Why Trump’s Corruption Matters — ft. Hillary Clinton & Anthony Scaramucci

23:21The day after the election, I didn't endorse anybody. I didn't get involved. You know, I certainly congratulated him and wished him well because I love New York and I really, really want him to succeed. I don't care what label he puts on his politics or himself, as long as he proves that his brand of politics works. That's what I'm interested in. I, you know, look, I am a very pragmatic person. I can look at somebody and say, prove to me, you know, show me that what you think will work to better people's lives, to, you know, create the investments we need to prosper together, to keep us secure, to give us opportunity to inspire young people, everything you want from good political leadership.

24:07I want to see that and I see some of it and the jury is out. I want to see what he can actually produce. You know, Mario Cuomo famously said, you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. The campaign is fun. It's exciting. It's a roller coaster ride. Having done a few myself, it's incredibly exhilarating and either works or it doesn't. but nevertheless. And so then the hard work starts. I mean, you just work 24-7 to get yourself elected. And it's like, you know, the dog that catches the car. And all of a sudden you're like, okay, how am I going to actually govern? And I see some good things.

24:54A lot is still unclear, but I really hope for the sake of, you know, this city that I love and that I was proud to represent for eight wonderful years, that we really can see New York be a laboratory of democracy for if he wants to promote his policies, prove them. Let's have proof of concept. You know, call yourself whatever you want, but let's show that what you are standing for and implementing is actually going to work. And I am like that with, you know, people across the political lines. You know, if you have a good idea, I want to hear it. And I don't really care, you know, where it comes from.

25:35But I do think there's a cautionary lesson. You know, don't govern to your base. Trump has governed to his base and he's driving, you know, you know, a stake through the heart of American democracy. He's undermining the, you know, the incredible engine of the American economy, in my opinion. But he's satisfying the 35 percent of the people who are still with him, not others. And that doesn't work. It doesn't work in America. And so broaden your aperture. Yes. Get a broader base of people, because these are the people whose policies you are implementing are going to be affected by. My final question.

26:15We talk about a lot of economic issues on the show. Some of our biggest themes are wealth inequality, housing prices and housing policy, mental health, social media, loneliness. When you look at the United States in 2026, what are the issues in our nation that you are most concerned about today? And what kinds of policies would you want to implement to start to resolve those issues? Everything you just said, I mean, obviously, and I would add our international position, because I think it has an impact. And then I would also, you know, mention, you know, what I consider to be the two overriding themes, affordability and accountability.

26:51How do you make life affordable for particularly young people? Because it does seem to me that, you know, we've given them a really tough deal in terms of what they can expect and whether they can feel that their future is going to be, you know, better than their present. And certainly is it going to be better than their parents or their grandparents in terms of not just aspiration but actual reality. But I honestly think that you've got to look again to the cities and the states. Right now, the federal government is broken. And a lot of what Trump has done has rendered it dysfunctional. dysfunctional, you know, cleaning out experts who knew anything.

27:31This Ebola epidemic, boy, I hope it doesn't get as bad as some of the folks whose opinions I respect say that it could in terms of its spread. But, you know, we got rid of our surveillance. We got rid of the infrastructure we had built over decades to be alerted to these kinds of things and act on them. So it's both both international and national, but focusing just here at home, I want to see states and cities do a lot more. And let's see what a good housing policy in New York looks like. Let's see what a good economic mobility plan from Illinois looks like. I know you guys were in Chicago with my friend J.B.

28:12Pritzker last night. Let's see what the states do to govern AI because the federal government isn't doing it. So let's turn back to laboratories of democracy, you know.

28:28So Democrats are feeling really good about the midterms, but I would never underestimate our ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I know something about that, too.

28:46What advice would you have for the Democratic Party around messaging? And do you see any what are you optimistic about and what are you worried about in terms of the midterms? Well, before the tsunami of redistricting started at Trump's demand to Texas, I was extremely optimistic. I saw all of the ingredients for a big midterm win for Democrats. Obviously, what the states themselves did and then what Democratic states responded with and then what the Supreme Court did and what I view as a truly disgraceful decision throwing out the guts of the Voting Rights Act means that it will be harder. But I am still very optimistic.

