I call myself QP749 and I can attack you viciously and if you're a 14 year old boy or a 14 year old girl and I'm doing that to you viciously, you can have very harmful psychological effects on somebody.
- [24:19]
A
Yeah. I think Sarah McBride also said it's hard to hate up close. And she brought something else up which I thought was really interesting, which was just about what we teach in school. And obviously we talked a lot about trans rights with her and she said something which was, I think, I'm not exactly sure what the curriculum needs to be or should be for certain topics, but I think we can teach kids about kindness at every age and I never think they're too young to learn about kindness, which I thought was really interesting. You brought up a lot of really important topics on what you just went through. You know, money in politics obviously is just, is destroying us, gerrymandering is destroying us. It made me think, and this is part of sort of listening to some of your conversations prior to our chat. You know, one of the things we need out of the, the Democratic politicians that we're going to see in 2026 and 2028 is a very clear cut list of things that are going to be done on day one with a Democratic controlled House and Senate. You know, because I think, because I'm at this point, I'm, I'm fed up, I'm angry. You know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a Democrat, I've always been a Democrat. But you know, we talk about gun reform. It wasn't done when we had control of multiple branches of government. You know, you talk about things about the economy, you talk about all these different things, talk about gerrymandering, but it's never done. And I think we're finally at a place where enough is enough. And you talk about the age of the geriatocracy. You're talking, I agree with you. I think the age is just a number in many cases. But we do need new leaders and new voices. So I think, you know, I'm curious, you know, when it comes to, let's just say, gerrymandering, let's talk about one, one issue in particular. You know, I think Gavin Newsom made the right call with Prop 50 as a response to Greg Abbott and Trump. I don't know what the other option really was, you know, but what's your take on that as an example?
- [26:34]
B
Well, there was no other option. But the other thing he also did was by doing what he did, he highlighted the problem. So now there's many interested Americans that are coming in and saying, whoa, this is terrible, right? Governor Schwarzenegger, who started out as a Republican, but if you really follow him these days, he's a 78 year old centrist, he's trying to explain to people that it's not fair. If you have 45% of the population in Massachusetts that are Republicans, how can you have absolutely zero representation of those people in the House of Representatives? And then the flip side, of course, would be in red states, you know, state of Tennessee, you know, 40% of the people are Democrats, no representation in the House from the state of Tennessee. This is all done through the process of gerrymandering. And then, you know, institutionalists and traditionalists, Jamie will push back and say, well, that's happened for several hundred years and it's not that big of a deal, but it has happened at a exponential, exponential lift in policy. Now. It has become very, very scary and very, very dangerous. Trump is calling the governor of Texas. I may lose the House. Figure out a way to gerrymander, even though you've got lots of Democrats in your state and they should, from a pluralistic theory perspective be represented, cut off their air supply, make those districts Republican. And by the way, we have the technology to do that. You know, we can scan the cookies on your phone, your hard top computer, your laptop, and we can figure out with a 99% accuracy whether you're a Democrat, Republican or you're an Independent. And we can move your House, move your voting situs out of our district to protect our incumbent. And I want you to think about this. The United states has a 95% reelection rate of incumbents, and yet the Congress has a 14% approval rate. I mean, the approval rating is slightly above Kim El Jung, the North Korean dictator. Okay? Yet these people, it's like if you and I opened a restaurant. I was the chef. I stunk as the chef. My Yelp ratings were ones. But I never got fired. And that's what's going on in the body politic right now. So when you hear me speak about this, I'm talking about the disease, and I'm also talking about something that you know intuitively. If you're a software engineer listening to this, you get the thing started and then you do an iPhone 1, 2, 3, and lo and behold, we have an iPhone 17. Same thing with the software from Zoom that we're talking on. The Constitution was a living document, Jamie. 