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The former White House communications director
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turned Trump critic Anthony Scaramucci
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on this edition of "Politicking."
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(dramatic music)
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Welcome to "Politicking", I'm Larry King.
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He briefly worked as the White House communications director
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for the Trump administration.
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He's now part of an effort
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to remove the president he once served.
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He's Anthony Scaramucci, joins us for a one-on-one
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from New York.
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Right now, Anthony, with 50 days to go,
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how would you rate the presidential race?
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Well, obviously, you know, the vice president is ahead.
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There's less undecided voters this time, Larry,
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than there was in 2016.
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But remember, I did work for the president.
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And so I know how capable he is, I think that the,
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it would be important for the vice president
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and the people that want to defeat President Trump
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to run through the tape here,
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and play it to the last seconds of the game.
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So I don't think there could be any letup.
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Mr. Trump is a formidable guy.
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How could anyone still be undecided?
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That's a good question, but you know, there's a 15,
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my grandfather had a great expression about polling.
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"There's 15 feet between you waiting and the polling booth",
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at least that's what it used to be in New York,
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"And it's in those last 15 feet
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where some people make their decisions."
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and oftentimes they're workers,
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or they're low information voters,
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they're not as focused on it as you and I are.
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And, and apparently according to Rachel Bitecofer,
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who's a pretty talented pollster,
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there's still about six and a half percent
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of the American electorate that's undecided
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about the election.
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That's unbelievable.
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Alright, Bob Woodward's new book,
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revealing that Trump knew how serious COVID-19 was
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and didn't reveal it,
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what do you make of that?
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Well, I have the book here on my desk.
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I finished reading that book last night.
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It's a, it's a pretty damning book.
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Obviously the recordings of the president are,
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are hurtful as well.
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But I think, you know, Bob's 77,
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50 plus years as a investigative journalist,
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he finishes the book by basically saying
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a distillation of his interviews and his fact finding
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the president is not fit,
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Donald Trump doesn't have the right personality
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for that office.
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And so I think that's something that I believe,
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it's something that Jim Mattis believes,
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General Kelly believes, Rex Tillerson believes,
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HR McMaster is coming out with a book next week.
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I'm sure we should try to get him on "Politicking".
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I mean, he's got a lot to say about this as well.
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You've got a circle of sycophants around the president now
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that'll probably do and say whatever he wants,
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but if you just look at his decision making
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and you look at the bellicosity of his rhetoric
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and you look at the impetuosity of what he's doing,
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I think it's very, very dangerous,
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and I think that responsible people
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that have worked for him,
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it's Miles Taylor at the Department of Homeland Security,
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people like myself are at least trying to offer
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a patriotic warning to our fellow citizens.
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Well, I know him for 40 years.
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I still can't figure out, can you get,
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why did he call Woodward?
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Why did he speak with Woodward more than a dozen times,
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knowing Woodward's past?
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Well, I think it's the same way
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he would speak to Larry King, you know, I mean,
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you had the highest rated show on CNN,
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I think forever, frankly, and that attracts President Trump.
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He's somebody that struck by stars.
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Bob Woodward is the investigative journalist of record,
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frankly, for nine presidents.
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And what was fascinating about the book, if you read it,
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Larry, it wasn't Bob Woodward just initializing the calls,
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the president gave Bob Woodward his cell phone number,
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and he was also calling Bob Woodward
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late into the evening at his home to talk with him.
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So it was a total of 18 times,
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approximately 18 hours worth of interviews.
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And, you know, it's literally like the president
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created his own October surprise on himself
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and he had tapes and the tapes happened to be of himself
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and he turned them over to Bob Woodward.
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That's what it actually reads like.
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And that's what it looks like.
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He also told Bob Woodward that he,
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he does not understand the anger and pain
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of black Americans, he feels no responsibility for it,
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no association, didn't that surprise you or not?
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It did surprise me because he lived here in New York,
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like you lived in Brooklyn,
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and I lived out here on Long Island,
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and it just demonstrates a lack of empathy
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or a lack of feeling for other human beings.