29:35And the reason I'm very optimistic is, number one, if you look at the elections that have been held over the last year, Democrats have done really well. And not just, you know, the governor of New Jersey, the governor of, you know, Virginia, the redistricting votes in places like California, but I mean, public service commissioners in Georgia and preserving Supreme Court justices in Pennsylvania and getting really into the nitty gritty of who was winning and where those victories were happening. So I think that the underlying conditions are still very favorable. But I also think that you've got to stress these two big overriding themes, affordability and accountability.

30:23And I mentioned them both together because on affordability, I think a lot of people who voted for Trump actually thought that he cared enough about them to do something about affordability. And lo and behold, that was not the case. And so their disappointment or their feeling that, wait a minute, you're doing stuff I didn't vote for and you're not paying attention to what I need. And now you're starting a war that has already raised gas prices. And by the time we get done with fertilizer and supply chain disruption and everything else, it's going to cost all of us more. So I think that on the affordability issue, the Democrats have a pretty wide open door.

31:07And I think, again, what you say and how you say it may differ from district to district and state to state. And it's not a national campaign exactly, although you need a national umbrella message like a presidential campaign is. So when you're running to defeat a Republican incumbent in a purple swing district, you're not going to say the same thing that somebody who is running in a deep blue district is going to say. And you just have to accept that. That's the way politics works. When you're running for the midterms, you've got to make your case in language that your voters will agree with.

31:47And then on the accountability issue, I just want to say a quick word about the Hungarian election, because I think there's a real lesson to be learned. So other opposition parties and leaders tried to, you know, defeat Orban over a couple of election cycles and were unsuccessful. So what made it different this time was not only a charismatic, effective, really hardworking candidate with Madjar, who was a truly dedicated opposition figure having come out of Orban's party, but he was able to tie the corruption of the Orban government to the lives of the Hungarian people. I mean, when you look at the explosion of corruption in this administration, you know, I know some people have a tendency to say, ah, you know, they're all politicians, whatever.

32:45And that's not true. But I can understand why people might think that. But with Trump, it's corruption that is hurting people. You know, because while war is being waged in Iran, members of his family are making money from some of the very same interests and parties involved in this war. while you have the very clear economic disparities and the wealth inequality exploding because of the big, beautiful bill that they passed. You know, all of a sudden people are feeling like, wait a minute, what is happening to me and my family compared to, you know, the top one tenth of one percent? So I think that there is a lot of correlation between the corruption and the accountability that needs to be expected, not in a partisan way, not in a using prosecution to settle personal grievance way, but in a rule of law way.

33:45If we do not restore the rule of law, and I was so encouraged to see that the pushback on this terrible grievance fund that they were setting up to reward people like the January 6th instigators.

34:05and and so there is there is a finally a kind of recognition that the corruption personally benefits the president and his family rewards people who committed crimes uh and really went after our democracy as well as all the other you know things that they did that is encouraging and so I really think the messaging needs to be focused on what we're going to do to actually help people and solve some of these problems and what we're going to do to restore the rule of law and so I am optimistic as long as people turn out and vote that's always the big question.

34:56so there were several people with earpieces who looked like they were ready and willing to kill me that said you have 20 minutes and you got to end your next game but before we let you go um secretary clinton i just want to put an image up do we have the image so this is me in 2016 I've only gone door to door for one person. Oh, wow. That's me and every other Democrat in West El Rey. So all eight of us were knocking on doors trying to get people to show up. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. Thank you. So it is. You know, my wish for the nation is that character and competence makes a comeback.

35:44Really appreciate your service, Secretary Clinton. Thank you. Thank you so much, Scott. Appreciate both of you. Secretary Hillary Clinton.

35:57Stay with us.

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37:28We're back with Prof G Markets. So this is a show, as you all know, about the markets, which sit at the center of almost every part of our lives. We created this show. It's getting on close to four years now, which is crazy, with a simple goal to help people better understand how markets work. But it is getting harder to do that at a time when faith in the system itself is starting to erode. Only 54 % of Americans today say that they have a positive view of capitalism, which is the system that runs markets. and it's increasingly not hard to understand why. Over the past few months, we have seen repeated evidence that markets may not be truly fair and transparent.

38:13President Trump recently disclosed more than 3 ,700 trades in American companies during the first quarter, most of which were made before he revealed these key developments related to the companies. Millions of dollars of unusually well-timed trades were also made right before he made major announcements related to Iran, related to Venezuela, related to the tariffs and Liberation Day, much, much more. In sum, as Secretary Clinton pointed out, insider trading in this administration, at least, is alive and well. So tonight, we wanted to speak with someone who is uniquely qualified to answer the questions many are asking right now.

