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Anthony Scaramucci

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Anthony Scaramucci

Fmr. White House Communications Director

Anthony Scaramucci is a founder and managing partner at SkyBridge Capital. In 2017, he served briefly as the White House communications director for Donald Trump.

The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Gabrielle Schonder on July 8, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length.

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The Choice 2020

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Recruiting ‘Killers’

His dad introduces this idea of being a killer. ...You know, how important is that concept to Donald Trump?

That was the—that was the ultimate thing.If the president called you a killer, or “I need killers around me,” or “He’s a killer,” or “You’re a killer,” that was his biggest compliment that he could give you.Saying that you were empathetic or saying that you were a nice person, that would never come out of his mouth, OK?“You’re a killer,” you’re like, OK, I think that’s a good thing.You know, he’s called me a killer like five or six times.Or one of his buddies would call me, and he’d say, “Hey, Mooch, Trump thinks you’re a killer.”And I’m like, OK, I think that’s a good thing.I mean, the point being that, to him, there’s a modicum of ruthlessness in there.You get things done.You’re execution-oriented.

And so—you know, but that also is a veneer.That is also a veneer.My experience with him is that he’s incredibly sensitive, and my experience with him is that he’s incredibly a feeling person.He may not be empathic or have empathy, but he’s almost like an open wound.And so—you know, because I could just see in private conversations the way he’s talking and the way people talk about him and the way he thought people were talking about him caused him a great deal of pain.You know, people that have a lot more self-confidence and a lot more personal security, they sort of don’t care, you know.My Italian grandmother had a great line, which maybe your grandmother told you, you know: What other people think of you is none of your business.Trust me, when I got fired out of the White House and blown into Pennsylvania Avenue like an Austin Powers villain, and I was lit up by the international media, and I was ripped apart by the late-night comedians, you get to learn a lot about yourself, whether you really care about that stuff or you’re able to pitch and roll with it.

The president cannot pitch and roll with it.It infects him.It goes into his body—this notion of potential humiliation.This notion of people feeling about him in a certain way that he doesn’t want them to feel about him, which again sets up this formation of this fantastical illusion and this projection that he’s trying to create.And so—you know, there’s sadness in that, you know, for me.I see him as a tragic figure.I see him as somebody that was damaged, that probably had a learning disability but was exceptionally talented, a very smart person.You can’t tell me that the president’s not smart, because people that have disabilities, or reading issues, you know, they go on and build great companies.

… There’s a level of sadness and tragedy to this story.You know, like, if the president’s coming at me and calling me an unstable nut job, I’m like, OK, there’s obviously something wrong with him, because he’s the president of the United States.Why does he need to be taking his time and energy to be calling me an unstable nut job, or others on Twitter?And so—then, you know, that there’s something internally wrong with the guy, and a result of which, you know, you’re saddened by that.He is the president of the United States.You want, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, you want the president to do well, and the fact that he can’t ignore that invective, or he can’t ignore partial slights, mega-slights and in-between slights is sort of nuts.…

Trump and Roy Cohn

Let me jump to something you said earlier, which is Roy Cohn.We’re going to stay back in this backstory for just a little bit longer.So, you know, Roy Cohn and the education of Donald Trump is so sort of formative to the president’s worldview.But Cohn’s approach to government and government being corruptible, and that idea of “Don’t tell me what the law is; tell me who the judge is,” how significant was that influence on Donald?

Well, I mean, listen—I mean, I think, you know, Roy Cohn had, you know, a lot of things going on in his sexual identity, and I think a lot of those things manifested themselves in a lot of anger bases.And so he was a punitive person.If you really study his life or you’ve read his biography—there’s a few reasonably good biographies about him—he was a punitive person, and he also—whatever pain he was feeling about the world or his sexual identity, he was taking it out on other people.

And so he sort of fit President Trump, then Mr. Donald Trump, like a glove because you had this manifestation of this bully-narcissist who’s trying to make a way in the world, and his father told him to stay in Brooklyn and Queens; it was easier to do business there than in Manhattan.And so that was the challenge for him.Again, that’s that Greek tragic sort of thing …

The problem, though, because he lacks attention to detail, when things are going well, he gets a little bit too hyperbolic, and he’s not able to control the situation, which is why he’s had so many bankruptcies and he’s had the failure of the Plaza Hotel, the airline, the casino, because he’s trying to do too much.And if you really study people that have attention deficit disorder or learning disabilities, they are big-time risk takers, because they see themselves as disadvantaged to people that are academically skilled.They may be as smart as the person that can read, but they’re not reading.And so what do they have to do?They have to pick up things differently. …

And so a Roy Cohn is a perfect steroid for exponential cheating.It’s a perfect steroid for exponential shortcut cutting, to hop over the people that you have a chip on your shoulder about.So you’re sitting there: You can’t read; the guy next to you can read.He’s doing better in school than you.You think you’re as smart as him.Let me show that person, let me take on bigger risk, bigger ideas, and so I can one-up or hop over that person.That’s the president.That’s Donald J. Trump.