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And, you know, he does admit to Woodward though,
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that he does believe that there is systemic racism.
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He's just a bit callous about the affects that it has
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on communities, what it has on families, police brutality,
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and prison sentences, frankly, I mean.
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You know, listen to, I mean, it's been a disaster
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in the last six months for a number of different reasons.
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Well, let's just talk candidly to viewers,
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the president has mishandled the pandemic.
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The president has lied about the science
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related to the pandemic.
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The president has politicized things like mask wearing,
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which we know if we follow those protocols
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that have been followed in Europe and Asia,
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we would have had less fatalities, less number of cases.
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Remember we're tracking at about 600 cases per million
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and in South Korea they're tracking
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at about 20 cases per million.
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So this has been a unmitigated disaster
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for the president and it's hobbled the economy.
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And so these are the reasons why I think he's gonna lose,
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that proverbial question,
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"Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
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Even those undecided voters, as they get 15 feet closer
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to that polling booth, they recognize that they're not
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better off, and I think we'll switch jockeys here,
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like Americans have done over the last hundred years
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when we've gone into recessions like this.
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More with Anthony Scaramucci, right after this.
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(dramatic music)
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Are you surprised that he reportedly,
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at a military cemetery,
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called the dead losers and suckers?
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I am not surprised by that.
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And I, and I have said that,
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you know, I was on the campaign plane with the president
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and I was telling him about my trip to Afghanistan
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and a trip that I took to Iraq
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for troop support mission purposes,
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and he looked incredulous to me.
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He was like, you know, "Why would you do that?"
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And he had that sort of philosophical opinion
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related to the troops.
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And so I think it's very telling,
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I think it's very telling that General Kelly
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has not been asked to issue a statement, more over
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when Jeff Mason, the White House correspondent
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asked the president two weeks ago,
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"Well, why don't you have General Kelly issue a statement,
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he was with you the whole time, if what you're saying
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is not true, let's have general Kelly issue a statement."
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Of course, the president said, "No way" to that, because,
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you know, the General would tell the truth
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that what the president is reported to be saying
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is just the tip of the iceberg of what he's actually said.
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And so what he did was he went out
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and got 15 sycophants who weren't directly associated
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with the story to lie on his behalf.
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And so that's where we are right now,
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but he does feel that way about the troops.
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You can ask Michael Cohen, you can ask anybody close to him
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over the last 10 years about his feelings
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about people that serve in the military.
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You and I both know he's a transactionalist
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and he doesn't see money associated
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with that type of service,
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and so that's one of the reasons why he's turned off by it.
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Do you, do you find him easy, he just lies easily?
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All right, well, Larry,
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you know him a long period of time,
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you know, he was lying on your show 20 years ago,
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he's said 22,000 lies.
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You know, there was one moment,
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which I think I may have expressed to you,
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but it's worth repeating.
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We were preparing something for him,
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I was only in the White House 11 days,
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we're preparing something for him,
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we told him the number was 86%,
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he walked into the rose garden and said,
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"Well, 90% of the such and such."
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And then he came back in and we looked at him and like,
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"Well, why did you say 90%?
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It was, it was 86%."
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He said, "well, you know, 90% sounded better."
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And so he's done that his whole life.
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There's a pathology to that.
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I think he laughs at the fact that he gets away with so much
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and he's able to double and triple down on his lies,
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more over, I think some of these sycophants
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in the news media, I know he laughs about them.
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I've seen him do that.
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He ridicules the people that are so in the tank for him,
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frankly, so yes, you know, you and I both know
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that he's a sociopathic liar and it's been proven, you know,
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just by documenting what he's saying on a daily basis.
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You originally said that "a vote for Joe Biden
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will save the Republican party", how?
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Well I think that the party has been captured
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by the personality cult of Donald Trump,
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and a lot of these former Republicans
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have been morphed into Trumpists.
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And so if you really follow the principles,
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the longstanding principles of the party,
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dating back to Lincoln,
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passing through people like Eisenhower and Reagan,
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the president clearly is not a Republican
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by the brand of Republicanism.