38:51Why should ordinary investors believe in the markets when it feels as if they're rigged? As the founder and managing partner of Skybridge Capital, he spent decades navigating markets and helping investors make sense of them. He famously served in the Trump administration and has since become one of the president's most outspoken credits. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage our very good friend, Anthony Scaramucci.

39:29He's wearing the hat. We love it. I hope I get a chance to keep it. That's fair. Okay, I got Nixon five. Okay, that's my bet. Nixon five. That's good. How are you doing, Mooch? I'm doing great. I thought the secretary was on point. Is she running, Scott? If she's running, I'll knock on doors with you. How about that? I'll go out there. I've done that once or twice before. I find that pretty much anyone who agrees to come on my podcast is running for president. hey i'm really just when are you running out i'm i'm really yeah when are you running just running for re-election of my marriage i'm running for president anyway all right good i mean i am by the way i could be i could be term limited in matter you gotta be careful it's a constant campaign all right but go ahead you don't have to you don't have to worry about that scott and i have had that experience early voting is pretty ugly um the polls weren't great a few years ago let's face it but all right go ahead so much uh i want to just review some of the corruption that we've talked about uh these 3700 trades you and i talked about this on a show a few weeks ago but i just want to make sure that we're all on the same page and that we're not in belief that i don't know that i have some sort of trump derangement syndrome or something i just want to go through what we have actually seen uh in the last few months.

40:50So Trump made 3 ,700 trades in the first quarter. He bought Oracle right before he finalized the deal for Oracle to buy TikTok. He bought Nvidia right before he approved Nvidia to sell chips to China. He bought Dell right before Dell signed a$10 billion contract with the Pentagon. Dell stock is ripping right now. His sons invested in these drone companies right before they also signed contracts with the Pentagon and right before we went to war. He made almost a billion dollars selling crypto. His family has made an estimated two and a half billion dollars since he took office. Do you think it would be fair to call this the most corrupt administration we've seen?

41:27And if so, what does it mean for investors? I mean, listen, there's a lot there. So obviously, it's a very corrupt thing that they're doing. You could go back through our history. The Teapot Dome scandal was very similar, also very corrupt. And what they're doing, and trump said this i don't know if anybody caught this but he was outside in a press gaggle as he was going to the helicopter and somebody called him out on it that almost similar to what you were saying but much you know what you're doing is unfair he looked at the people said well first of all i have the right to do it it's questionable whether he does or not but there is a a scene there which i can share with you and then the second thing he said is uh it's peanuts he always says that like it's not that much money one or two billion dollars but but that's what he said okay and then the third thing that he said which should scare everybody in the room and it has to get you awake and you have to get motivated on this he said and i quote and people don't care okay and what they're doing in washington is they're using our collective apathy as permission to do certain things.

42:37So if Hegseth is going to fire John Phelan, as an example, he goes to Phelan and says, hey, I want to build these ships. We've got to build them super fast. Trump wants to build them super fast. And Phelan says, well, the law requires me to put the bid out, the three or four vendors and get the low cost bid. And then Hegseth says, no, no, no. I want you to put it out to one bidder because that's going to expedite the process. And probably there is a little bit of a vig going to Trump and his family members in that bid. And Phelan says no. And then Phelan gets fired. You see what I'm saying? And again, general apathy about the whole thing.

43:16So, yes, it's very, very corrupt. But if the people in this room don't get motivated and people around the country do not get motivated and say we've had enough. It's sort of like networks. Got an eye on enough to remember network. Remember, I'm mad as hell. I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. That's the messaging. OK, but I want to I want to talk about something people should understand. 60 Minutes is in the news right now. In 2011, 15 short years ago, 60 Minutes did a special on congressional insider trading. And Peter Schweitzer had actually wrote a book about this whole thing.

43:53And they voted to negate congressional insider trading. And there was an eight month period of time where the Congress could not participate in insider trading. And you know what they did, guys? They went by voice vote. So they would be off of C-SPAN and they did a voice vote into the telephones and they voted it back in. Yeah. OK. And so people don't remember this because, again, they did it on the sly. And I'm going to tell you the silver lining to all this. Trump has been so wildly egregious that maybe this will now be the opportunity where people will take everything that he's doing and say, OK, he broke every norm and standard.