Street Smarts and Bullies

An interesting idea you remind me of.I can’t remember if this season ever happened or they talked about it on The Apprentice, but they were going to do a street-smart versus book-smart season or episode.This is an idea he had at one point that seems to—

Well, that was one thing he liked about me, you know.He told Sean Hannity that there’s Harvard Anthony and then there’s street-smart Anthony, you know, because I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood; I worked at a motorcycle shop.And so when I got fired, he called Sean Hannity, he said, “Yeah,” he goes, “that first day, that press conference, we got Harvard Anthony,” he goes, “but that conversation with the journalists, you know, that was sort of street-smart Anthony.We needed more Harvard Anthony and less street Anthony.”I thought that was funny.

Look, I have nothing personal against the president.You know, you’re not allowed to attack my wife or my family members on the presidential Twitter feed without having a fight with somebody like me.

And so if more people were like that, he would be—either his behavior would be conformed or he’d be out of office.It would be one or the other, because what he’s done masterfully and what he’s done in a malignant way, which we’re going to have to examine in your archives 50 years from now, 100 years from now, how did we let a masterful bully who had Roy Cohn’s playbook hijack the American government and intimidate so many people?You know, that’s the thing I can’t figure out.These are smart people; they’re seasoned people.They know that they shouldn’t be falling prey to this stuff, yet they’re worried about his Twitter feed; they’re worried about being primaried; they’re worried about his pull and his base.And somehow, masterfully, President Trump has convinced a very large group of elected Republicans that he won the 2016 election like Ronald Reagan won 1984, like it was a 49-state landslide.It wasn’t.It was a very small sliver of people in a few swing states that tipped the election towards him.He lost the popular vote.

And so what’s interesting about bullies, though, what we know is you hit them a few times, they go down.They’re paper tigers.The president is a keyboard warrior coward.He’s not somebody that likes personal confrontation.Go interview people, and you’ll learn he doesn’t like firing people.He doesn’t like personally firing.I got fired by John Kelly, OK?He didn’t want to have the personal conversation with me because he’s nonconfrontational.It gives him anxiety; that conversation gives him anxiety.And I believe it comes from his dad.Whatever those confrontations that he was having with his father as a kid gave him a lot of anxiety.

So even though he’s combustible and he’s combative, he’s always combative at a distance.He’s not combative interpersonally.You know, even with people that he beats up on, he tries to be charming to them in their presence.You know, he would never beat up on Jim Mattis or John Kelly in their presence.As a keyboard coward, as a keyboard warrior he would do it, but he wouldn’t do it in their presence.You see what I’m saying?

And that’s typical bully stuff, you know.That’s—most bullies are paper tigers.You know, you’ve got to slam them pretty hard and then they break like glass; you know, they shatter like glass.

Let me ask you, at the end of Roy Cohn’s life, you know, Trump sort of dumps him.He becomes sick with AIDS.He doesn’t hear from Donald.I’m not sure if Donald even attends the funeral.We talked to a family member of Roy Cohn’s who said he didn’t really remember Donald at the funeral.What is it about loyalty and the relationship with his close advisers?I mean, it seems that it's such a—I think of you; I think of Michael Cohen; I think of John Bolton—I mean, the way that these relationships seem to blow up in such a—

Well, you know, I did an interview with Gen. Kelly—it’s public; you can watch it on YouTube—where Gen. Kelly said all relationships end badly with the president.It’s just unfortunate that’s what happens.They end badly because, you know, the president is self-centered.He’s egocentric.He’s really only thinking about himself.When he does a news search, he’s searching T-R-U-M-P.He’s not searching U-S-A; he’s not searching Y-O-U.Trust me, he’s definitely not searching Y-O-U; he could care less.

And you have to remember, if you want to go back to the early part of his life, if he was disposable to his parents, and the hurt that comes with that disposability, well, he’s going to inflict that on other people, OK?He almost gets a joy out of it.He told Megyn Kelly that “When I feel wounded, the way I unwound myself”—you can go find that clip; I mean, it was a 2016 May clip, Megyn Kelly at Trump Tower with [then-candidate] President Trump.