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And so we have a very big schism in the party right now.
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If the president is reelected,
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he's going to continue to narrow down the party.
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That party is a aging demographic.
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It's a group of people that are frankly buying catheters
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on Fox News commercial breaks.
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It's no offense to the age, I'm on, I'm over 55 myself.
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But I do think that that is not where we need to go
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as a Republican party, we need to expand the tent,
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we need to include those people for sure,
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but we need to expand the tent
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of the Republican party demographically
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across income stratas, and we need to have that party
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be looking more like the American people,
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a more colorful mosaic of American people.
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It can't be a party of aging, white people, Larry.
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Why did you join his administration?
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Well, you know, listen, I think that's one of my flaws.
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I joined the administration
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because I was a lifelong Republican,
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I had worked for Jeb Bush,
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I transitioned over to work for the Republican nominee,
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as I thought most people would be willing to do.
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You had a choice between Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump.
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I was a Republican, so I went to go work in his campaign.
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When he won, I was on his transition team.
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I was originally slated to be the OPL director
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of the Office of Public Liaison,
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but Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus blocked that job on me.
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I called President Trump and said,
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"Hey, those guys are bad guys.
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If you ever want to get rid of them
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and you need my help just give me a call,
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I'll come down and I'll do it."
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And so he did, he called me in mid July
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and told me that I was right about them.
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He asked me to come work for him.
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The communications director's job was open,
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and so he gave me that job.
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And that's my shortcoming, Larry, I have to own that.
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I allowed my pride in my ego to cause me to make
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an irrational judgment on the situation.
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And so what I tell younger people,
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when I talk about that decision,
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if you put your pride and ego into your decision making,
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your emotions go up and your intelligence goes down,
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and you can put yourself in a spot that you shouldn't be in.
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And that was the case for me.
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But I think it's worth pointing out though
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that there's a silver lining to that story.
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I got fired by John Kelly 11 days after I started
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in the Trump administration,
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that probably went a long way to help me save my marriage,
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it probably went a long way
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to help me save my reputation and my career.
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And subsequently I become very good friends
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with General Kelly.
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So there's a silver lining in all these things,
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but there were some misjudgments by me.
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We'll be right back with more "Politicking"
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with Anthony Scaramucci, right after this.
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(dramatic music)
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We're back with Anthony Scaramucci,
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former communications director, for a brief time,
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in the Republican administration,
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now actively seeking to defeat Donald Trump.
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You signed on to help the Lincoln Project,
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those are Republicans for Biden, how's that doing?
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Well, the Lincoln Project
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has raised an historic amount of money.
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I think that they have gained popularity
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and strength since they started initializing
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their advertising.
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These are very hard knuckle,
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very tough Republican operatives,
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and I think that their advertising
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has had an impact on President Trump, it has filled,
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it's got some free rent in President Trump's mind
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because he's viciously attacking them on Twitter,
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which means he's occupied by them.
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I think he also, they also cause the Trump campaign
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to spend over a million dollars in the D.C. market
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to play Trump advertising during Fox News programming
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in prime time, so they're, they're doing a number on Trump
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in terms of pushing back on the falsehoods of his narrative
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about his presidency and I think that they are expanding
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the voter registration drive that's been done
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at the Lincoln Project has been legendary,
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and I think that's ultimately
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where this is gonna shake out.
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Remember you've got a 1.4 to 1 advantage,
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Democratic registrations over Republicans.
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The president has not done a good job
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of expanding registrations over the last three years.
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These guys were schmeisted in the midterm elections in 2018.
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They're about to get shellacked here in 2020.
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And so the Lincoln Project has been a very big part of that.
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I think they're doing quite well.
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What happens to the party if Trump loses?
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Well, I think good things will happen to the party.
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I think that this will be a reckoning very similar
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to the Nixon-Ford departure in the mid '70s,
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and I think it'll offer the party an opportunity
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to heal from the schism.
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Arguably this is a worse schism
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than the 1976 Ford-Reagan schism.