44:34So now let's codify the country to protect the next person that takes that job. And that's what you got to hope, whether it's honestly, you got to hope that whether it's Secretary Clinton, if she becomes president in 2028, Pritzker, Gavin, pick the person that becomes president. You got to hope and pray that that person is a transformational and in some ways postpartisan leader where they say, OK, it's not going to be left or right. It's going to be what's right or wrong for the country. And these were norms and standards that were adhered to from George Washington up until Barack Obama. And then for a four year period of time, Joe Biden.

45:15And he came in with like an orange wrecking ball and smashed these. OK, and so we're going to repair them first before we do anything else. I think that's necessary. And recognize that it's happening on both sides. And you and I have talked about this. I mean, the Pelosi index has been absolutely crushing in recent years. Perhaps the only index doing better is the Trump index. Listen, I got a couple billion under management. I can't beat Nancy Pelosi. I got buddies that got 70 billion under management, 25 offices, getting their asses kicked by Nancy. OK, I mean, you got to just, I mean, it's unbelievable.

45:52Small investing mind. I just want to point out one statistic. You point out how the American people, Trump says, the American people don't care. This was some survey data that I cited in Miami that just really struck me. They did a poll. They asked Trump voters about this issue. Half of Trump voters think that Trump hasn't profited in this presidency whatsoever. They genuinely believe this, that he hasn't made a dime. And, you know, I've gone through the data. You can either say that the data is fake news. You can say it's a lie or whatever you want to think. I mean, I guess my question to you, is it a problem of we're not talking about it enough or people don't want to hear it?

46:35Or I guess, as Trump says himself, people just don't really care. It's all those things. But again, it's, you know, you've got it. You're under your crowd. This audience here, us, I would say we're high information voters. We're consuming the information. We're looking for the information. Average American is not doing that. on the 4th of November, 2024, the evening of the election, November 5th being the election, the most searchable term was, did Joe Biden drop out? And so I just want you to think about that. The average American coming home tired, maybe blue collar worker. Okay. I'm going to go vote tomorrow.

47:14My union needs me to go vote. Who the hell's running? Biden's the president, right? Oh, wait a minute. Who's, oh wait, did Joe Biden drop out? Okay. So I just want to give you a sense for where the country is. Right. Okay. And by the way, you can like or dislike Donald Trump. We've got to talk honestly. He went into those territories of the country. He went in there with his MAGA hats. He went in there with his YMCA song and all the different things that he did. And so we laugh about it, but they show up for it. Okay. And I will tell you that the Democratic party that I grew up with here in the city of New York.

47:53You know, Secretary Clinton mentioned Mario Cuomo. Obviously, my family knew his family. Lyndon Johnson, Jack Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, they were focused on those people. They went into those towns and said, we're going to make your lives better and we're going to do that. And, you know, people are not going to like this, but I want to share this with you because I want to leave this with you. And you only remember one thing I say tonight, remember this, and it doesn't reflect well on me. When I was with Donald Trump, I went to New Mexico with him in May of 2016. And I went into the Albuquerque Civic Center, and he had Secret Service with him.

48:33And so we had to wear these day pins. And I said to the Secret Service guy, what is this, sir? He said, well, if the shooting starts, we know you're with us. We won't shoot at you. I'm like, like this with the pin. I took the pin off. I crossed the security perimeter and I went into the crowd and I started asking people why they were there. And one young gentleman said to me, well, you know, my father was at a factory for 30 years. I was working there for 12. They closed the factory. Anthony, you think you're in New Mexico? Well, no. New New Mexico? That would be Mexico because that's where the factory went to.

49:11I'm out of a job. I'm working at Lowe's, the home improvement center, delivering pizza at night. and I got hit in the head with a rock because I grew up, my dad was a crane operator. My mom was a makeup artist. I'm Mac five. That's my color scheme. If anybody wants to get me a Christmas gift, they're like, okay. Scott's a little lighter than me in case, you know, okay, probably six. All right, but anyway, I looked at that young man and I said, so what should we do? He said, well, I don't know. but we were once blue collar economically aspirational and today we are now blue collar economically desperational and guys i missed it okay because i went to tufts and harvard i grew up in a blue collar family but i started to pick up the collective biases of the people that i was hanging out with so i went to goldman sachs and i was in the salons of the wealthy and I built a hedge fund and I missed what was going on in a very large portion of America.