27amendments. It's a 236 year old document. We should be getting an amendment every seven to eight years. And yet we've had no amendments since 1993. And in 93, the 27th was procedural. The big one was a civil rights amendment. That's 59 years ago. 60 years ago, actually, because it would have been passed in 1965 by this time. But the point I'm making, you have stultified the system. You had four constitutional amendments in the United States from 1960 to 1971. Four. You've had no amendments for 32 years. And so now we've lost our way. The social contract doesn't foot to the Constitution, but if it did, we would want an end to gerrymandering for sure, because that would liquefy the process and make the thing less dramatic and less tribal. I would want to end Citizens United. And for your viewers and listeners that may not know what that is, let me just be brief. It's a Supreme Court decision that was made in January, January of 2010, where Justice Scalia said, if you got money, it's your First Amendment right to put as much money as you want into any political cause or any candidate. It's your First Amendment right. But what that's created is a separate but equal democracy. So if you look at the legislative agenda, Jamie, from January 2010 to today, it is skewed to big business, big pharma, tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, a kleptocracy funnel, all of which is dominated by wealthy people. And they'll line up behind willing takers. You know, they'll go to the inaugural and they'll sit behind the president's family, and they'll light the president up on his inaugural. They'll give him money for Melania documentary, and they'll say, okay, please don't break us up. Please don't use the antitrust laws that you've had in place to make the system fairer and more meritocratic to break us up. We're trying to become trillionaires. We don't mind that our fellow neighbors are suffering, and we don't mind that the disposable income and purchasing power is down in the country. We want to be trillionaires. And so where are the public servants that are going to come in and say, hey, guys, I'm sorry, we can't live like that. It's not fair to. It makes for a very unhealthy country. Before you ask me another question, I want to make sure I hammer this home for people. You need $131,000 today in America to live in a house and to have some level of comfortable living standard where you're not under an amazing amount of financial pressure. If you're below that number, you're missing doctor's appointments, you're missing dental appointments. You're likely missing some prescription drugs that you need to take because, lo and behold, you have to forego certain things as. As you're doing the rotisserie of trying to meet all your bills. You need 131,000. If you're on the northeast corridor on the northeastern seaboard of the United States, you can double it. Okay? But I'm talking about the average in the 50 states, Jamie. The median income in the country is $84,000. That means a very large percentage of the American population is doing without. They've got a busted car, they've got a broken window. They've got a medical procedure that they're delaying. They've got a cracked tooth that's rotting in their mouth right now because they can't get the help that they need because they don't have the money. So what are we doing, guys? Honestly, what are we doing? Is that how we want people to live in this country? What are we doing? And so, for me, I'm talking out about it because I really feel I don't want to live in a Bob Wired security compound in my McMansion, Jamie, while my fellow neighbors are struggling and suffering. But I'm just telling you the numbers so people understand how dire the situation is.
- [33:33]
A
I agree. You summed it up so well. And I think that comes back to my point about as we go for these next elections, we need people who are going to say hard things, commit to hard things, actually do them, and if they don't do them, get voted out of office. And that's from a Democratic side, you know, and I. And Democrats need to step up and they need to actually make. Get shit done. I mean, it's, you know, we heard about the abundance agenda with, you know, in Ezra Klein's book, which I thought was very. Was really on point. I want to. There's a lot of news about this recent Vanity Fair interview with Susie Wiles. You know, you know the administration very well. You know how Trump thinks as well as most people do. How long can, can she stay in the White House now? And what's your, you know.