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And I think if the party works towards expanding the tent,
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which I predict that it will,
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once the personality cult dies off,
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I'm a big believer with David From,
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the former George Bush speech writer,
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has said about this party.
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Once the personality cult burns off, people will forget
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that they were even supporting President Trump
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and hopefully we can reknit the party into something
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more formidable like Reagan did in 1980.
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Do you think there's a so-called secret Trump supporter
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that we don't know about that is lying to the polls?
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Well, I think the polls have gotten a lot smarter.
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Remember these polls are iterative and I think they built-in
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what they thought were the secret Trump supporters in '16.
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And they have feathered those people into Trump's support
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in terms of the way the polls are now currently demarcated.
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So I don't think so, the way there once was.
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I know the president, that's his narrative.
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He lives in his own reality distortion field.
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So he probably needs to believe that,
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but I don't believe that, if you ask the pollers today,
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those polls are way more sophisticated
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and they are calibrated for what you and I would describe as
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a secret Trump supporter or a hidden Trump supporter.
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How well, how well, if not well, will he take defeat?
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Well, I think he's a coward.
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I mean, at the end of the day, all of this nonsense
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about him staying on after he's defeated
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is a bunch of nonsense.
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And so you don't have this sort of overcompensation
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of bullying and all of this blustering and this bellicosity,
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if you're sort of a standup sort of a guy,
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so he'll get defeated,
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he'll be humiliated, and he'll leave unceremoniously,
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but he is certainly leaving the White House.
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You know, the Secret Service and the Marines
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have already talked about who's gonna be the one
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peeling him out of there if he,
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if he begins a process of resistance.
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Will he say it was rigged?
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Well, he's already saying that it's rigged, Lar,
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So yes, of course he's going to, if he wins it's not rigged,
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and if the other guy wins, it's rigged,
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he was saying three or four days prior to the 2016 campaign
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that it was rigged and he's saying right now
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on his Twitter feed that this is rigged,
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and the only way that he could lose this election
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is if it's rigged, so of course he's gonna say that.
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All right, he and Biden are gonna debate September 29th
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in Cleveland, what do you expect from that?
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Well, I think the vice president has done a very good job
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of ignoring the president's barbs.
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As a result of which none of these nicknames
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or none of the nonsense that the president deployed in 2016
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has really landed a punch on the vice president.
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And I think the vice president in a one-on-one setting
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is a formidable debater.
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We could go back to the Paul Ryan debate in 2012.
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We could go to the debates that he had with Sarah Palin
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in 2008, or we could look at the Bernie Sanders,
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the more current debates, the Bernie Sanders debates
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that he had as recently as March of this year.
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And one-on-one, he does a very good job.
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He was having difficulty, in my opinion,
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when you had six or seven people on stage
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and he was trying to break through,
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I think that was a harder debating format for him,
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but one-on-one, I think he's gonna surprise people
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and I'll tell you something,
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which was a mistake by President Trump.
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He talks about the vice president's incompetence
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or his slowness and all this sort of stuff,
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and so he's decidedly lowered expectations for these debates
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for the vice president.
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So that's really good news for the vice president.
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He'll surprise on the upside and the expectations
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are lower than they should be.
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Anthony Scaramucci is our guest
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and we'll have more with him right after this.
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(dramatic music)
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And Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal lawyer,
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someone you know very well,
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has a memoir out called "Disloyal".
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He predicts that if Trump loses the election,
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he will resign before election day,
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secure a pledge that his successor Mike Pence
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will preemptively pardon him and members of his family,
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probably to avoid criminal indictments.
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You think that's going too far?
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Well I only think that's going too far
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because I don't think that that would be acceptable
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to Mike Pence.
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But if you read Michael's book,
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he elucidates that there was a conversation
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between Trump and Roger Stone that that would
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be a preventive preemptive course of action
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to prevent Mr. Trump from going to jail.
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So, you know, the weird thing about this,
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I actually think the,
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if the president were to win, I would,
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I think that one or two years after that win
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he would kick Vice President Pence off of the the ticket,
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so to speak, or out of the administration
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and appoint Ivanka Trump to be the vice president,
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and then he would resign shortly
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prior to the end of the term,
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so that Ivanka could be the first woman president,
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and then stand for election as an incumbent.