50:17And I just insist that everybody think about this and whoever the presidential candidates are, he or she, you got to go and meet these people and you have to accept these people and embrace these people and try to bring them back into the system. I think it's very, very important for us to do that. And I'll just tell you, I missed it, Scott. And when you go to those places, you'll be sad. You'll be like, okay, you know, people feel a sense of economic desperation, you know. What the secretary didn't mention, because she probably didn't have enough time, we're going to take 17 million people off the healthcare scrolls.

50:54Right after the midterms, they did it. Think about the pathology of that and the premeditation. the snap benefits you know i work alongside of the civi heart of maybe you guys have heard of it it's one of the largest food banks in the country uh we have over a million people it's it's out in brooklyn my wife and i were there on friday talking about the organizational structure and how we can raise more money you have 1.2 million people in this city think about this city and the glory of this city. We have 1.2 million people in this city that are food insecure. Over half of them are children. Okay.

51:30We also know when we go into the schools, we go into the public schools and you say to the kid, well, why aren't you doing well? And you know what the kids say? I'm hungry. I'm starving. You know, I can't think about the lesson because I got to the school hungry and we're slashing all those food programs now again in new york we're not holkol held the line on that mondani held the line on that you were talking about the popularity of socialism for a second if we don't figure out ways to create a bigger platform of equal opportunity in the country you're going to lose the capitalism because you know i'm okay with the unequal outcomes but you better get some sense of fairness going no matter who's born into whose family and what the zip codes are because if we don't do that, you're going to lose the structure that has made the country so prosperous.

52:32Let's double click on that because you have kids, I have kids and there's a lot of times when my boys think something and I literally just want to grab them by the lapels and shake them and go, just trust me, you don't understand how stupid you're being. I need to have you to come over to my house. I need some help with that. I'm basically a pussy as a parent, but go ahead, keep going. Well, you realize, I talk a big game. You realize that doesn't work. And I feel that way whenever I hear someone his age talking about socialism. And it's like, do you have any sense of history of how superior capitalism is a system in terms of generosity, creating tax revenue, leveraging the most powerful aspect of our species?

53:24And that is self-interest such that we can create the revenue to help the poor and lift them up. What, I mean, how do we, how do we get at Gen Z and millennials, what is the messaging around, okay, you know, capitalism is, what's going on now is not capitalism, it's cronyism. Yeah, we both know that. How would you communicate to someone that's younger than us? I'm Gen X, you're a baby boomer, you're much older than me. I actually am older than him, okay? Yes. And he doesn't have any hair, but I'm dying my hair, okay? Okay, so this is Latin American dictator Brown if you go to the colorist. Look at that hair.

54:06I was seriously look at that hair. I'm just letting you know. It's too good. I was using Maduro black until he got arrested. I think I better lighten it up a little bit. Okay, keep going Scott. Go ahead.

54:26What do you think the message is to young people around around capitalism being the worst system of its kind, except for all the rest, as Churchill said? Okay, so I would say a couple of things. We got to teach them our history. And one of the great books about this is H.W. Brands' book, The Traitor to His Class. And it's about the great aristocrat, Franklin Delano, Roosevelt, who looked at the structure of the capitalism, some of the cronyism that was going on, the rigging of the markets, guys. You know, Joe Kennedy made a fortune rigging the markets, lots of insider trading. And he said, OK, what we need to do is we've got to make it fairer.

55:02So if we regulate it, if we end the corruption, the Trump-like corruption, people think it's fairer, number one. Number two, if we provide some baseline help, Social Security, lots of the work projects that went on in the 1930s. And one of the greatest inventions for middle-class aspiration in the history of the world, the GI Bill, which was an accidental thing, guys, okay? And so these GIs, you had Jews from East New York, Italians from Brooklyn. You had Irish guys from Hell's Kitchen. They came back to New York. Their parents never went to college. And they now had this opportunity to go to college, and they went from blue-collar jobs and laboring-oriented jobs to white-collar jobs.

55:50And so the message should be there's a harmony between the government and business. I'm all about capitalism. I want there to be capitalism. We agree on that. But there has to be a regulated capitalism because greed in a society always overcomes wisdom. And what we find when you get an oligarchical like figure, they'll create a funnel at the top and they'll all sit around and they'll spin the dial and they'll they'll create wealth for themselves and they'll leave everybody else behind. And so one of the great things about the structure of the government was its decentralization. You know, this is a Madisonian, Jeffersonian structure to protect every citizen and to endow you with your individual liberty, which gives you the right to execute the capitalism.