The reason why I remember it is I was there, because I had just joined the campaign, and she came in to interview him.They brought him down to the 14th floor.And he said to her, “Well, when I feel wounded, I go out and wound somebody to unwound myself,” OK?And I think that that was an accidental admission of the full-blown crazy of Donald Trump. …

Trump and the Central Park Five

Let me actually ask you about a particular moment in his backstory that handles race.In 1989, there’s the Central Park Five case.… Trump runs this full-page ad two weeks after these five boys have been arrested for the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park.Can you help us understand why he wades into politics through racial strife, what he’s doing? …

Well, you have to understand, it’s situational racism.So let’s go back, because I remember that vividly.Nineteen eighty-nine, I’m just getting my job started at Goldman, come back from Boston, and he’s putting those ads out.And you have to remember, people can say whatever they want.I’m a blue-collar kid coming from nowhere.So I’ve lived a good part of the American dream, and so you are reading about Donald Trump.OK, this is before I knew him.I did read The Art of the Deal.And so you go to Trump Tower and you look at the glass and the marble.Remember, it looks gauche today, but in the early ’80s, when I had my hair blown out like Tony Manero [from Saturday Night Fever], I thought that was like the "it" thing, OK?

So I just want to frame it for you.You’re a blue-collar kid growing up on Long Island; Donald Trump is the man, OK?That’s why rappers were rapping about Donald Trump.Like, OK, this guy’s out there, but he’s putting it out there.And there’s something to be learned from him.Let me read The Art of the Deal, right?And so now in 1989, of course I’m following him, like every other New Yorker, because he has a very high profile.

But those ads are situational racism.You know, the city has been immobilized by crime.Times Square is a disaster.We are in a weakened position as a city.The Central Park Five case emerges, and so Donald Trump seizes on that.Now, why does he do that?Because he’s not sure if he’s running for mayor, governor, or president.But in the back of his mind, at some point he’s transitioning into politics because he’s the guy, you know.Only he can solve the problems.Only he can figure these things out.And he’s a great armchair raconteur.You know, he can sit and throw socks at the television and tell you, “Well, I would do it way better than you.” …

The Power of 'The Apprentice'

… I do want to go back to the power of The Apprentice, the power of those boardroom scenes and the power of being in millions of homes.Help me understand, because I think that’s something certainly the journalism community didn’t put enough emphasis on when we were doing projects like these in 2016.But here in 2020, the power of reality TV in providing a springboard to the president’s political career, can you help us sort of understand the significance of The Apprentice?

Well, I mean, you have to understand, like there’s—yeah, but there’s an intersection of a few things that are going on at the same time that allow for this to happen.Gov. Romney once said to me, in 2012, he was like: “Well, politicians are like surfers.We all have different surfing personalities, and we take our surfboard out, and if there’s a certain political wave coming in, our personality may match the wave of that moment, and we’ll ride to shore into the presidency.But if our wave and our personality are not intersecting, then we don’t end up on shore, where we would like to be.”So a lot of it is luck; a lot of it is sociological; a lot of it is timing.

And so you have to set the stage.You have a television personality that was created by Mark Burnett that didn’t really exist, but it was well-fashioned.And remember, the president had, prior to The Apprentice, had built up his brand recognition in the United States tremendously.So there was already a tremendous amount of paid-in media before he became the television star of The Apprentice.

Now, The Apprentice comes in.It’s hot; it’s new.It’s basically Survivor in a corporate jungle versus the jungle-jungle.And he is an interesting person, and they cast him brilliantly.So he’s coming out of the limousine.He’s coming in from the helicopter.You see the magnificent Trump Tower shot at a certain angle.And now he’s coming in, and he’s perfectly casted.And so he’s able to give you this image of decisiveness.The Apprentice is advertising his brand, is advertising things he’s doing in his life.And to the average viewer, it looks amazingly successful.

… My parents, aspirational blue-collar people, working-class people, but in the middle class.I would never embarrass my dad by telling you I grew up poor.I would never—his work ethic was tremendous, and we were in the middle class.But he was an aspirational blue-collar person.

