Would America Be Better Off If Trump Had Won? His Former Communications Director Does the Math
Scaramucci argues a second Trump term is more dangerous because he learned "last time I didn't steal enough"; and the Democrats lost because their candidate wouldn't take risks — Harris refused Fox and podcasts.
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The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
A second Trump term would actually be better for America
Scaramucci throws out a counterintuitive judgment: if Trump had won re-election in 2020, American society would actually be better off. He gives three reasons — there would have been no January 6, and no one would now be challenging election integrity; establishment Republicans (Mnuchin, Mick Mulvaney and others) would have stayed in government instead of being cleared out; but the third cuts the other way: during his "exile" Trump figured out that "last time I didn't steal enough," and this time he's back to steal harder, and "the grift is transparent to the point of absurdity." He also says Trump changed America's culture of shame, representing total shamelessness, and names Nigel Farage as "Trump light."
— Anthony ScaramucciThat line in New Mexico: "New Mexico is Mexico"
At a rally in Albuquerque, a young man told Scaramucci: you think you're in New Mexico? New New Mexico is Mexico — because the factory where my dad and I worked moved there. His father did 30 years, he did 12, and after losing the job he works two jobs for 40% less income. Scaramucci later, on a flight to a Brentwood fundraiser, looked up the wage data for his father's union, comparing 2016 wages with his father's 1976 wages adjusted for inflation, and found real wages down about 26%. He says he missed blue-collar America's shift from "economic upward mobility" to "blue-collar despair," because he went to Goldman, went into rich people's salons, and caught that circle's cognitive bias.
— Anthony ScaramucciChina's WTO entry gave it emerging-market status
The first catastrophic decision in Scaramucci's book: Clinton letting the WTO admit China in 2001. The mechanism — China entered as an "emerging market," able to send cheap goods into the US market at low tariffs while the US market was essentially undefended, and the US had to accept the other side's protectionism. When China's economy reached Germany's scale, it should have been treated by the UK, Italy, Germany standard, but the US didn't do it. He also mentions a second one: the US allowed China to peg the renminbi to the dollar (he says this decision began with Nixon); the US is a deficit-driven country, and trade-deficit countries usually let their currency depreciate, while China's currency should have appreciated during its industrialization but was pinned to the dollar, so China could print 11%, 12% growth while the West had only 2.5%, 3%.
— Anthony ScaramucciData centers have become the stand-in target for anti-AI feeling
Tina Brown suggests: the current bipartisan backlash against data centers exists because AI is too intangible, so data centers become the stand-in for "AI fear," and American workers don't want another China shock. Scaramucci adds evidence: Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon joined forces to denounce AI and data centers; Obama, at a private fundraiser (knowing it would leak), said Democrats should seize the AI issue because it's a populist issue and not a culture-war one; Rahm Emanuel said this is the first time in 35 years he's seen an industry volunteer to be regulated. Trump's response was "F off," calling Dario Amodei an idiot, and pushing AI at full speed to get ahead of China. Scaramucci also concedes data centers are misunderstood in places: the water is recirculated, and they increasingly use renewable energy.
— Anthony ScaramucciOccupy Wall Street and the Tea Party gave birth to MAGA
Scaramucci says he supported bailing out the banks in the 2008 crisis (otherwise 1929 repeats: 25% unemployment, a deflationary crisis he considers the precursor to World War II), but he worried at the time: if you don't also rescue low- and middle-income people, you create rage. The fact is that in the crisis year 5,000 people on Wall Street received annual bonuses of over $1 million, the money came from the federal government, not one banker went to jail, and the rating agencies' ratings were basically fraudulent. So Occupy Wall Street (left) and the Tea Party (right) emerged. His judgment: those two movements got together and had a child named MAGA — a deformed, rage-based populism.
— Anthony ScaramucciHarris refused Fox and podcasts because it was "too risky"
Scaramucci says he was invited to help Harris with debate prep, spent six hours with her team, listing what Trump would say and how she should respond, and went to the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, that night in the spin room alongside Governor Newsom. After the debate she wanted more help, and his list was: go on Fox News 25 times, go on every podcast, including Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Alistair Campbell's show. Her answer was "no," on the grounds that "it's too risky, I might get caught out, I'm not comfortable, so I won't do it." Scaramucci's judgment: you cannot win the presidency that way, and her timidity was fatal.