56:39But when you are in a structure that is damaged like this, it needs to be reset. And I would go out to all these guys and talk about Roosevelt talk about the Kennedy's talk about the civil rights Reformation in the 1960s I say we're at our best when there is a harmony with the government Where the government's helping the public schools government's helping to feed people balance the system Hand-check the super greedy So that every person in the room can seek their aspiration and so again, I'm for unequal outcomes You guys have done an amazing job with your podcast, all your great businesses. You should certainly have economic rent associated with that.

57:20These entrepreneurs should always benefit from that. But the flip side is I didn't pick the place that I was born. I don't think you guys did either. This is a rich enough society, and this is a very generous culture. If you look at the philanthropy in the United States, we have to set the culture up. So no matter where you were born, you get a package of services, some food and some health care and some basic education so that you can get to the starting block so that you can go up against people that have their family names endowed on libraries and stuff like that around the country. So speaking.

57:53So it's a history lesson in there as well as economics. Speaking of starting block, I want to move on from something more important than the future of our country. I want to talk about upcoming tech IPOs. just curious you're a markets guy yeah curious to get your take on anthropic and 150 billion dollars raised four trillion dollar valuation spacex anthropic open ai just curious to get your thoughts about those ipos and the respective valuations okay well i've listened to i listened to prop g so i don't want to over be redundant to what you guys said about the S1 for SpaceX, but obviously that business is not worth that kind of money.

58:33But let me say something as a market participant for 40 years, Elon Musk is a human meme. And if you understand what I mean by that, he is GameStop or he is a, he's a meme. And so for whatever reason, there's always a bee swarm of retail activity around the stuff that he's doing. And now we could agree with that or disagree with that. Certainly Cara, who left the stage a few minutes ago doesn't agree with it. But if you got allocation in the IPO,$1.8 trillion, would you buy in? Yes, I probably would because I believe that he has a lot of execution gifts. And I said this, actually, I think I subbed for you on Pivot when the S-1 was announced.

59:14And I said, listen, I fully disclose I own some SpaceX. I bought it a few years ago. It's obviously up a lot in valuation. And so, yes, I would probably participate in the IPO because I think he is an execution oriented guy that would figure it out. Anthropics is a totally different beast. There's a difference between execution and rah-rah and figuring out a way to create a meme stock out of something going out at 100 times revenues. But you think there's execution that can backfill that kind of valuation? Well, he did it once before in Tesla. And I watched the hedge fund manager buddies of mine get their faces ripped off in Tesla.

59:56And if we were sitting up here 10 years ago and we went through that S1, it actually looked worse on a comparative basis to SpaceX. So I guess what I would say to you, the paradigm has shifted in the markets and you have to sort of see that. John Maynard Cain said something way better than me, so I'll paraphrase it. And John Maynard Cain was a brilliant stock market speculator. And he said, you know, I'm one of the judges at a beauty contest, but it's not for me to judge beauty. It's for me to think about what the other judges think are beautiful. And once I figure out what that is, that's why I'm gonna make my selection.

1:00:33And it's a way to think about the markets. And so I may not agree with the beauty of SpaceX, but when I talk to my hedge fund manager friends, my institutional investors, my former, I used to work at Goldman, investment bankers at Goldman pricing the deal, I'm like, okay, this will have some buoyancy to it. It'll have a leg up on others. And so I don't want to, it certainly wouldn't be shorted. Let me put it that way. I've seen people really get hurt shorting assets like that, even though they look fundamentally inferior. Along those lines, it's really interesting. You bring up the Keynesian beauty contest, which I also love.

1:01:09but that also seems to be a little bit of a signal of a bubble. What's that? What was it? I just said Princeton. I don't know what happened. Princeton. That seems to be a little bit of a signal of a bubble, the idea that it's not that you find the product or the company beautiful, but everyone else does. And if everyone else does, then maybe I should too. And I think the thing that people are probably getting worried about when it comes to these IPOs, I mean, you don't have to buy SpaceX if you don't want to, if you think the fundamentals aren't in shape. And so, you know, I'm not going to buy it.