- [34:28]
B
Well, Trump. Trump one, she would already be out the door. Trump two, he's defending her, calling him an alcoholic's personality because he doesn't want the embarrassment of firing people. You know, Hegseth would have been gone. You know, Bondi probably would have been gone. Cash Patel would have been gone. Trump won. But Trump has decided that if he's firing people, it makes them look bad and there's scalps for the left and he's getting owned by the liberal media. Okay, so he's not going to fire her anytime soon. But her, her coattails are going to get cut. Her access to his power is going to get cut. She's having a hard time right now because she told the truth. And what do we hate, Jamie? We hate the truth. You know that. I mean, there's a great allegory from 3,000 years ago. Homer tried to explain this to us. He had the character of Cassandra in the book the Iliad. This is of course, about the Trojan War. And the goddesses gave Cassandra. This was the King of Troy's daughter. They blessed her with clairvoyance and they told her she could see the future. But they cursed her with nobody believing her. So she went to her father and said, they're going to launch these ships against us and they're going to destroy our city. And he laughed. But Homer was trying to tell us 3,000 years ago that we don't like the truth. And when we hear the truth, we don't like the truth. And then we attack the truth teller. We shoot the messenger. So Susie, who I know forever, I work with her on the Romney campaign, she's been a Republican operative for multiple decades. Susie is. Got the White flag up. Susie knew exactly what she's doing. She's going to claim now that she was off the record. She's walking back to statements. Scott Besant's out there putting tweets out to support her, but she knew what she was doing. She wanted people to know that Vance is an imbecile. She wanted people to know that Voight, the guy running OMB is a horrific person. She wanted people to know what she thought of these people, including Donald Trump. She wanted them to know. Okay, why does she want them to know? Because she is taking incoming in that seat like you cannot believe. The pressure on her to do abnormally stupid things as his chief of staff is overwhelming. She's 10 months in the job, and she's ready to explode. You know who was like that? John Kelly. John Kelly fired me. His first official act as chief of staff was to fire me. And then he spent 18 months pulling whatever remaining hair he had left on his head, trying to corral and tame the absurdity of Donald Trump. And by the way, General Kelly and I are personal friends. I love his wife, Karen. I will tell you that. He saved us on more than one occasion. And so Susie Wilde is trying to tell you, hey, I've been in here as a hockey goalie trying to. Every stupid Trump shot on net I'm trying to block on behalf of the country, and these imbecilic sycophants around him are making things worse, okay? And that was a sos, okay? If you've ever seen an SOS before, that was an sos. And so she'll leave. She'll leave unceremoniously, he'll kick her to the curb. But he's a very unwell guy, okay? And I'm not talking about physically, with his ankles swelling and God only knows how many MRIs he's getting for whatever health reason. I'm talking about his mentality. I'm talking about the sociopathic, bizarre, uninhibited, grotesque behavior that this man is creating from the Oval Office on a daily basis in order to get your attention and if you're a liberal, to own you and to make you feel horrified and to catch your hair on fire, okay? And by the way, you know, I knew Rob Reiner. I didn't know him super well. He came to one of my conferences. I saw him at MSNBC at Rock center when I used to go over there for interviews. I met him and his wife. They're very, very nice people. He had a political ideology. He was strongly opposed to the President as am I, by the way. But he was murdered. If you're opposed to me and I'm in the political world and you get murdered, I'm going to act like Donald Trump. I mean, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta. And by the way, Reiner was on the television two months ago talking about the tragic death of Charlie Kirk. He didn't agree with Charlie's philosophy or his ideology, but he said that this was a horrific tragedy and a horrific act, and a man shouldn't be slain or gunned down for their views. Even if I don't agree with the views, and even if I think some of the views are out there, that's political violence. There's no place for now. This was a dysfunction in this man's family. You know, it's pretty clear. I mean, there's evidence now with the cameras. Everyone's innocent until presumed guilty. But I think as the evidence unfolds, it's pretty clear that he was murdered by his son. You have to think of the horror of that. You have to think about how horrific that is. And then for the President of the United States to talk like that, I mean, come on. This is not normal. This is a country that has problems. A country that started in slavery. Civil rights movement was cantankerous, segregation. This is not a country without problems. But this is a country that is based on some soaring ideals, and we're trying to fix these problems. And as Lincoln said, it's not a perfect union, but we're trying to make it more perfect. We're searching for the improvements. And then you got a jackass like this that's sitting there to create more hatred and more division in the country. Look, I'm sorry, I'm on a soapbox today discussing it with this level of fervor, but people have to wake up. Hopefully there's a few Republicans that listen to your show and they say, we gotta wake up. This is not right behavior. If you're a Republican, and you may not agree with Republican ideology, Jamie, but at least a Republican president like George Bush, or Republican president like Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, at least they handle themselves with some modicum of decorum and respect and dignity that that office demands. And the same thing I would say to a Republican listening about a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama or even a Joe Biden, you know, this is reprehensible and. And, you know, we need reform and we need people on both sides to step back and look at this and say, hey, man, we. We can't go in this Direction as a country.