Over 35 years, that aspiration shifts to desperation, and people are feeling disaffected.And now in comes a citizen politician, a citizen politician that for 15 years has been on my television screen as a success in everything.He’s a successful author, bestselling author.He had a radio show that did well.He has a television show that did well.Looks like to me he was a success in real estate and golf course development and hotel development.And he’s got some panache; he’s got some swagger.You know, he talks in an interesting way.I mean, he talks in these idioms that are in the fourth or fifth grade; they’re blunt and choppy idioms.And you know, he looks like you’re about to have a verbal car crash.Every time he’s on television, you know, he’s going to say something ridiculous, and so you’re going to rubberneck him.You’re going to watch him for the car crash so that you can rubberneck it.

And so now he’s capturing your imagination.And oh, wait a minute, he’s saying things that establishment politicians don’t say.And oh, by the way, he’s saying things that I feel: I’ve been left out.China’s been unfair to us.The trade deals are unfair.The jobs have moved.Where’s my job?Hey, you know what?These establishment politicians for three decades have failed us; I’d like to take a shot on this guy. …

OK, so there’s an intersection of The Apprentice, and there’s an image of The Apprentice, and the name recognition, and there’s people that are going into the voting booth and saying: “You know what?These establishment politicians have failed me.But this guy has been a success at everything.I’m taking a shot on this guy.I’m taking a flyer.Oh, by the way, he’s an avatar of my anger.He is a thumb in the eye, metaphorically, of the media.He’s a thumb in your eye.He’s going to stick it in your eye—what I would like to do.And so I’m going to watch this over the next four to eight years vicariously, and I’m going to enjoy this.”And that’s what happened.

The 'Access Hollywood' Tape

I want to ask you about a crisis that I think you’re around for on the campaign, because I want to understand the lessons we draw from it, which is the Access Hollywood weekend and that tape and his response to it, which is the Clinton accusers.Can you help us sort of understand how he applies what he’s learned from reality TV perhaps to this moment?

… This is stuff either you admire about him or you don’t, but he’s a resilient guy.And so people are telling him to drop out.You can interview people.Reince Priebus tells him, “You’ve got to drop out.”Paul Ryan tells him, “You’re going to lose by 15 points.”Going around the table, you know, Steve Bannon and I don’t like each other very much, but Steve tells him, “You’ve got to lock and load.”You know, Giuliani says, “You’ve got to lock and load.”They asked my opinion.I’m an Italian kid from Long Island; I heard that sort of nonsense all day.I said, “I don’t care; let’s just keep moving.”And so you had to admire him for not letting that wilt him, OK?

And then he does something which he never does.What does he do?It’s 11:58.He’s in the fifth-floor studio—it’s a little box studio—and he issues a two-minute apology to the American people and his wife for saying that.And then he says, “We’re going to go back to business.”And the next day, he wakes up with a spirit of optimism that he’s going to get through it.The talk shows are Sunday.There’s only one guy on those talk shows; that’s Rudy Giuliani.We roll into Monday, and then he decides he’s going to bring the Clinton accusers to the Washington University debate in St. Louis, OK?

And, you know, listen, you can like that or dislike it, you can think it’s gruesome, but he’s making a point.And what is the point?Don’t be hypocritical.I’m a super-flawed guy, but there’s flaws on both sides of this equation, and let’s get back to the business of who should be the president, and let’s recognize that we’re all very flawed.

And so, you know, mission accomplished.Again, you could dislike it.You could say, jeez, I would never do that.OK, well, then maybe you’re not going to make it to the presidency in this sort of rough-and-tumble, bare-knuckled environment.

And so he goes full bare knuckles.Actually he goes brass knuckles with that one, and he comes out of the debate pretty well. …

The 'Crisis Presidency'

I want to kind of understand what we’re now sort of wrapping our heads around could be the Floyd/COVID election, that you really have sort of these two issues that are dominating the news cycle we’re in now, but potentially are a reckoning that we’re having, one over race.Let’s take that for a moment. …

You have to start with, though, the transition of personnel.So what happens to the president is he’s jettisoning people that are opinionated, that are willing to talk to him a certain way, whether it’s Rex Tillerson, John Kelly, Jim Mattis, who may disagree with him on policy and try to guide him a certain way.He’s jettisoning them.And he’s now left with a cadre of people around him that he ran The Apprentice with.He’s got Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Dan Scavino, Johnny McEntee.This is now his inner circle.And frankly, those are the people that he worked with at the Trump Organization. …

I can’t tell you the name of the person, a senior Cabinet official, gone from the White House, comes to my office.It’s October of 2019.We’re sitting in my office at SkyBridge.The person says to me, “We’re going to have a disaster.”I said, “Well, why is that?”“Well, the president doesn’t know how to manage.”