1:01:43But they are changing the rules for the index funds, specifically the NASDAQ, so that SpaceX automatically does go into these passive index funds. So what they're going to do is they're calling it fast entry rules for these mega cap companies, essentially rewriting the rules of passive investing so that you can invest immediately in SpaceX, in Anthropic, in OpenAI. And that gets to a point where now we actually don't have a choice, whether I think it's a good company or not, if I own the NASDAQ, and even the S &P is considering rewriting their profitability rules in order to include SpaceX, you have to own it anyway.

1:02:19That seems to be a concern. And it goes back again to this idea where we talk about the markets seem to be, the rules of the game seem to be rigged. We seem to be kind of shifting the rules around what Trump wants or around what Elon wants. He's the one who pushed for this with the NASDAQ. Are you concerned about that at all from a passive investment perspective? So this is, first of all, it's great analysis, but let me provide some historical consequences. This is important. We had something called Sarbanes-Oxley. I think you guys would remember that. It was an extra regulatory process. It created a tremendous burden on private companies if they were to go public.

1:02:56And we had the global financial crisis added another layer. and ladies and gentlemen, if you go back, something like SpaceX would have gone public with a$300 billion market cap or$150 billion market cap under a different regulatory rubric. But what happened is because it was so difficult to go public under the current regulations, the retail participants, unfortunately, were left out of it. Yes. Okay, and I think there was an unfairness to that. And if I were, not that I would ever be the SEC chairman, but I would say to people, We've got to be very careful to overregulate because we want to make sure that the retail investors have an opportunity to participate in these things.

1:03:37So all of these things from a 40-year perspective of the markets, as long as I've been in the markets, they're coming public too late. And they're coming public with these very high valuations, which is unfair to the retail investor. So now think about it this way. The company's already a trillion-dollar company. okay and so what should have happened it should went public at 150 the rules would have applied it got itself to a trillion and then it entered you see you see what i'm saying 100 so so i'm just saying to you i see both sides of it i would have argued against it i would have said no the rules have to stay and they have to not be in they can't get fast-tracked into the smp but ed and ladies and gentlemen, Ed just proved my point why I want to be a part of it.

1:04:26Because let me tell you what happens in our society. If it goes in the S &P, all the institutions, all the 401ks, all the people that buy the S &P, guess what happens? They buy it. And you'll be stepping in front of a freight train. You'll be trying to pick up a penny in front of a steamroller. So I can't live in a society the way I want it. I've accepted that. I tell my kids, hey, you want to curse? were cursers. I'm an Italian from Long Island. Okay, but there are two words. You know, and I got fired from the White House for fucking cursing. Can you believe that? In the Trump White House. Can you fucking believe that?

1:05:04I mean, come on. I somehow forgot about that. I think you're being hired. I think you got fired for other reasons. But I did. I actually did get fired for way more other reasons, but you know, you guys don't have the time for all those reasons, and, you know, I tell my therapist that shit. But anyway, let me go ahead. But I just I just want to make this point. OK, and I want you guys to think about this. The two words that are the worst words are should and ought. I tell my kids, you start with that stuff. I'm going to cut you right down. You know, the world should be a certain way. I ought to have gotten a 36 on the ACT and I ought to have gotten into Princeton.

1:05:48You know what? The world does not work that way. Life is unfair. You have to deal with the world the way it is and not play the victim. These rules suck. I think it's wrong to do it. But now I'm sitting at the turret. I've got investors that I've got my own money that I've got to worry about. And I have to look at the world the way it is. Now, I can try to reform it. I can try to speak out against it. I can try to give money to politicians or knock on doors for politicians that will try to make the world better But you got to be very very careful in this world as an investor And never use the words ought and should because you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble Because we do not live in a normalized world.

1:06:29We live in a real world So just as we wrap up here Sorry It deserves to be booed by the way, but by the way when you boo all I hear is mooch by the way Yeah, moves. That's all I hear. That's all I hear. Just as we wrap up here, I have this. Do I get to keep the hat? Yeah. That's yours. Fantastic. If I had your hair, I'd be fucking Cher. I'd grow it down to here. Just as we wrap up here, we talk a lot about, I'm part of this Reddit group or in the Zoom group where we talk about brands that accelerate or decelerate. Papacy, way up in brand equity. Ferrari, way down with that abomination. The tech is now infected Ferrari.