- [41:31]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty shocking. It shows you how bad a job Democrats did. We're not going to talk about the, you know, Biden stick around office too, you know, as long as he did. But, you know, from messaging and putting candidates out there that were listening to what the public was saying, which is I think one of the biggest problems. I mean, I think as we look forward, you know, I'm actually, I'm really optimistic about the diversity of interesting voices that are in the Democratic Party today. I think, you know, I sort of equate it. I know you're a Mets fan and, you know, I think you can look at it almost in baseball as baseball. You know, it's like we have a lot of great players in a ball and double a ball and triple a ball. I'm not sure who, if any, are ready for the major leagues yet, but as you saw from this year's World Series, you know, you had guys who were, you know, in single A who were pitching on the World Series. So if you were a general manager of a political baseball team today, and I gave you, let's say, about 10 picks to start your new franchise with and you can put them in a ball or major leagues, who are some of the people that you think are the ones who can potentially have the potential to fight back, potential to be powerful voices to get stuff done, you know, potentially candidates for 2028. But I'm not even going that far. You know, just people who you say, oh, that they got, that they have something interesting going on. I like what I see in them.
- [43:05]
B
Well, I mean, Wes Moore is a guy like that on the Democratic side, I think Gavin. Look, I'm not a Democrat. You a centrist Republican. But have you told me I think Gavin has the best chance to win. This is politically incorrect. Hopefully you won't cut it from the show, but two women have unsuccessfully run for president as Democrats right now. And the party went too far to the left with the wokeism. And somebody like Gavin could help bring it back into the center. And the fact that he's a white male I think is important for the Democrats right now. I know that's people, you know, the heads will get blown up and the hair will get set on fire for me saying it that way, but I'm just being honest with you about it. Okay. And I would say on the Republican side, someone like Youngkin is a more respectable person. He's somebody that holds himself with some level of dignity. These are the types of people that I would look to and say, okay, that's a good guy. You know, Cory Booker is rock solid. It's not clear to me that he could win, but he's a rock solid sort of a human being. He's a great public speaker. He's an artful guy. I don't know if he's going to run again, but it's not clear to me he could win. But I'm just saying to you that there are normal esque people on both sides of the aisle. Again, you and I might go through their policies, might go through their ideology, and may or may not disagree, but at least we say, okay, that person is not going to disgrace the office of the presidency.
- [44:36]
A
You know, Jasmine Crockett said, you know, give me the safest white boy was her. Was her actual quote to run for president.
- [44:43]
B
But she's not wrong, though. See, this is the thing, the problem with us now, we're so crazy with each other, right? Like the way we talk to each other in the 1970s, we're not allowed to do that anymore, you know. You know, there was something on Twitter made me laugh. Archie Bunker. You're probably not old enough to remember Archie, but I'm old enough to remember Archie. And Archie Bunker was saying, the woman, he said, who makes the meals in your house? And the woman said that my husband does. You have your husband make the meals in your house? He goes, why? You'll think of him less masculine. He goes, no, I think he's a queer. Right? That's offensive. I'm not saying it isn't offensive. I mean, maybe you'll censor me for saying that, but that's how we talk to each other in the 1970s. Okay, yes, there's room for improvement. There's room for reform. I certainly wouldn't say that today, but we're missing something. We're missing a beat in the culture. If we're gonna try to purify our language towards each other in every step of the way, you're gonna miss. A lot of people are gonna quietly say, oh, I agree with Jamie and Anthony. And then they're gonna close the curtain. They're gonna vote for the orange maniac. They're gonna say, I gotta vote. You know what they said in the exit polling? Jamie, you ready? 54% of the white women in the United States, they voted for Donald Shay Trump. Did you know that? And you know what they said? I'm voting for my. And by the way, 46% of the overall women, you know what they said, Jamie? I'M voting for my husband, I'm voting for my son, I'm voting for my brother. I hate the woke culture, and I know that Donald Trump is going to represent something that's dead set against that.