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I definitely think, as you know,
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from Mr. Trump's unpredictable behavior and his recklessness
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and his risk taking, these are things
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that people have to consider.
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You can't say, "Oh, no way, that's gonna happen"
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because he's put everybody, at least in the media,
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in that unbelievable situation where everybody says,
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"Okay, wait a minute, that's unbelievable,
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how could that be happening?"
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So, anything could happen with him,
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but I don't think Mike Pence, given how well I know him
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and what his character traits are
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that he would find that acceptable,
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but that would certainly be something
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that would be on Mr. Trump's radar screen.
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Has Mike Pence been kind of a lap dog through all of this?
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It's always, we sort of see him standing there,
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always nodding in agreement.
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Do you believe he agrees with President Trump that much?
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You know, listen, I don't believe that.
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I'd have to let the vice president speak for himself,
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I genuinely like Mike Pence, I think he's a good person,
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but I think he's put in a very difficult situation
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with President Trump and, you know, he's been loyal,
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in my opinion, to a fault, but I also understand
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why he's been that way.
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There's certain people inside that administration
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that are safe pairs of hands, if you will,
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and are very competent.
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And some of them have had to co-opt their behavior
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and personality to help keep the,
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the administration on an equilibrium.
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And so I attribute some of what's going on
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in the positive side of the administration to Mike.
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All right, do you expect any more major Republicans
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to come forward before November 3rd and support Biden?
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So if you're saying elected Republicans,
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I think that that's less likely.
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If you're saying, if you're thinking about
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former Trump cabinet officials,
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senior cabinet officials, I think that is likely.
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We will see cabinet level and sub-cabinet level people
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come out over the next couple of weeks.
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Remember there was a book written by somebody
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so-called Anonymous, who has promised to come out in October
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and explain who they are, what they are,
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and why they wrote that book.
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And so I think that's coming as well.
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And so, yes, I think that responsible, patriotic Americans
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who have worked with this man,
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that know how psychologically unfit he is for the job
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and understand his intellectual vacuity
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are going to speak out.
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I think that, like I said, they have a patriotic duty
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to their fellow Americans to explain the danger.
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Do you think there's any possibility,
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we know he doesn't like him,
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maybe he can't even stand him,
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that President George W. Bush would come forward?
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Well, I know that there are people
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in the Republican party,
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let's say former establishment people
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that are hoping that that would happen.
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And of course, if that did happen,
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it would be a fairly formidable blow to President Trump.
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Because remember what Steve Bannon said, Larry,
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"If you can just hive off three to 5%
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of the Republican electorate,
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it's over for President Trump."
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He is a unpopular president.
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He didn't win the popular vote in 2016.
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His party was schmeisted in 2018,
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and his only numbers that are above 50%
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are the disapproval of his job performance
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and how he's handled the COVID-19 crisis.
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So he's never ticked a number that's positive
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on his behalf above 50%.
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We're almost out of time.
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What do you think Trump will do if he loses?
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Will he stay in public life?
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What is he gonna do?
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I think he retreats from public life if he loses.
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I think that the loss will be humiliating for him.
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He will have been a one-term presidential failure,
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and I think it'll be very hard to start a Trump TV
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or to gin up these rallies, and remember,
517
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you know what happens when the power's gone?
518
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The dimmer switch hits the, the light bulb
519
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and it's going from a hundred watts down to five.
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And so I think he retreats into ignominity, if you will,
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Ha, Anthony, always great talking with you.
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Thanks for your time.
523
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Yeah, same here, Lar, I appreciate being on,
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it's always an honor to be on with you.
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And thank you audience
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for joining me on this edition of "Politicking."
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You remember you can join the Facebook,
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join my conversation on a Facebook page,
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or tweet me @KingsThings and don't forget,
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use the Politicking hashtag.
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That's all for this edition of "Politicking."
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(dramatic music)