1:07:09That was bad. But we talk about people whose brands have gone up and gone down. Yeah. And I argued, or I was making the point that I think you have registered from a few years ago, the greatest brand accretion of almost any individual I know. Thank you. Because you were... Couldn't have gone any fucking lower than I was, actually. In the fucking basement of the town hall, by the way. That's fine. All right, go ahead. But the lesson I want you to, or what you want to talk about, for people who are, quite frankly, find themselves in a position where their brand just isn't very strong. Can you share kind of that moment and any lessons for how to come back?

1:07:48Because I'm very, very serious. Your brand has skyrocketed. Well, first of all, it's very sweet of you, Scott. You know, I love you. And if I had your height, the world would have been a way better place. But let me just tell you something. For all you short people out there like me, we have more oxygen down here. Just remember that. Too thin, the oxygen. See, I look at your hair, and I think I'd be pulling number two behind Newsom. Well, I'm going to set the scene for you. I know we have to go, but I want to take you to one of the worst days of my life. Okay, you ready? It was Monday, July 31st, 2017.

1:08:25Do you guys want to know how I knew I got fired? Do you want to know? They issue you a White House bat phone. This is an impregnated, codified phone. You can't get spyware into the phone. You're supposed to only contact cabinet members and other White House staff with that phone. Of course, Pete Hexas didn't get the message. He was using WhatsApp. I got the phone. And on that Monday, when I turned the phone on, it wasn't working. They had cut my air supply at 6 a.m., so I knew I was getting fired. I got fired at 9.30. But I want to set the day for you. I'm fired from the White House after 11 days.

1:09:06One Scaramucci, as we all know. You could say 954 ,000 seconds. Sometimes that makes me feel better. My wife is sore at me, okay? My wife hates Donald Trump almost as much as Melania hates him. And I'm talking that side. That is like some Eastern European ancestral motherfucking hatred, okay? You know what I'm talking about, okay? So my wife hates him. She filed for divorce on me. I'm not making this up. Okay, guys, on the 24th of July, I missed the birth of my son. Okay, that's a true story. I was in West Virginia with the president. Deirdre and I were fighting, but I was scheduled to be at the birth.

1:09:50He was due on August 8th, maybe the stress of the whole situation. She gave birth early. There's a 60-mile no-fly zone around Air Force One. I was 70 miles out in the woods at the Boy Scouts summer camp where Trump was making a speech. Scott, there was no way back to New York. Okay, guys, everything was going badly. And if you ever need to pick me up and it's not cancer, call me. Okay, because I was having a really shitty day compared to what could happen to you. So I'm now fired. I've got to repair my marriage. I've got to heal the situation by missing the birth of my son. And I've got to face the music from the late night comedians.

1:10:34I mean, you know, Colbert called me a Jersey Shore cast member. I think, I mean, it's fucking funny. You can laugh at it. Okay. I thought it was funny. Pretty good. Bill Maher, a show you and I have been on many times. I think he said it was Tony Soprano on the Potomac. I mean, he was getting hit. I was getting hit every which way. and I think, you know, they were really lighting me up on Saturday Night Live. Somebody called me human cocaine. It was like really bad. Anyway, anyway, now I got to repair this, okay? I go to see this like PR crisis management person and you know, the guy who says to me, the guy says, look man, this is terrible.

1:11:15You got some dough? Go buy a villa in Italy. We'll see you in five years, okay? I mean, you're never going to recover from this. Come back to the country in 2022. Okay, and I want to leave you with a couple of thoughts. I went right on the Colbert show. Okay, I went out to Bill Maher. I faced the music of Saturday Night Live. I went back on television. I met Scott Galloway and Ed Elson. And I faced the music, and I can take you through the mistakes I made. And it's nine years later. My son is turning nine on the 4th of July 24th. My marriage is still intact. Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

1:11:56I, you know, thank God. Okay, and we're probably stronger than ever because we were able to not make our relationship disposable. So if you're going through something and you're in this audience and you've got some angst going on, stay in it. Don't walk away from it. Care less about what other people think. Get focused on the things that really matter. and that firing, as hard as it was on me, it made me more psychologically minded. It made me more empathetic. And you probably wouldn't even know who the hell I was, okay, if that didn't happen. And I certainly wouldn't have these two great friends of mine, which I'm very grateful for.

1:12:34And I'll leave you with that. Anthony Scaramucci.

1:13:02All right. This episode was produced by Prof G Media and Vox Media. Thank you for joining us live in New York. If you like what you heard, make sure you're following us on YouTube, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. We hope to see you again soon. And good night, everyone.

1:13:23Thank you.

1:14:06Thank you.

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