- [46:28]
A
Yeah.
- [46:28]
B
How's that for messaging?
- [46:29]
A
Yeah, no, I, I hear you. Yeah. I mean, I think, listen, I think we've made some real improvements and, and in, in society and how we talk about certain things, but at the same time, the pendulum always goes back and forth and, and we did go too far, and I think that's all for those improvements.
- [46:48]
B
Don't misunderstand what I'm saying.
- [46:49]
A
I hear you.
- [46:50]
B
I'm a gay rights activist. I was one of the Republicans that worked with Cuomo in 2008 to create marriage equality in New York. I helped to make that a national movement. I'm all for the equanimity and for the equality of people, but what I'm not for is overly sanitizing our comedy, overly sanitizing Hollywood, overly sanitizing our discourse because it's unnatural, Jamie. Okay. And it's going to come back and bite us. It.
- [47:20]
A
Well, it did. It did. Really. And that's. I mean, so I hope, as a representative of that, I'm gonna. I'm gonna force you to go down this road with me as your general manager. I want you to. I want. I want you. You got a minute. You got a minute on the clock. We're starting now. I want you to give me 10 names. That sound interesting to you? They can't be Republic. We have. We have a four or five. Who else, you know, does. Would you be drafting Ruben Gallego? Would you be drafting Rahm Emanuel? Would you drafting J.B. pritzker? Would you be drafting Whitmer?
- [47:52]
B
Just for.
- [47:53]
A
Not just for presidency, for any.
- [47:55]
B
All of those are acceptable to me. Okay. Charlie Baker. Do you remember Charlie?
- [48:00]
A
Yeah.
- [48:01]
B
Charlie Baker's acceptable to me. He was a very popular Republican in Massachusetts. Okay. He's running the NCAA right now. He probably doesn't want the job, but he would be phenomenal at the job. I know this is crazy, the return of Mitt Romney. He's younger than Trump. Okay. He probably doesn't want the job, doesn't think he's electable in this environment, but he would be a very capable set of hands in this environment. You know Bill Haggerty? I don't know if you know Bill. Okay. He was a former ambassador to Japan. He's the Tennessee senator. He's a very prudent guy and a sharp businessman. He's probably too flipped the shit too much to the maga side, but he's really not a full maggot. He's not that. I mean, those are the names. I mean, I try to do it in a minute or less, but, you know, the Ruben Galleys are fine. You put up somebody like that that can chew gum and acts with some level of normalcy, you'll help and heal the country.
- [49:02]
A
Yeah, I totally agree. You had a great series with my friend Scott Galloway called the Lost Boys and I really appreciated it. You raised a lot of attention on an important, you know, epidemic or crisis that countries facing. Would you just sort of. I mean, that ended, you know, a couple months ago now. Scott's book obviously came back out as well. What do you think, you know, needs to be done when it comes to this topic? What are. Whether it's some policy issues or what are some things that you think are critical that has to happen in regards to sort of the Lost Boys?