— Anthony ScaramucciThe "Nerd Reich" treats Trump as an empty vessel
Scaramucci calls Trump's second-term staff the "Nerd Reich" — not the Third Reich, but a bunch of nerds who got beaten up in high school and now want revenge on everyone, with Stephen Miller the nerd of nerds. Their agenda is written in the 925 pages of Project 2025: clear out the two government departments that can check the president, pre-write all the executive orders and litigation paths, even sue to end birthright citizenship. The key mechanism: these people privately mock Trump in voicemails and emails, treating him as an empty vessel carrying their intellectual agenda.
— Anthony ScaramucciThe reformer's five steps: fix the Constitution before the budget
Asked "how do you put Humpty Dumpty back together," Scaramucci gives five steps: one, push a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United — he says the money flowing into the system from January 2010 to now is nine times what came before, money flows to politicians, and they put fertilizer and glyphosate in children's cereal and chlorine in chicken; two, end gerrymandering, build a rules-based system for drawing congressional districts, end the permanent political class; three, return to pay-as-you-go legislation, proposed by Bush and continued by Clinton, where tax cuts must find matching cuts and increases in social welfare spending must be matched by tax increases, which produced the first budget surplus in the late 1990s; four, bring the deficit from 100% of GDP (122% including Treasury and Fed holdings) back below 100% within 15 years; five, the hardest step, reform the presidency itself.
— Anthony ScaramucciIn their own words · checked verbatim
We would have been better off as a society if he had gotten reelected.
Anthony Scaramucci5:22
He said, hey, Anthony, you think you're in New Mexico? New New Mexico, that would be Mexico. Because that's where the factory moved that my dad and I worked in.
Anthony Scaramucci18:39
I submit to you that those movements got together and had a baby, and they named it MAGA.
Anthony Scaramucci38:32
It's too risky. I could get caught in a gotcha situation. And I'm uncomfortable doing it. So I'm not going to do it. Guys, you can't win the presidency like that.
Anthony Scaramucci47:56
These guys are not the Third Reich, but they're the Nerd Reich.
Anthony Scaramucci50:24
And say, hey, Mark, help me grow a spine here, okay? Because the last prime minister, no spine. Okay, so help me grow a spine.
Anthony Scaramucci1:25:33
And I think the answer to that is no. And I think that would put the alliance in jeopardy
Anthony Scaramucci1:28:34
And if we don't fix the system, they're going to break the system.
Anthony Scaramucci1:30:41
Figures
| Scaramucci's White House tenure | 11 days | 1:06 |
| Father's union real wages in 2016 vs 1976 (inflation-adjusted) | down about 26% | 19:41 |
| Number of people on Wall Street who received annual bonuses over $1 million in the crisis year | 5,000 | 38:32 |
| US national debt: Washington to George W. Bush / accumulated since | $7 trillion / $33 trillion | 34:26 |
| Top Google search nationwide on election night | did Joe Biden drop out | 44:54 |
| Pages in Project 2025 | 925 pages | 50:24 |
| Multiple of money flowing into the political system after Citizens United | 9x | 59:46 |
| US deficit as share of GDP | 100% (122% including Treasury and Fed holdings) | 1:01:46 |
| Amount Trump promised to send to individuals | $5,000 | 1:31:41 |
Glossary
- Nerd Reich
- Scaramucci's name for Trump's second-term staff, meaning a group of technocrats who were bullied in high school and now want revenge on everyone.
- gerrymandering
- Manipulating the drawing of district boundaries to give one side an unfair advantage.
- pay-as-you-go
- A legislative rule requiring any tax cut or increase in welfare spending to be matched by a corresponding revenue source or cut.
- Citizens United
- The 2010 US Supreme Court ruling that removed limits on political donations by corporations and unions.
How to listen
Founders and investors interested in a second Trump term, the direction of US politics, and why the Democrats lost; anyone who wants to understand US debt and institutional risk.
The section after 1:25:33 on British politics and NATO, if you only care about US domestic politics.