You know, if you go to Harvard Business School or the Pentagon, you have six reports, and you either use the Richard Neustadt model of management from the White House, or the Kennedy Cabinet model, or the Clinton or Reagan White House model, where you have a coordination going on, and then everybody in these agencies and these departments know what to do.But the president has no reports.He’s scattershot everywhere.And because he’s firing people haphazardly, people want to keep their jobs, so they’re immobilized.And usually the executive branch, Justice may need Treasury, Treasury may need Justice, Department of State may need the Department of Defense.And they’re all immobilized.They’re afraid to work with each other because of the way the president’s handling things and the impetuosity of his firings.

“So I predict, if we have a crisis”—this is a Cabinet official talking to me—”I predict if we have a crisis, military, terrorist crisis, something like that, the executive branch is going to be paralyzed; it’s not going to perform properly.” …

And now we have COVID-19 sweeping the world, and all of a sudden, that turns out that that’s the crisis that totally exemplifies the president’s lack of managerial skills, his lack of executive management, his personal insecurities where he can’t delegate to people.He’s smarter than the generals; he’s smarter than the epidemiologists.He has a very good brain; he gets this stuff.

And he starts saying insane things like it’s 15 people going to zero.That’s part of his personality.He wants to curb reality towards his reality, not the reality.That’s why he said 19,000 lies.But it turns out you can’t lie about science.You can’t go to the White House pressroom and say, “Listen, two plus two is seven.”People are looking down at their hands and they’re like: “Well, wait a minute, it’s four.It’s not seven.”And so they get scared.The market starts trading off.People start retreating into their houses.

And then finally he has an intervention over the 14th and 15th of March where a couple of very smart people get to him and say: “You’ve got to knock this off.You’re going to have a health care crisis and an economic calamity at the same time.We’ve got to get people home.The surge at the hospital’s going to be overwhelming.”So they shift gears on the 16th of March.

Why is that backstory important?Because now we’re home.Now we have 40 million people are out of work.There’s a lot of restlessness and anxiety related to that.And we know that there’s cycles of police brutality, and we know what happened in Ferguson during the Obama administration.And the brilliance of these smartphones is they’re personal recoding stations.A 17-year-old takes a video shot of eight minutes and 46 seconds of the George Floyd murder, the emblematic police brutality.And now you’ve got that intersection.You’ve got people home, 40 million people out of work, they’re stressed about the virus, and now they are fed up about the racial tension and the racial anxiety.The match gets struck, and you have these protests all over the place.

And now the president looks very weak.He hasn’t handled the crisis well.He’s not equipped with any empathy.He’s not a healing person.He’s always used race as a political device.He’s always sided with the racists as a political device, so he doesn’t have any standing to give a healing, empathic speech about this.So he doesn’t know what to do, so he starts doubling down on racism, and he starts doubling down on “end the violence” and “stop the protesters.”

So now he’s sitting in the Oval Office with his team, and they say: “Well, you know, they said you were in the bunker over the weekend.Let’s show them how strong you are and how tough you are.Let’s clear Lafayette Park, and you’ll walk over to the church, St. John’s Church, and you know, the evangelicals love you. We’ll take a great photo op there with the Bible.”

So he invites the military over.They sort of give them a little fib of what they’re going to do.And they start clearing the park.They send out tear gas or smoke canisters, whatever you want to call them.These are innocent protesters.They’re knocking over journalists.They’re clearing a path for the president to walk through the park.

He gets to the other side of the park.Does he give a speech?Does he say: “Hey, listen, I’m standing in front of this church because it’s a representation of America and bipartisan America.And Democrats and Republicans have come to pray in this church, and Lincoln himself has prayed in this church.I prayed in this church the day of my inauguration.And so I’m standing here before you and before our God, and I’m telling you I’m going to work on healing the divisions in our country”?Does he do that?No, he doesn’t do that because he doesn’t have any empathy.

So what does he do?He’s going to hold the Bible up.And now he’s holding the Bible like it’s a soiled toddler’s diaper.He can barely—he’s so uncomfortable with it.He doesn’t know what’s in it, but he’s holding it up as a symbol.“Sir, is it your Bible?”“It’s a Bible.”You can see the anger and consternation on his face, and he’s holding it there, and now he has an embarrassed coterie of people with him, two of which are representing the American military, and they’re very unsatisfied about what’s going on.

And so then that unfolds as an additional crisis.And if he loses, if he loses the election, I predict June 1, 2020, will have been a seminal moment where he is missing the mark now.There are new waves coming in, new political waves coming in.He is not the right surfer for these waves, and those waves are going to take him out, they’re going to annihilate him.

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