- [49:43]
B
I guess so, you know, in channeling that show, and I appreciate you bringing it up, I think there is a missing piece of advocacy for the identity of men. And to quote Scott Galloway, he's a professor at NYU University. Guess what? There's 75 different advocacy groups. None of them are for white males. Why do white males need an advocacy group? They were for 5,000 years at the top of the food chain. It's called his story history. It's not called her story. I get all that, but I think what you're doing is when you do that to people, you don't have to push somebody else's head down to levitate the water profile for everybody else to get the other people to float to the top. You don't have to do that. I think that's the message of it. We have higher rates now of suicide. 30% higher increase suicide. The kids aren't going out anymore. They're sitting in their houses doing social media. They're not dating, they're not interacting. I think there's a real danger. There's a crisis of self confidence. There's a crisis of self reliance. There's over helicoptering of parenting for people where if they have a snafu or a setback, we're running to their aid as opposed to having some tough love in the experiment of parenting like we did as kids. I think all of this stuff has to be brought up and I think people have to speak about this in an effort to improve it. If we don't speak about it, Jamie, what's going to happen is it's going to continue to get worse if we raise the awareness of it. And this is where I really, kudos to Scott Galloway because he's got politicians talking about it now, he's got educators talking about it now. He's got, he's got people in the United Kingdom. There was a great movie, it's like a four hour stream on Netflix called Adolescence. I don't know if you saw it, but it was about a young boy that was involved in a murder in his middle school in London. And what the family learns is about all the social media bullying and all the cyberbullying and all this stuff that's going on that's lurking under the surface of what seems like functionality. So to me, I think it's very, very important. You know, the first step to getting something right, Jamie, is to acknowledge the problem. You know, if I have a problem or if I have made a mistake in judgment, I am so much better off if I say, wow, I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have gone to work for Trump. Here are the 26 reasons why I made that mistake. How am I going to improve myself in the future? And by the way, what I find about people generally, I'll say this very positively. We're in a redemptive culture. You can make mistakes and if you own your mistakes, you end up getting a second chance, maybe even a third chance. And I think we need to do that for people. And so Lost Boys, it's an eight hour miniseries, it's eight blocks. We've interviewed a lot of fun people in there, including my wife Deirdre, who we're raising two boys at home and she's explaining to people with great sympathy that she's shooting in the dark as a mom, trying to find the right tempo to guide her sons. And it's a difficult world to be
- [53:04]
A
doing that in, Scott. I think some of the stats that Scott talks about are I think the rate of suicide for men versus women is four times. Rate of homelessness is three times, rate of addiction is three times, rate of incarceration is 12 times. So there's definitely something awful going, going on. You know, the, the, the manosphere became a big topic of conversation post the last election. People like Andrew Tate really resonated with young men. What do you, why do you think they resonated so much? And how do we draw them back into people and voices that, you know, maybe aren't as extreme?
- [53:46]
B
Well, listen, that, you know, let me just stipulate this, though. The manosphere and what I would describe as toxic, man, masculinity filled a vacuum, okay? Because normal people were afraid to talk about these issues because they thought they were going to be canceled by the mainstream media or canceled by Hollywood, and they were going to be done for or excoriated. I've listened to. Before I met Scott Galloway, I listened to Scott Galloway's interviews, and I said, oh, my God, this guy's got guts. He's saying stuff that the average person wouldn't be willing to say that would be super fearful of being canceled. And so, to me, I hope that the Scott Galloways, the Jamie Patricoffs, the Anthony Scaramuccis can have a platform to discuss these issues without fear that it's going to end their careers. And by the way, what do we also know about cancellation? I can commit murder and serve time, and then I'm out of jail. Not with cancellation. You get knocked off the grid. You're done, man. This is a death sentence for your career. This is a death sentence with great finality. You know, I don't know if you know who Mark Halpern is, but Mark Halpern, literally, they ended his career. If he wasn't able to develop a podcast on his own. The podcast is prolific. It's one of the number one political podcasts in the world, okay? If he wasn't able to build that himself, they would have finished him. You know, and again, I'm not saying what he did whenever he did it back at ABC News wasn't reprehensible. And I'm not saying that he didn't deserve some type of penalty or some type of punishment, but is it a forever punishment? Is that what it's supposed to be? Is that the level of righteousness and lack of forgiveness we have in the culture? So to me, I think somebody like Scott opens up the portal for you or me or role models in industry, role models in management, role models in Hollywood, role model to jump on the bandwagon and to talk about this stuff. And by the way, when you talk about it, I can't tell you the number of times I'm in an airport and a mom will come over to me or somebody come over and say, hey, appreciate that podcast with Scott Galloway. I learned something from it. You know, a grandmother could say it to me, Jamie, you know, yeah, I
- [56:00]
A
think it's really important what you guys are did and I hope to continue to do.
- [56:05]
B
Gotta push it. You gotta push it is what I'm saying.
- [56:07]
A
Yeah. And I think cancellation in our society is just awful. I mean, I think, you know, you have to be able to speak your mind, say things, make mistakes, accept responsibility, apologize for them, you know, and you have to be able. And I think that's the big thing. And is, is my dad taught me early on the concept of mea culpa when I wasn't the best student. And you know, so many people in power, especially in political life, you know, just aren't willing to do that and aren't willing to say that. And I think society has to be willing to accept apologies and, and then see what people do with their actions, you know, and I think that it's hard to have a functioning society without that. You talked earlier in our conversation about how much money the Trump family is making from this presidency. I pitched Gavin Newsom this idea, which I'm hoping he'll take, which was we need to get a billboard kind of like they had for the national debt, which is, there's the running counter of the Trump family grift so that at the end of this presidency, we see what it is. You referenced $6 billion. I saw freed Zakaria on GPS, had a, had a graph from Reuters which showed there was 864, the Trump family had made 50, negative, had made $51 million in 2024, the Trump organizations, and then in 2025 it was $864 million. So, you know, I think that's probably just on the books. You use the term 6 billion. How, how bad is the grift? And if you, you know, we'll come back here and analyze this in, in three years, how high do you think it could go? When you throw in the equity they're getting in companies, the, the crypto that they're getting the money to the Trump Organization for hotels and properties, how high could that number go, realistically?
- [57:58]
B
Well, I mean, I'm only going off of what they are saying. You know, Trump said he wanted to make $5 billion a year, he wanted to make $20 billion over the four year term. And so he's trying to figure out ways to do that. And so whether it's from help of foreign governments in terms of picking up a billion dollar plane here or there, or it's help from crypto people, or it's help from launching a meme coin that his supporters can buy into and allow him to cash out 5 or $600 million and then do favors for them while he's in the White House. That's what's going on. You know, and, and, and, and by the Way the, you know, your founding fathers. Our founding fathers are like, okay, we could get a rogue president. That could happen. So here are the mechanisms to prevent emoluments like this. Oh, well, it turns out you have to have principled people in the Congress. Well, we forgot that part because we don't have any principal people in the Congress, particularly in Trump's party. And a result of which he's going to be allowed to do whatever he wants without any investigation or any oversight or even any criticism. So he's tracking. So actually the number I used is four. I have heard the number six. Okay. But I know because I've heard it from his buds. The number he wants to make is $5 billion a year. I think as we closed out 2026. Sorry. I think as we closed out 2025, he exceeded 5 billion.
- [59:35]
A
Yeah, I'm going to put the over under at 20 billion. I'm taking the over. You're welcome to bet alongside me. We have to find somebody to bet the under for our, for a dinner or something if you want to do that. But, and I think, and I think we may, we'll probably never know. I mean, it's gonna be so deep rooted and seated within this family organization. And this really is, this crime family. I mean, that's really what it is. And it's remember.
- [60:00]
B
But can I just add one thing, if you don't mind these lawsuits. He's got 15 million from CBS. He got a settlement from another media company. He's suing the BBC for $10 billion. I'm not saying he's going to get that from them, but my point is these media companies are between a rock and a hard place. He's talking about suing the federal government and the FBI for the raid that they did at Mar a Lago. That's what he's talking about, Jamie. Think about that. Think about the craziness of that.
- [60:35]
A
It's just also insane. And to think that he's going to be president for not only the World cup, not only the 250th anniversary of our country and the Olympics is just, is just, it's just so upsetting.
- [60:47]
B
I mean, but that, that's. See, he loves that, though.
- [60:50]
A
He loves that.
- [60:51]
B
Own the liberals. I'm going to be, I'm going to be your president, haunting you. I want to own the liberals. Let me, let me have an AI of me in Gaza with Netanyahu and an AI of me flying an F16, dropping poop on my adversaries. This is what he Lost. I mean, so to me, I would tell people, ignore that. Let's focus on trying to get prepared for 2028 and seeing it. If we can create some type of American renewal and some type of return to sanity for our families and for our people. Yeah, that's my message.
- [61:24]
A
You know, I'm optimistic about it. We're getting close to the end of the Anthony Scaramucci lunch with Jamie, Part one. I've already decided we're doing a part two. Just giving you a heads up.
- [61:34]
B
Were you, Emmy, you let me know, sir. I'll be here.
- [61:37]
A
I'm gonna, we're gonna end with. And I'm gonna try and keep you in a box, but if you want to, if you want to push on the edges, you're. You're allowed to. What would you, what are your top three predictions for 2026? You know, you can be anything from, you know, who's gonna win the super bowl to the Democrats taking back the House and the Senate. You know, you're not, you're not limited.
- [62:02]
B
All right, so my number one business prediction is about IBM. So what the hell am I talking about? IBM is an old sleepy computer consulting business now, but I think IBM is going to have a breakout this coming year. And I think IBM is, remember, they, they invented the AI and they invented Watson before there was a ChatGPT. And they're on the cusp of a huge breakout in quantum computing. And so all of these companies are going to need their help in resisting quantum computing to protect their accounts at a bank or to protect something like a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. And I think IBM is at the forefront of that. So I'm going to predict that's going to be one of the best performing sleeper blue chip stocks of 2026. That's number one. Number two, I think the Democrats will take the House, not going to get the Senate, but I think they're going to open up a slurry of investigations. Okay. And I think that's going to be a very big, very big piece of this. And my friend George Conway is going to run for Jerry Nadler's seat, and I think he's going to win. Okay? So that's going to be part of prediction number two. Okay. And I'll certainly help him try to win that seat, by the way. And I think he'll put a big hurt because he knows where all the bodies are. From an investigatory perspective. I think he's going to put a big hurt on Trump and some of the nefarious things that he's doing. And the last thing and not the least thing, I think we're going to have a return in Hollywood to what I call breakneck comedy. Okay. And so I don't think we're going to have Tropic Thunder, but I do think we're going to have old school and I do think we're going to have some of those old Will Ferrell like being able to laugh at ourselves and our ethnic stereotypes and being able to do things that are a little bit more full throated from an ancient Don Rickles like comedy perspective, which is generally harmless antical behavior. And I think that that's coming in 2026. And I bet you by the end of the year you and I are going to say, oh, some of the wokeism is over because the comedy has returned to Hollywood. So Those are my three big predictions for 2026.
- [64:34]
A
I couldn't appreciate those predictions more and the range of them. Mark Kelly has got me very optimistic about the Senate, although I think, yeah,
- [64:46]
B
that would be great, but it's not likely if you look at the math.
- [64:48]
A
Yeah, no, I get that. And I. And I've been there before, so I want to go with practical. But this has been great. I really thank you. It's a great way to start off the year. And I've loved this conversation. And thank you for your honest conversation.
- [65:08]
B
Me too. And one thing I want to say, I want our hairlines to be maintained in 2026. Okay. That's what I'm hoping for too. Okay. I didn't make that. I didn't make that prediction because I don't. I'm not that emboldened. I don't want anything to happen. Okay. But I'm just hoping that that's the case.
- [65:22]
A
I appreciate that. I'm with you on that one, Anthony. Thank you very much. It's good.
- [65:26]
B
It's great to be on with you guys.
- [65:28]
A
You too.
- [65:28]
B
All right. It's great to be on with you, Jamie. Thank you.
- [65:30]
A
All right, bye. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Lunch with Jamie. As always, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter@jamieslist.com for my thoughts on all things food, pop culture, politics and more. And remember to join these online conversations and ask my guests questions in real time. Sign up to get my paid subscriber. You can listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify or Audible and be sure to leave a review. Thanks and see you next time.